Neuroscience
Psychology actually helped me come to someone else's rescue once. One day, after lunch, I was heading back to the University of Sheffield Psychology department when I saw that a car had broken down in the middle of the road. Traffic was building up in both lanes, and I could see that the driver was a young mother, with her baby in the back seat. I wanted to help, even if it was just to push the car to the side of the road where it wouldn't be in the middle of the busy traffic, but I knew I wouldn't be able to it alone. As an academic I don't have to use my muscles, except for the ones in my fingers for typing, so I knew there was no way I could push car and mother and child up the slight hill to safety without help. But, as a psychologist, I was also familiar with the classic studies on bystander apathy and the diffusion of responsibility that can stop people helping others out. I determined that I wouldn't fall victim to this phenomenon. So, rather than standing by the car shouting for assistance from everybody and anybody, I identified two lads who looked like they'd be handy in pushing a car and pointed at them and said clearly "You - I need you to help me push this car". Once identified and given a specific request, I knew that no diffusion of responsibility could prevent them helping out. We pushed the car safely to the side of the road and got on our respective ways. I never told the driver how psychology had come to her rescue.
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Tom Stafford is a lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield. He takes two blogs into the shower, not one: mindhacks.com and idiolect.org.uk.
Return to the menu for Psychology to the Rescue
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Neuroscience
Tom Stafford: Avoiding bystander apathy
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Tom Stafford is a lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield. He takes two blogs into the shower, not one: mindhacks.com and idiolect.org.uk.
Return to the menu for Psychology to the Rescue
- Psychology To The Rescue
The fortnightly email version of the BPS Research Digest, first launched in 2003, has today reached its 200th issue. To mark the occasion I've asked a handful of leading psychologists to write 200 words on a time in their lives that their psychology...
- David Myers: Advocating Hearing Assistance Technology
Inspired by my UK sojourns, I am working to transform the way the USA provides listening assistance to people with hearing loss. If I am having difficulty hearing in most UK auditoriums, churches, or cathedrals, or at a post office window or in a London...
- Catherine Loveday: An Insurance Policy
The truth is that I don’t know yet whether psychology has come to my rescue, or at least to what extent, but I think I have been encouraged by my experiences to take out something of an insurance policy. On a train journey home a few months ago, after...
- Sue Blackmore: Coping With Demented Patients
When my mother began a vendetta against next door’s dustbins and conceived a hatred of seagulls, we thought it was just Mum at her worst and even found it quite funny, but when she began getting lost and demanding to move to a cottage in the middle...
- When It's Dangerous To Walk And Talk
It's well established that talking on a mobile phone while driving is distracting and dangerous. But what about talking on a mobile phone while walking? After all, pedestrians can often be seen marching about town, phone clutched to their ear, blissfully...