Quite rightly much has been made the CCT footage of a 78year man being run over in a busy road and how people around failed to offer assistance-apparently one potential helper on a scooter even paused to look curiously at the prone man, circled around him, then continued on his way! There has been much talk of the falling standards in our society and so forth.

Whilst it is certainly terrible that the only help this man received was from police who had been called out to investigate another offence and that other drivers and pedestrians ignored the poor man, it is also well established that bystander apathy happens more frequently than we would like to think. Bystander apathy may seem as if it is all to do with heartlessness but it is as much to do with social conditioning as anything else.

I wonder also whether the massive rise in passive entertainments such as TV viewing etc has made us all more prone to just watch events in life without pro-actively engaging. As if we are becoming passive consumers of vicarious experience rather than pro-active partakers.

This is an awful example of cruelty through passivity but it also demonstrates a principle psychologists recognize as, sadly, universal although not inevitable.

Mark