Society Pressure

Paper 3A-Societies Pressure

You are driving home on the freeway and it is past midnight. There is a car pulled to the side with its hazard lights on and it is obvious that there are people inside the car. Do you stop and check to see if they are ok? Or do you assume they've gotten help already and it is a waste of your time?

Majority of the general public would probably just drive past and not stop to help. Most of the population would like to think that they them self's would stop to help someone, but when it comes down to it they don't. The reason people choose not to get involved into difficult situations is because there lacking self-assurance. Lacking self-assurance is a reason people don't get involved in difficult situations because they are unsure of an urgent situation, unsure how to help the situation, and shy.

There are many difficult situations that people get put into every day and we just don't know how to identify them. As Darley states, "emergencies are not always clearly labeled"(306), which can be really stressful trying to identify whether there is a situation, which needs assistance. Lets say that there is an individual who was coughing over and over again. To a person near by it may look like he or she is choking on something. In reality the individual wasn't choking at all, and the bystander near by went to go to help assuming he needed assistance. The individual would feel pretty dumb and embarrassed for the mistake of trying to help something that wasn't there. This isn't a bad thing in any case; actually, I would rather see more mistakes like this one than not see any at all. The sad thing is that people care so much about what society thinks of them that we don't want to look stupid in front of strangers even if it could help someone.

In another case let's say that an individual is obviously choking. There face went from turning red to turning blue. They are showing the sign language of choking to everyone wanting help. The person closest to the victim doesn't budge to help. Is it because they made a safe assumption; since they were at a restaurant some one else there such as a manager or cook must know the Heimlich maneuver? No! Instead, the reason they didn't help is for the fear of not knowing how to help in the situation and looking dumb in front of everyone. If I were to notice someone in an emergency and went to help him or her, and didn't know how to help I would feel as though I am getting in the way or just speeding up the process of the victims death.

When I was in high school