Introduction
Disasters come unexpectedly and cause uncontrollable damages to peoples’ lives and properties. These occurrences include accidents, earthquakes and lightening, among others. In most cases, these events are virtually unknown, and unexpected. This usually cause confusion and disorganizations, which at times lead to more injuries and/or damages. Most damages are attributed to confusion from bystanders, who usually gaze at such happenings. Occurrences such as earthquakes are rare in some parts of the world; this causes bystanders in those areas to gaze in amazement, instead of following the correct measures provided to assist victims. These onlookers, in most cases, face dire consequences as disasters overwhelm them. Several ideas have come up regarding the reasons for bystanders’ behavior which has contributed to more damages. This paper will endeavor to explore some of the reasons why bystanders tend to look at disasters.
Why do bystanders sometimes like to look at disasters?
Bystanders are usually on their businesses, some waiting for friends and others, loved ones, while still others on looking. This kind of atmosphere usually makes things interesting as these people are habitually focused on what they wait for, at the time. This also makes it difficult for them to concentrate on other happenings around them, which in most cases find them unprepared. It is therefore quite clear that most disasters which come unannounced find these people unprepared and shocked.
These bystanders are usually seen to stare disasters instead of making the necessary actions as may be required of them. People are expected to be precautious whenever disasters occur; they are also expected to give aid to victims of such incidences, where possible. This rarely happens and clearly explains why most disaster response organizations take time to train individuals involved, to instill in them responsive attitude.
From the above illustration, we observe that it is natural for individuals to watch disasters without taking necessary actions as this exists in their psychology. People love to see new things or occurrences and they also feel prompted to watch the whole incident. It is in these situations that they end up suffering severe damages or even leave victims to suffer as they glare. Several reasons have been attributed to this behavior, among which include shock out of the unexpected occurrence, the desire to have a full view, psychological status, unpreparedness, lack of concentration and the fact that it may be none of their business, among other reasons.
Discussion
It is a common occurrence that when one person is faced with a situation, he/she is most likely to take responsibility by responding to the problem. However, this is not the same with several people faced with the same situation; they would shy away and glare from a distance to see what happens. It is more surprising that even a cry for help would not receive the required attention when several people standby as compared to an individual. This is sometimes attributed to social-psychological occurrence, also known as bystander problem. Other problems usually attributed to this kind of incidence include dehumanizing isolation caused by urbanization as well as deficiency in moral character. It has been established by researchers that probability of an individual response to an emergency is inversely proportion to the bystanders’ total number. In essence, apart from other factors like unpreparedness and shock, among other reasons, bystanders face social psychological phenomenon whenever disasters occur.
Conclusion
It has been proven beyond doubt that whenever people are many, their response to disasters is usually slower than an individual. Instead, they tend to be onlookers and rarely aid the victims. This is mainly because of social-psychological phenomenon, which leaves them as onlookers to emergencies. The phenomenon is also known as the bystander problem.