Saturday Blood & Gore

[Heltor Chasca]

The research into helping behaviour done by Darley and Latane in the 1960s might be of interest. Their work was done after an infamous incident in which witnesses watched a woman being raped and murdered without calling the police.

It might sound bizarre, but their research showed that whilst the probability of any individual witness intervening to help is 85% if alone, this figure drops to just 31% when there are four or more others. It also showed that if no one acts within the first three minutes, it’s unlikely that anyone will. It also applies to helping yourself: people will leave a building they believe to be on fire if they're alone, but if there are others ignoring the danger they will ignore it too.

D&L identified five key stages involved in helping behaviour:

You must notice the incident.
You must interpret the incident as one where help is required.
You must assume personal responsibility.
You must decide what action to take.
You must act.

The second is undermined when you just perceive the incident as innocent behaviour.

The third is undermined when there is more than one witness.

The fourth: D&L found that their subjects were scared, sweaty, and trembling afterwards, and unable to give a coherent account of their actions. They had been paralysed by indecision, and were not just apathetic as had been assumed.

Subsequently, research by Arthur Beaman showed that people who have been educated in D&L’s five steps are twice as likely to help in an emergency as people who haven’t.

I enjoyed that. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tim Hall]

Well done for stopping and helping, but others have said jehovah witnesses won't have any medical treatmemt, especially where surgery, stitches, or blood transfusions are concerned.

But kudos for trying

Not so. Blood transfusions are not allowed, but medical treatment is. From the JW's website:

Myth: Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in medicine or medical treatment.

Fact: We seek the best possible medical care for ourselves and our families. When we have health problems, we go to doctors who have skill in providing medical and surgical care without blood. We appreciate advancements that have been made in the medical field. In fact, bloodless treatments developed to help Witness patients are now being used to benefit all in the community. In many countries, any patient can now choose to avoid blood-transfusion risks, such as blood-borne diseases, immune-system reactions, and human error

 

[welsh dragon]

Not so. Blood transfusions are not allowed, but medical treatment is. From the JW's website:

A friend of Mr WD tried to get his mother to have treatment when she fell and had a bad gash to her head. As a jehovah witness, she refused all treatment including stitches. There was nothing the Dr's could do for her as they couldn't force her to have the stitches. She even called in her fellow jehovah witness friends to back her up.

 

[Tim Hall]

A friend of Mr WD tried to get his mother to have treatment when she fell and had a bad gash to her head. As a jehovah witness, she refused all treatment including stitches. There was nothing the Dr's could do for her as they couldn't force her to have the stitches. She even called in her fellow jehovah witness friends to back her up.

That's interesting. Did she survive the injury?

 

[welsh dragon]

That's interesting. Did she survive the injury?

Sadly no. Infection set in and she died 2 or 3 months later. Her son was devastated and angry at her for refusing treatment.

 

[ColinJ]

Well done for helping!

I think it's mostly blood transfusions ...

Sadly no. Infection set in and she died 2 or 3 months later. Her son was devastated and angry at her for refusing treatment.

A similar thing happened with a friend's JW mum who died for her beliefs. She needed a blood transfusion to survive a procedure but refused to have one. A group of local Witnesses were at her bedside to "keep her strong". After she died, they cleared off and left my mate and his dad to mourn. They never even called round to see how the family were doing ...

Still, people are entitled to their beliefs (no matter how ludicrous) and are entitled to choose to die if that fits in with those beliefs. Unless we are talking about euthanasia of course ...

 

[welsh dragon]

Well done for helping!



A similar thing happened with a friend's JW mum who died for her beliefs. She needed a blood transfusion to survive a procedure but refused to have one. A group of local Witnesses were at her bedside to "keep her strong". After she died, they cleared off and left my mate and his dad to mourn. They never even called round to see how the family were doing ...

Still, people are entitled to their beliefs (no matter how ludicrous) and are entitled to choose to die if that fits in with those beliefs. Unless we are talking about euthanasia of course ...

I just love the christian attitude of some people.

 

[Levo-Lon]

My mates from a very large irish family 9 kids , the father was an Elder..the most nasty evil dishonest bastid you could meet outside of war. He broke bones and tormented them ,pure nasty..he had a slow horrible death so some justice.


My uncle who's also a JW is quite possibly the loveliest man you could meet.
I never knew he was a JW until i went to his 65th birthday.

 

[jefmcg]

A friend of Mr WD tried to get his mother to have treatment when she fell and had a bad gash to her head. As a jehovah witness, she refused all treatment including stitches. There was nothing the Dr's could do for her as they couldn't force her to have the stitches. She even called in her fellow jehovah witness friends to back her up.

This is what I suspected might happen. For every religious rule there are those who will circumvent it, and those who will take it further. Your friends mother took the dogma, and ran with it.

In contrast, I had a muslim friend at uni who apparently stuck to a particular translation of the alcohol rules (I don't know if it's in the Koran, or just cultural. A cursory google isn't helping), and made sure from every drink he had, he didn't drink a drop of alcohol. Yup, he spilt a drop on the floor from every glass.

 

[ColinJ]

I just love the christian attitude of some people.

My friend was a young teenager at the time and he had been going to the local Kingdom Hall with his mum before she got ill. He was starting to get into the JW thing until then but the way he got cold-shouldered after his mum's death put him right off!

 

[Beebo]

I worked with a lovely JW lady. She never ate any of the birthday cakes that people brought in because they don’t celebrate birthdays apparently.

 

[presta]

I enjoyed that. Thanks for sharing.

I don't know whether you've already had a Google, but here's a demonstration of the burning building experiment. Reminds me of a night at Broadhaven hostel when the fire alarm went off a 4am, I had to go and chivvy another guy ignoring the alarm out of his bed.

 

[Stephenite]

Well, i think @Heltor Chasca did exactly the right thing. Religious = bonkers in my book.

As an aside, here in Norway it is a criminal offence to not help someone in obvious need.

 

[r04DiE]

This morning I was returning from grocery shopping in my pickup with my 8YOD. I noticed a local character behaving strangely. He is an elderly Jehovah’s Witness door knocker. He was staggering and then leant up against a stone wall. I pulled over and then saw he was bleeding heavily from two wounds in his head and one eye was blood shot.

I bunged him into the back of my truck out of the wind and got my first aid kit out. The wound on his nose was down to the bone with flappy flesh either side and his forehead looked depressed. He told me he was going to faint and became unconscious for a short while. I was left bear hugging him.

A local floating postie pulled over to help and rung 999. The old man was adamant he wasn’t getting paramedic help. We twisted the story a bit and said the postie’s boss was coming up to give him a lift back to his church car park. In actual fact we were waiting for the ambulance. When it arrived the old man went nuts. But such is life these days, the paramedics are trained to deal with this reaction and soon he was seated and getting a full check up before being taken to A&E.

I had put my hazard lights on so my battery went flat and I had to walk with a week’s shopping and my 8YOD all the way home. My arms nearly fell off. I walked back after lunch with a neighbour’s battery pack which turned out to be too weak to start my truck so had to walk all the way home again. I returned later with a neighbour who jump started my vehicle.

Turns out this fellow had tripped up the kerb which is only 3”. (Save your helmet jokes for another time) And although I think he had only just fallen over, nobody stopped at all for him except for the postie. I was with this chap for quite a while and even then nobody asked if they could help. Even all the curtain twitching occupants of the houses we were sat outside for ages. It did look like I had driven into him at one stage. I dispair of society these days.

Good to get that off my chest. Thanks.

This is the 2nd heartwarming story that I have read tonight. Good for you.

 

[Profpointy]

The research into helping behaviour done by Darley and Latane in the 1960s might be of interest. Their work was done after an infamous incident in which witnesses watched a woman being raped and murdered without calling the police.

It might sound bizarre, but their research showed that whilst the probability of any individual witness intervening to help is 85% if alone, this figure drops to just 31% when there are four or more others. It also showed that if no one acts within the first three minutes, it’s unlikely that anyone will. It also applies to helping yourself: people will leave a building they believe to be on fire if they're alone, but if there are others ignoring the danger they will ignore it too.

D&L identified five key stages involved in helping behaviour:

You must notice the incident.
You must interpret the incident as one where help is required.
You must assume personal responsibility.
You must decide what action to take.
You must act.

The second is undermined when you just perceive the incident as innocent behaviour.

The third is undermined when there is more than one witness.

The fourth: D&L found that their subjects were scared, sweaty, and trembling afterwards, and unable to give a coherent account of their actions. They had been paralysed by indecision, and were not just apathetic as had been assumed.

Subsequently, research by Arthur Beaman showed that people who have been educated in D&L’s five steps are twice as likely to help in an emergency as people who haven’t.

I did read somewhere that the notorious incident you refer to wasn't quite how it's recounted. Apparently The so-say witnesses had heard a noise or shout,rather than truly witnessed the horrific incident, which isn't quite the same thing. After googling, it seems the victim was a Kitty Genovese, and the reporting was of doubtful accuracy, despite being repeated in many psychology books.

All that said, there can be reluctance to help / get involved.