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Yesterday I witnessed the bystander effect. In fact, we witness it everyday. While cycling up a slope on my way home I didn't have enough strength to conquer the gradient and lost control. I spotted a car turning in and quickly dragged myself with the bike off to the side. At this inopportune moment my legs turned to jelly and I couldn't hold onto the bike while walking properly, so I stumbled-fumbled. A couple of people walked by and just stared. Not much of a bystander effect, because there wasn't even a handful of people to begin with. But it made me ponder about the cold society we are living in right now. On the other hand, perhaps I didn't look as if I was in sufficient distress to warrant an outsider's help; I look young, healthy, and perfectly capable of handling it myself - and not forgetting I wasn't riding safely - I guess those were the reasons I wasn't offered a hand.
When I was riding at Sengkang Riverside Park a family of four was taking up the entire pathway in front. The parents were coaching the elder sibling on cycling, but I wished they would also guide her on social graciousness and be good role models as well. Education starts from the home.
Back to the bystander effect: I was at Bugis and there was a middle-aged man in a wheelchair, manually powering himself along the narrow passageway. He seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in propelling himself forward, but nobody seemed to notice that. I offered him some help to get out of the place, and even though he was pretty brusque and didn't look me in the eye it felt like the right thing to do. Later on we met again, he was attempting to hail a cab at a busy junction - the roundabout at Fortune Centre. There was a taxi stand about 15 metres away; I wondered why didn't he just wait there. It was much safer and it wouldn't be unfair to the commuters who were queuing up. There was a security guard directing traffic, and he seemed to be equally perturbed as I, though he did help the man to a more secure location. Everyone else was an uninvolved actor on this stage.
I approached the man again, but he insisted on flagging down cabs at the current spot. I could probably have a fundamental attribution bias and judged that he was a stubborn old man, or I could justify his actions by thinking that he probably had numerous experiences being turned down by cabbies at taxi stands. I would never know. We had been turned down by four incoming taxis, and the taxi hotline was busy. When we dismantled his wheelchair and helped him get on a willing hirer's vehicle, we finally had eye contact.
It seems pretentious that I would describe this parsimonious experience in so many words. I hoped to record this so that it can become a reference point for me in the future.
