For me it's more along the lines of "am I the best person here for this?" and "does anyone else have information I don't?"
If you read the research for the bystander effect it's mostly about putting a bunch of people in front of a crisis and seeing how long it takes them to respond. When (minor) crises have happened in front of me, I feel a sense of rising pressure to do something as time passes. When I'm in a position of above baseline expertise (fire marshal in front of a fire, guy with first aid certificate near a probable concussion) it rises faster; when someone else takes charge the pressure goes away. On this basis I think part of the bystander effect happens because something like an informal leader election is taking place.
They're not sociopaths. A lot of them are just very risk intolerant. Sociopaths tend to leverage or create a problem for their own gain, as opposed to just failing to help. Sure, if you see someone chuckling with glee while passively observing a dumpster fire, they might be a sociopath, but a lot of people are just scared or incapable of making decisions under pressure.
For adults at least there's also the calculation of "What will this cost me?" You will see people with Downs syndrome force themselves between people fighting without considering that they might themselves be hurt, while the rest of us "normies" makes the calculation that there are twenty guys beating up a single person and they could just as easily take you out as well.
In professional settings we see people not speak out against obvious violations of proper conduct, ethical behavior and wrong doing out of fear. E.g. I know a nurse who should speak up about any number of violations in her workplace. They aren't serious enough to get someone killed and if she does she'll never work in this part of the country again. So yes, should should do something, but the personal cost is immense.
Actually, it does sound a bit sociopathic. Maybe it's just the average person succumbing to a sociopath society.
It's not sociopathy, it's more like 'wtf should I do'.
I passed a weird certification in highschool to learn how to deal with injuries and dangerous situations (car crash, someone passing out in public) and so far it helped twice. Each time the other helpers had the same (or similar) training I did.
However when I met two people fighting each other in public, violently (blood and teeth), I was under a severe bystander effect I thought I wouldn't have (because I had good reactions to dangerous situations in the past).
For me at least, this effect is more about how prepared you are, a sort of default state, not something bad.
However when I met two people fighting each other in public, violently (blood and teeth), I was under a severe bystander effect I thought I wouldn't have
This is pretty rational actually, since you have no way of knowing who the instigator and who the victim (if any) is. A person who's been attacked for no reason will generally make it obvious, trying to escape or hang on property that's being taken from them or evincing other signs of distress. If you find two people actively going at each other and there isn't an obvious underdog, it's probably best not to intervene physically.
> It's not sociopathy, it's more like 'wtf should I do'.
You're saying the difference is not in action but in intent.
I claim you can't truly know someone else's intent. Further, I don't think I'd trust a sociopath (ASPD) to tell me honestly what their intent is/was. So I don't understand the difference from an objective point of view.
