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I think the question was specifically about declining to improve one's own circumstances because someone else could, not declining to help someone else. That's
by geofft 5y ago
I think the question was specifically about declining to improve one's own circumstances because someone else could, not declining to help someone else. That's different from the bystander effect as usually conceived. The theoretical bystander effect is something like "Someone is being attacked, I could call 911 but someone else will;" this is perhaps something like "I am being attacked, I could scream for help but other people will notice anyway" - but really more like "I can't cross the street in front of my house because the storm drains by the crosswalk are clogged, I could rake them but the city is supposed to do that."
- jazzyjackson 5y agoFair enough, maybe Learned Helplessness is a better fit.
- nitrogen 5y agoI feel like the iterated prisoner's dilemma is part of it too -- if you let someone off the hook repeatedly for defecting, you just enable them to continue defecting. Or somewhat related, the "if you touch it you own it" problem. So to overcome this learned helplessness effect, we'd need a good strategy to prevent the deterioration of duty of whoever is "supposed" to be fixing a problem, and/or a way to cut out the derelicts entirely.
- anigbrowl 5y agoYou will also appreciate this: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
- anigbrowl 5y agoSkip the abstract and head straight to the caption for figure 3, then go back and read the whole thing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451