ARE YOU A RESCUER OR A BYSTANDER?
"Certain traits make it more likely that a person will make a split-second decision to take a heroic risk. Its also stating if we were all TRAINED like mandatory military and medical training, many would be more likely to try to help. However, even with training, there are many you cannot trust and others, so convincing, who also aren't trustworthy and you find that out the hard way.
People who like to take charge of situations, who respond sympathetically to others, and who have a strong sense of moral and social responsibility are more likely to intervene than people who lack those traits, research shows.
Heroes tend by nature to be hopeful, believing events will turn out well. They consciously try to keep fear from hampering their pursuit of goals, and they tend to block out the possibility of injury or material loss.
People who are otherwise good and caring may still shrink back in a crisis. Their responses depend partly on whether they perceive the situation as an emergency and whether they know how to help; someone who doesn't know anything about electrical wiring probably won't rush to save a person tangled in a power line.
How you're feeling that day makes a difference, too; "people who are in a good mood are more likely to help," says Julie M. Hupp, an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Newark.
Context also matters; some researchers say a large crowd makes it less likely that an individual hero will step up.
Of course, it helps to be physically able. In a study of 32 people who had intervened to help victims of assaults, robberies or other physically dangerous predatory crimes, researchers found that most of those heroes were taller, heavier and/or more likely to have had training in rescuing people or responding to emergencies than a comparison group of people who hadn't intervened in a crime or emergency for 10 years or more/ever."
People who like to take charge of situations, who respond sympathetically to others, and who have a strong sense of moral and social responsibility are more likely to intervene than people who lack those traits, research shows.
Heroes tend by nature to be hopeful, believing events will turn out well. They consciously try to keep fear from hampering their pursuit of goals, and they tend to block out the possibility of injury or material loss.
People who are otherwise good and caring may still shrink back in a crisis. Their responses depend partly on whether they perceive the situation as an emergency and whether they know how to help; someone who doesn't know anything about electrical wiring probably won't rush to save a person tangled in a power line.
How you're feeling that day makes a difference, too; "people who are in a good mood are more likely to help," says Julie M. Hupp, an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University in Newark.
Context also matters; some researchers say a large crowd makes it less likely that an individual hero will step up.
Of course, it helps to be physically able. In a study of 32 people who had intervened to help victims of assaults, robberies or other physically dangerous predatory crimes, researchers found that most of those heroes were taller, heavier and/or more likely to have had training in rescuing people or responding to emergencies than a comparison group of people who hadn't intervened in a crime or emergency for 10 years or more/ever."
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Something to think about!
A rescuer of animals. Our first cat came from the woods next to our house. We fed her vetted her, spayed her and she was our companion for 16 years. Then we became involved with fostering shelter dogs until they found homes. Each one has taken apiece of our heart when they find a forever home. We rescued one dog from traffic on a main road. We found him a home after we had him neutered. A chi came to our back door in the winter and we bathed him and picked ticks and fleas off for an hour. Tink has a home with our youngest son. Our next to last last rescue was a lab who followed my husband home. We put him on lost and found and all the local animal shelter sites to no avail. We fostered him for a rescue organization and he eventually was placed in a forever home in Boston.
being heroic is also a sign of abuse. i only discovered this a year or two ago, if a person is raised to feel or in a situation later that has made them feel that they don\'t matter anyway, they are more likely to take foolish or dangerous risks than a person who has been raised to feel they are worthy, would never take.
now if society can come up with something in between, that all people are heroic, without anyone being abused. that would be great.
Fascinating stuff. I was abused, yeah, but the animals in our house were never harmed---we rescued tons of them---so I might argue that abuse makes you less likely to be heroic---you\'re more scared of consequences. May depend on type of abuse and gender, though. Men in general take more risks, for example.
My hubby tends to hesitate but both my parents were military and one was medical so I had that training young---always had my first aid and CPR certs etc. and safety training for umpteen different scenariors---so I do tend to react differently than those who weren\'t given that exposure. Only makes sense, I guess.