“WHICH IS THE MORE RELIABLE PREDICTOR OF MORAL BEHAVIOR - THE PERSON OF

THE SITUATION?”

In the article of Darley and Latane, there is a scenario wherein a person

was killed by the murderer within more than half an hour, with 38 witnesses, but
no one attempted to intervene. In this situation, people reacted differently.
There are people who fear to intervene because they do not want to get
involved in the frightening scene. These people have this fear that the murderer
may get back at them or maybe they have this fear of involvement in the crime
investigation. This situation shows the behavior of a person to be uncooperative.
Another reason mentioned in the article is the presence of other people in the
crime scene. Some people thought that there is already someone that is
contacting the police station and that their help will not be needed anymore
because there’s already someone who’s doing it. But what if there’s no one
doing so? Unlike when there is only one person present in a certain situation, he
or she is the one expected to take action on asking help, and the blame of
inability to do so will only be pointed out to you. Knowing that there are other
people around leads the responsibility as a bystander to be diffused among
other watchers. The blame of not taking immediate action about the scene is
diffused to other observers as well. These considerations lead to the hypothesis
that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly,
any one bystander will intervene to provide aid. This article shows how a person
will behave in a situation wherein someone is in need of help from them. Some
refused to give a hand because of fear and other factors, and some acted and
did the right thing. How long are we going to fear the involvement knowing that
someone out there is waiting or hoping for help to come. A simple action of
cooperation and sympathy can be helped, but some refuse to do so.
In the TED Talk of the psychologist Philip Zimbardo titled, “the Psychology
of Evil”, he mentioned people perceive that there is a clear difference between
the good and evil. According to Philip, this line is permeable, wherein a good
person can turn evil, and the evil ones can redeem themselves and be good.
He then talked about him being part of the US army reservists that are accused
of doing evil acts by torturing and humiliating prisoners. This is done by the
military police for the interrogators to get information for later.
“Who are the bad apples or the evil people?”, someone asked, but Philip
then suggests asking something that is broader on to what causes these people
to do these evil acts? Is it their own character or the situation they are in? Philip
then mentioned an experiment of a technician electrocuting a learner. No
normal person would do such a thing, but this experiment is designed that way
so the technician has to do so. The experiment started electrocuting at 15 Volts
and continuously adding until 450 Volts. Some experiments turned out to have
2% to 3% of the people to get up to 450 Volts and some reach about 90%. This
percentage of people that reached 450 Volts are considered as the sadist
percentage of the population.
Another situation is about a pastor who convinced and ordered his
followers to do mass killing including their own families and also committing
suicide. In contrast to how a pastor will act as a follower of God, he became the
reason for these people to commit crime and a mortal sin. These people are
blinded by their obedience towards the pastor that they are following to think
that what he made them do is right - but is actually evil.
Another experiment which is conducted by Philip himself is dividing a
group of people into and giving the first half the role of guards and the other
half as prisoners. This experiment is then stopped for it is becoming out of control
that causes other participants to break down. In this experiment, the people
who are designated to act as guards are not actually evil, but are ought to do
evil acts for the sake of this experiment.
Given the article and experiments mentioned above, I can say that a
certain situation is a more reliable predictor of moral behavior than the
character of a person. Just like in the article of Darley and Latane wherein
people responded depending on the situation they are in. They acted
depending on how much responsibility and blame they might have and did not
act right away even though there is someone who is in need of their help.
Another example is a common tip that you will hear from someone especially
when you have started dating someone. It is to observe your partner’s
behaviour towards the staff of a restaurant or to someone who has lower ranks
than him or her. When you meet that person for the first time and as your
connection gets deeper, you will witness how kind and caring he or she is. But
what if the waiter served the wrong foods that you ordered? What if the staff
accidentally poured water on his or her clothes? Of course, disappointment and
frustration is normal, but the way your partner reacted to what happened is a
different situation. Did he or she shout at the person who had done it? Did he or
she curse at them? The actions of someone in a certain situation can be a
predictor on how he or she will also behave towards you in the future.
Let us also take as an example the situation we are facing right now. The
pandemic and the upcoming 2022 elections. Some politicians out there are
obviously taking advantage of the situation we are in right now. Being a source
of hope to other people, reaching out to those who are in need for what? To
gain trust and sympathy from those people who received help from them to buy
their votes. Now that the elections are just around the corner and we are under
a pandemic, politicians that are aiming for a seat in the government are on
their way again to implement programs that will satisfy the people. For how
long? Until their term ended? Or after they get that spot in the government.
These scenarios clearly show how a certain situation can influence the moral
behavior of a person. A so-called “moral behaviour” for a show - for a vote.
However, there are also people who are only tasked or designated to do
such a thing because they are asked to. They did not mean to do it, but they
have because this is something that is told by someone who has more authority
than them or maybe because they are shocked by the situation. But still, it
should be something that they should have done with too much thinking. Some
people say, the best way to know someone’s behavior is to catch them in a
situation wherein they will not have much time to think of their actions or to think
of the feelings of the person that they have done wrong.
References:
Darley, J. and Latane, B., 1968. BYSTANDER INTERVENTION IN EMERGENCIES:
DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 8(4),
pp.377-383.

Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil. (2021). Retrieved 29 September 2021,

from https://tedsummaries.com/2014/11/24/philip-zimbardo-the-psychology-of-
evil/comment-page-1/