So during my very nice and long, relaxing weekend, I actually happened to think about this class a little. I was at the football game on friday night, cheering on the West Chicago Wildcats, and there happen to be a special someone there. His name is Fred and I would say he's somewhere in his 20's. I believe he's also been to some other football games because some of the students recognized him. But there is something mentally wrong with Fred. I'm not quite sure what but he is not "all there." Anyways, he was doing silly jokes and saying funny things and people were cracking up at him and asking him all kinds of questions, even myself. But the longer we kept talking to him, I realized people were starting to be mean. In their minds it was all fun and games but Fred thought we were serious. People were giving him wacky fake names and asking him to do embarassing things and he was falling for it. And I'm not going to sit here and say I wasn;t a part of it, because I was. But looking back on it, I really question why we did that. Why did we keep going on and on with making fun of him in a sense? And why did no one else step in and say "stop?"
I think we have an automatic sensor about people that lets us quickly judge them; whether it be good or bad. In this case, it wasn't good. Poor Fred had no clue we were laughing AT him and not with him and he kept giving us what we wanted to hear. I think when the first person started talking to him, it encouraged another person to and so on and so on. We follow others in society, it's what we do. Everyone would have most likely just left him alone, (maybe with some weird stares) if someone didn't get it all started. I just wonder how much it take for someone to step in and yell "stop." But I learned something this weekend. I learned that I have a lot to learn myself considering I wasn't the person to say "stop" either. Society is getting out of control and it only takes one to take initiative and turn it all around.
-Heather
You've provided a great example of groupthink (we'll get there 2nd quarter), and I think you've learned a valuable lesson on what your role can be the next time a groupthink scenario pops up. Can you think of how any of the perspectives we've talked about in class can apply to either the football game you attended, or the situation with Fred?
ReplyDeleteWow I am stunned how people could be so mean. How can someone do something like that? I have seen things like that happen. All it takes is for one person to start something then it gets out of conrtol. If someone is being mean to a person and the people around him/her see that no one steps in to stop it, then the people will think it's ok to do it and they might start being mean too.
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