Not too many foreigners may have experienced the effect of bystander apathy in China first hand, but if you pay attention to the Chinese media there's a clear image painted of a substantial societal issue.

In China and many other places around the planet there's a group phenomenon known as bystander apathy which works by allowing individuals to ignore an emergency of another person because they're certain that someone else will be kind enough to step on and help.

Ultimately, everyone works themselves into this mode of thought and people, who would otherwise be perfectly capable of supporting an individual, disregard it. Are these people individually bad? Certainly not.

This kind of mob mentality can affect even the most consciences bystanders who would otherwise be perfectly willing to help. Scientific research and experiments have shown that people who are under the impression that they're the sole individual witnessing a crime or an injury, will step in. Those same people would not step in if they were within a large group. It's certainly not cowardice or being a neglectful person, it's just how being in a group can set up this illusion that the problem doesn't require their assistance.

In China, we constantly see stories about accidents that go over looked because of two reasons. The first reason being is fraud and scamming. Often times, a person will play injured in order to draw assistance from a stranger. Upon the arrival of a random Good Samaritan, the scam artist will then claim that they were pushed down by the unfortunate victim. The second reason is because of bystander apathy. Where does this bystander apathy come from, and why do we see it so often in China, versus the United States? China has a massive population density in the urban cities which is generally unmatched by most of America. This population density leads to a far more prominent disparity in the ratio of the victim/bystanders. So now the people, who would otherwise assist someone, feel significantly less compelled to do so.

There must be someone stepping in.

Many people keep excusing bystander apathy and claiming that it is something not worth addressing because of the instances in which people have been scammed by actors who only claim to be injured so that they can swindle victims out of money. While this has happened before, it’s only an excuse by those who wish to further themselves from an incident. It’s just another selfish defense mechanism that does nothing but put to shift the blame from bystander apathy to a really nonexistent third party. We’ve seen instances of this kind of scam perpetrated before but is it really so wide-spread that it would change the collective conscious of all bystanders? Considering how extensively the urban areas of China are surveilled with various cameras, it would seem like the scammers could be caught in the act. If the insurances of cameras aren’t sufficient enough, maybe it would be under consideration for the government to enact laws which would protect the good samaritans.

In America, there's a running disdain for what is described as an appeal for cowboy heroism. A lot of people parade around with the deluded idea that if there was some kind of incident occurring, they will be the one to save the day. There's a lot to blame for this kind of air-headed mentality; from the media we're brought up on, the open gun rights which allow anyone to become a wannabe vigilante, and the magnitude of American confidence. People will often warrant their right to carry fire arms in public by stating that of there's a robbery, they can attack the perpetrator like some kind of wild-west gunslinger. While this may seem pretty irrational and generally abrasive on people who would rather not be exposed to a gun-wielding narcissist at a coffee shop, there are upsides. This kind of mentality almost ensures that if there's an injustice going on, someone will step in. People will step into issues when it's none of their business in America, or even if there's no real problem to be had. People love to no only overlook, but to be a part of. They clamor for the spot light and want the fantasies that they gain from media influences to become reality.

What's the main reason for Chinese bystander apathy and why are there higher instances of it versus other countries who even have higher population density? Most of it would stem from China's real issues with competition for survival over the years and how that has progressed into a new form of competition. By competition I don't mean the phony capitalistic, office politics competition; I mean real competition through ration lines and crowds. Now that survivalist competition has quickly changed in one generation to hyper-capitalistic competition. There's an increasing pressure from competition in the work place, competition in school, and the heckling of family members in order to succeed, succeed, succeed. It seems like some youth are starting to disenfranchise themselves from this mode of thinking by rebelling against the institution of marriage and all the pressure that it brings. That doesn't change the fact that at their heart, the Chinese can be aggressively competitive, because they have to be. This kind of mindset makes it incredibly easy to step over people in need and to abandon those who need help. Does this make them necessarily bad or impolite as compared to other countries? No. We shouldn't play the blame game against the entire Chinese populace but instead the more consciences people should make a real effect to help those in need rather than filming their demise and posting it on Weibo. Instead, those people should see that it takes a random person no more than a few minutes to pause what they're doing and help out. If you have the energy and time to expend on filming or photographing someone, you have the time to help them. As Chinese people start to cool down from this bout of hyper-competition, they'll eventually start looking at others not as competitors, but as comrades. China does not need the American heroism and all the ridiculousness that it would bring forth, it just needs people to realize that society functions through support, not competition. We don't live in a battle arena, we live in Tianjin.

As an American, it’s a very perplexing and interesting phenomenon which I had never experienced until traveling abroad. While America does have several dense cities a great number of us reside in more suburban environments where crimes are not often just over looked. Neighborhood watch is always keeping an eye on well-being of their community. While they often do this to make sure that no one outside of their socio-economic and racial status is lingering around their homes, it does have its benefits. It really seems that many of the perks of the American urban lifestyle are a double edged sword, they are good aspects of a flawed system. Instead, in China there’s an opportunity to have all the benefits without any of the drawbacks. It’s time for people to start shifting the way they look at others, in order to allow for a safer community.