Carol Tavris Individuals In Groups

Model Essay for “Individuals In Groups”

A popular expression that people use regarding groups is that there is “strength in numbers” – well, research suggests otherwise. In the article “Individuals In Groups”, Carol Tavris explains how experimental evidence shows that people who are alone or in a group tend to react differently in certain emergency situation. One of the experiments described in the article showed that when people are alone in an emergency situation, they tend to active and react more quickly to the situation. This same study showed that people who are in a group are more passive and tend wait longer to react to the same situation. The author concludes by stating that the more people in a group, the more likelihood that each person will become lazy and not help in any way.

One idea that I found interesting in the article is that people tend to be less helpful in groups when someone needs help because question if they should help and might imagine others are more capable of helping. The article describes an experiment that confirms this point. The researchers were trying to find out how helpful are individuals whey they are alone or around others is. To test this, the researchers designed a realistic situation in which a person was screaming for help and …show more content…
The people in this study who were alone probably jumped to action because there was not much to think about. They must have thought someone needs help and I can help. However, the people who were in the question had more to think about. They might think someone is more knowledgeable when it helping the woman who appeared to be in pain. Also, what if they try to help and they don’t provide the proper care to help the person in pain. The other person might have some similar thoughts and immediate impulse to immediately help is