For certain specific individuals it may be normal, but I think society as a whole views that as very not normal.
I understand what you're describing though.

Mark

glad you understand its very differant if I hear it in actual person meaning me and my sis was at a gig back in 2008 and the lead singer thought he was clever by taking the piss out of that baby p etc, nearly EVERYONE cheered, I started shaking in rage, sis was utterly disgusted too, I then had thoughts of a random man walking up on stage and knifing that lead singer in the neck repeatedly I REALLY REALLY was wishing it would happan as I had my camera and camcorder all set up etc, Since that time its lowered my opinion of moshers/goths etc

I guess it's how your brain is wired. I've found as I've gotten older my capacity for empathy has grown substantially.

When I read the story of the kid my brain quickly produced vivid images of the child in that horrendous situation and generated feelings of sadness, pain suffering whilst I can almost feel this kids confusion and hurt - e.g. the line where the judge states the kid was able to tell anyone to do anything about it breaks my heart through understanding why he couldnt and how that must have felt.

I guess we're just wired differently.

Maybe Jon can weigh in on this, but I'm sure for some people it's an innate psychologically protective mechanism. If we felt about absolutely everything, rather than simply acknowledging it, that could be quite distressing/damaging.

So perhaps Bratty, it may not be *considered* normal, but it may be more common than you might initially suppose.

I would say I'm in exactly the same position as bratty on this one. I think it's absolutely abhorrent some of the things that get done, but they never seem to raise an emotional response in me at all.

I had a feeling. Not sure how

It makes perfect sense and it's nothing to worried about Bratty. After all, Jon's very normal.

The nearest psychological phenomena to this I can think of is the notion of collective abdication of responsibility. Basically put, if we see a situation which we can assign the job of fixing to 'all of us', then quite frequently thats what we'll do, and generally 'all of us' means 'someone else'. If someone is in need of help and we're the only one around, generally we'll help. If someone is in need of help and there are several people around we'll kind of all think 'well one of the other ones will probably help' and wait to see what happens. The thing is of course everyone else is thinking the same thing, so you get this kind of mexican stand off where everyone is waiting for everyone else to help. I suspect it's also easier to do that if the issue is temporary i.e. you're walking past or in a car or whatever.

There are some fairly famous experiments that show it does happen but the reasons why it happens are more controversial, as it's hard to prove anything one way or another. It's easy to prove the 'what' of what people do, but it's often much harder to prove the 'why' as oppose to just proposing a viable theory. There are some explanations that revolve around survival instincts - often animals shy away from wounded packmates because they assume whatever wounded them is still around - but the fact is people are actually more likely to help if the person in distress is in greater chance of death, so it's obviously a more complex situation than that.

Group psychology is actually kind of interesting but it's not a part I've looked at very much to be honest.

Jon

Also then a fine line between interest out of concern, and just plane interest or rubbernecking. Having responded to several serious incidents requiring immediate care it's astounding how many people just gawk. Although it is a good opportunity to tell people where to go with no recourse.

I'd love to know what Mrs bwfc thinks to that!

This b@stard for the chopping block too, with his own machete.

Husband jailed for wife's 'chilling' machete murder

More here if you can stand it. And from where is this scumbag buying a machete over the counter in the video footage?

BRAKING DISTANCES!

FECK OFF!

Believe.

I think it's a lot to do with probability, it's rare for a group of people to all decide not to do something, all with their own reasons, but of course it's those rare cases that get reported. I think the normal human response would be to help the person immediately, but those much more frequently ocurring situations don't get reported. So we have a natural negativity bias in the press, hence reading the news depresses you. It's best not to read too much in to these stories, they are the worst of the worst case scenarios.

It's actually a little more complex than that - I don't believe that there is a 'stock' human response (walk away, go and help). Numerous studies have shown we behave with the herd. I'd even suggest that were you alone, there'd be numerous factors about whether or not you'd go and help.
Interesting though experiment though.

Im considering buying a reliant robin for the crack.