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Showing posts from July, 2015

A Two-Tier Bystander Effect Materializes in Lebanon

  In broad daylight last week in one of the most consumerist neighborhoods in Lebanon, he incessantly called for help, he pleaded, he begged, he screamed “Somebody get him off me”. “Somebody please!! hold him off”, but none of the 15 grown-up male bystanders next to the victim did a thing. Some kept watching as George al-Reef was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by a vicious manslayer whose only motive for this hideous murder is a dispute over a car path. George al-Reef died in the hospital due to internal bleeding caused by vicious beating. Social media has all sorts of tweet and posts depicting disgust at the crime and blame at the cowardice of the bystanders.This was amplified by the online videos  However, the bystander effect , or bystander apathy, is well-documented in social psychology. However, in Lebanon, it happens that this murder has become a two-tier bystander effect. Frist, let’s start by defining what bystander effect is and if it applies to this murder. The bystan