Tipping Point

Local train accidents in Mumbai are not something to make news.More so is the indifference of those who witness it without action.One such accident which i witnessed and did nothing more than informing the station officials about it made me wonder my own behaviour.Still looking for an explanation of my own behaviour, i came across The tipping point.The author describes an experiment where emergency conditions are simulated and response of people are noted. Of course that was conducted in New York. Interesting finding was that whenever only one or two persons witnessed , they acted 80% of the time.On the other hand when a large number of people witnessed such a situation, anybody acted only in 31% cases. The explantion was that when in a group, we tend to shirk responsiblites always hoping that somebody else will have it.This is collective behaviour- an interesting topic of sociological research.Though i agree with this, i am not sure that actually was reason for my own inaction.It would be interesting to know how we acted when we fell into such situation.