The invisible homeless thing makes me think of a New York charity project from years ago when they set up family members to pretend they were homeless and filmed their relatives walking past them on the street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQgmA8vshUg
Is it that as soon as someone sits on the street they are not worth looking at? Or is it that people are so overwhelmed by everything in their environment that they can't take it in?
I so appreciate the way that this artist forces us to reckon with things that are uncomfortable and which most people would prefer to avoid. Thank you for sharing his work with us.
Oooh so interesting! I saw this in the news too and it made me smile! I love the work for its surrealness and because it’s really challenging social identities and biased human responses.
In answer to your question about the psychology, there are three psychology ideas that could apply to the homeless piece in particular, but also to a greater/leader extent with others.
The ‘bystander’ effect. It’s the idea that there’s apathy caused by a diffusion of responsibility in crowds, a fear of unfavourable (social) evaluation for helping out /or something bad will happen, and pluralistic ignorance - literally following the crowd /not panicking…
Second, social identity theory, this is the idea of a social ingroup and outgroup.
The ingroup attributes blame to the homeless (out group) for his or her situation, this could be under the just world hypothesis ‘those who do good will be rewarded, and those who exhibit negative behaviors will be punished’ it’s an unconscious human process of attribution.
In this art work we can see how the individuals social identity is quite literally
obscured by the homeless stereotype, one that is often seen as less than human, exclusionary actions (walking on by, not engaging) towards the outgroup are motivated by a range of emotions (shame, fear etc) and contribute to the
construction by the ingroup of a virtual (superior) self towards the outgroup
And this leads on to... positive illusion when people exclude or avoid certain groups of people to positively bias their own view of the world, this self enhancement helps them to maintain the most favourable self-view of themselves.
I knew you would have the answer to this Leila. Group mentality is such a strange thing. Horrified by that New York stabbing story. I can't imagine walking past someone who is literally lying face down in the middle of the street. But then I walk past people on the way to and from work in my neighbourhood who have literally frozen in place after having taken the drug spice. I'm so used to it now that I barely take a second look and might well presume that's what it is.
Brilliant post, thank you
The invisible homeless thing makes me think of a New York charity project from years ago when they set up family members to pretend they were homeless and filmed their relatives walking past them on the street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQgmA8vshUg
Is it that as soon as someone sits on the street they are not worth looking at? Or is it that people are so overwhelmed by everything in their environment that they can't take it in?
Bloody love this artist. I find his work unsettling, provocative and provoking.
I so appreciate the way that this artist forces us to reckon with things that are uncomfortable and which most people would prefer to avoid. Thank you for sharing his work with us.
Oooh so interesting! I saw this in the news too and it made me smile! I love the work for its surrealness and because it’s really challenging social identities and biased human responses.
In answer to your question about the psychology, there are three psychology ideas that could apply to the homeless piece in particular, but also to a greater/leader extent with others.
The ‘bystander’ effect. It’s the idea that there’s apathy caused by a diffusion of responsibility in crowds, a fear of unfavourable (social) evaluation for helping out /or something bad will happen, and pluralistic ignorance - literally following the crowd /not panicking…
There’s a very upsetting real life case here https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/26/new-york-stabbed-samaritan-dies
Second, social identity theory, this is the idea of a social ingroup and outgroup.
The ingroup attributes blame to the homeless (out group) for his or her situation, this could be under the just world hypothesis ‘those who do good will be rewarded, and those who exhibit negative behaviors will be punished’ it’s an unconscious human process of attribution.
In this art work we can see how the individuals social identity is quite literally
obscured by the homeless stereotype, one that is often seen as less than human, exclusionary actions (walking on by, not engaging) towards the outgroup are motivated by a range of emotions (shame, fear etc) and contribute to the
construction by the ingroup of a virtual (superior) self towards the outgroup
And this leads on to... positive illusion when people exclude or avoid certain groups of people to positively bias their own view of the world, this self enhancement helps them to maintain the most favourable self-view of themselves.
I knew you would have the answer to this Leila. Group mentality is such a strange thing. Horrified by that New York stabbing story. I can't imagine walking past someone who is literally lying face down in the middle of the street. But then I walk past people on the way to and from work in my neighbourhood who have literally frozen in place after having taken the drug spice. I'm so used to it now that I barely take a second look and might well presume that's what it is.
Wow Leila, what a great answer! Really enjoy your responses 😊
Thanks Jen, that’s really kind of you to say x