Somebody Else's Problem
Encyclopedia
Somebody Else's Problem (also known as Someone Else's Problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters that are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. Author Douglas Adams
' description of the effect, which he playfully ascribed to a physical "SEP field," has helped to make it a generally recognized phenomenon. The label is now widely used to focus public attention on matters that might have been overlooked and, less commonly, to identify concerns that a depressed individual should ignore. It has also been employed as trivial shorthand to describe factors that are "out of scope" in the current context.
and philosophy of perception
are concerned with the reasons why individuals often ignore such matters. Optimism bias
tends to reduce the subjective importance of some matters. Where multiple individuals simultaneously experience the same stimulus, diffusion of responsibility
and/or the bystander effect
may release individuals from the need to act, and if no-one from the group is seen to act, each individual may be further inhibited by conformity. On a wider basis, all members of society are exposed to so many messages about pressing matters of concern that information overload
may play a part. There may also be a tendency to argue that "I can't fix this problem, so I need do nothing to reduce it" (a perfect solution fallacy).
However, taking responsibility for negative events that are outside an individual's control can lead to depression and learned helplessness
, particularly in adolescents. Part of the solution is to help the individual to realistically assign a proportion of responsibility to herself/himself, parents and others (step I in the RIBEYE cognitive behavioral therapy problem-solving method).
warned the U.S. Congress
that "The [decline of the] dollar cannot remain someone else's problem. If we are not careful, monetary disarray could morph into economic war. We would all be victims."
The New York Times
said that when the Shah of Iran
was exiled in 1979 he became "someone else's problem" from the point of view of President Carter's administration.
politician Peter Ainsworth
acknowledges that "climate change can seem huge, complex, remote and someone else's problem."
The Hundred Year Lie
describes what it claims is the public myth that food and medicine "toxicity health issues are 'someone else's problem'."
Douglas Adams was himself concerned about such failures to recognise the need for action and, with Mark Carwardine
, published the book Last Chance to See
, which highlighted endangered animal species.
Unix
became popular because when it was developed at Bell Labs "profits were somebody else's problem," so there was no reason not to share the source code with universities.
has his character Ford Prefect
describe Somebody Else's Problem in Life, the Universe and Everything
, the third book in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
series:
In this case, the Starship Bistromath ("a small upended Italian bistro" with "guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches") has been hidden from the crowd watching a Cricket
match at Lord's
by an SEP field. People may see it, but they take absolutely no notice of it.
The book says that the SEP field is derived from Bistromathics and in particular the concept of an imaginary number called a "recipriversexcluson" whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. Modern science has been slow to investigate this further, though Professor John Wettlaufer (of Yale University
) has apparently observed that it is very important for physicists working outside the mainstream "to have a genuine interest in learning about someone else's problem." However, he admitted that "not many people want to do this."
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
' description of the effect, which he playfully ascribed to a physical "SEP field," has helped to make it a generally recognized phenomenon. The label is now widely used to focus public attention on matters that might have been overlooked and, less commonly, to identify concerns that a depressed individual should ignore. It has also been employed as trivial shorthand to describe factors that are "out of scope" in the current context.
In psychology
Various areas of psychologyPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and philosophy of perception
Philosophy of perception
The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or...
are concerned with the reasons why individuals often ignore such matters. Optimism bias
Optimism bias
Optimism bias is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be overly optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events. Along with the illusion of control and illusory...
tends to reduce the subjective importance of some matters. Where multiple individuals simultaneously experience the same stimulus, diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
and/or the bystander effect
Bystander effect
The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present...
may release individuals from the need to act, and if no-one from the group is seen to act, each individual may be further inhibited by conformity. On a wider basis, all members of society are exposed to so many messages about pressing matters of concern that information overload
Information overload
"Information overload" is a term popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. It refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information...
may play a part. There may also be a tendency to argue that "I can't fix this problem, so I need do nothing to reduce it" (a perfect solution fallacy).
However, taking responsibility for negative events that are outside an individual's control can lead to depression and learned helplessness
Learned helplessness
Learned helplessness, as a technical term in animal psychology and related human psychology, means a condition of a human person or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance...
, particularly in adolescents. Part of the solution is to help the individual to realistically assign a proportion of responsibility to herself/himself, parents and others (step I in the RIBEYE cognitive behavioral therapy problem-solving method).
In politics and economics
French president Nicolas SarkozyNicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy is the 23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. He assumed the office on 16 May 2007 after defeating the Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal 10 days earlier....
warned the U.S. Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
that "The [decline of the] dollar cannot remain someone else's problem. If we are not careful, monetary disarray could morph into economic war. We would all be victims."
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said that when the Shah of Iran
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
was exiled in 1979 he became "someone else's problem" from the point of view of President Carter's administration.
In environment and public protection
BritishBritish people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
politician Peter Ainsworth
Peter Ainsworth
Peter Michael Ainsworth is a former Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament for East Surrey from 1992 to 2010....
acknowledges that "climate change can seem huge, complex, remote and someone else's problem."
The Hundred Year Lie
The Hundred Year Lie
thumb|200px|The Hundred Year Lie, hardback editionThe Hundred Year Lie: How Food And Medicine Are Destroying Your Health is a book by investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald that examines the rise of the local and global influence of the United States food and chemical industries, and argues...
describes what it claims is the public myth that food and medicine "toxicity health issues are 'someone else's problem'."
Douglas Adams was himself concerned about such failures to recognise the need for action and, with Mark Carwardine
Mark Carwardine
Mark Carwardine is a zoologist who achieved widespread recognition for his Last Chance to See conservation expeditions with Douglas Adams, first aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1990. Since then he has become a leading and outspoken conservationist, and a prolific broadcaster, columnist and...
, published the book Last Chance to See
Last Chance to See
Last Chance to See is a 1989 BBC radio documentary series and its accompanying book, written and presented by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. In the series, Adams and Carwardine travel to various locations in the hope of encountering species on the brink of extinction...
, which highlighted endangered animal species.
In technology
The sub-goals of programmers working on a shared artifact "can be deferred to the degree that they become what is known amongst professional programmers as an 'S.E.P.' - somebody else's problem."Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
became popular because when it was developed at Bell Labs "profits were somebody else's problem," so there was no reason not to share the source code with universities.
In fiction
Douglas AdamsDouglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
has his character Ford Prefect
Ford Prefect (character)
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...
describe Somebody Else's Problem in Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams...
, the third book in the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
series:
In this case, the Starship Bistromath ("a small upended Italian bistro" with "guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches") has been hidden from the crowd watching a Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
match at Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
by an SEP field. People may see it, but they take absolutely no notice of it.
The book says that the SEP field is derived from Bistromathics and in particular the concept of an imaginary number called a "recipriversexcluson" whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself. Modern science has been slow to investigate this further, though Professor John Wettlaufer (of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
) has apparently observed that it is very important for physicists working outside the mainstream "to have a genuine interest in learning about someone else's problem." However, he admitted that "not many people want to do this."
See also
- ExternalityExternalityIn economics, an externality is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices, incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit...
- NIMBYNIMBYNIMBY or Nimby is an acronym for the phrase "not in my back yard". The term is used pejoratively to describe opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development close to them. Opposing residents themselves are sometimes called Nimbies...
(Not In My Back Yard) - Tragedy of the commonsTragedy of the commonsThe tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...
- First they came…