Here's a slightly different spin on the old fake pregnancy prank. (Reality Rule 1.1 in
Hippo Eats Dwarf is "Just because a woman looks pregnant, it doesn't mean she is."
As a social experiment, the Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol made one of their operatives appear to be pregnant. Then they sent her to the state fair and had her
stand around in full view drinking beer. They wanted to see if anyone would say something to her about how she shouldn't drink alcohol while pregnant. They even had the woman approach strangers with her beer in hand and ask them to take photos of her drinking.
The result: No one said anything negative to her. In fact, a few people congratulated her for drinking while pregnant.
They concluded that the "Minnesota Nice" thing may have undermined their experiment.
Or perhaps the woman should have stood around doing vodka shots. That might have produced more of a reaction. Though this is the third time they've run the experiment (once at last year's state fair and once in a downtown bar), and the other times they did get a few negative remarks.
However, from the perspective of social psychology, I'd say that the non-response is most likely a manifestation of the
Unresponsive Bystander Effect. In situations involving large crowds, people are very reluctant to step forward and offer help (or criticism). There's the natural tendency to assume that it's someone else's responsibility. The non-response also becomes self-perpetuating. People take their cues from those around them. So if no one reacts to a situation, everyone assumes it's because there's no problem.
Comments
Perhaps they should have had her actually holding an obvious beer can or bottle to her lips instead of a glass filled with what could have been soda pop, koolaid of other yellow fluid. In this case she didn't appear to be slurring her words on the video which would support the idea that she was only drinking a soft drink.
A pregnant woman is also laden with odd female hormonal flushing adding alcohol could also be a dangerous combination to approach too. Also in this case she was accompanied only by another female (where's the father? might cross a stranger's mind) suggesting a volatile person.
People have learned to be more tolerant in public unless they see a 'clear and present danger' happening. For most of those at the fair this was to be a day of forgetting problems, not inviting another since even a pregnant woman is capable of attack, or throwing the drink in someone's face. Approaching her could easily equate to provocation.
I have been in a position where strangers and aquaintances have made moral judgements on actions I have taken and I'll tell you what - it pissed me off. What I do in my personal life is none of their concern.
As rule 1.1 points out, just because a woman looks pregnant, doesn't mean she is. As Huli pointed out, it wasn't even 100% clear what the woman was drinking. She wasn't doing something illegal, she wasn't beating a kid black and blue. As morally reprehensible that I find drinking while pregnant to be, I don't think it's up to me to be the one to confront a complete stranger about it. I'd rather leave that up to her doctor or her family.
IF you were sure she was drinking alcohol
IF you were sure she was pregnant
IF you were sure that an unsolicited opinion would be taken graciously.