A Swedish “social experiment” has shown only one person of 53 reacting to what seemed like a scene of domestic abuse in a lift.
The video was posted by an organisation called STHLM Panda, which describes itself as “doing social experiments, joking with people and documenting the society we live in”. Their most recent posts include a Halloween prank and another prank in an elevator.
But their latest video takes on a more serious tone. They set up a hidden camera in a lift while members of the group played an abusive boyfriend and his victim. The male actors swore at the women and physically assaulted them while members of the public were in the lift.
One shouted, while pinning the woman to the wall: “You are not worth anything, I hope you get that! You’re not worth anything!”
Most of the lift’s passengers ignored the abuse, with one woman saying: “I’m here too. Please let me get off first.”
Only one intervened. “I’m gonna call the police if you touch her again,” she said.
STHLM Panda said she was the only one to react out of 53 people who got into the lift while they were running the social experiment.
Konrad Ydhage, who runs the channel with Olle Öberg and appears in the video playing one of the abusive partners, told the Guardian: “We made this video to test domestic violence and violence in close relations and to see if people react when they really need to.”
He added that they did not expect so few people to react. “We were expecting that about 50% would intervene. I was prepared to take a hit by the bigger lads who entered the lift. But sadly enough they walked out on the girl.”
