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Melinda's avatar

I was on a flight recently where two parents sat together and their two kids sat in the row in front of them. Each row was three seats. When the flight attendant figured it out and realized the man with the two kids was a stranger she made the parents rearrange, so they each had a child within reach (kids were probably 8 and 10). The parents asked why, and she said in an emergency situation the kids wouldn’t be able to reach the oxygen masks, and would pass out within four seconds. She then asked if they wanted to leave those four seconds in the hands of a stranger, and the parents quickly got up. Sharing to say your son made a polite but also a potentially safety minded choice!

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Robin Fredericksen's avatar

This story about your reaction and your conclusion sounds like a description of fundamental attribution error. A good thing for us all to be cognizant of.

https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/fundamental-attribution-error

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