This was posted HERE on yahoo news. I could have linked to it but I wanted to put it all here. This really sums up how I feel about walking in NYC!! Really only the first few paragraphs matter as the rest gets a little deep into the research of it all. But still a good read. Enjoy!
For many residents of New York City, our bodies are our cars. So rather than engaging in “road rage” against slow or erratic drivers on a highway, New Yorkers descend into “sidewalk rage,” paroxysms of fury directed at people who exhibit irrational, obstructive walking behavior on Manhattan’s crowded concrete. But is this reaction a sign of mental illness – or could it perhaps reflect an evolutionary adaptation that may have enabled the development of cooperation? (More on Time.com: Five Ways to Stop Stressing)
I will admit personally to fits of pique when slow tourists fail to keep to the right, or insist on standing side-by-side on escalators, blocking the left-hand fast lane, like some of those described in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
That article came down on the side of sidewalk rage as psychiatric disorder. Shirley Wang writes:
Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder,” researchers say. On Facebook, there’s a group called “I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head” that boasts nearly 15,000 members.
For the rare folks who act out in dangerous ways, sidewalk or road rage may indeed signal illness. But the idea raises the much more interesting question of why so many otherwise normal people also feel the same intense emotion when navigating around slow hordes – and have to temper their impulses to act on their anger – in the first place. (More on TIME.com: Want to Improve Your Memory? Try Taking a Walk)
Which brings me to what researchers call “altruistic punishment.” While it sounds like an oxymoron, altruistic punishment is basically how social norms get enforced. So when you expel a huffy “Excuse me!” to the rude sidewalk clogger in front of you who has stopped midstride to check his BlackBerry, you’re trying to discourage behavior that endangers other members of the society. It’s called “altruistic” punishment, because your efforts to protect civility come at personal cost with little chance of personal benefit: you are far more likely to get an obscene gesture or even a punch in the mouth than a thank you.
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