Rubber-necking and empathy.

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My dad said 'you better have a look at this house'... He was told by his friends but hasn't gone to see it yet.

At the end of my street there was a house that was having various extensions and basement conversion done. There was some accident and the house has collapsed, injuring the workers that were in there. This was just this morning. There was a helicopter circling overhead and several ambulances.

I thought do I really want to go look at this house? I'm sure it is bad. Why do I want to gorp at them stretchering out the injured?

I was wondering why people rubber neck car crashes and disasters? What is it that fascinates them so much? Sometimes they seem get so excited, I wonder if they have lost the plot. Is it some sort of retrograde empathy? I always viewed it as the opposite but I could be wrong.

I think it's more Morbid Curiosity then anything

It doesn't sound like empathy at all; unless people wish to "feel" the pain of the scene that they haven't experienced directly (it switches over to sympathy when it's something that they've experienced personally).

It's Morbid Curiosity. Same thing that makes us watch the news and Jerry Springer with equal avidness. The need to feel as if someone might have it worse than us. Of course with Jerry Springer the added bonus is being able to point and laugh at the human condition that is more disreputable and distasteful than our own.