Abigail (Abby) Marsh

But despite that, he crawled into the SUV, which was upside down at that point, and figured out how to extract the boy from the car and then sat by him and helped keep him calm while emergency rescuers got the rest of his family out of the car.

Absolutely.

His quotation was perfectly characteristic of how so many altruists and heroes describe their own actions.

What he said afterward was, people have to understand that God put us on this earth to help each other.

We're here to serve.

We're here to welcome.

We're here to love.

That's what we're supposed to be doing.

I'm just thankful to God because he let me do that today.

I think the implicit message was, it's not about me.

I'm not special.

I was just doing what any of us should do and what any of us could do in a similar situation.

Well, the researchers who study emotion know that there are different ways that you can appraise emotional situations or interpret those situations that do change the way that you're likely to act in those situations.

When you see a distressing situation, if somebody is in danger, for example, it's very upsetting.

And sometimes people tend to interpret those situations differently.

in a way that reduces their own negative feelings but doesn't induce them to act.

For example, there's probably nothing I can do.

Somebody else will help, for example.

But there are also hopeful ways that you could appraise situations like that.

For example, I bet that there's something I can do to alleviate that person's distress.