Kate Winslet and Ryan Gosling have the stuff of heroes. How about the rest of us?

Los Angeles Times:

It’s the stuff movies are made of, but this time it was real life: Actress Kate Winslet reportedly rescued billionaire Richard Branson’s elderly mother from a burning home on Branson’s private island in the Caribbean. And actor Ryan Gosling allegedly put himself in the middle of a heated New York City street fight, breaking it up.

Should we consider these two celebrities heroes? And are most other people capable of the same — of putting themselves in harm’s way to help someone else?

Frank Farley, a psychologist and professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, is not surprised that actors, who often play heroes on the big screen, also might take on the role in real life. They may inherently have the right stuff to be a “situational hero,” he said.

Read the whole story: Los Angeles Times