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A new study uses camera footage to track the frequency of bystander intervention
- woliveirajr 7y ago> Instead of more bystanders creating an immobilizing “bystander effect,” the study actually found the more bystanders there were, the more likely it was that at least someone would intervene to help. Perhaps with more people around one person considers that he will gain support, so the danger of acting will be minimized.
- Tehdasi 7y agoWould be interesting to see if it went up linearly or some other function of the number of ppl. Also, what do they define as a 'bystander'? If it's ppl with pre-existing relationships (which would not be clear from CC footage) it doesn't particularly go against the bystander effect.
- SubiculumCode 7y agoYes, I wonder how they distinguished someone being alone or with friends, as that would be important.
- intended 7y agoOr simply that in this case, the bystander effect didn’t occur. It’s also why today when something goes wrong, people are told to look directly at specific people and say “call the cops”/ “hold their head” and so on,
- Nition 7y agoOr that the bystander effect did occur, but that X% of people aren't affected by it, and in a larger group it becomes more likely that one of those X% of people will be around.
- scarejunba 7y agoOr maybe we all learnt about the bystander effect and were inoculated against it! :)
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago"call the cops and tell me when they will arrive" (in order to get feedback and ensure the caller relays the emergency nature of the situation).
- ALittleLight 7y agoI think both could be true. Consider T to be the likelihood an individual will intervene, N the number of individuals, and P the probability of an intervention. N, T = 1, 0.5 then P = 0.5 N, T = 10, 0.2 then P = (1-.8^10) = 0.9 Basically, the likelihood of an average individual to intervene may decline as there are more people, but the likelihood that at least one individual does intervene increases as crowd size does.
- wnevets 7y agoisn't it also possible the fact that alot of people have heard of the bystander effect they more willing to do something because they believe no one else will?
- eridius 7y agoYou could also argue the opposite: That because the bystander effect is well-known now, surely that means other people in the crowd will be more willing to act, and therefore you don't have to.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoOr your lack of helping is normal and so is excusable and one motivation (fear of doing wrong) is depleted.
- c3534l 7y agoThis article incorrectly claims that the bystander effect is when a group of people are less likely to help than an individual, when in fact the bystander effect is when an individual becomes less likely to act in the presence of a crowd. The article repeatedly makes this claim, but it's not hard to look up how the bystander effect is described and defined to see how completely wrong this is.
- hydrox24 7y ago> This article incorrectly claims that the bystander effect is when a group of people are less likely to help than an individual You are right. On the other hand, it may well be the correct popular definition of 'bystander effect'. Pop-sci (and pop-psych in particular) terms have a habit of being subtly redefined in the process of research→book→podcast→watercooler.
- paulgerhardt 7y agoCould you list some examples? I often see this happen with people mischaracterizing the Dunning-Kruger effect around the watercooler but I’m having trouble coming up with any other cases.
- aaron695 7y agoPop-Sci 'Jevons paradox' and 'Braess's paradox' They're commonly misused and misunderstood when trying to apply to real life. So much so I've never seen an example of either that applies to real life. They are purely theoretical oddities, but often used to try and claim obtuse points.
- stupidcar 7y agoUm, what? The article doesn’t do this at all. This is straight from the 2nd paragraph: “The “bystander effect” holds that the reason people don’t intervene is because we look to one another. The presence of many bystanders diffuses our own sense of personal responsibility, leading people to essentially do nothing and wait for someone else to jump in” It’s clearly talking about individual behaviour in the presence of a crowd. You basically restated this exact point, then claimed the article didn’t make it!
- Jerry2 7y agoIt's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-replicated-100-psychology-studies-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...
- pfundstein 7y agoSocietal norms are constantly evolving; what is normal today might have been unthinkable in the past when these studies were conducted.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- de_watcher 7y agoOr the surveillance cameras have pushed people to act because it looks awesome on youtube.
- rubber_duck 7y agoI think awareness of the effect changes the behavior more - at least for me - I usually wouldn't act in situations where someone needed help because I don't feel particularly qualified but knowing that nobody else is likely to respond I try to help. This makes social science even less reliable.
- jsjw7sbw 7y ago> nobody else is likely to respond They are now. But maybe after some time everyone will think someone will help them anyway and stop. And so the cycle continues.
- throwaw8 7y agoIf the bystander effect did exist, even the ambient possibility that you might be under surveillance at any given moment (as might be felt increasingly around the world, in 2019, regardless of who you are, time or place) seems like it would make dramatically less likely that the effect would actually occur.
- blondin 7y agototally un-scientific but i just feel like things like "identitism", "communitism", nationalism, etc. have been on the rise in the past decade for some reason. and by protecting the group they belong to, people also end up protecting individual making up these groups.
- ganesh7 7y agoOf course the real problem is the uplifting attitude that is written. Where really violent crime is happening as now in Western European cities, London, Berlin, etc. people got to know the very real consequences of 'intervening' frequently resulting in seriously harming oneself or even getting killed. There have been instances where the police was not able to help. There are regular occurances of rescue teams being attacked to prevent them rescuing the victims of attacks. The even started a campaign to promote not attacking rescuers. Also, in a democracy the use of force is supposed to lie with the administration only and of course there should only be very limited room for 'bystanders' 'to self-police to protect their communities and others' unfortunately we know the opposite is true.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoHmm, searching around for the type of statistics you are talking about, I get articles to a couple of anecdotal stories that are frequently repeated on sites like Jihad Watch, Voice of Europe, RT, etc. Unless you can provide some actual statistics, I would dismiss this as unfounded far-right propaganda.
- thinkingemote 7y agoIt's conflating a couple of recent examples (london bridge knife terror attack trial reports is one) where the police protect themselves and wait for backup but the public try to intervene against their orders and trying to imply there's an agenda by the police to let these things happen.
- cf141q5325 7y agoThe attacks on firefighters and medics have been increasing at least in Germany, though finding reporting about it is a bit difficult since politicians used it a s a pretext to change the level of penalty for attacks on medics and firefighters and included cops in the category. Especially including the last group but not doctors and nurses in clinics makes it look more like another law and order push then anything else. As such statistics often tend to group together cops with first responders, which makes any comparison useless. This is especially problematic since its a historical logical loop in Germany to charge people getting beaten up by cops for attacking a police officer. If they hadnt attacked a police officer it would have been illegal for the cop to beat them up and the prosecutor would be forced to charge the officer for assault. If there is however a open case against the victim, the charges will get dropped most of the time or at least paused in especially controversial cases till after the trial is over. As such you are highly incentivized to never report a cop for assault, especially as even statements of singular police officers get routinely valued higher then reports from multiple bystanders who dont know the victim. If you dont have a tape of what happened your chances of going to jail are high. This isnt something limited to protests and other large public events, there is an infamous case where police officers mixed up a 60yo translator assigned to a suspect with being connected to the accused and she ended beaten up in a police station and charged with attacking police officers. She was lucky that the judge believed her medical examiner that the reports of the cops at the station couldnt be true given the evidence. The other witnesses disagreeing with that story would have likely not been enough. The charges for assault against the cops were however dropped as usual. German source: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/prozess-um-gewalt-auf-der-polizeiwache-todesangst-auf-dem-revier-1.1323005 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/prozess-um-gewalt-auf-d... You can find statistics about attacks on firefighters and medics (and not police officers) here for Bavaria (in German though but just scroll to the first graph) https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/gewalt-gegen-rettungskraefte-das-sagen-die-zahlen,RFEiEx2 https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/gewalt-gegen-rettungskr... It is more problematic then the shown increase from 250/265 to 327 since medics and firefighter representatives mention a high number of unreported cases. The article mentions a survey among 800 of them had 92% reporting getting insulted or threatened and 1/4 getting physically attacked during the last 12 month. Link to the study in the article is unfortunately down.
- irjustin 7y agoI'm confused here. What is the Bystander Effect? > The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, including ambiguity, group cohesiveness, and diffusion of responsibility that reinforces mutual denial of a situation's severity. Does that mean each individual is like likely to help _individually_ or does it mean that each _situation_ have less intervention? Because if we're measuring individual response, then sure, I agree - if I'm hurt, I don't want 10 people rushing to me anyway. i.e. if 1 bystander with 1x persons intervening = 100% response and then 2 bystanders with 1x persons intervening = 50% response...... I think this is a terrible way to measure it. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
- jacobolus 7y agoThe claim is that when there are several people standing around and some emergency arises, everyone will just assume someone else is going to help, and no one will end up helping.
- inlined 7y agoI’ve been taught multiple times that due to the bystander effect, should you take command of a situation and need to delegate you should always delegate specifically (e.g. tell one person to call 911 rather than shouting that someone should)
- eridius 7y agoWhile that's certainly good advice, I don't think that's really a "bystander effect" correction as it is if there's multiple people and nobody takes charge then nothing gets organized, and if you don't delegate specifically then nobody knows who you're talking to and this produces confusion.
- 7y ago
- inlined 7y agoThe article only uses footage from a few cities of Western culture. Good Samaritan laws are not universal and the lack of one can have a chilling effect on whether people will help. This is especially prominent in China where there are a number of famous cases where the victim sued the Good Samaritan claiming they caused the damages. It’s so prevalent that Alibaba is trying to help promote social good by offering insurance in case you help the elderly and are sued for it: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-china-good-samaritan-insurance-20151020-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-china-good-samari...
- kalleboo 7y agoFear of legal retaliation and the Bystander Effect are two different things through. The bystander effect is supposedly a psychological phenomena where if you're in a crowd you feel less personal responsibility. If people's thinking is short-circuited by legal considerations, you can't study the natural psychological phenomena.
- thereare5lights 7y agoThat's not the bystander effect though. In China, they're afraid of legal repercussions. In the bystander effect, it's diffusion of responsibility. Same effect but different causes.
- inlined 7y agoFair and interesting point. The same outcome is irrelevant to the supposed phenomenon that causes it, though the study wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
- goto11 7y agoThe infamous murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 was reported the medias as 38 witnesses in an apartment block saw or heard the murder but none did anything to save her, not even call the police. In 2007 someone digged into the story and discovered that this was wildly exaggerated. Only a few witnesses has seen the violence and they did in fact call the police - the police just didn't respond in a timely manner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese Of course the original story resonated because it played into the eternal narrative that people "these days" don't care about each other, society is falling apart etc.
- yrro 7y agoA lie can truly travel around the world three times before the truth has got its boots on.
- mehrdadn 7y agoThat sounds less like "wildly exaggerated" and more like just plain wrong in every way.
- jnty 7y agoIt's not a coincidence that the 'original story' completely elides any negligence or wrongdoing by the police.
- eli 7y agoOn The Media did a good episode on this https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/131359-the-witnesses-that-didnt https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/131359-the-witnesses-that-...
- mcqueenjordan 7y agoI know this is an "armchair academic" comment, but I wonder if `places that are likely to have active surveillance` strongly intersects with `places that the bystander effect is less likely`. In other words, I wonder if there's a crippling selection bias. The reason I think this is possible is because I'm way more likely to help someone if I don't think I'm endangering myself by doing so. Areas that are actively surveilled are probably more likely to be safe areas for me to do so.
- treerock 7y agoCould possibly have the opposite effect? I believe the study showed that the probability of any individual getting involved increases if there is no-one else present. i.e. they are the only one who can help. Surveillance cameras might make people feel someone else will take responsibility.
- eridius 7y agoSurveillance cameras do not correlate with "not in danger". It's not like people are watching these things in real time and jumping to action when they see something. After all, if that were the case, then there'd be no reason for bystanders to even get involved in these incidents at all.
- mcqueenjordan 7y agoI'm not as confident as you that they "do not correlate with not in danger." And I'm much less confident that they don't correlate with "perception of danger." They definitely correlate with a lot of things. They correlate with buildings and power lines. And other things. And I think some of those things correlate with perception of safety.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoUK cities have surveillance cameras with control rooms where people sit and watch, real time, and take action. Some have audio connections to allow voice communication too. Or they did a few years ago, it's possible the police budget restrictions from "austerity" have put an end to it, but AFAIK it still happens.
- feanaro 7y agoTwo things: - Cameras may have caused the Hawthorne effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect - The article (the news one, haven't read the original yet) talks about the increase of probability that some bystander will act, with increase in group size. The bystander effect study talks about the decrease of probability that a particular individual will act, with decrease in group size. These two things may very well both be true and there may be some non-linear effect at play (i.e. after a certain group size, the increase in the probability of someone acting wins out over the decrease in any one person acting.
- NegatioN 7y agoWe should also consider that if there's a larger crowd of bystanders, an individual will feel more sure that others will help them as long as they act. "Safety in numbers" so to say.
- benj111 7y agoI would guess there's a goldilocks zone. To many and it becomes impersonal so people can walk away. Too few and people don't feel assured of getting back-up?
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoMy first experience I put down to bystander effect: I was giving first-aid to a guy with severe lacerations to his hand/arm and didn't want to leave him (partially panic on my behalf) - in a UK city, albeit a side-road, with shops and people walking past - but needed to call for an ambulance. Nobody would stop and help: "Help! I need you to call an ambulance." and people just carried on walking. In the end I was able to makeshift a bandage with some clothing and leave the guy sitting on the floor long enough to use the phone in the shop I was working at. The ambulance, despite having the address and business name, drove past and I ended up running after it down the street ... overall an awful experience and very eye-opening. My takeaway is that I'd give up much sooner seeking help from others, depressing as that is, and - contrary to my first-aid training - leave the patient and call an ambulance myself. Aside: I wonder if there's a villager/townie effect too?
- your-nanny 7y agoJust noting here that there is no necessary contradiction between the probability of at least one bystander helping increasing with number of bystanders, and the individual propensity of helping going down with an increasing number of bystanders, even assuming that people have the same propensity function.
- your-nanny 7y agoDoes the paper account for whether bystanders knew the individuals involved? You can't treat a group of people on the street as an unstructured independent sample...
- Tharkun 7y agoThis is all anecdata, but the article and the study are totally contrary to my experience. Over the years I've witnessed a variety of incidents where bystanders did nothing -- however once someone makes the first move, it seems to become easier for others to lend a hand. When I was a teen, I dated someone who was a red cross volunteer, which prompted me to take a couple of first aid classes. This has easily been the most useful subject I've ever studied. I've been witness to a suicide attempt, a cardiac arrest in a bar, an elderly lady who fell down the stairs at the opera, several cases of guys beating on their wives in public, two drunken attempted robberies, a variety of (literal) gay bashing, random subway violence, and oodles of shit I can't recall. The latest was two weeks ago: a hit and run with a teen victim with a very nasty headwound. In every one of those cases, no one did anything. The old lady at the opera was the worst, I hadn't seen it happen, but I noticed a crowd of people on the staircase on my way out. Maybe 20 people standing around her in a circle. I asked if anyone had called for an ambulance yet, and no one even gave a coherent response... I've also been the victim of a random assault, in a very busy park in broad daylight, and no one helped out. No one even dialed the emergency number, no one even approached me to ask whether I was ok afterwards. There were probably around a hundred witnesses. I don't know whether this is a regional problem; most of these incidents occurred in Belgium. Belgians aren't the most outgoing or the most eager to take risks in general, but still. Don't count on others to make the first move. Learn first aid and help out whenever someone is in trouble. Even if it does mean you'll be late for that important meeting or you could get blood on your shirt. Violence is a bit trickier; what's worked well in my experience is to walk up to the aggressor, but to pick someone else from the crowd and plainly tell them "give me a hand". That gets the ball rolling. Edit/addendum: every time something like this happens, I get an adrenaline rush and am scared out of my mind. I'm sure this happens to the other witnesses as well. I get it, it's hard to push through that, but do it anyway.
- mrmonkeyman 7y agoWhere the fuck do you live? Somalia, Rwanda, USA?
- CalRobert 7y agoIt's laudable to stop violence, but "lainly tell them "give me a hand". That gets the ball rolling." is pretty tough. People have lots of reasons to not get involved in physical altercations and plenty of them are valid, so you're putting a pretty big burden on them.
- ptero 7y agoCultural background probably has a lot of influence on this. Where I grew up (a small city in Eastern Europe) it would be unthinkable not to intervene in many cases (although some things like gang or drunk fights would be excluded). The mentality in a capital would be completely different. As people move their habits can significantly influence prior "general findings".
- simonh 7y agoAnd yet this study took place in a capital city, a major urban centre and a country tow, but found no significant difference in the results between them. That's despite big differences in the local crime and violence rates (I expect Cape Town being the outlier).
- xyproto 7y agoCape Town has some areas that feel like an European town and some areas just filled with home-made sheds. I imagine that the crime rates are different in the places where there are actually cameras.
- zambal 7y agoTwo capital cities to be precise. Cape Town is one of the three capital cities of South Africa.
- miguelmota 7y agoAre the surveillance cameras clearly visible and the bystanders are aware of them? I wonder if the bystanders would react differently if they weren't aware that they are being recorded. Another thing I wonder is if they refuse to help then maybe they think there'll be repercussions like being ostracized when the footage goes public.
- jbverschoor 7y agoI do think the bystander effect is true. But not always. It’s part of the zeitgeist. In the past, people were more assertive. Then we became sheep somehow. And recently I noticed that people know they have to do something.
- pure-awesome 7y agoI had a realization the last time we had a fire drill: It wasn't scheduled, so when the alarm went off, we all looked at each other for a few moments like "is the siren just on the fritz or should we walk out?" After awhile we decided we'd better get going so we all lazily strolled outside. On the way, I noticed one of my coworkers in a fire marshal uniform, in the corridor, calling out for people to evacuate. I realized this is a perfect way to prevent the bystander effect: just give a random person a "uniform" (a whistle, a badge, a hat, or a vest, anything simple like that works) and tell them that when the alarm goes off, they are responsible for telling people to leave. It's as simple as that. Instead of us staring at each other trying to decide whether the group considers it serious enough to go along with, just having that person singled out as the "official" one was enough to get the momentum going.
- ohazi 7y agoRelatedly, if you ever need to delegate something like a 911 call, you're supposed to single out a person and tell them, specifically "you, go dial 911" rather than shouting "someone call 911!" Apparently this makes it far more likely to actually happen.
- groestl 7y agoAlso, if possible, touch that person while telling them to call 911 - helps them get moving if they are petrified.
- technothrasher 7y agoTouching somebody while asking them to do something for you works in most situations, not just a traumatic one. It creates a heightened level of intimacy, which makes the other person feel more obligated to help.
- techdmn 7y agoThis sets off pretty big alarm bells for me. Touching people is a pretty personal thing, and doing it with ulterior motives seems wrong. P.S. Don't touch me.
- 36268 7y agoGreat
- squirrel 7y agoA relevant, classic bystander-effect experiment (Darley and Latane 1968) put several participants, all subjects of the experiment, in a waiting room. Smoke began to come into the room through a vent. In most groups, no one acted for a very long time, even after the smoke led to breathing problems for participants. By contrast, when only one person was in the room, not a group, that person would almost always leave the room or call for assistance. Differences from the OPs (very interesting) study: 1. In the smoke room, participants know they are in an experimental setting, though they do not know that the waiting room is part of the experiment. 2. The entire group is visible in the waiting room. (In a crowd outside, you don’t know who else might be acting or watching. In the waiting room you can see that no one else is doing anything.) 3. The threat is to you personally as well as to the others in the group - an injury or a fight involving others is less personally affecting than smoke that is making you cough in an enclosed room. 4. D & L experimented with small groups including a single person and saw dramatically different results in the latter case. I’d be interested in seeing what happens late at night when there are just one or two people around - what do the camera show then? Of these I suspect 2) has the greatest effect. If I see that literally no one in the room is doing anything, I may figure that the situation is probably under control or isn’t a big deal. In a big crowd outdoors I can’t draw that conclusion as clearly.
- gowld 7y agoWhenever I'm in a group like that, people start turning heads, looking at each other, asking if they smell/see it, what do you think it is, etc, and then leaving or reporting it somewhere.
- watwut 7y agoCould it be that in 1968 you felt social pressure to keep cool and calm and unafraid? In that experiment, the presence of "confederates", people who cooperated with experimenters made everyone much more passive. In 2019 you feel social pressure to act to look responsible and less pressure to look unafraid, so we think differently.
- blauditore 7y agoBesides the dangers of getting involved, it's sometimes hard to tell whether something is a serious incident or just people fooling around. I've seen both sides of this: Guys I assumed to be friends jokingly greeting each other while in fact one was starting a serious fight and the other one was too drunk to react appropriately. At some other time, I saw a woman yelling at a man, while he was somehow holding her. Seconds later, they were laughing and walking off side by side.
- leptoniscool 7y agoFaith in humanity: restored.
- whazor 7y agoMost people I know are conceptually aware of the bystander-effect. It could be that awareness stops the effect.
- vhollis 7y agoThere are two issues with how this study is discussed and it may not be a reproducibility issue exactly. 1) published in american psychology - samples europeans and south africans... Without sampling Americans where the effect was first displayed I don’t think we can call it ‘largely a myth’. There are huge potential cultural factors here for why someone might intervene or not. 2) There’s a sampling issue. Looking at police reports means committed crimes, while something intervened may not be reported to the police
- aravindgp 7y agoIts absolutely amazing finding....it teaches to trust more and be little more secure someone out there will take care of me if in trouble. That kind of gives so much sense of hope and debunk that "fear stranger" or "no one is gonna help you" myth which pertuated for decades.
- dang 4y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20200216101523/https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/07/bystander-effect-stranger-danger-crime-public-safety-video/593755/ http://web.archive.org/web/20200216101523/https://www.cityla...