Imagine being at your locker and a kid across the hall was being pushed around by a group of big guys, would you just stand there and watch an innocent person being bullied or would you step in and stand up for him? Most teens are bystanders who witness bullying and don’t think to step in and break it up. Some people are too scared or just don’t care about what is happening and what they could have done to stop it. Being a bystander can be either good or bad depending on what they do. Most teens are bystanders who don’t do anything because they don’t want to get hurt or judged for it. Some teens do something because it is the right thing to do and they want to help. " In truth, as many as 25 percent of American schoolchildren continue to be
In the book Bystander, Eric, the protagonist, was a bystander, who noticed about bullying but, never did anything about it. Eric learned to take action for what is right to prevent from bullying and not be a bystander. As Eric realized that he was a bystander, he learned to stand up and confront the bullies.
In the book "Bystander", written by James Preller, it talks about not just the bully and victims but the other roles, such as Bystanders and allies. In chapter 20, a gathered group of boys discuss their responses to Griffin's unreasonable and illogical behavior. Their reasons for doing nothing include "The unreliability of authority figures to respond", "The threat of retaliation", "The victim, at least on some level, deserves it" , "It is human nature, the law of the jungle, and it will always persist", "It's better to stay out of it", "No one should rat out another student". These are ridiculous and absurd reason to be a bystander to such a unspeakable act. The main idea I would like to another reader to consider is advise others to not
The bully is normally very well known; someone who is just as, if not more, guilty is nearly undetectable. This person is a bystander, and according to Tales of Bullying, being a bystander is just as bad as bullying. Bystanders just join in on the laughing. They don’t even help; they just watch bullying like it’s some sort of comedy show. Bystanders can also be people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They can just as easily turn into a person who stands up to bullies, but they don’t. In the end bystanders are just as, if not more, guilty than the
Everyday humans are presented with new opportunities and situations. These events can change the way they think and make decisions. But it's the way it can change ones relationships that can really hurt one's ability to care. There is a total of 7.442 billion people alive today. Yet only a small portion of that are people one truly cares about. For many people, a specific setting, situation or emotion can alter the way people can think rationally.
Chapter three - How people can prevent bullying from happening. What can you do if you are the Bystander?
The Bystander effect is a controversial theory given to social phenomenon where the more potential helpers there are, the less likely any individual is to help. A traditional explanation for this Bystander Effect is that responsibility diffuses across the multiple bystanders, diluting the responsibility of each. (Kyle et al.) The Bystander effect, also known as the Genovese Syndrome, was created after the infamous murder of “Kitty” Catherine Genovese in 1964, on the streets of New York in front of thirty-seven witnesses. After studying the Genovese syndrome and doing research on how this phenomenon occurs today, it is clear The Bystander effect is not theory, but actually fact.
Psychological Research Into the Behaviour of Bystanders The first researchers to investigate systematically the circumstances in which bystanders are and are not likely to intervene to help others were Latane & Darley. The tragic case of Kitty Genovese in 1960s New York acted as a catalyst for research studies since the case highlighted concepts such as bystander apathy and the unresponsive bystander. Latane and Darley have shown through research that we are less likely to define a situation as being dangerous if other people are present, a phenomenon they called pluralistic ignorance. Latane and Darley performed a study, the 'smoke-filled room experiment', which demonstrates the power of
"What hurts the victim the most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander," says famous author, Elie Wiesel. According to "verywell.com," people have been bullied for their religion, skin color, and beliefs. This can cause kids to have poor self-esteem and become a bully themselves. Some kids, called bystanders, decide to sit and watch. But what's worse, bullies or bystanders? Bystanders are worse than bullies because they choose not to do anything, encourage the bully, can suffer from guilt, and face consequences for not helping.
In the 2007 article “the bystander effect” the author Dorothy Barkin’s was talking about the reasons why most people decide not to get involved in complex situations. Many think that the reasons maybe very obvious such as the fear of possible danger to one’s self or having to go through long legal proceedings. However, the author talks about two main reasons for such actions. The first being ambiguity, the fact the most people do not know how to evaluate different situations and there lays most for the decision making. As knowing what the problem that you are facing in that moment, that alone creates a high-pressure environment that most people would not like to be involved in. Not to mention, being able to help effectively
In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, twenty-eight year old barmaid Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was murdered and raped on the street in Kew Gardens, New York. The incident did not initially receive much attention until Martin Gansberg's infamous article, "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder, Didn't Call the Police", was published in the New York Times two weeks later. In reality, only twelve people witnessed the event yet each did nothing to significantly help Genovese until it was too late. The Genovese murder has become the definitive example of the "bystander effect", the social phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to help someone in distress if there are other people present. The bystander effect occurs wherever there is
“Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder But Didn’t Call the Police” is unfortunately a true story about citizens who witnessed their neighbor being assaulted and didn’t take action. The neighbor’s negligence perturbed me, and I had to look into it. The Samuel Merritt University refers to it as “The Bystander Effect” and explains it as “a diffusion of responsibility . . . the more people there are to witness an event, the less each individual feels personally responsible for doing something” (Samuel Merritt University, “Bystander Intervention & Prevention”). This article about Kitty Genovese and her selfish neighbors reminded me of a dispute I once saw between a small group and an individual. It wasn’t the fight that startled me, but the group of apprehensive
Children were put to work, and had many cruelties done to them if they were to
Today a lot of individuals are praised for their bravery and their heroism. A lot of
In this same journal researchers found that 41% of students say that they would step in and help a fellow classmate in need. However, in reality only about 1 in 4 actually do intervene (Flanagan and Stout, 2009). There is obviously some discretion between intention and behavior. Researchers are not sure what makes children decide to help or not to help. These young students are demonstrating the bystander effect. This journal also talks about bullying and why students will not tell teachers when a student is being bullied. Not much study has been done on this, but researches believe that it has much to do with the bystander effect.
When there is an emergency, why is taking out our phones to take a picture or video the very first thing we want to do? Why do we casually walk by a person who is in trouble, and go about our business as if we did not anyone? Why do we not help or act when someone is getting, but instead we just stand in a crowd and watch? Why do we bury our moral instincts during emergencies? “We witness a problem, consider positive action, and respond by doing nothing. Why do we not help in these situations and put our moral instincts in shackles” (Keltner & Marsh, 2017). We as people are bystanders to the world around us daily, but the question is why? The answer to all the “why” questions is the bystander effect.