Bystander By James Preller: Chapter Analysis

If you happen to be the bystander, your success comes from knowing not to get involved or not to get too involved, lest you yourself become an actual bully or a victim. You may even be blessed with the cherished gift of self-denial, and in such case, you are able to dismiss any vague notions that your inaction makes you complicit in the bully's trespass. Still you are human: you have an opinion, you have feelings about the matter. Maybe you sympathize with one of the sides. Maybe you wish you had the guts to be that way. Maybe you're just afraid you'll get hurt. Maybe you have something to lose; maybe that something is so valuable you're not willing to gamble it. Maybe you simply feel guilty for not getting involved. Or, maybe all you feel is relief -- relief that it's not you. Makes no difference, the bystander just stands there. Hence the name. Oh, you may be emotionally conflicted, but being a bystander is really the safest place to be. Consequently, bystanders often opt to remain bystanders.

People may not realize it, but bystanders play a huge role in bullying. By not stepping in or telling someone about it, they are making the problem worse. A bystander intervening could stop someone from getting hurt, and even prevent bullying from happening in the future. If a bystander does not say or do anything about it, they are contributing to the issue. There are more bystanders than there are bullies, so it is their choice to help or hurt the situation.

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 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

If you saw someone being attacked on the street, would you help? Many of us would quickly say yes we would help because to state the opposite would say that we are evil human beings. Much research has been done on why people choose to help and why others choose not to. The bystander effect states that the more bystanders present, the less likely it is for someone to help. Sometimes a bystander will assume that because no one else seems concerned, they shouldn't be (Senghas, 2007). Much of the research that has been done supports this definition of the bystander effect. There have also been recent situations where this

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

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.

To begin with, bystanders choose not to help the victim. According to Source 4, they just stand by and watch. They usually do this because they are afraid to get in trouble or become bullied too. This tells the victim that they don't matter and that this is okay. Making the victim feel upset may cause them to harm their self or even become a bully. If someone does decide to help the bully out, the bystander will exclude them from their group of friends. That is how bystander choose not to help the bully.

It states that when the amount of bystanders increases, the likelihood of one of the bystanders assisting drastically decreases. Many feel that if they have no obligation to help they should not, almost as if it's none of their business. To victims, a bystander who doesn’t take action is as equally evil as the perpetrator. The easiness of laughing along with others, or acting as if you saw nothing is correlated to the fact that it is easier than ever to be influenced in today’s society. Too often, ignoring the humiliation of another is seen. It may be the easy way out, however, it is certainly not the morally correct way

Chapter three - How people can prevent bullying from happening. What can you do if you are the Bystander?

However, the biggest thing to do with these type of situations is not to be a bystander, but rather to take action. People who stand up and speak out are the citizens who are helping to decrease the number of sexual assault cases in our nation and acting as role models to help the victims cope.

Bystanders accept bullying by watching and doing nothing to resolve a conflict. Just like how the U.S. knew the Holocaust was happening but didn’t get involved. Even though no one got involved, it still contributed to the problem. It contributed to making the one causing it feel powerful.

That the need to fit in by participating doesn’t make them a bad person, that statement is of little consequence to the victims or their families. Excuses made by parents, bystanders, and the community no longer hold up in a legal setting. Hearing anti-bullying messages from the different adults in their lives can reinforce the message for kids that bullying is unacceptable. More than half of bullying situations (57%) stop when a peer intervenes on behalf of the student being bullied (Hawkins, Pepler, & Craig, 2001. Prevention is

In the outsider chapter 7 Darry Sodapop and Ponyboy were waiting in the waiting room in the hospital, then the reporters and police came in and started asking Ponyboy and Sodapop how Johnny and Dally were doing. Ponyboy got confused, so Darry told them to slow down. Then one reporter asked Ponyboy If you could do one thing right now what would it be? And Ponyboy said he would take a bath.

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