Literature Review: Behavioural Responses of Student Bystanders in Situations of Bullying

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.

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

Cyber bullying and face-to-face bullying are to major concerns in today’s society, the movie Mean Girls and the novel Destroying Avalon have themes about bullying in them. The texts show us how more people can be affected by certain types of bullying as well as how it can change behaviour and how bullying can build up to physical violence.

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

Bullying is defined as an intentional act that causes harm to others, and may involve verbal harassment, verbal or non-verbal threats, physical assault, stalking, or other methods of coercion such as manipulation, blackmail, or extortion. Without a doubt bullying, has become an increasing epidemic among individuals today. “The bulling cycle,” according to Dan Olweus, a world-renowned psychologist from Norway, there needs to be three individuals or groups of people involved: the bully, the victim and the bystander. The process begins with simple taunts and can escalate into behavior requiring legal intervention. In fact, several cases have been presented to courts for both criminal and civil prosecution. Another key factor in the progression of bullying cases is the internet. Today’s bullies need not be physically present

Bullying is a problem that is on the rise in society; however, many individuals have a distorted view of what bullying entails. Usually when someone thinks of bullying, they assume that it is a standard part of a child’s life. This view, on the contrary, is erroneous. Bullying is actually abnormal behavior, many times, leaving victims with a dismantled self identity. Since some people do not understand the consequences of bullying, the actions of the bully often go unnoticed and are perceived as “kids being kids”. The issue of bullying goes deeper than that nevertheless. Despite the erroneous views that many individuals hold towards bullying, it is still a distortion of normal behavior in children.

It is also known that bystanders play an important role in encouraging or discouraging the bully. Bystanders can be "active" by laughing and cheering on

In the journal article “ The Bystander Intervention In Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility” by John M. Darley and Bibb Latane performed the study in order to see how individuals the bystanders would react in a serious situation where a victim is being harmed or is in painful situation. The researchers wanted to determine how the bystander(s) fulfilled their responsibility in a conflict with other observers being around the same conflict. The research question of this study is that how do individuals react and respond to a conflict, while being responsible to assit help? The researchers stated the hypothesis as, “ The more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide the aid” (Darley & Latane,

The bystander doesn’t care about the victim get beat up or taunted at. Put your self’s in their shoes and see how bad

They have the power to either help or make the situation worse. Where victims and bullies are directly involved, bystanders think that avoiding the conflict altogether is either the right move or the best thing for them personally. A bystander is someone who either knows about a bullying situation or sees the situation. The role of a bystander can have two directions; it can either be positive by creating a supportive environment or negative (Mediasmarts.ca, 2016). A bystander can be negative by ignoring the cyberbullying or thinking "at least it’s not me". Being a bystander can be negative as more often than not, bystanders merely watch instead of doing something (Mediasmarts.ca, 2016). This is dangerous as by just being a part of a social media or other online space, you may give a cyberbully an incentive to embarrass or threaten a victim because the bully will have an audience.This is most likely to happen due to being afraid of being cyberbullied themselves. If a bystander chooses not to help, they are consequently not creating a supportive environment as they are not taking action on the situation and therefore the cyberbullying continues. However, being a bystander can be a really positive aspect as they can take action and support the victim or encourage other people to take a stand against anyone who bullies and support the victim (Us.reachout.com,

Though it’s a lesson taught frequently in the education system, the impact of bystander intervention, particularly by people who don’t know those that they are helping, cannot be understated. It’s important to recognize some of the obstacles that prevent bystanders from acting, particularly when they are in a group, and then to overcome that resistance and help those in need. As a society, we have begun normalizing bystander intervention, and it’s imperative that we continue to encourage others to be responsible for intervening on the behalf of others (Source

Cherry, F. (1995) cited in Burr, V. chapter eight Bystander intervention in Critical Readings in Social Psychology second edition (2012) Landridge, D. Taylor, S. and Mahendran, K. The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes

As shown in Fischer et al.(2011) bystanders will more likely to provide help, when they are with the people familiar with rather that strangers, because the partners can give supportive to each other in order to reduce the negative consequences, regulate negative emotions and also can communicate to increase the decision-making in order cooperate to help the victim. This is applicable for our respondents because almost all of them provide help with the partners accompany them. However, researcher mentioned when bystanders having the conversation among them, there may have bystander effect

The first aspect of the bystander effect is the shared responsibility, but according to research by K. Thomas et. al (2016) a more important

This paper will teach people how the Bystander Effect, affects the bullies and everyone around them. The Bystander effect encourages bullies to continue to torment others. Most people do not know that standing by and watch, that they are telling the bully or attacker to continue if whatever