More on the Bystander Effect...

LAST month I presented an article called Kitty Genovese and Me. It detailed the study of a murder in New York in 1964 where a young lady was stabbed to death in front of a bunch of people and it was believed no one did anything. Some studies were done about it and it was named Genovese Syndrome after the murder. These days it's more commonly known as The Bystander Effect. 

A while back I noticed the FBI had done a recent study on it and put it on several sights. Recently in my peer group there has been a lot of discussion about it and people wondering what they needed to do and when to act. Some still don't understand the psychology and what it really means to act and what it says when you’re just a bystander. Even though we covered pretty much the whole thing in the original article I feel a follow up is needed. Watch the below videos before we continue.

)

These are some of the more well known incidents as of late. I want to draw your attention to the top video. This is a great video to accompany the first article. It breaks down exactly what we talked about towards the end of that article though some of the terms may have been slightly different. Everyone wants to pass the buck and conform to the crowd. Everyone thinks someone else will act (diffusion of responsibility) but if one person acts it breaks "The Effect" and others help as well. It is my belief that you need to be that one person that helps. This is a blog for martial artists. We didn't spend all those years of training to do nothing with it. If you have the ability to make a difference then you should be compelled to make a difference. The biggest enemy of the bystander effect is the knowledge of it. If you know about it then you should not fall victim to it. You should know that others won't act and that you should act

On another note in that video you can see that when people think that person is a member of their peer group they feel compelled to act. I think it took someone six seconds. In the first article we called this Biker Mentality because that article dealt more with violent attacks and the idea that if you fight one biker you have to fight them all. If a person is in their group they will help. However it isn't always a violent event as we've seen. Someone could be sick or injured and need help. The bystander effect applies just as much if not more to these situations. Many states have followed suit of countries like Canada and Australia and adopted Good Samaritan Laws. These are laws that protect people from being sued if they help someone in good faith and something goes wrong with it. Other states are even going further and looking at passage of Duty to Rescue Laws which make it a misdemeanour to not intervene when you see someone needing assistance and do nothing. States realise they have to do this because they realise that people today are morally bankrupt and it must be done

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem – Malcolm X

I believe the above statement to be true. I can understand fear. Fear is something we all deal with and there are a lot of things that can go wrong. However, courage is not the absence of fear it is the overcoming of fear. Giving into fear is called being a coward. I would rather die like a warrior than live like a coward any day. If you witness someone in the process of being killed and you do nothing then in my eyes you’re just as responsible as the murderer. If someone is injured and lying on the ground begging for help in a public place and you don't know first aid then call a 911[999 in UK] and stay with them until help arrives. I believe being a bystander is one of the worst things you can be, especially if you have the ability to help them.

Are we talking about two people arguing and just jumping up into someone's business? Of course not, let's get a little more specific now and put this in the right context:

If you witness a mugging you need to understand that money and belongings can be replaced. This may not be a life or death situation. If you feel that you have to do something then draw attention to the mugging keep a safe distance and call them out. These guys just want to get the money and run quickly. If you’re pointing out the mugging and yelling they may just run off. You don't want to just run in on someone with a weapon. Unfortunately in one of the videos above a man found that out the hard way. Then, when he was lying there and dying the Bystander Effect took effect in a disgusting display. As I said before, people are morally bankrupt and you cannot depend on them. That video made me sick.

You see a married couple arguing. Don't just get into that as they will more than likely turn on you. If anything, if they are getting loud tell them to quieten down then maybe they'll actually stop arguing. There are laws about public disturbances you know. However, if one puts their hands on the other I believe you should intervene to stop an assault. Just don't personalise it.

Two drunks get in a fight at a bar. They usually have bouncers that break that stuff up. However if they don't and the fight gets out of hand with one getting the upper hand in a big way where a serious injury may take place then yes intervene. As we have learned in the above videos if you break the cycle you'll most likely have help once you do intervene in that type of a situation. Unfortunately not always, but in a more social setting like that I'd bet on that help if it was me (I was a bouncer for years I've seen hundreds of those situations).

A guy with a broken arm falls by himself in a hallway and can't get up and you’re a woman he asks for help.

Now those of you on your game will know I picked this specific scenario on purpose. In an above paragraph I talked about assisting someone who was injured in a public place like the one demonstrated in the first video. As some of us know serial killer Ted Bundy used this exact scenario to lure women into the hallway to attack them. In a private closed off area like that you should just ask them to be calm while you go and get help, then get help quickly. Not everyone who falls in a hallway is a serial killer faking it. If you’re a guy you can save face by saying you have a bad back or some crap like that later on, just don't go into that hallway alone. Since there wasn't a crowd this isn't really the Bystander Effect but some critics will try to take it out of context and make it that way.

The point is that in these situations there are things that you can do. Maybe you’d handle it slightly differently but at least you’d have helped resolve the situation in a reasonable way.

There was an incident not too long ago on Facebook where a girl posted that she was going to kill herself. Her friends posted back but no one went over there to stop her and she committed suicide shortly after. It's a myth by the way that when people are vocal about suicide that it means they just want attention and won't do it. Once again, that is a myth. In that situation just someone going over there to talk to her may have saved her life. This is what I'm talking about. This is the more common form of the bystander effect. We talk about more violent events because that is the subject matter of the blog but this is the more common form.

It is something anyone can help with. Don't stand by while someone dies. To do so says negative things about our society and you. If you stand by while someone dies you'll stand by during anything. We can be better than this and our society can be better. Asking an entire society to change overnight is not realistic. However asking an individual to make a difference is not and a society is made up of individuals. People who stand up for those that need us shouldn't be the exception they should be the rule.

Some say the police tell you not to get involved. The ones that tell you that only say that for liability reasons it has nothing to do with it being the right or wrong thing to do. If it was wrong to do it then states wouldn't be looking at passing duty to rescue laws making it a misdemeanour not to do it. We can make a difference and you can make a difference if you are reading this. I'd also recommend reading the original article if you have not done so. As you may have read in other articles like Beware of the Fallout and The Double Edged Sword of Empathy, I'm not a bystander and I don't think you should be one either. Links for the mentioned articles will be provided at the bottom of this one. As I said in the first article you now know about the bystander effect. There is no excuse

YOU ARE RESPONSBLE

Now be somebody and make a difference! Thank you for your time.

To find out more about Stonewall Tactical Defense Systems visit http://www.stonewalltactical.com/index.html

Kitty and the Bystander Effect

Kitty

Hi! My name is Catherine Genovese but my friends call me "Kitty". I'm 28 years old and the oldest of five children I worked at Ev's Eleventh Hour Sports Bar in Hollis, Queens, New York. My parents moved away when I was 19 to Connecticut but I stayed. Do you like my dress? I had to wait a lot of tables to buy it. I used to be pretty but now I'm gone. I was murdered on March 13, 1964 I was walking home from work a little after 3 am when this man named Winston Moseley stabbed me. I screamed, "Oh my God he stabbed me!" No one came to help. Thirty-eight people watched me die and no one ever tried to help. One man even turned up his radio to cover up the sound of me screaming. My killer actually left me alive but was so surprised that no one called the police or came to help that he came back 10 minutes later and finished me off. He's in prison now but he's still alive, but I'm gone forever.

Winston Moseley

Do I have your attention now? A lone individual will generally step in if someone needs help it's called a bystander intervention but that isn't the point of this article. This real murder case kicked off a lot of research where scientists couldn't believe this could actually happen, but it did. It's called the Bystander Effect. It basically means that the larger the group is that witnesses a violent event the less likely it is that anyone will do anything to help even if the person obviously means it.

James Bulger

Let's look at a few more examples of this psychological phenomenon. 

Left, we have a picture of James Bulger not quite 2 years old. He was kidnapped on February 12 1993 in Merseyside, England, and his body was found murdered and mutilated on February 14th. Witnesses say he was kicking and screaming at the kidnapping afterwards. He was kidnapped in a shopping centre in full view of the public and no one did anything. By the way the photo on the right is an actual photograph of James Bulger being led away after he got too tired to fight anymore. Notice all the people walking by but they aren't even looking? The 10 year old on the right is one of his murderers and the photo is from a security camera. Did no one think his screaming for help was odd?

James with killer

There are many examples of this phenomenon. In 1972 Dr Wolfgang Friedmann, who was a law professor at Columbia University was shot to death in broad daylight and bled to death on the sidewalk and no one did anything. On June 23 last year in Wichita, KS Lashanda Calloway was stabbed to death in a convenience store. Five witnesses just stepped over the body and one even took a picture of Lashanda's body with her mobile phone to show her friends. The police were livid and I don't blame them. Lashanda was only 27 she died later that night at the hospital.

So what in God's name is wrong with these people? The fact is it's all too common. The first lab experiments done on this phenomenon were done in 1968 by John Darley and Bibb Latane. A participant was placed alone in a room with an intercom. They are told they can talk to the other participants in the other rooms from the intercom. They were actually listening to an audio recording and told their microphone would be turned off until their turn to speak. During the recording a participant suddenly pretends to have a seizure. The study found that how long the person waits before alerting the experimenter directly related to the perceived number of participants and in some cases nobody said anything they just ignored it.

There's a lot excuses used for this behaviour. Basically with a lot of people around people tend to assume that someone else will step in and individually fall prey to the same assumption. This is called the diffusion of responsibility. Another example of this is a firing squad where one of the shooters is issued blanks but no one knows which one. This allows each one of the shooters to believe that someone else fired the fatal shot. Some electric chairs have more than one switch but only one of them is connected. This allows executioners to believe they flipped a non-functioning switch.

In a violent attack witnessed by a group the number of people allows each person to believe somebody else should've done something so they don't feel any responsibility for not doing a damn thing. Some may falsely assume that someone else is more qualified to help such as a doctor or police officer. They may fear being a little humiliated by being superseded by a superior helper. They may possibly be afraid of doing a bad job assisting or making it worse and getting sued. Bystanders tend to monitor the reactions of people around them and if they don't' see them helping then they think that maybe they don't need to do anything either. This is called pluralistic ignorance. It basically means that even if someone has a dissenting opinion from a group they don't do anything because they think the groups behaviour is a unanimous belief. Either way it's all a complete mess.

So how do you combat this phenomenon? Think about it this way. If you’re a martial artist or combative instructor and you have the training and ability to help then it's your responsibility to help. We have too many paper tigers in this industry already. Police, military, etc are all great examples of warriors in our society today. However you don't have to be either one to be a warrior. I bet there's something each one of us can do every day to make a difference in our society. We can be educators. We can train people, and by God if you see somebody getting attacked take responsibility and help them!

On the other hand what if you’re getting attacked? Don't assume anyone is going to help you. You can break the diffusion of responsibility by assigning it to someone. Instead of yelling, "Help!" Point someone out and scream for help making it personal. Scream their name if you know it. If I had started this article out by just saying Kitty Genovese and James Bulger got murdered sure people would've thought it was bad but when you see the actual face and know something about them it has a little more impact doesn't it?

This also is the counter to pluralistic ignorance. When one person steps in then it provides social proof that the others may be looking for before stepping in and gets the help flowing. When you scream to this person, give them a task such as call the police. It's the best way to break this horrible cycle. There have been studies to suggest that if you’re part of a group or a group of people perceive you as part of their group, then they will help. A good example is bikers. If you fight one you’re probably going to have to fight them all.

It's my hope that the people reading this article will take this to heart. If you see someone that needs help then help them. If you’re being attacked in such a violent way maybe you know a little more now about what to do. When I first read about the Kitty Genovese Case I was deeply offended. That offense quickly turned to concern as I compiled data for this article. The fact that a group of people could just watch someone die was mind numbing but it probably happens on a daily basis which is sickening. I never knew Kitty Genovese, I wasn't born until 1973, but I'll never forget that case or that of James Bulger. I'll never just stand there and watch someone get violated and neither should you, because after reading this article and having the knowledge you should know......................................