People are victims to the bystander effect for many reasons, but one reason is that people are scared. Even if they are helping others, they are afraid that they might get hurt or even blamed for trying to do the right thing. This mentality causes people to stand by and watch horrible things happen. Also, this can sometimes cause guilt because the person knew they could have helped, but chose to do nothing. It ends up being a vicious cycle because people feel bad that they could have helped, but every time something dangerous happens, they stand back.
Starting in elementary school, we learn the importance of being an up-stander rather than a bystander. Being an up-stander is not hard to do at all, yet we fail every day. I believe that it is so important for people, of all ages, to engage in at least one act of kindness a day. By doing helpful things to other people, it creates a mindset where people are much more likely to engage in being an up-stander. When people normalize helping others without any gain, the world ends up being a much better place. These acts could be as simple as holding a door for someone or even just volunteering to help another person. As people start to get used to helping others, the number of people victim to the bystander effect will go down because more people are likely to help.
Hopefully, with that in mind, people will stop being a bystander and start being an up-stander.
I agree that how we as a society try to address the bystander effect does play a huge part in how we react to situations. However, it seems that being aware of what we are doing and seeing it as wrong does not always change the way we behave towards someone else's struggles. Psychologist Ervin Staub did research into trying to figure out what makes people actually intervene. He found that what people say, either “That sounds like a tape. .. Or I guess it could be part of another experiment.” or “That sounds bad. Maybe we should do something,” had a huge impact on how others react. With the former, only 25% went to check on the distress sound they heard in another room. When the actor in the room said the latter, however, 66% of the participants in the experiment went to check the other room. When the actor requested them to check, all the participants intervened. This shows that one does not even have to take action to help the situation. Even just being brave enough to say what you might be thinking can cause others to do the right thing. While we are taught that being a bystander is wrong, we might even be worsening the situation with the shame of having to admit it when the time comes. Just as how the janitor in the McDonald's case helped bring the situation into perspective, saying the obvious can be equally beneficial in dealing with the problem. If we truly are to address the bystander effect, we have to make sure that the people acknowledge when they are being a bystander openly to others. Once people feel ok admitting they are a bystander, we might actually decrease their numbers.
ReplyDeleteSources:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/we_are_all_bystanders