“Is It My Responsibility?”: A Qualitative Review of University Students’ Perspectives on Bystander Behavior

Abstract

Bystander interventions focus on framing violence as a community problem and encourage all community members to act as prosocial bystanders if they witness a dangerous situation. Research has demonstrated there are multiple barriers and facilitators that might discourage or encourage an individual to act as a prosocial bystander. A qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis (QIMS) of existing literature was conducted to determine university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers. A systematic search of the literature was completed to identify articles that included university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers, utilized a qualitative methodology, and contained participant quotations in the published article. The search yielded 181 articles and after screening 10 articles were included in the QIMS. The original themes and participant quotations were qualitatively coded to develop five new themes: (1) the impact of alcohol, (2) beliefs about responsibility, (3) peer perceptions, (4) indicators and situational dilemmas, and (5) the role of friendship and group impact. The results of this synthesis reveal important implications for the continued development of bystander intervention programs for universities. By incorporating the perspectives of university students, bystander intervention programs may be more effective at encouraging students to be prosocial bystanders by confronting perceived barriers to intervention.

Barriers to Bystander Intervention in Sexual Harassment: The Dark Triad and Rape Myth acceptance in Indonesia, Singapore, and United Kingdom

“…It may be beneficial to employ a bottom-up, qualitative approach (e.g. Robinson et al, 2020 ) to investigate country-specific bystander barriers, as these may differ significantly depending on the complicated socio-cultural contexts.…”

“…These steps are heavily influenced by the situation, characteristics of the bystander, their perceptions and their relationship to the victim and the perpetrator (e.g. Bennett et al, 2014 ; Burn, 2009 ; Pugh et al, 2016 ; Robinson et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Indeed, in a large sample of US university students, a large proportion of those who did not intervene reported the reason as the incident being “none of their business” ( Hoxmeier et al, 2020 ). The lack of personal responsibility could be influenced by a number of factors, such as moral perceptions of the victim (e.g., promiscuity and intoxication), diffusion of responsibility, or individual characteristics of the bystander ( Bennett et al, 2014 ; Pugh et al, 2016 ; Robinson et al, 2020 ; Yule et al, 2020 ). For instance, lack of pro-social attitudes, low perceived control ( Bennett et al, 2014 ), benevolent sexism, and rape myth acceptance ( Yule et al, 2020 ) have all been related to absence of personal responsibility.…”

Alcohol’s Role in Campus Sexual Assault Bystander Behavior: A Systematic Review

“…Our review also found no within-person examinations of how alcohol impacts bystander behavior among college students, which confirms a stark gap in the research literature shared by Leone et al (2018) concerning how bystanders' own alcohol use influenced their past behavior or potential future behavior when witnessing SA. The impact of alcohol on bystander decision-making is likely complex and nuanced, as has been explored in qualitative studies (e.g., Robinson et al, 2022). Regardless of their alcohol use, bystanders are known to weigh a variety of factors when deciding to act, including their relationship to the victim (Hackman et al, 2017) and perpetrator (Franklin et al, 2020), their own ability to intervene (Zelin et al, 2019), and even how such situations have gone in the past (Moschella et al, 2018).…”

“…Beyond alcohol use by the bystander themselves, if others in a potentially risky or dangerous situation are also consuming alcohol it may become even more difficult for a bystander to decide if intervention is necessary and, if it is, how to help (Oesterle et al, 2018). A recent qualitative review of student perspectives on bystander behavior highlighted the impact of alcohol as a prominent theme mentioned as both a facilitator and a barrier to prosocial behavior (Robinson et al, 2022). For example, positive alcohol expectancies, or the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences one expects to incur from drinking, connect drinking to happy outcomes which may lead bystanders to incorrectly evaluate the risk level of a situation involving alcohol (Leigh, 1989).…”