On the Actual Risk of Bystander Intervention

Abstract

Objectives: Bystander studies have rarely considered the victimization risk associated with intervention into violent, dangerous emergencies. To address this gap, we aim to identify factors that influence bystanders' risk of being physically victimized. Method: We observed bystander behavior from video surveillance footage of naturally occurring violence in nighttime economy settings, and data were analyzed with a logistic regression model. Results: Data show that approximately one of the six interventions results in some type of victimization, typically with a relatively low degree of severity.

Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts.

“…All public surveillance cameras were located within the inner entertainment areas and central business districts of the cities and typically captured public streets with shopfronts and drinking venues, parks, plazas, pedestrian walkways, and transport station exteriors. Following other surveillance camera studies (Levine et al, 2011;Liebst et al, 2018;Lindegaard et al, 2017), video access was provided under the conditions that data would be securely stored, shared only for legitimate research purposes and not with the wider public, and that the identity of the individuals visible in the footage would be protected (see Philpot, Liebst, Møller, Lindegaard, & Levine, 2019). All data were recorded by municipality employed camera operatives, who according to identical guidelines were instructed to record all incidents of public space aggression that contained any level of conflict-from the mildest animated disagreements to grave physical violence.…”

“…In the current study, intervention is similarly defined from the affordance of the emergency at hand-in this case, real-life conflicts that require the bystander to act toward a perpetrator or victim in a manner that may soothe the conflict. Therefore, to code bystander helping acts we applied standardized behavioral definitions of intervention, as recently developed through video observational bystander research (Levine et al, 2011;Liebst et al, 2018;Lindegaard et al, 2017). Specifically, a bystander was determined as an intervener if they attempted to placate the conflict with any of the following acts: pacifying gesturing; calming touches; blocking contact between conflict parties ( Figure 1c); holding, pushing or pulling an aggressor away from the conflict (Figure 1c); consoling a victim of aggression; providing practical help to a physically harmed victim (for the full Observational…”

“…However, this would say little about public safety in numbers, given that the group conditions of these experiments typically consist of one, and at most a handful, of other bystanders, who are often confederates instructed not to intervene. Furthermore, if interested in intervention rates during aggressive encounters, such as the Kitty Genovese incident, then the experimental literature offers limited insights, given that it is ethically and practically difficult to simulate violent emergencies (Cherry, 1995;Liebst, Heinskou, & Ejbye-Ernst, 2018). Finally, the use of sparsely populated simulation conditions to understand violence intervention raises issues of ecological validity, given that public violent crimes tend to be concentrated in high-density pedestrian areas.…”

“…Finally, the use of sparsely populated simulation conditions to understand violence intervention raises issues of ecological validity, given that public violent crimes tend to be concentrated in high-density pedestrian areas. For example, a recent bystander victimization study notes that around an average of 16 bystanders are present during public assaults (Liebst et al, 2018).…”

Social relations and presence of others predict bystander intervention: Evidence from violent incidents captured on CCTV

“…This bystander effect hypothesis is one of the most wellestablished findings of psychology (Manning, Levine, & Collins, 2007), and is typically interpreted as the product of a diffusion of responsibility, by which the liability to help dilutes across the multiple bystanders present (Latané & Nida, 1981). Paradoxically, although the bystander research field was prompted by the violent 1964-murder of Kitty Genovese, and the inaction of the witnesses present (but see Manning et al, 2007), experimental research has rarely examined bystander behavior in the context of violent attacks (Cherry, 1995;Liebst, Heinskou, & Ejbye-Ernst, 2018).…”