Personal Traits of the People Who Help: The Case of Bystanders to Violence against Women

Abstract

Within the context of emergency situations, the terms witness or bystander are used to refer to individuals involved in oppressive incidents who are neither the victim nor the perpetrator. Among the different types of emergency situations, our study focuses on violence against women (VAW). In keeping with current efforts in the scientific literature on bystander intervention and the evidence currently available, the main focus of this study is to analyze some personal factors that reflect the characteristics or experiences of bystanders and that could have a bearing on their predisposition to help victims of VAW (i.e., empathy, a just world belief system, and expectations of self-efficacy) and later analyze the possible relationship between these personal characteristics and gender or previous experience as a VAW bystander. An opportunity sample of 546 Spanish participants (73.4% women and 26.6% men) between 18 and 56 years of age took part in this study and fill out a sociodemographic data sheet, a questionnaire to evaluate the experience as violence witness designed ad hoc, and the Characteristics of People who Help Questionnaire scale (CPHQ). The results obtained indicate that CPHQ could constitute an adequate measure for the three dimensions analyzed. Female participants are significantly more empathetic than males, but in the case of a just world belief and expectations of self-efficacy the results showed no gender-related differences. Additionally, only a just world belief was clearly influenced by having been a bystander to some form of VAW. In conclusion, this study contributes a proposal for an evaluating instrument featuring three relevant personal characteristics in the development of helping behaviors, presenting some results of interest regarding empathy, a just world belief, and expectations of self-efficacy and their relationship with gender or previous experiences as VAW bystanders. These results obtained suggest an initial path toward future research in the development of interventions with bystander participation in our environment.

The Role of Social Problem-Solving and Prosocial Behavior in First Aid Willingness among Adolescents in Hungary

“…The primary analysis only showed gender differences while controlling for age in negative emotions, but it also showed minor effects and small differences. We must acknowledge that gender could be an important predictor, since girls have a more empathetic attitude and are more supportive in helping situations [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. Investigating only age was found to be positively correlated with first aid willingness for strangers and knowledge and negatively with negative emotions.…”

“…Moreover, girls and older individuals have an increased willingness to help as well [ 9 , 14 ]. Previous studies have found that girls have a more empathic attitude than males in helping behavior, and they react more strongly and are more supportive in these situations [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. The role of age in helping is mainly associated with knowledge and training in first aid, since older individuals are more likely to have had previous first aid experience.…”