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Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

citylab.com

11–20 of 169 posts

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#11
If the bystander effect did exist, even the ambient possibility that you might be under surveillance at any given moment (as might be felt increasingly around the world, in 2019, regardless of who you are, time or place) seems like it would make dramatically less likely that the effect would actually occur.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#12

> Instead of more bystanders creating an immobilizing “bystander effect,” the study actually found the more bystanders there were, the more likely it was that at least someone would intervene to help. Perhaps with more people around one person considers that he will gain support, so the danger of acting will be minimized.

Or simply that in this case, the bystander effect didn’t occur.

It’s also why today when something goes wrong, people are told to look directly at specific people and say “call the cops”/ “hold their head” and so on,

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#13
totally un-scientific but i just feel like things like "identitism", "communitism", nationalism, etc. have been on the rise in the past decade for some reason. and by protecting the group they belong to, people also end up protecting individual making up these groups.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#14
post #6
post #5

This article incorrectly claims that the bystander effect is when a group of people are less likely to help than an individual, when in fact the bystander effect is when an individual becomes less likely to act in the presence of a crowd. The article repeatedly makes this claim, but it's not hard to look up how the bystander effect is described and defined to see how completely wrong this is.

> This article incorrectly claims that the bystander effect is when a group of people are less likely to help than an individual You are right. On the other hand, it may well be the correct popular definition of 'bystander effect'. Pop-sci (and pop-psych in particular) terms have a habit of being subtly redefined in the process of research→book→podcast→watercooler.

Could you list some examples? I often see this happen with people mischaracterizing the Dunning-Kruger effect around the watercooler but I’m having trouble coming up with any other cases.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#15

> Instead of more bystanders creating an immobilizing “bystander effect,” the study actually found the more bystanders there were, the more likely it was that at least someone would intervene to help. Perhaps with more people around one person considers that he will gain support, so the danger of acting will be minimized.

Or simply that in this case, the bystander effect didn’t occur. It’s also why today when something goes wrong, people are told to look directly at specific people and say “call the cops”/ “hold their head” and so on,

Or that the bystander effect did occur, but that X% of people aren't affected by it, and in a larger group it becomes more likely that one of those X% of people will be around.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#16
Of course the real problem is the uplifting attitude that is written.

Where really violent crime is happening as now in Western European cities, London, Berlin, etc. people got to know the very real consequences of 'intervening' frequently resulting in seriously harming oneself or even getting killed. There have been instances where the police was not able to help. There are regular occurances of rescue teams being attacked to prevent them rescuing the victims of attacks. The even started a campaign to promote not attacking rescuers.

Also, in a democracy the use of force is supposed to lie with the administration only and of course there should only be very limited room for 'bystanders' 'to self-police to protect their communities and others' unfortunately we know the opposite is true.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, what? The article doesn’t do this at all. This is straight from the 2nd paragraph: “The “bystander effect” holds that the reason people don’t intervene is because we look to one another. The presence of many bystanders diffuses our own sense of personal responsibility, leading people to essentially do nothing and wait for someone else to jump in” It’s clearly talking about individual behaviour in the presence of…

But does it really debunk that effect? The article essentially claims that the more people there are the more likely it is that _someone_ will intervene. Which isn't the same as no one feeling less inclined to help since there are other people around.

[deleted]

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#18
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply that in this case, the bystander effect didn’t occur. It’s also why today when something goes wrong, people are told to look directly at specific people and say “call the cops”/ “hold their head” and so on,

Or that the bystander effect did occur, but that X% of people aren't affected by it, and in a larger group it becomes more likely that one of those X% of people will be around.

Or maybe we all learnt about the bystander effect and were inoculated against it! :)

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#19

> Instead of more bystanders creating an immobilizing “bystander effect,” the study actually found the more bystanders there were, the more likely it was that at least someone would intervene to help. Perhaps with more people around one person considers that he will gain support, so the danger of acting will be minimized.

I think both could be true. Consider T to be the likelihood an individual will intervene, N the number of individuals, and P the probability of an intervention.

N, T = 1, 0.5 then P = 0.5

N, T = 10, 0.2 then P = (1-.8^10) = 0.9

Basically, the likelihood of an average individual to intervene may decline as there are more people, but the likelihood that at least one individual does intervene increases as crowd size does.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#20
I'm confused here. What is the Bystander Effect?

> The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological phenomenon in which individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. Several factors contribute to the bystander effect, including ambiguity, group cohesiveness, and diffusion of responsibility that reinforces mutual denial of a situation's severity.

Does that mean each individual is like likely to help _individually_ or does it mean that each _situation_ have less intervention?

Because if we're measuring individual response, then sure, I agree - if I'm hurt, I don't want 10 people rushing to me anyway.

i.e. if 1 bystander with 1x persons intervening = 100% response and then 2 bystanders with 1x persons intervening = 50% response...... I think this is a terrible way to measure it.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

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