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Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

citylab.com

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Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#61

Post by snowwrestler »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #24
Jerry2 wrote: post #8

It's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...

Even with flawed studies aside, the word science is used very liberally to describe these fields. Even psychology’s most robust and well tested theories can’t come anywhere close to making accurate predictions.

No field of science made accurate predictions when it started. It took centuries of hard work to arrive at the levels of precision and accuracy that we take for granted in, say, physics or chemistry.

And psychology is attempting to study phenomena that are far more complex than anything in physics or chemistry. Being wrong or incomplete, doesn’t mean it’s not science.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#62

Post by usaphp »

archgoon wrote: post #34
pfundstein wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Societal norms are constantly evolving; what is normal today might have been unthinkable in the past when these studies were conducted.

Also; awareness of the bystander effect may have led to increased pro-activeness. This is really something that would need to have data going further back to figure out if the original effect existed. See another post in this thread where someone has recieved specific training to counteract the bystander effect.

I doubt that average Joe would know anything about bystander effect studies.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#63

Post by cjslep »

Iv wrote: post #32
Jerry2 wrote: post #8

It's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...

Social psychology is very hard. Making correct experiments is hard, costly, often unethical and highly culture-dependent. You can only get so far with questionnaire handled to middle-class/high-class university students...

The stakes become even higher when people attempt to use Social Psychology as either the basis for moral frameworks or in evaluating morality. This can be problematic for a multitude of reasons (bias being the largest), and the biggest offender I've found is Jonathan Haidt and his 4 moral evaluators. Actually, I think in The Righteous Mind he's up to 5 now, time will tell if that continues to change with continued "no comment" about how, maybe, his approach is flawed.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#64

Post by c3534l »

stupidcar wrote: post #9
c3534l wrote: 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.

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…

Here are specific sentences that make the claim:

> It’s one of the most enduring urban myths of all: If you get in trouble, don’t count on anyone nearby to help. Research dating back to the late 1960s documents how the great majority of people who witness crimes or violent behavior refuse to intervene. Psychologists dubbed this non-response as the “bystander effect”

The author said the bystander effect was "this non-response" which he describes in the previous sentence as "if you get in trouble don't count on anyone nearby to help." This is the very first sentence in the article.

> A new study published this year in the American Psychologist finds that this well-established bystander effect may largely be a myth. [...] The study finds that in nine out of 10 incidents, at least one bystander intervened, with an average of 3.8 interveners.

The author claims that the bystander effect is disproved if, in a group of people, "at least one" person intervenes.

> 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.

The author again claims that the bystander effect is disproved if "at least one" person helps.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#65

Post by kristiandupont »

ganesh7 wrote: post #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 a…

I am curious: do you consider yourself to be on the left or right end of the political spectrum?

I ask because even if your message is not explicitly political, it indicates to me that you might be leaning to the right and I am curious about what the root-differences between that and someone like myself who is probably more left leaning really are. Clearly it's related to fear, but I have fears too (like climate change or fascism). It's really interesting to me why people fear one but not the other, in each direction. It feels like there is some sort of fundamental psychological principle that decides whether you are one or the other.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#66

Post by xyproto »

simonh wrote: post #57
ptero wrote: post #55

Cultural background probably has a lot of influence on this. Where I grew up (a small city in Eastern Europe) it would be unthinkable not to intervene in many cases (although some things like gang or drunk fights would be excluded). The mentality in a capital would be completely different. As people move their habits can significantly influence prior "general findings".

And yet this study took place in a capital city, a major urban centre and a country tow, but found no significant difference in the results between them. That's despite big differences in the local crime and violence rates (I expect Cape Town being the outlier).

Cape Town has some areas that feel like an European town and some areas just filled with home-made sheds. I imagine that the crime rates are different in the places where there are actually cameras.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#67

Post by AmericanChopper »

snowwrestler wrote: post #61
AmericanChopper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with flawed studies aside, the word science is used very liberally to describe these fields. Even psychology’s most robust and well tested theories can’t come anywhere close to making accurate predictions.

No field of science made accurate predictions when it started. It took centuries of hard work to arrive at the levels of precision and accuracy that we take for granted in, say, physics or chemistry. And psychology is attempting to study phenomena that are far more complex than anything in physics or chemistry. Being wrong or incomplete, doesn’t mean it’s not science.

While most of what you just said is open to debate, I was merely commenting on the scientific maturity of the fields. Which to me seem relevant to a discussion on the debunking of it’s theories.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#68

Post by swish_bob »

eridius wrote: post #41
inlined wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been taught multiple times that due to the bystander effect, should you take command of a situation and need to delegate you should always delegate specifically (e.g. tell one person to call 911 rather than shouting that someone should)

While that's certainly good advice, I don't think that's really a "bystander effect" correction as it is if there's multiple people and nobody takes charge then nothing gets organized, and if you don't delegate specifically then nobody knows who you're talking to and this produces confusion.

The last two times I took a first aid course I was told to do this _specifically_ to override the bystander effect. Both times, the instructor named and explained the bystander effect, and said the best way to overcome it was to assign tasks to specific individuals.

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#69

Post by pathseeker »

Iv wrote: post #32
Jerry2 wrote: post #8

It's quite shocking to me how many social science and social psychology experiments have been debunked in recent years. It's as if the whole field is filled with false research. They should do what psychology has done and start a massive replication effort of most cited results. [0] That should bring back some credibility back to the field. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-rep...

Social psychology is very hard. Making correct experiments is hard, costly, often unethical and highly culture-dependent. You can only get so far with questionnaire handled to middle-class/high-class university students...

Is that a defense or an indictment?

Re: Surveillance cameras debunk the bystander effect

#70

Post by jsjw7sbw »

rubber_duck wrote: post #38
de_watcher wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the surveillance cameras have pushed people to act because it looks awesome on youtube.

I think awareness of the effect changes the behavior more - at least for me - I usually wouldn't act in situations where someone needed help because I don't feel particularly qualified but knowing that nobody else is likely to respond I try to help. This makes social science even less reliable.

> nobody else is likely to respond

They are now. But maybe after some time everyone will think someone will help them anyway and stop. And so the cycle continues.

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