Bystanders’ Roles in Witnessing Bullying and Violent Crime

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The link above shows a video taped study conducted by college students, showing people’s reactions to bullying.  The camera person hid while two students conducted a mock-bullying situation right in front of people.  They repeated their experiment in different locations on school campus, drawing varying reactions.  Out of all the bystanders, five advocated, 17 were passive or careless, and one person was hesitant but wanted to help. 

In the video from the previous blog entry, Jean Kilbourne said that objectification is the first step in justifying violence toward another person.  The same is done with black people, gay people, and other people who historically have been dehumanized.  Bullying victims are almost always dehumanized.  The unidentified students portrayed archetypical stereotyped roles in bullying scenarios.  The fake-bully, who looked like a “homeboy” type, was physically abusing the nerd-victim into writing his paper for him.  He literally treated him like he was a broken vending machine for homework assignments.  The bully demonstrated objectification of a human being.

Most of the people witnessing the twisted treatment ignored the abuse.  People who were walking, kept walking.  People sitting even stood up and walked away.  My addition to Jean Kilbourne’s point is it is possible for people to objectify themselves.  They were not helping.  They functioned like ants filing toward a colony.  Are ants living things?  Yes, but they are not human, therefore from the victim’s perspective (and probably the aggressor’s too) they have dehumanized themselves.  They might as well be marching robots.

If the victim is objectified long term; dehumanized from the rest of the self-dehumanizing population, the victim’s mental state may change in a way that he/she does not feel as responsible for his/her actions.  The person long deprived of feeling equal, may feel in future conflicts after snapping or transferring the violent behavior that, “You caused me to react that way,” “I had no other choice,” “I had to do this,” and quoting Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, “You made me do this!”

Bullying and Bystander Maltreatment are precursors to school shootings, as I will demonstrate in my upcoming presentation on this subject.  Bullying is more obvious, but bystander maltreatment encourages the continuation of abuse.  People can either be complicit or cruel and heckling.  No one in the video was making rude comments or cheering the aggressor.  They were complicit, passively allowing it to happen.  Toward the end of the video the message reads, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”  The victim gets the impression that people do not care.  If the abuse starts in childhood, then the bystanders dehumanize themselves earlier, while the victim is stripped of dignity.  The result is that all parties eventually become objectified.  Because the dehumanization is in the long term, the ideas become deeply ingrained in the person.  The angry victim is like boiling water.  The water is blamed by society for boiling, rather than the source of the heat.  The water has no other choice than to boil.  The shooter can not see another choice than revenge.  If people objectify themselves, then they become plastic ducks in a shooting gallery.  It does not feel wrong to poke bullet holes in them, and they aren’t even real ducks, just plastic.

 

So why do people volunteer themselves to fade into the background scenery?  In the video, the third passive witness later said “I didn’t want to get into any trouble.”  The one person who was in-between on reacting said, “I was going to jump in and do something if you continued.”  I give that guy credit.  He stopped and watched, but he hesitated.  He wanted to take action, but did not know how to go about it.

 

That is the main problem facing bystanders when witnessing crimes.  “I didn’t want to get into any trouble,” sounds lame because he was not the criminal, but he may be legally penalized if he engaged in the public fight and was then accused of assault.  Other than that, people are afraid of “getting into trouble” with the bully, because they don’t want to fight.  Here is a list of potential reasons why bystanders “mind their own business.”

 

Passive Bystanders’ Reasons

      1.      They are afraid the bully will fight them.

      2.      They do not know the whole situation, so they don’t want to judge.
      3.      They have some place to go, and they do not have the time to stop. 
             (Newton’s Law:  An object in motion tends to stay in motion.)
      4.      There are more people around.  Maybe someone else will handle the situation. 
            (With more people, the responsibility is shared.)
      5.      Misunderstanding:
                a.       The reckless behavior is mutual.
                b.      The victim did something to anger the aggressor.
                c.       They are in a group project, and one member is not doing his share.
      6.      Maybe they will resolve everything on their own in a few minutes.

 

There was only one person who reacted but was hesitant.  In real life, there are more people like this.  I believe these are possible reasons for the behaviors of the on-the-fence, frozen advocates.

 

Hesitant Bystanders’ Reasons

1. I don’t want that bully to hurt me too.
2. I want to help, but I don’t know how.
3. I can’t speak.  My mouth is gaping and no words seem to come.  I’m shocked.
4. I am observing.  I do care.
5. Should I call the police?  Will they take me seriously?  What if they leave before the police arrive?
6. I want to stop the aggressor, but I don’t know how to fight; self-defense.
7. I am physically disadvantaged to the aggressor.  I’m smaller or weaker.
8. I don’t know exactly what is going on.  I want to make a proper judgment.
9. Someone you are with discourages you from helping.

How many of these apply to you?  Have you ever witnessed a crime and played the role of the hesitant or complicit bystander?  After reading this, I hope if you were complicit that you changed your attitudes toward your role as a crime witness.  If you were hesitant, or if you were complicit with a change of heart, here are some tips on being more assertive in bullying and other criminal situations.

Assertive Bystanders

1. Tell someone nearby about this.
2. Call the police or security.
3. Record the scene on your phone, and report it as evidence.
4. From a safe distance, yell at the aggressor to stop!
5. If someone discourages you, telling you to mind your own business, then tell them you are doing the right thing.
6. If the attacker approaches you, try to negotiate.  Keep your distance.
7. If the attacker tries to attack you, make a scene.  Now two people are screaming for help.  When the police arrive, it will be harder for the attacker to play innocent.

The last two are pretty gutsy.  If you are timid, stick with the first four.  Don’t do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, though that is why bystanders are mostly passive to begin with.  Helping out someone in need is a way to reconnect with a world of strangers surrounding us.  By doing something about bullying or any kind of victimization, you are bringing more peace into the environment by diffusing a something chaotic.  You could easily be victimized of a violent crime on another day.  We are equally human, not objects.

©2014 Caroline Friehs

References

FouseyTube (2013).  The Bullying Social Experiment – Please Watch.  [Courtesy of:  R.I.P. Amanda Todd – a Facebook Page.]  Runtime: 4:52.  Retrieved from:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=790590087621312&set=vb.567254213288235&type=3&theater