Boy Should Be Taken Down - Part II

This post is a response to a dilemma that my friend found herself in last Saturday. As she mentions in her blog, she witnessed a larger and older male bully a young girl after a ride for no apparent reason. I was also present when this incident happened and in the company of a few other friends. We all witnessed this event unfold before our eyes, but due to the influence of each other and those around us we did not react. My friend concludes her post by saying that she will remember to intervene when a similar situation presents itself in the future.

I beg to differ on this last statement.

Diffusion of responsibility is a social phenomenon that definitely played a role in our lack of action. Each of us may have believed that we were not qualified to handle the situation; thus, diffusing the responsibility of taking action onto someone else. Personally, I am guilty of this because I assumed that amusement park staff, who were operating the ride, would take action. In my mind, I thought they were trained to handle conflict situations.

However, before looking at who should have taken action in this situation its important to take a step back. In the first place, did we understand that the situation demanded some type of emergency action? In retrospect, it is easy to say yes to this question after ample time for reflection, but at the heat of the moment I don't think we had the answer.

Our ability to evaluate whether a situation is an emergency or not is, like the diffusion of responsibility, based on the social behaviours of those around us - a concept known as collective ignorance. If no one responds to an incident, then we determine that it is not an emergency and therefore not deserving of some type of intervention. Making an emergency assessment is necessary for mobilizing action, even if we know exactly what and how to intervene on a victim's behalf. This speaks to the power of other's influences - their behaviour can override all of our individual convictions, no matter how compelling they are.

If the situation was different, I am sure we would have acted. For example, if we saw another person take initiative in calling out the bully, this would break our collective ignorance. If we were closer to where the incident took place and not restricted by a barrier, we would feel more responsibility to intervene because of proximity. Finally, if the young girl had reacted more openly to the offense, we would have likely determined that the situation was an emergency that required attention.

All of this has got me thinking - when are we to blame for inaction?

WC