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Mike Schmidt
Dr. Amy Lynch-Biniek
English 023: College Composition
November 25, 2014
The Ones Watching: Impact of Bystanders
Imagine being back in elementary school and during gym your class is playing kickball.
Your friend is on third base, the ball is hit and your friend is coming to cross home plate. The
play at the plate is a massive collision! Your friend and the catcher start fighting each other and
you hear a phrase you heard before a couple times in your lifefight, fight, fight! We all
know what its like to watch a fight happen, but we need to do more to change the culture that
leads to simply watching.
People should know what a bystander is to make sure their actions are not like a
bystander. More importantly, people should know what to do in bullying cases so they can take
an action step rather than just watching the problem get worse. If the bystander takes action in a
positive way, the bullying or problem has a chance to be diminished.
What is a bystander?
In the novel, The Bully the Bullied and the Bystander, by Barbara Coloroso, she explains
what role the bystander play in bullying cases. The bystander is like what Coloroso describes as
the supporting cast (Coloroso 62). This means they can either help the bully out or just simply
look the other way. Both those two acts a bystander does, are harmful for the victim

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If there is a fight during lunch in the cafeteria, a bunch of kids just watch what is going
on. Lets say a bus driver hears someone being picked on but does nothing about this. Lastly, if a
teacher see someone being harm but does not talk to the bully. Other names a bystander can be
called include passerby, onlooker, witness, and spectator (Steuve 118).
According to A. Stueve in Rethinking the Bystander Role in School Violences, there are
two different types of bystanders. One is an active bystander, who agrees with the aggressor.
This will influence the one doing the harm to continue on whatever the aggressor is doing.
Steuve describes the aggressive bystander as Active bystanders, who often sympathize with the
aggressors, foster violence when they prevent others from intervening in an altercation,
enthusiastically encourage aggressive behavior (e.g., cheering on a fight), or serve as
accomplices or co-perpetrators (Salmivalli) 2001 (Steuve 119). The other type of bystander is
passive. This means type of bystander sees what is going on, but does nothing about the
situation. Steuve describes passive bystander as, Passive bystanders, although doing nothing to
actively instigate or encourage violence, do nothing to prevent it from escalating (Steuve119).
What are the consequences of being a bystander?
If the bystander just does nothing, the victim will be upset to why the bystander did not
help the victim out. The victim is also still getting bullied and this disaster may just escalate.
Therefore, a bystander has a tough responsibility on how they act because it will play a major
role in the cases for the bully and the victim.
The victim wants to be saved in bullying cases, but may just need help. This is where the
bystander comes in. Bystanders are important to the victim because bystanders can either make
the bullying stop by reporting the problem or watch what is Bullying cases or school violences

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may never occurred or even escalated to a dangerous point if a bystander stepped up to begin
with.
What makes people into bystanders?
The best way to break up violence in school is to tell an adult. However, numerous
amount of students do not go to an authority figure to report the problem. Many acknowledge
their reluctance to confide in parents or school staff about such matters, and older adolescents are
less willing than younger students to involve an adult (Gaughan et al., 2001; Tisak & Tisak,
1996a,1996b).When asked in a Harris survey what they would do if they heard a fellow student
talking about shooting someone, only 54% of middle and high school students reported that they
would tell an adult (Gaughanetal.,2001). Even more alarming is the behavior of bystander
behavior to the school shootings: Virtually no one reported what they knew. If students are
reluctant to report potentially lethal violence, how likely are they to report less immediate threats
or less severely aggressive acts? (Steuve119).
This can show that adolescent and teenage students may feel scared to report the situation
to an adult figure. Children and teenagers may be scared to tell the teacher because what if the
bully finds out they reported this problem to the teacher? Then the bully will start his aggression
maybe towards the bystander along with the victim. They may also feel they are over-reacting or
embarrassed to report a problem. Going to an authority figure takes a lot of nerves to the ones
reporting the issue. The students may believe the teacher will say something like oh its no big
deal. Therefore, the student will feel embarrassed or like they are over-reacting just from the
teachers response.

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School should be a safe place for all people. However, school violence does
unfortunately exist. One study says how in a good amount of cases, peers could have prevented
the issue if one of the students acted upon the problem. One recent review of school shootings
estimates that in more than three quarters of such cases, students as well as adults were privy to
information that, if acted on, could have prevented the violence (Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum,
& Modzeleski, 2002) (Stueve 117).
Children are taught at a young age to break the silence. This means speak out if
something wrong is going on. However, this can be difficult for children because they dont want
to tattle tale or get someone else in trouble. Elisabeth Wilkins wrote a blog from a website called
But Mom, I Don't Want to Be a Tattletale!" How Do You Deal with the Class Bully? Wilkins
discussed how her son, Alex, was afraid to confront the bully that was giving Alex physical
harm. Elisabeth Wilkins explained the reason why Alex did not tell the teacher about the bully.
Alex said, I dont want to tell on him (Wilkins 1). There are more students like Alex who may
feel they are tattle tailing instead of reporting the issue with the teacher.
Dr. Olweus did a study in an urban school playground in Toronto, Canada. He examined
how peers played a role in bullying cases. Peers were involved in some capacity in 85% of
bullying episodes. Peers were more respectful and friendly towards the bullies that the targets.
Peers intervened in only 13% of the episodes at which they were present (66).

For bystanders, there is more excuses than reason for not helping out in the situation.
Some phrases Coloroso uses as excuses in the novel is, The bully is my friend. Its not my
problem. Hes a loser. Bullying will toughen him up. Its too big a pain in the brain (68-69).

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What turns a bystander into an ally?

In the online article, "Why Don't Bystanders Help? Because of Ambiguity?" Russell D.
Clark III and Larry E. Word discuss on how the odds increase that a bystander will help out.
Clark and Word said that when there is an extreme danger, people watching are more likely to
help out the victim. This can be the case because if there is a life or death situation, bystanders
may feel the only right act to do, is to help out ones in need. However, Russell D. Clark III and
Larry E. Word say that if there are more people watching in a situation, it is less likely for
someone to help out. Individuals who are exposed to an ambiguous emergency are likely to
look to others for an appropriate interpretation of the event, and if everyone else in the group
seems to regard an event as non-serious and the proper course of action as nonintervention, this
consensus affects the perception of any single individual and inhibits the likelihood of his
response (Clark and Word 399).
If the bystander feels responsible for the action, Clark and Word explain the bystanders
are more likely to help. This is because the bystander feels the victim is in trouble because of
what the bystander did. As the bystanders are deciding whether an event is an emergency, each
bystander looks to the others for guidance before acting (Clark and Word 393). This quote
means the bystander will see if anyone else is doing anything before the bystander thinks about
helping or not. If the bystander sees people helping out, then that bystander will find no real
importance in helping out anymore? However, if no one else helps out that one victim, then the
bystander will find pressure of assisting the victim.
Latane and Darley are two researchers who were curious about how bystanders can play
an important role in the global society. The two, researched an experiment where they put smoke
out of a wall vent. Latane and Darley (1968) constructed a situation in which subjects either

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alone, with two other naive persons, or with two stooges who were coached to appear blas were
engaged in a written task when smoke began to billow through a wall vent. They found that 75%
of the subjects in the alone condition reported the smoke, 38% of the pairs in the naive condition
included a reporter of smoke and only 10% of the pairs in the passive stooge condition reported
the smoke(Clark and Word 393). Even though this statistic was quite some time ago, this shows
that a lot more people see a problem but dont report anything about it. This problem can relate
to present day because if there is an issue, not all people will help out the problem going on.
According to Word and Clark people are more likely to help each other if they know who
the victim is, higher percentage of helping from friends by arguing that they are less likely to
misinterpret each other's initial inaction than strangers (also, friends are less likely to fear
possible embarrassment) (Clark and Word 393). However, if the victim is a stranger, there is
less responsibility the bystander will help out the victim in need of assistance. Even though if
that is the case, if the situation is extremely violent, there is more of a chance for a bystander to
help out the victim. This is true regardless if the victim is complete stranger to the bystander or if
the bystander is a stranger to the victim.
How can we change the culture of bullying?
The county next to me that I live in has a pretty big scandal that deals with the bystander
effect. In Sayreville, New Jersey, the high school football seniors hazed and sexually assaulted
the freshmen team. The football team got canceled for the season and even worse the whole
community is effected by the hazing scandal. One of the victims parents said the sexual assault
happened more than once. Therefore, the main questions is where were the other teammates
when this scandal happened? This case describes how much of a role bystanders have in bullying
cases.

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Anna Reeves says in this article Bystanders Carry the Power to Stop Brutal
Bullying,When we try to understand such extreme cases of harassment, we automatically focus
on the bully and the victim. We forget about the spectators who witness the torment, the
bystanders. That's a huge mistake (Reeves 1). Her point is for people to recognize that the
bystanders play an important role in preventing bullying. She makes a connection in the last
sentence saying that if a couple of teammates spoke up, the team may have a chance to have a
win the state championships. She says to end the article, Maybe if just one of those football
players had told the others to stop, they'd now be on their way to another championship season.
Bullies are bad, but in many ways being a bystander is even worse (Reeves 1).
This impacts the younger players playing in the game, the cheerleaders, the band
members, the coaches, and the spectators of the game. If the other players watching or maybe
even coaches that saw the hazing, spoke out of what happened, then maybe the football team
could have had a football season this year. Unfortunately, nobody that saw the hazing going said
anything and the consequences are worse by canceling their football season for the rest of the
season and maybe more to come.

I cannot really relate to this hazing scandal because in my time playing sports, I never
heard or seen of this happening in the locker room. If I did see my teammates get hazed or
causing the hazing, I would want to say I would stop what is going on. However, I was never in
that situation so if that really happened I dont know what action I would take in this procedure.

If the bystanders of the Sayreville football team knew their season would be suspended
because of hazing, would they report what is going on? Im sure those bystanders did not know

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what the consequences would be. However, if they reported this in the beginning of the season,
Im sure Sayrevilles football team would still be going on right now. The lesson they should
learn is to speak up and take action. That can lead to severe consequences for the bully and in
this case the bystanders too.
What action steps can Bystanders take?
Latane and Darley, the two researchers who did the smoke experiment, talk about what
steps a bystander should take when dealing with a harmful situation going on. They said,
bystanders must: (a) notice that something is happening, (b) interpret the situation as calling for
intervention, (c) assume personal responsibility for intervening, (d) decide what to do, and (e)
possess the necessary skills and resources to act (120).
This is a great plan for bystanders to take because it shows all the necessary steps one
should take in the act of watching something harmful happening. In a less serious problem or an
extreme emergency, this step by Latane and Darley are important to take to help prevent the
problem for going any further. If bystanders learn and take this approach, they can make the
dilemma improve by attempting to take an action step in the situation going on.
Children may feel uncomfortable to confront the bully because the bully usually is
intimidating and powerful. Therefore, the bystander can try and be there for the victim. The
victim is probably feeling all alone being picked on and just needs somebody there for them. So
the bystander should be there for the victim and encourage their friends to help aid the victim. If
the bystander brings their friends along to help aide the victim, the victim will likely feel less
alone.
How does one make sure they are not a bystander or a bully?

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It does not matter how cool or popular one is in school. If somebody is compassionate, a
good role model, and have a positive attitude, then this student is a good friend to have in school.
Hopefully, these role models of students will act on if they see trouble happening in school. The
famous quote goes, Its nice to be important, but its important to be nice. This means do the
right thing and just the most important part about life to be kind to all. The bystander should feel
like the right thing to do, is to take an action step in the situation going on.
Picture being back in the playgrounds of school during recess. Imagine just running
around near the monkey bars and the swings. Then out of nowhere a larger and more physical
student goes pushing you. He constantly pushes you and there is nothing you can do about it.
There is a group of people around you two just staring and watching the bully display his
dominance. If this was me pushed by this bully, I would feel mortified that nobody in that group
is breaking it up and trying to help me. However, if just one person tries to help me while I am
being pushed, I will be ecstatic. Therefore, anybody seeing harm going on should report the
situation so they will not be bystanders.

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Work Cited
Clark, Russell D., and Larry E. Word. "Why Don't Bystanders Help? Because of Ambiguity?"
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 24.3 (1972): 392-400. Web.
Coloroso, Barbara the Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander. New York, New York.
HarbersCollins Publishers Inc. 2004
Reeves, Anne "Bystanders Carry the Power to Stop Brutal Bullying PennLive.com. N.p., n.d.
Web. 20 Oct. 2014
Stueve, A. "Rethinking the Bystander Role in School Violence Prevention." Health Promotion
Practice 7.1 (2006): 117-24. Web.
WIlkins, Elisabeth. "But Mom, I Don't Want to Be a Tattletale!" How Do You Deal with the
Class Bully? | Parenting Advice." Parenting Advice RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2014