Are the Bystanders Okay? Exploring the Impact of Bystander Behavior for Self-directed Violence

Bystander interventions focus on framing violence as a community problem and encourage all community members to act as prosocial bystanders if they witness a dangerous situation. Research has demonstrated there are multiple barriers and facilitators that might discourage or encourage an individual to act as a prosocial bystander. A qualitative interpretive meta-synthesis (QIMS) of existing literature was conducted to determine university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers. A systematic search of the literature was completed to identify articles that included university students’ perspectives on bystander facilitators and barriers, utilized a qualitative methodology, and contained participant quotations in the published article. The search yielded 181 articles and after screening 10 articles were included in the QIMS. The original themes and participant quotations were qualitatively coded to develop five new themes: (1) the impact of alcohol, (2) beliefs about responsibility, (3) peer perceptions, (4) indicators and situational dilemmas, and (5) the role of friendship and group impact. The results of this synthesis reveal important implications for the continued development of bystander intervention programs for universities. By incorporating the perspectives of university students, bystander intervention programs may be more effective at encouraging students to be prosocial bystanders by confronting perceived barriers to intervention.

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Impacts of A Web-Based Social-Norms Edutainment Program on Sexually Violent Behavior and Bystander Behavior among University Men in Vietnam: The GlobalConsent Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.35116 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kathryn Mary Yount ◽

Yuk Fai Cheong ◽

Irina Bergenfeld ◽

Quach Thu Trang ◽

Jessica M Sales ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Controlled Trial ◽

Violent Behavior ◽

Scale Up ◽

Attention Control ◽

Control Group ◽

Bystander Behavior ◽

Double Blind ◽

Web Based ◽

Sexually Violent ◽

The Impact

BACKGROUND Sexual violence against women occurs worldwide. Prevention programs that treat men as “allies” and integrate a bystander framework are emerging in lower-income settings but evidence of effectiveness is conflicting. OBJECTIVE We tested the impact of GlobalConsent on sexually violent behavior and prosocial bystander behavior among university men in Vietnam. METHODS We applied a double-blind, parallel intervention-versus-control-group design with 1:1 randomization in two universities. Consenting heterosexual or bisexual men 18-24 years and matriculating in September 2019 (n=793) were enrolled and assigned randomly to GlobalConsent or AHEAD. GlobalConsent is an adapted, theory-based, six-module web-based intervention with diverse behavioral-change techniques and a locally produced serial drama. AHEAD is a customized, six-module attention-control program on adolescent health. Both programs were delivered to computers and smartphones over 12 weeks. Sexually violent behaviors toward women in the prior six months and prosocial bystander behaviors in the prior year were measured at zero, six, and 12 months. RESULTS Over 91% of men in both study arms completed at least one program module, and over 88% completed all six modules. At baseline, notable percentages of men reported any sexually violent behavior (GlobalConsent: 31.06%, n=396, AHEAD: 25.94%, n=397) in the prior six months. At endline (posttests 1 and 2 combined) compared to baseline, men receiving GlobalConsent had 1.26 times the odds of reporting a high level (at least two acts) of sexually violent behavior, and 0.67 times the odds of reporting any bystander behavior. The corresponding odds ratios for the AHEAD peers were less favorable, 2.67 and 0.45. CONCLUSIONS Compared to a health attention-control condition, GlobalConsent has sustained favorable impacts on sexually violent behavior and prosocial bystander behavior among matriculating university men in Vietnam, who otherwise would face increasing risks of sexually violent behavior. GlobalConsent shows promise for national scale-up and regional adaptation. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04147455

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Impact of Exposure to Sexual Violence Prevention Messages on Students’ Bystander Behavior

Health Promotion Practice ◽

10.1177/1524839918811151 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 20 (5) ◽

pp. 711-720

Author(s):

Sarah McMahon ◽

Rita C. Seabrook

Keyword(s):

Sexual Violence ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Online Survey ◽

Early Adulthood ◽

Bystander Behavior ◽

Gender And Race ◽

Prevention Messages ◽

Willingness To Intervene ◽

And Behavior ◽

The Impact

Bystander intervention is a prevention strategy commonly used to address campus sexual violence. Increasingly, there are calls for prevention efforts to be multilevel and ongoing. The current study investigated the impact of receiving varied prevention messages throughout adolescence and into early adulthood to determine whether it influences college students’ awareness of sexual violence, willingness to intervene as a helpful bystander, and actual prosocial bystander behavior. These questions were tested through administration of an online survey to a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 1,047 undergraduate students at a large, urban university in the mid-Atlantic. Results found that most students received information about sexual violence prior to coming to campus from a variety of sources, and that the sources varied significantly by gender and race. Regression analysis found that greater exposure to prevention messages prior to coming to college was significantly associated with greater bystander intentions and behavior even after accounting for gender and race and exposure since coming to college. The findings provide initial support to expand the scope of prevention efforts and to begin them prior to college.

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Bystander Affiliation Influences Intervention Behavior: A Virtual Reality Study

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/21582440211040076 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 215824402110400

Author(s):

Aitor Rovira ◽

Richard Southern ◽

David Swapp ◽

Claire Campbell ◽

Jian J. Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Bystander Effect ◽

Helping Behavior ◽

Bystander Behavior ◽

Virtual Character ◽

The Social ◽

Traditional Work ◽

The Impact ◽

Social Identity Approach ◽

Diffusion Of Responsibility

Traditional work on bystander intervention in violent emergencies has found that the larger the group, the less the chance that any individual will intervene. Here, we tested the impact on helping behavior of the affiliation of the bystanders with respect to the participants. We recruited 40 male supporters of the U.K. Arsenal football club for a two-factor between groups study with 10 participants per group. Each participant spoke with a virtual human Arsenal supporter (V), the scenario displayed in a virtual reality system. During this conversation, another virtual character (P), not an Arsenal fan, verbally abused V for being an Arsenal fan leading eventually to physical pushing. There was a group of three virtual bystanders who were all either Arsenal supporters indicated by their shirts, or football fans wearing unbranded shirts. These bystanders either encouraged the participant to intervene or dissuaded him. We recorded the number of times that participants intervened to help V during the aggression. We found that participants were more likely to intervene when the bystanders were out-group with respect to the participant. By comparing levels of intervention with a “baseline” study (identical except for the presence of bystanders), we conclude that the presence of in-group bystanders decreases helping. We argue therefore that, other things being equal, diffusion of responsibility is more likely to be overcome when participant and victim share group membership, but bystanders do not. Our findings help to develop understanding of how diffusion of responsibility works by combining elements of both the bystander effect and the social identity approach to bystander behavior.

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The impact of social norms variables on prosocial bystander behavior: A prospective analysis

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e683152011-388 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Susan M. Wilson ◽

Megan J. Murphy ◽

Tina M. Dardis ◽

Christine A. Gidycz

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Prospective Analysis ◽

Bystander Behavior ◽

The Impact

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Formation of Lunar Craters and Bright Rays as a Result of Meteorite Impacts

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900178404 ◽

1962 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 415-418

Author(s):

K. P. Stanyukovich ◽

V. A. Bronshten

Keyword(s):

Explosive Charge ◽

The Moon ◽

Meteorite Impacts ◽

The Earth ◽

Lunar Craters ◽

The Impact

The phenomena accompanying the impact of large meteorites on the surface of the Moon or of the Earth can be examined on the basis of the theory of explosive phenomena if we assume that, instead of an exploding meteorite moving inside the rock, we have an explosive charge (equivalent in energy), situated at a certain distance under the surface.

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The Geosciences Applied to Lunar Exploration

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900178222 ◽

1962 ◽

Vol 14 ◽

pp. 169-257 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

J. Green

Keyword(s):

Lunar Surface ◽

Probable Mechanism ◽

Point Of View ◽

Lunar Exploration ◽

Geological Model ◽

Apply Geophysics ◽

Surface Features ◽

The Impact

The term geo-sciences has been used here to include the disciplines geology, geophysics and geochemistry. However, in order to apply geophysics and geochemistry effectively one must begin with a geological model. Therefore, the science of geology should be used as the basis for lunar exploration. From an astronomical point of view, a lunar terrain heavily impacted with meteors appears the more reasonable; although from a geological standpoint, volcanism seems the more probable mechanism. A surface liberally marked with volcanic features has been advocated by such geologists as Bülow, Dana, Suess, von Wolff, Shaler, Spurr, and Kuno. In this paper, both the impact and volcanic hypotheses are considered in the application of the geo-sciences to manned lunar exploration. However, more emphasis is placed on the volcanic, or more correctly the defluidization, hypothesis to account for lunar surface features.

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Asteroid and Comet Impact Speeds upon Mars: Significance for Panspermia and the Supply of Organics

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100014718 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 161 ◽

pp. 197-201 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Duncan Steel

Keyword(s):

Probability Distributions ◽

Regions Of Interest ◽

Significant Fraction ◽

Organic Chemicals ◽

Impact Speed ◽

The Mean ◽

The Impact

AbstractWhilst lithopanspermia depends upon massive impacts occurring at a speed above some limit, the intact delivery of organic chemicals or other volatiles to a planet requires the impact speed to be below some other limit such that a significant fraction of that material escapes destruction. Thus the two opposite ends of the impact speed distributions are the regions of interest in the bioastronomical context, whereas much modelling work on impacts delivers, or makes use of, only the mean speed. Here the probability distributions of impact speeds upon Mars are calculated for (i) the orbital distribution of known asteroids; and (ii) the expected distribution of near-parabolic cometary orbits. It is found that cometary impacts are far more likely to eject rocks from Mars (over 99 percent of the cometary impacts are at speeds above 20 km/sec, but at most 5 percent of the asteroidal impacts); paradoxically, the objects impacting at speeds low enough to make organic/volatile survival possible (the asteroids) are those which are depleted in such species.

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