The Bystander Effect: Understanding the Psychology of Courage and Inaction
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The Bystander Effect: Understanding the Psychology of Courage and Inaction, by Starts off brightly; shame about the tiresome agenda
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this book is about an interesting - though controversial - psychological phenomenon. It starts out brightly but quickly gets bogged down by its author's own liberal agenda, and goes from "why is it that people who could, and are disposed to, intervene, when given the opportunity to, don't" to " why are people, and especially young white men, so horrid?" the latter of which, while undeniably true, is neither interesting nor capable of solution by a well meaning social scientist.
it is not clear there is much of a bystander effect, at least as envisaged by the Kitty Genovese murder, which appears to have been seriously misreported, so Professor Sanderson looks at situations of peer pressure and bullying. But these are different, and far easier to explain. Some of her proposed solutions to bullying - such as publicly rewarding children who stand up to, or God forbid tell tales on, bullies - no doubt seem brilliant to a tenured academic, but ought to strike terror into the heart of any parent inhabiting the real world.
Far more interesting, and briefly touched on but not fully investigated, is the question of what factors contribute to the sort of person who does intervene. The evidence as far as she presents it suggests these people tend not to be the righteous do-gooders the author would like to make us all into, but spikier, more individualistic types who are disinclined to toe the line: awkward people the metropolitan elite tend to not to like.
Had Professor Sanderson focussed more on these people, her book might have be worth persevering with.