Building Better Bystander Behavior: Improving the Social Context of Prevention

Introduction. Bystander intervention is a promising strategy for violence prevention. One recent study found that 30% of domestic violence incidents and 60% of victimizations by peers of caregivers have a third party, or potential bystander present. Recent evaluations of bystander focused prevention efforts for bulling, sexual violence, and relationship abuse show that this framework can change attitudes and behaviors that influence victimization. Bystanders are particularly important because they are part of the social context of prevention as instruments of social norms, collective efficacy, and informal social control – all social processes that have been associated with rates of victimization. To date, however, prevention strategies have been limited by the narrow theories on which many efforts are based. A revised theory: Bystander Action Coils has been proposed. It highlights the importance of understanding consequences of bystander action for prevention success and better understanding the community context of bystander intervention. This presentation will provide an overview of this revised model, present empirical data in support of the theory, and results of a new measure of bystander consequences that can be used to understand prevention effects.

Methods. Data are drawn from two studies of bystander intervention to prevent sexual and relationship violence. The first is a sample of 980 college students from two campuses in the northeast. They were asked questions about bystander action as well as individual and community level influences on bystander behavior (confidence and sense of responsibility as a bystander is an example of an individual level variable while sense of community and peer norms are more community perceptions). The data illustrate the importance of an expanded model for understanding bystanders to interpersonal violence. The second study of 300 undergraduates asked participants about bystander actions they may have performed and follow-up questions related to positive and negative consequences they experienced.

Results: Analyses provide some testing of the Bystander Action Coils model. First, regression analyses examined the contribution of contextual variables (perceptions of collective efficacy and peer norms) to bystander behavior, illustrating the need to attend to the context of bystander action. A second set of analyses presents preliminary psychometrics of a new measure of bystander consequences.

Conclusions. Empirical findings support the need for an expanded model of bystander focused prevention. Bystander focused prevention needs to move beyond mobilizing individuals to engaging full communities.