THE BYSTANDER EFFECT
The Psychology of Courage and Inaction
Catherine A. Sanderson
William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020
Copyright © Catherine A. Sanderson 2020
Cover design by Steve Leard
Catherine A. Sanderson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008361662
Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008361648
Version: 2021-01-13
TO ANDREW, ROBERT, AND CAROLINE,
with hope that you will never stay silent about things that matter
Contents
I. The Silence of the Good People
4. The Considerable Costs of Helping
6. At School: Standing Up to Bullies
7. In College: Reducing Sexual Misconduct
8. At Work: Fostering Ethical Behavior
On August 25, 2017, my husband and I spent the day settling in our oldest child, Andrew, for the start of his first year at college. We went to Walmart to buy a minifridge and rug. We hung posters above his bed. We attended the obligatory goodbye family lunch before returning to our car to head home to a slightly quieter house.
Two weeks later Andrew called, which was unusual since, like most teenagers, he vastly prefers texting. His voice breaking, he told me that a student in his dorm had just died.
As he described it on the phone, the two of them seemed to have so much in common. They were both freshmen. They were both from Massachusetts and had attended rival prep schools. They both had younger brothers.
“What happened?” I asked.
He told me the student had been drinking alcohol with friends. He got drunk, and around 9 p.m. on Saturday, he fell and hit his head. His friends, roommate, and lacrosse teammates watched over him for many hours. They strapped a backpack around his shoulders to keep him from rolling onto his back, vomiting, and then choking to death. They periodically checked to make sure he was still breathing.
But what they didn’t do—for nearly twenty hours after the fall—was call 911.
By the time they finally did seek help, at around 4 p.m. on Sunday, it was too late. The student was taken to a hospital and put on life support so that his family could fly in to say goodbye.
Now, it’s impossible to know whether prompt medical attention could have saved his life. Perhaps it wouldn’t have. But what is clear is that he didn’t get that opportunity. And this story—of college students failing to do anything in the face of a serious emergency—is hardly unusual.
It’s not just college students who choose not to act, even when the stakes are high. Why