The Bystander Approach

Sport in Society’s Mentors in Violence Prevention Program educates students of the bystander approach in their men’s violence against women trainings. There are various feature characteristics the approach fosters to enhance participants’ learning and future activism.

The bystander approach treats each person not as a perpetrator or a victim, but rather as someone who can make a difference. In this sense it does not condone someone’s negative actions, but looks more towards the positive light there can be in future circumstances. In doing this, the bystander approach is able to teach participants on how to be effective and positive role models in their communities. This is very important in the sports because many athletes are looked upon as leaders and role models.

In his study probing the nature of prejudice, Ron Slaby, a senior scientist at Education Development Center, Inc., a Sport in Society Research Fellow, uses “the bystander approach”—i.e., placing middle school students in the third-party role of bystanders to acts of prejudice, rather than in the role of perpetrator or victim. It is an educational strategy, using video as a springboard for discussion, to help people feel comfortable and to begin to understand the other's perspective. Slaby noted that the bystander perspective offers such opportunities as allowing students, from a bystander perspective, to respond to acts of prejudice as equals and without implicit or explicit blame and to view issues of prejudice more objectively, critically, and nondefensively.

Slaby, co-author of the article Rethinking the Bystander Role in School Violence Prevention, discusses the bystander behavior further explaining why bystanders choose to act or not act in certain situations. Two models are discussed explaining the bystander behavior: Latané and Darley’s Model and Ajzen’s model. Latané and Darley’s article describes a five step process that bystanders experience when making a decision of whether they should intervene or not. These steps include noticing a situation, interpreting that situation, assuming personal responsibility for it, deciding exactly what to do, and possessing the skills in order to act. Ajzen’s model describes planned behavior when dealing with weighing the costs and benefits of intervention. Ajzen argues that we are less likely to act if we think the costs are too high, if we know that our significant other would not act, and if we perceive substantial barriers to acting effectively.

A great example of the bystander approach in recent sports occurred during a Playoff Softball game between Central Washington University (CWU) and Western Oregon University (WOU). A player from the Western Oregon Team hit a home run and started her jog to first base. Her knee gave out as she rounded first base, and she could not move any further. Her homerun would bring her team ahead and greatly increase their chances of moving up in the tournament. The rules stated that her teammates could not help her. Two players from the Central Oregon team decided it was their place to help this opposing player make it around the bases and score. The fact that Central Oregon would probably lose the game due to her scoring that homerun never even entered their minds. The bystanders’ action created more attention and applause than they had ever gotten for winning a game. There is something about doing the right thing that will always take precedence over winning.

The bystander approach, in teaching athletes to deal with similar situations, can greatly increase the demonstration of sportsmanship on and off the fields. In today’s sports highlight stories we see hockey fights or football players taking their anger out on one another. It is important that bystanders understand what they can do to help, in order to reduce negative behavior. If individuals outside the situation are not supporting the violence it will certainly diminish.