Bystander response to an assault: When a man attacks a woman.

Abstract

From newspaper accounts it appears that when women were attacked and bystanders did not intervene, frequently the bystanders justified their inactivity by stating that they thought it was a "lovers' quarrel." In the first study subjects witnessed a violent fight between a man and a woman. Subjects intervened more frequently in the fight between strangers than between a married couple. In additional experiments it was found that the stranger condition was perceived as being more damaging to the woman although the fights themselves were identical. The woman in the stranger condition was seen as wanting help more frequently than the married woman. In addition the attacker was perceived as likely to run in the stranger condition and to stay and fight in the married condition. If subjects know little about the conflict, they are likely to perceive the protagonists as dates, lovers, or married couples rather than as strangers, acquaintances, or friends. The results were discussed in terms of their implication for social control.

Police Involvement in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women

“…These results suggest that some police officers are more tolerant than others as they perceive some incidents of IPVAW as less serious and feel less responsible to act. As some research suggests (Felson & Ackerman, 2001;Gracia & Herrero, 2006;Pilliavin et al, 1981;Shotland & Straw, 1976), a possible explanation for these differences is that some police officers tend to appraise the severity of the violence between intimate partners as less serious than violence between strangers and therefore feel less responsible. For these officers, it would be more difficult to reach the high level of involvement threshold than for other officers perceiving the same incident as more serious.…”

“…This possibility would be worth testing in future studies that include in the same research design assessments of police appraisals of both the severity of violent incidents between strangers and intimate partners. Research has also suggested that the perceived relationship between offenders and victims and related social norms of not helping in private matters Shotland & Straw, 1976) and victim-blaming attitudes (Lerner, 1970;Weiner, 1980) can reduce the sense of personal responsibility and consequently the probability of help being offered (Buzawa & Buzawa, 1996). For example, victimblaming attitudes are still pervasive and become particularly conspicuous in differentiating citizens, including police officers, who tend to accept IPVAW from those who do not (Gracia & Herrero, 2006).…”

“…According to the psychosocial research tradition on helping behavior (see Batson, 1998, for a review), a number of factors, such as the relationship between victim and offender, victim-blaming beliefs, and the norm of privacy may diminish the sense of personal responsibility of bystanders, reducing the probability of help being offered. 3 For example, bystander research has shown that people are more reluctant to intervene when the victim and the perpetrator are perceived to be related (e.g., dating couples, spouses, other family; Levine, 1999;Shotland & Straw, 1976). A review by Jordan (2004) suggests that police officers are less likely to arrest intimate partner offenders than nonintimate partners who commit physical assault or rape.…”

“…For example, if IPVAW is considered by police officers as such only when it involves extreme, severe, or repeated violence, it is more likely that some violence (minor incidents) toward women in intimate relationships may be deemed acceptable or tolerable (Gracia & Herrero, 2006;Loseke, 1989;Muehlenhard & Kimes, 1999). Research on bystander intervention showed that violence between intimates is perceived as less serious than violence between strangers (Shotland & Straw, 1976). Thus, incidents of IPVAW appraised as "not serious enough" (Gracia, 1995) will probably get a low involvement police response (nonintervention, talking or advising, or responding only at the victim's request).…”

La construcción social de la violencia

“…Resulta enormemente significativo que, en la condición en la que un hombre pegaba a una mujer, ninguno de los seis observadores hombres intervenía para impedirlo, mientras que la ayuda a otro hombre era relativamente frecuente. Shotland y Straw (1976), por su parte, encontraron en otra serie de experimentos que la intervención era mucho más frecuente cuando los observadores percibían a atacante y víctima como extraños (65%) que cuando los creían casados (19%). Pero lo más interesante es la conclusión a la que llegaban: después de señalar lo bueno que sería que los vecinos se conociesen mejor para no caer así en falsas apreciaciones y mejorar el control social en la comunidad,afirmaban:…”