I have been fascinated by the bystander effect for a long time so I was incredibly excited to be able to have a chance to read The Bystander Effect.

Prospective readers should be aware that the nature of this book means that there is discussion of difficult topics like rape and sexual assault but there is also a heavy message of hope throughout as examples of people going against the bystander effect are given. Additionally, the final couple of chapters are devoted to exploring methods for combating the inaction caused by the bystander effect.

There is a really great grounding in science throughout as Sanderson draws of numerous studies.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!

I approached this book with caution,concerned that it's academic content might be offputting. I was wrong. It certainly has the credentials of a carefully researched and recorded account but it is interspersed with relevant real life examples which make it an important read. These examples enable the reader to test the research against real life incidents. The role of the Bystander is the easy option,never intervening when faced with victims of assault,abuse or worse. This book records the research that shows the characteristics and backgrounds of those most likely to have the courage to intervene. The use of examples of incidents and research from outside the United
States as well give it an added relevance. This is an important book in encouraging people to stand up for themselves,for friends but strangers too when they see or hear of unacceptable behaviour.

Perhaps the of the most timely books in a while. This book focuses on the psychology of the Bystander and the reason we might want to intervene when bad behaviour happens and yet seem less able to step into the limelight to challenge it than we used to do.

The case studies were interesting and the conclusions made sense to me and I feel able and engaged to do better when I myself see things that should be challenged.

I had high hopes when I read the description of this book, because I do believe -based on experience- that stepping up and intervening against crime or anti-social behaviour is what people should normally do. Professor Sanderson quotes numerous scientific studies and there is a lot of interesting information throughout the text. Why, then, do I only give it two stars?

It is because, despite the scientific nature of her evidence, her premises, which colour everything, are ideological rather than scientific.

At the outset we are told about the “myth of the monster”: peer group pressure acting on weak-willed individuals with no moral compass leads to sexual assaults, harassment, discrimination and so on. At no point in the book is it accepted that the remorseless determination of some sexual offenders (and therefore also murderers) to harm their victims is based on something other than peer group pressure. I have met three people whom I know to be murderers; only one of them fits Professor Sanderson’s profile of a peer-group-influenced tearaway -and after serving his sentence, he became a normal and valued member of his new local community in rural Bedfordshire. The other two were, in my view the very “monsters” she finds mythical. Both were incredibly strong-willed and determined to offend, rather than influenced into it, and both, interestingly, constructed their own subordinate groups as a substitute for any group of actual peers (whom they despised). In one case the subordinate group consisted of boys aged 8-9, while the murderer, who ordered the younger boys to watch him spend several hours torturing an old lady to death, was 17 at the time of the murder and about 10 when his peers first attempted to describe his emerging psychopathic behaviour to teachers and policemen, who all impatiently rejected the information as if it were precisely the sort of malicious gossip which Professor Sanderson sees as a signature element of harassment and discrimination. Had these complaints been taken at face value, even once in the course of seven years, the murder could have been prevented by appropriate action by an appropriate authority, able to survive and contain the inevitable retaliatory violence. The pressure from the murderer’s actual peers: schoolmates the same age, was in the direction of NOT raping helpers at the Sea Cadet Hall or torturing old ladies to death; what it lacked was the authority and capacity to use FORCE to actually stop him. Intervention sometimes has to come from someone with legal and physical authority, moral authority simply does not cut it with psychopaths.

This leads us to another problem: Professor Sanderson paints peer group pressure as a cause of problems on almost every page and never explicitly states that it might be a force for good rather than evil. Even though her own campaign amounts to a call for “moral rebels” to impose their own peer group pressure on perceived offenders! Both the “monsters” that I have met, possessed some of the attributes which she wants her moral rebels to develop: they were experts at either rejecting peer group pressure, or twisting it to their own ends. She also appears to praise moral rebels for believing that their own principles are better than other peoples’ principles. This reminds me, strongly, of my second monster:

He is a gangster and, according to what has been said to me by his subordinates, a professional killer from the age of 19. (The NCA and its predecessor organisation, SOCA, have been trying to arrest him for more than twelve years.) BTW. Professional killers often end up running the criminal organisation that employs them: not simply because they have the skills to dispose of rivals, but because they tend to have such a low opinion of other people that they cannot tolerate being anywhere except at the top of the heap. This man really bears that idea out. He not only has a strong set of principles: he firmly believes them to be superior to anyone else’s, which Professor Sanderson presents as an unqualified virtue.

I did not confront him: he confronted me, because his subordinates (some of them were at college with me) had reported that I was determinedly opposed to child sexual abuse and child pornography. (These were not major public issues at the time as they are now, but I had done some volunteer work at a school for very handicapped and terminally-ill children, and had been astonished to find that there was an organised group of men -an offshoot of the Paedophile Information Exchange- who were making repeated efforts to gain access to the most vulnerable children in the country, in order to sexually abuse them. All the time I was working to make the school gardens accessible to specialist wheelchairs, I was scanning the horizon because these men would infiltrate through the surrounding woodland and try and get close to children in the gardens and sometimes even the main buildings. (Electronic locks were not a thing then.))

The monster saw this as wrong thinking that needed to be stamped out. When he confronted me, he explained that he was going to have everything he wanted in life, because he was better than everybody else and it was in the best interests of the species that he be at the top. He explicitly said that if he needed to sell, or make, child pornography, for example, to achieve his ambitions, then he would do so without hesitation. He mentioned almost every major line of criminal endeavour except professional killing: he did mention drug trafficking (there’s a warrant outstanding for him on that one!) and many others. This shows that he was calculating as much as acting on impulse: he self-censored to the extent of not mentioning his actual entry-level position in organised crime. But the manner of his confrontation of myself exactly resembles what Professor Sanderson requires of her moral rebels, except that she would presumably strongly disapprove of his general direction.

I didn’t actually react very much at the time, because it was such an odd (and apparently deluded) thing to hear from a 19 year old and I had already received a seven-year training course in authority figures not listening to that sort of tale, even when it was true. Decades later, I saw his face on “Crimewatch” with the comment that SOCA had filmed him at a drug deal and would like to talk to him, but had no idea who he was. They soon found out, but he absconded from court on the last day of his trial and has not been seen since! The lesson is: do not ignore what someone proclaims just because it sounds deluded. “Mark this man Bismark: he means what he says.”

My fear is that this book will lead people into confrontation with determined rather than casual offenders and if you stop a determined or compulsive offender carrying out a planned crime, he will resent it and may respond, either with immediate violence that you cannot handle, or with a long and calculated campaign of stalking and harassment which will cause you more misery than you can possibly imagine. Read it for the information, but for Heaven’s sake be careful of the over-arching message.

Having recently read Chanel Miller’s Know My Name and been shocked, angered and disgusted by Brock Turner, the man convicted of assaulting her, reading this helped me to understand the motivation, actions and emotional response of the two Swedish students who stopped the attacker and helped her.

This reads as a well researched piece of academic writing within the non-fiction genre; it is both interesting and informative and its written in a way that is accessible and feels very current. The author makes multiple references to well known events in both the US and the UK and she draws on recent academic studies from many Western universities.

By making reference to so many examples within common culture (the Brock Turner/Stanford Rape incident, the murder of Jamie Bulger, the conviction of Larry Nassar, the USA gymnastics coach etc) this book feels very relevant and necessary, not only to help us understand the wrongs already done, but in helping us to understand what we can do as moral rebels; to intervene and stop harm from happening in these ways again, rather than being a passive bystander who witnesses, but does nothing. It offers an explanation to why witnesses witnessed, but did not intervene and provides the reader with opportunities to reflect on the difference between good intentions and effective intervention.

I found the book empowering, inspiring and encouraging. I’d like to thank the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review The Bystander Effect in exchange for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As a prior Psychology student this book really appealed. I think maybe for someone who hasn’t already studied the topic then this would be an excellent book. I was hoping for a more in depth look at the Bystander Effect but it seems to be more the basics, which were previously learnt.

It’s quite text booky in places but covers a few of the major psychological topics from history.

Good for a beginner and more of a revision for people already in the knowledge

A brilliant introduction to anyone who is new to psychology and new to some of the experiments and psychologist named in this book. My favourite being Milgram’s studies of Obedience. I think this book is an excellent up to date look at the bystanders effect and how social media can play a massive role.

As an individual with an MSc in Psychology, I was looking forward to reading this book with the description highlighting high profile examples of the bystander effect. However, I found this book a little dry and reads like an introduction to the bystander effect, rather than a deep dive into this psychological phenomenon. Whilst I enjoyed the book itself, I found that with my own knowledge of psychology, I already knew a lot of the information provided. Great for those looking to get an initial understanding of the Bystander Effect.

A quick read. I had already read, or was aware of, much of the information within this book. I expected a fresh perspective or a new, interesting take on this fascinating subject, but I was disappointed.

The book reads more like a dissertation than an engaging, exciting non-fiction book. I love reading non-fiction and have read some very well-written books over the past year, but this is. Or one of them. It felt very scholarly and flat and I didn’t enjoy the writer’s voice.

If you don’t know much about the bystander effect you might enjoy this book as an introduction. If you already have some awareness or knowledge, don’t expect anything new.

I’d recommend it more as a textbook than a non-fiction.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.