Intervention
Despite the large number of individuals who do not approve of bullying, there are very few who will intervene on behalf of a victim. Most people remain bystanders, and may accept the bullying or even support the bully. In 85% of bullying incidents, bystanders are involved in teasing the victim or egging on the bully. When the bully encounters no negative response from observers, it encourages continuation of the behavior.
There are many reasons why individuals choose not to intervene. They may be relieved that the victim of a normal and generally-present danger is someone else, they may take vicarious satisfaction in the bullying, or they may worry that they risk becoming the next victim through intervention. An intuitive understanding that others will be similarly unwilling to assist them if they do become the next victim likely strengthens the motivation to remain passive.
Researchers have been considered the just-world belief theory to explore a posited decline in anti-bullying attitudes. "This is the idea that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get". The study determined that children do seek to understand, justify, and rectify the different injustices they come across in everyday life. However, further research is needed to link the two together.
Read more about this topic: Bullying
Famous quotes containing the word intervention:
“I was curious, I was avid to know only what I found more real than myself, that which allowed me to glimpse the thoughts of a great genius, or the force or grace of nature left to its own devices, without the intervention of man.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)