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Rethinking Bystander Nonintervention: Social Categorization and the Evidence of Witnesses at the James Bulger Murder Trial

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Human Relations

Abstract

Bystander apathy is a long establishedphenomenon in social psychology which has yet to betranslated into practical strategies for increasingbystander intervention. This paper argues that thetraditional paradigm is hampered by a focus on the physicalco-presence of others rather than an analysis of thesocial meanings inherent in (non)intervention. Thetestimony provided by 38 bystanders at the trial of two 10-year-old boys for the murder of2-and-a-half-year-old James Bulger is analyzed. It isargued that their failure to intervene can be attributedto the fact that they assumed — or were told— that the three boys were brothers. The way in whichthis category of “the family” served toprohibit or deflect intervention is analyzed. Thisapproach is contrasted with a traditional bystanderapathy account of the bystanders' actions in the Bulger case.It is argued that bystander (non)intervention phenomenonshould be analyzed in terms of the construction ofsocial categories in local contexts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, LA1 4YF, Lancaster, UK

    Mark Levine

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  1. Mark Levine
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Levine, M. Rethinking Bystander Nonintervention: Social Categorization and the Evidence of Witnesses at the James Bulger Murder Trial. Human Relations 52, 1133–1155 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016991826572

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