Bullying and the bystander effect

Trust thought for today - This is quite interesting on countering the bystander effect.

Bullying: why most people do nothing when they witness it – and how to take action

It gives four types of bystanders. “There are active-constructive bystanders, who proactively and directly seek to improve the bullying situation by, for example, reporting the bully or confronting them.

There are also passive-constructive bystanders who don’t directly “solve” the bullying, but listen to or sympathise with the target.

Passive-destructive bystanders, on the other hand, typically avoid the bullying and “do nothing”. While this may sound benign to some, targets may view passivity as condoning the bully’s actions.

Finally, active destructive-bystanders actively worsen the bullying situation, for example, by openly siding with the bully or setting up situations where the bully can pick on people.

I might adapt this to countering BS!

Interesting point in the comments here - the importance of psychological safety in allowing people to stand up to bullying is of vital importance. Crazy, everything comes down to the importance of an open blame free culture!