The Compassionate Instinct

“The police have a conception, as part of their culture, that the way you police a fellow officer is to support whatever they’re doing, and that can lead to tragedy, both for the citizens and the police themselves,” says Staub. “So here the notion was to make police officers positive active bystanders, getting them engaged early enough so that they didn’t have to confront their fellow officer.”

More recently, Staub helped schools in Massachusetts develop an anti–bystander curriculum, intended to encourage children to intervene against bullying. The program draws on earlier research that identified the causes of bystander behavior. For instance, older students are reluctant to discuss their fears about bullying, so each student tacitly accepts it, afraid to make waves, and no one identifies the problem—a form of pluralistic ignorance. Staub wants to change the culture of the classroom by giving these students opportunities to air their fears.

“If you can get people to express their concern, then already a whole different situation exists,” he says.

This echoes a point that John Darley makes: more people need to learn about the subtle pressures that can cause bystander behavior, such as diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance. That way they’ll be better prepared the next time they encounter a crisis situation. “We want to explode one particular view that people have: “Were I in that situation, I would behave in an altruistic, wonderful way,’” says Darley. “What I say is, ‘No, you’re misreading what’s happening. I want to teach you about the pressures [that can cause bystander behavior]. Then when you feel those pressures, I want that to be a cue that you might be getting things wrong.’”

Research suggests that this kind of education is possible. One set of studies even found that people who attended social psychology lectures about the causes of bystander behavior were less susceptible to those influences.

But of course, not even this form of education is a guarantee against becoming a bystander. We’re always subject to the complicated interaction between our personal disposition and the demands of circumstance. And we may never know how we’ll act until we find ourselves in a crisis.

To illustrate this point, Samuel Oliner tells the story of a Polish bricklayer who was interviewed for The Altruistic Personality. During World War II, a Jewish man who had escaped from a concentration camp came to the bricklayer and pleaded for help. The bricklayer turned him away, saying he didn’t want to put his own family at risk. “So is he evil?” asks Oliner. “I wouldn’t say he’s evil. He couldn’t act quickly enough, I suppose, to say, ‘Hide in my kiln,’ or ‘Hide in my barn.’ He didn’t think that way.”

“If I was the bricklayer and you came to me, and the Nazis were behind you and the Gestapo was chasing you—would I be willing to help? Would I be willing to risk my family? I don’t know. I don’t know if I would be.”

THE COST OF APATHY: AN INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT REICH

Jason Marsh

THE WEALTHIEST 1 PERCENT of Americans now make 70 times more in after-tax income than the bottom one-fifth of households. Since 2002, the average inflation-adjusted income of the wealthiest 1 percent has risen 42 percent, while the income of the bottom 90 percent of households has risen about 4.7 percent.

Robert Reich has been one of the most prominent critics of these growing inequities. Reich, who is now a professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley, has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, where he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act and led a national fight against sweatshops in the United States and illegal child labor around the world. He has also written 11 books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and most recently, Supercapitalism.

Reich’s writings and lectures stand apart from those of other critics who focus on inequality. He doesn’t settle for easy condemnations of outsourcing or offshoring, nor does he think such effects of globalization can be easily undone. At the same time, he rejects the idea that these changes need result in greater disparities of wealth.

Instead, Reich attributes rising inequality not only to structural economic changes but to how Americans, and their policy makers, have failed to meet the social challenges posed by the new economy. While others point fingers at the government or big corporations, Reich also holds a mirror up to American society.