The Strange Case of Matthew Buford: suicide intervention and social psychology

Behavior in Crisis Situations

The lack of concern for fellow citizens becomes a terrible habit (Darley). Darley and Latane explained a bystander to an emergency with a decision tree consisting of three questions; notice to the event, interpretation of the event as an emergency, and concluding whether they had responsibility to the situation or not. Only one path leads to intervention. Whether a victim receives help is also determined by how many bystanders are present. The more bystanders around, the less likely a victim will receive help.

Americans consider it bad manners to look too closely at people in public. Growing up teaches us to respect privacy and, when among strangers, to close our ears and avoid staring at people. This causes people in crowds to be less likely to notice potential emergency situations. Bystanders tend to react the same way as everyone else in the crowd. In dangerous situations, everyone appears more unconcerned than they really are. Mounting danger can cause one person to react and ignore the calmness of the crowd. But, in general, a crowd can force inaction on members through passitivity and apparent indifference. Members have tendency to wait until someone else reacts. If no one reacts, members of the crowd do not act. Other bystanders can inhibit intervention by making a person feel his responsibility is diffused and diluted.

In the case of Matthew Buford deciding to end his life by jumping from a bridge, the videographer acted out of obedience to the television station he worked for. His job was to report the news. He also conformed to the crowd in respects that he did not act the help the victim. Based on the decision tree, the videographer noticed the event, and maybe interpreted it as an emergency, but obviously did not conclude that it was his responsibility to act to help the victim.

The rescue team in the situation also acted in conformity with the crowd. They knew the victim and the fact he had been in trouble before. They knew the victim had stated that he did not want to be saved. They also feared their own safety in respects to the possible disease of the victim. But, they did not act to save Garrett Couples from acting to help the victim. This shows that they were acting on behalf of the crowd consisting of the rescue team. Because no one in the crowd responded to aid the victim, other members felt their responsibility to the situation diffused and diluted.

Garrett Couples' response was based on the facts that he noticed the event, interpreted as being an emergency, and concluded it was his responsibility to help the victim. He did not conform to the crowd. Instead, he ignored the calmness of the crowd based on the conclusion of it being his responsibility to help the victim.

The dilemma of obedience was explained by Stanley Milgram as the extreme willingness of adults to go to any length on the command of authority (McLeod, 2007). Obedience to authority, whether it is parents, teachers, police, or others, is ingrained as children. Obedience is the response to authority where conformity is the response to group norms. Obedience results from exercise of power from authority where conformity is associated with the need for acceptance and knowing what to do.

Factors that affect obedience are prestige, personal responsibility, whether authority is morally right and/or legally based, authority in uniform, and social support of peers. The higher the prestige of the authority becomes, the higher the obedience. When people confront authority, they can become fearful, nervous, and embarrassed. Personal responsibility increases obedience, like with the videographer. The videographer obviously felt a personal responsibility to the television station to report the event for news.

People tend to obey orders from others with authority as morally right and/or legally based, such as the rescue team. If the rescue team had told the bystanders to assist, the bystanders would have acted on the authority of the rescue team as being a morally right thing to do. On the other hand, if the rescue team had told them to step back, the bystanders would have done so based on the authority of the rescue team.

If authority wears uniforms, obedience increases. The rescue team wears uniforms, which would have increased obedience of the bystanders based on the uniform of the rescue team demonstrating a morally right authority. If, for instance, the rescue team had not been in uniform, the obedience of the bystanders would not have been so strong. Without the uniform, it is questionable whether the rescue team is really a rescue team and decreases the obedience of the bystanders.