Commentary: Bystander Effect, Conformity, and the Perils of Obedience: Two Quick Examples From My Own Experience In and Around Academia
- Updated: 2022-07-25
- By: Dr. Floyd
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The bystander effect, a form of conformity, arises when people fail to act reasonably because they notice others around them not acting reasonably. The “perils of obedience” was the term by which Stanley Milgram described[1] the tendency of many to abuse–even torture–as long as someone seemingly important is ordering the abuse or torture: in the torturer’s mind, these orders provide her with a diffusion of responsibility.
Following are two quick examples where the bystander effect, conformity, and the perils of obedience have arisen during my time in academia. To state the absolute obvious: these examples will not shock, awe, or surprise anyone who pays any attention to the world around them. After all, vanishingly rare is the person who does not know of this kind of mindless hive-mindedness in the modern world. Thus, these examples just add to that pile.
Example 1: De Facto Legalization of Child-Molestation for Many Child-murderers
Many years ago, I was a student in a class on criminal investigation at Grossmont College in San Diego, California. The instructor, Rick Michelson, was a lifelong law enforcement officer, including positions of leadership. He wrote the class textbook. In it, he mentions plainly and clearly that the most common sex-crime is women sexually victimizing male children, and that such crimes are routinely downplayed and ignored.[2] For the week in which that revelation arose, I was the only student–out of dozens–whose submitted assignment (a class-wide post) incorporated a mention of the fact that the most common sex-crime is women sexually victimizing male children, and that such crimes are routinely downplayed and ignored. A classmate or two reacted relatively limply to my mention of the instructor’s disclosure–and then business continued as usual. Of course, how much more should I have suspected from a society whose men allow women to murder prenatal children for convenience. After all: it is hardly more extreme to allow child-murderers to also molest children.
Example 2: Systematic Child-Abuse in Mainstream Counseling, Psychology, and Psychiatry
A few years ago, I was a student in a counseling program, whose curriculum accorded with the national standards for licensure as a professional counselor (CACREP accreditation). In one of the program’s earliest classes to introduce modern counseling, one of the assigned textbooks casually mentions that "[a]ntipsychotic medications are prescribed at a rate of six times higher than they were a decade ago; however, an astounding 86% of children who are prescribed antipsychotic medication do not have a psychotic disorder.” [3] For the week in which that revelation arose, I was the only student–out of dozens–whose submitted assignment (a class-wide post) incorporated a mention of the systematic . Zero classmates reacted to my mention of the instructor’s disclosure–and then business continued as usual. Of course, how much more should I have suspected from classmates who were all women–in a society that where men strategically privilege women in education and industry because women are far easier to control, and hugely less likely to bite any hand that feeds them.
Glancing a bit further into the systematic child-abuse in mainstream counseling, psychology, and psychiatry: it turns out that boys are especially targeted for abuse by USA's pharmacrary–an epidemic of pathologizing normal boys.[4]
Another glance into the systematic child-abuse in mainstream counseling, psychology, and psychiatry–reveals that girls, once targeted for abuse, are especially prone to self-murder. For example, most studies show that girls who are stigmatized with the scam diagnosis of "autism" self-murder at rates more than triple the rate of girls not thus stigmatized.[5] This means that, after being abused with the scam diagnosis of "autism": girls' risk of self-murder rises almost to the level of boys in the general population (as compared to the girls in general population, who are significantly less likely than boys to self-murder). However, at least one study in the British Journal of Psychiatry suggests that girls abused by the scam diagnosis of "autism" are as much as 13 times more likely than regular girls to self-murder (13.05; 95% CI: 8.73–19.5),[6] matching them to suicidality disparities between and among old widows versus old widowers (i.e., an old woman whose husband dies, versus an old man whose wife dies);[7] and such women and girls presented a "[general] mortality risk [that] was nine times higher than in the general population control group.”[8]
So there are two quick examples of the bystander effect, conformity, and the perils of obedience–from my own experience in and around academia: (1) students of criminology casually ignoring the news that countless people in society allow each other to ignore and downplay sexually dangerous women and their child victims; and (2) students in counseling casually ignoring the news of systematic child-abuse in mainstream counseling, psychology, and psychiatry.
And these brief examples do not even touch the corruption that casually lurks in and around doctoral work in academia–much less the hellhole of elementary education. More on that, later.
But again: these facts are simply drops in the bucket of modern corruption. Obviously, everyone who has been abused as described in this quick note–or seen it happen to someone else: they know as well as any researcher that abuse infests our society. So this note aims only to remind victims and advocates, and other interested parties, that others notice too. After all, it is easy to forget this, from within the fog of nationwide abuse and torture–by those who variously commit the abuse and torture, or else ignore, downplay, and enable.
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Notes
- Milgram, S. (1974). The Perils of Obedience. Harper’s Magazine. https://web.physics.utah.edu/~detar/phys4910/readings/ethics/PerilsofObedience.html
- Michelson, R. (2015). Criminal investigation: Introduction to concepts and applications. LawTech.
- Wong, D., Hall, K.R., Justice, C. A., & Wong-Hernandez, L. (2015). Counseling individuals through the lifespan. Sage. As cited in Mellin, E. A. (2009). Responding to the crisis in children’s mental health: Potential roles for the counseling profession. Journal of Counseling and Development, 87, 501–506. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2009.tb00136.x. As cited in Levin-Epstein, M. (2006). Increasing scrutiny of antipsychotics. Behavioral Healthcare, 26(10), 32–33. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17121266/
- Fresson, M., Meulemans, T., Dardenne, B., & Geurten, M. (2019). Overdiagnosis of ADHD in boys: Stereotype impact on neuropsychological assessment. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 8(3), 231–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622965.2018.1430576
- See, e.g., Kirby, A. V., Bakian, A. V., Zhang, Y., Bilder, D. A., Keeshin, B. R., & Coon, H. (2019). A 20-year study of suicide death in a statewide autism population. Autism Research, 12(4), 658–666. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2076.
- Hirvikoski, T., Boman, M., Chen, Q., D’Onofrio, B. M., Mittendorfer-Rutz, E., Lichtenstein, P., Bölte, S., & Larsson, H. (2020). Individual risk and familial liability for suicide attempt and suicide in autism: A population-based study. Psychological Medicine, 50(9), 1463–1474. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719001405. As cited in Kirby et al., note 5, p. 659.
- As reported on page 70 of Farrell, W. (1993). Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex. Simon and Schuster.
- Hirvikoski et al., note 6, p. 237.
–Dr. Floyd