When bystanders become bothersome: The negative consequences of bystander conflict and the moderating role of resilience

Abstract

Bystander conflict is a situation in which employees are hindered in their work by parties not involved in the primary process. Public service employees and emergency care workers, such as ambulance employees and firefighters, often encounter this kind of conflict with potentially far-reaching detrimental effects for public or patient safety. Unfortunately, until now, bystander conflict has hardly received scientific attention. In this paper, we will present the results of an experiment (Study 1) and a simulation study (Study 2). Taken together, the results indicate that bystander conflict is negatively related to the affective, behavioural, and cognitive outcomes of individuals. Higher levels of bystander conflict were associated with more negative and less positive feelings (Studies 1, 2), unfavourable bystander appraisals (Studies 1, 2), and lower levels of performance (Study 2). Additionally, Study 2 revealed that bystander conflict was negatively and indirectly related to positive affect and performance through cognitive capacity. We investigated the moderating role of resilience, in order to provide insight into potential factors alleviating these negative associations. In both studies, resilience alleviated the negative associations of bystander conflict. Overall, the results of the two studies provide a first step towards a theory on bystander conflict.

Keywords:

• Bystander conflict
• Performance
• Affect
• Cognitive capacity
• Appraisal
• Resilience

Notes

¹ To rule out the possibility that no significant differences emerged because the mere presence of a bystander hindered participants’ performance in the neutral and the conflicting bystander condition equally (social inhibition, e.g., Bond & Titus, 1983), we initially included a “no-bystander control condition”. However, no significant differences in performance emerged between the bystander conditions and the no-bystander condition.

² Outcome variables performance, positive affect, and negative affect could not be included.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from NWO Conflict & Safety [grant number W 07.68.110.00].