International Journal of Business and Economics Volume 11, No. 2 December, 2012

Overcoming Bystander Apathy and Non-Intervention in Alcohol-Poisoning Emergency Situations: Advancing Field Testing of Training-for Intervention Theory via Thought Experiments

Carol M. Megehee

Wall College of Business Administration , Coastal Carolina University , U.S.A.

Sandra K. Strick

School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management , University of South Carolina, U.S.A.

Arch G. Woodside

Carroll School of Management , Boston College , U.S.A.

Abstract

Consider groups of partying college students failing to helpfully assist someone in life-threatening distress from alcoholic poisoning. Anecdotal evidence (Davis and DeBarros , 2006) supports the social-norming theory subfield of unresponsive bystander research by Latane and Darley (1970) and others (Cialdini and Goldstein , 2004). This article is a call for structurally transforming the dynamics of the unfolding dramas in natural groups where alcoholic poisoning leading to death occurs. The present article includes the proposal for a quasi-experiment of natural groups (members of fraternities and sororities) in naturally occurring contexts (party situations) using placebo, a standardized training for intervention programs for servers (TIPS) designed for peer intervention, and two versions of advanced TIPS designed to structurally introduce a designated interventionist (DI). The DI and DI training designs are crafted to overcome the unresponsive bystander effect. The proposal includes thought experiments to explain both short- and long-term dependent measures of program impact in such quasi-experiments that include immediate measures of alcohol drinking and intervention knowledge, the medium-term creation and assignment of a group DI position, and the long-term interventionist behavior of groups appointing persons holding DI appointments versus groups not making such appointments.

Keywords： alcoholic poisoning, thought experiments, training.

JEL Classifications：D03.

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