1. Reporting
Mechanisms &
the Bystander Effect
Alice Fang and Sam King

3. Bystander effect
a social psychological phenomenon that refers
to cases in which individuals do not offer help
to a victim

4. Our question
How can the design of reporting systems
impact the bystander effect?
text voice call web form

5. Parallels to HCI
- the power-law distribution of contribution
- “Simple requests lead to more compliance
than do lengthy complex ones for decisions
about which members do not care strongly”
[Kraut and Resnik 2011].

6. 1. A text-based system for reporting will
increase the likelihood of reporting compared
to a traditional voice-based system
2. The web form will have more reports than
either phone cases, because it doesn’t
require a change in form factor
( || )
Our hypothesis

7. Methods
- Chatroom!

8. Using chatrooms
- Easy to set up
- Simulation of extreme circumstances
- Standardized
- Scalable

9. Results
• Phone
• SMS
• Online

10. Results
• Phone: 0/6
• SMS: 0/7
• Online: 2/7

11. Results
• Phone: 0/6
• SMS: 0/7
• Online: 2/7

12. Hypothesis 1: Voice v Text?

13. Hypothesis 1: Voice v Text? False!
Clarity
• Not ambiguous
• Users weren't nervous
Spam!
• "i don't really trust those things anyway...phone
numbers seem suspicious."
• "I prefer not to use my cell to call or text unidentified
numbers. It seems like I would be inviting spam into my
phone."

14. Hypothesis 2: Phone v Online?

15. Hypothesis 2: Phone v
Online?????
P = 0.13... but it seems like online helps.

16. Hypothesis 2: Phone v
Online?????
P = 0.13... but it seems like online helps.
On the other hand...
Not Serious
• "it happens a lot on the internet"
• "did not see any use that I would have defined as
abusive."
Selfish
• "I was not an active member of the chat so I didn't really
see how the asshole commentator affected me."

17. Ecological Validity
• Chat rooms have bystanders
• Voice is a good control
• Medium severity works

18. Ecological Validity: Bystanders
Is there danger?
• "I wasn't sure if this was just an experiment or if it was a
real chat room."
Is it My Responsibility?
• "actual participants of the conversation have the power
and the right to respond to what is being done in the
conversation."
Can I help?
• "it doesn't seem like the action would be useful"
• "I didn't think it would make a difference whether I

19. Ecological Validity: Physical?

20. Conclusion
• We measured how much people were jerks
• People are jerks
• People are jerks over SMS, too
• People are worse jerks on their phones
(probably)
• People are jerks in chatrooms like in real life
• Researchers can study jerks in chatrooms