Raising Heroes Part 2: Definition Of An Anti- Hero
Rachel Quilty
Author, Personal Branding Strategist, Brand Management Consultant esp Crisis & Filmmaker
Raising Heroes Part 2: Definition of An Anti Hero?
Bold Leadership Requires Bravery & Heroism Overcoming Privilege, Politics & Political Correctness?
To be a hero to defend a moral cause, acting for the greater good, or just doing the right thing; knowing there is a personal risk, done without expectation of reward. Often it means being a contrarian and adopting a different stance to the many, gaining the intrinsic reward of knowing you are doing the right thing, if not receiving an extrinsic reward.
The banality of heroism concept suggests that we are all potential heroes waiting for a moment in life to perform a heroic deed. The decision to act heroically is a choice that many of us will be called upon to make at some point in time or even frequently.
The idea of the banality of heroism debunks the myth of the “heroic elect,” a myth that reinforces two basic human tendencies. The first is to ascribe very rare personal characteristics to people who do something special—to see them as superhuman, practically beyond comparison to the rest of us. The second is the trap of inaction—sometimes known as the “bystander effect.”?
In fact, courage requires us to act despite fear. A form of decisiveness overcoming doubt, indecision, disinformation, risk aversion.?To draw on an inner strength or fortitude and act.
Psychologist Ervin Staub, a leader in the study of the differences between active and passive bystanders highlights the positive influence, we can exert as bystanders. His research interests were shaped by his experiences as a young Jewish child in Hungary during World War II. Staub was to be killed in the Holocaust. His family’s maid, Maria, a Christian woman risked her life to shelter Staub and his sister while 75 percent of Hungary’s 600,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis.?
Philip Zimbardo, identified differences between bystanders and people who display “moral courage.”
Research has shown that the bystander effect is often promoted by diffusion of responsibility, when different people witnessing an emergency, all assume someone else will help. Like the “good guards,” we fall into the trap of inaction when we assume it’s someone else’s responsibility to act the hero.
If we foster what we term “heroic imagination,” or the development of a personal heroic ideal that it is everyone’s responsibility in some capacity to assist or act we can create or raise heroes.
In the famous Kitty Genovese murder, there was 38 witnesses who did nothing. They primarily assumed someone else would help. Psychologists Darley and Latané went on to study bystander behaviour as a result of this famous case.?
In one study, they defined what is called the “diffusion of responsibility”. That is, participants who thought there were other witnesses to the emergency, felt less personal responsibility to intervene.?
Eighty-five percent of the participants who were in the two-person situation, and hence believed they were the only witness to the victim’s seizure, left their cubicles to help.?
In contrast, only 62 percent of the participants who were in the three-person situation and 31 percent of the participants in the six-person situation tried to help. Darley and Latané attributed their results to a “diffusion of responsibility” - the assumption someone else would help or it isn’t our personal responsibility.
The end result is altruistic inertia. Other researchers have also suggested the effects of a “confusion of responsibility,” where bystanders fail to help someone in distress because they don’t want to be mistaken for the cause of that distress.
However, the active bystander can, in fact, get people to focus on a problem. They can motivate others to take action; while passive bystanders reinforce a sense that nothing is wrong in a situation.
How to activate Heroism or People Willing to Intervene?
Psychologist John Darley identified strategies that an individual can take in order to get others to help; to become people who would be willing to intervene. These same strategies are also critical actions in crisis or disaster management.
1. Make the need clear “This is the problem. I need help with XYZ.” and?
2. Select specific people or groups for help with specific needs. I would add dependent on their operational capabilities, if possible.
By doing this, the victim overcomes the two biggest obstacles to intervention.
Firstly, it prevents people from concluding there is no real emergency (thereby eliminating the effect of pluralistic ignorance), and?
Secondly, prevents them from thinking that someone else will help (thereby overcoming diffusion of responsibility).
The lesson is to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear. This is critical. It also highlights the need to ensure that where the person responsible does not take action, that other individuals are authorised and encouraged to take action as we see in Anti-Bystander Education. Ie its everyone’s responsibility.
What might cause resistance or reluctance to act especially when someone responsible fails to take appropriate action??
Altruistic inertia has been seen in air crashes where co-pilots feared questioning or acting contrary to the captain, largely due to intrenched cultural norms or not questioning a superior as often seen in military.?
This failure to act despite know there is a problem that some else is unable to manage is interesting. It requires an act of heroism. To act, despite negation opinion for the greater good. This can be a cultural norms, systemic issues or conditioned responses personal limitations, incompetence ie lack necessary skills and ability, which must be identified, with safety measures and parameters introduced.?Creating a safe space to question leaders, commanders, superiors.
Some people with a predisposition toward becoming active bystanders, those more likely to help others when an opportunity arises; question others or the establishment, to express an altruistic perspective, a heightened concern for the welfare of others, have greater feelings of social responsibility, and a commitment to moral values.??
In her book The Heart of Altruism Kristen Monroe, a political scientist at the University of California, writes of the “altruistic perspective,” a common perception among altruists “that they are strongly linked to others through a shared humanity.”
Research shows that people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust did not tend to be achievement-oriented or concerned about other people's approval. Instead, they were found to have a heightened "capacity for extensive relationships," and a "stronger sense of attachment to others and their feelings of responsibility for the welfare of others," reports Samuel and Pearl Oliner, who led a landmark study of heroes in Nazi Europe.?
Which reiterates Philip Zimbardo definition of heroism - a concern for other people in need—a concern to defend a moral cause, knowing there is a personal risk, done without expectation of reward.?
Research tells us that like heroism, evil can also be promoted, often unconsciously.
We can also see it in cultural norms, caste systems, the concept of intersectionality all of which embed systemic discrimination into system outcomes, bias enrolment admissions, treatment, and advocacy which can lead to the feminisation of poverty and pre-mature death. We are seeing this idea being discussed in the current “Woke” commentary. The concept meaning alert to prejudice, discrimination, social inequalities or social injustice. And as such the morally reprehensive position of resisting or rejecting its existence or impact and more importantly the positive gains of addressing these issues.
Government Departments have a significant role in the raising of heroes. We see tragic results when police, law enforcement, health care professionals do not adhere strictly to policies, procedures and protocols; escalations in violence, complications condoned and enabled. Some see dismissing procedures as personal bias or neglect on one hand in the case of healthcare and in policing looking after someone, being part of a community when in fact in most cases it is enabling and condoning bad behaviour, promoting its repetition or escalation.?
This neglect of duty ie failure to enforce laws is by definition in law enforcement is corruption and potentially criminal. With cultural norms and the dismissal, devaluing of women or groups we see the potential for this outcome and one of my suggestions is to ensure personal bias is removed in the workplace through strict adherence of procedures and protocols, training and practice.
Read related article on Bold Brand Leadership: Cultural Intelligence, Systemic Discrimination & Intersectionality:
Resistance to change, can also promote harmful outcomes. An illustration maybe, failing to recognise the latest research results or findings can be included in this situation.?
For example,?
1. Failing to protect children. Enabling child abuse and lack of attachment issues resulting in abuse which inevitable creates anti-social behaviours in children and potentially deadly coercive control behaviours in adults. If children in foster care are not rehabilitated, form attachment, provided an education they could become future criminals and paedophiles.?
2. Research tells us that pathological treatment of mental health issues with pharmaceuticals is outdated. In fact, there is no clinical studies that can confirm benefits long term while patient is on medication. Given neurobiology, neuroscience, most psychiatric diagnoses are likely obsolete or related to normal developmental issues or unprocessed trauma which cannot be resolved with medication as was the case in the famous clinical psychological treatment of a entire mental health ward in Hawaii who derived a positive long-term outcomes by psychological treatment and reducing and removing completely medication.?
3. WHO reports air quality and toxicity issues are the leading cause of death and health issues causing respiratory diseases, various cancers, asthma, sensitivities and allergies. For example, like mental health issues, likely to be misdiagnosed and treated pathologically. We also know now that the lymphatic system must supported with lymphatic drainage and that if swollen it is doing its job and should not be removed.?
4. Failing to encourage use of safe and sustainable alternatives to prevent drift and air contamination. For example, the continued use of chemicals in spraying weeds, fumigation when sustainable solutions such as steam and indigenous cool burning practices are safer, sustainable and more cost effective. Another example, carbon filters in coal processing.
5. Failing to adopt latest unbiased research may result in profound harm, ie self-soothing in babies ie ‘cry themselves to sleep’ with Universities now citing likely connection with cot death syndrome, attachment issues, and future anti-social behaviours
6. The sexual misidentification of children as a result of failing to understand normal child/teenage sexual development. Sexual identification must be made by an individual as an adult. We know now that research indicates 95% of LGBT community has experienced sexual abuse as a child, potentially conditioned, compounded by the stigma of sexual abuse, so as to affect their understand of love and its expression. The impact has also been the potential misidentification of a child’s sexual identity, exposed to further abuse and at the extreme genital mutilation.
As such Government policies in education, heath, law, and justice must be continually upgrading and updating policy and practice to adopt best practice, latest research most sustainable, psychologically and economically sound outcomes.?
The Definition of Evil is to be morally reprehensible, to promote or undertake wickedness, sinfulness. Many do not connect themselves to evil however, to sin means simply to miss the mark, to choose the wrong path. Natural evil is the result or an effect of a natural cause or event, like a hurricane or flood while moral evil results from the intentions or negligence of our moral agency.
Evil can be fostered by a large number of issues which we will address in more detail shortly.?
The Definition of an Anti-Hero
This research can help us reduce the passive bystander effect, negative active bystanders and overcome the aspects of human behaviour that may foster benign neglect, malevolence, crimes, evil including privilege, political correctness, and personal limitations. Let’s consider some applications of this research.?
Black Lives Matter - Anti-Bystander Education?
Floyd George, died as Police watched him struggle. Claims of brutality or cowardice. Similarly, comments have been made in relation to some law enforcement responses to school shootings, teen gangs and organised crime.?
Again, remember that “The opposite of a hero is not a villain; it’s a bystander.” as Zimbardo’s and others research reveals.?
Psychologist Ervin Staub has been at the fore of this anti-bystander education for some time. In the 1990s, in the wake of the Rodney King beating, he worked with California’s Department of Justice to develop a training program for police officers. The goal of the program was to teach officers how they could intervene when they feared a fellow officer was about to use too much force.
Staub said, “The police have a conception, as part of their culture, that the way you police a fellow officer is to support whatever they’re doing, and that can lead to tragedy, both for the citizens and the police themselves.”
“So here the notion was to make police officers positive active bystanders, getting them engaged early enough so that they didn’t have to confront their fellow officer.”
The question is whether this is a specific culture within law enforcement, or a cultural norm. Given similar systemic outcomes are seen in other services health, military and other Govt Depts and agency it is likely a broader cultural norm.?Requiring a level of cultural intelligence to counter – by cultural intelligence I mean an understand of how cultural norms may impact a situation.
When we make voluntary actions, we tend not to feel as though they simply happen to us, instead we feel as though we are in charge. The sense of agency refers to this feeling of being in the driving seat when it comes to our actions. While judgement of agency is the attribution of agency you make about yourself and others. This is an interesting idea, because often we can attribute agency the ability to voluntarily act yet the reality is different, whether from conditioning to overt force.?
More recently, Staub helped schools in Massachusetts develop an anti-bystander curriculum, intended to encourage children to intervene against bullying. The program draws on earlier research that identified the causes of bystander behaviour. For instance, older students are reluctant to discuss their fears about bullying, so each student implicitly accepts it, afraid to make waves, and no one identifies the problem—a form of pluralistic ignorance. Staub wanted to change the culture of the classroom by giving these students opportunities to air their fears. He said, “If you can get people to express their concern, then already a whole different situation exists.”
The lesson we can learn is that various groups or older individuals are often reluctant to discuss their fears or concerns about a problem, many people are conditioned to accept or condone poor treatment or are fearful of the consequences, so each will silently accepts it, afraid to make waves, and no one identifies the problem —a form of pluralistic ignorance.?
-Resources for schools, student and teachers is available at the Hero Imagination Project (HIP).
In a nutshell, expressing concerns or fears can assist identify the problem. Countering one of the issues of pluralistic ignorance where no one identifies the problem and the majority remain oblivious to the issue.
John Darley adds: “More people need to learn about the subtle pressures that can cause bystanders behaviour, such as diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance.” That way they’ll be better prepared next time they encounter a crisis situation. This is an important crisis or disaster management issue, pointing to preparedness and responsible parties.?
How Do We Identify the Subtle Pressures That Cause Bystander Behaviour?
Social scientists define heroism as exceptional pro-social behaviour, that is voluntary and involves risk and self-sacrifice.
Psychologist John Darley wanted to overturn a view that most people have that if they were in that situation, they would behave in a wonderful, altruistic way. Darley said, most are misreading what’s happening. That these comments are about the pressures that can cause bystander behaviour. Then when you feel those pressures, he wanted that to be a cue that you assess your thoughts and actions.?
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Heroes, positive active bystanders may have a moment where they check themselves and determine that the right thing to do is more important than other’s opinion, self-sacrifice, loss or fears.?
Darley wants us to recognise when we are that point of conflict, where we recognise that something isn’t right, that we need to adjust our thinking. We know the right thing to do moving forward. The issue we see in psychology is around our inherent desire to be right, often denying what is correct to protect our self-image, status or public stance. And worse, operate out of guilt and our behaviour becomes more harmful or we move to protect our stance by undermining or harming the victim. I often say our behaviour out of guilt is much worse than the previous behaviours.?
Personally, I think this is a very critical point where heroes are made because it does take a level of courage to accept ones, error, take responsibility and accept the consequences. If we consider the heroes journey, in storytelling we will see that there is this point where we made choices, we remain the villain or we become the hero.?In writing we use the Heroes Journey popularised by Joseph Campbell which considers Carl Jung’s analytical psychology and the archetypical hero. In filmmaking we follow this storyline in our 12 beats. In sales we consider the heroes journey or story of origin is used as a sales process for example Russell Brunson work uses The Epiphany Bridge, Tony Robbins uses a slightly different method which points to these inherent qualities and desires.?
In more complex works or from a branding perceptive consider the hero’s journey as outlined by Canadian John Truby, is very good.?Example, The Machine Gun Preacher or Sound of Freedom.?
Eli Wiesel said, “The opposite of evil in not hate it is indifference.”?
It’s important to note an active bystander may be both positive or negative, for example a negative active bystander may be one that finds a lost or stolen wallet and takes the money. They can opportunistically benefit from someone’s misfortune.?
Or worse contribute to a problem in order to profit from it.?
Distinct to anti-social behaviour which maybe conscious or unconscious, the deliberate malevolence resulting from mental health disorders related to childhood abuse & lack of attachment. I have been developing a list of issues which may foster negative outcomes.?
We need in disaster or crisis management, in acts of heroism to overcome those things that prevent intervention, encourages, condones and is complicity with morally reprehensible outcomes or evil through issues such as
- personal limitations ie physical or mental limitation
- lack of responsible decision ie parents unable to perform CPR and basic First Aid. Unable to swim and swim in unmonitored areas.?
- normalisation and socialisation of negative behaviours
- altruistic inertia?
- diffusion of responsibility,?
- complicity/ limitations of perceived agency
- unintended consequences or overlooked consequences
- obedience to authority, ie war criminals
- unjust systems, ie caste system or burearacies?
- politics?
- capitalisation of events or situations ie disaster capitalisation
- ineffective and inefficiency/ lack of productivity ie care about outcomes
- dehumanization,
- group pressure/mob mentality
- propaganda/misinformation
- pop culture/popular or ill-informed POV?
- pluralistic ignorance,?
- moral disengagement, ie greed, status?
- confusion of responsibility,?
- negligence, benign neglect, ie buying or using inferior products
- incompetence/lack of ability or skill,?
- regimented response/absence of executive powers,?
- failure to adhere to procedures
- primal responses ie fear,?
- displacement/isolation,?
- stereotyping/cultural norms,?
- outdated information/knowledge?
- using obsolete methods whether knowingly or unknowingly
- sponsoring and encourage known harmful products, practices ie complicit
- anonymity,?
to name a few.
Further, we see evil fostered in indifference, silence, passive bystanders, condoning and complicit actions that silently endorsement that behaviour. Often bystanders witness a problem, potentially consider some kind of positive action, then respond by doing… nothing.?
We can also see it in Caste systems, Intersectionality and culture norms which when embedded create systemic discrimination, #FeminisationOfPoverty and pre-mature death.
As mentioned, I have written detailed article on LinkedIn.com/RachelQuilty - Bold Brand Leadership discussing Cultural Intelligence, the outcomes of negative cultural norms, caste system outcomes, when cultural norms are embedded in our policies and procedures causing systemic discrimination.
Read Part 3: The Anatomy of the Anti-Hero - Challenges to Heroism
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Related articles:
Bold Brand Leadership
Cultural Intelligence?
Other resources:
www.heroicimagination.org/lessons &
www.GreaterGood.Berkeley.edu