As we regain our perspective on the horrendous sexual crimes that were alleged to have occurred at Penn State regarding Jerry Sandusky and countless young boys, many people are just as confused at how many Penn State athletic department personnel seemingly kept the stories from surfacing as much as they are in Sandusky committing the crimes in the first place. I have had a number of incredibly provocative conversations in the past week about this tragedy, with most of the dialogue centering around how the people who knew about kids being sexually abused could have possibly kept their mouths shut and not reported it immediately to the police. It is from this position of curiosity that I attempt to offer a few thoughts on why this negligence may have occurred — reasons that go much deeper than the immediate surface level that clearly speaks to the importance of immediately reporting allegations of sexual crimes, especially when it includes innocent children.
Again, I would like to be very clear with something before I delve into the psychological variables that were likely at play and prevented people from speaking up when they came into news about Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing children — what Sandusky did was clearly wrong, and about as horrible a crime that could ever be committed. It was also very wrong for anyone – be it a coach, administrator, janitor, or anyone else to have not acted and called the police when they first learned of these crimes. I say this as I want to be as straightforward as I can be about where I stand morally as my views pertain to this situation. In fact, I cannot think of a single reason to not immediately protect innocent children – this case is a no-brainer when it comes to doing the “right” thing. Still, it appears many people did not do the right thing – and that’s where I would like to pick up today.
Assuming these crimes did occur (and there is a mountain of allegations and pending evidence suggesting the charges are indeed true), the big question seems to be around how so many people who supposedly knew of Sandusky’s crimes (either directly through personal observation or indirectly through reliable source information) could have remained silent and not reported Sandusky to the police? It does appear from news reports that a minimal level of legal responsibility occurred in the graduate assistant telling Coach Paterno, and Paterno supposedly reporting the news to his superiors. Still, there were no calls to the police and worse yet, no follow up on the rape victim? How could this have ever happened?
There are really only a few possibilities, actually.
1.) Everyone at Penn State was “in on it” and participated in some sort of underground sex ring operation. This premise, while clearly outlandish, would assert that not only did people cover up these tragedies, but that they also willing facilitated and/or participated in the crimes. So far the only perpetrator mentioned has been Sandusky, so we can assume (for now) that no other PSU employee was a part of these crimes through direct involvement.
2.) All the PSU athletic staff is comprised of “bad” people who are heartless and indifferent about the well-being of kids. Again, this assumption is quite shallow and an incredible stretch. Even if you believe some people in this world are inherently “bad” people, the likelihood of an entire staff to be seemingly this aloof probably speaks to other interpersonal dynamics at play more than it does the moral code of all the individuals supposedly “in the know” about what happened (in other words, I can’t see anyone on the PSU staff thinking for even a minute that this stuff was “OK”). The verdict? It’s very unlikely PSU is comprised of terrible, kid-hating employees.
3.) The group dynamics at-play dramatically impacted the perception and action (or lack thereof) following reports of these crimes. Group dynamics refer to the study of groups, and how individuals sometimes change their thinking and behaviors as a result of the group’s norms, roles, desire to belong and be accepted, and social influence. More simply, we as people oftentimes act differently when in groups than we do as individuals. Again, this is not an excuse as much as it is an explanation, as it in no way “clears” or makes the folks at PSU less culpable for not acting. It does, however, prompt us to widen our perspective and examine some additional factors that may have impacted individual decision making.
Sport psychologists spend a lot of time studying group dynamics, and it behooves them to do so when you consider how many sports today are “team” sports. Group dynamics include the delicate, tenuous, ever-changing relationships individuals have with one another, all played out on the canvass we commonly refer to as “team culture.” Group dynamics help us understand and explain, to some extent, why people do things differently in groups than they would if left to their own devices. These dynamics also typically include power, coercion, and suggestion (direct and indirect). In groups, there is also commonly a “diffusion of responsibility” that often occurs, whereby individuals in the group simply assume that “somebody else will do it.” If you hated singing as a kid and yet were made to be part of a choir, it’s likely you may have lip-synced during the performances, knowing that others would “pick up the slack” and compensate for your decision to not sing.
Group dynamics are a lot easier to discuss and examine when talking about innocuous subjects, like the choir example above. Unfortunately, these dynamics also occur in situations as horrible as the current PSU scandal, and yes, even in cases of rape there are countless examples of people over the course of time who had information and simply sat on it – never telling anyone, including police. This is terrible, morally speaking, but from an understanding perspective it’s important we go deeper in order to better understand (not justify) the situation.
4. Denial – out of sight, out of mind. Again, it may be hard to believe that we as people can sometimes do this, but it’s well accepted amongst mental health professionals that for some horrific crimes (like rape), people can (and do) sometimes completely block the story from their mind. For the victim this may even help with short-term healing by not having to replay dark memories when trying to regain personal strength. Sometimes we hear stories that we think are so outlandish that we erroneously believe there was no way they could have occurred — and many would argue the Sandusky story might easily fit within that line of thinking. The point is that denial is an ego defense, and it is something we all do from time-to-time. In the PSU case, it’s quite possible that when some of the personnel heard “rumors” about Sandusky that they simply could not get their arms around there being any way in the world the rumors could have been true — after all, to the untrained eye how could a guy running a program for kids ever in a million years sexually abuse kids???
What happened at Penn State was dead wrong, and all the explanations of the psychological variables that may have impacted the situation do not justify or minimize the horrific nature of child sexual abuse. It is important, however, that we learn more about why nobody seemed to have acted responsibly, as well as the variables that impact group culture that appear to have clearly impacted what happened at Penn State. When we better understand how terrible things can happen through oversight, negligence, covert pressures, and diffused responsibilities, we can better identify when future problems may be developing and more swiftly and responsibly attend to them.
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