Lasse Liebst

University of Copenhagen · Department of Sociology

To a growing extent, the social sciences have become uncoupled from the study of real-life behavior. This unfortunate situation is linked to the default methods used—including self-reported accounts and experimental simulations—which offer a coarse-grained and often ecologically invalid picture of human behavior in its natural context. To break thi...

Social scientists increasingly use video data, but large-scale analysis of its content is often constrained by scarce manual coding resources. Upscaling may be possible with the application of automated coding procedures, which are being developed in the field of computer vision. Here, we introduce computer vision to social scientists, review the s...

Evidence shows that age estimations of facial images and voice recordings are reasonably accurate. By comparison, it is less clear how precisely age may be estimated in real-life settings where observers have limited access to facial and vocal cues but instead may perceive peoples’ naturally occurring everyday behavior. To examine the age estimatio...

Epidemiological evidence and recommendations from the World Health Organization suggest that close face-to-face interactions pose a particular coronavirus transmission risk. The real-life prevalence and nature of such high-risk contacts are understudied, however. Here, we video-observed high-risk contacts in outdoor public places in Amsterdam, the...

Face masks have been widely employed as a personal protective measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, concerns remain that masks create a false sense of security that reduces adherence to other public health measures, including social distancing. This paper tested whether mask-wearing was negatively associated with social distancing complian...

Epidemiological evidence and recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest that close face-to-face interactions pose a particular coronavirus transmission risk. The real-life prevalence and nature of such high-risk contacts are understudied, however. Here, we video-observed high-risk contacts in outdoor public places in Amsterdam...

Social scientists increasingly use video data, but large-scale analysis of its content is often constrained by scarce manual coding resources. Upscaling may be possible with the application of automated coding procedures, which are being developed in the field of computer vision. Here, we introduce computer vision to social scientists, review the s...

In real-life violence, bystanders can take an active role in de-escalating conflict and helping others. Recent meta-analytical evidence of experimental studies suggests that elevated danger levels in conflicts facilitate bystander intervention. However, this finding may lack ecological validity because ethical concerns prohibit exposing participant...

Most countries in the world have recommended or mandated face masks in some or all public places during the COVID‐19 pandemic. However, mask use has been thought to increase people’s face‐touching frequency and thus risk of self‐inoculation. Across two studies, we video observed the face‐touching behavior of members of the public in Amsterdam and R...

Purpose Virus epidemics may be mitigated if people comply with directives to stay at home and keep their distance from strangers in public. As such, there is a public health interest in social distancing compliance. The available evidence on distancing practices in public space is limited, however, by the lack of observational data. Here, we apply...

Face masks have been widely employed as a personal protective measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, concerns remain that masks create a false sense of security that reduces adherence to other public health measures, including social distancing. This paper tested whether mask-wearing was negatively associated with social distancing complian...

Background: Face masks have been widely employed as a personal protective measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, concerns remain that masks create a false sense of security that reduces adherence to other public health measures, including social distancing. Purpose: This paper tested whether mask-wearing was negatively associated with socia...

Most countries in the world recommend or mandate face masks in public places during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, until very recently, no studies have examined the potentially adverse effect of face masks on face-touching. Here, we video observed face-touching behavior among members of the public in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, during the pandemic. Ou...

Reconciliation is an aspect of natural conflict resolution with similar behaviour patterns documented in non-human primates, human children, and human adults in hunter gather societies. However, actual or potential post-conflict reconciliation behaviour amongst adults living in industrialized societies has rarely been studied systematically. In thi...

Objective: Accumulating evidence shows that bystanders witnessing public disputes frequently intervene to help. However, little is known regarding the risks entailed for those bystanders who enter the fray to stop conflicts. This study systematically examined the prevalence of bystander victimizations and the associated risk factors. Method: Data w...

Objective: Accumulating evidence shows that bystanders witnessing public disputes frequently intervene to help. However, little is known regarding the risks entailed for those bystanders who enter the fray to stop conflicts. This study systematically examined the prevalence of bystander victimizations and associated risk factors. Method: Data were...

Accumulating evidence shows that bystanders witnessing public disputes frequently intervene to help. However, little is known regarding the risks entailed for those bystanders who enter the fray to stop conflicts. This study systematically examined the prevalence of bystander victimizations and associated risk factors. Data were a cross-national sa...

In outlining their influential architectural theory of space syntax, Hillier and Hanson acknowledge its affinity to Durkheim’s sociological considerations on the spatial-morphological basis of social life. In doing so, space syntax theory promised to address the then woefully under-theorized relationship between society and space, specifically by e...

Night-time economy (NTE) leisure zones, while providing local economic growth and positive social experiences, are hotspots for urban public violence. Research aimed at better understanding and thus reducing this violence has employed a range of empirical methods: official records, self-reports, experiments, and observational techniques. In this pa...

Little is known about how bouncer-patron interactions may influence a bouncer’s use of physical aggression. To address this gap, we offer a micro-interactional analysis examining real-life aggressive bouncer behavior captured by venue surveillance cameras. Quantitative results show that bouncer physical aggression is associated with interactions wh...

Are individuals willing to intervene in public violence? Half a century of research on the ‘bystander effect’ suggests that the more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help. However, recent meta-analytical evidence questions whether this effect generalizes to violent emergencies. Besides the number of bys...

Are individuals willing to intervene in public violence? Half a century of research on the 'bystander effect' suggests that the more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help. However, recent meta-analytical evidence questions whether this effect generalizes to violent emergencies. Besides the number of bys...

Little is known about how bouncer–patron interactions may influence a bouncer’s use of physical aggression. To address this gap, we offer a micro-interactional analysis examining real-life aggressive bouncer behavior captured by venue surveillance cameras. Quantitative results show that bouncer physical aggression is associated with interactions in...

Half a century of research on bystander behavior concludes that individuals are less likely to intervene during an emergency when in the presence of others than when alone. By contrast, little is known regarding the aggregated likelihood that at least someone present at an emergency will do something to help. The importance of establishing this agg...

Objective: Workplace aggression is a harmful occupational hazard, which has been associated with individual and organizational level risk factors. By comparison, little is known about the face-to-face interactional dynamics that shape employee victim-izations. To address this gap, we provide a micro-situational analysis of how ticket in-spector act...

The influential microsociological theory of violence advanced by Randall Collins suggests that emotional dominance preconditions physical violence. Here, we examine robbery incidents as counterevidence of this proposition. Using 50 video clips of real-life commercial robberies recorded by surveillance cameras, we observed, coded, and analyzed the i...

Half a century of research on bystander behavior concludes that individuals are less likely to intervene during an emergency when in the presence of others than when alone. By contrast, little is known regarding the aggregated likelihood that at least someone present at an emergency will do something to help. The importance of establishing this agg...

Objectives: Bystander studies have rarely considered the victimization risk associated with intervention into violent, dangerous emergencies. To address this gap, we aim to identify factors that influence bystanders’ risk of being physically victimized. Methods: We observed bystander behavior from video surveillance footage of naturally occurring v...

Night-time economy (NTE) leisure zones, while providing local economic growth and positive social experiences, are hotspots for urban public violence. Research aimed at better understanding and thus reducing this violence has employed a range of empirical methods: official records, self-reports, experiments, and observational techniques. In this pa...

Collective effervescence is assigned a key role in sociological theorizing on ritual and group processes, yet surprisingly little research has systematically measured the phenomenon and examined its sources. In addressing this research gap, the current article explores and compares several correlates of collective effervescence. The data included q...

Social science research has traditionally described bystanders in violent emergencies as being passive. Recent evidence, however, stresses that bystanders typically intervene proactively and successfully in violent, dangerous emergencies. This article examines the multiple ways bystanders act in situations of violence, with the aim of moving beyond...

Stress during childhood can have mental and somatic health influences that track throughout life. Previous research attributes stress-reducing effects to natural environments, but has mainly focused on adults and often following leisurely relaxation in natural environments. This pilot study explores the impact of natural environments on stress resp...

Objectives Bystander studies have rarely considered the victimization risk associated with intervention into violent, dangerous emergencies. To address this gap, we aim to identify factors that influence bystanders’ risk of being physically victimized. Method We observed bystander behavior from video surveillance footage of naturally occurring vio...

Post-aggression consolation is assumed to occur in humans as well as in chimpanzees. While consolation following peer aggression has been observed in children, systematic evidence of consolation in human adults is rare. We used surveillance camera footage of the immediate aftermath of nonfatal robberies to observe the behaviors and characteristics...

Codesheet of dynamic variables during robbery. Partial ethogram of offender behavior. (DOCX)

Logit analysis of consolation among 3650 dyads. Quadratic assignment procedure. (DOCX)

Logit analysis of consolation among 3680 dyads. Quadratic assignment procedure. (DOCX)

Logit analysis of consolation among 3390 dyads. Quadratic assignment procedure. (DOCX)

Codesheet for dynamic variables during aftermath of robbery (ethogram). (DOCX)

Logit analysis of consolation among 3680 dyads. Quadratic assignment procedure. (DOCX)

ConsolationRobbery.csv (datafile). (CSV)

Codesheet for static variables during aftermath of robbery. (DOCX)

ConsolationRobberyStataCode.do (Stata script analysis). (DO)

Randall Collins's interaction ritual (IR) theory suggests social solidarity as hardwired in the human neurological capacity for rhythmic entrainment. Yet, this article suggests that IR theory may benefit from being tied more firmly to recent neurobiological research, specifically Stephen W. Porges's polyvagal theory that proposes autonomic nervous...

Med afsæt i Žižeks dialektiske psykoanalyse diskuterer artiklen, hvordan fyrede fag- og ufaglærte arbejdere ideologisk håndterer finanskrisens traumatiske rystelse af deres livssituation som forbrugere. Der peges på, hvordan arbejderne længes efter to potente Fædre, der begge inkarnerer et håb om, at der er en nydelsesmæssig vej ud af krisen: Såled...

Artiklen problematiserer Zygmunt Baumans argument om, at æstetiseringen i den postmoderne by er uforenelig med en virksom etisk ansvarlighed for den fremmede i byen. Denne forståelse er kraftigt inspireret af Emmanuel Lévinas’ fænomenologiske nærhedsetik, der forstår æstetik og etik som antagonistiske fænomener. Med afsæt i denne forståelse anser B...

Med afsæt i et følelsessociologisk perspektiv undersøges det, hvilke konsekvenser taylori seringen af den danske hjemmepleje har for de følelser, som hjem me plejere oplever i mødet med de ældre borgere. Artiklen peger på, at hjemme plejere er følelses mæs sigt belastede af ikke at kunne udføre en omsorg, der står mål med deres empati for de ældre....