Zuschauendes Verhalten an Unglücksorten – nicht immer ist es „Schaulust“, nicht immer sind es „Gaffer“

Almost every day, the media report that emergency services at accident sites are hindered by rubberneckers. Such behaviors are criticized by firefighters, rescue service employees, and the general public and regarded as “unethical,” “irresponsible,” or even as an expression of social brutalization. Emotionally, the topic is highly charged. This article gives an overview of the hypotheses and theories that can be used to explain watching behavior. A literature search was conducted to identify biological, ethological, individual, and social psychological explanatory approaches for watching behavior at accident sites. These individual approaches are brought together in an integrative framework model. It turns out that watching behavior at accident sites is by no means solely due to “curiosity” and “desire to look.” Rather, a complex combination of biological, individual, and social psychological motives with social, event, and personal moderator variables must be assumed. The blanket designation of spectators at accident sites as rubbernecks thus does not do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. Watching behavior at accident sites is individual and multifactorially justified. Only a correspondingly comprehensive understanding of the problem provides a solid basis for the derivation of suitable prevention and intervention strategies.