Calming troubled waters: Peacemakers in a sports riot

This investigation sought to identify a set of measures predictive of those who would intervene in a crowd disturbance with the intent of restoring or der. Male participants (N = 74) completed a battery of social and personali ty measures. Men who had previously attempted to break up a fight(s), inclu ding those who had recently intervened and judged their efforts to have bee n successful, were most likely to step in. Additionally, peacemakers were s ubject to the false consensus effect and strongly believed in law and order . A multiple regression analysis yielded a solution that accounted for 40.3 % of the variance, with previous experience as a peacemaker and attitudes t oward law and order emerging as the best predictors.