...Katie Wallace Psychology 2301 May 9, 2013 Mrs. Strickland Silent Witnesses: The Kitty Genovese Murder 1. After the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, John Darley and Bibb Latane were in shock as the rest of the city/world that a 28 year old lady could be stabbed in a neighborhood with about 38 by standers or more and say or do nothing. Why didn’t anyone try and help her? How could people stand by and watch this go on? People speculated that the failure of people to get involved might be due more to the influence (socially) that bystanders have on each other. To test this theory, Darley and Latane, two psychologists, decided to conduct a study. “Diffusion of Responsibility” Everyone hopes that someone else will be the first to step up and take action. When no one does act, seeing there are other people around provides an excuse for the individual not taking any type of action. I truly believe that most people, not all, have a fear of getting involved in anything horrific, domestic, or just plain wrong because they don’t know the outcome or consequences that that may bring upon themselves. Then you have the people that simply don’t believe in getting involved in other peoples’ drama or situations, so they do hope that someone else will do something because no matter what, they’re not taking any interest in what’s happening. 2. A lot of the reasons for the neighbors not getting involved were absolutely ridiculous! “I didn’t want to get involved. I thought two lovers were...
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...Description: The behavior under consideration in this paper is the murder and sexual assault of Catherine ‘Kitty’ Genovese. This behavior may be manifested in a number of ways by a variety of individuals for a number of different reasons; such as violent attacks on women. While technically defined as a crime by the state or federal statutes the behavior in question is also regarded as deviant, norm-violating and immoral. It is the purpose of this paper to first describe the murder and sexual assault of Catherine ‘Kitty’ Genovese and then to relate it to two chapters in the textbook entitled ‘It’s a Crime: Woman and Justice” by Roslyn Muraskin. In addition to that I will also examine the fact that thirty-eight witnesses heard or watch the thirty-five minute killing of Ms.Genovese and not one of them assisted or called for help until after she was dead. The murder was committed on the early morning of March 13, 1964 at about 3:15am in the New Gardens section of Queens in New York. Catherine, who was also known as Kitty had just gotten off of work, where she was a manger at a bar. She parked her car in a Long Island Railroad parking lot about 20 feet away from her apartment. As she began to lock her door to her car, she noticed a figure in the dark that was moving quickly toward her. Becoming alarmed she began to walk quickly and then ran as she realized the stranger was following her. She must have thought that since the entrance to her building was so close...
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...Bystander Apathy Experiment Bystander Apathy Experiment (1968) On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was attacked and stabbed by a man later identified as Winston Moseley. Despite Genovese’s cries for help, none of the people in the nearby apartment building who heard her cries called police to report the incident. The attack first began at 3:20 AM, but it was not until 3:50 AM that someone first contacted police. In 1968, John Darley and Bibb Latane became intrigued by the incident and decided to conduct an experiment which was given the name the Bystander Apathy Experiment. Their main goal was to figure out why people, in cases like Genovese’s, did not come for help. These two psychologists asked volunteers to participate in a discussion which was claimed to be extremely personal. Each individual was separated in different rooms and had to communicate with each other through an intercom. During this “extremely personal” conversation, one of the members would fake an epileptic seizure through the intercom. When the volunteer believed that he/she was the only other person in the discussion, 85% left the room and began to seek help for the individual with a fake seizure. Next, the two psychologists decided to see what would happen if three or four people were in this discussion, instead of just one; and just as they suspected, only 31% went to look for help once the seizure began. So what exactly is the bystander effect? Psychologists predict there are two major factors that...
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...Helping Behavior Social psychologists study the circumstances in which people offer help to others. The Bystander Effect Research shows that people are less likely to offer help to someone in distress if other people are also present. This is called the bystander effect. The probability that a person will receive help decreases as the number of people present increases. Diffusion of responsibility contributes to the bystander effect. A person does not feel as responsible for helping someone if several others are also present, since responsibility is distributed among all those present. Influences on Helping Researchers have proposed that bystanders who witness an emergency will help only if three conditions are met: • They notice the incident. • They interpret the incident as being an emergency situation. • They assume responsibility for helping. Researchers suggest that people are most likely to help others in certain circumstances: • They have just seen others offering help. • They are not in a hurry. • They share some similarities with the person needing help. • They are in a small town or a rural setting. • They feel guilty. • They are not preoccupied or focused on themselves. • They are happy. • The person needing help appears deserving of help. Reasons for Helping Others Some social psychologists use the social exchange theory to explain why people help others. They argue that people help each other because they want to gain as...
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...pantry designed to help others. My behavior was altruistic. Why? My act was voluntarily to help needy families with no expectation of a reward in any form, except perhaps a feeling of having done a good deed. Prosocial behavior ranges over a continuum from the most selfless acts of altruism to helpful acts that are motivated entirely by self-interest (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). The fact that I was directly gaining a tax deduction for my charitable donation did not affect my feelings about the behavior. My empathic concern motivated me to help the families in need. Because the goal of empathic concern is to enhance the welfare of someone else, it provides an altruistic motive for helping (Taylor, Peplau, Sears, 2006). Bystander intervention is the technical term for helping a...
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...film is based on the case where in the streets of New York a city attorney who was rushing to the court is found in an accident with salesman who was also rushing to court to block a court order from allowing his wife to take the children away from him. The attorney seems to be willing to bribe the salesman and ensure that they do not follow the usual procedures of reporting to the police to ascertain he person who was wrong and the law to take its cause (Ebert, 2002). The procedure caused a delay to both of them and each of the characters is losing what they had planned for the day. At the beginning part of the film Doyle Gipson refuses to be brushed by Gavin we see that organization norms are upheld by Gipson. In the film we can see bystander apathy in the case where Doyle Gipson is not willing help Galvin Banek to get his documents. Hedonism is displayed at the point where Galvin Banek has gone to explain to Gipson’s wife all that had happened. Gipson is in psychological egoism while thinking if he should give back the file to Galvin or not. Ethical relativism is seen when Galvin and Gipson come together and apologized to one another. Diffusion of responsibility is displayed when Gipson’s wife is seen in court with an intention to be the one taking care of the children in Oregon. Conscience comes to Gipson and Gavin come together to help each other achieve their respective intentions. Prima facie obligation is seen in the part where Gavin feel that he owes Gipson and hence...
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...“Thirty Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” Jill Murray Professor Askary English Comp 1 Hudson County College Martin Gansberg Martin Gansberg was born on May 6, 1920 in Brooklyn New York. Graduating from Saint John’s University, he went to be a reporter and editor for the New York Times for forty three years. Mr. Gansberg was married to his wife for 48 years. Her name was Agitha Miller Gansberg. They had a son, Alan, and a daughter, Judith Gansberg. He also had a brother, Murray, and a sister, Eudice Stadlen and two granddaughters. Mr. Gansberg also won recognition for a front page article he wrote in 1964 about the murder of a young woman named Catherine Genvese, known by friends and family as Kitty. While neighbors may have ignored her cried for help, the article focused national attention on neighborhoods indifference. By doing so Mr. Gansberg’s article told about something that became symbolical in what many people recognized as the beginning of a culture full of violence and apathy in the United States. This case became so important that social scientists still debate the causes of what is now known as “The Genovese Syndrome”. In the short story “Thirty Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police” written by Martin Gansberg published on March 27, 1964, describes a true story that took place in Queens New York on March 14, 1964. The events that took place that night became widely known in American culture to be the cause of what is now...
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...Not My Problem The September 11th 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was one of the most violent events that occurred in America in the past decade. People were horrified and shocked when they first learned that one of America’s most famous buildings had been attacked. It was a day where the entire country was in a state of mourning over those individuals who lost their lives in this catastrophic attack. Ironically, Thomas Hoepker’s photograph captures a group of five individuals casually observing this tragic attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 with no display of concern or grief. These individuals appear as if they are not worried about the thousands of lives that were lost on that sad day. At first glance, the first thing that comes to one’s mind is that these five individuals appear to be desensitized to violence. However, through further analysis we learn that these individuals are not desensitized to this violence but in fact feel a different sense of responsibility to express their feelings in the presence of others. Thomas Hoepker’s photograph shows a group of five individuals under the sun in a park near Brooklyn while a dark grey cloud of smoke fills the sky behind them as a result of the two buildings being under attack. The body postures of the individuals show that they acknowledge the disaster that is occurring behind them but that they appear to ignore this violence. The woman lying on her back is shown to be very oblivious of the situation at...
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...film is based on the case where in the streets of New York a city attorney who was rushing to the court is found in an accident with salesman who was also rushing to court to block a court order from allowing his wife to take the children away from him. The attorney seems to be willing to bribe the salesman and ensure that they do not follow the usual procedures of reporting to the police to ascertain he person who was wrong and the law to take its cause (Ebert, 2002). The procedure caused a delay to both of them and each of the characters is losing what they had planned for the day. At the beginning part of the film Doyle Gipson refuses to be brushed by Gavin we see that organization norms are upheld by Gipson. In the film we can see bystander apathy in the case where Doyle Gipson is not willing help Galvin Banek to get his documents. Hedonism is displayed at the point where Galvin Banek has gone to explain to Gipson’s wife all that had happened. Gipson is in psychological egoism while thinking if he should give back the file to Galvin or not. Ethical relativism is seen when Galvin and Gipson come together and apologized to one another. Diffusion of responsibility is displayed when Gipson’s wife is seen in court with an intention to be the one taking care of the children in Oregon. Conscience comes to Gipson and Gavin come together to help each other achieve their respective intentions. Prima facie obligation is seen in the part where Gavin feel that he owes Gipson and hence...
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...person they are trying to help; which is different from sympathy. Empathy is the feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another. Sympathy is a sense of feeling sorry for another person. There are different motives for wanting to help another person in need; but when are we suppose to help? Are we supposed to help a stranger on the street who is trying to feed themselves? What about helping to feed a starving child? Are we supposed to help our family and friends more than strangers? When do we help? These are some questions that everyone should ask themselves. In most cases, some find it easier to walk away from a person in need then to take out time to help. One famous term for not helping a person is the bystander effect. The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the numbers of people present, the less likely people are going to help a person in distress. When an emergency situation occurs, observers are more likely to take action if there are few or no other witnesses (Wagner). In the past forty-six years, there have been many incidents in which a violent crime took place with people standing by and not reacting. This was such a shocking ordeal that researchers even started getting involved and testing the will of human nature. Two researchers, Bibb Latane and John Darley, decided to conduct an experiment. Each of the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire. The participants were put into...
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...GOOD SAMARITAN LAW GUIDELINES 1. The Bystander is allowed to leave immediately after safely taking the injured person to the hospital without getting questioned only after giving the address. 2. The Bystander should be compensated or rewarded for his act to encourage others to come forward to help the road accident victims 3. The Bystanders shall not be liable for any civil or criminal liability 4. The Bystander shall not be compelled to reveal their personal details while informing the police or the emergency services. 5. Disclosure of personal details should not be made compulsory under MLC form of the hospital. 6. Disciplinary actions against those who do not follow it. 7. A person who has willingly admitted to be an eye witness, shall be investigated without harassment. 8. The examination should follow procedures mentioned under section 294 of CPC 9. Video Conferencing should be used for interrogations. 10. Both the private and the government hospitals should not force the bystander to pay the admission costs unless he a relative of the person. 11. Lack of response from the doctor shall constitute professional misconduct under the Indian Medical Council Regulation 2002. 12. All Hospitals shall publish a charter outside the hospital in English, hindi and the regional language of the place stating that they shall not detain the bystanders. 13. If the Bystander desires, the hospital shall provide a acknowledgement confirming...
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...Bystander Apathy and Effect Bystander Apathy or effect would be when someone around you is a situation but you don’t do anything to help then with the situation or aren’t doing anything to stop it, you are just standing there watching it happen. The number of bystanders is greater than the number of people who will actually step up and give help during the situation. The greater number of bystanders means the less likely people will get any help throughout a situation. Bystander effect or apathy means people will not help a victim even if the situation is bad, they will just allow it to happen to not get involved with the problem (Wikipidea Contributors). On Friday the 13 in March 1964 Catherine Genovese was arriving home from work when...
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...The CRM played a big role on our society even though slavery has stopped there is still injustice things happening today like racism and the KKK, most of this stuff happening today is because of bystanders this is known as the bystander effect the bystander effect is a social phenomenon in which someone does not offer help to someone in need because other people are around, if we could stop standing by and watching stuff like this happen we can change the world one step at a time (Death of Emmett Till song, Dylan 1962) Emmett Till was a young boy at the age of 14 when he died, he got tortured by two white men and “did evil things to evil to repeat” was it because he was black and that he was born to die or was it for the pleasure...
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...missed. Sometimes you laugh with them, because after all, someone falling flat on their face is kind of funny, right? Sure.” This is how it starts: small. Bullying. A form of abuse: involving repeated acts over time attempting to create or enforce one person's (or group's) power over another person (or group). Recently, I have learned the going-on of one of the most tragic events ever, The Shoah. Through this learning I have derived some profound insights into not only myself, but others. My World Geography class researched acts of the Holocaust and discussed them at length. These exercises changed me, forever. They provided an experience that was incredibly valuable in changing my view on a variety of things: the role of bystanders, empathy, the power of little things, and how to react. Therefore, studying the Holocaust has changed my view and reaction to bullying, which is now focused on both recognizing and stopping bullying. The first thing we discussed about the Holocaust was the string of continuous discriminatory acts against the Jews. It was a changing moment for me. Before then, I had supposed the Holocaust as a random act of sorts - an event without roots before it. I was wrong. I learned that bigotry against Jews had been happening for centuries. It started in 70 A.D. and continued building and building and building. This genealogy of Jewish hatred made me rethink how I viewed small acts of bullying within my own life. Now, instead of seeing...
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...Bystander Apathy Experiment (1968) On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was attacked and stabbed by a man later identified as Winston Moseley. Despite Genovese’s cries for help, none of the people in the nearby apartment building who heard her cries called police to report the incident. The attack first began at 3:20 AM, but it was not until 3:50 AM that someone first contacted police. In 1968, John Darley and Bibb Latane became intrigued by the incident and decided to conduct an experiment which was given the name the Bystander Apathy Experiment. Their main goal was to figure out why people, in cases like Genovese’s, did not come for help. These two psychologists asked volunteers to participate in a discussion which was claimed to be extremely personal. Each individual was separated in different rooms and had to communicate with each other through an intercom. During this “extremely personal” conversation, one of the members would fake an epileptic seizure through the intercom. When the volunteer believed that he/she was the only other person in the discussion, 85% left the room and began to seek help for the individual with a fake seizure. Next, the two psychologists decided to see what would happen if three or four people were in this discussion, instead of just one; and just as they suspected, only 31% went to look for help once the seizure began. So what exactly is the bystander effect? Psychologists predict there are two major factors that contribute to the bystander...
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