In my social and organizational psychology class, we discussed the case of Kitty Genovese. Recently, the New York Times released an article about her murder and the implications behind it after her killer, Winston Moseley, recently died on March 28.
In 1964, Winston Moseley stalked, sexually assaulted and killed Kitty Genovese in her New York neighborhood while her neighbors failed to heed her cries for help. Her case is still discussed to this day with collective regret that's showcased in films, books, debates and psychology classes such as mine.
On March 13, 1964, Moseley was driving around looking for someone to kill when he encountered Kitty Genovese, who driving home from work.
He followed her, chased her and stabbed her twice with a knife. People heard her cries for help, and one individual told him to "get out of there" and Moseley ran away. Eventually, he came back to finish the job.
On his return, he stabbed her 12 times, raped her and then escaped.
The case became highly controversial due to her neighbors refusing to help. An old New York Timesarticle said, "For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens."
Not one person called the police during these three attacks.
People claimed that they thought it was a lover's spat. Others stated that the New York Times article greatly exaggerated what had happened. Witnesses claimed that many of them did not fully see occurred, hearing or seeing only bits and pieces of it.
However, the story grew garnered a ton of attention in the media and was painted as a violent attack that occurred as people watched on. It harped on the idea that these bystanders were horrible people.
This was, however, not the case.
This crime led to research into what is now known to social psychologists as the bystander effect.
When in a crowd there is a diffusion of responsibility, which means that there is a perceived sense of responsibility. Within a large group, people assume that someone else will take responsibility to help another person. If a person is alone, then they are much more likely to take action.
Therefore, people in a crowd are much less likely to help a victim. In addition, emergencies are often ambiguous, causing us to look for cues from other people as to whether something is serious or not.
If others do not seem worried, then we assume that the event is not an emergency. In the case of Kitty Genovese, her neighbors looked around, saw no one else intervening or panicking, and simply went on their merry way as she was stabbed to death and raped.
