Kitty Genovese Case

Introduction to the Kitty Genovese Case At 3:20am on March 13th, 1964, twenty eight year old Catherine Genovese, known to most as Kitty, returned home from her job as a manager at a bar in Hollis (Histories Mysteries, Silent Witnesses). She parked her car in a lot next to the Kew Gardens, in a railroad station. She then began to walk the 100 feet to her apartments front door entrance. Kitty noticed a man at the far end of the lot. She halted and began to walk faster to her apartment on Austin Street. She got as far as a streetlight before the man she had seen grabbed her. Kitty yelled for help, screaming that she had been stabbed. Lights went on in surrounding apartment rooms, and one person yelled at the attacker. The attacker then fled
the scene to run to his car, only to come back ten minutes later to search for Kitty. Kitty had made it to the door of the apartments before her attacker returned to finish her off. By this time it was 3:50am, and the police were finally called. It was later found out that at least 38 witnesses watched the attack go on for a half hour without helping Kitty or even calling the police (Gensberg, 38 Witnesses).

Theory of Latane and Darley Latane and Darley developed the theory of diffusion of responsibility.
Their theory says the greater the number of bystanders to an event that calls for helping behavior the more the responsibility for helping is perceived to be shared by all bystanders. (Feldman, 37)
Hypothesis
The more people who witness an emergency situation, the less likely it is that help will be given to the victim. (Feldman, 37)
Experimental Research Their first step was to make their hypothesis into something that could be tested. They created a fake emergency situation that would appear to need the aid of bystanders. They got 3 groups, with 2,3, and 6 people. This number of people was the independent variable. They measured how much time the people took and if they helped as the dependant variables. (Feldman, 45)
Setting
A laboratory setting. (Feldman,
48)
Discussion by Participants The participants were told to discuss about problems associated with college. (Feldman, 46)
Dependent Variable Whether the bystanders provided help and how long it took. (Feldman, 46)
Random Assignment to Condition Participants were randomly assigned to groups upon their arrival to the laboratory. (Feldman, 48)
Multiple Experimental Groups Three experimental groups were set up, one of two people, one of three, and one of six.
(Feldman, 48)
Hypothesis: Proved or Not? The hypothesis was proved, the number of people in the group had a large impact on the response time. The two-person group took 52 seconds, the three-person group took 93 seconds, and the six-person group took 166 seconds. (Feldman, 48)
Issue: Nature vs. Nurture Perspective 1: From the biological perspective, this case would be caused by the idea of nature or heredity. Each person is born with the idea of responsibility. It has nothing to do with their surroundings or how they grew up. No matter the person, there is something inside of every person that decides that the more people around an emergency situation, the less likely they are to help. Perspective 2: From the humanistic perspective, Latane and Darley’s theory of the bystander effect would be a result of nurture or your surrounding environment. The way one person is raised would impact the bystander effect. For example, if one person was raised in a city where their was more crime, they would be expected to react in a situation along the same lines, opposed to someone who grew up in a rural area, who would react differently. Issue: Observable Behavior vs. Internal Mental
Process Perspective 1: The cognitive perspective has importance to the internal mental process. In this case, each person's inner thoughts cause them to react how they do, and those cannot be changed. Each person thinks that they are not responsible in an emergency situation and that is just how they think during an emergency. Perspective 2: The behavioral perspective on the bystander effect is the same as the observable behavior. The behavioral idea believes that people are just caused to behave this way, and you can change how a person acts or responds to the bystander effect by changing their behavior. Psychologists believe that people are just taught to behave in the way of responsibility, but that could be changed.