Preview

The Bystander Effect: The Killing Of Kitty Genovese

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
247 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bystander Effect: The Killing Of Kitty Genovese
Which is worse in a crisis the people who caused it or the people who just stand there and do absolutely nothing to aid others? This is the harsh reality we’ve come to accept but the fact of the matter is that we have all succumb to this infectious parasite that has overcome us humans and what you may ask is the name of this so-called parasite? Well it’s known as-The Bystander Effect. Now the bystander effect is when a person just watches someone in a crisis and does nothing to aid that person and the bystander effect has caused lots of tragedies and many have resulted in casualties. For example, in the article “The killing of Kitty Genovese” kitty genovese was walking to her apartment when she was assaulted and she was stabbed multiple times

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    This situation should never happen; we should make our fellow civilians feel like we are here to help them. The Bystander Effect The bystander effect is where individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim.…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    PSY 100 Assignment 1

    • 865 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Bystander Effect is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to situations in which individuals do not extend any means of help to a victim when others are present. One clear cause that underlies the basis of this occurrence is the number of people or, bystanders, involved. While this argument forms the basis of the effect, I also believe that ambiguity, or in this case, the diffusion of responsibility amongst those present, plays a deeper role in the passivity of the bystanders. I believe that as the number of bystanders increases, they will each experience a diminished responsibility towards aiding the person in need and as a result, ignore or pay minimal attention to the victim.…

    • 865 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bystander Effect is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when someone is less likely to help a victim when other people are around; the more people present, the less likely they are to help. The issue lies in the moral dilemma of whether someone should intervene or not. In an apparently unpopular opinion, compared to those 37 witnesses, intervention of saving someone's life is second nature. The 37 witnesses who succumbed to the Bystander Effect are disgraceful and remorseless.…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    "No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its avatar and its seal- the redness and the horror of blood" (1). Edgar Allan Poe was a master of the macabre; his very stories injecting fear into the hearts of his readers. Poe's life was filled with tragedy, as several of the important women in his life, including his wife and daughter died at a young age. He utilized poems and books to express that tragedy. The short stories, "The Black Cat," and, "The Masque of the Red Death," both written by Poe, enhance the theme of fear. "The Black Cat," was about a narrator who had gone crazy and was so overcome by guilt that he went to extreme measures including…

    • 1596 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The skit above is a psychology cartoon which depicts the bystander effect. The image shows clearly information that these four people no matter their race, gender, or age difference, no one is acting to help this man who lying on the ground. Everyone saw this person but all of them just believe maybe someone else will go and attend to him, so they all leave. This kind of situation is called bystander effect.…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The bystander effect is a real thing and it takes a toll on people everyday, everywhere, all around the world.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Literacy’s lacking popularity with the non elites stands as one of the most significant difficulties social historians encounter when trying to piece together the lives of European common peoples, as a generally illiterate poor more focused on basic survival than the upkeep of historical records left few written accounts of their personal and local experiences. One of the many approaches historians utilize in piecing together the beliefs and views of the european majority involve the interpretation of the majority’s reading material as representative of the thoughts and relationships with the outer world of the people. This method, however, does not produce as many concise conclusions about the commoners as it does for the elite, as there was, apparently, “a direct relationship [that] existed between the ability to read and write on the one hand and personal wealth and social class on the other" (McKay 227).…

    • 240 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bystanders always play a key role in any event, whether they have a positive or negative effect on the outcome of the situation at hand. Most, if not all, of the bystanders during…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    All across the world, there are many events that get overlooked by thousands of people. Most people believe that being the bystander of something is okay. Being in between the wrong and the Wright (indifference) is still wrong because not doing something makes things worse and just standing there watching what is going on creates more problems.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bystander Effect Outline

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Sub Point A: In 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese went back to her home at 3am and was attacked by a maniac. Thirty-eight of her neighbors saw what was happening, but not a single one even phoned the police even though the assault lasted for over half an hour, and Kitty died. Latane and Darley researched this phenomenon in their 1969 study published in American Scientist to try and explain why it was that none of Kitty’s neighbors, and people in similar situations, do not try and help. According to Fischer and fellow researchers in a 2011 article published in Psychological Bulletin, the bystander effect “refers to the phenomenon that an individual’s likelihood of helping decreases when passive bystanders are present in a critical situation” (p. 1). Basically, the more people there are, the less likely they are to respond in emergency…

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bystander Intervention

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    From this, they predicted that as the number of bystanders increases, the less likely it is than any one of them will intervene, or if they do so, they will intervene more slowly. Their research findings support this hypothesis.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Changing Minds notes this was first witnessed in Kitty Genovese’s murder where several people stated that while they noticed her cries for help, they did not call the police or move to help her because they assumed someone else would act and help. The key here is the assumption that someone else will help, that the duty to act and potentially be effected because of helping, is placed on someone else. All liability and duty is placed on the other people around them and it’s ultimately not their problem. As shown in Today’s kidnapping experiment video, people are, more often than not, focused solely on themselves, cut off from what’s occurring around them. Rather than being an active bystander, someone who is actively ignoring the situation at hand, like the lady who glances at the people several times but doesn’t react, passive bystanders are focused solely on themselves and in doing so, do not notice the action occurring, or just don’t care. Reverend Martin Niemöller talks about not speaking out, ending with “then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me,” warning that if people do not intervene early even when it does not effect them, the situation can escalate much larger and eventually will. Movements, multiple people taking actions, helps a larger group be empowered to react as…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many types of bystander effects that differentiate from one another, but first we shall go over what a bystander effect is intentively about. Normally a bystander effect refers to a large phenomenon that occurs in that of a social gathering, this particular gathering overviews the necessity of a victim in vain of assistance. It’s an usual phenomenon that particularly renders the the probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. This negative phenomenon has impacted that of many individuals, although it can be overlooked upon, there are many ways to overcome this crude obsession of disregard and assist those in despair (Wikipedia Contributors).…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There is one question that has undoubtedly crossed the minds of most Americans at one time in their life, and continues to plague the country. Should I help or should I just walk away? What I am referring to is something psychologists have named the Bystander Effect. According to the Penguin Dictionary of Psychology, the bystander effect is defined as such: the more people present when help is needed, the less likely any of them is to provide assistance (2001). At first glance this definition seems a bit backwards. Common sense leads one to believe that there is safety in numbers. However, through research and personal exposure to this phenomenon in our society, the proof of this definition is all too shocking. One well known example of this is the homicide case in New York City involving Kitty Genovese.…

    • 2649 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The bystander’s effect highlights that when other people are present an individual will not offer any means of help to a victim. It would be great if we all could step in however, that is not always the case. Do we stand by and hold self-protection above the aid and help of another or do we stand firm and step in even though it may bring the attention and anger of the individual onto ourselves possibly causing more harm than good.…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics