Martin Gansberg's Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder

People have a tendency, known as social proof, to believe that others' interpretation of the ambiguous situation is more accurate than their own. Hence, a lack of response by others leads them to conclude that the situation is not an emergency and that response is not warranted. Finally, empirical evidence has shown that the bystander effect is negated when the situation is clearly recognized as an emergency. In a 1976 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Lance Shotland and Margaret Straw illustrated that when people witnessed a fight between a man and a woman that they believed to be strangers to each other, they intervened 65 percent of the time. Thus, people often do not respond appropriately to an emergency situation because the situation is unclear to them and as a result, they have misinterpreted it as a non-emergency based on their own past experience or social cues taken from others.

inform us about murder in America, it is also an emotionally grasping story about the

Social psychology first examined the phenomena later termed “bystander effect” in response to a 1964 murder. The murder of a young woman with as many as 38 witnesses and none who helped until it was too late. The bystander effect is individuals seeing an emergency situation but not helping. There are many reasons why individuals do not respond: diffusion of responsibility, not noticing or unsure if it is an emergency, and not wanting to be liable if the person still dies are a few.

Between 7:15 and 7:30 last night a person, by the name of Paul Dudden, in this residence, took his last breath behind the screen in the library as he was being brutally murdered. One thing’s for sure the murderer knew what they wanted. They wanted Paul Dudden gone. When Paul Dudden took his last look at this cruel world, the murderer looked down and smiled at their accomplishment. Unfortunately for the murderer, it is clear who this malevolent person is. He was no other that Mr. Parsons himself. After interviewing Mrs. Parsons, one of the Ellis’ car went into the driveway drove by the one and only Amy Ellis at 8:00. Now here’s the thing, why didn’t Mr. Parson see the car as well? As the car drove in, Mr. Parsons wasn’t in his house at all.

People did not care enough to help the girl who was dying. When the killer was caught, he told the police that he “figured nobody would do anything thing to help”(Wainwright 2). People also did not care enough to even talk to the police after the murder. Lieutenant Jacobs said that “there are people over there who saw everything, and there hasn’t been a peep out of them yet” (Wainwright), which shows that people not only don’t care if someone is dying, but they also do not care if what they saw could help the police catch the killer of the woman. What the killer said to the police shows that he knows that this is what most people would do if faced with the same

First ‘The Bystander Effect’, states ‘that individuals are less likely to intervene in emergency situations when other people are present’. Latne & Darley, (1970) cited in Byford J.( 2014 pp 232). Simply put, where emergency situations arise, if more than one person is present the likelihood of someone in distress being helped reduces. This is the ‘diffusion of responsibility’ effect were each bystander feels less obliged to help because the responsibility seems to be divided with others present’. (Byford J., 2014 pp233) An example of Bystander Apathy shown within a video (The Open University 2016).

“Another reason, the simplest, the ugliest, was that this hitherto peaceful congregation of neighbors and old friends had suddenly to endure the unique experience of disturbing each other; understandably, they believed that the murderer was among themselves.” (88)

The bystander effect, is a “social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present”(Weiten). Such reactions usually occur when individuals do not want to risk getting involved in the situation. In Chronicles of a Death Foretold, even though the townspeople do not desire the murder of Santiago Nasar,their unwillingness or lack of courage to take action in preventing this “foretold murder” consequently allows for the murder to happen. The idea of disturbing the status-quo and risk of involvement overshadows the Sucré citizens’ moral values. Even though a scale of individual willingness to avert the crime is presented such as Colonel Lazaro Aponte’s fulfilling his duty ,Clotilde Armenta’s multiple attempts and Father Armando’s total indifference; none of the townspeople want to be directly implicated in the matter.

In the 2007 article “the bystander effect” the author Dorothy Barkin’s was talking about the reasons why most people decide not to get involved in complex situations. Many think that the reasons maybe very obvious such as the fear of possible danger to one’s self or having to go through long legal proceedings. However, the author talks about two main reasons for such actions. The first being ambiguity, the fact the most people do not know how to evaluate different situations and there lays most for the decision making. As knowing what the problem that you are facing in that moment, that alone creates a high-pressure environment that most people would not like to be involved in. Not to mention, being able to help effectively

This chapter is important because people don’t realize “they live in homes and communities from which no escape seems financially possible.” (pg. 303) This situation makes it harder for there to be change since they have nowhere to go. Warren also mentions the rate of cancer seen in people and it effects to their health condition, having a high increase of death. This knowledge opens the reader eyes to understand what the victims faces everyday and how justice should be made.

Today on today’s news a 23 year old was brutally murdered by her husband, leaving her one and only daughter Tyaira Zyaira Balance a motherless child. Ta’Osia Thompson was suffocated and then shot dead. Her husband then attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head. He is now in critical condition; on life support at ECMC. Situations like this occurs all too often, although it’s wrong people often endure abuse every day.

The young girl’s death was preventable, but people pushed the responsibility on to take the initiative to another, which was exemplified by “The teacher wonders but doesn’t ask” and “The neighbors hear, but they turn out the lights” (Bentley and Crosby, 2002, l 5). These adults in the song evoke feelings of anger because of their chosen inaction. They are painted as cold and unfeeling, in other words, they have concrete hearts, which results in the death of the girl. The adult bystanders are condemned for not stepping in and ignoring the girl. the bystanders. The anger the reader feels toward the adults in the child’s life evoke feelings of anger which help to sympathize with the girl

They assured us, they would be among the first to help [in a real emergency]” (Darley and Latane 770). Then Darley and Latane explained why bystanders act the way they do, with their final example. [It involved an individual in a room and a tape recorder playing simulating an individual having major speech difficulties. More individuals, that thought they were alone, came out to help the person having difficulties (the tape recorder). Every time the individual listening to the tape recorder thought that there were more people with them, they were less likely to respond.]

This thesis helps readers engage in what is happening in the article. What peaks interest is why Catherine Genovese neighbors watched as she died.

They used the case of murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 as a case study to investigate why people refused to offer help and intervene the incident. Scholars proposed that the failure to lend a helping hand to victims is due to diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility proposed that when there is more than one person appears in the situation, who have the ability to help, people tend to expect that someone in the situation will or should lend a helping hand. In the case of Genovese, since the murder happened in a neighbourhood, 38 witnesses were actually awake and noticed something was going wrong outside. However, no one offered direct help to Genovese.