Why Did Kitty Genovese 's Neighbors Fail For Take Action Quickly? Essay

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.

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).

Bystander. What does this word mean? Bystander is an individual who witnesses an event that place. There is active bystander and a nonactive bystander. An active bystander is an individual who witnesses an event take place and steps in to help. That stepping in to help could be calling 911, defending an individual, checking up on an individual who does not look okay, etc. A nonactive bystander is an individual who witnesses an event take place and ignores it and goes on about their day. I recently had the opportunity to participate in an scholar-citizen initiative engagement called Bystander Training, which was presented by a representor from the SAVES office at Radford University.

The Kitty Genovese story is a tragic one and is a controversial topic when ethics come into play. Though she screamed for help repeatedly while being stabbed the observers from the surrounding apartments did very little to assist the young woman. One observer in specific did shout “Leave the girl alone” and that deterred the assailant for a brief moment but whether or not he acted ethically is something of a different matter. According to Duty-Base Ethics which by definition states “the doctrine that actions are morally correct if they comply with existing obligations owed another and ourselves,” one could deduct that this observer did not act

Brooklyn, New York; on a spring night in 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese is stabbed to death as thirty-eight onlooking neighbors did nothing (Dorman). ¨I’m dying,¨ she cried. Still, no one did a thing.

Psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley stated that “as the number of bystanders increase, any given bystander is less likely to notice the incident, interpret it as an emergency, and assume responsibility for taking action .” Some things that influence the bystander effect are that the more vague the situation the less likely people will intervene. Also the need to accepted in social ways, like when the other bystanders do not react, people often take this as a sign that they don't need to respond

Why the witnesses demonstrated a lack of reaction towards the victim's need for help? In 1968, two Social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley came up with a concept called “The Bystander Effect”, which supposed “the presence of diffusion of responsibility” and “social influence”.

My article was Darley’s and Latane’s, “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility.” They conducted this study to figure out how would people react in various group sizes in an emergency situation. As well as which one those individuals in different size groups would go and call for help. The concept of this was taken from the famous case of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death multiple times and finally was killed in her own neighborhood and no one intervened. This is known to be the bystander effect. However, in this research experiment, people were either in groups of 2, 3, or 6 and then they would overhear the person having an epileptic seizure. It was predicted that due to the presence of

When a homeless man is on the block asking for a dollar, we give him one. So why is it when somebody is laying on the ground, passed out or dead, that we don’t see if their ok? If you see a young lady getting hit by a young male do you just stand there or do you help? Martin Gansberg writes a story of a woman who’s getting off work, and gets home in a man has on his mind to take her life that night, and how people that saw it but did nothing but thought it was her in her boyfriend having agreement. This essay will summarize Gansberg

In the journal article “ The Bystander Intervention In Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility” by John M. Darley and Bibb Latane performed the study in order to see how individuals the bystanders would react in a serious situation where a victim is being harmed or is in painful situation. The researchers wanted to determine how the bystander(s) fulfilled their responsibility in a conflict with other observers being around the same conflict. The research question of this study is that how do individuals react and respond to a conflict, while being responsible to assit help? The researchers stated the hypothesis as, “ The more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide the aid” (Darley & Latane,

The table below shows the costs of helping/ not helping in emergencies/ non-emergencies, and the likelihood/ type of intervention, as predicted by the arousal-cost-reward model (based on Piliavin et al, 1969.)

The purpose of this experiment is to understand the Bystander theory. This experiment tested to see if one’s emotions, such as personal distress and empathy, could interfere with one’s ability to act during an emergency situation. Participants were randomly assigned a condition of empathetic emotion or personal distress, and told to read a scenario. Once the participants had finished reading the scenarios, they were given eight scale questions regarding different options of what they were willing to do in the scenarios. The results of the experiment showed there was no significance difference between the conditions and their ability to act.

A bystander, to me, is somebody who can possibly help during a time of need but chooses not to. Even if it is something as simple as someone falling down the stairs, I feel you still need to help. It was sad to hear about the Kitty Genovese story, she could have easily been saved, yet people were too lazy or too tired. It makes me wonder how people managed to live with themselves afterward. All 37 of those people were bystanders, and the bystanders are just as guilty as the offender. Growing up my dad always told me if I saw something taking place that I knew was wrong but did not do anything, I was just as guilty as the person doing it. That has

Bystander apathy and effect is a idea that people are cruel or not willing to react when they are in a situation where a person in severe problem is in need of their essence they are not willing to react in a helping manner. This is not a rare thing in today's world the way people react in situation will amaze people and inhuman acts to severe or weird situations whether these acts are deserving they shall not be left untreated. This is why it is important to read about bystander apathy and effect to know what is going on in this world and how everyone can help to prevent it. (wikipedia Bystander apathy and effect)

The bystander effect study was sparked after a famous case where a woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside of her apartment building in New York City by a man named Winston Moseley. It is said that about 38 bystanders witnessed the attack and not one of them did anything to help Genovese. Only one