Genovese, Kitty

Martin Gansberg was a reporter and editor for The New York Times for over 40 years, until his retirement in 1985. He also wrote for such magazines as Diplomat, Catholic Digest, and Facts. This article was published in The New York Times in 1964, shortly after the murder of Kitty Genovese. 

RosenthaL A. M. Thirty-Eight Witnesses The Kitty Genovese Case. (Rev. ed.) Berkeley University of CaUlbrnia Press, 1999. 

The reporter who first publicized the Kitty Genovese story, and later made it the subject of a book (Rosenthal, 1964), assumed this bystander apathy was caused by big city life. He presumed that people s indifference to their neighbors troubles was a conditioned reflex in crowded cities like New York. After this incident, hundreds of experiments were conducted by social psychologists in an attempt to determine causes of this so called "bystander apathy" (Latane and Darley, 1968). This research has actually discredited the reporter s common-sense conclusion. Several factors other than big city life contribute to bystander apatiiy. Actually, common sense suggests that if more people are present during a crisis, there is a greater ance that a victim will receive help. 

Diffusion of responsibility. Similar to our litter example, a key contributor to the bystander effect is a presumption that someone else should assume the responsibility. It is likely, for example, many observers of the Kitty Genovese rape and murder assumed that... 

It is important to belong. Researchers demonstrated reduced bystander apathy when observers knew one another and had developed a sense of belonging or mutual respect from prior interactions (Rutkowski et al., 1983). Most, if not all of the witnesses to Kitty Genovese s murder did not know her personally and it is likely the neighbors did not feel a sense of comradeship or commimity with one another. Situations and interactions that reduce a we-they, or territorial perspective, and increase feelings of togetherness or community will increase the likelihood of people looking out for each other. 

Would you assume personal responsibility and respond Surely the bystanders in the Kitty Genovese and Deletha Word incidents described earlier noticed the event and interpreted it as requiring assistance. Steps 1 and 2 of Latan6 and Darley s decision model were likely satisfied. The breakdown probably occurred at Step 3—perceiving personal responsibility. 

In this stage you ask yourself, "Is it my responsibility to intervene " The answer would be obvious if you were the only witness to a situation you perceive as an emergency. However, you might not answer "yes" to tiris question when you know that other people are also observing the emergency or the safety hazard. In this case, you have reason to believe someone else will intervene, perhaps a person more capable than you. This perception relieves you of personal responsibility, but what happens when everyone believes the other guy will take care of it This is likely what happened in the Kitty Genovese and Deletha Word incidents and many other tragedies just like these. 

Several years ago, a heart-warming story appeared in our local newspaper. The Roanoke Times and World Report. The newspaper report of the incident is reprinted in Figure 15.1 and it is clearly opposite to the Kitty Genovese and Deletha Word tragedies reviewed in Chapter 14. In tois case, two individuals, Tywanii Hairston and John McKee, went out of their way to save the life of a truck driver named Don Arthur, whose truck was blocking traffic because he had blacked out. Several individuals had already driven around his truck without intervening—for a variety of possible reasons discussed in Chapter 14, but two individuals did interrupt their routine to actively care, and the result was a life saved. 

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