The Bystander Effect: Kitty Genovese

The Bystander Effect In 1964 in New York City, a woman named Kitty Genovese was walking home late at night after work. When she got to her building she was attacked by a man who stabbed her twice. Genovese screamed as loud as she could to try to get help from the people in her building who were just watching from their windows, doing nothing. Genovese was able to get away from her attacker and went inside her building, collapsing once she got through the door. The attacker then came back and stabbed her several more times, all while her neighbors knew what was going on. The police were called but by the time an ambulance got to the scene, Genovese was dead. This caused social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané, and many other social psychologists, to ask themselves why no one helped Genovese, even though plenty of people saw what was happening to her. This led to many different adaptations of the Bystander Experiment. …show more content…
Actors were hired to lay outside of the train station and act as if they were hurt. The first actor played on the ground holding his stomach, groaning, and even saying, “Help, help, please help”. Herds of people passed by but no one helped him, even after 20 minutes of begging. Another actress was then placed at the scene after the first actor left to see if she would get any help. She acted like she was passed out. Thirty-four people passed and so did four and a half minutes before anyone would check on her. The funny thing is, once one person made sure she was ok, other people thought it was acceptable to check on her well being as well. Finally, one more act was set up for the experiment. The actor was dressed in a nice suit with a briefcase, unlike the other actors, and was slumped over on the steps. It took only five seconds until someone came to him and asked if he was ok. Suddenly everyone came up to him to check on him