The Kitty Genovese Tragedy
On March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed outside of her apartment building in Queens, New York.[1] Thirty eight people saw the event and yet none of them called the police.[2] Residents of her apartment building turned their lights on after hearing her screams, yet it was after three separate attacks on her that someone finally called for help. At that point, it was too late and Kitty had brutally died. When some residents were asked why they did not call, they said that they “did not know”, were “tired”, thought that the altercation was a lover's quarrel and that they were “afraid”. But was there something more that led to the missed opportunities of saving Kitty’s life?[3]
In times of danger, Raihani & Bshary (2015) note the existence of the innate human instinct to help those in need - even strangers.[4] However, the infamous Kitty Genovese story exposed a social phenomenon known as the bystander effect, demonstrating that people in a group are less likely to help someone in trouble than when they are alone.[5] Understanding the mechanisms of prosocial and helping behavior, being “good”, and the social and emotional triggers of helping others expand the explanations behind why people may help in some situations but not in others.
Mechanisms of the Bystander Effect
Diffusion of Responsibility
Despite being in a crowded neighborhood, Kitty's pleas for help went unanswered, leaving many questioning why 38 bystanders failed to intervene. Hortensius & Gelder (2018) note that the increased presence of other bystanders can create a diffusion of responsibility, leading individuals to assume someone else will take action.[6] As a result, the responsibility to help is shared among the group, leaving people less likely to individually act.
Pluralistic Ignorance
Once assumed that another bystander will likely take action, the event is then interpreted socially. When bystanders rely on others to identify a social norm, the norm of inaction can often get established due to the diffused responsibility. For example, if no one else is doing anything about a potentially dangerous situation, it is likely that another bystander will interpret that norm and not do anything as well (e.g., when people ignore a fire alarm in a crowded, public place). This occurrence, or pluralistic ignorance, establishes an understanding of the emergency, and if it is socially perceived as an emergency or not.[7]
Understanding Altruistic Impulse
These bystander mechanisms are evidence-based ways to explain how people may act in emergency situations. However, several other factors contribute to why people do or do not help each other. Emotional models suggest that empathy plays a large role in why we help people, as Fultz et al. (1986) found that the more we empathize with someone, the more reason we find to help them.[8] This is because empathy allows people to experience the distress of others, leading to altruism. Additionally, Fultz et al. found that feelings of similarity to someone drive prosocial behavior (i.e., the actions by someone that are intended to be beneficial to someone else).[9]
However, where empathy may fail to result in helping lies the empathy gap, or the tendency for people to underestimate others’ experiences of social rejection or physical pain.[10] Further, Hotensius & Gelder point out that the disposition of the bystander may contribute to apathy.[11] It is important to note that personal values and moral principles significantly influence the decision to help others or to remain passive. For example, causal attribution towards someone in danger may affect perceptions of the person’s need for help and their level of effort, ultimately deciding if the bystander will help. Additionally, the Social Exchange Theory (introduced by George Homans in 1958) notes that people are more likely to help when there is no threat related to them helping and that people tend to avoid negative outcomes to themselves.[12]
While the bystander effect highlights human passivity in some situations, it does not overshadow our innate altruistic impulse. Harnessing empathy can actually help to overcome issues involved in the bystander effect to reduce harmful emergency situations reliant on bystanders. For example, reminding oneself to take the perspective of the person in need may close the empathy gap and lead to prosocial actions.
Social Influence: The Power of Norms
Social and situational factors can largely emphasize individual pursuits in a group by establishing norms. These established norms can then override other group members’ helping desires. In stories where the passive social norms won (such as the Kitty Genovese incident), it was socially agreed that a situation was safe based on others’ inaction, leading to more inaction by the group. Easily accepting inactive (passive) norms, even when situations are dangerous can be due to fears of negative social consequences. Collins (2017) notes that these concerns impact if someone helps in situations that involve sexual violence.[13]
Overcoming the influence of normalcy may occur naturally. Collins adds that behavior perceived as more deviant from social norms receives more attention from bystanders, leading to more of a perception of emergency and an increased feeling of a responsibility to intervene.[14] However, in situations where norms limit the safety of the individual in danger by concealing the problem, bystander intervention becomes vital. For example, in a crowded party, bystanders may feel awkward intervening in a situation between two people even when they believe the situation to be unsafe. Strategies such as creating commotion and artificially making the situation socially deviant can attract attention to the issue.
Bystander Intervention
The bystander effect can be employed to promote prosocial behavior rather than passive behavior. When individuals become leaders and understand typical signs of danger (e.g. sexual violence, stalking, coercion and heavy intoxication), this may be achieved.[15] A decisive figure who takes action can inspire others to follow suit, breaking the spell of diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance. Coker et al. (2019) also found that bystander interventions have reduced acceptance of sexual violence in relationships among 73,044 high school students, emphasizing collective responsibility for the well-being of others and the importance of taking individual action in group settings, even if it is awkward.[16] These types of interventions effectively reduce the negative impacts of the bystander effect and may also be implemented into therapy approaches to increase bystander confidence, agency, awareness, and willingness to intervene.
The Kitty Genovese story serves as a stark reminder of the bystander effect's potential consequences and the importance of understanding human behavior in emergencies. While the bystander effect may momentarily overshadow our altruistic nature, it cannot extinguish the innate compassion and empathy that people are capable of. Accessing this capacity is necessary to reduce the moments in which people did not help others when they could have.
Contributed by: Phoebe Elliott
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.
References
1 The New York Times. (1964, March 7). 37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police; Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Women Shocks Inspector. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/27/archives/37-who-saw-murder-didnt-call-the-police-apathy-at-stabbing-of.html
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Raihani, N. J., & Bshary, R. (2015). Why humans might help strangers. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 9, 39. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00039
5 Benderly, B. L. (2012) Psychology's Tall Tales: Who Tried to Help Kitty Genovese? https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/09/tall-tales#:~:text=No%20one%20doubts%20that%20Kitty,hours%20of%20March%2013%2C%201964
6 Hortensius, R., & de Gelder, B. (2018). From Empathy to Apathy: The Bystander Effect Revisited. Current directions in psychological science, 27(4), 249–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417749653
7 Ibid.
8 Fultz, J., Batson, C. D., Fortenbach, V. A., McCarthy, P. M., & Varney, L. L. (1986). Social evaluation and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 50(4), 761–769. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.50.4.761
9 Ibid.
10 Nordgren, L. F., Banas, K., & MacDonald, G. (2011). Empathy gaps for social pain: why people underestimate the pain of social suffering. Journal of personality and social psychology, 100(1), 120–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020938
11 Hortensius, R., & de Gelder, B. (2018)
12 Online MSW Programs. (February 2022). Introduction to Social Exchange Theory in Social Work. https://www.onlinemswprograms.com/social-work/theories/social-exchange-theory/#:~:text=Social%20exchange%20theory%20was%20developed,seen%20as%20a%20social%20system.
13 Collins, K. (2017). The Impact of Social Norms on Bystander Behaviors to Prevent Campus Sexual Violence. https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244&context=csh_etd
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Coker, A. L., Bush, H. M., Brancato, C. J., Clear, E. R., & Recktenwald, E. A. (2019). Bystander Program Effectiveness to Reduce Violence Acceptance: RCT in High Schools. Journal of family violence, 34(3), 153–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-018-9961-8