Bystander Effect free essay sample

The bystander effect is the name given to a social psychological phenomenon in cases where individuals do not offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. It is a situational ambiguity; when we are confused about a situation and unconsciously interpret the event as if nothing is happening unusual. Some researchers have found that onlookers are less likely to intervene if the situation is ambiguous. We usually develop an illusion of normality. Because of the ignorance of other people in emergency situation; we also feel that nothing is so serious and it will be fine. One major factor of bystander effect is busy life and too much introvert behaviour. We rarely give a thought to stop and judge the situation and react accordingly. Some researchers have found that onlookers are less likely to intervene if the situation is ambiguous. There are couple of more reasons which are cause of bystander effect. Kitty was the eldest child of five; she grew up in Brooklyn in a Middle-Class Italian American family. Later on in life, Kitty acquired a position as a bar manager for Ev’s Eleventh Hour Sports Bar in Queens and she was known to be a Gay individual due to the fact that she shared her Kew Gardens apartment with her lover Mary Ann Zielonko. Even though the United States was experiencing a cultural revolution, Kitty’s lifestyle was still looked down upon in society. The fact that Ms. Genovese was a female bar manager and worked late hours was especially distressing to many. Around 3:15 AM, Kitty had returned home from work and parked her car 100 feet away from her apartment building. On her walk home, Kitty was attacked, robbed, raped, and stabbed several times by Winston Moseley. During the attack, Kitty had desperately screamed out for help but not even one call was made to the police by her neighbors until 3:50 AM (30 minutes into the attack). The police responded within minutes of the call, but Kitty was in such critical condition that she died on route to the hospital at 4:15 AM. After further investigation and psychiatric examination Winston Moseley, a twenty nine year old African American business machine operator, was found o be a necrophile. The public was appalled by the murder of Ms. Genovese. Mainly because it had taken so long for her neighbors to contact the authorities and the person who had called had only done so after much thought. An attention grabbing article titled â€Å"Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police† was published shortly after the murder in the New York Times, the article read â€Å"For more than half an hour thirty eight respectable, law abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens†. This murder was so publicized that it caused the NYPD to reform its telephone reporting system and it prompted psychological research conducted by Social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane. Darley and Latane conducted a social experiment which they titled â€Å"The Bystander Apathy Experiment†, after extensive research they concluded that â€Å"larger numbers of bystanders decrease the likelihood that someone will step forward and help a victim†. Feminist psychologist Frances Cherry disagreed with these findings however, and believed that what had occurred with Kitty would not have been true if the victim was a man. She believed this because of the cultural norms of that era, where most people were unlikely to get involved if they thought that a man was attacking his wife/girlfriend. In conclusion, I believe that both â€Å"The Bystander Effect† and Francis Cherry’s statement are correct in deciphering the murder of Kitty Genovese due to the fact that one must take both human nature and cultural norms/facts into account when considering such a horrific event in history.