The Kitty Genovese Murder myth article

[Mike]

The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 in New York while up to 38 eyewitnesses stood by and did nothing is mentioned on the Cass forum and website in a few places. It is also widely cited in psychology textbooks and classes and spurred significant amount of research into the inactivity of individuals in groups or crowds to act in helping ways (ie the bystander effect). The story is a pretty big pillar in terms of how we think about groups and crowds and their behavior and it seems it is a big myth.

I'm taking an advanced social psychology class and I just read a pretty shocking, at least to me, research article I was assigned that gathered the evidence of the case (court transcripts, independent research by a lawyer, and other legal documents) and concluded that what was portrayed for the case in terms of 38 people doing nothing while a woman was murdered is very far from the truth, such as claims have been made by witnesses that they did call police or attempted to. It seems the widely believed version of events came solely from a NY Times article published about 2 weeks after the murder.

I found this interesting:

For example, in a newspaper article marking the 20th anniversary of the murder, the Daily News reporter John Melia (1984) concluded that on investigation he too "began to have doubts... as to the number of people who saw something that night" (para. 19), and he made the claim that a journalist sent to investigate the original story came back and told his editor not to run the story because the witnesses did not exist in the numbers claimed.

Here is a link to the pdf of the article for those interested in reading it - it isn't too long and doesn't solely focus on the research into the case. http://www.grignoux.be/dossiers/288/pdf/manning_et_alii.pdf

I probably won't have time to dig into the research mentioned in the article, but something about the whole thing doesn't smell right. Maybe I'm influenced by the recent history of the propaganda and lies flowing from the NY Times with agendas aplenty, but I really wonder how such a story with such wide reaching impacts on how we view a part of reality can turn out to be no where close to being supported by the evidence.

 

[Laura]

Yes, I read about that not too long ago. Isn't there a book about it?

 

[Mike]

Looks like there is - 'Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America' by Kevin Cook

The book and some of what is covered is found in this article.

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/03/284002294/what-really-happened-the-night-kitty-genovese-was-murdered

 

[Laura]

Looks like there is - 'Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America' by Kevin Cook

The book and some of what is covered is found in this article.

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/03/284002294/what-really-happened-the-night-kitty-genovese-was-murdered

I think that's what I read: a book review. Or maybe it was a longer article.

 

[Renaissance]

I probably won't have time to dig into the research mentioned in the article, but something about the whole thing doesn't smell right. Maybe I'm influenced by the recent history of the propaganda and lies flowing from the NY Times with agendas aplenty, but I really wonder how such a story with such wide reaching impacts on how we view a part of reality can turn out to be no where close to being supported by the evidence.

I also remember reading something about how the events surrounding Kitty Genovese's murder weren't true or weren't accurately described. Even if this particular event wasn't depicted truthfully, the bystander effect and diffused responsibility are still actual social phenomena, which the NPR article acknowledges:

The bystander effect, the diffusion of responsibility, is a real thing that has been studied again and again, corroborated in test after test: If we need help we are much luckier to have one or two witnesses than to be surrounded by 20 or 30. People tend to feel someone more courageous will act ...

The fortunate and unfortunate thing, I think, is that this can tie into social proof. As long as no one stands up, others will go along with doing nothing. But if just one courageous person does stand up, it provides an opening for others who are inclined to also do so.