Genovese Syndrome: Fact or Fiction?

[snopes]

It's straight out of Psychology 101: "The Bystander Effect," a phenomenon illustrated by the infamous 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese as 38 callous neighbors ignored her screams for help.

Except that while details of the case were exposed as dubious over the years, psychology instructors and students still operate off the original parable of bad Samaritans united by indifference to a gruesome attack, according to an article by three British university professors.

The since-challenged story of the circumstances surrounding Genovese's death "continues to inhabit introductory social psychology textbooks (and thus the minds of future social psychologists)," the trio write in American Psychologist. The result is a lack of research into similar cases, their article maintains.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...TAM&SECTION=US

[guruwan2b]

But she acknowledged the article might make little difference in future retellings of the case. "Once such `facts' become generally accepted," Manning said, "they are often difficult to correct."

So the Kitty Genovese story is an Urban Legend?

[snopes]

Originally Posted by guruwan2b

So the Kitty Genovese story is an Urban Legend?

The common form of the story -- that 38 people all witnessed a murder taking place but did absolutely nothing about it -- is essentially a legend which is not supported by available evidence, yes.

- snopes

The bystander effect can be (and is) demonstrated in laboratory experiments. The dubious nature of that "example" (my wife uses the term "dramatization") does not negate the effect itself.

[Eddylizard]

Probably not quite the same, and unsupported by cites but a few years back here we had adverts running urging you to call in a fire, because they claimed that many people seeing a fire assumed that someone else would have called the fire brigade, and it ended up in some cases that no-one had.

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

Probably not quite the same, and unsupported by cites but a few years back here we had adverts running urging you to call in a fire, because they claimed that many people seeing a fire assumed that someone else would have called the fire brigade, and it ended up in some cases that no-one had.

My wife tells me that you can run this experiment and vary the # of people in the group. As the # in the group increases, the chance of no one reporting the incident increases.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

The bystander effect can be (and is) demonstrated in laboratory experiments. The dubious nature of that "example" (my wife uses the term "dramatization") does not negate the effect itself.

Nobody (posted or cited) here has claimed that it does.

- snopes

Originally Posted by snopes

Nobody (posted or cited) here has claimed that it does.

Sorry, I got that idea from the thread title. So the "fact or fiction" part of the title refers to "Genovese" alone and not the actual syndrome (or effect).

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Doug4.7

Sorry, I got that idea from the thread title. So the "fact or fiction" part of the title refers to "Genovese" alone and not the actual syndrome (or effect).

As the OP notes:

The original tale is reiterated in classrooms and textbooks in the social psychology field, often at the expense of further research, the article maintains.

"The 38 witnesses story ... has had such a powerful impact on this research tradition that the way in which groups might make a positive contribution to intervention has been largely ignored."

So, they're saying it's possible that both the facts of the Genovese case and the pervasiveness of the Genovese Syndrome have been exaggerated, but the legend is so thoroughly entrenched that people are disinclined to challenge either one.

- snopes

Originally Posted by snopes

So, they're saying it's possible that both the facts of the Genovese case and the pervasiveness of the Genovese Syndrome have been exaggerated, but the legend is so thoroughly entrenched that people are disinclined to challenge either one.

My wife (the psychologist) says she will have to read the article to see exactly what they meant.

The bystander effect is real and has quite a bit of experimental evidence to back it up.

She is not in social psychology, so she really can't make a comment about the example being a hindrance to further research in the field.