(From New York Times, March 27th, 1964)37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the PoliceApathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman ShocksInspector By Martin Gansberg For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off, Each time he returned, sought her out and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.That was two weeks ago today. But Assistant Chief Inspector Frederick M. Lussen, in charge of the bor ough’s detectives and a veteran of 25 years of homicide investigations, is still shocked.He can give a matter-of-fact recitation of many murders. But the Kew Gardens slaying baffles him — not because it is a murder, but because the ‘good people’ failed to call the police.‘As we have reconstructed the crime,’ he said, ‘the assailant had three chances to kill this woman during a 35-minute period. He returned twice to complete the job. If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now.’   

Kitty Genovese Story

‘He Stabbed Me!’ She got as far as a street light in front of a bookstore before the man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-storey apartment house at 82—67 Austin Street, which faces the bookstore. Windows slid open and voices punctured the early-morning stillness.Miss Genovese screamed: ‘Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!’From one of the upper windows in the apartment house, a man called down: ‘Let that girl alone!’The assailant looked up at him, shrugged and walked down Austin Street toward a white sedan parked a short distance away. Miss Genovese struggled to her feet.Lights went out. The killer returned to Miss Genovese, now trying to make her way around the side of the building by the parking lot to get to her apart ment. The assailant grabbed her again.‘I’m dying!’ she shrieked.

A City Bus Passed Windows were opened again, and lights went on in many apartments. The assailant got into his car and drove away. Miss Genovese staggered to her feet. A city bus, Q-10, the Lefferts Boulevard line to Kennedy International Airport, passed. It was 3.35 am.

The assailant returned. By then, Miss Genovese had crawled to the back of the building where the freshly painted brown doors to the apartment house held out hope of safety. The killer tried the first door; she wasn’t there. At the second door, 82—62 Austin Street, he saw her slumped on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He stabbed her a third time — fatally.

It was 3.50 by the time the police received their first call, from a man who was a neighbor of Miss Genovese. In two minutes they were at the scene. The neighbor, a 70-year-old woman and another woman were the only persons on the street. Nobody else came forward.

The man explained that he had called the police after much deliberation. He had phoned a friend in Nassau County for advice and then he had crossed the roof of the elderly woman to get her to make the call. ‘I didn’t want to get involved,’ he sheepishly told the police.

Suspect is Arrested Six days later, the police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old business-machine operator, and charged him with the homicide. Mosely had no previous record. He is married, has two children and owns a home at 133—19 Sutter Avenue, South Ozone Park, Queens. On Wednesday, a court committed him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric observation.The police stressed how simple it would have been to get in touch with them. ‘A phone call,’ said one of the detectives, ‘would have done it.’Today witnesses from the neighborhood, which is made up of one-family homes in the $35,000 to $60,000 range with the exception of the two apartment houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn’t call the police.Lieut. Bernard Jacobs, who handled the investiga tion by the detectives, said:‘It is one of the better neighborhoods. There are few reports of crimes. You only get the usual complaints about boys playing or garbage cans being turned over.’The police said most persons had told them they had been afraid to call, but had given meaningless answers when asked what they had feared.‘We can understand the reticence of people to become involved in an area of violence,’ Lieutenant Jacobs said, ‘but where they are in their homes, near phones, why should they be afraid to call the police?’

He said that his men were able to piece together what happened — and capture the suspect — because the residents furnished all the information when detectives rang doorbells during the days following the slaying.‘But why didn’t someone call us that night?’ he asked unbelievingly.Witnesses — some of them unable to believe what they had allowed to happen — told a reporter why.

A housewife, knowingly if quite casual, said, ‘We thought it was a lovers’ quarrel’. A husband and wife both said, ‘Frankly, we were afraid’. They seemed aware of the fact that events might have been different. A distraught woman, wiping her hands in her apron, said, ‘I didn’t want my husband to get involved’.

One couple, now willing to talk about that night, said they heard the first screams. The husband looked thoughtfully at the bookstore where the killer first grabbed Miss Genovese. ‘We went to the window to see what was happening,’ he said, ‘but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street’. The wife, still apprehensive, added: ‘I put out the light and we were able to see better’. Asked why they hadn’t called the police, she shrugged and replied, ‘I don’t know’.

Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, and Clark’s (1981) Model of Factors that lead to Emergency Intervention

What factors lead individuals to intervene in emergencies, and what are the causal links among factors?

Features of SituationNumber of other people present,

Clarity of emergency

Victim Characteristics

Age, gender, raceStigmatizing Conditions,relatedness

Bystanders TraitsSqueamishness,

Emotionality,Empathy,

Knowledgesuch as CPR

Arousal and its

attribution

Perceivedcosts and

rewards forhelping

Intervention or Nonintervention

Characteristics of setting, victim and bystander

Mediating processes with

bystander

Resulting behavior

1) Modeling behavior of others

• Car on roadside study2) Moods [[NEGATIVE‑STATE RELIEF MODELNEGATIVE‑STATE RELIEF MODEL]]

• Broken camera study

• Confession studyPositive moods = more helping (e.g., finding $, pleasant smells)

3) Ability/Expertise

1) Similarity and Familiarity between helper (s) and victim

2) Perceived Costs (to helper & victim)

2)Blood versus no blood on victim

3)Couple arguing versus two strangers arguing3) Being in a hurry

• Arousal, attribution and clarity of emergency information

Some Factors Related to Helping Behavior

8) Gender (and different types of helping)

9) Past personal experience of helping (e.g., reward vs. punishment)

10) Physiological reactions to helping

11) Genetic versus socio-cultural factors (e.g., norm of reciprocity)

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Some Factors Related to Helping Behavior (cont.)

No Fragrance

Fragrance

Males 22.2 45.5

Females 16.7 60.9

* From Baron, R. A. (1997). The sweet smell of … helping: Effects of pleasant ambient fragrance on prosocial behavior in shopping malls. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 498-503.

The findings were mediated by positive affect

Positive Smells and Helping

Male Female

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

90

30

70

35

Homosexual making request

Heterosexual making request

Wrong phone number study

From Shaw, Borough, & Fink, 1994

Role of similarity?

Number of warnings [Gender bias in helping behavior?] Similarity?

Type of crimes: Speeding, DUI, others

Driver gender Officer Gender

Male Female

Male

Female

Piliavin and Piliavin’s Cost Analysis of Emergency Intervention

How do perceived costs for helping and not helping affect our willingness to intervene in an emergency?

Piliavin and Piliavin (1972) proposed that a moderately aroused bystander to an emergency assesses the costs of helping and not helping before deciding whether to intervene. The table below predicts what a bystander is most likely to do in an emergency when the costs for helping are low or high and the costs for not helping are low or high.

Costs (to helper) for Directly Helping Victim

Costs (to victim

) if No

Direct H

elp G

iven

High

High

Low

Low

LowLow HighHigh

Direct Intervention

Intervention or Nonintervention largely a function of perceived norms in situation

Indirect intervention or

Redefinition of the situation, disparagement of victim, etc., which lowers costs for no help, allowing

Leaving the scene, ignoring, denial

Blood on Victim

No Blood on Victim

Perceived Costs & Helping

Strangers Arguing

Couples Arguing

Greater levels of helping

% helping70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Ahead of schedule

On schedule Behind schedule

Time Pressure and Helping

Tim

e Elap

sed B

efore Interven

tion

(Secon

ds)

260

240

220

200

180

160

140

120

100

100

80

60

40

Non-Arousal Placebo Arousal Placebo

Unambiguous Emergency

(with screams)

Ambiguous emergency (without screams)

Misattribution of arousal and speed of helping in ambiguous or unambiguous emergencies

How do attributions of arousal affect our behavior in emergency situations?

In Gaertner and Dovidio’s (1997) experiement, subjects sat in a room and heard what sounded like a stack of chairs falling on a woman in the next room. Sometimes the emergency was unambiguous (the woman screamed), and sometimes it was ambiguous (no scream). Subjects had earlier taken a pill (a placebo); some were told that it might increase their heart rate, and some were not. Gaertner and Dovidio measured how quickly subjects responded to the possible emergency in the next room.

*** As the previous graph shows, subjects responded more slowly to the ambiguous emergency. Furthermore, subjects exposed to the ambiguous emergency responded even less quickly when they could misattribute their arousal to the pill.

Helping request (e.g., stranger

asking for spare change)

Physiological arousal

External attribution (e.g., poor economy

is at fault)

Analysis of the situation

Internal attribution (e.g., stranger is

lazy)

Positive emotions

Helping

Negative emotions

No helping

Attributions & Helping

Ask for directions

Give help

Thanked for helping

“Punished” for helping (“I cannot understand what you’re saying. Never mind, I’ll ask

someone else”

Less likely to provide assistance in

future

Impact of Past Experience on Helping

60

50

40

30

20

10

“High” Energetic

Warm Calm Self-worth

Less aches and

pains

Source: Luks, 1988.

Personal benefits for helping others

“He who helps others helps himself”

Country # Helpful Acts

Philippines 280

Kenya 156

Mexico 148

Japan 97

U.S. 86

India 60

Culture and Helping

*Source: Whiting & Whiting, 1975

Does Altruism Exist?

Egoism: Behaving in one’s own self interest

Altruism: Unselfish concern for others

• Helping is a behavior

• Egoism and altruism are motivational forces

How can we know?

One assumption:

“Kindness is it’s own reward.”

If altruism exists, the level of costs involved should not impact the

behavior of those helping out

Easy Escape Difficult Escape

Low Empathy

High Empathy% Helping

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

[Can leave study] [Have to stay and watch]

(Dissimilar Victim)

(Similar Victim)

No difference in helping rates between these 2 conditions

Characteristics of People Choosing to Help

[Assistance to driver after a traffic accident]

• High empathy scores

• Strong belief in a just world

• Greater levels of social responsibility

• Internal locus of control scores

• Less egocentric (selfish)

• I have given directions to a stranger.

• I have given money to a charity.

• I have donated blood.

• I have delayed an elevator and held the door open for a stranger.

• I have allowed someone to go ahead of me in a lineup (at Xerox machine, in the supermarket).

• l have pointed out a clerk's error (in a bank, at the supermarket) in undercharging me for an item.

• I have helped a classmate who 1 did not know that well with a homework assignment when my knowledge was greater than his or hers.

• I have voluntarily looked after a neighbor's pets or children without being paid for it.

• I have helped an acquaintance to move households.

--- From Rushton, Chrisjohn, & Cynthiafekken

Sample Altruism Items

Do you believe that most problems will solve themselves if you just don't fool with them?

Do you feel that you have a lot of choice in deciding who your friends are?

Most of the time, do you feel that you can change what might happen tomorrow by what you do today?

Do you think that people can get their own way if they just keep trying?

Are some people just born lucky?

Do you believe that if somebody studies hard enough he or she can pass any subject?

Are you often blamed for things that just aren't your fault?

Sample Locus of Control Items

• I am confident that justice always prevails over injustice.

• I think basically the world is a just place

• I am convinced that, in the long run, people will be compensated for injustices.

• I firmly believe that injustices in all areas of life (e.g. professional, family, politics) are the exception rather than the rule.

• I believe that, by and large, people get what they deserve

• I think that people try to be fair when making important decisions.

Sample Just World items

From: Dalbert, Montada, & Schmitt, 1987)

Helping Models

Moral Individuals are responsible Individuals are responsible

Medical Individuals not responsible Experts responsible

Compensatory Individuals not responsible Individuals are responsible

Enlightenment Individuals are socialized to Higher Power be responsible

Model Problems Solutions

Some Issues With Receiving Help

• Recipient feeling indebted to the giver (e.g., reciprocity)

• Perception of being controlled by the giver

• Feeling of inadequacy (lowered self-esteem)

“There are different ways of assassinating a man --- by sword, poison, or moral assassination. They are the same in their results except that the last is the more cruel.” Napolean I, Maxims (1804-1815)