The Myth of the Indifferent Bystander

[Francisco Ferrer]

There are few people my age who can forget the horror story of Kitty Genovese. One night in 1964 on her way home to her Queens apartment, this 28-year old woman was stabbed, raped, and stabbed again on a public street by a stranger. She died before she could be given proper medical attention.

Thirty-eight people in nearby buildings heard her heart-rending screams but did nothing. No one ran downstairs to help her. No once called the police. No one cared to get involved.

For decades afterwards, Kitty Genovese's name became synonymous with victims of a world that is too self-absorbed, too busy, too unfeeling to pick up a phone and save a life. Her tragedy has even been employed as a critique of Objectivism.

The average person can't be bothered, it seems. To know this, all you have to do is read the original account as reported in the New York Times and in Life magazine.

The problem is, it wasn't true.

The story was first told to the press by a police commissioner who heard it wrong or intentionally twisted it for dramatic effect. It was then repeated by a journalist too lazy to check the facts, and picked up by a liberal media perversely thrilled by the idea of a public that cannot be trusted to help one of its own.

For years liberals have been beating us up with Kitty Genovese syndrome--and only recently have we found out that it was essentially a myth.

Read Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese.

[Peter]

It is still a horrible story though "the 38 witnesses who did nothing," may be a myth. Jack Reacher where art thou? Kitty's nervous friend and neighbor was a disgrace. I really, really like the constant personal surveillance of cell phone cameras. 911 is a great innovation. I even think the TV cameras on London's streets are a great innovation. I remember a local high school put up a camera covering the school cafeteria around 2000 and the next week it proved who started an assault. Privacy is for private places.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is old news.

The syndrome real, though. And, of course, it has nothing to do with Objectivism.

Robert Cialdini and others have studied this kind of behavior and there is an enormous amount of research done on it.

Basically, there is an innate response in people Cialdini calls "social proof." If people in a perceivable crowd are doing something, an individual tends to follow. He uses the actions and reactions of others as a cue about what to do when he comes across an anomaly. Unless he has a good conscious reason not to follow, he probably will do so on autopilot.

Think about the person in a crowd who starts looking at the sky. This is odd to a neighbor, so he checks it out and starts looking, too. This creates a chain reaction and soon everyone is doing it. When someone new arrives, the first thing he does is look up.

The short version is this. When several people observe a beating of a stranger and do nothing, they assume someone is going to call the police. That makes it easy to follow the crowd of observers they see and do nothing. In fact, research shows that the fewer people around, the more likely someone will do something to help the victim. The reason is it becomes obvious nobody is doing anything.

Cialdini makes the following recommendation if you are ever in a crowd and have a heart attack or something like that. Do not call out to the crowd. Establish eye contact with an individual nearby and tell that person firmly to get you help. Your chances of getting it in time to save your life will drastically increase.

That probably is valid for a beating, too.

Michael

[Reidy]

Someone (possibly Cialdini himself) published an article several years ago in the Atlas Society magazine making these points in connection with the Genovese incident.

In the same mythbusting tradition a reporter named Jimenez has recently published The Book of Matt about the Matthew Shepard story. His big finding is that the killing was a drug deal gone wrong and that Shepard's sexuality had nothing to do with it.

[tmj]

You do not even need to be in physical proximity to others and can still be caught in "the crowd". It happens to me a few times every couple of years a real 'duh'lema. A storm will knock the power out in the area , should you be the one to call the power company? "nah, I'm sure one or more of the neighbors did"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's what happened in China with bystanders.

 

It's suicide, not a beating, but the video below is poignant. It's a feel-good moment.

 

I saw it on TheBlaze here:

 

Heart-Stopping Video: Woman Tries Jumping to Her Death, Bystanders Say ‘Not On Our Watch’

 

 

Michael

 

[BaalChatzaf]

Here's what happened in China with bystanders.

It's suicide, not a beating, but the video below is poignant. It's a feel-good moment.

I saw it on TheBlaze here:

Heart-Stopping Video: Woman Tries Jumping to Her Death, Bystanders Say ‘Not On Our Watch’

Michael

Did you notice how long they held on to their umberellas?

Ba'al Chatzaf