Flashback to Kew Gardens on March 13, 1964, located in the Queens borough of New York: it’s early in the morning and you hear a loud, shrill scream just across the street from you. Do you go and check to see what’s happening? Odds are, according to the bystander effect, you probably don’t. This scenario is exactly what happened to 28-year-old Kitty Genovese, who was stalked, raped and subsequently murdered by serial killer, Winston Moseley, who was sentenced to death following her murder. This scenario perfectly illustrates the aforementioned bystander effect, a psychological phenomenon that states the more individuals witness or overhear someone in trouble, the less likely those individuals are to help that person with their emergency.
This obviously raises the question: why does no one do anything? It probably also leaves you saying to yourself, “Well, of course, I would help someone if they were in trouble; doesn’t matter if we were in a group setting.”
According to the American Psychological Association, there are a variety of factors that make people uneasy about helping someone out in dangerous situations. These include misinterpreting others not responding as a cue that the person doesn’t actually need help, being confused about their own responsibility in the scenario and additional confusion about how to diffuse responsibility between witnesses.
One neighbor of Genovese who overheard the screams for help went so far as to say, “I didn’t want to get involved,” which is a natural evolutionary response when one’s fight or flight response is triggered.
While this may give you a gloomy outlook on humanity, don’t fret. According to a Berkeley study, the bystander effect is now being questioned for legitimacy. Working with the University of Lancaster to capture video surveillance footage of dangerous situations, they found that almost 90% of the time, at least one person came to the rescue. Aside from this study, in late December on the London Bridge, two civilians were killed after a man stabbed them. One bystander, named Lukasz, who was also injured, and numerous other people, sprung to action to help using whatever they could get their hands on, which — interestingly enough — included a narwhal tusk.
Lukasz made a statement on the incident, concluding “The man attacked me, after which he left the building. I had been stabbed and was later taken to the hospital to be treated. I am thankful that I have now been able to return home.”
To me, this gives me a lot of hope for humanity — a man who was seriously injured himself decided to give as much help as he could muster. While the bystander effect is still a very real phenomenon, we can all sleep better at night knowing that good human beings may in fact be defying psychology.
Photo: D. Burton
