Ken Pope who maintains a clinical interest listserv posted this last week.
The link at the end of the article is a valuable resource.
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The Associated Press released an article: "Genovese Syndrome: Fact or
Fiction?" by Larry McShane.
PLEASE NOTE: At the end of the article is a link to a relevant web site.
Here's the article:
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
the September issue of American Psychologist. The result is a lack of
research into similar cases, their article maintains.
More than four decades after the March 13, 1964, murder, the Genovese
case remains -- as noted by the authors -- "one of the most powerful and
influential moments in the history of social psychology."
Kitty Genovese became synonymous with urban apathy, and her name is
still invoked in comparable crimes, most recently in St. Paul, Minn.,
where five to 10 people reportedly ignored an alleged rape in an
apartment building hallway in August.
The killing led to a study that in 1970 identified the "bystander
effect," aka the "Genovese syndrome" -- the concept that individuals are
more likely to provide help when alone than in a group.
Forty-three year's after Genovese's death, the tale of her final minutes
remains compelling, a candidate for a straight-from-the-headlines "Law &
Order" episode.
The 24-year-old, after finishing the late shift at a Queens bar, was
randomly attacked by Winston Moseley while walking home through her
quiet Kew Gardens neighborhood shortly after 3 a.m.
She was initially stabbed twice in the back, but Moseley fled after a
neighbor in the 10-story apartment building across the street shouted
down to "leave that girl alone."
Moseley bided his time and returned, killing Genovese in the rear foyer
of her building. He was later convicted of the crime; now 72, he remains
behind bars after a dozen parole rejections.
A subsequent report in The New York Times laid out the story of 38
witnesses, many portrayed as watching the homicide from front row seats
in their high-rise apartments as Genovese cried in vain for her life.
"For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding
citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three
separate attacks in Kew Gardens," The Times article began. ".... Not one
person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called
after the woman was dead."
As it turned out, there were two attacks, not three. The prosecutor in
the case later said only a half-dozen witnesses were ever found. Others
have suggested that calls to the police were made (and ignored), and
that the fatal second assault occurred in a location visible to almost no
one.
Joseph DeMay, a New York historian and attorney, used the killer's own
description of the events to question the accepted version in a recent
Internet recounting of the case.
In the American Psychologist article, psychology professors Rachel
Manning of the University of the West of England and Mark Levine and
Alan Collins of Lancaster University suggest the oft-repeated narrative
of the Genovese murder is "not supported by the available evidence."
Nevertheless, 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," Manning wrote in
an e-mail.
As the three professors prepared the article, Manning said, they were
struck by the Genovese case as a contemporary parable -- the antithesis
of the Biblical tale of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to assist a
traveler assaulted by thieves on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
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."
On the Net: <http://www.oldkewgardens.com>
Ken Pope
Deposition & Cross-Examination Questions on Tests & Psychometrics:
<http://kspope.com/assess/deposition.php>
"Look at all the sentences that seem true and question them."
--David Riesman
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 3:02 PM
Subject: [tips] Info on Kitty Genovese Murder
Several months ago I asked both here and on another list (do feel free to
delete if you read this on the other list) what insights people had about
the Kitty Genovese Murder as I had read years ago on the Kew Gardens
website that the case was grossly misrepresented in the NY Times report
upon which Latane and Darley based their studies of bystander apathy.
Many great responses were received.
In the September American Psychologist there is an article titled, "The
Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping: The Parable of
the 38 Witneses".
Great article that examines exactly the issues I had raised. I am grateful
that the authors took the time and energy to investigate this and to write
a nice review of the effect of the original story. I would be less hard on
L & D and the correction of the the NY Times story facts does not need to
take anything away from the work by L&D. The article does reinforce what I
had been teaching my students and I will use it in class this semester.
Annette
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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