On Sunday, February 16, 2014 6:56 PM, Christopher Green wrote:
Seems to me it is Takooshian who miss the (historical) point, which
is that the details of the event are regularly reworked to suit the
theory,
so that the event becomes a better "illustration." One sees a similar '
phenomenon even in the textbook retellings of many experiments,
such as Watson's Albert B. experiment.
I'm not sure that I follow what Chris is saying here because there are
several issues at stake:
(1) What exactly are the facts concerning the Genovese case, both
(a) at the time of the incident and the subsequent trial and (b) as we
understand it today. Clearly there was misinformation provided in
media accounts at the time of Genovese's death and we have more
detailed knowledge today (assistant district attorney Charles Skoller
who prosecuted Kitty Genovese's murderer reviews the facts in his
book "Twisted Confessions" which was published after Manning,
Levine & Collins [MLC]). The enduring question, I think, that which
is in subject line: what is myth, what is truth?
(2) MLC argue against the use of the Kitty Genovese "story" in
textbooks because of some of the innaccuracies of accounts of
what happened (see their page 559 where they make the comparison
ot the Genovese story to Watson & Rayner's "Little Albert"
"story"). NOTE: they do not argue for a more accurate presentation
and how this served as a stimulus for Latane and Darley's work
or for other social changes such as the development of the 911
telephone system which overcme the problem of calling a local
police precinct which would ignore calls (which appears to be
documented in the Genovese case). Takooshian points out
the problems with the early accounts but also points out that there
were people who saw what happened (literal eyewitnesses) but
who did not do anything. I don't think much of the merits of
MLC's argument about eliminating the Genovese case from
psychology textbooks, I do think that a more factually accurate
should be provided. Given that there are a few textbook
authors on Tips, one wonders which way they would argue:
give a sensational account that readers will find interesting even
if somewhat inaccurate or giving a scrupulously accurate account?
(3) MLC rely to a distressing degress on material and accounts
provided by Joseph De May which appeared on the website
http://www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-nytimes-3.html . The link is
dead and De May's material on Genovese appears no longer to
be on this website (at some point materials and responses were
moved to a special section devoted to the Genovese case but
this now appears gone). Takooshian takes MLC to task on their
reliance on De May's materials which had as their focus minimizing
the Genovese case because of the negative impression it made --
something that a booster for Kew Gardins would try to minimize.
Quite telling in MLC's article is not only their citing De May as
a source but also what they say in the author note:
|We acknowledge the support and assistance of Joseph De May Jr.
|and John Hogan in providing both materials and helpful comments
|in the course of the development of this article.
(4) Let us try to focus on the facts. What were the facts of the events
in the Genovese case and what were their implications for psychology?
Has the Genovese case been used to sensational the presentation of
psychology in textbooks? Everyone knows the answer to that question.
Did the Genovese case lead to meaningful reseach on the factors that
affect whether a person will come to the aid of another person? The
answer is yes but the explanation is more complex than the original
interpretation that as the number of people increases, the probability
of aid decreases. In NYC we have people jumping onto the subway
tracks to help a person who has fallen while other people stay on the
platform. Some people help, some don't. Some people care, some
don't. Why are some people like that, why are others different?
The answers to these questions can be seen as Kitty Genovese's
legacy.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
On Feb 16, 2014, at 4:42 PM, "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> wrote:
On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 11:26:24 -0800, Christopher Green wrote:
Forget the popular press. Too many competing interests. Go with the
historians
of psychology.
http://www.grignoux.be/dossiers/288/pdf/manning_et_alii.pdf
(American Psychologist, 2007)
Forget the historians of psychology, too many competing interests such
as
the desire for tenure, promotion, popularity beyond the academy, and
an
unreasonable confidence in their own explanations. ;-) <- LOOK!
Consider instead the social psychologist who suffers from these
interests
to only a minor degree. ;-) ;-) ;-) <- LOOK! The extra smilies are for
Zimbardo and Milgram.
But bear with me, please. Think back to discussions on Tips,
specifically
this one:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00636.html
where the author provides links to Harold Takooshian's (one of
Milgram's
grad students) review of Rosenthal's "Thirty-Eight Witnesses" and
Skoller's "Twisted Confessions" as well as taking to task "historians
of psychology" Manning, Levine, and Collins. The links to Takooshian's
review are still live and I reproduce them here:
http://psqtest.typepad.com/blogPostPDFs/200900817_psq_54-10_The1964KittyGenoveseTragedyStillAValuableParable.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/yb545m3
I wonder if Harold will review the new books mentioned in the news
articles
I linked to below.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
On 2014-02-16, at 11:17 AM, Mike Palij wrote:
Kitty Genovese was murdered on March 13, 1964, so, we are about
a month away from it's 50th anniversary. However, in the past few
days a couple of stories in the popular media have been published,
apparently to promote new books on the Genovese case. The
two books that serve as the source for two articles below focus
on the "myth" associated with the incident but they seem to have
different views on what exactly the myth is: were people even
more indifferent or did early helping responses get ignored?
I'll leave it to the interested reader to work through what role
psychologists played in all this.
Here are the articles. First, from DNAinfo New York:
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140213/kew-gardens/neighbors-indifference-kitty-genovese-murder-worse-than-believed-book
Second, from the NY Post:
http://nypost.com/2014/02/16/book-reveals-real-story-behind-the-kitty-genovese-murder/
And for comparison's sake, an article from the NY Daily News
from 2011:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/killing-kitty-genovese-47-years-holds-sway-new-yorkers-article-1.123912
If I am not mistaken, the three articles appear to have
inconsistencies
with each other and focus on different aspects of the incident. It
seems
that one will have to read the new books and previous one (e.g.,
Charles
Skoller's "Twisted Confessions") to see what the details actually
are. One wonders if there will ever be a definitive account of what
happened.
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