Kitty Genovese Story
(From New York Times, March 27th, 1964)
37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police
Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks
Inspector 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 borough’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.’
‘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 apartment.
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 businessmachine 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 investigation 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?
Characteristics
of setting,
victim and
bystander
Victim
Characteristics
Age, gender, race
Stigmatizing
Conditions,
relatedness
Features of Situation
Number of other
people present,
Clarity of emergency
Mediating
processes with
bystander
Resulting behavior
Arousal
and its
attribution
Bystanders Traits
Squeamishness,
Emotionality,
Empathy,
Knowledge
such as CPR
Perceived
costs and
rewards for
helping
Intervention or
Nonintervention
Some Factors Related to Helping Behavior
1)
Modeling behavior of others
• Car on roadside study
2) Moods [NEGATIVE-STATE RELIEF MODEL]
• Broken camera study
• Confession study
Positive moods = more helping (e.g., finding $, pleasant smells)
3)
Ability/Expertise
4) Similarity and Familiarity between helper (s) and victim
5)
Perceived Costs (to helper & victim)
• Blood versus no blood on victim
• Couple arguing versus two strangers arguing
6)
Being in a hurry
7) Arousal, attribution and clarity of emergency information
Some Factors Related to Helping Behavior
(cont.)
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”
Positive Smells and Helping
No Fragrance
Fragrance
Males
22.2
45.5
Females
16.7
60.9
The findings were mediated by positive affect
* 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.
Wrong phone number study
Heterosexual making request
Homosexual making request
100
90
90
Role of similarity?
80
70
70
60
50
40
35
30
30
20
10
0
Male
From Shaw, Borough, & Fink, 1994
Female
Number of warnings [Gender bias in helping
behavior?] Similarity?
Type of crimes: Speeding, DUI, others
Driver gender
Officer Gender
Male
Male
Female
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
High
Low
Costs (to victim) if No
Direct Help Given
Low
Direct
Intervention
Intervention or
Nonintervention largely
a function of perceived
norms in situation
High
Indirect
intervention
or
Redefinition of the situation,
disparagement of victim, etc.,
which lowers costs for no
help, allowing
Leaving the scene,
ignoring, denial
Perceived Costs & Helping
Blood on Victim
No Blood on Victim
Greater levels of helping
Strangers Arguing
Couples Arguing
% helping
Time Pressure and Helping
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Ahead of schedule
On schedule
Behind schedule
Non-Arousal Placebo
Arousal Placebo
Time Elapsed Before Intervention (Seconds)
260
240
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
100
80
60
40
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.
Attributions & Helping
External attribution
(e.g., poor economy
is at fault)
Positive emotions
Helping
Helping request
(e.g., stranger
asking for spare
change)
Physiological
arousal
Analysis of the
situation
Internal attribution
(e.g., stranger is
lazy)
Negative emotions
No helping
Impact of Past Experience on Helping
Thanked for
helping
Ask for
directions
Give
help
“Punished” for helping
(“I cannot understand
what you’re saying.
Never mind, I’ll ask
someone else”
Less likely to
provide assistance in
future
Personal benefits for helping others
60
“He who helps others helps himself”
50
40
30
20
10
“High”
Source: Luks, 1988.
Energetic
Warm
Calm
Selfworth
Less
aches and
pains
Culture and Helping
Country
# Helpful Acts
Philippines
280
Kenya
156
Mexico
148
Japan
97
U.S.
86
India
60
*Source: Whiting & Whiting, 1975
Does Altruism Exist?
“Kindness is it’s own reward.”
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:
If altruism exists, the level of costs involved should not impact the
behavior of those helping out
Low Empathy
(Dissimilar Victim)
% Helping
High Empathy
(Similar Victim)
90
No difference in helping rates
between these 2 conditions
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Easy Escape
[Can leave study]
Difficult Escape
[Have to stay and watch]
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)
Sample Altruism Items
•
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 Locus of Control 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 Just World 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.
From: Dalbert, Montada, & Schmitt, 1987)
Helping Models
Model
Problems
Solutions
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
be responsible
Higher Power
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 (18041815)