Miss Genovese Murder Case

The sad events that took place during the murder of Miss Genovese left many wondering as to the reason why the 38 law abiding citizens did not intervene. However, many people sought to understand this occurrence with concerns being raised from all quarters. The sad story got the attention of most scholars among them prominent psychologists such as John Darley and Bibb Latane. The two became interested in understanding the murder of Genovese and in particular the reason why the 38 people who watched for almost forty minutes did not help either passively or actively. Darley and Latane experimented in 1968 four years after the murder of Genovese. The two social Psychologist carried out the famously known Bystander Apathy Experiment. The two discovered that the presence of other bystanders minimizes an individual’s feeling of personal responsibility hence reducing
The smoke under the door experiment was carried out to test the responsiveness of individuals to an emergency. During the investigations, subjects were asked to fill out questionnaires in a room where the study was to be carried out. Smoke was added into the room through a vent on the wall. One condition involved a single subject, and the results showed that 75% of the lone subject took the initiative to report the incident. The second situation involved three naive subjects and the results indicated that 38% acted by reporting the presence of smoke in the room. Moreover, the final state involved three naïve subjects and two confederates who had been instructed to take notice of the smoke but make no attempt to take action. During this experiment, it was discovered that only 10% reported the incident. Therefore, the researchers concluded that when people are in a group, they tend to fear little and hence, less likely to act (Latané and Darley