Genovese crime family

Prosocial behavior and altruism are two topics that are being studied within social psychology to try to understand the motivation behind humans to help those in need. Researchers have made various theories of why some people are more willing to help humans in need than other people and why people choose to help victims when they do. These theories do a great deal of explaining why exactly prosocial behavior and altruism occur when they do with regard to genetics, culture, and many other factors…

The average person only helps twenty percent of the time when others are around, according to the University of Minnesota. This phenomenon is called the bystander effect. People are eighty percent more likely to help someone in need when they are alone versus around other people. Everyone would like to think that they would help someone in need, but in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, a small town’s lottery is a symbol of the bystander effect and how no one questions tradition. The children…

Moreover, the three theoretical perspectives in sociology also portray some reasoning behind the effect. First, the symbolic interactionism theory would most likely suggest that bystander inactivity results when there is a lack of symbolic meaning or communication. They would include that symbols can promote different behavior. Someone walking by two boys fighting may not intend on acting until they recognize their brother as one of the participants. This symbolic relationship would encourage…

Unlikely Event of a Water Landing” Two young psychologists, John Darley and Bibb Latane, put together two well thought out experiments to rationalize the response time of individuals in groups. After reading about the brutal attack of Catherine Genovese in New York in 1964, which ultimately lead to her death, the two men were on a mission to figure out why nobody helped. Even with the witnesses being awakened by her screams, they chose to do nothing about it until it was too late. After Darley…

On April 18, 2010 at around 5:30 AM, Hugo Alfred Tale-Yax, a homeless man, was stabbed multiple times by a mugger when trying to help a woman who was about to be the mugger’s victim. He collapsed to the floor and lay there until he died from major blood loss even though about twenty people had walked by that hour (cite). Why would the people just walk by and not at least ask if the man was doing okay? A social psychological phenomenon in which individuals do not assist a victim when others are…

What would you do if you saw someone being treated unfairly and they were in need? Would you help them? In “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech” by Elie Wiesel are examples on why bystanders are guilty. People are obligated to stand up for others in need no matter the cost because it is the right thing to do. Bystanders are guilty because doing nothing and just watching can do as much as go against the victim. People have to look out for eachother. Bystanders…

Everybody wants to be a hero, and everyone has what it takes. No, I’m not talking about some ability to grow and become highly skilled or knowledgeable, I’m talking about the ability to obey one’s genes. In horror movies, I find myself constantly wondering why the victim would scream when the killer is right around the corner. Shouldn’t their body, their subconscious, know that it has a better chance of survival if it doesn’t scream? We can thank our species’ progression for that. Over the…

The most notorious example of the Bystander Effect is the case of Kitty Genovese. “On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was murdered in front of her home. She parked her car a number of feet from her apartment when all of a sudden, a man named Winston Moseley chased her down and stabbed her in the back twice. Due to the excruciating pain, Kitty…

Kitty (Catherine Genovese) We all know New York for being a beautiful city full of attractions, but from all the beauty and exciting things going on terrible things also happen. A women named Catherine Genovese alias Kitty, was brutally murdered with no pity or help from anyone. When this horrible situation happened psychologist were very intrigued to learn why didn’t anyone help or call the police, many People witnessed the crime being committed but did nothing to help. Darley and Lantane…

A video was posted by MoeAndET on YouTube in 2014 that went viral and caused quite a bit of a stir. It was a social experiment dealing with public domestic violence. When the male actor was publicly abusing the female actress, many male bystanders stepped in to stop the abuse; some even got into physical fights with the actor in order to protect the actress’s honor. However, when the roles were reversed, not one bystander stepped in to help the actor. He was being actively abused, even as far…