Did 38 People Really Watch a Murder and Do Nothing?

In 1964, a front-page story said 38 neighbors watched a woman being attacked in Queens and did nothing. Decades later, people checked the records. The murder of Kitty Genovese became the most famous example of the bystander effect: the idea that the more people who see an emergency, the less likely any one of them is to help. Two psychologists took it into the lab, and their results went into the textbooks for decades. Then her brother Bill went back to Austin Street, and so did a team of researchers. What they found about the night, the number 38 and a neighbor named Sophia Farrar doesn't match the story most of us learned. So what do real crowds do when someone gets hurt? A study of security-camera footage from three cities finally gave an answer, and it changes what you should do if you're ever the one who needs help. CHAPTERS 0:00 A scream at 3:15 a.m. 0:37 The front page story 1:33 Smoke in the waiting room 2:43 The seizure over the intercom 4:04 Her brother goes back 5:03 What the neighbors really heard 6:12 Where the 38 came from 7:42 What the cameras caught 8:58 Do crowds really help? 9:58 Why the lab and the street disagree 11:29 The woman left out of the story SOURCES The 1964 story Gansberg, M. (1964, March 27). 37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police. The New York Times. Rosenthal, A. M. (1964). Thirty-Eight Witnesses. McFadden, R. D. (2016, April 4). Winston Moseley, Who Killed Kitty Genovese, Dies in Prison at 81. The New York Times. Going back to the records Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62(6). The Witness (2015), directed by James Solomon, with Bill Genovese. Myths surrounding Kitty Genovese's murder, American Heritage: https://www.americanheritage.com/myths-surrounding-kitty-genoveses-murder What really happened the night Kitty Genovese was murdered, WNYC: https://wnyc.org/story/what-really-happened-the-night-kitty-genovese-was-murdered/ The bystander effect started with a lie, McGill Office for Science and Society: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical-thinking-history/bystander-effect-started-lie Sophia Farrar, 92, obituary, The Boston Globe (2020): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/03/nation/sophia-farrar-92-belied-indifference-kitty-genovese-attack/ The lab studies Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10(3). Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377–383. Fischer, P., et al. (2011). The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 517–537. Beaman, A. L., Barnes, P. J., Klentz, B., & McQuirk, B. (1978). Increasing helping rates through information dissemination: Teaching pays. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 406–411. The street cameras Philpot, R., Liebst, L. S., Levine, M., Bernasco, W., & Lindegaard, M. R. (2020). Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts. American Psychologist, 75(1), 66–75. Lancaster University summary: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/bystanders-will-intervene-to-help-victims-of-aggressive-public-disputes A note on the numbers: the 1964 headline said 37 and the article said 38. As far as anyone can tell, the 38 was roughly the number of people the police talked to, including anyone who heard anything at all. New videos every so often on Steve Explains, where we check the stories everyone thinks they know. Subscribe if you want the next one. #KittyGenovese #BystanderEffect #Psychology