Genovese Syndrome: what is it and how does it affect Social Psychology?

The Spectator Effect or Genovese Syndrome shows a tendency not to act if someone else can.

The "Genovese Syndrome", also known as the Spectator Effect, is a concept that has been used to explain the psychological phenomenon whereby a person becomes immobilized when witnessing an emergency situation where he or she would be expected to provide support to someone in significant danger.

In this article we will see what the Genovese Syndrome is, why it has been called this way.why it has been called this way and what has been its importance, both in psychology and in the media.

Kitty Genovese and the bystander effect.

Catherine Susan Genovese, better known as Kitty Genovese, was an American woman of Italian descent who grew up in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He was born on July 7, 1935, his family moved to Connecticut, and he worked as a restaurant manager.

Little more can be said about his life. What we do know, since it has generated a whole series of a hypothesis within social psychology, is how he died. In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was murdered while trying to enter her building in New York City.located in New York City.

According to the official version, the man who killed her followed her from her car to the front door of the building, where he stabbed her. Kitty tried to avoid him and screamed for help for more than 30 minutes, while the killer continued to stab her.while the killer continued with the assaults and even raped her before killing her. What happened in the course of those minutes is what has been baptized as the Genovese Syndrome: none of the neighbors tried to help her.

The prestigious New York Times reported the story, by journalist Martin Gansberg. Some time later the subject was compiled in a book authored by the same newspaper's editor, A.M. Rosenthal, entitled "38 Witnesses". Among the facts recounted, the New York Times asserted that, in all, 38 neighbors had witnessed the murder, and none of them had bothered to notify the authorities..

For many years this version was taken as the true one, and gave rise to various psychological studies on why people become immobilized or indifferent in the face of other people's emergencies. These studies later had repercussions in scientific research on the inhibition of behavior during individual emergencies when they are experienced within a group.

Intervention in emergency situations: the experiment of Darley and Latané

The pioneering experiment on this phenomenon was conducted by John M. Darley and Bibb Latané, and published in 1968. The researchers hypothesized that the people who witnessed the murder did not help precisely because there were so many of them. Through their research, they suggested that when participants were individual witnesses to an emergency, they were more likely to help. Whereas, when an emergency was witnessed as a group, participants were less likely to intervene individually.

They explained that people became individually indifferent to the emergency when they were in groups, because they assumed that someone else would help.They explained that people became individually indifferent to the emergency when they were in groups, because they assumed that someone else would react or would have already helped (precisely because it was an urgent situation).

In other words, the researchers concluded that the number of people witnessing an attack is a determining factor in individual intervention. The latter was called the "Spectator Effect".

Also, in other experiments, the notion of diffusion of the notion of diffusion of responsibilitythrough which it is explained that the presence of different observers inhibits the response of a spectator when he/she is alone.

Media impact of the Genovese Syndrome

What has been problematized recently about the Kitty Genovese case is the New York Times' own version of the circumstances under which the murder occurred. Not only has this been problematized, but also the the media and pedagogical impact that this version of the story had.. The news about the murder of Kitty Genovese generated scientific hypotheses that were reflected in textbooks and psychology textbooks, creating a whole theory about prosocial behaviors.

More recent versions of the New York Times itself report that some facts have been misinterpreted, and that the initial story may have fallen into various biases. The main criticism has been that the number of witnesses has been exaggerated.. Recently it has been questioned whether there were in fact a total of 38 people witnessing the murder.

Subsequent journalistic investigations speak of the presence of only 12 people, who probably did not witness the entire attack, since the latter had different phases and locations before reaching the murder in the portal. The number of attacks originally proposed by the New York Times has also been questioned.

Not only that, but recent testimonies indicate that at least two neighbors did call the police.The research carried out decades ago by the U.S. newspaper, as well as the inactivity of the authorities in the face of a crime that could easily be justified as "crime of passion", have been put in tension. Ultimately, and within social psychology, the variables and the theoretical approach that has traditionally underpinned the Spectator Effect have been problematized.

Bibliographical references:

• Dunlap, D. (2016). 1964| How Many Witnessed the Murder of Kitty Genovese?. New York Times. Retrieved July 03, 2018. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/insider/1964-how-many-witnessed-the-murder-of-kitty-genovese.html.
• Darley, J. M. & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4, pt. 1): 377-383. Abstract retrieved July 03, 2018. Available at http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1968-08862-001.
• Communication iS + D. (2012). Psychosocial experiments - No. 7: The diffusion of responsibility (Darley and Latané, 1968). Retrieved July 03, 2018. Available at http://isdfundacion.org/2012/12/28/experimentos-psicosociales-nº-7-la-difusion-de-la-responsabilidad-darley-y-latane/.