What you think you know about what happened to Kitty Genovese is wrong. Ms. Genovese was repeatedly attacked while others watched and did nothing right? Wrong. While the story lead to a long and successful line of research in the area of bystander intervention and diffusion of responsibility, the facts of the story are incorrect. What are the facts behind this case and if groups are so unlikely to help, how do you explain how people came together to help at 911? Let’s take another look at the legacy of this famous story in this podcast.

 

 Episode 36: The Myth of the Kitty Genovese Story [36:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Resources For This Podcast

• Here’s a link to the American Psychologist.The article of interest here is called “The Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping: The Parable of the 38 Witneses” by Rachel Manning, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins. You’ll need to get the article from your library however, as it is not available online.

Here are links to the author’s websites:

• Rachel Manning’s UWE webpage.

• Mark’s Lancaster University webpage.

• Alan’s Lancaster University webpage.

• There is a great deal of information about what really happened to Kitty Genovese on the Kew Gardens website.

• Here’s a video showing how the “smoke under the door” scenario results in a lack of helping:
  

• Interesting video on Helping Behavior on YouTube.

• If you’re a Psych Teacher you should definitely join the Teaching In the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) discussion list to stay in touch with your “virtual colleagues”

• Another great discussion group for psychology teachers is PsychTeacher.

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