AP Psychology Summer Assignment 2016-17

Read the articles below, beginning with kitty.doc. You may want to outline them, particularly the Darley and Latane article. Answer the following questions:

1. Besides inspiring the experiments you have just read about, Kitty Genovese also is brought up frequently in popular culture, such as the film Boondock Saints and the graphic novel (and later film) The Watchmen, from which the panels illustrating the document were taken. Why do people continue to discuss this case?

2. For Darley and Latane, what is the important question raised by this case? How do they answer it? Do you accept their answer? Why or why not?

3. For Takooshian, what is the important question raised by this case? How does he answer it? Do you accept his answer? Why or why not?

Note: There are also some question included at the end of the Takoosian article. You may answer these or not, as you choose.

Click to open Darley_and_Latane.pdf Takooshian_Lost_Child.pdf kitty.doc Read this first

AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND

Who Wouldn't Help A Lost Child? You, Maybe. by , Sandra Haber, and David Lucido Psychology Today, 1977

A lost child is one of the world’s saddest sights. There he stands on the street, looking around hopefully, his lips trembling, and his eyes startling to fill with tears. It's enough to break your heart.

But is it enough to make you stop and help? Suppose the child asks you to make a phone call for him. Would you do it?

Conventional wisdom has it that city dwellers don't help other the way folks do in small towns. They just don't want to get involved. Most people seem to believe this, based on their own experiences and a number of well-publicized incidents such as the 1964 tape in City. She died while 38 people stood by and watched.

Despite this general belief in city callousness, little research has been done directly comparing helping behavior in cities and towns. Even the classic 1970 work by psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley (The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn't He Help?) didn't deal with the question directly.

Through an ingenious series of experiments, Latane and Darley discovered that the more people at the scene of an emergency, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. This "diffusion of responsibility," as they called it, inhibited even well-intentioned bystanders from taking action.

When Darley and Latane compared the bystanders who helped with those who didn't, they found only one characteristic that distinguished between the two groups: the size of their home town. The smaller the community in which an individual was raised, the more likely he was to help. Despite this, Latane and Darley concluded that the Genovese case and others like it could happen just as well in a small town, if a sufficiently large number of witnesses were around to share the irresponsibility. They based this belief strictly on what they observed in cities, since they didn't have the figures to compare what actually happened in communities of various sizes.

We set up a direct comparison by creating the same emergency situation in several large cities and small towns. Since a lost child is likely to arouse sympathy in almost any adult, we used children to create our emergency.

A young child, six to ten years old, stood on a busy street lined with stores and spoke to the first stranger who passed by, saying, "I'm lost. Can you call my house?" If the person asked for more information, the child explained he had been shopping with his mother and that they had been separated. The child acted frightened, and showed the stranger an identification card with his family's phone number.

Fourteen different children played the lost child. Some were boys, some were girls; some were black, some were white. They asked for help in midtown , on the Boston Commons, at City Hall in Philadelphia, in the Loop in Chicago, and in 12 smaller towns around these cities.

An observer stood nearby to insure the child's safety and to record the stranger's sex, race, apparent age, and exactly what he or she said. The observer also noted how many people were in the immediate vicinity where they could hear the child's request, and how many were in the general area.

The child's mother or guardian also stayed nearby, out of sight. If the stranger refused to help, the child waited a minute and asked another person. If the stranger took the child to a nearby phone or started to help in some other way, the mother or guardian intervened. She ran up, called the child by name and thanked the person warmly for helping.

Before starting the experiment, we tested the lost child method in several locations. Several colleagues warned us that the approach might not work, since practically everyone would offer to help the child. It didn't take long to disprove this prediction. The first person nine year old Jackie approached in a shopping center, two days before Christmas, ignored her. The second snapped, "So what's your problem, kid? I'm lost too." We were sufficiently shaken that we decided to quit after one more futile attempt that day. Clearly, helping a child was not an automatic response, at least not for three Brooklynites fighting the Christmas rush.

Social Psychology – Chapter 13 Page 1 of 3 AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND

During the experiment, the children asked 184 people for help, 127 in the cities and 57 in the towns. The results were clear. In the cities, 46 percent offered help; in the towns, 72 percent

This is a big difference, quantitatively, but the differences in the kind of help offered were even more striking. In the towns, even the 16 individuals who didn't help were usually sympathetic. Only three of them simply said no and walked on. The others offered excuses for not helping or suggested ways the child could find his mother.

In the cities, 52 of the 69 who refused did so abruptly. They ignored the child by walking past, swerving, sidestepping, shaking their head "no," and on two occasions, pulling themselves out of the child's grasp. Others, almost without breaking stride, put money into the child's hand B a dime, a quarter, even a dollar bill B and sped on their way.

The strangest response was offered by an elderly man walking along Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. He stopped and spoke with the child, patted him, shook his head "no," hesitantly, and crossed the street. There he waited behind a lamppost, craning his neck to observe the child. He watched for 15 minutes while others refused to help, until one woman finally stopped and offered aid. Then he left his post and went on his, way.

At other times, passersby referred the child to someone else for help, or suggested, "Here's a dime the call yourself." One New Yorker solved his problem, if not the child's by saying confidently, "Go into that restaurant. Your mother's waiting for you there."

While the usual city response was cold, there were some striking exceptions. Five or six passersby responded much like Judy, a Manhattanite who treated young Ann like a long lost daughter. Judy, introduced herself by name, comforted Ann, asked if she were hungry, and offered to buy her lunch before escorting her home in a taxi.

In another instance, one helpful stranger asked a second passerby for aid, and both then asked a third. Within a few moments the child was invisible in the center of a nine person rescue committee. If the experimenter hadn't broken through to get the child, there is no telling how large the helpful but indecisive group would have grown.

We also looked at the factors other than the city-town difference which might have influenced the results: weather, time of the year, day of the week, hour of the day, the child's sex, age or race, the stranger's sex, age of race. None of them made much difference.

We did find wide variations in the behavior among people in the fours cities. The comparatively few persons studied in each city makes it unfair to generalize but these are the results: Bostonians and Philadelphians reacted similarly. Two-thirds refused to help; one-third helped. In New York, the split was half and half. And in Chicago, two-thirds offered to help, nearly as many as in the smaller communities.

Chicagoans were not only the most helpful; they also offered help in an unusual way, by calling the police. In the other cities, fewer than 10 percent of the helpful strangers did this. In Chicago, 35 percent of the helpers ignored the nearby phone and, instead, flagged down a patrol car or went looking for s patrolman.

Psychologist Stanley Milgram and other urban theorists have referred to such behavior as an "institutionalized response." City dwellers learn to refer responsibilities such as picking up litter, intervening in crime, or handling other social problems to the authorities

But why did Chicago people look for a policeman so much more frequently than New Yorkers, Bostonians, or Philadelphians? Mayor Daley's city has long had the reputation of a strong police city, an image reinforced by the turbulence of the 1968 Democratic convention there. Perhaps this explains its citizens' "call-a-cop" response. One of us had a chance to speak to an off-duty Chicago policeman about our study. Without knowing what we'd found, he volunteered that, "Of course people should refer a lost child to a policeman. They aren't supposed to get involved. It’s for the police to take care of."

Our results were clear. Helping was the rule in towns, and the exception in cities. This leaves the question, "Why?" One answer is the Darley-Latane diffusion of responsibility theory mentioned earlier, the more people are around the less likely any of them will help. This idea takes individuals of the hook by explaining their actions largely in terms of the situation rather than their personal choice. If this were the main force at work during our experiment, the lost child should have received more help when there were

Social Psychology – Chapter 13 Page 2 of 3 AP PSYCHOLOGY NILAND fewer people around. This didn't happen. The child was about as likely to be helped whether the stranger was on a nearly deserted street or in a teeming shopping area.

We prefer an explanation that focuses on the individual, a theory of adaptation suggested by other studies of urban behavior. This research shows that city people adjust to the constant demands of urban life by reducing their involvement with others. There is so much going on that the city dweller learns to ignore the constant demands on his time, his attention, and his frazzled nervous system. He forgoes common courtesies, such as saying "Hello" on the street, refuses to do favor for strangers, and even ignores a child's plea for help.

A recent book by , the detective who investigated the Genovese murder, offers new information that might alter the way psychologists look at the incident. He found that one of the 38 bystanders had a clear, close-up view of the murder; it took place on the landing directly below his apartment door. He knew the victim personally, and yet he remained alone in his apartment for several hours, without telephoning the police. This inaction is hard to explain by diffusion of responsibility.

Latane has observed that, "Perhaps if there had been fewer than 38 witnesses present .... Kitty Genovese might be alive today." Our lost child experiment suggests otherwise. It would have been better; it seems to us, if there had been many more bystanders. This would have increased the chance that at least one of them had just arrived from a small town, and was not yet accustomed to hearing or ignoring screams for help. He would probably have acted, and perhaps save her life.

Analysis:

After reading this article, create an analysis which addresses the following issues:

! the researchers’ hypothesis. ! the independent and the dependent variable in the experiment. ! any variables you think the experimenters should keep constant. ! strengths and weaknesses of the study’s design. ! strengths and weaknesses of the study’s procedure. ! strengths and weaknesses of the study’s conclusions/predictions.

Social Psychology – Chapter 13 Page 3 of 3 AP Psychology The Kitty Genovese Story Mr. Page

"ASHAMED FOR HUMANITY": The True Story of Kitty Genovese

The article below was originally written by Martin Gansberg for two weeks after the murder of Ms. Genovese and earned Gansberg an award for excellence from the Newspaper Reporters Association of New York.

The reported events are true and took place on March 14, 1964.

The brutal murder of Kitty Genovese and the disturbing lack of action by her neighbors became emblematic in what many perceived as an evolving culture of violence and apathy in the . In fact, social scientists still debate the causes of what is now known as "the Genovese Syndrome." "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police"

New York Times

Martin Gansberg March 27, 1964

For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.

That was two weeks ago today.

Still shocked is Assistant Chief Inspector Frederick M. Lussen, in charge of the borough's detectives and a veteran of 25 years of investigations. He can give a matter-of-fact recitation on many murders. But the Kew Gardens slaying baffles him--not because it is a murder, but because the "good people" failed to call the police.

"As we have reconstructed the crime," he said, "the assailant had three chances to kill this woman during a 35-minute period. He returned twice to complete the job. If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now."

This is what the police say happened at 3:20 A.M. in the staid, middle-class, tree-lined Austin Street area:

Twenty-eight-year-old Catherine Genovese, who was called Kitty by almost everyone in the neighborhood, was returning home from her job as manager of a bar in Hollis. She parked her red Fiat in a lot adjacent to the Kew Gardens Railroad Station, facing Mowbray Place. Like many residents of the neighborhood, she had parked there day after day since her arrival from Connecticut a year ago, although the railroad frowns on the practice.

She turned off the lights of her car, locked the door, and started to walk the 100 feet to the entrance of her apartment at 82-70 Austin Street, which is in a Tudor building, with stores in the first floor and apartments on the second.

The entrance to the apartment is in the rear of the building because the front is rented to retail stores. At night the quiet neigborhood is shrouded in the slumbering darkness that marks most residential areas.

Miss Genovese noticed a man at the far end of the lot, near a seven-story apartment house at 82-40 Austin Street. She halted. Then, nervously, she headed up Austin Street toward Lefferts Boulevard, where there is a call box to the 102nd Police Precinct in nearby Richmond Hill.

She got as far as a street light in front of a bookstore before the man grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-story apartment house at 82-67 Austin Street, which faces the bookstore. Windows slid open and voices punctuated the early-morning stillness.

Miss Genovese screamed: "Oh, my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!"

From one of the upper windows in the apartment house, a man called down: "Let that girl alone!" The assailant looked up at him, shrugged, and walked down Austin Street toward a white sedan parked a short distance away. Miss Genovese struggled to her feet.

Lights went out. The killer returned to Miss Genovese, now trying to make her way around the side of the building by the parking lot to get to her apartment. The assailant stabbed her again.

"I'm dying!" she shrieked. "I'm dying!"

Windows were opened again, and lights went on in many apartments. The assailant got into his car and drove away. Miss Genovese staggered to her feet. A city bus, 0-10, the Lefferts Boulevard line to Kennedy International Airport, passed. It was 3:35 A.M.

The assailant returned. By then, Miss Genovese had crawled to the back of the building, where the freshly painted brown doors to the apartment house held out hope for safety. The killer tried the first door; she wasn't there. At the second door, 82-62 Austin Street, he saw her slumped on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He stabbed her a third time--fatally.

It was 3:50 by the time the police received their first call, from a man who was a neighbor of Miss Genovese. In two minutes they were at the scene. The neighbor, a 70-year-old woman, and another woman were the only persons on the street. Nobody else came forward. The man explained that he had called the police after much deliberation. He had phoned a friend in Nassau County for advice and then he had crossed the roof of the building to the apartment of the elderly woman to get her to make the call.

"I didn't want to get involved," he sheepishly told police. Six days later, the police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old business machine operator, and charged him with homicide. Moseley had no previous record. He is married, has two children and owns a home at 133-19 Sutter Avenue, South Ozone Park, Queens. On Wednesday, a court committed him to Kings County Hospital for psychiatric observation.

When questioned by the police, Moseley also said he had slain Mrs. Annie May Johnson, 24, of 146-12 133d Avenue, Jamaica, on Feb. 29 and Barbara Kralik, 15, of 174-17 140th Avenue, Springfield Gardens, last July. In the Kralik case, the police are holding Alvin L. Mitchell, who is said to have confessed to that slaying.

The police stressed how simple it would have been to have gotten in touch with them. "A phone call," said one of the detectives, "would have done it." The police may be reached by dialing "0" for operator or SPring 7-3100. Today witnesses from the neighborhood, which is made up of one-family homes in the $35,000 to $60,000 range with the exception of the two apartment houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn't call the police.

A housewife, knowingly if quite casually, said, "We thought it was a lovers' quarrel." A husband and wife both said, "Frankly, we were afraid." They seemed aware of the fact that events might have been different. A distraught woman, wiping her hands in her apron, said, "I didn't want my husband to get involved."

One couple, now willing to talk about that night, said they heard the first screams. The husband looked thoughtfully at the bookstore where the killer first grabbed Miss Genovese.

"We went to the window to see what was happening," he said, "but the light from our bedroom made it difficult to see the street." The wife, still apprehensive, added: "I put out the light and we were able to see better."

Asked why they hadn't called the police, she shrugged and replied: "I don't know."

A man peeked out from a slight opening in the doorway to his apartment and rattled off an account of the killer's second attack. Why hadn't he called the police at the time? "I was tired," he said without emotion. "I went back to bed."

It was 4:25 A.M. when the ambulance arrived to take the body of Miss Genovese. It drove off. "Then," a solemn police detective said, "the people came out."