The Bystander Effect
On March 13, 1964, a young woman named Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was brutally attacked and murdered outside her Queens apartment building. The case became legendary not just for its brutality, but for the reported fact that 38 witnesses watched from their windows and did nothing to intervene or even call the police. While subsequent investigations revealed the original reports were exaggerated, this tragedy sparked the interest of psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley, who began a series of groundbreaking experiments that uncovered one of social psychology’s most disturbing phenomena: the bystander effect. Their research revealed that the more people who witness an emergency, the less likely any one individual is to help. The Science Behind the Effect: Why We Freeze The bystander effect occurs due to several interconnected psychological processes that activate when we’re in a group: 1. Diffusion of Responsibility In a crowd, individuals feel less personal responsibility to act.…