“Bystander Effect,” “Bystander Apathy” or “Genovese Syndrome” are all social psychological terms used to describe the observed behavior that the greater the number of witnesses to an emergency the less likely it is that any one individual will intervene. Perhaps the most famous example of the behavior is the murder of Kitty Genovese in the Kew Gardens, Queens neighborhood of New York City.
Early in the morning of March 13, 1964, Ms. Genovese was returning to her apartment from Ev’s 11th Hour, a bar in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens, where she worked as the manager. Upon her arrival home, she was stabbed to death by Winston Moseley, a violent career criminal, who had followed Ms. Genovese after observing her at a traffic light. The attack, or more accurately attacks, lasted approximately thirty minutes. Two weeks after the murder, The New York Times ran an article entitled Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police. The article reported that there were scores of witnesses to the attack that did nothing. Soon thereafter the term “Genovese Syndrome” entered the social psychological vernacular.
Ms. Genovese’s murder has been used as an illustration of everything from gay discrimination, to the effects of rampant urban decay, to out of control big city crime, to human indifference. As Kew Gardens was then, as it is now, a quiet middle-class neighborhood with a relatively low rate of violent crime the popular narrative would appear on its face to be somewhat inconsistent with the reality. In fact, over the last almost six decades since the incident The New York Times article has been reexamined and largely debunked. Nonetheless, the Bystander Effect has been studied extensively and is generally accepted as an observable social psychological phenomenon.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, academic treatments of the Bystander Effect is a 1968 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Drs. John M. Darley and Bibb Latané. A copy of the study, Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility can be purchased from the American Psychological Association at: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1968-08862-001?doi=1. The study concludes that although the presence of other bystanders at the scene of an emergency reduces each individual’s feelings of personal responsibility to take action, i.e., the Bystander Effect, rather than being the result of apathy, alienation or indifference towards the victim the behavior is more likely explained by each bystander’s response to the other bystanders.
Interestingly, an aspect of the Bystander Effect that has not been widely studied is what may be termed the “intervention paradox.” I.e., as the number of bystanders to an emergency increases, thereby decreasing the probability that any one individual bystander will act, does the probability of intervention in the aggregate also decrease, stay the same or increase. Put another way: Is the victim of an emergency better off having an event witnessed by a single bystander or by multiple bystanders? A recently published study 2019 in American Psychologist explores this question.
In Would I Be Helped? Cross-National CCTV Footage Shows That Intervention Is the Norm in Public Conflicts, Richard Philpot, Lasse Suonperä Liebst, Mark Levine, Wim Benaco and Marie Rosencrantz Lingard present the findings of their review of 219 bystander interventions captured by CCTV video. The videos were sourced from three urban settings: Lancaster, United Kingdom; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Cape Town, South Africa. A copy of the study can be purchased at: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-30180-001.
Although based upon a relatively small sample size, the study found that:
- at least one bystander intervened in 90.9% of the observed events;
- there was an average of 3.76 interveners per event;
- as the number of bystanders increased the likelihood that someone will intervene also increased; and
- each additional bystander increased the odds that a victim will receive help.
According to the study, the decrease in the likelihood for any one bystander to intervene in an event as the number of bystander’s increases, i.e., the Bystander Effect, can go hand-in-hand with an increased likelihood of intervention in the aggregate. As such, a victim might be better off if an event is witnessed by more, rather than fewer, bystanders.
Intervention can be passive or active and the study does not address the “quality” or “effectiveness” of any particular intervention. That being said, a basic understanding of “what to do” in an emergency can make a difference. For example, knowing CPR, how to dislodge a foreign object from a choking victim or how to control life-threating bleeding may mean the difference between life and death.