Resources: Database Bystanders
One evening last month a wholesome-looking college student with long, straight hair took the floor of the UC-Berkeley Student Senate and began speaking as if she were delivering a sixth-grade book report. She had been researching one of her fellow students, David Cash, for two whole weeks, and it was finally time to present the facts to the student senate and answer any questions posed to her. Her descriptions were, at times, speculative, recounted as if she were both an eyewitness to the events in question and inside Cash's mind during the crime. She even subtly mimed a scene from »
The long overdue sight of Radovan Karadzic in The Hague facing trial for genocide is a useful reminder of wars past. In 1995, after three and a half years of killing, an American-led NATO bombing campaign helped stop Karadzic’s atrocities and turned the Bosnian Serb leader into a fugitive. But do the humanitarian interventions typified by America’s interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo have a future? Even as Darfur bleeds, Iraq has become a grim object lesson in the dangers of foreign adventures. The former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright recently wrote that “many of the world’s necessary interventions in »
A 13-year-old Boston Latin School student was terrorized on the T this week when four male classmates allegedly sexually assaulted her on a Green Line transit car on her way home from school, police said. Shortly after 2 p.m. on Tuesday, police said, the four boys allegedly cornered the girl in the back of a subway headed downtown from the Fenway and tied the cords of her backpack to a pole. Then, police said, they attacked: taunting and touching her, fondling her breasts and buttocks. They allegedly tried to tear her top off. Frantically, the girl tried to flee, said »
In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of young men and women have begun their college careers. They have worked hard to get there. A letter of admission to one of the country's selective colleges or universities has become the most sought-after prize in America. The students who have won this prize are about to enter an academic environment richer than any they have known. They will find courses devoted to every question under the sun. But there is one question for which most of them will search their catalogs in vain: The question of the meaning of life, »
"If I look at the mass I will never act": Psychic numbing and genocide Paul Slovic1 Decision Research and University of Oregon Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 2, no. 2, April 2007, pp. 1-17. Abstract Most people are caring and will exert great effort to rescue individual victims whose needy plight comes to their attention. These same good people, however, often become numbly indifferent to the plight of individuals who are "one of many" in a much greater problem. Why does this occur? The answer to this question will help us answer a related question that is the topic of »
Who Can You Count On? Looks, Race, Even Weather May Play Role in Whether You’ll Get a Helping Hand from 20/20, ABC News Aug. 29, 2003— Often, we rely on the kindness of strangers to help us out in an emergency. But in what circumstances would you help someone, and in what circumstances would you be helped if you were the victim? It seems race, crowds, even whether or not people have exchanged pleasantries can play into how and why people help each other. Ultimately, experts say whether or not someone helps does not depend so much on their personality »
Rogue Soldiers or Following Orders at Abu Ghraib? Lynndie England's Sentencing Puts End to Prison Scandal Sep. 27, 2005 - Pfc. Lynndie England, the small-town girl whose smiling face sparked anger at the U.S. military around the world, is about to learn her fate. The tomboyish American soldier who once posed for a photograph holding a leash tied to a hooded Iraqi prisoner quickly became the most recognizable figure in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It's been almost three years since the U.S. soldiers snapped those photos and England is the last of the nine convicted Army reservists to be »
Excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell, chapter 1 from The Tipping Point (2000) Even the smallest and subtlest and most unexpected of factors can affect the way we act. One of the most infamous incidents in New York City history, for example, was the 1964 stabbing death of a young Queens woman by the name of Kitty Genovese. Genovese was chased by her assailant and attacked three times on the street, over the course of half an hour, as thirty-eight of her neighbors watched from their windows. During that time, however, none of the thirty-eight witnesses called the police. The case provoked »
Hidden Camera Experiment: What Would You Do? 'Primetime' Explores How People React to -- or Ignore -- Threats and Thievery Sep. 22, 2005 - What if you were walking through a park and you saw a couple get into a heated argument? The man didn't hit the woman, but seemed to be on the edge of physical violence and pushed her. Or, imagine if you were in your neighborhood convenience store, and you saw a brazen shoplifter at work. The shop owner's not a friend, but she's always been friendly to you. What would you do? Would you think you »
Who Can You Count On? Looks, Race, Even Weather May Play Role in Whether You’ll Get a Helping Hand from 20/20, ABC News Aug. 29, 2003— Often, we rely on the kindness of strangers to help us out in an emergency. But in what circumstances would you help someone, and in what circumstances would you be helped if you were the victim? It seems race, crowds, even whether or not people have exchanged pleasantries can play into how and why people help each other. Ultimately, experts say whether or not someone helps does not depend so much on their personality »
Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People The indifference demonstrated by bystanders in the face of other people's suffering has been widely studied, particularly since the murder of twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese on March 13, 1964, in Queens, New York. The murder was witnessed by thirty-eight of the victim's neighbors. During the thirty minutes that it took the killer to complete his act, not one of those thirty-eight people called the police or came to the young woman's aid. In considering that incident, psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane wondered if Genovese might have fared better had there been fewer onlookers. The two psychologists »
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