The Bibb Latane Incident

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This particular study Slater has done made me have less hope for humanity. In 1964, a woman named Catherine Genovese, also known as Kitty, was brutally murdered in cold blood. This murder took place in Queens, New York. Just outside of her apartment she was attacked by a man who was later identified as Winston Moseley. During this attack, there were many witnesses who had missed their opportunity to save this young woman’s life. Approximately thirty eight witnesses were able to step in at any time but failed to do so. After the incident, psychologists named John Darley and Bibb Latane studied the incident at New York University to find the reason why people abandoned this woman and just spectate her death. One of their experiments involved…show more content…
A tape recorder in one of the rooms played a big role of a student that sounded like he was having seizure. Thirty one percent of the students jumped to the opportunity to assist this student who seemed to be having a seizure when they thought there were others around. Eighty five percent of the students who thought they were the only participant around reacted to the seizing victim. “Darley and Latane also found that if subjects in any size group did not report the emergency within the first three minutes, they were unlikely to do so at any point.”(1) In this study, the people who did not assist the seizing student either waited too long or did not want to waste their effort on a person in distress. Another experiment they performed that interests me was with the smoke in the room. In this experiment, one participant was placed in a room full of actors who were being studied on how that one participant would react with smoke in a room. When this person discovers the smoke being poured out of the vent he looks around to see other’s reaction. With no reaction of the actors he proceeds on to what he was told to do and brushed off the fact that it might be harmful
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