In 1964, Kitty Genovese’s case made the front page of New York’s newspapers and was featured in the Times . The 29-year-old girl returned from work at 3 a.m. and parked her car near the building where she lived. There, she was attacked by a mentally disturbed man who stabbed her in the back several times. The girl screamed and one of the neighbors heard the scream. The neighbor just tried to chase away the killer behind his window. “Leave the girl alone,” but he didn’t come to her aid or call the police. The killer left temporarily, while Kitty crawled, bleeding, into her building.

The killer returned minutes later when the girl was already at the door of the building. He stabbed her repeatedly as she screamed. As she lay dying, he raped her and stole $49. The entire event lasted approximately 30 minutes. No neighbors intervened, and only one called the police, reporting that a woman had been beaten. According to the New York Times , up to 40 neighbours heard the screams . In Kitty Genovese’s case it is irrelevant whether there were 40 people or 12. What is relevant is: why don’t we help when we know a person needs help?

Kitty Genovese and the spread of responsibility

Kitty Genovese’s case is extreme; however, we live surrounded by situations where we ignore the help a person needs. We have become accustomed to wandering among the homeless, ignoring requests for help, hearing cries that are not helped, avoiding cries that might make us suspect domestic violence or violence towards children. We know that every day there are not only murders but also abuse. On many occasions, very close to us.

What makes us avoid our responsibility? Do we really have that responsibility? What psychological mechanisms are involved in the help processes?

Research

Kitty Genovese’s death prompted social psychologists to ask themselves these questions and begin to investigate. From these studies emerged the Theory of the Diffusion of Responsibility (Darley and Latané, in 1968), which explained what really happens in these situations, from the phase in which we realize or do not realize that there is a person who needs help, to the decisions we make to help them or not.

The hypothesis of these authors was that the number of people involved influences the decision making to help . That is, the more people we think may be witnessing that situation, the less responsible we feel for helping. Perhaps this is why we do not usually give help on the street, where there is a great transit of people, no matter how much someone needs help, just as we ignore very extreme situations of poverty. This mode of apathy ends up transforming itself into a kind of passive aggressiveness, since by not helping when it is necessary and responsible, we really collaborate in a certain way with that crime or social injustice. The researchers carried out many experiments and were able to prove their hypothesis to be true. Now, are there more factors involved than the number of people?

First of all, are we aware that there is a helping situation? Our personal beliefs are the first factor to help or not. When we consider the person who needs help as the only one responsible, we tend not to help. Here the similarity factor comes into play: whether this person is similar to us or not. This is the reason why certain social classes do not lend themselves to helping others, as they consider them to be far from their status (which is a form of social prejudice, a small form of madness far from human empathy and sensitivity).

To help or not to help depends on several factors

If we are able to detect a situation where a person needs help and we consider that we should help them, then cost and benefit mechanisms come into play. Can I really help this person? What will I gain from it? What can I lose? Will I be harmed by trying to help? Again, this decision-making is influenced by our current culture, which is excessively pragmatic and increasingly individualistic and insensitive .

Finally, when we know we can help and are willing to do so, we ask ourselves: should it be me? Isn’t there someone else? In this phase, fear of others’ answers plays a special role. We think that others may judge us for wanting to help someone, or consider us similar to the person who needs help (the belief that “only a drunk would approach another drunk”).

The main reasons for avoiding responsibility for providing aid

Beyond Darley’s and Latané’s Theory of the Diffusion of Responsibility, today we know that our modern culture plays a key role in repressing our pro-social behavior, a way of being totally natural in human beings, since we are sensitive, social and empathic beings by nature (we are all born with these abilities and we develop them or not depending on our culture). These are the blocks to help:

1. Am I really responsible for what is happening and should I help? (belief derived from modern classism, a social prejudice)

2. Am I able to do this? (belief derived from our fear)

3. Will it be bad for me to help? (belief derived from our fear and also from the influence of modern classism)

4. What will others say about me? (fear, because of how our self-concept, a mode of selfishness, will be affected)

All these blocks can be left behind if we consider that we are beings capable of helping, responsible for doing so as social and human beings, and above all, that our benefit is the fact of helping beyond what happens to the rest of the people. Remember that leadership is the ability to positively influence others, so it is quite likely that the mere fact that one person helps another will inspire others to do so.

Concluding

What about you? Do you avoid your responsibility, or do you face it? What would you do if you detected a situation of danger for another person? How would you like to help others? Do you do it already? In what way?

For a more humane world, welcome to the world of pro-social responsibility .