PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Stanford Prison Experiment, Personality Psychology
Document Summary
A young women in queens, ny in 1960s was travelling from her apartment to her car and was attacked by a mentally disturbed man: he stabbed her 38 times over the course of 45-60 min. There was at least 38 ppl who witnessed/heard the murder, but no one did anything to help. The high number of witnesses is the reason why no one did anything: it was assumed that since there were so many people aware of what"s happening, someone was bound to have already reported it. Images were released from the camp that revealed what american guards were doing to iraqi in the camp. A social psychologist recruited undergrad students to participate in a mock prison: from the roll of dice. half were prisoners and half were guards. The study was cancelled after a few days because the guards became sadistic towards their classmates.
