PSYCH 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Death Of Brandon Vedas, Webcam
Document Summary
If a person knows that others are around, it"s all too easy to place the responsibility on them. People often fail to help because of the diffusion of responsibility the belief that others will or should intervene and help someone in need. Each of those 38 people who watched and listened to kitty genovese"s murder thought someone else would do something to stop the attack. Experiments by stephen garcia found that the presence of others can promote diffusion of responsibility even when they are present only in one"s mind! Garcia had participants simply imagine being in a crowd or being alone, and soon after, these participants were given an opportunity to help someone. The results indicated that participants who had just thought of being with many other people were less likely to help than the participants who had imagined themselves alone.
