Foundations of sand?

Christian Jarrett

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Other sciences have their cardinal theories - of relativity, of evolution, the big bang, to name but three. Psychology has its theories too, of course. But arguably psychology?s foundations are built not of theory but with the rock of classic experiments - Asch's 'conformity studies', the Stanford Prison Experiment, Little Albert, Milgram, the Hawthorne studies, the bystander effect? the list goes on

So important to psychology are these experiments that they’ve acquired an almost mythical status. And like myths, the way some of them have been told has shifted and distorted with time. Some psychologists have noticed this trend, and they’re doing their best to correct the misunderstandings – which they say could be harmful to our science.

The helpful witnesses

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a psychology textbook that doesn’t tell the sad story of Kitty Genovese’s murder in the Kew Gardens neighbourhood of New York in 1964. Most will describe the shocking details of how there were 38 witnesses to the stabbing, all of them residents in the apartment block overlooking the scene of the crime, all of whom did nothing. Genovese’s tragedy inspired the psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley to formulate and test their theory that people’s sense of social responsibility is diluted when they are in a group – the bystander effect.
The bystander effect itself has since been supported by ample research, but a paper published last year in American Psychologist by Rachel Manning at the University of the West of England and colleagues uncovered fresh historical research showing how the story of Kitty Genovese, as it’s usually told, is actually something of a myth (see box opposite). In short, probably only one person witnessed the final, fatal stabbing and several witnesses did do something to help.
‘Given the iconic status of the 38 witnesses story, I wanted to find out more about the place where this incident occurred,’ says Manning. ‘Having looked through the, interestingly, fairly limited information available in textbooks and journal articles, I trawled the internet, looking for photos and any other information I could find about Kew Gardens. I came across Joseph De May’s local history website (www.oldkewgardens.com)... Joe had started to examine the 38 witnesses story as a clearly difficult but important aspect of the history of Kew Gardens.’
The commonly told inaccuracies in the Kitty Genovese tale stem from the New York Times article which first broke the news. No doubt this version of what happened, shocking as it is, has subsequently served textbook writers well, seeking as they do to link experimental research with the real world in an engaging way. This begs the question: if the distortions have survived largely through accident or convenience, and if the actual bystander effect has been supported by subsequent research, does it matter that the tale of Kitty Genovese is not entirely rooted in reality?
Manning’s group say it does because the power of the Genovese story has reinforced the notion that crowds are dangerous (in this case through their alleged inaction), thereby inhibiting research on the potential positive aspects of group behaviour. Manning hopes her article will help to redress the balance.
‘Since the publication of our article, we have been contacted by a number of people, including textbook writers, who are happy to correct the historical record,’ Manning says. ‘However, some people remain quite attached to it and are reluctant to challenge its veracity.’