# Is the Bystander Effect Real? The Kitty Genovese Story Source page: https://underthebehavior.com/episodes/kitty-genovese-bystander-effect Kitty Genovese, 1964: the famous story says 38 neighbors watched and did nothing. The trial record and later bystander studies say otherwise. The famous story says 38 neighbors watched and did nothing. The record shows two people called the police. The New York Times, 1964 and 2016 1. [Episodes](https://underthebehavior.com/episodes/) 2. [Season 1](https://underthebehavior.com/episodes/) 3. Episode 1 October 14, 2026 · 12:42 · Season 1, episode 1 The YouTube player loads only when you tap play. ### Chapters (12) 1. [0:00 The story of the 38 witnesses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=0s) 2. [0:45 Kitty Genovese, March 13, 1964](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=45s) 3. [1:55 The neighbor who came down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=115s) 4. [2:38 Where the number 38 came from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=158s) 5. [4:56 How the story reached two psychologists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=296s) 6. [5:17 The 1968 bystander effect experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=317s) 7. [6:27 What later studies found](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=387s) 8. [7:41 Back to the trial record](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=461s) 9. [8:39 What The Times wrote in 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=519s) 10. [10:06 Real street fights on camera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=606s) 11. [11:04 What holds up about the bystander effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=664s) 12. [12:07 Next: the Little Albert story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=727s) ## Famous version vs the record - Famous version: The record - 38 people watched the murder and did nothing.: No evidence for 38 witnesses, or that witnesses saw the murder. Manning, Levine and Collins, 2007 - Nobody called the police.: Two people called the police. The New York Times, 2016 - Nobody came to help her.: Sophie Farrar ran downstairs, found her alive in the hallway and held her until help came. Trial record, 1964, and Skoller, 2004 ## The story 8 moments from the episode, in order. Each one links to its source. 1. Drawn scene from the episode at 0:00 01 The story of the 38 witnesses The Times said 38 people watched a murder. In its own words, not one person telephoned the police during the assault. [1](#src-1) Gansberg, 1964 [Watch this part at 0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=0s) 2. Drawn scene from the episode at 1:24 02 Kitty Genovese, March 13, 1964 The man on the seventh floor was Robert Mozer. He heard her and looked out. [3](#src-3) Trial record, People v. Moseley, June 1964 [Watch this part at 1:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=84s) 3. Drawn scene from the episode at 1:55 03 The neighbor who came down Sophie Farrar lived next door to Kitty, on the same floor. She found Kitty in that hallway, alive. [3](#src-3) [5](#src-5) Trial record, People v. Moseley, June 1964 · Skoller, 2004 [Watch this part at 1:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=115s) 4. Drawn scene from the episode at 4:10 04 Where the number 38 came from Two or three people from the same apartment could share one entry. Count the entries, and you get 38. [15](#src-15) [16](#src-16) Publishers Weekly (2013, December 23) · NPR, 2014 [Watch this part at 4:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=250s) 5. Drawn scene from the episode at 5:45 05 The 1968 bystander effect experiment The more people someone thought could hear it, the slower they were to report it. [8](#src-8) Darley, 1968 [Watch this part at 5:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=345s) 6. Drawn scene from the episode at 6:36 06 What later studies found Across more than 7,700 people in those studies, the ones with others around were less likely to help. [10](#src-10) Fischer, 2011 [Watch this part at 6:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=396s) 7. Drawn scene from the episode at 9:18 07 What The Times wrote in 2016 Some people did hear her and did nothing. And afterward, two people did call the police. [2](#src-2) McFadden, 2016 [Watch this part at 9:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=558s) 8. Drawn scene from the episode at 10:06 08 Real street fights on camera Then, in 2020, Philpot and colleagues looked at real fights and arguments on city streets. In 9 of every 10, at least one bystander did something to help. Usually several did. [11](#src-11) Philpot, 2020 [Watch this part at 10:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc&t=606s) 9 in 10 filmed street conflicts in a 2020 study of 219 had at least one bystander who did something to help. Philpot and colleagues, 2020 > Not one person telephoned the police during the assault. Quoted from The New York Times, March 27, 1964 ## Shorts from this episode - [Short Bystander Effect: The 38 Witnesses Story Was Wrong](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5qJIwXhPVVw) - [Short Bystander Effect in Real Life: 219 Conflicts on Camera](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6MMyWpiW-ao) - [Short Kitty Genovese: The Neighbor Who Shouted](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mmBanzXMn84) - [Short Is the Bystander Effect Real? What Still Holds Up](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ONERR8wpOZg) - [Short Kitty Genovese Story: The Neighbor Who Came Down](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XhA0Ebcemfw) - [Short Bystander Effect Experiment: Darley and Latané 1968](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8EWYsfFOZYk) ### The story in full ## The short answer The famous story says 38 neighbors watched and did nothing. The record shows two people called the police and a neighbor ran down and held her. In a 2020 study of 219 street conflicts caught on camera, at least one bystander did something to help in 9 of every 10. ## What happened Robert Mozer heard her from his seventh floor window and shouted, and the man ran. Sophie Farrar, who lived next door to Kitty, ran downstairs and stayed with her until the police and ambulance came. The famous article never gave their names. Kevin Cook, who wrote a book on the case, says a detectives' summary listed about 49 people in 38 entries. In his account, that is where the number came from. The story set off decades of research, from Darley and Latané's 1968 intercom study to a 2020 study of 219 real street conflicts caught on camera. In 9 of every 10 of those conflicts, at least one bystander did something to help. ### Read the full transcript ## Transcript 0:00 The Times said 38 people watched a murder. 0:02 In its own words, not one person telephoned the police during the assault. 0:08 Two weeks earlier in Queens, just after three in the morning, a man on a seventh floor heard a woman in the street. 0:15 He looked out and shouted. 0:18 In 2007, three psychologists went back to the 1964 trial record. 0:24 They found no evidence for 38 witnesses. 0:27 By then the story was in psychology textbooks. 0:31 It helped start the research on the bystander effect. 0:35 In 2016, the same paper said it got the witnesses wrong. 0:40 So who was on that street that night, and what did they do? 0:45 The woman in the street was Catherine Genovese. Most people called her Kitty. 0:50 She was 28. She managed a bar, and lived with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. 0:55 Friday, March 13, 1964. 0:59 She parked her red Fiat by the train station in Kew Gardens. 1:02 Before the night was over, she would get inside a door that was not her own. 1:07 A man had followed her car. His name was Winston Moseley. 1:12 She saw him and ran. 1:13 He caught up with her in front of a darkened bookstore on Austin Street, and attacked her. 1:19 Across the street was a tall apartment house. It faced the bookstore. 1:24 The man on the seventh floor was Robert Mozer. He heard her and looked out. 1:28 He said he hollered, "Hey, get out of there," or, "What are you doing?" 1:33 The other man ran. In Mozer's words, he ran like a scared jack rabbit. 1:38 Kitty got up. She walked around the corner, out of Mozer's sight. 1:42 The man who followed her moved his car and waited. 1:46 A few minutes later, he changed his hat and walked back. 1:49 He found her in the hallway behind that door, and attacked her again. 1:55 Sophie Farrar lived next door to Kitty, on the same floor. 1:59 At the trial she said, "The phone rang." Then, "I ran downstairs." 2:05 She found Kitty in that hallway, alive. 2:07 Farrar said, "I was talking to her." 2:11 She stayed until the police and ambulance came. 2:14 Kitty was still alive when they got there. 2:17 She died on the way to the hospital. 2:21 Two weeks after that night, The Times said 38 people watched a murder. 2:26 It never named Robert Mozer, who shouted from his window, or Sophie Farrar, who went down to her. 2:35 So where did the 38 come from? 2:38 At first, The Times ran four paragraphs on the killing. 2:42 It was one of 636 murders in the city that year. 2:46 The paper's metropolitan editor, A. M. Rosenthal, later wrote that he had lunch with the police commissioner. 2:54 In Rosenthal's own telling, the commissioner brought up the case in Queens, and a number. Thirty eight. 3:01 Two weeks after the killing, the story ran on the front page. 3:05 The Times would later call it a more extensive, though flawed, front page account. 3:10 The reporter was Martin Gansberg. The headline said 37. The text said 38. 3:17 Its second line used the word apathy. 3:20 The article opened on a clock and a crowd. For more than half an hour, it said, thirty eight respectable, law abiding citizens in Queens watched. 3:31 The article itself said something most retellings drop. 3:35 One witness called after the woman was dead. 3:39 It also said this. Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. 3:48 Even the famous article had people acting in it. It just never said who. 3:53 Kevin Cook, who wrote a book on the case, went looking for where the number came from. 3:59 He found the detectives' first summary of their interviews with witnesses. 4:03 About 49 people were on it. 4:06 "There were 38 entries, some lumping several interviewees together." 4:10 Two or three people from the same apartment could share one entry. 4:14 Count the entries, and you get 38. 4:18 A name on a list of interviews is a person the police spoke to. 4:22 It does not tell you what that person saw. 4:25 The article also said there were three attacks. The record shows two. 4:30 None of that slowed the story down. Later in 1964, Rosenthal turned it into a short book, Thirty Eight Witnesses. 4:39 The Times itself later wrote that what followed became more parable than fact. 4:45 It became a picture of city people too callous or too fearful to call for help. 4:50 For decades it was taught that way, in classrooms and in introductory textbooks. 4:56 Then the story reached two psychologists in New York. 5:00 John Darley was at New York University. Bibb Latané was at Columbia. 5:05 Years later, Darley wrote down how it began. 5:09 "Discussing the Kitty Genovese murder, Bibb Latané and I realized that a social psychological analysis could be made." 5:17 In 1968 they published their first test. Each person sat alone, and could hear others they could not see. 5:25 Some believed they were the only one listening. 5:28 Others believed one or four more people could hear. 5:32 Nobody could see anybody. Then one voice on the line sounded like it was having a seizure. 5:38 Everyone heard the same voice. 5:41 What changed was how many others they believed were listening. 5:45 The more people someone thought could hear it, the slower they were to report it. 5:50 Their personality tests did not predict who helped. 5:53 The authors wrote that the reason may lie less in not caring about the victim, and more in how people respond to the others who are there. 6:03 Darley later wrote about what happens in a group. When the others do nothing, people often take it as a decision that nothing is wrong. 6:12 "A kind of anti panic mob is formed in which individuals do not respond because they define the situation as no emergency." 6:21 In the first study, having others there made each person feel less responsible. 6:27 That finding has been tested many times since. In 2011, Fischer and colleagues pooled the studies from the 1960s to 2010. 6:36 Across more than 7,700 people in those studies, the ones with others around were less likely to help. 6:45 The same review found the effect was weaker when the danger was plain to see. 6:50 It was weaker again when an attacker was right there, as one was on Austin Street that night. 6:57 In some dangerous emergencies, having others there did not make people less likely to help at all. 7:04 The lab finding was real. Whether it ever happened on Austin Street was another question. 7:10 In 1981, Darley described the case like this. 7:14 "38 of her neighbors watched the incident unfold. None had given assistance, even such low risk assistance as telephoning the police." 7:25 In the same piece, he wrote that a woman stabbed to death was not a rare event in New York City in the late 1960s. It was 1964. 7:35 Even one of the men who built the science was telling the newspaper's version. 7:41 Back to Austin Street, and back to 2007. 7:45 So who was on that street that night, and what did they do? 7:48 The record has an answer. 7:51 Manning, Levine and Collins found no evidence that the witnesses watched from their windows the whole time. 7:58 Or that they all did nothing. 8:00 A local lawyer and historian, Joseph De May, had already done the same work, neighbor by neighbor. 8:07 The three psychologists called his analysis meticulous. 8:11 Their names were not hidden. Robert Mozer and Sophie Farrar both testified at the trial in June 1964. 8:20 Another witness told the court about seeing Kitty get up slowly and walk toward the drugstore. 8:27 The man who attacked her testified too. 8:30 He said he came back because he did not think the person who shouted from the window would come down to help her. 8:37 Sophie Farrar came down. 8:39 In 2016, Winston Moseley died in prison. 8:43 He was 81. He had been in prison for more than fifty years. 8:48 His obituary in The Times said the 1964 article grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived. 8:58 In the paper's words, none saw the attack in its entirety. 9:02 Only a few had glimpsed parts of it. 9:05 Just after three in the morning, many thought they heard lovers or drunks quarreling. 9:11 Perhaps a dozen people heard something. 9:14 The paper said the number was never precisely determined. 9:18 Some people did hear her and did nothing. And afterward, two people did call the police. 9:24 One of the people who went back to the neighbors was her younger brother, Bill Genovese. 9:29 He says her death moved him to join the Marines. 9:33 With the filmmaker James Solomon, he spent eleven years on it. 9:37 The film is called The Witness. 9:39 It follows his attempts to make sense of what happened to his sister. 9:44 He tracked down people from her old street, and reporters too. 9:48 One neighbor he found had called the police. 9:52 In October 2016, The Times added a note to the 1964 article. 9:58 "Later reporting by The Times and others has called into question significant elements of this account." 10:06 Then, in 2020, Philpot and colleagues looked at real fights and arguments on city streets. 10:13 Its authors call it the largest study of its kind, of real people stepping in on camera. 10:19 Surveillance cameras had caught 219 of them, in three countries. 10:24 In 9 of every 10, at least one bystander did something to help. 10:29 Usually several did. 10:31 On average, close to four people stepped in. 10:35 The rates were much the same in all three countries. 10:38 And the more people were there, the more likely it was that someone stepped in. 10:43 By their numbers, each extra person there raised the odds of help by about a tenth. 10:49 That study did not test whether each person helps less in a crowd. 10:53 But its authors say the two findings fit together. 10:57 Each person may be less likely to act. 11:00 A bigger crowd is also a bigger pool of people who might. 11:04 In a lab, alone, people tend to report an emergency faster than in a group. 11:10 That part holds. 11:12 In real fights on city streets, the cameras show that someone usually steps in. 11:18 Thirty eight neighbors watching a murder and doing nothing does not hold. 11:23 What is still argued is how much that story steered the science. 11:27 Manning, Levine and Collins argue that telling it again and again narrowed what helping research looked at. 11:35 They also write that the lab finding does not need the story to be true. 11:41 Back on Austin Street, in March 1964, at least two people did something. 11:47 Robert Mozer heard her from the seventh floor and shouted, and the man ran. 11:52 "Hey, get out of there." 11:54 Sophie Farrar ran downstairs and stayed with Kitty until the police and ambulance came. 12:00 "I was talking to her." 12:03 The famous version never gave their names. 12:07 The three psychologists did not stop at Austin Street. 12:11 They put the story next to another famous lesson that kept being told wrong. 12:17 In 1920, two scientists set out to make a baby called Albert afraid of a white rat. 12:24 He was eleven months and three days old when the work began. 12:28 Their plan was to show him the rat and strike a steel bar at the same time. 12:33 Then he left the hospital, and the paper loses him. 12:36 Who he was is still argued about. ## Sources (22) ### Show all 22 sources 1. Gansberg, M. (1964, March 27). 37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police. The New York Times, p. 1, with the Editors' Note of October 12, 2016. [nytimes.com archive](https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/27/archives/37-who-saw-murder-didnt-call-the-police-apathy-at-stabbing-of.html) 2. McFadden, R. D. (2016, April 4). Winston Moseley, 81, Killer of Kitty Genovese, Dies in Prison. The New York Times. [nytimes.com](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/nyregion/winston-moseley-81-killer-of-kitty-genovese-dies-in-prison.html) 3. Trial record, People v. Moseley, June 1964. Sophie Farrar's testimony, transcribed by Joseph De May. [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20080509145623/http://www.oldkewgardens.com/kitty_genovese-3-Farrar.html) 4. Queens DA brief, People v. Moseley [web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20041030123144/http://www.oldkewgardens.com/kitty_genovese-3-Brief-1.html) 5. Skoller, C. (2004). Remarks at the Kitty Genovese Forum, Fordham University. [Archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/2010/http://www.oldkewgardens.com/ss-nytimes-skoller.html) 6. De May, Kew Gardens history [web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20040622183312/http://www.oldkewgardens.com/kitty_genovese-001.html) 7. Manning, R., Levine, M., and Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62(6), 555 to 562. [doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.6.555](https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.6.555) 8. Darley, J. M., and Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377 to 383. [doi.org/10.1037/h0025589](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025589) 9. Darley (1981), Citation Classic [garfield.library.upenn.edu](https://garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1981/A1981KY95400001.pdf) 10. Fischer, P., et al. (2011). The bystander-effect: A meta-analytic review on bystander intervention in dangerous and non-dangerous emergencies. Psychological Bulletin, 137(4), 517 to 537. [doi.org/10.1037/a0023304](https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023304) 11. Philpot, R., Liebst, L. S., Levine, M., Bernasco, W., and Lindegaard, M. R. (2020). Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts. American Psychologist, 75(1), 66 to 75. [doi.org/10.1037/amp0000469](https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000469) 12. Rosenthal, Thirty-Eight Witnesses (1964) [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/thirtyeightwitne00rose) 13. Popova on Rosenthal (2014) [themarginalian.org](https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/03/13/thirty-eight-witnesses-rosenthal-kitty-genovese/) 14. Cook, Kitty Genovese (2014) [wwnorton.com](https://wwnorton.com/books/Kitty-Genovese/) 15. Publishers Weekly (2013, December 23). Urban Legend: PW Talks with Kevin Cook. [publishersweekly.com](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20131223/60451-urban-legend-pw-talks-with-kevin-cook.html) 16. NPR (2014). Interview with Kevin Cook. [npr.org](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/284002294) 17. NPR review of The Witness (2016) [npr.org](https://www.npr.org/2016/06/02/480442769/the-witness-looks-back-at-those-accused-of-ignoring-a-murder) 18. Fresh Air review of The Witness (2016) [npr.org](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/482313144) 19. The Witness, dir. James Solomon [thewitnessfilm.com](https://www.thewitnessfilm.com) 20. Princeton, John Darley obituary (2018) [web.archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://princeton.edu/news/2018/09/13/social-psychologist-john-darley-early-researcher-bystander-intervention-dies-80) 21. Watson and Rayner (1920) [doi.org](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0069608) 22. Powell et al. (2014), American Psychologist [doi.org](https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036854) ## Keep going [Study Bystander effect: the experiments From the 1968 intercom study to street cameras.](https://underthebehavior.com/studies/bystander-effect) [Test · Memory False memory test How many of 15 words can you recall?](https://underthebehavior.com/tests/false-memory-test) The full episode Is the Bystander Effect Real? The Kitty Genovese Story 12:42 · Episode 1 · YouTube [Watch the episode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s11l3z8RNpc)