phenomenon called “pluralistic ignorance.” A thorough understanding
of the pluralistic ignorance phenomenon helps immeasurably to explain
a regular occurrence in our country that has been termed both a riddle
and a national disgrace: the failure of entire groups of bystanders to
aid victims in agonizing need of help.
The classic example of such bystander inaction and the one that has
produced the most debate in journalistic, political, and scientific circles
began as an ordinary homicide case in the borough of Queens in New
York City. A woman in her late twenties, Catherine Genovese, was
killed in a late-night attack on her home street as she returned from
work. Murder is never an act to be passed off lightly, but in a city the
size and tenor of New York, the Genovese incident warranted no more
space than a fraction of a column in The New York Times. Catherine
Genovese’s story would have died with her on that day in March 1964
if it hadn’t been for a mistake.
The metropolitan editor of the Times, A. M. Rosenthal, happened to
be having lunch with the city police commissioner a week later.
Rosenthal asked the commissioner about a different Queens-based
homicide, and the commissioner, thinking he was being questioned
about the Genovese case, revealed something staggering that had been
uncovered by the police investigation. It was something that left
everyone who heard it, the commissioner included, aghast and grasping
for explanations. Catherine Genovese had not experienced a quick,
muffled death. It had been a long, loud, tortured, public event. Her as-
sailant had chased and attacked her in the street three times over a
period of thirty-five minutes before his knife finally silenced her cries
for help. Incredibly, thirty-eight of her neighbors watched the events
of her death unfold from the safety of their apartment windows without
so much as lifting a finger to call the police.
Rosenthal, a former Pulitzer Prize—winning reporter, knew a story
when he heard one. On the day of his lunch with the commissioner, he
assigned a reporter to investigate the “bystander angle” of the Genovese
incident. Within a week, the Times published a long, page 1 article that
was to create a swirl of controversy and speculation. The first few
paragraphs of that report provide the tone and focus of the burgeoning
story:
For more than half an hour thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding
citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three
separate attacks in Kew Gardens.
Twice the sound of their voices and the sudden glow of their
bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time
he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one personRobert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 99