Microblog #16, "Opening Skinner's Box, Chapter 4"

Discussion
In this chapter the author begins by discussing the rape-murder of Kitty Genovese, and then a pair of experiments conducted by Darley and Latane at New York University in an attempt to understand the failure of bystanders to intervene. The chapter also touches on the state of America's mind post-9/11 and the effect of front page suicides upon the behavior of the public.

Summary
While the experiments keep increasing in interest, the assumptions and analysis presented here (by the author and others she mentions) are wandering further off into left field. First, however, I want to address the experiment directly.

The first one mentioned here, unlike Milgram's experiment or the second from this chapter, was actually well designed and as such has results that can be applied, both to life in general and to the murder. The first point I want to make is why this experiment is valid and the others aren't; in this case, we do not have any individuals hanging around providing nonsensical social cues and generally serving to confuse the situation.

The behavior of the individuals in this study does provide the most valid explanation for the behavior of the witnesses, and is quite disturbing. The element that is disturbing is not necessarily that the students who thought they were part of a group did not take control of the situation; there isn't enough to be done about a seizure to allow five people to assist, or with a murder to allow thirty-five. Rather, their failure was not ensuring that the situation was under control, regardless of whether they personally were part of the solution. That the assumption was made "Oh, someone else will take care of it" with no evidence to that effect other than that other people knew about it is flatly unacceptable.

There were two other things in the chapter that came up that I feel the need to address. The first is the assumption the author makes that a larger group should "reduce fear" and make people more likely to respond. I don't understand at all, and rather would have gravitated towards what the experiment suggests is the correct conclusion: the driving factor here is not fear but responsibility. Did the witness fear that the murder would hear them calling the police through their locked doors and closed windows? Did the naive students fear that seizures were contagious, through a microphone? I strongly doubt it; I wouldn't have in either case.

The other note I want to make is on the notion that suicide headlines spawn suicides. I really, really doubt that correlation is causation in this case. Rather, I would speculate that when something (the economy, or whatever) negatively affects the public psyche the high-profile are as likely to be caught up in it as the rank and file.