Thursday, 5th


July 2018


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29 Social Psychology and Crime – NY City Perspectives by DR ROSARII GRIFFIN


Introduction Psychology was one of


the first subjects I studied at University. It was a fas- cinating study taught by eccentrics. I remember thinking, if this is how you turn out having studied this, I’m not so sure I’d want to take the advanced class! But nevertheless, the subject held a certain fasci- nation for me – it explains why we are the way we are, and what motivates us to do the things we do. Prior to that, I was under the illusion we were ra- tional beings! However, this subject opened up a whole new world of ideas, theories, fascinating ex- periments and case studies that would make you think about the nature of what it means to be human. In fact, there is no limit to the human spectrum and that is what makes it so fasci- nating.


An Introduction to Psychology One of my first books


on psychology was an in- troduction to the topic. The author cited many fascinating real-life crimes, offering an interesting ex- planation as to why such crimes might occur. Of- ten, a theory would be explored or suggested to explain human behaviour. So, for example, one such case was that of Kitty Genovese. Kitty lived in Queens, New York. Late one evening on returning to her apartment, she was attacked on the forecourt to her apartment block. She screamed and yelled as she was attacked, the lights in the surrounding apartments came on. As they did, her attacker fled the scene but hid near- by. Soon after, the lights went off, and surprising- ly, her attacker returned to the scene and attacked her again. Again, the sur- rounding apartment lights came on. The attacker fled again, this time for good. By the time the po- lice arrived on the scene, unfortunately, Kitty was


dead. Upon investigation, the police discovered that a total of 38 people heard her cries for help. Yet no- body came to her rescue. Why was that, they puz- zled? Nobody had any real answers. So psychologists decided to try and come up with a theory to explain this odd human behaviour.


The Theory This theory was sup-


posed to explain why - despite the fact that 38 people heard Kitty cry out for help - nobody came to her rescue. Was it a case of ‘self preservation’? If someone else is being at- tacked, nobody wanted to get involved for fear of getting hurt too? Or, could it be a domestic brawl, and onlookers did not wish to meddle in others’ private affairs? Was it just that the tenants didn’t care? But this was disputed in the ev- idence given by neighbour- ing tenants who expressed acute concern and distress when interviewed by po- lice. Finally, another theo- ry was put forward - given how the psychologists were struck by something all of the interviewees said. All said they believed ‘some- one else’ would take ac- tion. That ‘someone else’ would do the right thing, intervene or call the police. In fact, the reality was that when some tenants saw other tenants’ apartment lights on, even call out ‘to be quiet’, they felt satisfied that someone else was tak- ing responsibility for this late night disturbance. So, psychologists arrived at the theory called ‘the Bystand- er Effect’ sometimes re- ferred to as ‘the Genovese Syndrome’. This became otherwise known as ‘shoul- dering the responsibility’. In other words, in the presence of other people, (when they saw lights of other peoples’ apartments go on), they decided that no further action was necessary on their behalf as someone else was tak- ing care of it. To test this ‘Bystander Effect’ theory, psychologists had to come up with a human or social experiment to test this the- ory. The following is how they went about this.


The Experiment It is particularly difficult


to set up a social-human experiment, given all the external conditions that


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have to be controlled. Science experiments, con- ducted in labs, are easily controlled as one can reg- ulate the external environ- ment and stimuli. But it is difficult to control influ- encing factors in a social experiment, performed on humans. One way of do- ing this is to set up multiple similar experiments, and if the same (or similar) reac- tions occur each time, then one might detect ‘a pattern of behaviour’ upon which to theorise. In other words, they create an ‘if/then’ hypothesis: if ‘X’ condi- tions exist, then ‘Y’ tends to happens. So, if the day is windy, then it should be easier to sail (given it is not too windy or stormy). But certain assumptions are made: that the person knows how to sail, or can sail correctly, etc. How- ever, if one creates an ‘if/ then’ experiment, you first of all have to define your terms: ‘if the day is windy, then it should be easier to sail’, you have to ask your- self a) what do you mean by ‘windy’ i.e. how windy is windy?’ and b) what do you mean by ‘easier’? Eas- ier to navigate? Easier to go faster? Easier to glide? So, needless to say, setting up human experiments and alighting upon a good hypothesis on which to theorise is not as easy as it seems! In the case of Kitty Genovese, psycholo- gists had already begun to set up experiments to test their ‘shouldering the re- sponsibility theory’ to see if it generally applies.


Social


Experiments For social experiments


to work, it is imperative that the people in the ex- periment do not know that they are being experiment- ed upon (as long as it is ethical). If those in the ex- periment do know they are being observed, they may react differently to nor- mal. (There are research terms to describe differ- ent possible reactions!). So multiple experiments (like candid camera) are set up study and observe establish patterns of hu- man behaviour. Because the Kitty Genovese case was so shocking, it was im- perative for the police to understand why none of the 38 people who heard her cries for help did not respond sooner. So psy-


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chologists decided to test the ‘Bystander effect’ or ‘shouldering the responsi- bility’ theory.


The theory test Psychologists got an ac-


tor to dress as a reasona- bly well-dressed man (not looking as if he were a ‘down-and-out’ or home- less person to offset other biases), to lie down mo- tionless (as if dead or un- conscious) on a busy New York street. The experi- menters set up shop incog- nito to watch the reactions of passers-by. Some people side-stepped the individu- al. Others looked around, and saw plenty of other people and decided to go on, expecting others to do something. But nobody saw it as their responsi- bility to do anything. To everyone’s surprise, they eventually had to abandon the experiment as hours later nobody came to the man’s rescue or called for help. The researchers were amazed. Yes, people took a passing interest in the indi- vidual on the ground, but nobody took direct action. Then psychologists decid- ed to test this theory on a not-so-busy place, a much quieter road. On this oc- casion, a passer-by looked at the individual (actor) on the ground, glanced up and down the street and eventually attracted the at- tention of another person walking by, to join him in assessing the unconscious man, and took direct ac- tion. This was interesting, as it suggested that when the street was quiet, the passer-by felt a strong- er onus to react than on a busy street with plenty of others. They tried this experiment several times, and the result was virtu- ally always the same. The collapsed person received not much attention on the busy street, but on a quieter street, when there was nobody to ‘shoulder the responsibility’ to, peo- ple took direct action. The theory stood!


Crime Capital Now, I happened to be


studying these and a mul- tiple of other of case-sce- narios on the run up to my first year psychology exams when I noticed all the case studies emerged from New York City. That began to worry me a bit, as I had just applied for


my J1 Visa to go to New York to visit my brother for the summer. As a student, I wanted to earn money abroad for the following academic year. As my brother lived in New York, where better to go - with free accommodation and a chance of a holiday built in. But by now, I was read- ing and learning a multi- tude of weird and wonder- ful crimes in New York. It seemed the perfect place for psychologists to study human (criminal) behav- iour. Wonderful! But this did not inspire confidence in me. Of course, this was the early 1990s, and New York was at this time, probably the crime capital of the world. This was be- fore Mayor Giuliani took over the running of the City. And, like him or not, he definitely ‘cleaned up’ New York City of crime as he promised to do. But now, this was not the case, and I was heading for New York with a considerable degree of trepidation. While my psychology ex- ams went well, I was not so confident about the work- ing in the Big Apple that seemed rotten at the core.


New York My brother lived on 52nd


Street, Queens Borough, New York City. We had to take the Number 7 subway into Manhattan to get to the main city centre. My brother would jump out at Lexington Avenue, which was the subway stop for his work. In fact, the subway stopped directly under his work place building – City Corp Building. Lucky him! For me, I had a few more stops to get to my summer job as a dental assistant on Madison Avenue, just around the corner from Central Park and Donald Trump’s Hotel. My intro- duction to New York, how- ever, was not great. When I first got to my brother’s apartment, it was a red brick block, with a court- yard in front. In fact, it was just like the one described in the Kitty Genovese case, and she was also murdered in Queens! We mounted the narrow, dim- ly lit stairwell to our floor apartment. More often than not, the lift was out of order, and you would not want to get caught in the lift in New York’s sti- fling summer heat. The apartment door had about


20 different locks it, all souvenirs of tenants gone by. My brother opened up two locks and pushed the heavy door open. I went in. It was small and stuffy. The windows had gridded bars on them. An air-con- ditioner was jammed into another window, cooling the room with a low hum- ming sound. My brother warned me to keep the doors locked at all times. I nodded gravely. I had my education in social psy- chology, I knew all about it!


First Day The first day I arrived


in New York, we got the subway into town, and he showed me around Times Square. There were mice running around the base- ment floor of a fast food joint where we were plan- ning to eat. We reported it immediately to the staff, but they shrugged like they didn’t care. So we left. ‘That’s New York’, my brother said laughing at my aghast facial expres- sion, ‘people just don’t care, you’ll get used to it’. I nodded sagely. I knew all about it. I just had written my exams on the Kitty Genovese case! The next day, he threw the subway map and a few subway tokens on my bed. ‘Good luck now today in your search for work’, he said, ‘and call me if you have any problems, my num- ber is on the map there for you’. ‘Great!’ I said feebly, almost paralyzed with fear. For the first day or two on the subway, I kept looking over my shoulder. I was sure I was going to be fol- lowed. By day three, I be- came more relaxed, and by the end of three months, I was like a true New York- er! Totally indifferent to whatever I witnessed on the subway or street. Life was crazy in New York, but you just got used to it. You saw everything… punks, drug addicts, cra- zies, posh folk, men in suits skating to work on roller blades, taxis honking at everything that moved, homeless folk gathering tin cans from trash bins to fill their trollies so as to earn 5 cents per can returned. That was their bread for the day. Clever idea I thought. An endearing old women begged at the cor- ner of Lexington and 5th Avenue everyday looking


for a few dollars. I discov- ered that she used to make a fortune. You couldn’t but love this kindly old lady with such a sweet face. But apparently she spent all of her earnings on lottery tickets, in the hope that one day her luck would be in. My friend said if she saved what she earned on the street, she’d be a mil- lionaire by now, such was her takings! A sad situa- tion, full of tragic pathos. But that was New York for you!


End of Summer By the time my stay in


New York came to an end, I had truly adapted to New York living. The Irish Pub, Peggy Gordon’s, around the corner was a favourite. Red-haired and bearded Paddy from Limerick ran it. He was a middle-aged man loved by all. We used to get a ‘buy back’ round of drink every third round. That is, every third round of drinks would be on the house. New York was tru- ly a city that never slept, with its bagels and coffee bars, night-life and day- time trading all merged into one crazy melting pot of cultures and customs, working seamlessly togeth- er to make a living. When I eventually returned to Ire- land, I came back with the New York attitude of ‘just do it’. I was not-so-subtly reminded by a security guard at Shannon that I was now in Ireland, when I expressed disbelief that there was no transport out of Shannon until 8am (and this was 6am)! The Secu- rity Guard laughed and advised me, ‘not to worry about it, I was home now and I could just relax!’ I had to stop, pause and take a deep breath as I realised he was right. But actually, it was not to be for long. Ireland was soon to get caught up with the same busyness as New York as the 1990s progressed and the Celtic Tiger and mil- lennium approached – but that is definitely a story for another day. Profile: Dr Rosarii Griffin is a Governor of UCC, a lec- turer and Researcher and Fellow of the Royal So- ciety of Arts in London. All views expressed here- in are her own. Rosarii can be reached on info@ eastcorkjournal.ie or @ rosarii_griffin. Copyright Rosarii Griffin.


Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: info@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie


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