Chapter 14, Problem 10FI

Summary Introduction

Introduction

People are generally predisposed to help one another. Altruism is the term psychologists use to describe this unselfish concern for the welfare of someone else. However, this predisposition is not universal. Groups are not necessarily as altruistic as their individual members may be. Many factors play into whether we come to the aid of another. In the Kitty Genovese case, many of the individual witnesses and bystanders may have personally felt a desire to help. However, a group phenomenon called the “bystander effect” likely inhibited them from doing so.