Critical Analysis Of 'Opening Skinner's Box'

Critical Analysis of Opening Skinner’s Box

In Chapter 4, In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, the author Lauren Slater starts the chapter off telling the true story of how a young woman, Kitty Genovese, was brutally murdered and raped outside of her apartment complex. What was most shocking in the aftermath is there were a total of 38 witnesses and not a single person did anything to help her. This raised many concerns as to why the witnesses did nothing. When they were being interviewed by the cops, they stated that they just did not want to get involved(p.94), thus “diffusing responsibility”, this is a term used by two psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latane, who were very concerned with and wanted to understand why nothing was done to aid young Kitty Genovese as she was being stabbed and raped.

Darley and Latane researched and conducted a series of experiments at New York University to determine how an individual

would react when there were many people around during a crisis, emergency or act of violence. During one experiment they placed the “subject” or student in one room and made him believe there were also students around in other rooms nearby about to discuss the challenges of being a student at NYU. The voices of other students were pre-recordings and one of the voices acted to have a seizure. The results were similar to Genovese’s, the student hesitated, but because he heard other voices around the seizuring person, he automatically assumed they would help. Down to numbers there was a 31% of people who actually tried to aid while believing there were others around and 85% did something when they thought no one else was nearby to help.
Taking these into perspective there may be many things we should consider as to why people believe it is alright to walk or turn away in these instances with others around. We can become desensitized to the act happening in front of us. General media depictions of violence is an everyday norm from television shows to the news, however an act of violence is never a social norm, witnessing these acts such as a rape or someone collapsing into a seizure is so far removed from day to day experiences that an element of the surreal causes us to pause and dampen our reaction and affects our judgment.
There is also the fear of reprisal, with Genovese’s crime, questions may have arised like, “What will the rapist do to me later? of what will the victim do to me later?” They did not know all the facts, despite an obviously heinous act taking place, so they may have rationalized away their duty to respond. They also may have asked themselves, “What if I’m wrong?” This could have easily been a dramatic argument between two lovers and one may make a fool out of himself by stepping in.
There is also always the egocentric problematic viewpoint, where someone can easily respond by thinking or saying, “It is not my problem.” Lastly, personal history may take a role in the way one reacts.

They may have been raped themselves, They could have had many thoughts puzzling in their minds, would they shoot the rapist? Would they crumble and cry? Is someone going to call the police? Will one just ignore the situation? Or they may simply have, “I got over it, she will do the same.” attitude. To answer the question of “Will the people around me be more likely to help?” One would have to understand the entire spectrum of the witnesses experiences. Personal history would factor in, but is is too unpredictable and multifactorial to serve as a predictive argument either way, but should not be discounted. Each perceives through their personal filters or experience, morals and hierarchy of immediate needs. This does not justify turning their backs away, but gives more insight as to what may have been going on in each of the witnesses

minds.
In conclusion Darley and Latane, after their experiments, gave fruit to Arthur Beaman, a social scientist from the University of Montana(105) to develop “Five steps of helping behavior” He came to believe that if one is more aware of how to respond to a crisis whether in a group setting or by themselves they are more likely to act than “wait and see”. People are more likely to help when informed.