Introduction
Social Psychology is one of the younger sub disciplines within the field of Psychology. In the short span in which social psychology has existed, began with the work of the Norman Triplett in the late 1890s. Triplett's work at Indiana University was primarily experimentation with people in competitive settings. Gordon Allport followed Triplett's experimentation with his observations the attitudes of individuals and the study of the self. While these contributions to the history of social psychology were important, the question still remains of what the most significant event in the history of psychology was. The argument will be given in this paper if a murder was the most significant event in the history of social psychology. The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 may have been the event which caused social psychology to be embedded in other subdivisions of psychology and studied by other societal and medical constructs. Her murder over 40 years ago caused social psychology to be used in the study of people and their behavior in a multitude of social settings. This event can be currently studied and applied to other social settings in the attempt to prevent this type of act to be repeated.
History of social psychology
Norman Triplett is considered to be one of the first social psychologists towards the end of the 19th century. While at Indiana University, Triplett experimented in 1898 primarily with children on measuring competition. Children were a part of an experiment where they wound up a fishing reel by themselves then with another child present. Results of the experiment showed the children performed better with another child present as opposed to being by themselves. Triplett concluded the children performe...
... middle of paper ...
...2008). 21st century psychology: a reference handbook, Volume
2.Sage Publications. Retrieved April 8, 2011 from http://books.google.com/books?id=tMv1EbXGen4C&dq=currends+in+21st+century+social+psychology&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Delamater, J. (2006). Handbook of social psychology. Springer publications Retrieved April 8, 2011 from http://books.google.com/books?id=xnVAuljbRcQC&dq=applying+social psychology+to+the+world+today&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of bystander intervention in
emergencies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 215–221. Retrieved from EBSCOhost April 8, 2011.
Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). “The Kitty Genovese murder and the social
Psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses”. American Psychologist, 62,
555-562. Retrieved April 6, 2011 from EBSCOhost
The essay Paralyzed Witnesses: The Murder They Heard was written by Stanley Milgram and Paul Hollander. In this essay, the authors describe in detail the responses of the witnesses during the murder of Kitty Genovese and the impact this case has of the ability for an individual to help people during a time of distress. The main idea of this essay was to analyze the reasons why the witnesses did not help during the murder. The internal and external conflicts were the main factors that influenced the witnesses did not help Genovese during her time of need.
Social science deals with a case study that gives the evidence regarding the beliefs of the researcher. The Milgram study is well-known in psychology. Milgram first began one study in 1961 after the Holocaust time period because he wanted to figure out if individuals were capable of harming others to being obedient to authority. The paper will summarize the study itself and how it was conducted. The writer will give explanation of the results, if the findings were unexpected, what transpired the meaning of the results, and Milgram’s conclusion of the study. There will be an explanation regarding the concept of how situationism applies to Milgram’s case study. Furthermore, this paper will discuss if there is a belief that the results of
Rivas-Vazquez, Rafael A.; Johnson, Sheri L.; Rey, Gustavo J.; Blais, Mark A.; Rivas-Vazquez, Ana. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33.2 (Apr 2002): 212-223.
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
In 1964 Catherine ‘Kitty’ Genovese was murdered and raped outside of her New York apartment in the early morning hours of 3 a.m. Her case was one that shocked all of America to its very core. The killer and the witnesses to the crime show the start of disassociation within society in the three theories that are applied throughout the following pages: Rational Choice, Anomie and Routine Activity. The development of the bystander effect and the diffusion of responsibility and its significant harms to both society and its moral compass in
Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, the girl who was murdered, saw a man outside her apartment building she had never seen before. He followed her down the street as she walked towards her door, and before she could get there, the man snuck up and stabbed her. The thirty-eight people living in Kew Gardens watched their neighbor get attacked and stabbed three times. None of the neighbors called the police, not until after the murder was committed. One neighbor stalled the murder by screaming out his window telling the man to stop, but he too did not call the police. When asked why they did not call the cops, many of the people said they simply did not want to get involved, or they thought someone else called. Martin Gansberg argued that if some of Kitty Genovese’s neighbors called the police when they saw her get stabbed, they could have saved her life; because of this, people need to
According to the FBI, more than 75 percent of all murder victims are women, and more than 50 percent of the women are between the ages of 14 and 29 years old. A part of that statistic is Kitty Genovese,a murder victim who is the focus of an editorial, “The Dying Girl that No One Helped,” written by Loudon Wainwright. Kitty was a 28 year old woman who was brutally stabbed to death while on her way home from work. The woman, named Kitty Genovese, lived in a pleasant, welcoming, residential area, in New York. There was at least 38 witnesses that came forward, and they all heard her cries for help, but no one came to her aid. Wainwright effectively demonstrates how society has started turning a “blind-eye” toward problems that can endanger someone's
Piotrowski, Nancy A., and Tracy Georges. Magill's encyclopedia of social science: psychology Volume 3. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2003. Print.
Even though the social cognitive perspective focuses on the attitude and perspective when it comes to understanding social psychology and research. Evolutionary psychology is an important factor when it comes to the researching the roles of individuals in society due to their biological and genetic makeup. because The phenomenological perspective has a really important role when it comes to research because it speaks on how individuals and groups interpret certain situations., The behavior learning perspective relates to the research of the social psychologist because it teaches you about how certain actions and behaviors are learned through observation of others behaviors, and The gender role concept is important also when we have looking
Evolutionary Psychology has been controversial since its rise in the 1990s, with critics and proponents debating its merits as a science. While critics (e.g. David Buller, Elizabeth Lloyd) have extensively criticized the fundamentals of Evolutionary Psychology, few philosophers or scientists have challenged them. Given the growing influence of the evolutionary behavioral sciences within mainstream science like Psychology and Anthropology, it is important analyze the critiques and see if the arguments against Evolutionary Psychology have merit. This paper will focus on two of the most often cited critiques of Evolutionary Psychology: the critique of the concept of the modular model of the mind and the critique of the two “signature achievements” in Evolutionary Psychology, Martin Daly and Margot Wilson’s Cinderella Effect and David Buss’s studies of male-female differences in jealousy. I will describe and respond these critiques of Evolutionary Psychology, making the case that these critiques are not valid and have little merit on scientific basis of Evolutionary Psychology.
The purpose of this academic piece is to critically discuss The Darwinist implication of the evolutionary psychological conception of human nature. Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” will be the main factor discussed as the theory of evolution was developed by him. Evolutionary psychology is the approach on human nature on the basis that human behavior is derived from biological factors and there are psychologists who claim that human behavior is not something one is born with but rather it is learned. According to Downes, S. M. (2010 fall edition) “Evolutionary psychology is one of the many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior”. This goes further to implicate that evolutionary psychology is virtually based on the claims of the human being a machine that can be programmed to do certain things and because it can be programmed it has systems in the body that allow such to happen for instance the nervous system which is the connection of the spinal cord and the brain and assists in voluntary and involuntary motor movements.
Maher, B. A., & Maher, W. B. (1985). Psychopathology: II. From the eighteenth century to modern times. In G. A. Kimble & K. Schlesinger (Eds.), Topics in the history of psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 295-329). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
The human brain is not an empty vessel — right from the start it is packed with knowledge, some of which is built into every structure. A newborn baby just knows, for instance, that crying will bring other members of the species to its aid — it doesn't learn it or work it out.
University of Nebraska at Kearney, USA and Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania. (2011). International Journal of Psychology: A psychosocial approach. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from http://www.psyjournal.vdu.lt/wp/
This essay will study what social psychology actually is and the debates within the field as well as the history and origins of social psychology. In addition to this it will then continue and look at what they study within this field and what types of questions to ask and what results they gain from this.