Yue Yue and Genovese

A two-year old kid, Yue Yue has been hit down by a small van. However, the driver did not stop and continue drove his van and rolled over her the second time. Seven minutes later, a truck went over her again. In the meantime, 18 witnesses passed by, nobody lend a hand. At last, an old lady passed by and helped the little girl. Later on, the first driver has been found.
He said," If I hit someone and he died, I may only have to pay ten or twenty thousands, but if he did not die, I have to afford the lifetime injury cost."

I'm sure most of you felt what I'm feeling.

In the early morning of March 1964, Kitty Genovese had driven home from her job working as a bar manager. Arriving home at about 3.15am, she parked her car 30m away from her apartment's door. As she walked towards the building, she was approached by Winston Moseley. She began to walk faster. However, Moseley who ran after her, quickly over took her and stabbed her twice in the back.

Genovese then screamed," OH MY GOD, HE STABBED ME! HELP ME!" Her cry was heard by several neighbors. One of the neighbors shouted at the attacker,"Let that girl alone!" Moseley then ran away. Genovese was seriously injured, but seeing her got up and staggering around, people believe she is in no need of help.

Moseley returned 10 minutes later. Eventually, he found Genovese lying barely conscious in a hallway. He proceeded to further attack her, stabbing her several more times. while she lay dying, he raped her, stile money from her, left her in the hallway. A few minutes after the final attack, a witness called police. Genovese was taken away by ambulance and she died while on the way to hospital.

Later investigation by police and presecutors revealed that approximately a dozen individuals nearby had heard or observed portions of the attack, though none saw or aware of the entire incident. One of the neighbors admitted and said,"I didn't want to get involved."

An experiment had been carried out by a psychologist. A man has been asked to act as he was attacked by Epilepsy. Results showed that when there are more than four people witness the incident, most of them wouldn't take further action to help the man. In contrast, when there are only one witness during the incident, about 85% will lend a hand.

The Genovese case and the experiment prompted research into diffusion of responsibility and the bystander effect. This line of research showing that contrary to common expectations, larger numbers of bystanders decrease the likelihood that someone will step forward and help a victim. The reasons include the fact that onlookers see that others are not helping either, that onlookers believe others will know better how to help, and that onlookers feel uncertain about helping while others are watching.

At certain level, both cases of Yue Yue and Genovese can be explained psychologically. These witness felt that the responsibilities of rescuing people was not theirs. However, you still can find differences between both cases. To help out Yue Yue, one doesn't need to risk his life. While to rescue Genovese, the witness may have high probability attacked by Moseley.

Sometimes, to save people in China is 'risky'. There were a lot of cases where those saviors got sued and became defendants in a court. One of the popular cases was the Peng Yu's case. On November 2006, Peng Yu saw an old lady fell down. Eventually, he went to help her up and brought her to hospital. The report came out the old lady have to undergo a surgery. Right after that, she wanted Peng Yu to afford the cost as she claimed that he is the one who pushed her down.

Later on, Peng Yu has been convicted by the judge. After knowing this, a witness who saw the whole incident where the old lady actually fell down herself said," Friends, from now on who will dare to do the righteous thing?"

Even the lady who helped Yue Yue has been described as 'someone who wanted to be famous' and she is also envied by some ridiculous people for she got money as her reward.

So tell me, where were their humanity gone?



(Some of the contents I translated from the column written by Zhi Jian Cheng（植建成 ) from 'Sin Chew Jit Poh' and some searched from wikipedia.)