Psychology's mythbusters

It's an example of bystander apathy found in nearly every introductory psychology textbook: On March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was stabbed repeatedly as she was entering her New York City apartment. Her assailant initially fled, but returned a few minutes later. He found her in the hallway of her apartment building and raped her as she lay dying. Thirty-eight neighbors witnessed the gruesome scene and nobody helped – or so the story goes.

But the story is just plain wrong, says Barney Beins, PhD, a psychologist at Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y. Beins and fellow psychologist Kenneth Keith, PhD, at the University of San Diego, discussed psychological myths and what we can do about them on Saturday at APA's Annual Convention.

"It appears they got the date right," Beins said, but almost everything else is wrong or misleading. Actually, there were only about three witnesses, he explained. At that time, 9-1-1 didn't exist, so there was no convenient way to call for help. And even if you did, Beins continued, if you called the police in those days to complain about something in that part of the city, they were likely to tell you to move. In fact, one witness did call the police, but they didn't arrive in time to prevent the crime or save Genovese's life.

Beins stresses that while there is still something to learn about witness reactions from the case, the myths obscure other important aspects of group behavior and take a decidedly negative view of witnesses.

Keith demonstrated the tenacity of some myths using the example of the link between sugar intake and hyperactivity in children: 80 percent of students in his introductory psychology course believed that when children eat sugar, they get hyper, even though decades of double-blind studies have found no significant link.

Beins blames such persistent misinformation on the fact that people are quick to trust their intuition over evidence. "People will say, 'Oh, it's obvious!' he said. "But obvious doesn't always mean right."

Keith and Beins suggested that directly countering psychological myths with refuting examples can help, as can emphasizing critical thinking.