Diffusion of responsibility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so. The phenomenon tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size and when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. It rarely occurs when the person is alone and diffusion increases with groups of three or more.
Diffusion of
responsibility occurs in large group settings and under both prosocial and antisocial conditions. In prosocial
situations, individuals' willingness to intervene or assist someone in need is
inhibited by the presence of other people. The
individual is under the belief that other people present will or should
intervene. Thus, the individual does not perceive it as his or her
responsibility to take action. It
has been demonstrated that the likelihood of a person offering help decreases as
the number of observers present increases. This is known as the bystander effect. In
addition, diffusion of responsibility is more likely to occur under conditions
of anonymity. In prosocial situations, individuals are less likely to intervene
when they do not know the victim personally. Instead, they believe that someone
who has a relationship with the victim will assist. In antisocial
situations, negative behaviors are more likely to be carried out when the person
is in a group of similarly motivated individuals. The behavior is driven by the
deindividuating
effects of group membership and the diffusion of feelings of personal
responsibility for the consequences. As part of
this process, individuals become less self-aware and feel an increased sense of
anonymity. As a result, they are less likely to feel responsible for any
antisocial behavior performed by their group. Diffusion of responsibility is
also a causal factor governing much crowd behavior, as well as risk-taking in
groups.
- In a group of people who, through action or inaction, allow events to occur which they would never allow if they were alone. This is referred to as groupthink and groupshift.
- In a group of people working on a task who lose motivation, feel less responsibility for achievement of group goals, and hide their lack of effort in the group (social loafing).
- In hierarchical organizations, when subordinates claim to simply be following orders and supervisors claim that they merely issue directives and do not perform the actions under question. The difficulty of identifying the culpable party is often seen in trials regarding crimes against humanity.
Social psychological experiments have demonstrated that individuals' failure to
assist others in emergencies is not due to apathy or indifference, but rather to the presence of
other people.
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