Theories Of The Diffusion Of Responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a pervasive socio-psychological phenomenon that is deeply entrenched in all societies. This tends to occur when the size of a group reaches a certain threshold and individuals within the group assume that others will take action or have already intervened, commonly resulting in the collective inaction by potential helpers. Another contributing factor is the gender of the individual in need for help which affects the action/inaction of the individuals in the group. The inaction is attributed to the fear of being judged by other observers. This tendency is called The Bystander Effect.
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in 1968 by John Darley and Bibb Latane after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. …show more content…
Experimental emergency situation was fabricated when the participant was either alone or amidst others, with their response time and intervention measured. The dominant outcome revealed that the absence of others promotes participants to help. In one experiment, a group of 72 students participated in a discussion whereby they were all isolated, hence each person could only hear but not see others. However, only one subject at any time was a real person and the rest were pre-recorded voices. One ‘voice’ was made to have a seizure. 85% of students who thought they were the only ones experiencing the victim’s seizure reported it, while in contrast only 31% of those who thought there were four others also listening did.
Another experiment was conducted to show gender bias in helping behaviour, conducted by William Austin, whereby male and female subjects had their belongings conspicuously stolen in plain view of students at a university.
Results showed that 80.7% of female bystanders and 51.1% of male bystanders came to aid female victims, however for male victims, only 67.0% of female bystanders and 43.2% of male bystanders helped.
The behavior associated with voluntarily helping others with no regards to the rewards earned is called the helping behavior. It is observed that individuals tend to lend a helping hand when less people are present in an emergency situation. One example that demonstrates helping behavior happened on the 31st of May 2016, when two cars collided near the junction of Yishun Ring Road, Singapore. Amongst the crowd, only a twelve-year-old boy rushed to aid victims involved in the accident (Nair, 2016). It is also shown here that the boy displayed helping behaviour by interpreting the situation as an emergency and decided to take action. Although, there were many people witnessing the accident, nobody else decided to offer help. Furthermore, they introduced the model of helping, where there are 5 steps of decision making before an individual helps someone in an emergency …show more content…
situation.
The steps are as follows :-
1. Notice the event
2. Interpret the event as an emergency
3. Take personal responsibility to act
4. Decide to help
5. Implement the action At any of these steps an individual can decide to withdraw him/her self from helping.
It is observed that individuals with a positive attitude are more aware of his/her surroundings and are more likely to notice an event.
Individuals could fail to take personal responsibility due to pluralistic ignorance which states that people often look to others to determine what to do without realizing that others are looking to them for the same purpose (Schroeder et al., 1995). Therefore, when people do not act in an emergency setting others might interpret this as a non-emergency situation and follow suit. In the end, no one helps the individual because they look to one another in determining what action to take.
However, psychologist Frances Cherry (1995) dismissed the Bystander Effect. She argued that there were too many factors that could have induced this circumstance. There could have been other variables that influenced the assumptions and judgment of the witnesses, such as Kitty being a white female and her attacker, a black man. In the 1960s, it was a time where people and even police did not intervene in disputes between couples as domestic violence was not seen as a social problem. Cherry also suggested that the incident gathered more attention than other similar cases due to their racial difference and
status.
The bystander effect was first demonstrated in 1968 by John Darley and Bibb Latane after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. …show more content…
Experimental emergency situation was fabricated when the participant was either alone or amidst others, with their response time and intervention measured. The dominant outcome revealed that the absence of others promotes participants to help. In one experiment, a group of 72 students participated in a discussion whereby they were all isolated, hence each person could only hear but not see others. However, only one subject at any time was a real person and the rest were pre-recorded voices. One ‘voice’ was made to have a seizure. 85% of students who thought they were the only ones experiencing the victim’s seizure reported it, while in contrast only 31% of those who thought there were four others also listening did.
Another experiment was conducted to show gender bias in helping behaviour, conducted by William Austin, whereby male and female subjects had their belongings conspicuously stolen in plain view of students at a university.
Results showed that 80.7% of female bystanders and 51.1% of male bystanders came to aid female victims, however for male victims, only 67.0% of female bystanders and 43.2% of male bystanders helped.
The behavior associated with voluntarily helping others with no regards to the rewards earned is called the helping behavior. It is observed that individuals tend to lend a helping hand when less people are present in an emergency situation. One example that demonstrates helping behavior happened on the 31st of May 2016, when two cars collided near the junction of Yishun Ring Road, Singapore. Amongst the crowd, only a twelve-year-old boy rushed to aid victims involved in the accident (Nair, 2016). It is also shown here that the boy displayed helping behaviour by interpreting the situation as an emergency and decided to take action. Although, there were many people witnessing the accident, nobody else decided to offer help. Furthermore, they introduced the model of helping, where there are 5 steps of decision making before an individual helps someone in an emergency …show more content…
situation.
The steps are as follows :-
1. Notice the event
2. Interpret the event as an emergency
3. Take personal responsibility to act
4. Decide to help
5. Implement the action At any of these steps an individual can decide to withdraw him/her self from helping.
It is observed that individuals with a positive attitude are more aware of his/her surroundings and are more likely to notice an event.
Individuals could fail to take personal responsibility due to pluralistic ignorance which states that people often look to others to determine what to do without realizing that others are looking to them for the same purpose (Schroeder et al., 1995). Therefore, when people do not act in an emergency setting others might interpret this as a non-emergency situation and follow suit. In the end, no one helps the individual because they look to one another in determining what action to take.
However, psychologist Frances Cherry (1995) dismissed the Bystander Effect. She argued that there were too many factors that could have induced this circumstance. There could have been other variables that influenced the assumptions and judgment of the witnesses, such as Kitty being a white female and her attacker, a black man. In the 1960s, it was a time where people and even police did not intervene in disputes between couples as domestic violence was not seen as a social problem. Cherry also suggested that the incident gathered more attention than other similar cases due to their racial difference and
status.