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…
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…
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
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…
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…
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