What Is Diffusion of Responsibility?

Due to the occurrence of the "Genovese" incident in the United States, psychologists have conducted a large number of experiments and investigations and found that this phenomenon cannot be said to be just the ruthlessness of everyone, or the manifestation of increasingly degraded morality. Because on different occasions, people's assistance behaviors are indeed different. When a person encounters an emergency situation, if only he can provide help, he will be clearly aware of his responsibility and help the victim. And if there are many people present, the responsibility to help the helpers will be shared by everyone, causing the responsibility to spread, each person's shared responsibility is very small, and the onlooker may not even be aware of his own responsibility, resulting in A "I don't want to save, let others save" mentality. People have come into contact with the new word "diffusion of responsibility."

Due to the occurrence of the "Genovese" incident in the United States, psychologists have conducted a large number of experiments and investigations and found that this phenomenon cannot be said to be just the ruthlessness of everyone, or the manifestation of increasingly degraded morality. Because on different occasions, people's assistance behaviors are indeed different. When a person encounters an emergency situation, if only he can provide help, he will be clearly aware of his responsibility and help the victim. And if there are many people present, the responsibility to help the helpers will be shared by everyone, causing the responsibility to spread, each person's shared responsibility is very small, and the onlooker may not even be aware of his own responsibility, resulting A "I don't want to save, let others save" mentality. People have come into contact with the new word "diffusion of responsibility."

In 1964, the famous Genovese case occurred in New York, USA. A girl named Genovese was killed by a gangster while on his way home. Within 30 minutes of the incident, 38 neighbors heard the victims' calls for help. Many people went to the window and watched for a long time, but none of them went to the rescue, and even no one was doing anything to help them. A tragedy that should not have happened.

Diffusion of responsibility is a hypothetical cause of bystander effects. Refers to an individual as a bystander of danger. When other witnesses are present, he is less likely to assume responsibility for helping others than when he is present alone. Latagne and Dali filed to explain a case in Katie Genoves, a woman in New York, who had been killed late in the night calling for help. Researchers have designed experiments based on this: during the conference, the fake participants (players) showed signs of seizures, and observed the intervention response of dependents to rescue actions (depending on the variable) ).

It was found that when a critical situation arose, bystanders realized that they were the only helpers, it was possible to enhance their personal responsibility and increase the possibility of intervening responses. The more onlookers, the more the responsibility spread The likelihood of an intervention response will also decrease. Many later social psychologists such as RD Clark and LE Ward raised objections through field studies. It is believed that the spread of responsibility is not a common phenomenon, and the larger population is often more likely to help in real life. For example, in a subway car, a patient with a walking stick (player of the experimental assistant) will suddenly get more help than a drunkard falls, and it has nothing to do with the number of people present. There are many reasons for the decrease in the amount of assistance present, and not all of them are due to the proliferation of responsibilities. CJ Morgan explained the above phenomenon with a cost-reward model of help-ing. He believes that when the cost of intervention increases (increasing the danger) and the benefits of non-intervention increase (will not be blamed), the effect of the spread of responsibility applies; ), And the rewards of non-intervention are also low (may be condemned), then the size of the bystander group will not have any impact on helping people. In the latter case, individuals in large groups, like those who are alone, will lend a helping hand. Now it is generally believed that whether or not dangerous bystanders can produce helpful actions is not completely subject to the effects of bystanders. There are also multiple perplexed disturbances, and the key is the sense of moral obligation.

(I) Social Inhibition (Social Comparative Theory)

Everyone in the society has a certain opinion on what happened and takes corresponding actions. Whenever someone else is present, the individual evaluates his behavior more carefully than nobody is present, and compares the behavior he intends to make with others to prevent embarrassment. Comparison results When no one else takes action, it will have a social deterrent effect on individual altruistic behavior.

(II) Outcome of social impact (herd mentality)

Not only does a person evaluate a situation from the perspective of others, but he also tends to imitate others' behavior in terms of behavior. This situation is more prominent in special cases. In the face of an emergency, even if the individual is aware of the responsibility to come forward to help, if the other person does not act, the individual will often follow everyone's consistent performance.

(3) Most people ignore

The presence and presence of others affects the individual's perception, judgment and interpretation of the overall situation, especially the judgment of unfamiliar situations in emergency situations. People lack both psychological preparations for behavioral measures and information about behaviors. So everyone tries to observe the behavioral data of everyone present to clarify the truth of the matter and their vague understanding. Find clues and evidence of one's behavior from the behavior of others ^[1] .