Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Diffusion of responsibility [1] is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. Considered a form of attribution , the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.
The application of social impact varies from diffusion of responsibility to social loafing, stage fright or persuasive communication. In 1981, Latané developed the social impact theory using three key variables: Strength (S) is a net of all individual factors that make a person influential.
Group diffuses responsibility: a diffusion of responsibility throughout the group seems to give members of these groups a free rein to act as they see fit (Wallach, Kogan, & Bem 1964). The emotional bonds that are created within the group serve to decrease anxiety within the group and the actual risk of the situation seems less.
In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when working alone. [1] [2] It is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals.
Darley and Latané (1968) conducted research on diffusion of responsibility. [24] The findings suggest that in the case of an emergency, when people believe that there are other people around, they are less likely or slower to help a victim because they believe someone else will take responsibility.
Additionally, this is a classic example of diffusion of responsibility in that participants looked to an authority figure (the experimenter) instead of being self-aware of the pain they were causing or engaging in self-evaluation which may have caused them to adhere to societal norms. [15]
(4) “displacement of responsibility” - "I was just following the orders of my superiors" -is an example of this. (5) “diffusion of responsibility” distributed the accountability from one person to an poorly-defined group. (6) “distortion of consequences” misrepresents the effects of the act as not significant.
A 1976 edition of the journal Ekistics used the phrase in the context of bureaucratic inaction on low-income housing, describing "the principle of somebody else's problem" as something that prevented progress.