Diffusion of responsibility
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Diffusion of responsibility is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. This phenomenon rarely ever occurs in small groups. In tests, groups of three or fewer, everyone in the group took action as opposed to groups of over ten where in almost every test, no one took action. This mindset can be seen in the phrase "No one raindrop thinks it caused the flood". Knowing this, it is always important to respond to emergencies such as a car accident in the light of the mindset, "Well there's so many people driving past this, surely someone has called 911."
Diffusion of responsibility can manifest itself:
- in a group of people who, through action or inaction, allow events to occur which they would never allow if they were alone. Examples include groupthink and the bystander effect.
- in a group of people working on a task that loses motivation because people feel less responsible and hide their lack of effort in the group (social loafing).
- in hierarchical organizations, such as when underlings claim that they were just following orders and supervisors claim that they were just issuing directives and not doing the deeds.
Examples
- Kitty Genovese, a New York woman, was stabbed to death near her apartment.
- In a firing squad, one or more of the shooters may be randomly issued a weapon containing a blank cartridge rather than a bullet. This allows each of the members of the firing squad to believe that he did not fire a fatal shot.
- In some electric chairs there are many switches, only one of which is connected. The executioners may then choose to believe that they pulled a non-functional switch.
Legal uses
The latter definition of diffusion of responsibility was famously used as a legal defense by many of the Nazis being tried at Nuremberg and later the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre. It has also been used with varying degrees of success in other situations.
See also
- Milgram experiment
- Design by committee
- Somebody Else's Problem
- Tragedy of the commons
- Nuremberg Defense