Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility 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 diffusion of responsibility refers to the decreased responsibility of action each member of a group feels when they are part of a group. For example, in emergency situations, individuals feel less responsibility to respond or call for help, if they know that there are others also watching the situation –
if they know they are a part of the group of witnesses. In other group settings, the diffusion of responsibility manifests itself as the decreased responsibility each member feels to contribute and work hard towards accomplishing the task or goal. The diffusion of responsibility is present in almost all groups, but to varying degrees, and can be mitigated by reducing group size, defining clear expectations, and increasing accountability.
Assumption of responsibility tends to decrease when the potential helping group is larger, resulting in little aiding behavior demonstrated by the bystander. Causes range from psychological effects of anonymity to differences in sex. Implication of behaviours related to diffusion of responsibility can be threatening as there have been increases in moral disengagement and helping behaviour.
Diffusion of responsibility can be formalized using game theory as a free-rider problem or as a volunteer's dilemma using a coordination game.
Real-world examples
In many real-world examples, it can be difficult to say with complete certainty that certain events happened or happen because of a sociopsychological effect such as diffusion of responsibility, the reasons being that in these events, there are many other contributing factors. Many of these events have also been traumatizing for the individuals who have recounted them. In situations which are known to increase anxiety, events have been found to be interpreted more dangerously or inaccurately than they appear. While accurate representation of events may be questionable, there have been extensive analyses on the following events regarding diffusion of responsibility and applications of its concept.World War II
The diffusion of responsibility for alleged war crimes during World War II was famously used as a legal defense by many of the Nazis being tried at Nuremberg. A similar defense was mounted by the defendants accused in the My Lai massacre. Because of the displacement of responsibility, they did not feel the personal responsibility to help or at least not harm victims, but they felt like they were just following orders, and they did not feel responsible or guilty for their own actions. They blamed those telling them to carry out the orders rather than blaming themselves for the atrocities they had committed. The diffusion of responsibility is a probable cause for many of their feelings and actions, but other possible contributing factors include the existing antisemitism of Germany at that time and the threats imposed by Nazi officials.Workplace
Diffusion of responsibility can be seen in the workplace through the response to mass email when compared to many, individualized emails. When mass emails are sent out, people feel a lack of accountability because the emails have not been addressed to them personally. Studies have shown that replies to personally addressed emails are more helpful and lengthier than replies to mass emails because personal interactions are associated with a greater sense of responsibility. For example, the author of reports sending thousands of emails to professors at universities worldwide, inviting them to recommend a journal to their students. The response rate has been extremely low, especially when using blind carbon copy to reach multiple recipients simultaneously.Another example of diffusion of responsibility revolves around whistleblowing in the work place. Many people employed by companies that regularly committed accounting fraud do not blow the whistle. This is due to lack of individual accountability and moral disengagement. It has been shown that many people often get so focused on their individual tasks, they forget to think about moral responsibilities in an organization. Thus whistleblowing may not even be considered. Moreover, in companies where it is promoted, people still do not participate since they assume others will take the responsibility, causing feelings similar to a lack of accountability.
Self-driving cars
Semi-autonomous cars require a human driver to be attentive at all times, and intervene if necessary. One safety concern is that humans are less likely to maintain attention if the automated system has partial responsibility for driving.Causes
Diffusion of responsibility occurs in large group settings and under both prosocial and antisocial conditions. In prosocial situations, individuals' willingness to intervene or assist someone in need is inhibited by the presence of other people. The individual is under the belief that other people present will or should intervene. Thus, the individual does not perceive it as her or his responsibility to take action. This will not happen if the individual believes that they are the only one aware of the situation. If a bystander is deciding how to help, they may abstain from doing so if they believe that they lack the competence to be of aid. Individuals may become reluctant to provide help for fear of how observers will view them.Anonymity
In addition, diffusion of responsibility is more likely to occur under conditions of anonymity. In prosocial situations, individuals are less likely to intervene when they do not know the victim personally. Instead, they believe that someone who has a relationship with the victim will assist. In antisocial situations, negative behaviours are more likely to be carried out when the person is in a group of similarly motivated individuals. The behaviour is driven by the deindividuating effects of group membership and the diffusion of feelings of personal responsibility for the consequences. As part of this process, individuals become less self-aware and feel an increased sense of anonymity. As a result, they are less likely to feel responsible for any antisocial behaviour performed by their group. Diffusion of responsibility is also a causal factor governing much crowd behaviour, as well as risk-taking in groups.Contrary to anonymity, it has been shown that if one can utilise technology to prevent anonymity, it can further prevent diffusion of responsibility. Studies have shown that if emails are sent directly to individuals as opposed to addressing individuals in mass emails, they can prevent diffusion of responsibility and elicit more responses. In addition to eliciting more responses, the responses that were received from individuals, as opposed to groups, were longer and more helpful to the initial questions asked.
Division of labor
Diffusion of responsibility can manifest itself in the workplace when tasks are assigned to individuals in terms of division of labor. In an economics context, diffusion of responsibility can be observed in groups when a leader assigns tasks to individuals. To promote the concept of fairness, the leader will generally assign an equal amount of work to individuals within the group. This is in part due to the idea that people in general want to seem fair and kind.According to Albert Bandura, diffusion of responsibility can occur when managers create subtasks in an organization. When people are subdivided into individual tasks they can often forget their role to the organization as a whole and get narrow minded into focusing on their own role. Individuals may unknowingly diffuse their responsibility to an organization by only doing what is required of them in their respective tasks. This is because their focus for accountability is diverted from the organization to their individualized tasks.