Diffusion of Responsibility

One concept that I found interesting this week was diffusion of responsibility. Judith A Boss defines Diffusion of Responsibility in THINK as the tendency, when in a large group, to regard a problem as belonging to someone else. It is a social phenomenon that occurs in groups of people above a critical size and if responsibility is not explicitly assigned to us, we tend to regard is as not our problem, but as belonging to someone else. (122)
An example the text used of this was of an old man being hit by a drunk driver on a bust street and was lying in the street paralyzed and bleeding while people continued on with their lives and ignored him. Cars drove around and didn’t stop or offer assistance. This completely baffled me and reminded me of a show I’ve seen before called What Would You Do? It’s where people are unknowingly part of social experiments to show how members of society would act in certain situations. Sometimes when I would watch it I would be dumbfounded by how little people would do to help. An episode I really remember was when a ‘parent’ acted like they were too drunk to drive and was having their kid who was no more than 10 try to get behind the wheel. So many people walked by and didn’t do anything because they didn’t pay attention or chose to ignore and stay out of the situation, but when one person interfered, then more usually stepped in to help.
To avoid this tendency, the text says as good critical thinkers we need to be aware of this tendency and need to cultivate the ability to think independently while still taking into consideration other’s perspectives. (122)