Diffusion of responsibility and conformity
These are two related things that can strongly influence us and those around us, and often not in the best way. Let me unpack the tension.
Conformity is a change in a person's behavior or opinion under the influence of real or imagined pressure from a group. There's external conformity — when you pretend to agree but keep your own opinion; and internal conformity — when you actually change your opinion.
A good example is the Asch experiment. Students were asked to compare lines by length. Out of eight participants, seven were actors who gave wrong answers. As a result, 75% of subjects agreed with the majority opinion at least once (while seeing with their own eyes that the lengths didn't match), and the overall proportion of incorrect answers was 37%.
Even more interesting results came from Valeria Mukhina's experiment with pyramids. Two pyramids — white and black — were placed on a table. Six planted participants unanimously claimed that both pyramids were white. As a result, the subject (with disappointment in their eyes :) agreed with them. When the psychologist clarified "But seriously?", they confirmed "their opinion".
Diffusion of responsibility is when in a group, each person feels less personal responsibility for actions because it's sort of "spread out" among all participants. It can go so far that someone urgently needs help, they might even be dying, and people around do nothing because each of them thinks that someone else from the crowd will help and do something. This is also called the bystander effect.
There were various experiments here too. For example, the "seizure" experiment where subjects heard someone in the next room getting sick. If a person was alone, they tried to help in 85% of cases, but if there were other witnesses nearby, the probability of help dropped to 31%.
In another experiment, a woman in the next room screamed as if from a broken leg. Two minutes passed before anyone paid attention to her screams.
Essentially, both of these phenomena consume individuality and personal responsibility. At the same time, they support each other perfectly: when everyone follows group norms, it's easier to shift responsibility onto everyone (conformism → diffusion of responsibility); and a person doesn't want to stand out when they can dissolve into the group (diffusion of responsibility → conformism).
Conformism does have positive effects, of course:
- Group positive effect — when the group is positively oriented and as a result handles various tasks better.
- Various forms of altruism.
- Positive social contagion. Well, the word "contagion" doesn't particularly associate with positivity, but when people are in a good mood, they're more willing to help others, cooperate more actively, and so on.
Interestingly, conformism basically works like a social xerox: if the group values helping others — the conformist will help, if it's indifferent to others' problems — the conformist will also pass by. It has pros and cons. But diffusion of responsibility, it seems to me, is a more dangerous mechanism, with few benefits and very questionable ones at that.
If anyone wants to avoid falling into the trap of these phenomena, the main things you can do are:
- Know about their existence (actually a very powerful protection).
- Engage critical thinking. And it will help in many other places too.
There are also various specific techniques that are easy to find.