Diffusion of Responsibility - Assignment Example

Diffusion of Responsibility What is a pro-social behavior? Pro-social Behavior can also be tagged as a ‘helping’ behavior in which a person makes an attempt to help another person, with no thought of getting rewarded in return. He just feels like making this move without any specific intention. Many factors though lead to such helping behaviors of the individuals. When a person thinks that one day he might end up getting involved in the same situation he gives a thought and help a person in the most unselfish way, with the above thought in his mind (Columbus 2005). This is known as ‘reciprocity norm’. Such social norms are the reason of getting admiration from unknown people who are in your surroundings. There are certain situations in which the probability of showing a pro-social behavior is greater i.e. when a person is really happy/ guilty about something/belong to a small town and like helping people who share the same type of living (Bierhoff, 2002). Apart from certain situations, pro-social behaviors differ between genders as well. Men tend to help women more and women show a lesser responsibility to help where there are a lot of men, as they get depended and think that they are supposed to help. At the end of the day, things behind such behavior are concern, generosity and empathy that compel a person to benefit the other Conditions in which diffusion of responsibility might occur: In one of the studies undertaken by Pillivian ‘Subway Samaritans’, diffusion of responsibility was studied and the researcher tried to find out what exactly is the condition that compels a person to help and not to help the other person while they are in a subway station around hundreds of people. Well, this study has conveyed one of the conditions in which diffusion of responsibility might occur. Here, there were two stooges i.e. a drunk with a bottle in his hand and another one was an old man with a hand carry. They both tried to pretend and asked for help. Here, diffusion of responsibility occurred where women tried to be less helpful for the drunk than the other as they were hesitant and women thought that it will be more appropriate that men get up and show their pro-social behavior and this is how responsibility was diffused. This is how it can happen due to stereotypical thinking in any of the two genders (Bierhoff, 2002). Another situation can also occur in a classroom among a number of students and a teacher. This can be, for example, that the student, in case of the other student tripping off from his chair, might not show is helping behavior as he will think that there are many of his friends around who will surely get up and help him to stand up from the ground. This is how diffusion of responsibility might occur when a person thinks that he is not alone to help, so he don’t make an initiative to help, resulting in ‘diffusion of responsibility’. This is also known as Bystander effect or Genovese Syndrome. Moreover, Diffusion of responsibility can also occur in a condition where a crime occurs. During a crime, people tend to do nothing to prevent it but continue to peek into the scene, what is happening rather than helping the person who is being victimized.one of the reason is that they are scared to help on the first place as they think that if they take a step, they might end up getting behind the bars due to police seeing them as suspects. So, this was one of the conditions when a person refuses to take responsibility or action in order to save themselves Steps to Pro-Social Behavior: There is actually a five-step model which is needed to be followed in case of a pro-social behavior condition. Firstly, bystander needs to ‘notice’ that help is required. He needs to realize the fact that there is some kind of emergency and it’s his responsibility to react and response to the situation. The significance of this step is that without this, a person can never show helping behaviors if realization doesn’t passes through his mind (Dovidio, 2006). Secondly, once he notices that there is an emergency going on, now he has to act a little intelligent and come up with a correct interpretation of the whole situation. This can also be done by observing other bystanders around him. This step is really important, as without examining the whole situation correctly, one can never fix it as without a correct solution, the question can never be answered (Kassin, et al, 2010) Thirdly, once he interprets the whole situation correctly, he has now to make a decision, whether he will be the one to help the victim or not. Without this decision making process, the bystander can never be able to take the next step, without a decision, nothing can be undertaken. Fourthly, after making the decision that he will be showing his helping behavior, he has to decide how he will help. Without deciding about it cleverly, one can never end up with positive results after doing so much mental and physical hard work and showing pro-social behavior (Lawler, 2009). And lastly, the most vital step in this pro-social behavior model is to practically offer help to the person. Bystander need to express his helping behavior physically now and without this step, pro-social can never be demonstrated socially. Every step holds importance separately and one has to act responsible in order to undertake these sensibly and successfully. References Bierhoff, H. (2002). Prosocial Behavior. NY: Psychology Press Columbus, A. (2005). Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 36. NY: Nova Publishers Dovidio, J. (2006). The Social Psychology of Prosocial Behavior. London: Routledge Kassin, S., Fein, S., and Markus, R. (2010). Social Psychology. London: Cengage Learning Lawler, E. (2009). Altruism and Prosocial Behavior in Groups. UK: Emerald Group Publishing Read More