The Effects of the Diffusion of Responsibility - Assignment Example

The effects of the diffusion of responsibility and the level of injury On helping behaviour Abstract The purpose of this study is to measure the Diffusion of responsibility in helping behaviour and see whether people are influenced by their surroundings and also to gauge whether people will act differently in a group situation as opposed to being on their own. I am trying to find out if people will help a lady, whose bag has been grabbed and been knocked down in the process. Whether they will help her if they are alone or will they help her if they are in a group and if she’s hurt or not hurt. I hypothesized on this study that participants will likely to extend help when they are alone than when in a group. There were 40 participants in this study and four scenarios under study. There were 10 participants in each scenario. They were asked what they will do if they faced that certain scenarios. By using two-way unrelated ANOVA, the data of the participants revealed that there is a significant difference in the intensity of diffusion of responsibility when alone and when in a group. Introduction It is a normal instinct to help other people if they cried for help. Certain norms in the society serve as a clue when to help others. There are some that tells people to help others even if they will not gain something in the future. This is called the social responsibility norm. On the contrary, there is also a norm that tells people that human relations are just transactions that people can take full advantage of the rewards that they can receive and minimize the cost. This is called the social exchange theory. Finally, there is a norm called altruism which is defined as having concern and helping others when there are no expectations for something in return.(When do people help, n.d) But there are instances that people do not respond to calls for help. Social psychologist called this social phenomenon as “diffusion of responsibility”. This means that when individuals know that many others are present, then they as individuals do not bear the full burden of responsibility. They make the assumption that someone else must be taking care of that or surely someone must have done something by now (Social Influence – Diffusion of Responsibility, 2003). The case of Kitty Genovese in 1964 is one classic example of diffusion of responsibility that led to the interest in studying if people will help if faced in different kinds of scenarios. An experiment was conducted about the diffusion of responsibility and they hypothesized that the indifference of bystanders were due to the decrease of individual sense of responsibility when they are in a crowd. The participants in this study were made to believe that there was an epileptic student having seizure. Selected student were told that they were one of the subject of an ongoing experiment. the six-person condition, 31% of the subjects responded to calls for help. In the two-person condition, 85% of the subjects (Darley and Latané, 1968, p 377-383) Another study was conducted by Latané and Rodin (1969) at the Columbia University. Participants of this study were asked to answer a questionnaire. Each of them were assigned to a cubicle. Unexpectedly there was a crash and scream from one of the cubicles and a girl student's voice called out, "Oh My God, my foot! I can't move it! Oh....my ankle...I can't get this thing off me!" Of course, the "accident" was faked, but the subjects presumably thought it was real. When subjects were by themselves in a cubicle, 70% responded. When subjects were grouped in pairs, only 40% responded. These findings were consistent with the Darley and Latané hypothesis. Together, the experiments showed that the same effect occurred whether people thought they were in a larger group or actually were in a larger group The growing delusion of responsibility is alarming nowadays. There are so many factors in the environment that affects people’s natural instinct to help others like the individualistic culture, media and the fast paced lives. People care less because they are too much pre-occupied on their own lives. Some do not help because they became conscious that it is just a joke from a television show or an experiment and they don’t want to participate on it. Furthermore, the personality characteristics, age, gender also influence people’s decision to help or not to help. In this study, I tried to investigate the diffusion of responsibility among young adults. The researcher hypothesized that the diffusion of responsibility is higher in group situation as opposed to being alone. Method 1. Design This study employs experimental design using two way unrelated groups. The two independent variables in the experiment are: Variable(Factor) A: diffusion of responsibility Levels of A: Alone and Group Variable(Factor) B: Injury Levels of B: Hurt and Not Hurt This design called factorial design because each level of each factor occurs with each level of the other factor (lecture note topic 5). The treatment conditions are the four scenarios that were created for them. The dependent variable is how likely the participants will help (6-point Likert scale) To analyze the data gathered, the researcher used Two- Way analysis of variance. This operation requires using of the General Linear Models-Univarite. 2. Participants Forty participants became the subject of this study. There were 10 participants in each scenario. The participants mean age is 23 and there were 18 males and 22 females. The participants were selected using quota sampling method. 3. Materials (or Stimuli) A self-made questionnaires containing 4 scenarios (see the appendix) with a 6-point Likert scale as their response was given to the participants of this study. The responses for the questionnaire were as follows 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very unlikely Fairly unlikely Unlikely Likely Fairly likely Very likely 4. Procedure The data was gathered through giving questionnaires personally to students from the school, friends and relatives. The researchers first debrief the participants regarding the purpose of the study. When the chosen person agreed to participate in the study the researcher then, asked them to answer a questionnaire which contained a scenario that measured their diffusion of responsibility. There were four scenarios under study. There were 10 participants in each scenario, as a group of four each group member took one scenario to collect his 10 participants responses. The gathered information was analyzed using SPSS. Result Source Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig (P) D.Responsibility 28.900 1 28.900 10.860 .002 Injury 4.900 1 4.900 1.841 .183 DOR * Injury 10.000 1 10.000 3.758 .060 Error 95.800 36 2.661 Total 812.000 40 Table 1: Summary table (Tests of Between-Subjects Effects). D.Responsibility Mean (SD) Alone Group 4.950 (.365) 3.250 (.365) Total mean 4.1 Level of Injury Hurt Not Hurt 4.450 (.365) 3.750 (.365) Total mean 4.1 Table 2: Dependent Variable: Result Hurt Not Hurt Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Total Mean Alone 5.800 (.516) 4.100 (.516) 4.95 Group 3.100 (.516) 3.400 (.516) 3.25 Total Mean 4.45 3.75 4.1 Table 3: Means, Standard deviations and the interaction between them. 1. A. There is significant main effect for the diffusion of responsibility between if the people were alone or with group. The result shows that those who were Alone (M=4.950) scored higher than those who were with group (M=3.250), F (1, 36) =10.860, p=.002 less than .05. B. looking at the graph in figure 1 .we can’t only see that the means in the two conditions are quite different but also that the 95% confidence intervals are relatively narrow and don’t overlap. We can see that for the condition when the participant alone there is a 95% probability that the mean in the population lies between about 4.1 and 5.8;wherase for the other condition when the participant with group there is a 95% probability that the mean in the population lies between about 2.5 and 4. 2. A. There is no significant main effect for the level of injury between if the women get Hurt or Not Hurt. Hurt (M=4.450) did not score significantly higher than Not hurt (M=3.750), F (1, 36) =1.841, p=.183 higher than .05. B. looking in the graph in figure 2.we can see that there is no big difference between the means in the two conditions and also that the 95% confidence intervals overlap. We can see that for the condition when the women got hurt there is a 95% probability that the mean in the population lies between about 3.5 and 5.3; wherase for the other condition when the women got no hurt there is a 95% probability that the mean in the population lies between about 3.0 and 4.5. 3. A. There is a marginally significant diffusion of responsibility by Level of injury interaction. Both means are equal (1, 36) =3.758, p=.06 which is approximately significant because it’s not far from .05. B. As shown in figure 3 below the IVs interact to such an extent that the effects of diffusion of responsibility are actually opposite in direction at the level of injury. More people will help if there are alone and the lady was hurt and It shows that the greater the bystander the greater the diffusion of responsibility and this will lead to a greater injury. Discussion Based from the result an individual who is alone is much more likely to help other people who are in need than those individual who are part of a group. It proves that Darley and Latané’s(1970, p.247) conclusion that diffusion of responsibility increases when an individual is in a group. The presence of others also sometimes hinders an individual who want to help to intervene (Latane, Nida & Wilson (1981). The personality characteristic of the victim and the whole situation can also be a factor when deciding whether to help or not. The study also proves that people who are older, females and who are seen hurt are likely to get some help from bystanders. The level of injury that a victim can get when there is one or more people saw her doesn’t affect at all. But the impact to the bystander differs because when a individual is alone and saw a victim hurt. There is a greater tendency for her to help the victim. But if an individual is with a group, there is a possibility that he will not help is high. This means that when individuals know that many others are present, then they as individuals do not bear the full burden of responsibility. They make the assumption that someone else must be taking care of that or surely someone must have done something by now (Social Influence – Diffusion of Responsibility, 2003). The continuing growth of diffusion of responsibility in the younger generation can be remedied through the help of seminars and continuous education in school and the members of the society. It is important to know how to judge on time of need. A further study on how to lessen the diffusion of responsibility among young people is a good research to focus on. References Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383. Latané, B & Darley J.M. (1970) The unresponsive bystander intervention in emergencies. Why doesn’t he help? New York.Appleton-Century-Crofts. Latané, B, NIdam S.A. & Wilson D.W. (1981) The effect of group size in helping behaviour. In J.P. Rushton & T,M, Sorrentino (eds) Altruism and helping behaviour. Social Personality and development perspective. Hillsdale, N.J: Erlbaum When Do People Help. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2007, from http://www.rpi.edu/~verwyc/oh12.htm Appendix A. The Qustionnaire Practical Experiment I am a student from Edinburgh University and I am conducting a study, which will involve you reading a short paragraph and putting your response down. Whatever you response is, it will treated confidentially. You can withdraw from the study at any time and you will be fully debriefed at the end of the investigation as to the purpose of the study. Scenario 1 A lady was walking in the street and a man rushed by her and grabbed her bag and in doing so, he knocked the lady down. If you were alone and the lady was not hurt, how likely would you be to help her? Tick your response in the scale below 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very unlikely Fairly unlikely Unlikely Likely Fairly likely Very likely Age: Gender: Scenario 2 A lady was walking in the street and a man rushed by her and grabbed her bag and in doing so, he knocked the lady down. If you were alone and the lady was hurt, how likely would you be to help her? Tick your response in the scale below 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very unlikely Fairly unlikely Unlikely Likely Fairly likely Very likely Age: Gender Scenario 3 A lady was walking in the street and a man rushed by her and grabbed her bag and in doing so, he knocked the lady down. If you were with a group and the lady was not hurt, how likely would you be to help her? Tick your response in the scale below 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very unlikely Fairly unlikely Unlikely Likely Fairly likely Very likely Age: Gender Scenario 4 A lady was walking in the street and a man rushed by her and grabbed her bag and in doing so, he knocked the lady down. If you were with a group and the lady was hurt, how likely would you be to help her? Tick your response in the scale below 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very unlikely Fairly unlikely Unlikely Likely Fairly likely Very likely Age: Gender Appendix B. The Raw Data DiffOfResp Injury Result Gender Age 1 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 19.00 Diffussion of Responsibilty 2 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 19.00 1.00 Alone   3 1.00 1.00 4.00 2.00 29.00 2.00 Group   4 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 35.00 5 1.00 1.00 6.00 1.00 21.00 6 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 24.00 level of injury   4 1.00 1.00 6.00 1.00 19.00 1.00 Hurt   8 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 39.00 2.00 Not Hurt   9 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 19.00 10 1.00 1.00 6.00 2.00 25.00 11 1.00 2.00 4.00 2.00 21.00 Result     12 1.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 25.00 1.00 very unlikely 13 1.00 2.00 6.00 2.00 25.00 2.00 Fairly Unlikely 14 1.00 2.00 6.00 2.00 23.00 3.00 unlikely   15 1.00 2.00 5.00 1.00 32.00 4.00 likely   16 1.00 2.00 4.00 1.00 31.00 5.00 Fairly likely 17 1.00 2.00 6.00 1.00 29.00 6.00 very likely   18 1.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 20.00 19 1.00 2.00 1.00 1.00 21.00 Gender     20 1.00 2.00 6.00 1.00 23.00 1.00 Male   21 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 19.00 2.00 Female   22 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 19.00 23 2.00 1.00 5.00 1.00 23.00 24 2.00 1.00 6.00 1.00 17.00 25 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 22.00 26 2.00 1.00 3.00 1.00 19.00 27 2.00 1.00 5.00 1.00 19.00 28 2.00 1.00 1.00 2.00 24.00 29 2.00 1.00 5.00 1.00 24.00 30 2.00 1.00 2.00 2.00 19.00 31 2.00 2.00 3.00 1.00 21.00 32 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 20.00 33 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.00 20.00 34 2.00 2.00 3.00 2.00 21.00 35 2.00 2.00 1.00 2.00 21.00 36 2.00 2.00 4.00 2.00 22.00 37 2.00 2.00 4.00 1.00 20.00 38 2.00 2.00 5.00 1.00 20.00 39 2.00 2.00 3.00 1.00 20.00 40 2.00 2.00 6.00 2.00 27.00 Average 22.90 Average of Age 22.90 = 23 years old No of Male 18 Male No of Female 22 Female Read More