Diffusion of Responsibility

Diffusion of responsibility appeared as a term in social psychology papers written in the early 1960s, perhaps first by Wallach, Kogan, and Bem (1964). It refers to the idea that, in some contexts, individuals within a group are less (or report feeling less) responsible for actions that occur than if they had done the same action outside the group by themselves. In broad terms, there are fewer consequences to any one person in a group from what that group does than if an individual person had done the action alone. Keywords: diffusion of responsibility; responsibility; group behavior; juries; bystander intervention; atrocities; lynching; speaking out; war crimes; social loafing; deindividuation