Pluralistic Ignorance

Latane and Darley (1968) conducted an experiment where participants had to fill in a questionnaire in a room either alone or with two other people. While they were filling out the form steam (which was made to look like smoke) was made to pour through a vent in the wall. In the condition where participants were alone 75% reported the smoke, half of them within two minutes; in the condition where two other people were present only 38% reported the smoke. This means that 62% of people who were with other people carried on for 6 minutes, at which point they would have been unable to see the question paper!

In another study, Latane and Rodin had participants heard a loud crash from the next room and heard who they thought was a market research representative cry out "Oh my god, my foot... I can't move it" (they used a tape recording to ensure all participants recieved the same treatment). Participants who were alone reacted the fastest (70% within 65 seconds) along with pairs of friends; two strangers were less likely to react and were slow if they did; and when the participant was paired with a stooge who did not react at all, they were the least likely and slowest to react.







When participants were interviewed after these studies, they claimed that they did not want to show anxiety, so they looked how others were reacting; since others were calm, they regarded the situation as 'safe'. Latane and Rodin claimed that the participants behaviour was due to 'pluralistic ignorance' (Allport, 1924). Pluralistic ignorance exists when the majority of individuals within a group wrongly believe that the behaviour of other individuals is due to them having a different interpretation of the situation. In bystander behaviour people do not act because they do not wish to appear foolish to others because they believe that the other people percieve there to be an emergency. Pluralistic ignorance is an example of normative social influence because there is a discrepancy between private attitudes and actual behaviour.

Diffusion of Responsibility

If only one person is present when someone is in difficulty and they did not help, they would feel solely responsible for helping; whereas if more people are present, the responsibility is shared among them. Consequently, the more people that are present in such a situation, the less personally responsible those people feel: “someone else will help, so I do not need to”. This phenomenon of responsibility being shared among those present is called diffusion of responsibility.

Diffusion of Responsibility was investigated by Darley & Latane (1968). The aim of the study was to investigate whether rates of people would be less likely to help the greater the number of other people they believed to be present. Students acted as participants in this study. They were each led into a cubicle where they were asked to discuss their personal problems with 'other students' by speaking into a microphone. In fact, the other voices they heard were tape recordings. During the discussion, the participants heard one of the fake participants have a seizure (epileptic fit). The independent variable in the study was the number of participants the real participant believed were present, including themselves (either 1, 2 or 5).