Baumeister Roy F, Chesner Stuart P, Senders Pamela S, Tice Dianne M
Case Western Reserve University.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 1988 Mar;14(1):17-22. doi: 10.1177/0146167288141002.
Past work has shown that bystanders often fail to help a victim in an emergency, because responsibility for helping diffuses over all the bystanders there. In the present experiment, subjects were exposed to a simulated emergency (a choking fit) that occurred in the course of a structured group interaction. Subjects who had been designated as subordinate group members for the experimental task generally failed to come to the victim's aid, consistent with past findings. Subjects who had been designated as group leaders were quite likely to intervene in the emergency, however, even though responding to the emergency meant violating the experimental instructions and thus nullifying their leadership role. The implication is that a leadership role functions as a generalized responsibility cue; so group leaders do not undergo diffusion of responsibility as much as subordinate group members.
过去的研究表明，在紧急情况下，旁观者常常未能帮助受害者，因为帮助的责任分散到了现场所有旁观者身上。在本实验中，受试者置身于一场在结构化小组互动过程中发生的模拟紧急情况（窒息发作）中。被指定为实验任务中从属组成员的受试者通常未能救助受害者，这与过去的研究结果一致。然而，被指定为组长的受试者很可能会干预这一紧急情况，尽管应对紧急情况意味着违反实验指示，从而使他们的领导角色失效。这意味着领导角色起到了一种普遍的责任提示作用；因此，组长不像从属组成员那样容易出现责任分散的情况。
