McDonald’s patrons snap pics of choking tyke instead of helping her

[davidn3600]

2. Classic case of "Diffusion of responsibility"

Diffusion of responsibility[1] is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.[2] The phenomenon tends to occur in groups of people above a certain critical size and when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. It rarely occurs when the person is alone and diffusion increases with groups of three or more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

This is a real phenomenon. In fact when I took first-aid training recently, one of the first things you are supposed to do in an emergency is to ACTUALLY POINT TO SOMEONE and command them to call 911. The reason why is because you have now assigned that responsibility and that person is more likely to carry out the action. If you were to just yell "someone call 911," there is a chance nobody would.

A few years ago there was a surveillance video in the news where an old man fell in the street. People would walk by, cars would drive by, no one stopped to do anything until eventually a cop car happened to come by.