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Beyond self-interest
Journal
of Economic
Behavior
and Organization
15 (1991)
187-200.
North-Holland
Beyond self-interest A reexamination settings
of neoclassical economics in group
Marilyn M. Helms and Ziad Keilany ‘Be University
of Tennessee at Chattanooga,
Received July 1989, final version received
Chattunooga, November
TN 37403, USA
1989
The new trend in economics seeks an alternative to the neoclassical model of behavior. The previous assumptions of utility maximization are unrealistic since they fail to account for the group context in which individuals operate. In this paper by using examples that depart from the traditional economic model of the utilitarian and individualistic behavior, it is possible to examine the effects of group size on individual behavior in a variety of situations. Examples and viewpoints from both organizational behavior and psychology indicate that it is possibIe to relax the economic neoclassical model and explain group behavior in an environment of altruistic behavior rather than one of self-interest.
1. intr~uction It is standard practice in economics to assume that society is made up of utility maximizing consumers and profit maximizing firms, since the ‘invisible hand’ results of general equilibrium can be derived from them. Such assumptions are unrealistic in that they fail to account for the group context in which economic agents operate. In recent years, several areas of economics have developed that relax these assumptions somewhat. These include the theory of household production in labor economics [Becker (1965), Gronau (1973), Mincer (1963)], theories of altruistic behavior in welfare economics [Amos (1982), Long (1976), Sen (1977), Schleifer and Summers (1985)], theories of group behavior in financial markets [Kindleberger (1978)] and theories of collusion in industrial organization. This paper is a contribution to this growing literature. An increase in group size has negative reactions on its members. Members of larger groups are less attracted to the group, experience greater tension, and are less satisfied than members of small groups. The influence of different-size groups is evident in the research on helping behavior [Hare (1981)]. This paper will identify the detrimental effects of increasing group size on bystander intervention. The first part of the paper will site back0167-2681/91/%03.50
0
1991-Elsevier
Science Publishers
B.V. (North-Holland)
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M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany, On neoclassical economics in group settings
ground events on group behavior, and review the organizational group research on altruism by Latane and Darley (1968) Darley and Latane (1968), and Latane and Rodin (1969). The paper will then review the recent economic research on the subject, and finally, managerial and economic implications for group behavior will be discussed.
2. Primary research 2.1. Background
injbrmation
A murder in 1964 in New York City sparked interest in bystander research. Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed to death in a residential area of New York City as she returned home from work, at 3.00a.m. The incident lasted over half an hour, during which time Kitty screamed and cried for help, and the murderer, after initially running away, returned to stab her again. Thirty-eight of her neighbors in Kew Gardens watched the attack from their apartments and no one attempted to intervene, go to her aid, or even cali the police. Interviews with the witnesses revealed that they were not apathetic. They were genuinely horrified, but still they had not helped [Latane and Darley (1970)]. The old adage that there is safety in numbers did not hold true for Kitty Genovese. The Kitty Genovese atrocity aroused public comment and considerable media attention. An example of the increasing alienation of modern man in contemporary society was the journalists’ report. Bibb Latane and John Darley proposed another explanation. No one had attempted to help simply because there were so many other people who were also watching the attack [Wheldall (1975)]. Other witnesses had rational and irrational fears about what might happen to a person who does intervene. People don’t want to get involved for fear of physical harm, public embarrassment, involvement with police procedures, lost work days, and other unknown dangers [Darley and Latane (1968)]. Etzioni (1988) points out that individuals also do not maximize their personal utility by a helping intervention. There could be harm or cost involved in helping so these individuals have no incentive to assist and could in fact experience dis-utility for their efforts. 2.1 .I. Diffusion of responsibility In this case above, each observer, by seeing lights and figures in other apartment windows, knew that others were also watching, but there was no way to tell how the others were reacting. Darley and Latane (1968) feel these two facts provide several reasons why a person may have failed to help. The responsibility for helping was diffused among the observers and there was also diffusion of any potential blame for not helping. Another possiblilty was that someone, unperceived, had already begun a helping action.
M.M. Helms and 2. Keilany, On neoclassical economics in group settings
189
When one bystander is present in an emergency, he must either help, since there is no one else to, or he will feel a pressure to help. When several observers are present, the pressure and responsibility to intervene is shared by all the onlookers and as a result, no one helps. The potential for blame is diffused in the group as well. Finally, one person may assume that another is helping and their intervention would only be redundant and confusing or even harmful. A bystander who can’t observe the actions of other onlookers can rationalize that ‘somebody else must be doing something’ so they in turn don’t intervene [Wheldall (19731. We could interpret the diffusion of responsibility as one of the explanations we put forward to account for risk decision making by groups. If only one person is on hand when help is required, it is his sole responsibility to help, but this decreases as the number of potential helpers increases. 2.1.2. Conformity The conformity explanation also can be used to explain the situation. Each individual was setting the appropriate behavior to follow - not helping. A person who helps in this situation would be going against the group. We are all seeking the reinforcement of social approval or at least trying to avoid social disapproval. Going against the group would not be reinforced and might be punished. 2.1.3. Uti1it.v This behavior could also be explained from an economic viewpoint in terms of utility. Individuals seek to maximize their utility, rationally choosing the best means to serve their goals. In this case their purpose is best served by not going against the group. This action could bring harm, causing the individual to experience dis-utility. Standard assumptions in economics (i.e., game equilibrium and game theoretic analyses of organizations and markets) assures that individual behavior is not conditioned by the group contexts.
2.2. Latane and Darley (1968) In their first experiment, Latane and Darley (1968) created an ambiguous but potentially dangerous situation and exposed each of a number of people to the situation either alone or together to observe their reactions. Male students from Columbia University were asked to take part in an interview about problems of urban life. After a subject began to work on the questionnaire for several minutes, smoke was introduced into the waiting room through a small vent in the wall. For the entire experimental period, or until the subject took action, the smoke continued to flow into the room and obscure vision and interfere with breathing. The typical subject, when alone, acted reasonably and responsibly.
190
M.M. Hrlms mul Z. Keilany,
On neoclassical
economics
in group settings
Seventy-live percent responded effectively to the situation. As predicted, subjects in groups were led by the apparent indifference to each other to decide that the smoke did not represent a dangerous fire and they did not react. 2.3. Darley and Latane (1968) To further test this hypothesis that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide aid, Darley and Latane (1968) set up a realistic ‘emergency’ to assess the speed and frequency of the subjects’ reaction. As predicted, the presence of bystanders reduced the individual’s feelings of persona1 responsibilities and lowered their speed of reporting to an overheard epileptic seizure. The situational forces of others present rather than apathy made the subjects hesitant to intervene. In this study, college students were persuaded to discuss problems of living and learning in an urban setting with other students. Each student was placed in a separate room and took turns in talking to others over an intercom system. There was only one real subject involved. The other ‘students’ were tape recorded voices. The recorded voices varied in number from either one, two, or five. The first recorded student mentioned he was prone to seizures during the initial round of discussion. When he began to speak again, he apparently experienced a seizure and called out for help. The independent variable was the size of the discussion group the subject thought he was in (two, three, or six persons) and the dependent variables were attempting to help by opening the door to the room and the time delay between hearing the attack and opening the door. The experiment was designed so that the onlookers to the seizure were isolated from one another and could not discuss how to deal effectively with the emergency. They knew the others could not see what they did nor could they see whether somebody else had already started to help. Of the subjects that thought they were the only person in contact with the victim, 85 percent opened their doors. Only 31 percent in the six person condition opened their doors and the three person group ranked between these two. Also subjects in the two-person condition responded fastest. Neither sex, personality, nor background influenced the helping behavior. Table 1, abstracted from Latane and Darley (1970), summarizes the effects of group size on the likelihood of reporting the emergency. Modifications of the experiment revealed that prior acquaintance with the victim increased the probability of the subject helping. This was performed experimentally by allowing the subject to ‘accidentally meet the victim just prior to the experiment. If two people who already knew each other are acting as subjects in the same group, there is also a greater likelihood of help
M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany, On neoclassical economics in group settings Table Effects of group
Group
1
size on likelihood
size
and speed of response.
N
Percent responding by end of tit
Percent ever responding
Time in seconds
13
85
100
52
3 (Subject, victim, and 1 other)
26
62
85
93
6 (Subject, victim, and 4 others)
13
31
62
166
2 (Subject
and victim)
191
being offered. Both of the variables seem to stem from the fact that failure to help will be observed by someone who knows them and might later lead to criticism. People tend to help if they think they will not get away with not helping and thus the intrinsic value of helping provides more utility than not helping.
2.4. Latane
and
Rodin (1969)
So many people feel safe surrounded by others that they won’t walk down deserted streets, ride on empty subway cars, or take lonley walks in dark parks. They prefer to go where others are or to stay at home. When faced with stress, most people are less afraid when they are in the presence of others than when they are alone. Studies prove that dogs are less likely to yelp when they face a strange situation with other dogs and rats are less likely to freeze when they are placed in an open field with other rats. Latane and Rodin (1969) suggests two reasons that people feel safe surrounded by others. The individuals are less likely to find themselves in trouble if there are others about, and even if they do find themselves in trouble, others are likely to help them deal with it. Their research studies urban emergencies and the difference in the social inhibition of friends as contrasted to strangers. The Kitty Genovese murder suggests that factors involving the immediate social environment may be of greater importance in determining an individual’s reaction to an emergency than due to the urbanization concept. The previous social inhibition effects demonstrated by Latane and Darley may explain why the failure to intervene seems to be more characteristic of large cities than rural areas. Another difference between urban and rural emergencies is that in urban emergencies, bystanders are not likely to know each other. Latane and Rodin (1969) believe the kinds of social inhibition and diffusion of responsibility generated by the presence of strangers may not arise from the oresence of friends. In their study, subjects were asked to participate in an irrelevant
study, and. while filling out a preliminary questionnaire, they were exposed to an emergency. They were tested alone, with a friend, or with a stranger, and their responses observed. The results of the experiment revealed that subjects in pairs were less likely to intervene than were single subjects. Also the presence of an unresponsive bystander strongly inhibited subjects from helping. Although pairs of friends were inhibited from helping when compared to the alone condition, they were significantly faster to intervene than were pairs of strangers. Their study focused on reactions to a lady in distress. College students were asked by a female investigator to fill in a questionnaire either alone or in pairs. A short time after leaving the room, the experimenter simulated an accident. Through an open door the subjects heard a tape recording of the woman climbing on to a chair, followed by a scream, a crash, and then moaning that she could not move her foot. Once again, the bystander hypothesis was supported. Seventy percent of those ‘witnessing’ the accident alone volunteered to help as compared to only 20 percent of the subjects in pairs. When faced with these findings, it is no longer a surprise that no one offered to help Kitty Genovese. She still serves as a chilling reminder, however, of what to expect if one suddeniy meets with an accident in view of a group of many people. 2.5. Model of the intervention process
If an individual is to intervene in an emergency or in any situation, he must make a series of decisions. The bystander is faced with a situation in which he can gain no benefit, unable to rely on past experience, on the experience of others, or on forethought and planning. He is denied the opportunity to carefully consider his course of action. It is not surprising that anyone in the unenviable position should intervene at ah. Bystanders in an emergency exeprience an avoidance-avoidance conflict, since there are also costs associated with not helping including embarrassment and guilt [Latane and Nida (198l)J Latane and Darley (1970) developed a series of decisions a person must make when he helps in an emergency. The cognitive and behavioral processes are as foilows: (I) (2) (3) (4) (5)
first the he must he must he must he must
bystander must notice something is happening, interpret it as an emergency, decide that it is his personal responsibility to act, next consider what form of assistance he can give, and decide how to implement his actions.
A bystander confronted
with an emergency is faced with a set of decisions
that must be made under threat, stress, and urgency. The overall decision depends upon the choices made all along the line. A negative decision at any step in this sequence will result in a failure to intervene.
3. Research on the helping behavior The research on helping behavior provides additional evidence concerning the influence of different-size groups. Although many studies of helping behavior involve field experiments in which an accomplice drops things in public or appears to be having difficulty changing a flat tire on a lonely road, the basic design is similar to the early -experiments recording the influence of the presence of a group on individual behavior [Hare (1981)]. The general findings from the research on helping behavior are that the larger the number of observers who are not helping someone in need of help, the less likely a subject is to help especially if the costs of helping are high. The kind of group involved and their relationship to the subject makes a difference in the likelihood of helping. Groups of friends in an emergency situation with communication possibilities appear to coordinate behavior so as to engage in helping with approximately the same probability as single individuals [Grofman (1974)]. As Hare (1981) specifies, the number of persons present in a group may tell us something about the average group behavior, but the cumulative effects of size may also be countered by the influence of some other variable with opposite effects on the social system under observation. Economists point to the power of self-interest to explain behavior, not only in the world of economists but in networks of personal and group relationships as well. However, Etzioni (1988) recognizes the addition of a moral basis for helping. This suggests that economic results that do not take group behavior into consideration may be misleading. 3.1. Altruism
and the cultural norm of helping
Fortunately, emergencies are uncommon events. The average person will encounter fewer than half a dozen in his lifetime. Unfortunately, when he does encounter one, he will have little direct experience dealing with it. It is surprising that anyone ever gets involved with an event that they are not directly involved in. Yet there is a strongly held cultural norm that individuals should act to relieve the stress of others [Latane and Darley (1968)]. Leeds (1963) believes the norm of giving or helping implies that one should want to give, not because of any anticipated returns but for its own value. Social vacuums, like accidents and emergencies, represent situations which provide an opportunity for altruism or, as it is sometimes referred to in economics, ‘moral utility’. Evidence of incidents of altruism or unselfish-
194
M.M.
Ilerms
trd
Z. Kc,iltrny,
On neoclassical
economics
in group
settings
ness nave been documented by Etzioni (1988) and Frank (1988). A person who aids a victim is under no obligation to do so. Once he begins, however, he is required by the laws of most states to continue helping until other aid arrives. Three factors are combined by Leeds (1963) to exemplify true altruism. First a person who engages in helping treats it as an end in itself. They gain pleasure from contributing to the welfare of others. Secondly, a person must give voluntarily beyond the call of duty. Finally, the helping behavior is judged as doing good by the recipient and spectators to the action. It would seem that the recipient of an altruistic act might in turn engage in such acts toward others since he was helped in time of need. A witness to an altruism might derive some sense of security from the knowledge that in time of need, he too might be helped by others. This chain reaction of helping, however, is not supported by research. Relevant observers may think that as long as altruists are about, there is no need to have concern for those who are in distress. Also, since altruism is voluntary, one cannot always depend on its regular occurrence. If we cannot rely on ‘fellow feeling’ to initiate help in emergencies, we might possibly be able to shame people into helping by refusing to let them get away with not helping. Wheldall (1975) believes the thing to do in an emergency requiring more than one person’s help is to pick someone out of the passers-by and demand their help, thus making it impossible for them to be able to ignore the need for help.
3.2. Sociul mhibition
of helping
Three soctat psychological ‘processes are necessary to account for the social inhibition of helping. The first process is audience inhibition. The bystander may run tne rusk of embarrassment if he misinterprets a non-emergency. Social intiluence aiso contributes since an individual looks to others to define an ambiguous helping situation. The inaction of others may lead a person to interpret the situation as less critical than it actually is or decide that inaction is the expected pattern of behavior [Latane and Darley (1970)]. The diffusion of responsibility and lack of direct benefit to the helper, as previously discussed, also are variables in inhibiition of helping.
3.3. Research
methodology
and variables
Major classes of variables have been examined within the context of the research on group size and helping in emergencies. Some variables include: nature of the incident, ambiguity of the helping situation, bystander characteristics, victim characteristics, and communication possibilities among bystanders [Latane and Nida (1981)]. Despite the wide diversity of variables
that have been manipulated, very few limitations have been found to the general conclusion that the individual’s probability of helping is lower when groups are involved than when persons witness an emergency alone.
3.3.1. Nature of the incident In testing the original experiments, investigators have devised experimental situations which in most cases have been credible and realistic representations of emergencies. Not only have bystanders in danger and victims in danger been studied, but non-emergency settings have been studied as well. In acts where a villain ‘has caused an emergency or committed an antisocial act, intervention involves getting another person, the villain, in trouble. A witness must choose between the rights of the victim and the rights of the perpetrator. In these cases, social inhibition was found. A number of studies providing relevant results have dealt with incidents that were not genuine emergencies. These non-emergency settings have yielded social inhibition effects as well. When others are present or believed to be so, people are less likely to answer the intercom or door, pick up pencils in an elevator, report a broken tape recording, help with a flat tire, or leave a tip in a restaurant. So the social inhibition appears to be a powerful phenomenon in both emergency and non-emergency situations [Petty, Harkins and Williams (1980)].
3.3.2. Ambiguity of the helping situation As Latane and Darley (1970) suggested, an ambiguous emergency is likely to lead bystanders to look to one another for help in defining the situation. If a bystander does not need to look to others, the group size effect should be reduced depending only on diffusion of responsibility. In a 1978 study, Solomon, Solomon and Stone found that when bystanders only heard an emergency, helping was significantly reduced in groups as compared with alone decisions. When the emergency was both seen and heard the differences were reduced.
3.3.3. Bystander characteristics The group size effect has been found repeatedly with both sexes and all age groups. Difference in helping behavior was found, however, in geographic regions. McKenna (1976) found rural residents were more likely to assist a stranded motorist than were urban residents. Studies by House and Wolf (1978) and Takooshian, Haber and Lucid0 (1977) have produced similar
196
M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany,
On neoclassical economics in group settings
results. Rushton (1978) found that the percentage of helping behavior decreases as urban density increases. Latane and Darley (1970) also suggested an inverse relationship between speed of helping and the size of the community in which the helper grew up. 3.3.4. Victim characteristics Little research has manipulated victim characteristics but some studies manipulated the number of victims present in an emergency. Latane and Darley (1970) found that compliance with minor requests, like telling the time of day, increased as a function of the number of requesters. Similarly, Wegner and Schaeffer (1978) found a ‘concentration of responsibility’ effect. Helping was greater when there were three victims than when there was only one. 3.3.5. Communication possibilities among bystanders An important variable affecting intervention is the communication possibilities that exist among bystanders. Each of the three psychological processes described by Latane and Darley (1970) to explain social inhibition involve different preconditions and channels of communication among the bystanders to be effective. For the audience inhibition to have an effect, other bystanders must be able to tell what an individual does. For the social influence to operate, the individual must be able to tell what other bystanders do. And the diffusion of responsibility does not require that anyone be aware of others’ actions - only that each individual believe that others are available to help. When communication is restricted, people are separated, and know of each other’s presence, 56 percent of the people in groups help. When full communication among bystanders is possible, the overall helping rate for persons in groups is only 36 percent. Grofman’s study (1974) supported these findings. He found that the probability of helping behavior taking place remained constant regardless of the number of bystanders in experiments involving non-communicating strangers. In experiments involving strangers in an emergency situation with communication possibilities, the probability of helping behavior declines as the number of bystanders increases. The more communication channels available, the greater the degree of inhibition. Latane and Nida (1981) state that when full communication is possible, not only are bystanders aware of each other’s presence, but they also can observe and be affected by each other’s reactions. 3.4. Induced con, etence Pantin and Carver (1982) proposed that by exposing people to information about treatment of medical emergencies, the bystander effect would decrease. For their experimentally-induced competence they exposed subjects to infor-
mation that related fairly specifically to a situation they later confronted. This manipulation included only exposure to the emergency-relevant information, and no subject was provided practice at dealing with emergencies. Female college students either did or did not watch a series of publicservice films on medical emergencies under the pretext of evaluating the films relative effectiveness. Three weeks later, subjects participated in an experiment in which an ostensible co-subject experienced a choking fit and then fell silent. Subjects who had not viewed the films were slower to respond if they believed themselves to be in a six-member group than if they believed themselves to be in a two-member group. In contrast, subjects who had viewed the films responded quickly regardless of perceived group size. Results from a six-week follow-up group indicated, however, that the induced competence was not permanent. As predicted, the ostensible presence of other bystanders at the emergency led to delayed responses among subjects who had received no pretreatment. Also consistent was bystander presence did not delay the responses of subjects who had just viewed the films. Thus the typical bystander effect is confirmed, but subjects with the induced competency manipulation do not exhibit the effect.
3.5. Social loafing Despite the great diversity of styles, settings, and techniques among the studies, social inhibition of helping is a remarkably consistent phenomenon. In their 1980 study, Petty, Harkins and Williams tested the effects of group size and member responsibility for tasks not requiring physical effort. The tendency for individuals to reduce their own efforts when others are available has been called ‘social loafing’ [Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979)]. Social loafing can also extend to purely cognitive tasks. This is important because there are many situations in which groups share responsibility in a cognitive rather than a physical task. An example of this process includes the election of president of the United States. If only one person had the responsibility for the selection, the decision would require a great deal of thought. However, when millions are responsible for the task, preparatory cognitive effort is minimal, and voter apathy and lack of awareness is prevalent. Petty, Harkins and Williams (1980) conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that persons process a stimulus less extensively when they are part of a group that is responsible for the task than when they are individually responsible. In each experiment the subjects were asked to evaluate an editorial, written by a journalism student, either alone or in a group. Their study proved that increasing the number of persons responsible for a cognitive task, such as an evaluation of some stimulus, decreases the
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M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany, On nrothssiud
economics in group settings
amount of thought each individual gives. The group evaluators actually generated fewer thoughts consistent with the quality of the stimulus than did the individual evaluators. Subjects are apparently less willing to engage in the effortful cognitive processing of a stimulus when they share the responsibility for the task with others than when they alone are responsible for the cognitive work. Another study on social loafing related group size implications to organizations and society. Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979) conducted studies to examine the extent and generalizability of the group effect on work and its implications for a society based largely on principles of collective action. The common belief is that when people get together in work, the team spirit spurs individual effort and enhances the productivity of all. However, it appears that when people work or help in groups, individual productivity declines. Cheering and clapping were measured in a group of studies. Both tasks are moderately tiring activities that people commonly perform together in social settings. The results indicated that when people clap or cheer together, the sound pressure generated per person decreases as group size increases. The tindings have implications for society and organizations as well. People may work less hard in groups and this social loafing may be a contributing factor in the recent decline of labor productivity in America [Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979)]. The social loafing and diffusion of responsibility in groups is supported in numerous studies. In the postexperimental interviews of some experiments, subjects were asked whether they had been influenced by the presence of other people. No matter how the questions were asked, the answers were the same. Subjects persistently claimed that their behavior was not influenced by the other people present. This denial occurred in the face of results showing that the presence of others did inhibit helping. Conformity too causes people to fail to help in situations. People will not admit they conform and seem genuinely unaware of the various ways in which they are influenced in their definitions of physical and social realities by the presence and behavior of other people [Latane and Darley (1970)]. No direct guidelines or steps for group work in organizations can be enumerated from the bystander behavior exhibited in emergencies. But the underlying concepts of conformity, social loafing, and responsibility diffusion can be seen in some group processes. In emergencies and work settings, if people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they can better overcome them. 4. Conclusion In this paper,
by using examples
that depart
from the traditional
economic
M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany, On neoclassical economics in group settings
199
model of the utilitarian and individualistic behavior, the authors attempt to shed light on the effects of group size on individual behavior in a variety of situations. By doing so, we hope to have contributed to the new trend which seeks an alternative to the neoclassical model by examining the various ramifications of individual intervention. As Etzioni (1988) suggests, researchers who study economic behavior should abandon the assumption of a mono-utility world. We should recognize pleasure and morality as a source of utility. Individuals often face problems or emergency situations that cannot be solved by rational action. These situations will often require a commitment to behavior that may be contrary to their own maximum utility or self-interest. Economists must work to determine how these group effects can be modelled and to address the implications of altruism in group settings.
References Amos, Orley M., Jr., 1982, Empirical analysis of motives underlying individual contributions to charity, Atlantic Economic Journal 10, 45-52. Becker, Gary, 1965, A theory of the allocation of time, Economic Journal 75, 512. Darley, John M. and Bibb Latane, 1968, Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, no. 4, 377-383. Etzioni, Amitai, 1988, The moral dimension: Toward a new economics (The Free Press, New York). Frank, Robert H., 1988, Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions (W.W. Norton & Co., New York). Grofman, B., 1974, Helping behavior and group size: Some exploratory stochastic models, Behavioral Scientists 19, 21&224. Gronau, Reuben, 1973, The intra-family allocation of time: The value of the housewife’s time, American Economic Review 63, no. 4, Sept., 634651. Hare, A.P., 1981, Group size, American Behavioral Scientist 24, no. 5, 695-708. House, J.S. and S. Wolf, 1978, Effects of urban residence on interpersonal trust and helping behavior, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, 1029-1043. Kindleberger, Charles, 1978, Manias, panics and crashes (Basic Books, New York). Latane, Bibb and John M. Darley, 1968, Group inhibition of bystander intervention in emergencies, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10, no. 3, 215-221. Latane, Bibb and John M. Darley, 1970, The unresponsible bystander: Why doesn’t he help? (Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York). Latane, Bibb and Steve Nida, 1981, Ten years of research on group size and helping, Psychological Bulletin 89, no. 2, 308-324. Latane, Bibb and Judith Rodin, 1969, A lady in distress: Inhibiting effects of friends and strangers on bystander intervention, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 5, 189-202. Latane, Bibb, Kipling Williams and Steve Harkins, 1979, Social loafing, Psychology Today 13, no. 5, 104110. Leeds, R., 1963, Altruism and the norm of giving, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 9, 229-240. Long, Stephen, 1976, Social pressure and contributions to health charities, Public Choice 31, Winter, 55-66. McGuire, Martin, 1974, Group size, group homogeneity, and the aggregate provision of a pure public good under Cournot behavior, Public Choice 18, Summer, 107-126. McKenna, R.H., 1976, Good Samaritanism in rural and urban settings: A nonreactive comparison of helping behavior of clergy and control subjects, Representative Research in Social Psychology 7, 58-65.
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Mincer, Jacob, 1963, Market prices, opportunity costs, and income effects, in: C. Christ et al., eds., Measurement in economics: Studies in mathematical economics and econometrics in memory of Yehuda Grunfeld (Stanford University Press). Pantin, Hilda M. and Charles S. Carver, 1982, Induced competence and the bystander effect, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 12, no. 2, 100-l 11. Petty, Richard E., Stephen G. Harkins and Kipling D. Williams, 1980, The effects of group diffusion of cognitive effort on attitudes, An information-processing view, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38, no. 1, 81-92. Rushton, J.P., 1978, Urban density and altruism: Helping strangers in a Canadian city, suburb and small town, Psychological Reports 43, 987-990. Schleifer, Andrei and Lawrence Summers, 1985, The strategic bequest motive, Journal of Political Economy 93, Dec., 1045-1076. Sen, Amartya, 1977, Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6, Summer, 317-344. Solomon, L.Z., H. Solomon and R. Stone, 1978, Helping as a function of number of bystanders and ambiguity of emergency, Personality and Socal Psychology Bulletin 4, 318-321. Takooshian, H., S. Haber and D.J. Lucido, 1977, Who wouldn’t help a lost child? You maybe, Psycholoy Today 88, no. 9, 67768. Wegner, D.M. and D. Schaefer, 1978, The concentration of responsibility: An objective selfawareness analysis of group size effects in helping situations, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, 1477155 Wheldall, Kevin, 1975, Social behavior (Methuen & Co. Ltd., London).
of Economic
Behavior
and Organization
15 (1991)
187-200.
North-Holland
Beyond self-interest A reexamination settings
of neoclassical economics in group
Marilyn M. Helms and Ziad Keilany ‘Be University
of Tennessee at Chattanooga,
Received July 1989, final version received
Chattunooga, November
TN 37403, USA
1989
The new trend in economics seeks an alternative to the neoclassical model of behavior. The previous assumptions of utility maximization are unrealistic since they fail to account for the group context in which individuals operate. In this paper by using examples that depart from the traditional economic model of the utilitarian and individualistic behavior, it is possible to examine the effects of group size on individual behavior in a variety of situations. Examples and viewpoints from both organizational behavior and psychology indicate that it is possibIe to relax the economic neoclassical model and explain group behavior in an environment of altruistic behavior rather than one of self-interest.
1. intr~uction It is standard practice in economics to assume that society is made up of utility maximizing consumers and profit maximizing firms, since the ‘invisible hand’ results of general equilibrium can be derived from them. Such assumptions are unrealistic in that they fail to account for the group context in which economic agents operate. In recent years, several areas of economics have developed that relax these assumptions somewhat. These include the theory of household production in labor economics [Becker (1965), Gronau (1973), Mincer (1963)], theories of altruistic behavior in welfare economics [Amos (1982), Long (1976), Sen (1977), Schleifer and Summers (1985)], theories of group behavior in financial markets [Kindleberger (1978)] and theories of collusion in industrial organization. This paper is a contribution to this growing literature. An increase in group size has negative reactions on its members. Members of larger groups are less attracted to the group, experience greater tension, and are less satisfied than members of small groups. The influence of different-size groups is evident in the research on helping behavior [Hare (1981)]. This paper will identify the detrimental effects of increasing group size on bystander intervention. The first part of the paper will site back0167-2681/91/%03.50
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1991-Elsevier
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B.V. (North-Holland)
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ground events on group behavior, and review the organizational group research on altruism by Latane and Darley (1968) Darley and Latane (1968), and Latane and Rodin (1969). The paper will then review the recent economic research on the subject, and finally, managerial and economic implications for group behavior will be discussed.
2. Primary research 2.1. Background
injbrmation
A murder in 1964 in New York City sparked interest in bystander research. Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed to death in a residential area of New York City as she returned home from work, at 3.00a.m. The incident lasted over half an hour, during which time Kitty screamed and cried for help, and the murderer, after initially running away, returned to stab her again. Thirty-eight of her neighbors in Kew Gardens watched the attack from their apartments and no one attempted to intervene, go to her aid, or even cali the police. Interviews with the witnesses revealed that they were not apathetic. They were genuinely horrified, but still they had not helped [Latane and Darley (1970)]. The old adage that there is safety in numbers did not hold true for Kitty Genovese. The Kitty Genovese atrocity aroused public comment and considerable media attention. An example of the increasing alienation of modern man in contemporary society was the journalists’ report. Bibb Latane and John Darley proposed another explanation. No one had attempted to help simply because there were so many other people who were also watching the attack [Wheldall (1975)]. Other witnesses had rational and irrational fears about what might happen to a person who does intervene. People don’t want to get involved for fear of physical harm, public embarrassment, involvement with police procedures, lost work days, and other unknown dangers [Darley and Latane (1968)]. Etzioni (1988) points out that individuals also do not maximize their personal utility by a helping intervention. There could be harm or cost involved in helping so these individuals have no incentive to assist and could in fact experience dis-utility for their efforts. 2.1 .I. Diffusion of responsibility In this case above, each observer, by seeing lights and figures in other apartment windows, knew that others were also watching, but there was no way to tell how the others were reacting. Darley and Latane (1968) feel these two facts provide several reasons why a person may have failed to help. The responsibility for helping was diffused among the observers and there was also diffusion of any potential blame for not helping. Another possiblilty was that someone, unperceived, had already begun a helping action.
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When one bystander is present in an emergency, he must either help, since there is no one else to, or he will feel a pressure to help. When several observers are present, the pressure and responsibility to intervene is shared by all the onlookers and as a result, no one helps. The potential for blame is diffused in the group as well. Finally, one person may assume that another is helping and their intervention would only be redundant and confusing or even harmful. A bystander who can’t observe the actions of other onlookers can rationalize that ‘somebody else must be doing something’ so they in turn don’t intervene [Wheldall (19731. We could interpret the diffusion of responsibility as one of the explanations we put forward to account for risk decision making by groups. If only one person is on hand when help is required, it is his sole responsibility to help, but this decreases as the number of potential helpers increases. 2.1.2. Conformity The conformity explanation also can be used to explain the situation. Each individual was setting the appropriate behavior to follow - not helping. A person who helps in this situation would be going against the group. We are all seeking the reinforcement of social approval or at least trying to avoid social disapproval. Going against the group would not be reinforced and might be punished. 2.1.3. Uti1it.v This behavior could also be explained from an economic viewpoint in terms of utility. Individuals seek to maximize their utility, rationally choosing the best means to serve their goals. In this case their purpose is best served by not going against the group. This action could bring harm, causing the individual to experience dis-utility. Standard assumptions in economics (i.e., game equilibrium and game theoretic analyses of organizations and markets) assures that individual behavior is not conditioned by the group contexts.
2.2. Latane and Darley (1968) In their first experiment, Latane and Darley (1968) created an ambiguous but potentially dangerous situation and exposed each of a number of people to the situation either alone or together to observe their reactions. Male students from Columbia University were asked to take part in an interview about problems of urban life. After a subject began to work on the questionnaire for several minutes, smoke was introduced into the waiting room through a small vent in the wall. For the entire experimental period, or until the subject took action, the smoke continued to flow into the room and obscure vision and interfere with breathing. The typical subject, when alone, acted reasonably and responsibly.
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Seventy-live percent responded effectively to the situation. As predicted, subjects in groups were led by the apparent indifference to each other to decide that the smoke did not represent a dangerous fire and they did not react. 2.3. Darley and Latane (1968) To further test this hypothesis that the more bystanders to an emergency, the less likely, or the more slowly, any one bystander will intervene to provide aid, Darley and Latane (1968) set up a realistic ‘emergency’ to assess the speed and frequency of the subjects’ reaction. As predicted, the presence of bystanders reduced the individual’s feelings of persona1 responsibilities and lowered their speed of reporting to an overheard epileptic seizure. The situational forces of others present rather than apathy made the subjects hesitant to intervene. In this study, college students were persuaded to discuss problems of living and learning in an urban setting with other students. Each student was placed in a separate room and took turns in talking to others over an intercom system. There was only one real subject involved. The other ‘students’ were tape recorded voices. The recorded voices varied in number from either one, two, or five. The first recorded student mentioned he was prone to seizures during the initial round of discussion. When he began to speak again, he apparently experienced a seizure and called out for help. The independent variable was the size of the discussion group the subject thought he was in (two, three, or six persons) and the dependent variables were attempting to help by opening the door to the room and the time delay between hearing the attack and opening the door. The experiment was designed so that the onlookers to the seizure were isolated from one another and could not discuss how to deal effectively with the emergency. They knew the others could not see what they did nor could they see whether somebody else had already started to help. Of the subjects that thought they were the only person in contact with the victim, 85 percent opened their doors. Only 31 percent in the six person condition opened their doors and the three person group ranked between these two. Also subjects in the two-person condition responded fastest. Neither sex, personality, nor background influenced the helping behavior. Table 1, abstracted from Latane and Darley (1970), summarizes the effects of group size on the likelihood of reporting the emergency. Modifications of the experiment revealed that prior acquaintance with the victim increased the probability of the subject helping. This was performed experimentally by allowing the subject to ‘accidentally meet the victim just prior to the experiment. If two people who already knew each other are acting as subjects in the same group, there is also a greater likelihood of help
M.M. Helms and Z. Keilany, On neoclassical economics in group settings Table Effects of group
Group
1
size on likelihood
size
and speed of response.
N
Percent responding by end of tit
Percent ever responding
Time in seconds
13
85
100
52
3 (Subject, victim, and 1 other)
26
62
85
93
6 (Subject, victim, and 4 others)
13
31
62
166
2 (Subject
and victim)
191
being offered. Both of the variables seem to stem from the fact that failure to help will be observed by someone who knows them and might later lead to criticism. People tend to help if they think they will not get away with not helping and thus the intrinsic value of helping provides more utility than not helping.
2.4. Latane
and
Rodin (1969)
So many people feel safe surrounded by others that they won’t walk down deserted streets, ride on empty subway cars, or take lonley walks in dark parks. They prefer to go where others are or to stay at home. When faced with stress, most people are less afraid when they are in the presence of others than when they are alone. Studies prove that dogs are less likely to yelp when they face a strange situation with other dogs and rats are less likely to freeze when they are placed in an open field with other rats. Latane and Rodin (1969) suggests two reasons that people feel safe surrounded by others. The individuals are less likely to find themselves in trouble if there are others about, and even if they do find themselves in trouble, others are likely to help them deal with it. Their research studies urban emergencies and the difference in the social inhibition of friends as contrasted to strangers. The Kitty Genovese murder suggests that factors involving the immediate social environment may be of greater importance in determining an individual’s reaction to an emergency than due to the urbanization concept. The previous social inhibition effects demonstrated by Latane and Darley may explain why the failure to intervene seems to be more characteristic of large cities than rural areas. Another difference between urban and rural emergencies is that in urban emergencies, bystanders are not likely to know each other. Latane and Rodin (1969) believe the kinds of social inhibition and diffusion of responsibility generated by the presence of strangers may not arise from the oresence of friends. In their study, subjects were asked to participate in an irrelevant
study, and. while filling out a preliminary questionnaire, they were exposed to an emergency. They were tested alone, with a friend, or with a stranger, and their responses observed. The results of the experiment revealed that subjects in pairs were less likely to intervene than were single subjects. Also the presence of an unresponsive bystander strongly inhibited subjects from helping. Although pairs of friends were inhibited from helping when compared to the alone condition, they were significantly faster to intervene than were pairs of strangers. Their study focused on reactions to a lady in distress. College students were asked by a female investigator to fill in a questionnaire either alone or in pairs. A short time after leaving the room, the experimenter simulated an accident. Through an open door the subjects heard a tape recording of the woman climbing on to a chair, followed by a scream, a crash, and then moaning that she could not move her foot. Once again, the bystander hypothesis was supported. Seventy percent of those ‘witnessing’ the accident alone volunteered to help as compared to only 20 percent of the subjects in pairs. When faced with these findings, it is no longer a surprise that no one offered to help Kitty Genovese. She still serves as a chilling reminder, however, of what to expect if one suddeniy meets with an accident in view of a group of many people. 2.5. Model of the intervention process
If an individual is to intervene in an emergency or in any situation, he must make a series of decisions. The bystander is faced with a situation in which he can gain no benefit, unable to rely on past experience, on the experience of others, or on forethought and planning. He is denied the opportunity to carefully consider his course of action. It is not surprising that anyone in the unenviable position should intervene at ah. Bystanders in an emergency exeprience an avoidance-avoidance conflict, since there are also costs associated with not helping including embarrassment and guilt [Latane and Nida (198l)J Latane and Darley (1970) developed a series of decisions a person must make when he helps in an emergency. The cognitive and behavioral processes are as foilows: (I) (2) (3) (4) (5)
first the he must he must he must he must
bystander must notice something is happening, interpret it as an emergency, decide that it is his personal responsibility to act, next consider what form of assistance he can give, and decide how to implement his actions.
A bystander confronted
with an emergency is faced with a set of decisions
that must be made under threat, stress, and urgency. The overall decision depends upon the choices made all along the line. A negative decision at any step in this sequence will result in a failure to intervene.
3. Research on the helping behavior The research on helping behavior provides additional evidence concerning the influence of different-size groups. Although many studies of helping behavior involve field experiments in which an accomplice drops things in public or appears to be having difficulty changing a flat tire on a lonely road, the basic design is similar to the early -experiments recording the influence of the presence of a group on individual behavior [Hare (1981)]. The general findings from the research on helping behavior are that the larger the number of observers who are not helping someone in need of help, the less likely a subject is to help especially if the costs of helping are high. The kind of group involved and their relationship to the subject makes a difference in the likelihood of helping. Groups of friends in an emergency situation with communication possibilities appear to coordinate behavior so as to engage in helping with approximately the same probability as single individuals [Grofman (1974)]. As Hare (1981) specifies, the number of persons present in a group may tell us something about the average group behavior, but the cumulative effects of size may also be countered by the influence of some other variable with opposite effects on the social system under observation. Economists point to the power of self-interest to explain behavior, not only in the world of economists but in networks of personal and group relationships as well. However, Etzioni (1988) recognizes the addition of a moral basis for helping. This suggests that economic results that do not take group behavior into consideration may be misleading. 3.1. Altruism
and the cultural norm of helping
Fortunately, emergencies are uncommon events. The average person will encounter fewer than half a dozen in his lifetime. Unfortunately, when he does encounter one, he will have little direct experience dealing with it. It is surprising that anyone ever gets involved with an event that they are not directly involved in. Yet there is a strongly held cultural norm that individuals should act to relieve the stress of others [Latane and Darley (1968)]. Leeds (1963) believes the norm of giving or helping implies that one should want to give, not because of any anticipated returns but for its own value. Social vacuums, like accidents and emergencies, represent situations which provide an opportunity for altruism or, as it is sometimes referred to in economics, ‘moral utility’. Evidence of incidents of altruism or unselfish-
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ness nave been documented by Etzioni (1988) and Frank (1988). A person who aids a victim is under no obligation to do so. Once he begins, however, he is required by the laws of most states to continue helping until other aid arrives. Three factors are combined by Leeds (1963) to exemplify true altruism. First a person who engages in helping treats it as an end in itself. They gain pleasure from contributing to the welfare of others. Secondly, a person must give voluntarily beyond the call of duty. Finally, the helping behavior is judged as doing good by the recipient and spectators to the action. It would seem that the recipient of an altruistic act might in turn engage in such acts toward others since he was helped in time of need. A witness to an altruism might derive some sense of security from the knowledge that in time of need, he too might be helped by others. This chain reaction of helping, however, is not supported by research. Relevant observers may think that as long as altruists are about, there is no need to have concern for those who are in distress. Also, since altruism is voluntary, one cannot always depend on its regular occurrence. If we cannot rely on ‘fellow feeling’ to initiate help in emergencies, we might possibly be able to shame people into helping by refusing to let them get away with not helping. Wheldall (1975) believes the thing to do in an emergency requiring more than one person’s help is to pick someone out of the passers-by and demand their help, thus making it impossible for them to be able to ignore the need for help.
3.2. Sociul mhibition
of helping
Three soctat psychological ‘processes are necessary to account for the social inhibition of helping. The first process is audience inhibition. The bystander may run tne rusk of embarrassment if he misinterprets a non-emergency. Social intiluence aiso contributes since an individual looks to others to define an ambiguous helping situation. The inaction of others may lead a person to interpret the situation as less critical than it actually is or decide that inaction is the expected pattern of behavior [Latane and Darley (1970)]. The diffusion of responsibility and lack of direct benefit to the helper, as previously discussed, also are variables in inhibiition of helping.
3.3. Research
methodology
and variables
Major classes of variables have been examined within the context of the research on group size and helping in emergencies. Some variables include: nature of the incident, ambiguity of the helping situation, bystander characteristics, victim characteristics, and communication possibilities among bystanders [Latane and Nida (1981)]. Despite the wide diversity of variables
that have been manipulated, very few limitations have been found to the general conclusion that the individual’s probability of helping is lower when groups are involved than when persons witness an emergency alone.
3.3.1. Nature of the incident In testing the original experiments, investigators have devised experimental situations which in most cases have been credible and realistic representations of emergencies. Not only have bystanders in danger and victims in danger been studied, but non-emergency settings have been studied as well. In acts where a villain ‘has caused an emergency or committed an antisocial act, intervention involves getting another person, the villain, in trouble. A witness must choose between the rights of the victim and the rights of the perpetrator. In these cases, social inhibition was found. A number of studies providing relevant results have dealt with incidents that were not genuine emergencies. These non-emergency settings have yielded social inhibition effects as well. When others are present or believed to be so, people are less likely to answer the intercom or door, pick up pencils in an elevator, report a broken tape recording, help with a flat tire, or leave a tip in a restaurant. So the social inhibition appears to be a powerful phenomenon in both emergency and non-emergency situations [Petty, Harkins and Williams (1980)].
3.3.2. Ambiguity of the helping situation As Latane and Darley (1970) suggested, an ambiguous emergency is likely to lead bystanders to look to one another for help in defining the situation. If a bystander does not need to look to others, the group size effect should be reduced depending only on diffusion of responsibility. In a 1978 study, Solomon, Solomon and Stone found that when bystanders only heard an emergency, helping was significantly reduced in groups as compared with alone decisions. When the emergency was both seen and heard the differences were reduced.
3.3.3. Bystander characteristics The group size effect has been found repeatedly with both sexes and all age groups. Difference in helping behavior was found, however, in geographic regions. McKenna (1976) found rural residents were more likely to assist a stranded motorist than were urban residents. Studies by House and Wolf (1978) and Takooshian, Haber and Lucid0 (1977) have produced similar
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results. Rushton (1978) found that the percentage of helping behavior decreases as urban density increases. Latane and Darley (1970) also suggested an inverse relationship between speed of helping and the size of the community in which the helper grew up. 3.3.4. Victim characteristics Little research has manipulated victim characteristics but some studies manipulated the number of victims present in an emergency. Latane and Darley (1970) found that compliance with minor requests, like telling the time of day, increased as a function of the number of requesters. Similarly, Wegner and Schaeffer (1978) found a ‘concentration of responsibility’ effect. Helping was greater when there were three victims than when there was only one. 3.3.5. Communication possibilities among bystanders An important variable affecting intervention is the communication possibilities that exist among bystanders. Each of the three psychological processes described by Latane and Darley (1970) to explain social inhibition involve different preconditions and channels of communication among the bystanders to be effective. For the audience inhibition to have an effect, other bystanders must be able to tell what an individual does. For the social influence to operate, the individual must be able to tell what other bystanders do. And the diffusion of responsibility does not require that anyone be aware of others’ actions - only that each individual believe that others are available to help. When communication is restricted, people are separated, and know of each other’s presence, 56 percent of the people in groups help. When full communication among bystanders is possible, the overall helping rate for persons in groups is only 36 percent. Grofman’s study (1974) supported these findings. He found that the probability of helping behavior taking place remained constant regardless of the number of bystanders in experiments involving non-communicating strangers. In experiments involving strangers in an emergency situation with communication possibilities, the probability of helping behavior declines as the number of bystanders increases. The more communication channels available, the greater the degree of inhibition. Latane and Nida (1981) state that when full communication is possible, not only are bystanders aware of each other’s presence, but they also can observe and be affected by each other’s reactions. 3.4. Induced con, etence Pantin and Carver (1982) proposed that by exposing people to information about treatment of medical emergencies, the bystander effect would decrease. For their experimentally-induced competence they exposed subjects to infor-
mation that related fairly specifically to a situation they later confronted. This manipulation included only exposure to the emergency-relevant information, and no subject was provided practice at dealing with emergencies. Female college students either did or did not watch a series of publicservice films on medical emergencies under the pretext of evaluating the films relative effectiveness. Three weeks later, subjects participated in an experiment in which an ostensible co-subject experienced a choking fit and then fell silent. Subjects who had not viewed the films were slower to respond if they believed themselves to be in a six-member group than if they believed themselves to be in a two-member group. In contrast, subjects who had viewed the films responded quickly regardless of perceived group size. Results from a six-week follow-up group indicated, however, that the induced competence was not permanent. As predicted, the ostensible presence of other bystanders at the emergency led to delayed responses among subjects who had received no pretreatment. Also consistent was bystander presence did not delay the responses of subjects who had just viewed the films. Thus the typical bystander effect is confirmed, but subjects with the induced competency manipulation do not exhibit the effect.
3.5. Social loafing Despite the great diversity of styles, settings, and techniques among the studies, social inhibition of helping is a remarkably consistent phenomenon. In their 1980 study, Petty, Harkins and Williams tested the effects of group size and member responsibility for tasks not requiring physical effort. The tendency for individuals to reduce their own efforts when others are available has been called ‘social loafing’ [Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979)]. Social loafing can also extend to purely cognitive tasks. This is important because there are many situations in which groups share responsibility in a cognitive rather than a physical task. An example of this process includes the election of president of the United States. If only one person had the responsibility for the selection, the decision would require a great deal of thought. However, when millions are responsible for the task, preparatory cognitive effort is minimal, and voter apathy and lack of awareness is prevalent. Petty, Harkins and Williams (1980) conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that persons process a stimulus less extensively when they are part of a group that is responsible for the task than when they are individually responsible. In each experiment the subjects were asked to evaluate an editorial, written by a journalism student, either alone or in a group. Their study proved that increasing the number of persons responsible for a cognitive task, such as an evaluation of some stimulus, decreases the
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amount of thought each individual gives. The group evaluators actually generated fewer thoughts consistent with the quality of the stimulus than did the individual evaluators. Subjects are apparently less willing to engage in the effortful cognitive processing of a stimulus when they share the responsibility for the task with others than when they alone are responsible for the cognitive work. Another study on social loafing related group size implications to organizations and society. Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979) conducted studies to examine the extent and generalizability of the group effect on work and its implications for a society based largely on principles of collective action. The common belief is that when people get together in work, the team spirit spurs individual effort and enhances the productivity of all. However, it appears that when people work or help in groups, individual productivity declines. Cheering and clapping were measured in a group of studies. Both tasks are moderately tiring activities that people commonly perform together in social settings. The results indicated that when people clap or cheer together, the sound pressure generated per person decreases as group size increases. The tindings have implications for society and organizations as well. People may work less hard in groups and this social loafing may be a contributing factor in the recent decline of labor productivity in America [Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979)]. The social loafing and diffusion of responsibility in groups is supported in numerous studies. In the postexperimental interviews of some experiments, subjects were asked whether they had been influenced by the presence of other people. No matter how the questions were asked, the answers were the same. Subjects persistently claimed that their behavior was not influenced by the other people present. This denial occurred in the face of results showing that the presence of others did inhibit helping. Conformity too causes people to fail to help in situations. People will not admit they conform and seem genuinely unaware of the various ways in which they are influenced in their definitions of physical and social realities by the presence and behavior of other people [Latane and Darley (1970)]. No direct guidelines or steps for group work in organizations can be enumerated from the bystander behavior exhibited in emergencies. But the underlying concepts of conformity, social loafing, and responsibility diffusion can be seen in some group processes. In emergencies and work settings, if people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they can better overcome them. 4. Conclusion In this paper,
by using examples
that depart
from the traditional
economic
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model of the utilitarian and individualistic behavior, the authors attempt to shed light on the effects of group size on individual behavior in a variety of situations. By doing so, we hope to have contributed to the new trend which seeks an alternative to the neoclassical model by examining the various ramifications of individual intervention. As Etzioni (1988) suggests, researchers who study economic behavior should abandon the assumption of a mono-utility world. We should recognize pleasure and morality as a source of utility. Individuals often face problems or emergency situations that cannot be solved by rational action. These situations will often require a commitment to behavior that may be contrary to their own maximum utility or self-interest. Economists must work to determine how these group effects can be modelled and to address the implications of altruism in group settings.
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Mincer, Jacob, 1963, Market prices, opportunity costs, and income effects, in: C. Christ et al., eds., Measurement in economics: Studies in mathematical economics and econometrics in memory of Yehuda Grunfeld (Stanford University Press). Pantin, Hilda M. and Charles S. Carver, 1982, Induced competence and the bystander effect, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 12, no. 2, 100-l 11. Petty, Richard E., Stephen G. Harkins and Kipling D. Williams, 1980, The effects of group diffusion of cognitive effort on attitudes, An information-processing view, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38, no. 1, 81-92. Rushton, J.P., 1978, Urban density and altruism: Helping strangers in a Canadian city, suburb and small town, Psychological Reports 43, 987-990. Schleifer, Andrei and Lawrence Summers, 1985, The strategic bequest motive, Journal of Political Economy 93, Dec., 1045-1076. Sen, Amartya, 1977, Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory, Philosophy and Public Affairs 6, Summer, 317-344. Solomon, L.Z., H. Solomon and R. Stone, 1978, Helping as a function of number of bystanders and ambiguity of emergency, Personality and Socal Psychology Bulletin 4, 318-321. Takooshian, H., S. Haber and D.J. Lucido, 1977, Who wouldn’t help a lost child? You maybe, Psycholoy Today 88, no. 9, 67768. Wegner, D.M. and D. Schaefer, 1978, The concentration of responsibility: An objective selfawareness analysis of group size effects in helping situations, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, 1477155 Wheldall, Kevin, 1975, Social behavior (Methuen & Co. Ltd., London).