"As per the failure to act, never underestimate the power of by-stander apathy, a real phenomenon where diffusion of responsibility allows most people to avoid acting by waiting until someone else acts. It's a proven phenomenon that the more people who are present, the less likely someone is to act."
This is an interesting idea. It sounds logical, but so too the idea that there is courage in numbers. Would you flesh this out some more please?
Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply until now.
As per by-stander apathy, it's a phenomenon where-by an individual is less likely to intervene in an emergency situation, the more other people are present. It's counter-intuitive, as you mention, but the effect has been reproduced and observed time after time.
It is believed that, where many people are present, the anonymity of the individual, coupled with his belief that others will act, reduces the psychological pressure on his/her ego to respond.
Hence, if an individual were the only one present while a woman was being beaten and mugged, he'd feel far more psychological pressure to intervene than, say, if it happened in the middle of a group with hundreds of people around.
The interesting thing about group/crowd dynamics is that it alters and effects behavior. It often compels individuals to do what they would not normally do, and not do what they normally would do. In a crowd, the individual begins taking directions from the group as a whole, a whole group-think phemonon takes place. That is why individuals in riots throw rocks and bottles, and generally act in ways they would not as individuals.
In the bystander apathy model, the crowd acts the opposite of the riot model, where each individual is waiting for a cue from the group, resulting in a delay of action or lack of action.
The key phenomenon are anonymity within the group and diffusion of responsibility. It has been suggested that the way to counter this phenomenon is to call out an individual within the group, thereby returning individual accountability and eliminating anonymity. This is similiar to how a riot is controlled, whereby less-lethal pain causing techniques are used to make the individual accountable by causing him pain, and making him start thinking as an individual again.
http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/ps19.html