Whoever engages with a problem becomes blamable for it, while those who ignored it entirely are not, which penalises partial help.
The consequence is perverse and easy to verify: an employer who pays a low wage in a poor country is criticised, while one who employs nobody there is not mentioned. Partial engagement is judged against the ideal and non-engagement against nothing, so the safe position is to stay away from the problem entirely.
In practice
- A company that discloses a problem it found is treated worse than one that never looked.
- A volunteer who helps with part of something is asked why they did not do the rest, and the people who did nothing are not asked.
- Standing
- Named by analogy with the physics interpretation, where observation is held to change the system. Compare the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility, which describe the behaviour this incentive produces.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change