Bibb Latané (/ˈlɑːtəneɪ/; born July 19, 1937) is an American social psychologist.
He is currently director of the Center for Human Science[2] in Chapel Hill, NC, which he founded.
Latané's work with Darley involved a series of experiments that staged emergencies so that the social psychologists could observe how the presence of inactive bystanders affect the subjects' helping behavior.
[3] Latané was also instrumental in introducing ideas from dynamical systems theory into social psychology, demonstrating, for example, how various forms of order could emerge spontaneously in large social groups from individual's simple attempts to fit in with their local neighbors.
[5] Together with Kipling Williams and Stephen Harkins, Latané introduced the term social loafing, a term that denotes people's tendency to slack off in groups due to the idea that one's personal contribution is unidentifiable.