Survey of Modern Psychology

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Survey of Modern Psychology

• Social Psychology Part 1

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Definition

• Social Psychology is the study of individual
  behavior in groups
• This is in contrast to sociology, which studies
  group behavior

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Group Behavior Trends

• Social
• Norms

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Group Behavior Trends

• Bystander Effect
• Diffusion of Responsibility
• Situational Influences
• Pluralistic Ignorance

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Situational Influences

• The bystander effect the presence of others
  inhibits helping
• Diffusion of responsibility the belief that
  others will or should take responsibility for
  providing help

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Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

• Participants were told that they would be in a
  study about personal problems that students often
  face. Each person would be in a separate room and
  communicate via intercom because of the sensitive
  nature of the conversation.
• There would be groups of 2-6 people.
• One participant briefly mentioned that he or
  she had a seizure disorder that was often
  triggered by stressful situations.

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Bystander Effect and Diffusion of
Responsibility(Latane and Darley, 1970)

• The actual participant heard the confederate
  feign a seizure over the intercom.
• If the participant believed that he or she was in
  a pair and therefore the only one who knew about
  the emergency, the participant tried to get help.
• When the participant thought that he or she was
  part of a larger group, the participant was less
  likely to seek help.

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Situational Influences

• Pluralistic ignorance each individual believes
  that his or her own thoughts and feelings are
  different from those of other people, even though
  everyones behavior is the same.
• When we are unsure of whether there is an
  emergency, we look to others for how to act. We
  may then assume that, if no one else is
  panicking, we should not panic either.

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Pluralistic IgnoranceLatane and Darley, 1968

• Participants were put in rooms alone or with two
  other people to complete questionnaires.
• A few minutes after starting, smoke began seeping
  into the room through a vent.

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Pluralistic IgnoranceLatane and Darley, 1968

• When participants were alone
• 50 took action within 4 minutes
• 75 took action within 6 minutes (the maximum
  time experimenters allowed the study to continue)

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Pluralistic IgnoranceLatane and Darley, 1968

• When participants were in groups
• Only one person took action within 4 minutes
• Three took action before the end of the 6
  minutes
• By this time, the smoke was so thick that
  participants had to fan it away to see the
  questionnaires

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Pluralistic IgnoranceLatane and Darley, 1968

• Participants assumed that if there was a real
  emergency, one of the other participants would
  take action. Because they did not, they
  interpreted the situation as being safe.

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Evaluating Others

• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Choice
• Expectedness
• Consequences

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Attribution Theory

• Fritz Heider (1958)
• How we judge other people.
• A set of theories that describe how people
  explain causes of behavior

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Attribution Theory

• Personal attribution
• Attribution to internal characteristics of an
  actor, such as ability, personality, mood, or
  effort
• Situational attribution
• Attribution to factors external to an actor, such
  as the task, other people, or luck

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Attribution Theory

• We make judgments about behavior based on
• The persons degree of choice
• Expectedness of the behavior
• Intended effects or consequences

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Choice

• We assume that it says more about a person when
  they purposefully made a choice than if they were
  forced into a choice.

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Choice

• Participants read a speech that was supposedly
  written by another college student.
• The speech either favored or opposed Fidel
  Castro.
• Some participants were told that the author had
  chosen their position, others were told that the
  author was assigned that position.

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Choice

• When participants believed that the author had a
  choice in what to write, they assumed that the
  authors essay correctly corresponded to their
  attitudes.

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Graph p. 103
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Expectedness

• We assume that we can infer more about a person
  if their behavior is atypical.

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Intended Effects

• What did the person want to happen?
• Acts that give multiple desirable outcomes give
  us less information about motives
• For example, if a person lives in a large
  apartment in a good neighborhood with low rent,
  it is unclear exactly what made them choose that
  apartment. However, if its a small apartment
  with high rent, we can assume that the person
  lives there because of the good neighborhood.

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Decision Making Biases

• Availability
• False Consensus
• Base Rate Fallacy
• Counterfactual Thinking

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Decision Making Biases

• Availability we overestimate how frequently an
  event occurs based on how easily it comes to
  mind.
• Participants were asked which is more common,
  words that start with the letter R or have R
  as their third letter

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Availability

• Participants tended to report that more words
  start with R, though its actually more common
  as a third letter.
• Its easier to think of words that start with a
  letter.

This is especially true if
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Attribution Biases

• False consensus
• We over estimate the percentage of people who
  agree with us

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Attribution Biases

• Base-rate fallacy
• We are more influenced by a small number of
  dramatic instances than actual occurrences.
• For example, people may over-estimate the risk of
  dying in a hot air balloon accident because of
  the unique and dramatic nature of the event.

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Attribution Biases

• Counterfactual thinking the tendency to imagine
  alternative outcomes that might have occurred but
  did not. This is influenced by how easy it is to
  imagine the other outcome.

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Counterfactual Thinking

• We are more upset by, and fixate more on, what
  might have occurred after taking an action than
  inaction
• One would feel worse after selling a stock before
  it went up (I could have made 500 if I had not
  sold) vs. not selling a stock before it drops
  (I would have saved 500 if I had sold)

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Counterfactual Thinking

• It is easier to think of the alternative if you
  are on the verge of a cutoff point.
• For Olympic athletes, it may be more
  disappointing to win silver than win bronze.
• Silver medalists focus on having not won the gold
  and what they did wrong
• Bronze medalists focus on having beaten the
  competitor in 4th place

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• The tendency to focus on the role of personal
  causes and underestimate the impact of situation
  on other peoples behavior.

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• Imagine you did poorly on a test you might say
  that conditions were not ideal (room was cold,
  the guy next to you was playing a banjo, etc.)
  but you are a smart person who actually knew the
  material.

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• If someone else did poorly on that same test,
  youre more likely to assume that the person did
  not know the material and therefore their poor
  performance was their own fault.

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Activity
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Festingers Study (1959)

• Participants were told that the experimenter was
  studying various measures of performance.
• The participants were then instructed to perform
  boring and repetitive tasks for an hour.

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(No Transcript)
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Steps in Dissonance

• Dissonance happens when
• Negative consequences
• Feeling of personal responsibility
• Freedom of choice
• Foreseeable consequences to actions
• Discomfort
• Attribute discomfort to ones own behavior
• Kool Aid Study

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Kool Aid StudyHarmon-Jones et. al., 1996

• Later on, participants were asked how much they
  actually liked the beverage.

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Ways to reduce dissonance

1. Change your attitude
2. Change your perception of the behavior
3. Add consonant cognitions
4. Minimize the importance of the conflict
5. Reduce perceived choice

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Ways to Reduce Dissonance

• Example You want to save money, but just went on
  a shopping spree
• Change your attitude
• I dont need to save money that badly

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Ways to Reduce Dissonance

• Example You want to save money, but just went on
  a shopping spree
• 2. Change your perception of the behavior
• I didnt spend that much

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Ways to Reduce Dissonance

• Example You want to save money, but just went on
  a shopping spree
• 3. Add consonant cognitions
• I used coupons, so I actually saved money

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Ways to Reduce Dissonance

• Example You want to save money, but just went on
  a shopping spree
• 4. Minimize the importance of the conflict
• Its ok, I had fun!

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Ways to Reduce Dissonance

• Example You want to save money, but just went on
  a shopping spree
• 5. Reduce perceived choice
• I had no choice I was encouraged to help the
  economy by spending

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Undergraduate students were selected to be in a
  study about the psychological effects of prison
  life
• 24 males were randomly assigned to be prisoners
  or guards
• Participants were determined to be healthy, drug
  free, and mentally stable
• Participants agreed to be in a 2 week long study
• Half would be prison guards, other half would
  live in a prison for the 2 week period
• Zimbardo played the role of prison superintendent

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Guards dressed in uniforms, and prisoners
  were dressed in prison jumpers with ankle chains
• Prisoners were to be referred to only by their
  number

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Guards had no formal training, but were told to
  expect that the prisoners could be dangerous.
  Guards were responsible for keeping order and
  encouraged to demand respect
• Prisoners were told to expect some level of
  harassment and/or humiliation, and lack of
  privacy
• Guards were allowed to subject the prisoners to
  some physical punishment

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• On the second day, the prisoners rebelled and
  tried to reassert their individuality
• Guards quickly responded by removing cots from
  the prison cells, stripped the prisoners, put
  some in solitary confinement (a closet) and
  harassed the prisoners

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Guards started a privilege cell, where they
  placed the three prisoners least involved in the
  rebellion
• These prisoners received privileges in front of
  the other prisoners in order to stir resentment
  and break down solidarity among prisoners
• Shortly after, guards put the privileged
  prisoners back in the regular cells and gave
  bad prisoners the privilege cell
• This gave the impression that some prisoners were
  informants for the guards and further destroyed
  the bond among prisoners by causing them to
  mistrust each other

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Solidarity among guards increased after the
  rebellion because they felt that the prisoners
  had given reason to mistrust them and seemed
  potentially dangerous
• Treatment of the prisoners became increasingly
  worse
• Prisoners and guards grew to identify with their
  assigned roles

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Prisoners were given a parole hearing
• Zimbardo offered the prisoners the chance for
  parole if they would forfeit the money theyd
  earned so far
• Most participants were agreeable, even though
  they technically could have opted out of the
  experiment
• Prisoners were so absorbed in their role that
  they essentially forgot that they were not really
  prisoners

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• The experiment finally ended after an outside
  observer pointed out the horrible conditions
• Most of the guards were disappointed that the
  study ended early
• Prisoners were initially traumatized by the
  experience, but reportedly they later found it
  educational and there were no long term negative
  effects

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Zimbardo concluded that the participants
  behavior showed the power of the situation and
  how setting and assigned roles of authority made
  people behave in ways that they normally would
  not.

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• Some objections to the Prison Study
• Zimbardo himself was actively involved rather
  than just an observer
• Participants self-selected to be in the study
• It is unclear whether participants actually
  identified with their roles, or if they were
  playing out how they believed a prisoner or
  prison guard would act
• No control group!

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Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

• There did not seem to be any initial measure of
  attitudes about authority or the prison system
• Were the participants actually more sadistic or
  authoritarian than the average person? If so,
  their behavior cannot be so strongly attributed
  to the power of the situation
• For more information http//www.prisonexp.org/

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• Notable Research in Social Psychology

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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974

• The study used two locations a shaky suspension
  bridge and a non-shaky bridge in Canada

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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974

• A male or female interviewer was stationed on
  either bridge
• The interviewer introduced him/herself to men
  walking alone as a psychology student doing a
  survey. After the man completed the survey the
  interviewer gave him a phone number so that he
  could call for the results
• The primary question for researchers is what the
  participants would do with the phone number

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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974

• A larger percentage men asked were willing to
  complete the survey for the female interviewer
  than the male
• There was more sexual imagery in answers for the
  female interviewer than the male interviewer, and
  significantly more for participants crossing the
  shaky bridge than the stable bridge
• More participants took the phone number from the
  female than the male interviewer

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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974

• These results pertain to the female interviewers
• Participants who crossed the shaky bridge were
  significantly more likely to call for the results
  of the survey
• Participants who crossed the shaky bridge were
  significantly more likely to ask the interviewer
  on a date than the ones who crossed the stable
  bridge

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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974
Interviewer Filling in Questionnaire Accepting Phone Phoning Sexual Imagery Score
Female
Control Bridge 22/33 16/22 2/16 1.41
Experimental Bridge 23/33 18/23 9/18 2.47
Male
Control Bridge 22/42 6/22 1/6 .61
Experimental Bridge 23/51 7/23 2/7 .80
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Notable researchShaky bridge study Aron and
dutton, 1974

• Explanations
• Aron and Dutton theorized that crossing the shaky
  bridge caused physiological arousal and the men
  attributed the cause to the woman and therefore
  believed that they were attracted to her
• Another possibility is that the men who crossed
  the shaky bridge were actually more willing to
  take risks and were therefore more likely to
  pursue the woman

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Notable researchclosing time study Pennebaker
et.al., 1979

• Researchers obtained participants at local bars
  near their university
• Participants were asked once at either 900 pm,
  1030 pm, or 1200 am to rate the attractiveness
  of same-sex and opposite-sex customers in the bar
• (all bars used closed at 1230)
• The researcher asked the participant to rate the
  customers as a whole rather than on an individual
  basis

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Notable researchclosing time study Pennebaker
et.al., 1979

• When it got later, participants reported
  opposite-sex customers in the bar as being
  significantly more attractive

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Notable researchclosing time study Pennebaker
et.al., 1979

• Explanations
• When we are under time constraints and pressured
  to make a choice, we need to make the option that
  we chose more attractive to explain why we chose
  it
• The people who were in the bars at the end of the
  night who wanted to leave with someone therefore
  made the options that they had left seem more
  appealing