Why Dont People Always Help Others in Need

1
Why Dont People Always Help Others in Need?

• Diffusion of responsibility
• presence of others leads to decreased help
  response
• we all think someone else will help, so we dont

2
Why Dont People Always Help Others in Need?

• Latane studies
• several scenarios designed to measure the help
  response
• found that if you think youre the only one that
  can hear or help, you are more likely to do so
• if there are others around, you will diffuse the
  responsibility to others
• Kitty Genovese incident

3
Social Pressure in Group Decisions

• Group polarization
• majority position stronger after a group
  discussion in which a minority is arguing against
  the majority point of view
• Why does this occur?
• informational and normative influences

4
Social Pressure in Group Decisions

• Groupthink
• group members try to maintain harmony and
  unanimity in group
• can lead to some better decisions and some worse
  decisions than individuals

5
Influence of Others Requests - Compliance

• Sales techniques and cognitive dissonance
• four-walls technique
• question customer in such a way that gets answers
  consistent with the idea that they need to own
  object
• feeling of cognitive dissonance results if person
  chooses not to buy this thing that they need

6
Sales Techniques and Cognitive Dissonance

• Foot-in-the-door technique
• ask for something small at first, then hit
  customer with larger request later
• small request has paved the way to compliance
  with the larger request
• cognitive dissonance results if person has
  already granted a request for one thing, then
  refuses to give the larger item

7
The Reciprocity Norm and Compliance

• We feel obliged to return favors, even those we
  did not want in the first place
• opposite of foot-in-the-door
• salesperson gives something to customer with idea
  that they will feel compelled to give something
  back (buying the product)
• even if person did not wish for favor in the
  first place

8
Combining Sales Techniques

• What happens if you combine reciprocity norm with
  foot-in-the-door?
• Hypothesis - the 2 techniques will cancel each
  other out
• Bell, et. al. (1994) study
• Evidence supports hypothesis

9
Preventing Reactance Against Pressure

• Psychological reactance
• if pressure is too blatant, has opposite of
  intended effect
• leads to salespeople using softer techniques so
  that person feels they have a choice
• often phrase pressure into questions
• would you please put your books and notes away
  for the quiz?

10
Obedience

• Obedience
• compliance of person is due to perceived
  authority of asker
• request is perceived as a command
• Milgram interested in unquestioning obedience to
  orders

11
Stanley Milgrams Studies

• Basic study procedure
• teacher and learner (learner always confederate)
• watch learner being strapped into chair --
  learner expresses concern over his heart
  condition

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Stanley Milgrams Studies

• Teacher to another room with experimenter
• Shock generator panel 15 to 450 volts, labels
  slight shock to XXX
• Asked to give higher shocks for every mistake
  learner makes

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Stanley Milgrams Studies
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
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Stanley Milgrams Studies

• Learner protests more and more as shock increases
• Experimenter continues to request obedience even
  if teacher balks

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Obedience

• How many people would go to the highest shock
  level?
• 65 of the subjects went to the end, even those
  that protested

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Obedience
17
Explanations for Milgrams Results

• Abnormal group of subjects?
• numerous replications with variety of groups
  shows no support
• People in general are sadistic?
• videotapes of Milgrams subjects show extreme
  distress

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Explanations for Milgrams Results

• Authority of Yale and value of science
• Experimenter self-assurance and acceptance of
  responsibility
• Proximity of learner and experimenter
• New situation and no model of how to behave

19
Follow-Up Studies to Milgram

• Original study

• Different building

• Teacher with learner

• Put hand on shock

• Orders by phone

• Ordinary man orders

• 2 teachers rebel

• Teacher chooses shock level

20
Critiques of Milgram

• Although 84 later said they were glad to have
  participated and fewer than 2 said they were
  sorry, there are still ethical issues
• Do these experiments really help us understand
  real-world atrocities?

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Cooperation and Social Dilemmas

• Social dilemma
• action/inaction will benefit individual, but harm
  others in the group, and cause more harm than
  good to everyone if everyone takes that course
• Use of games to study social dilemmas
• one-shot prisoners dilemma
• iterative prisoners dilemma
• effect of adding players

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One-Shot Prisoners Dilemma Game

• 2 prisoners must decide between silence and
  confession
• Both silent both get relatively short prison
  sentences
• Both confess both get moderate prison sentences
• One confesses confessor gets no sentence,
  partner gets very long sentence
• No communication between players until both have
  chosen

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One-Shot Prisoners Dilemma Game

• Game in lab setting
• choice to cooperate or defect
• consequence is monetary
• highest vs. lowest individual payoff
• highest vs. lowest total payoff

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Iterative Prisoners Dilemma Game

• 2 players play same game repeatedly
• Iterative nature changes logic for players
• Rapoports Tit-for-Tat (TFT) strategy
• first time you meet new partner, cooperate
• for all other trials, do to partner what they did
  to you on previous trial
• cant win with TFT
• this strategy gets others to cooperate

25
Iterative Prisoners Dilemma Game

• Why is TFT effective in gaining cooperation?
• its nice - cooperates from the start,
  encouraging cooperation
• its not exploitable - discourages defection by
  reciprocating each defection
• its forgiving - as soon as partner begins
  cooperating, TFT reciprocates
• its transparent - partner quickly learns that
  best strategy is to cooperate

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Emotions and Cooperation

• Cooperation cooperation
• Failure to cooperate failure to cooperate
• Cooperation failure to cooperate
• Failure to cooperate cooperation

27
Social Identity and Cooperation

• Social identity theory
• states that when youre assigned to a group, you
  automatically think of that group as an in-group
  for you
• Sherifs camp study
• 11-12 year old boys at camp
• boys were divided into 2 groups and kept separate
  from one another
• each group took on characteristics of distinct
  social group, with leaders, rules, norms of
  behavior, and names

28
Sherifs Camp Study

• Leaders proposed series of competitive
  interactions
• Led to 3 changes between groups and within groups
• within-group solidarity
• negative stereotyping of other group
• hostile between-group interactions

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Sherifs Camp Study

• Overcoming the strong we/they effect
• establishment of superordinate goals
• e.g., breakdown in camp water supply
• overcoming intergroup strife - research
• stereotypes are diluted when people share
  individuating information

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Summary

• When we help others, when we dont
• presence of others
• diffusion of responsibility
• Group decision making
• group polarization
• groupthink

31
Summary

• Compliance
• sales techniques
• Obedience
• Milgrams studies
• Cooperation
• Sherifs camp study