Social Psychology

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Social Psychology

• The way individuals thoughts, feelings,
  behaviors are influenced by others.

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Eric Hoffer

• When people are free to do as they please, they
  usually imitate each other.

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Soc Psy emphasizes 4 things

• 1. The power of the situation.
• 2. The power of the individual person.
• 3. The importance of cognition.
• 4. The applicability of social psychological
  principles.

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When do People Help?
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Latane and Darley Epileptic Study

• Target person believes
• 4 other people are hearing the emergency
• - 31 went for help
• 1 other person is hearing it
• 62 went for help
• Im alone
• 85 went for help

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Bystander Effect

• Original study replicated in similar studies
  about 48 times
• Over 6,000 subjects behaved as predicted
• 90 of the time lone bystanders helped

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1. Noticing the Problem

• The Smoke filled room experiment
• 75 reported the smoke if alone
• 38 in groups of three people
• 10 3 people, 2 confederates
• Pluralistic ignorance-if no one else is
  concerned, nothing is wrong

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Time Pressures

• In a hurry? Unlikely to notice or help
• Princeton Theological Seminary Experiment
• 66 of those not in a hurry helped
• 10 of those in a hurry helped

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2. Interpret the situation

• Vague or ambiguous situations-uncertainty works
  against helping
• Man hitting woman
• 65 intervened when they thought he was a
  stranger
• 19 when they thought they were married

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Why didnt they help?

• Diffusion of responsibility
• Larger the group, more diffuse responsibility
• Or in other words, the more people who could
  help, the less likely you are to get any

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3. Need to assume responsibility

• When alone, person recognized either I help, or
  theyre dead
• In a group, someone else might help

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Summing Up

• To help you must
• 1. notice the situation
• 2. interpret it as an emergency
• 3. assume responsibility to help

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When Personal Costs are low

• Help when costs are low
• E.g. wed all save a drowning baby in a pool
• But the adult man in the ocean is probably on his
  own

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Who helps by Sex

• Planned helping, volunteer work
• women
• Acts of heroism in difficult situations
• men

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Other factors influencing help

• People in organized religions help more in
  planned helping
• In emergency situations, this is not a factor

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1st Exercise

• Who is going to Heaven?
• Yes or no on Oprah Winfrey? Bill Clinton?
• Dennis Rodman? Mother Teresa?
• You?

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Typical results

• U.S. News World Report 1000 Americans polled
• Oprah very likely/somewhat likely 66
• Clinton 52
• Rodman 28
• Mother Teresa (canonized for sainthood) 79
• Themselves? You betcha87

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KNOWN AS

• Self-serving bias
• Probably most pronounced effect of all

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• Or Im just cross today, youre a .
• Attribute the behavior of others to internal,
  personal characteristics while ignoring external,
  situational factors

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Components of Attitudes

• ABCs
• 1. Affect-how you feel about the object.
• 2. Behavioral component-intention to act in a
  certain way.
• 3. Cognitive component-thoughts about the att.
  object.

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2nd Exercise

• Rank these from 1 strongly agree to 5 strongly
  disagree
• 1. Engaging in a regular physical exercise
• 3x a week promotes good health.
• 2. Eating a variety of foods each day, including
  5 or more servings of fresh fruits and
  vegetables, contributes to wellness.

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Attitude Survey continued

• 3. It is essential that all citizens exercise
  their right to vote if government is to
  effectively reflect the will of the people.
• 4. Homelessness is a serious social problem that
  needs attention.

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Behavior survey

• 1. I take time to engage in regular physical
  exercise at least 3x a week.
• 2. I regularly eat at least 5 servings of fresh
  fruits and vegetables daily.
• 3. I voted in the last election.
• 4. Within the last year, I have personally done
  something to address the problem of homelessness
  (e.g. made a contribution, written congress,
  etc.)

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History Lesson

• What he said Give me liberty or give me death!
  Patrick Henry
• Slavery was as repugnant to humanity as it is
  inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of
  liberty. P. Henry

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So, hed free his slaves, right?

• Throughout revolutionary period, he added slaves
  to his holdings
• Upon his death, he freed none
• I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of
  living here without them.

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Attitudes do NOT predict beh

• When they Do it is because
• 1. the attitude is strong frequently expressed.
• 2. the attitude has been formed through
  experience.
• 3. One expects a favorable outcome or response
  from others for doing so.

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For Example

• A VERY specific attitude can predict behavior
• Attitude toward birth control
• rel. to beh. .08
• Attitude toward birth control pills
• .32
• Attitude toward using b.c. pills
• .53
• Attitude toward using b.c. pills in next 2 yrs
• .57

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But does behavior affect attitudes?

• Short form Yes
• Why? Leon Festingers Cognitive dissonance
• Defined as unpleasant state of psychological
  tension (dissonance) that occurs when theres
  inconsistency between 2 thoughts.

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Particularly powerful if

• We have already behavedthen all we can change is
  our thoughts on the matter.
• People can be very against divorce until it
  happens.then there are reasons.

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Conformity

• When we change our behavior, attitudes or beliefs
  in response to real or imagined group pressure.

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Group Pressure to Conform

• Sherifs Point of light study
• How far did the light move?
• Average guess was 8.
• Confederates said 1-2. By the 4th day,
  everyones estimates were the same.

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Aschs Line Judgment Task

• Shown lines, asked which line was closest to the
  line shown
• Answer was obvious but
• Subjects followed the majority into a wrong
  decision 37 of the time

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Aschs experiment elsewhere

• Much the same in Britain Canada
• 31 in Lebanon
• 32 in Hong Kong
• In Germany, Italy, S. Africa, Australia, Spain
  Jordan higher rates.
• In one replication in Munich, 85

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When do we conform?

• 1. group size. Works best with 4-5 people.
• Maximum benefit5 people.
• 2. Unanimity-all of them seem to be agreeing.
  Even 1 can ruin this.
• 3. Status-you want to be in this group.

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Flashbacks to Personality

• Does your personality matter?
• Generally speaking NO.
• Poor predictors of ones behavior.
• Situation matters far more.

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Obedience to Authority

• Person was led to believe they were a teacher and
  the other person was the learner.
• Learner left room and they teacher proceeded to
  read word pairs.
• Shocked for wrong answers.

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Milgram Experiment

• Bogus shock generator set up with 30 switches 15
  to 450 volts
• Labeled severe shock and XXX at the very end.
• Asked psychiatrists prior to experiment-will many
  comply? Est. less than lt1

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Results of this variation

• Learner not seen, only heard
• Bangs on wall at 300 volts
• 65 went to the end of the board.

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Variation 2

• Has the learner state he has a heart condition.
• At 300 volts he bangs on the wall, demands to be
  let out.
• Compliance drops to 63.

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Two other variations

• Learner out of sight and quiet
• 93 complied to the end
• Learner in the room, acting as if he is in pain
• Compliance drops to 40 (to end of board)

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What breeds obedience?

• 1. emotional distance of the victim.
• 2. closeness legitimacy of the authority.
• 3. Institutional authority.
• 4. The liberating effects of one person.

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Flashbacks to Fund Att Error

• Were Milgrams people sadists? Did they have
  personality disorders?
• NO.
• FAE to think they are different than us. They
  were responding to the situationas we all do.

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Stan Milgram speaks

• It may be that we are puppetspuppets controlled
  by the strings of society. But at least we are
  puppets of perception, with awareness. And
  perhaps awareness is the first step to our
  liberation.