Transcript Social Psych - Blue Valley Schools

The Power of the
Situation
Social Psych – Day 2
What makes people go wrong?
• Evil: intentionally behaving in ways
that harm, abuse, demean,
dehumanize, or destroy innocent
others – or using one’s authority and
systemic power to encourage or
permit others to do so on your behalf.
• In short, KNOWING BETTER BUT
DOING WORSE.
Beware: SELF SERVING BIAS
• A readiness to perceive ourselves
favorably.
• Found more often in individualistic
cultures.
A powerful force in transforming human behavior,
pushing people across the boundary of good and
evil comes from the basic desire to be in the “in
group” and not in the “out group”.
- C.S. Lewis
One focus of this unit is to look at the WHY. Why
do people do evil things. We will be analyzing
this from a social psych perspective.
Nobel Savage?
Are we born good and then corrupted by an evil
society?
• OR, are we born evil and redeemed by a good
society?
Maybe each of us has the capacity to be a saint or a
sinner; maybe it is our social circumstances that
determine which of our many mental templates we
develop.
This unit will try to emphasize social psych concepts by
relating them to the POWER OF THE SITUATION.
Is possible for angels to turn into
devils?
Genocide in Rwanda
Mass suicide @ Jonestown
My Lai massacre
Nazi concentration camps
Sexual abuses of Catholic priests
Fraudulent behavior of Enron execs
Actions of tyrants in our era:
• Hitler
• Stalin
• Pol Pot – Cambodian leader who’s policies killed approx 26% of
population
• Idi Amin – Ugandan leader. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is
unknown; estimates from human rights groups range from 100,000 to 500,000.
• Saddam Hussein
Drug dealers, rapists, sex trade traffickers, scammers, bullies . . .
The Science of EVIL
Why do good people do?
Use the following terms to help describe how these forces shape our behavior.
 Assignment: create a power point presentation that highlights these terms and their relationship to “the power of the
situation”. For each of the terms below, explain how each concept COULD change a good person to do a bad thing.
Students will:
 For each term, come up with an example (real or made up) that uses the concept to explain why people engage
in bad behavior.
 Include a visual that represents the concept you are using.
 Include a brief summary of any research in this area, including the researcher’s name (only if the research is
included in our text).
 Resources: Your book (#1 resource); internet – if you use the internet make sure you site your sources.
 You will use GOOGLE DOCS to create your power point. Make sure to add myself.
You are limited to two slides per concept. You will be graded on how well you apply each concept. Clearly
make a connection to your example and the concept you are using.
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6.
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9.
Foot in the door phenomenon
Cognitive Dissonance
Conformity
Normative social influence
Informational social influence
Obedience
Social facilitation
Social Loafing
Deindividuation
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Group Polarization
Group Think
Prejudice
Stereotypes
Scapegoat Theory
In-group Bias
Just World Phenomenon
By-stander Effect
Example: COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE & HAZING
During the traditional “Hell Week,” pledges are run through a
variety of activities designed to test their limits of physical
exertion, psychological strain, and social embarrassment. Too
often, of course, the results are tragic.
One pledge was told to dig his
“own grave.” After he complied
with orders to lie flat in the
finished hole, the sides collapsed
and suffocated him before his
prospective fraternity brothers
could dig him out.
Another pledge choked to death
after repeatedly trying to swallow
a large slab of raw liver soaked in
oil.
Example: Cognitive dissonance theory
&HAZING
Cognitive Dissonance: A state in which people have conflicting
thoughts (cognitions), especially when their voluntary actions
(hazing) conflict with their attitudes (I’m a good person). Theory
states that when our thoughts don’t match up, we act to reduce the
discomfort (dissonance) by changing our attitudes.
• There is little discomfort (dissonance) if you have good reason to harm
someone. The dissonance becomes greater as the justification for such
behavior decreases. Assuming you like your pledge brothers, you don’t
want to hurt them. The hazing process creates DISSONANCE (like
someone / but you are causing them harm).
• In order to reduce the dissonance, the individual may rationalize the
hazing as a prank, thereby modifying the cognition by lowering the
importance of the cognition, believing, for example, that hazing is not a
very serious matter.
Name associated with theory: Carl Festinger
Small Request – Large Request
In the Korean War, Chinese communists
solicited cooperation from US army prisoners
by asking them to carry out small errands. By
complying to small errands they were likely
to comply to larger ones.
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency
for people who have first agreed to a small
request to comply later with a larger request.
Role Playing Affects Attitudes
Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards
and prisoners to random students and found
that guards and prisoners developed roleappropriate attitudes.
Originally published in the New Yorker
Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
Stanford Prison Project
Assignment: Go to the following website:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
After reading the text and watching video answer the
following questions:
• If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become?
How sure are you?
• If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the
experience? What would you have done differently than those
subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five
years or more, could you take it?
• How do the ethical dilemmas is this research compare with the
ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments?
Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
Beware: Self serving Bias
• Most of us construct self-enhancing, self-serving, egocentric
biases that make us feel special – never ordinary and certainly
“above average”.
• 86% of Australians rote there job performance as “above average”
• 90% of American business managers rate their performance as
superior to that of their average peer.
Cognitive dissonance theory
 Suppose you had volunteered to participate in a
psych experiment. Upon arrival, you were seated
at a table and asked to undertake a series of dull,
meaningless tasks for about an hour. Afterward,
the experimenter convinced you to extol the
virtues of the tasks you had performed by
describing them to other potential participants as
highly worthwhile, interesting, and educational.
You were paid either $1 or $20 to do this.
Suppose you were then asked to privately rate
your enjoyment of the tasks on a questionnaire.
After which amount do you believe your actual
enjoyment rating of the tasks would be higher -$1 or $20?
Cognitive dissonance theory
Festinger and Carlsmith found that those receiving $1 rated the
tasks as more enjoyable than those paid $20. Why?
• Cognitive Dissonance – those who received the $1 presumably
had insufficient justification for their behavior, which led to
dissonance, which in turn produced a change in attitude about the
task.
Social Influence
The greatest contribution of social psychology
is its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and
actions and the way they are molded by
social influence.
NON SEQUITER © 2000 Wiley. Dist. by Universal
Press Syndicate Reprinted with Permission
Conformity & Obedience
Behavior is contagious, modeled by one
followed by another. We follow behavior of
others to conform.
Other behaviors may be an expression of
compliance (obedience) toward authority.
Conformity
Obedience
The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).
Group Pressure & Conformity
Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity,
adjusting our behavior or thinking toward
some group standard.
Group Pressure & Conformity
An influence resulting from one’s willingness
to accept others’ opinions about reality.
William Vandivert/ Scientific American
Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
The group has at least three people.
The group is unanimous.
One admires the group’s status and
attractiveness.
One has no prior commitment or response.
The group observes one’s behavior.
One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a
social standard.
Reasons for Conformity
Normative Social Influence: Influence
resulting from a person’s desire to gain
approval or avoid rejection. A person may
respect normative behavior because there
may be a severe price to pay if not respected.
Informative Social Influence: The group may
provide valuable information, but stubborn
people will never listen to others.
Informative Social Influence
Baron and colleagues (1996) made students do
an eyewitness identification task. If the task
was easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity
was low in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec.
exposure) task.
Informative Social Influence
Baron et al., (1996)
Obedience
Stanley Milgram
designed a study that
investigates the effects of
authority on obedience.
Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
People comply to social
pressures. How would
they respond to outright
command?
Stanley Milgram
(1933-1984)
Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the
film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales
Milgram’s Study
Milgram’s Study: Results
Individual Resistance
A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study
resisted social coercion.
AP/ Wide World Photos
An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.
Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience
Studies
In both Ash's and Milgram's studies,
participants were pressured to follow their
standards and be responsive to others.
In Milgram’s study, participants were torn
between hearing the victims pleas and the
experimenter’s orders.
Individual Behavior in the Presence of
Others
Michelle Agnis/ NYT Pictures
Social facilitation:
Refers to improved
performance on tasks
in the presence of
others. Triplett (1898)
noticed cyclists’ race
times were faster
when they competed
against others than
when they just raced
against the clock.
Social Loafing
The tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort
toward attaining a common goal than when tested
individually (Latané, 1981).
 Singing in a choir
 Voting
 At work
 Goal setting is extremely important to diffuse this.
 At school
Deindividuation
 Deindividuation
 loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that
foster arousal and anonymity
• “To Kill a Mockingbird” – riot scene
• Sporting events
• School dances
If you could do anything humanly possible with
complete assurance that you would not be
detected or held responsible, what would you
do?
Group Polarization
In groups, people tend to be more extreme in their decisions.
Imagine you are arguing your point with someone else: to make
the point and separate what you have to say from other people,
you may exaggerate your position somewhat. The problem then
is that having taken a position you feel obliged to support it,
even if you think it actually is a bit extreme.
People who tend to take risky decisions will make riskier
decisions in a group as the risk is shared (risky shift). People
who are more conservative will tend to make very conservative
decisions as they take on the persona of the group and try to
protect them from the effects of any risky decisions.
• Book Banners
Groupthink
 Groupthink
 mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a
decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives.
 Examples:
 President Kennedy’s cabinet in the Bay of Pigs
Invasion
 Bush administration in rationale to invade Iraq in
search or weapons of mass destruction.
Group Influence
How do groups affect our behavior? Social
psychologists study various groups:
1.
2.
3.
4.
One person affecting another
Families
Teams
Committees
Social Influence
 Group
Polarization
 enhancement of
a group’s
prevailing
attitudes
through
discussion
within the
group
Social Influence
 If a group is likeminded,
discussion
strengthens its
prevailing
opinions
Prejudice
Simply called “prejudgment,” a prejudice is an
unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude
toward a group and its members. Prejudice is
often directed towards different cultural,
ethnic, or gender groups.
Components of Prejudice
1.
2.
3.
Beliefs (stereotypes)
Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
Predisposition to act (to discriminate)
Reign of Prejudice
Prejudice works at the conscious and [more at]
the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is
more like a knee-jerk response than a
conscious decision.
How Prejudiced are People?
Over the duration of time many prejudices against
interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and
minorities have decreased.
Racial & Gender Prejudice
Americans today express much less racial and
gender prejudice, but prejudices still exist.
Race
Nine out of ten white respondents were slow
when responding to words like “peace” or
“paradise” when they saw a black individual’s
photo compared to a white individual’s photo
(Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003).
Gender
Most women still live in more poverty than
men. About 100,000,000 women are missing
in the world. There is a preference for male
children in China and India, even with sexselected abortion outlawed.
Gender
Although prejudice prevails against women, more
people feel positively toward women than men.
Women rated picture b [feminized] higher (665)
for a matrimonial ad (Perrett, 1998).
Professor Dave Perrett, St. Andrews University
Social Roots of Prejudice
Why does prejudice arise?
1.
2.
3.
Social Inequalities
Social Divisions
Emotional Scapegoating
Social Inequality
Prejudice develops when people have money,
power, and prestige, and others do not. Social
inequality increases prejudice.
In and Out Groups
Ingroup: People with whom one shares a
common identity. Outgroup: Those perceived
as different from one’s ingroup. Ingroup Bias:
The tendency to favor one’s own group.
Mike Hewitt/ Getty Images
Scotland’s famed “Tartan Army” fans.
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
Prejudice provides an outlet for anger
[emotion] by providing someone to blame.
After 9/11 many people lashed out against
innocent Arab-Americans.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
One way we simplify our world is to
categorize. We categorize people into groups
by stereotyping them.
Michael S. Yamashita/ Woodfin Camp Associates
Foreign sunbathers may think Balinese look alike.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
In vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists
can feed stereotypes or prejudices (terrorism).
Most terrorists are non-Muslims.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
© The New Yorker Collection, 1981, Robert Mankoff from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.
The tendency of people to believe the world is
just, and people get what they deserve and
deserve what they get (the just-world
phenomenon).
Hindsight Bias
After learning an outcome, the tendency to
believe that we could have predicted it
beforehand may contribute to blaming the
victim and forming a prejudice against them.
A Game of Social Trap
By pursuing our self-interest and not trusting
others, we can end up losers.
Enemy Perceptions
People in conflict form diabolical images of one
another.
http://www.aftonbladet.se
http://www.cnn.com
Saddam Hussein
“Wicked Pharaoh”
George Bush
“Evil”
Altruism
An unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
Equity: A condition in which people
receive from a relationship in proportion
to what they give.
Self-Disclosure: Revealing intimate
aspects of oneself to others.
Bystander Effect
Tendency of any given
bystander to be less
likely to give aid if
other bystanders are
present.
Bystander Intervention
The decision-making process for bystander
intervention.
Akos Szilvasi/ Stock, Boston
The Norms for Helping
Social Exchange Theory: Our social behavior is
an exchange process. The aim is to maximize
benefits and minimize costs.
 Reciprocity Norm: The expectation that we
should return help and not harm those who have
helped us.
 Social–Responsibility Norm: Largely learned, it is
a norm that tells us to help others when they need
us even though they may not repay us.
Peacemaking
Superordinate Goals are shared goals that
override differences among people and
require their cooperation.
Syracuse Newspapers/ The Image Works
Communication and understanding developed
through talking to one another. Sometimes it is
mediated by a third party.
Peacemaking
Graduated & Reciprocated Initiatives in
Tension-Reduction (GRIT): This is a strategy
designed to decrease international tensions.
One side recognizes mutual interests and
initiates a small conciliatory act that opens
the door for reciprocation by the other party.