Psych 202 1st Edition Lecture 13 Social Psychology Online Day 2 Back to Jane Elliot institutional processed of discrimination in the classroom and Milgram o Indicators of differences are Institutionalized Rules norms expectations are formed subjective social reality becomes THE reality o Social facts realities establish unwritten normative rules then people play their roles which includes executing activating all the expected thoughts and feelings thus integrating persons into a Milgramesque Situationism People respond to unwritten rules and play their roles Related ideas on role playing o Groupthink group polarization Where everybody is on same page and people tend to make an effort to think outside the box and about possible consequences Lack of self criticism group becomes more extreme in their beliefs tendency to conform polarized lose individuality especially in larger groups everyone becomes anonymous less knowledge of who is in charge o Conformity o Deindividuation When people are not self aware and especially when they are aroused anonymous and when there is diffusion of responsibility Then do things that are outside their morals because they lose their perspective o Dehumanization processes amplify role induced dehumanized treatment of others Dehumanizing labels change our mental constructions Increase salience of stereotypes Facilitate derogation of outgroups Unleash morally unconstrained processes of thought feeling speech and action Examples of dehumanized labels Milgram others are learners Bandura animals Zimbardo prisoners are known by number Elliot brown eyes The segregated south colored people Vietnam Kill a Gook for God Rwanda Cockroaches Iraq Towelheads Wisconsin football Ohio State fans Generally all outgroups are derogated These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Lies a benefit to us and we create dehumanization without realizing it Situations can make us devils or heroes It is the context of that social circumstance and the power structure that exists Bystander intervention studies the diffusion of responsibility o The tragedy and social disgrace of the case of Kitty Genovese 1964 Raped and stabbed to death There were 39 people who noticed something happening and nobody did anything This phenomenon that was labeled in press accounts as relating to bystander apathy led to a series of social psychology experiments examining the phenomenon These studies and the theoretical discussions about them have led to a reframing of the problem of apathy in terms of diffusion of responsibility The conclusion people are not apathetic instead the conditions under which people help the helping situation lead to different rates of helping behavior Has nothing to do with personality their values their religion When you are in a group and don t have a role or identify yourself as having a role and there is a potential danger going on people tend to do nothing when there is a bigger group o Four reasons for bystander intervention effect following Gazzaniga and Heatherton Diffusion of responsibility With Mowaka cartoon Fear of making a social blunder in an ambiguous situation With Mowaka Anonymity Probably Mowaka is Mowaka anonymous Implicit cost benefit calculations What do the bystanders think in Mowaka s case Doesn t it depend on their culturally informed knowledge of army ants Depends on the likelihood of death from intervention and or the value of heroism in the culture right o Consider the experiment on bystander effects summarized in the next slide In this experiment persons believe they are in groups of 2 5 in each case they overhear an experimental confederate having a seizure and begging for help IV size of group Would you help What are the proportions of subjects in the experiment that helped More members of group less likely to help Likelihood of helping decreases with bigger group size Personality does not play a role o The Carleton study Janet Ballenoff and Neil Lutsky the good news in knowing about our biases Description of experiment Likelihood of helping at individual level no regard to diffusion of responsibility o o They had to come on certain day certain time and follow a certain path As students arrived there was a person in a trench coat who slumped to the ground and moaned Does person stop and help and assist or not IV creation of 2 distinct groups 1 students who never studied social psychology or diffusion of responsibility SS uninformed group 2 students who had studies social psychology and diffusion of responsibility SS informed group DV does somebody help yes or no Results 17 of SS uninformed students helped 52 of SS informed students helped Conclusions weren t any confounds discovered Model of causal processes in bystander apathy of diffusion of responsibility studies Before helping behavior occurs potential helper must Notice the event Interpret it as emergency Assume responsibility Decide to intervene and act on decision If any of above cognitive processes fails to get activated no helping occurs A concluding re examination of the larger context of the social situational analysis of human behavior The bottom line social situations occur in historically specific cultural contexts Systems circumscribe social situations The System is the engine that sets the stage Systems yield institutional support authority permission resources Systems include networks of people their expectations norms policies values laws Each system has a culture and contribute to the culture of a society Social Situations develop from systems Situations create behavioral contexts Situational contexts integrate with Roles Social expectations Norms Scripts Situations are influenced by Conformity Obedience to authority Anonymity deindividuation Diffusion of responsibility Dehumanization Group polarization groupthink Situations can make us devils or heroes