Elissa Redmiles 10 30 08 Attributions Lecture 14 Notes When good things happen fundamental attribution error is reversed this is self serving bias because the reversal makes us feel better about ourselves Good internal for us Good external for others especially when they are similar to us or competing with us When bad things happen fundamental attribution error is accentuated this is defensive attribution because it protects us Bad external for us this was not my fault Bad internal for others if it was their responsibility that something bad happens since you are not like them that bad thing cannot happen to you Social Conformity and Obedience Social Conformity and Obedience Outline Conformity o Asch s experiments o Group Cohesions o Compliance Obedience o Motivation o Milgram s experiment Design Analysis Results Group Cohesion devastation caused by the Holocaust The people were motivated by what happened in Germany the concentration Introduction Motivation camps had an enormous effect on people the killing of millions of people was simply unbelievable Some people instead of anger hatred or fear responded with a desire to understand how this happened in order to perhaps prevent it in the future Many of these people were Jewish and had personal experience with the Conformity Conformity yielding to real or imagined social pressure Conformity is something that we do all of the time at a level it is necessary for people to interact without chaos Conformity can be a problem when the behavior is more extreme bunch of followers the leader is the sick one the followers say I knew this was wrong I didn t want to do it I felt like I had to go along with the group social group that they don t like almost always there is a leader and a Example young males who severely injure or kill a victim who is of a Examples sitting silently in class wearing particular clothes Elissa Redmiles 10 30 08 Asch How far will conformity go What is typical normal as far as how far people will go Ask people to judge a length of a line given a standard line and 3 lines to compare the standard to long medium and short the difference between the 3 lines is very very obvious You are asked which line is the same length as the standard and the answer is always very obvious 7 people sit around a table 1 subject 6 confederates the subject sits in seat 6 so 5 confederates in front of them and 1 confederate behind them Then go around the table in order to answer question about line First time all people give the right answer Second time everyone gives the right answer Third time 5 people in front of subject give the wrong answer Results across all the subjects and trials subjects conformed to the group in 37 of the trials Doing this even with very very little social pressure Large individual difference all of the subjects go along 37 of the time About 25 of the subjects never conformed 25 of the subjects conformed over 50 of the time Factors GROUP SIZE is very important to conformity with a wrong idea if only one person refuses conformity drops to GROUP UNANIMITY the extent to which everyone in the group goes along no conformity big leap up increase increase MAX conformity flat flat 1 other person 2 other people 3 other people 4 other people 5 other people 6 other people almost 0 Compliance Compliance is you agree with other people even though you think they are wrong o Do people believe what they say when they conform Believe that they are giving the wrong answer Believe that they are wrong and others are right In the Asch experiment when people could respond anonymously they answered correctly every time Obedience Obedience is whether people will do what they are told by an authority figure Milgram How far will people go in their obedience Motivation Magnitude of Holocaust was such that it could not have been carried out without the compliance and obedient help of people who were not members of the Nazi party Played central role in restrictions on experiments with humans Milgram wanted to know how far people would go when ordered to do something by an authority figure when the something was either unpleasant difficult or absolutely Would people torture someone to death if told to do so by an authority figure Elissa Redmiles 10 30 08 Setup o Two subjects come to the lab and are told that they are going to take part in an experiment on the effects of punishment on learning o They came into the lab and had a meet and greet session o There is only one real subject the other subject is a confederate in the experiment o Confederate is a male about 50 years old friendly outgoing easy to get along with mild mannered he mentions that he has a heart condition o One subject is teacher the other is a learner o Teacher will ask the subject questions and when the learner makes a mistake teacher will punish the learner o Randomly determined who was teacher and who was learner subject is always teacher confederate is always learner o Subject and confederate are shown how equipment works Teacher sits at table and on the table is a big panel of switches each switch is associated with a particular voltage of electricity To the side of a table is a screen that makes the teacher not able to see the learner Learner sits in chair is strapped into the chair electrical leads are place on their body the subject is put in a chair so that everyone knows what is going on and is given a mild shock so that they understand what is happening to the leaner o There are 30 switches in front of the teacher they are labeled in Voltage and also severity they start at 15V and increase at 15V increments to 450V huge shock XXX o Learner is following a script they make mistakes at pre specified times o Independent variable when the learner is making a mistake o The experimenter scientist the authority figure is in the room the entire time o If the subject asks to stop the experiment the experimenter is following a script so they say ether the experiment requires you to continue or you have no other choice you must go on o Before Milgram started the experiment he wanted a range so that one end would be low enough that no one would refuse to do it and the other end where almost everyone would refuse to do it o When you are asked to inflict pain on someone by an authority figure where in the range will most people stop o He asked Psychiatrists whether people would go to 450V The Psychiatrist said almost no body would go to 450V Elissa Redmiles 10 30 08 Running the
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