Social Psychology: Bystander Effect

Social Psychology

• Social Psychology: Examines how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others. It differs from sociology by focusing on individuals instead of larger societal structures.

Bystander Effect

• Definition: The tendency for individuals to be less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present.
• Causes: Diffusion of responsibility (assuming others will help), pluralistic ignorance (thinking others know more than you do & not acting), ambiguity (uncertainty about the situation), conforming to the behavior of others (not wanting to seem overreactive).
• Factors Affecting Involvement: Perceived costs of helping, personal relationship with victim, perceived competence to help, group characteristics (size, diversity), situational ambiguity.
• Darley & Latané's Experiments: Studied the bystander effect in simulated emergencies to demonstrate the influence of anonymity and perceived responsibility on helping behavior.

Obedience

• Milgram's Experiment: Participants were instructed to administer electric shocks to another individual (a confederate). This experiment highlighted the powerful influence of authority figures on obedience, even when conflicts arise with personal conscience.
• Reasons for Obedience: Authority figures' perceived legitimacy, lack of alternative responses, progressive commitment, gradual escalation of requests, diffusion of responsibility.
• Lessons learned: The immense pressures of authority and the ease with which normal people can be coerced into harming others.

Conformity

• Definition: Adjusting one's behavior or beliefs to match those of a group.

• In-groups and Out-groups: In-groups are groups an individual identifies with, while out-groups are groups an individual does not identify with. Social identity and categorization.

• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment: Demonstrated the powerful influence of social roles and conformity in shaping behavior and attitudes. The experiment highlighted the dangers of blind conformity in a power gradient.

• Factors Affecting Conformity: Group size, group cohesiveness, unanimity (if everyone else agrees), status of group members, presence of an ally (someone who doesn’t conform)

• Asch's Experiment: Demonstrated the power of conformity by showing how easily individuals will conform to the majority opinion even when the majority is wrong.

• Groupthink: The phenomenon where the desire for harmony or conformity in a group overrides realistic appraisals of alternatives.

• Compliance vs. Acceptance: Compliance is outwardly conforming to a request without necessarily believing in it. Acceptance is truly believing in a position and adjusting behavior and beliefs accordingly.

Intro to Psychology + Psychodynamic Theory

• Psychology: The scientific study of mind and behavior.

• Schools of Thought: Various perspectives, including biological, cognitive, behavioral, humanistic, psychodynamic, etc.

• Psychodynamic Theory/Psychoanalysis: Focuses on unconscious psychological drives and conflicts as the primary determinants of behavior.

• Sigmund Freud: Emphasized the unconscious mind, the influence of early childhood experiences and defense mechanisms in mental processes.

• Karen Horney: Criticized Freud's focus on male psychology. Developed feminist psychology recognizing the influence of social and cultural factors on development.

• Carl Jung: Developed analytical psychology, emphasizing the collective unconscious, archetypes, and individuation process.

Personality Theories

• Nature vs. Nurture: The interplay of genetics (nature) and environment (nurture) in shaping personality. Studies in this area often use twin studies and adoption studies to examine the relative contributions of each.
• Sigmund Freud - Psychosexual Development: Proposed a stage theory of personality development, emphasizing the role of psychosexual conflicts and fixations in shaping adult personality.
• Stages: Oral (feeding), anal (toilet training), phallic (genitals), latency (social interaction), genital (adult sexuality).
• Criticisms: Difficult to test empirically; biased against women; lacks sufficient scientific basis; focuses too much on sexuality.
• Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Theory: Emphasized the social and environmental factors in personality development across a lifespan, presenting the eight stages of psychosocial development with their inherent psychosocial crises.
• Carl Jung: Proposed that the unconscious mind consists of a personal and collective unconscious.
• Alfred Adler: Developed individual psychology highlighting the importance of feelings of inferiority and its effects on personality.
• Thomas Bouchard: Used twin studies to examine nature vs nurture in personality development.

Humanism

• Humanism: A psychological perspective that emphasizes the inherent goodness and potential for growth in individuals.
• Abraham Maslow: Proposed a hierarchy of needs, with self-actualization as the ultimate goal.
• Viktor Frankl: Emphasized the search for meaning in life and the role of free will.
• Carl Rogers: Focused on client-centered therapy, emphasizing empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard.

Behaviourism

• Learning: Relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior.
• Classical Conditioning (Pavlov): A learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, eliciting a similar response.
• Watson's "Little Albert" Experiment: Demonstrated how classical conditioning could lead to the development of fears and phobias. Highlighting learning and conditioning as factors in phobias.
• Behaviour Therapy: Aims to change maladaptive behaviors through various techniques rooted in classical and operant conditioning principles like flooding, systematic desensitization, exposure therapy etc.
• Operant Conditioning (Skinner): A learning process where behavior is influenced by its consequences; reinforcement (increasing behavior) or punishment (decreasing behavior).
• Observational Learning (Bandura): Acquiring new behaviors by observing others; crucial in social learning. Four stages: attention, retention, reproduction, motivation.
• Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment: Demonstrated observational learning of aggressive behavior, challenging the view that aggression was solely through instinctual drives.

Review Questions

• (Answers will require further elaboration and application of the concepts described above)*

This quiz explores the bystander effect within social psychology, focusing on how the presence of others influences individuals' willingness to help in emergency situations. It covers definitions, causes, and key experiments, particularly those conducted by Darley and Latané. Test your understanding of these critical concepts!