Social Psychology Final - Rockoff PDF
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This document is a past paper for a social psychology course, covering topics such as social loafing, the tragedy of the commons, and groupthink. It discusses the concepts and theories related to these topics, including examples from real-life situations.
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Rockoff24 Post-Midterm 11/13: Social Loafing What happens to performance when people perform tasks as a group? You could have tug of war, a team is doing it. Do people pull harder as individuals or as a team? In the late 1800s, Max Ringleman, a French...
Rockoff24 Post-Midterm 11/13: Social Loafing What happens to performance when people perform tasks as a group? You could have tug of war, a team is doing it. Do people pull harder as individuals or as a team? In the late 1800s, Max Ringleman, a French agricultural engineer, wanted to qualify what is the most efficient way to perform a task. Ex: could a weight be pulled with a rope better by individuals or groups. Rope was connected to a dynamometer that measures force. As an individual the average was 83.5 kg. So multiplied, would think that it should be 584.4 – then had 7 people pull, and each person pulled 65; each person was literally not pulling their weight. So why does this happen? o Ringleman, first to find empirical evidence that individual performance decreases as the size S of the group increases. He said it could be psychological or just having to do with physics. This was called the Ringleman effect. It did not interest many people so much at first. Ingum, says that he was going to investigate the Ringleman effect, and they had 6 people and a similar rope contraption and they noticed that the amount of force also dropped; so they replicated the Ringleman effect. How do we know who is right? So how figure out exactly where it comes from? o Ingum blindfolded the participants, they were told to pull hard on the rope; confederates S pretended to pull… so the real subject at the front of the line exerts 82 percent as much effort. his diminished effort is what social psychologists call “social loafing.” This means that in social T loafing experiments people have more evaluation apprehension as individuals, but when they are in a group and think that their effort is disguised in the group so evaluation apprehension decreases. Evaluation apprehension as the individuals increases arousal which is facilitation. he opposite effect is social loafing, one explanation for which is that there is a drop in T evaluation, you believe that you are not held accountable and therefore think that no one knows how much effort you are putting in (noaccountability). Rockoff25 nother problem is that people feeldispensable, because someone else is going to do the A work anyway. This happens all of the time. By tips; people don’t give as much because they are not seen. Wait-staff work less hard because they are part of a group and dividing up tips anyway. his is true of communism as well because just don’t work as hard when there is not as much in T it for them. 1 percent of private land provided 27 percent of national output. NCSY Kollel – dentist sealing teeth off of the books because they took too much money in tax If you have high taxes, then people put in less effort because they think that less money is going to belong to them. IDF – social loafing to get out of service by faking ill. Does culture make a difference? ocial Loafing has been observed in cross-cultural societies as well, but they loaf less. Because S if you identify with the group, then your very identity is group leaning. Loyalty to family is strong. Women who are less individualistic loaf less than men. Exceptions to Social Loafing – when we identify with the group: tudies in 1960s comparing collectivist Kibbutzim vs Israel’s non-collectivist agricultural S communities. They found the opposite of the Soviets such that the kibbutzim outperformed the individual communities. This is because the original kibbutzniks were very often Holocaust survivors who fought in wars together etc. Where else can social loafing be beaten? Very engaging and rewarding tasks. oating, olympic crews, because there was accountability and teach that people are B indispensable. Sefer hachinuch – we have kohanim bec of this tendency of social loafing Rockoff26 11/18: The Tragedy of the Commons In our last class we discussed social loafing and the tendency to contribute less effort when we are part of a group. What about the reverse? Is there a tendency to take more when we think we won’t lose? here was a magazine Science 84 in which they offered free money. You could check either 20 T free dollars or 100 free dollars. Everyone could get as much free money that they requested unless if 33 percent requested 100 dollars or more. People don’t want to give up reward to themselves even if it will harm others. This has become known as “The Tragedy of the Commons.” ld English Towns had a centrally located pasture area called the commons and the O farmhouses were all around the common center. If everyone used the pasture responsibly then it would not be destroyed. This is what is called a social trap. It is a situation where individuals pursue their own self interest rather than the good of the group which eventually leads to mutually destructive behavior. nother thing is called the NUTS game. Bowl of 10 nuts in the middle of the table. You can take A as many nuts as you want, but every 10 second there is time out and however many nuts in the middle they double it. So in everyone’s interests to wait for a long time and then divide the nuts and trade in for prizes. But that is not what happens. 65 % of the groups don’t reach the first 10 second replenishment unless they give the players a chance to figure out some sort of strategy. In real life this happens all of the time. When we drive in a car, we get lots of benefit from being in the car. But our benefits are big, and the destruction to environment the traffic from one more car is very small. But when a billion people on earth think that, then we destroy the environment. GWB, lower toll for carpools, then the scales shift and more people are willing to carpool. he Bobo doll experiment of Bandura, someone was caught in the HOV lane because someone T was wondering why they had sunglasses on a sunny day and the person had a doll. Sometimes can appeal to someone’s altruism. Made in the USA… vs Made in China. hat if we divide the commons into 24 small plots with 5 farmers each? W So then this would result in 24 small pieces for each person. But when you make it smaller you efforts seem more effective. But here you feel like you are bearing fruit. So you will see fewer example of the “Tragedy of the Commons.” omeone was saying in shul when travels why doesn’t stay at expensive places. I work at small S company, so I cannot spend their money. If it is a big company then why do you care. Executives in big companies are sometimes paid in stock options so that they have more ‘skin in the game’ such that they want the company to be more successful. Rockoff27 The Tragedy of the Commons is prevalent in over-fishing. laces in Israel where they restructure the water bills when there was less rain. So if there is P less rain, most people don’t care and they will still water their lawn. To combat this in Israel they made it more expensive at certain times of day to use the water. The Ramban in Bereshis 47:19 explains why Yosef chose not to buy the Egyptians as slaves. o this ties into the idea os social loafing. But as free men, now they are responsible to work to S support themselves. They are not receiving an automatic ration as slaves do. Thus it was better not to have them as slaves because they would produce more. he Malbim says that Yosef was a former slave and he detested the idea of owning others. T Others including the Ha’amek Davar and Meshech Chochma say similarly. ama Tisrau – why do you show yourselves? They had plenty of food, but the other people will L see that Jews have food and so it would look bad. The Cadillac only driven on Sundays…So doesnt seem like they had enough food. Sforno reads Lama Tisrau – why are you looking at each other. Sforono quotes phrase from the Gemara that why should pot be cold. Why should I do it, let him do it? or Hamabel each stole one grape until the vender had nothing left. Perhaps they mean that D everyone took one grape because that is the “Tragedy of the Commons.” 11/20: Groupthink NASA – The Challenger here were 11,000 applicants. Christoper ___ a history teacher who was chosen to be on the T Challenger. Another one was Judith Resnick, everyone was buzzing about it. Rabbi Bleich was asked how a Jewish woman would light Shabbos candles in space. 73 seconds later watched it explode. Everyone watched it in disbelief. Needless to say, all aboard perished. Only later learned the the engineers argued that the weather conditions would impact the launch. The top engineer put in writing that the result would be a disaster of the highest order. In a telephone call the engineers pressed the danger. o what happened? Why did they allow the launch to proceed? How could they have been so S stupid? Rockoff28 hat question was asked years earlier by Irving Janis, who was looking back at another T calamity. Many studied the 1951 Bay of Pigs fiasco. It was a plan to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. In the end, the invaders were quickly captured and killed and Cuba was pushed further into the arms of the Soviet Union. JFK himself wondered aloud, how could we have been so stupid? o Irving Janis observed these events and said the idea of groupthink hit me when he watched S the Bay of Pigs invasion. How could they have thought this was a good plan? So, he suggested that he found the same detrimental group processes at work. So Janis analyzed and pieced together what went wrong. He was looking for common denominators that weave their way through unfortunate policy blunders. So he put the puzzle pieces together and said that people value group membership and harmony above all else. So if you have a group of people making decisions you think that the idea is better. But very often it is not. When you are in a situation you don’t want to argue unpopular viewpoints to contradict the president even though you think he is dead wrong. You want to be accepted as part of the team. o decision making groups suppress disagreement with the aim of the group, so this is called S groupthink. o this term began appearing in major dictionaries. Conflict in northern ireland. Dot com bubble. S World common scandals. Subprime mortgage crisis. To take a step back, Janis examined many foreign policy fiascos: 941: US armed forces ignored a steady stream of reports that the Japanese were planning an 1 attack; but complacent commanders at Pearl Harbor did not take any precautions resident escalates in Vietnam. So we in America know about the Vietnam War. 58,000 P American lives were lost. olitical Leaders – Military leaders; working together! But when making decisions groups face P pitfalls. he desperate drive for consensus at any cost. No one wants to rock the boat and to say the T unpopular thing. anis deduced the certain interpersonal dynamics allow for groupthink. Here are some J examples: hese are the “seeds” of groupthink; the antecedents, when they are present then groupthink T might arise and lead to groupthink type decision making Rockoff29 ohesive: if group has a friendly cohesive nature then people are going to be even more C hesitant to rock the boat Isolation: If the group is isolated and making the decisions themselves without consulting anyone outside the group so then your perspectives are limited Directive Leader: If there is a directive leader who signal what decisions he favors tress: Especially from external threats, there is an even greater temptation to circle the S wagons, to say that we have to be unified to work together ack of Methodical Procedures: Some meetings have all kind of rules, that someone has to L propose a motion, someone else must second the motion etc e identified these symptoms that are associated with pressures toward uniformity; people tend H to conform. Symptoms of Groupthink Conformity Pressures: resident Johnson’s assistant, Bill Moyers, so the president mocks him. Oh, here comes Mr. P “Stop the Bombing” – he was silenced, that is conformity pressures Self-censorship: omtimes group members censor themselves in situations where disagreements are S uncomfortable where the group seems to be in consensus, so member will suspend their misgivings rthur Schlessinger, advisor to President Kennedy, was against the Bay of Pigs Invasion – A thought it was dumb and stupid. So was asked why didn’t you speak up. He said, “A course of objection would have accomplished little save to gain me a nuisance.” Illusion of Unanimity: elf-censorship and conformity pressures create an “illusion of consensus.” So you don’t say S anything because it seems that everyone agrees, even though multiple people might disagree. Mind Guards: Rockoff30 ay of Pigs, attorney general Robert F. Kennedy; his father was a real Oheiv Yisrael and was B assassinated by a Palestinian. RFK, pulls aside Schlessinger and says you may be right or wrong, but the president has made up his mind. Don’t push him further. He was told instead to be a yes, man. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, withheld information. Both protected the president from the facts, valuable alternative perspectives. They were mind guards. eturn to the Challenger. Many have pointed to aspects that suggests that groupthink was at R work here. NASA had 55 successful launches and the group worked together for years. The team was led by manger who strongly supported the launch. One NASA official said when do you want me to launch, next April? This is a management decision, not an engineering one. They painted an illusion of unanimity. Because they polled everyone except for the engineers. ASA officials on eve of the launch, shifted the onus of proof that the seals would not work. N They suspected a disaster but couldn’t prove one. inally there were the mind guards – truth is stranger than fiction. The top NASA official, that F person was never even told about the concerns of the engineers. No one even told him about it. olumbia – Elan Ramon was on it. They say Coronel Ramon was the first to request Kosher C food on the space shuttle. He carried a sketch from an Auschwitz survivor. Carried a Torah Scroll that was read in Auschwitz. It broke apart on reentry to Earth. 16 minutes before its scheduled landing. There too it was suggested that NASA had not learned their groupthink lessons. 11/27: Groupthink Do groups always make bad decisions? he Truman’s Marshall plan, the Kennedy administration handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, T sometimes groups make good decisions. Janis crafted advice for groups based on his research: anhedrin derived from a Greek body. Don’t show why Sanhedrin should have been at risk of S groupthink. Demonstrate that the Sanhedrin should have been at risk of groupthink, but was mitigated by certain means. ccording to Janis, homogenous groups are particularly at risk of groupthink, they are more A likely to be close knit, adhesive. Rockoff31 as the Sanhedrin homogeneous? During the Sanhedrin, there were different groups with W different approaches to the Torah, pharisees and saducees, the 10th chapter of Ta’anis records that for a time both school were represented in the Sanhedrin. So from perspective of rabinic Judaism this was good, but this was also showing that it was homogenous. Also its membership shared familial similarities, including gender. Gemara in Sanhedrin teaches only people with perfect pedigree and family background was necessary for membership. If had no kids, young or very old were also excluded, rambam also says reason is so that the judges will be merciful. Furthermore, BD must be should be on highest levels of righteousness and also unsullied in other ways as well, have right hair, impressive height, dignified appearance, understand many languages. Also maybe in danger of groupthink because of high stress from external stress, from foreign rulers, gemara in kiddushin 66a, all sages of israel were massacred at the hands of yannai. Gittin 57b, entire sanhedrin was signled out for slaughter, also gittin 56a, kamtza and bar kamtza, members of sanhedrin recognzied that decisions would lead to violent reprisals. Obviously they had stress form external sources. Highly consequential decisions also is an antecedent of groupthink. ll sources convey that the sanhedrin possessed some characteristics that would put it at risk of A groupthink. So we will see that sanhedrin possessed anti-group think practices. ow do we see that the sanhedrin had these measures, so firstly leadership of the sanhedrin H was often shared. The rambam in sanhedrin teaches us that the greatest in wisdom was at the head, he was the av BD, the nasi the leader and the righthand man the av BD. this arrangment assured different viewpoints would be represented by the groups leadership. Think about the epic semicha debate, on an animals. The passuk in vayikra says samach yado on the offering before ohel moed. A debate arose if semicha should be day before holiday if semicha is done on erev YT or should it be performed on the holiday itself. The nasi and the av BD continued this debate for generations. The existence of such a debate and its long lasting nature highlights the fact that the sanhedrin’s division of leadership preventing domineering personalities and enabling a wide latitude of opinions. himaya was nasi of sanhedrin, said to despise positions of power. Reb yishamel says judge S not alone for none shall judge alone except for Hashem. Another of RY, say not accept my view for they are wicked but not I, all in maseches avos. Impartial leadership was a key factor of the sanhedrin. gainst this backdrop it becomes easier to understand another passage in maseces pesachim A 66a, the beni beseira could not resolve the quest of erev pesach can it be slaughtered on erev shabbos. So the leaders of the sanhedrin say that we summoned them. Lets bring young scholar, maybe the young man has an idea. Tells us humility. Provides the ans the eluded them. They appointed young newcomer as the leader as the nasi over them. id an overbearing leader ever emerge over the sanhedrin? Difference of opinion bet RG and D RY regarding the nature of the marriv service. Is it obligatory or perhaps it is a reshus. So RY expressed personal opinion that marriv is optional. Upon arriving the following day, RG Rockoff32 hallenged him and humbled RY requiring him to stand the whole day. So the other members of c the sanhedrin voted to depose RG. remove directive leader when they were not comfortable with how he got rid of the opposition. his provides background story for how story of hagaddah of harei ani kben shivim shanah. T They needed a new leader. Deeper way to understand harei ani kben shivim shanah. 70 years is considered a lifetime. Arizal says that he was a gilgul of shmuel hanavi so he had lived 52 yrs plus 18, harei ani kben shivim shanah. Why choose someone so young? Yerushalmi says that RA wondered why choose someone so young? ack to reg programming, where else do we see methods of sanhedrin would stop groupthink? B During capital cases, junior members would speak their mind first to prevent groupthink. Rambam also writes that one of the judges of dinei nefashos, it was a lo sasei to base your ruling based on the reasoning of a colleague. o while sanhedrin strictly adhered to specific guidelines. How did they sit, what order speak, S how witnesses were examined. Methodical review. Analysis of evidence and information. anis also identifies insulation from outside opinions. To mitigate invite outside experts. Ramban J in sefer hamitzvos says any scholar who thought that it was wrong was required to go to yerushalyim and present his case. Students would watch the sanhedrin’s opinion ensuring more diversity of input. anis suggests that groups purposely fracture unanimity. Break mind guards. Sanhedrin J introduced advocates on behalf of the defendant. When a decision was reached, Janis says doesnt end there, maybe bad decision. So what do we do? Divide into smaller groups and discuss outside of a group setting. Then reunite and at that point air our distances. Leave cabinet room and come back. Final verdict was always postpone until the next day, halan es hadin, sleep on it. Postponing was another technique of Janis, a second chance meeting. Discuss remaining uncertainties. ow, said that chachamim anticipated Janis, but here can suggest they went beyond Janis N himself to be so careful to prevent groupthink. In contemporary US law, juries need a unanimous jury decision. Sounds sensible. The sanhedrin would automatically acquit a defendant is everyone voted he was guilty. Mechanism to prevent groupthink. To counter unanimity. Final last ditch measure to prevent groupthink. Pirkei drebbe eliezer said al tehei dan yichi, hashem doesnt judge alone. Before dor haflaga, he surrounds throne of glory and consult with a heavenly court. Rashi on vayera says that when hashem destroys the wicked cities of sedom, there was no need for a vav, v’hashem himtir al sedom. What is the vav? Rashi says when say v’hashem, hu and beis dino. Hashem’s BD. everyone knows example of na’aseh adam. Some know hava nerda. But not everyone know that was case by sedom. Rashi got this from the medrash in bereishis rabbah. Not just sedom and amora. Kol makom shene’mar bashem. Beis din shel mayla. And hashem. Rockoff33 Hashem is setting model for anti groupthink. otziuha vsisareif. That was yehuda. Tribunal was yitzchak yaakov and yehuda. Psak was by H yehuda. So rav david cohen says remez that junior member of sanhedrin speaks first. That is another example of what we are talking about. 11/27: Reactance ou can easily demonstrate how predictable and compliant people are. You ask them to raise Y their pens and then to drop them. Probably most people won’t drop their pencils and then open up a paper that says your prediction was that people would not drop their pencil. So this would be an illustration of reactance that people don’t obey because they want to maintain their individuality. oday we are going to talk about when obedience and conformity don’t work. When social T pressure becomes so blatant that it threatens our sense of freedom people often rebel. This is known as reactance when people respond to protect their sense of freedom and individuality. This is the anti-conformity boomerang effect. adel and Heylman would stop someone with a petition. If it is something they mildly support M such as “save the whales” so then often people won’t stop and do it. But if people feel that their will is being constrained so they are more likely to sign the petition. So she would ask people to sign the petition. If you add that some people don’t want them to be signing it, so people become more likely to sign. torah example of this would be when you read through the artscroll neviim, they write in the A commentary that we don’t know. Melachim – shimi ben geira, rebbe of shlomo, he cursed david hamelech, and david gives the instructions on his deathbed to his son that you should make sure to get rid of shimi ben geira, you should kill him. So shlomo doesn’t just go ahead and kill him. So he said stay within this boundary, so his eved kenani runs away. He is chasing his slave and he leaves the boundaries, so shlomo says gave you these guidlines, you violated them. Now he has clear right to kill shimi ben geira. So it says in the artscroll commentary a tzarich iyun why did shimi do this, why would he leave yerushalayim, he should have known not to do this. Why maybe did he leave? Maybe reactance, he was trying to assert his own freedom. If you tell someone that they cannot do something, they want to do it! eople feel uncomfortable when they are too ‘different’ than others. But we also feel P uncomfortable if we are exactly like everyone else. Purdue university was asked what are your 10 most important attitudes. Some students were told their answers were the same as others and others were told they were unique. Rockoff34 In the second stage of the experiment they were then placed in conformity experiments, what if Asch’s experiment told them beforehand that they were similar or different from others. If told they were not unique, they were less likely to conform because they want to assert their individuality. In another experiment, people who had just been told that their opinion was the same as others, so they would change their opinion. (Gemara Kasha example, when someone else asks your great kasha, you try to refute it). Another exception to rules that we have learned. Reactance is most shayich to obedience. ut there is another one shayich to conformity. Do people always go after the majority, then if so B nothing would ever change? If it is so that people always go after the majority so how can a minority be influential? Yes, minorities are sometimes influential and change almost by definition has to come from minority voices. Robert Fulton developed the steam boat. So Robert Fulton changed the industry yet people initially referred to it as ‘Fulton’s folly.’ “Never did a single encouraging remark cross my path.” How does this happen? What make the minority influential or persuasive? oscovici, another famous psychologist, he was a Jew, a Holocaust survivor. He studied what M makes a minority influential: 1. Consistency a. If a minority is going to win over members of the majority, they are much better off if they stick to their position. If they waver then we would say that even they are kind of wavering. But if the minority is consistent you might get some in the majority to change their view. b. Similar to solomon asch, so he used colors, would ask a group what color you are seeing. If there was a minority to view the blue sides as green, but occasionally a real participants would go with the minority. But if the minority wavers, then virtually no one in the majority will ever agree to the green. 2. Self-confidence a. If you convey with power and confidence that creates a sense that you are correct 3. Defection a. You are in a car and a radio commercial comes on so some actor says “I too questioned or was skeptical” but now I have hair why need someone to come on and say this. What is the point of this? So Rabbi Sinclair was trying to tell us that you look around at the world and so he was a defector and then he came around. Rabbi Uri Zohar, wrote a book my friends we were robbed, secular israelis, I was the one you worshipped. Now trying to convert bochurim at matisdorf to the chareidi world. ven more powerful than a consistent voice is a defector. 12 angry men, gradually more come E over to your side. That is defection. Rockoff35 vraham haivri, so whole world is on one side and he is on the other side. So if people have so A much trouble going against the group. So when the whole world is against you, so when is avarahm called avraham haiviri, so that appears when he is going to go to war against the four kings, the powers that be in those days. So avraham became the prototypical deflector. ambam – when they are debating, he is prohibited from switching to the other side. Perhaps R that is because the Torah did not want this powerful form of social influence, that of defection, to be used to condemn a man who is innocent. 12/4: Stereotype Threat tudent who is short thinks he is stereotyped as being bad at basketball so plays worse. S Someone is studying for speech therapist, he is a man, but most in our community are female. So this guy was taking courses in the speech therapy program and he said that the professors would say that the women are the best speech therapy students. As a result, he did worse. here was a movie 127 hours. There was a hiker and he went off hiking on his own and his arm T got caught between a rock and a hard place. First he screams for help. After a while, 127 hours he realizes ein hadavar taluy eleh bi. He realizes that he is going to have to do something on his own. So he took his swiss army knife and he removed his arm and walked home. So this guy no longer goes out hiking alone. He said in an interview that this prosthetic arm is actually more efficient than the human hand when it comes to rock climbing. So he says by all logic he should be a better rock climber. But when he goes climbing with other hikers, so he said that he actually climbs worse, slower because he thinks that they are thinking that he is handicapped and thus they must go slow. He is threatened by the stereotype. That is the crux of stereotype threat. laude Steele, a famous social psychologist who has done much research in the area of C stereotype threat has shown that the way that people respond in real life situations is often a product of how they see themselves. tereotype threat is affected by whether or not someone identifies with the group. A black S student thinks good at school, or I don’t care about school, only someone who really thinks that they are good at it, who has the most to lose, will lose the most due to stereotype threat. A test of intelligence as opposed to a test of athletic ability will change who performs better. ometimes students ask, sometimes stereotypes can help you. This is known as the stereotype S lift, that when you think you are meant to be good at something, you do well. Stereotype of asian american females. They divided them into three groups, the second group says on top, Rockoff36 heck box for gender, male or female. The third group says check box for ethnicity. Compared to c control group who only put name and the date. So first have stereotype threat, check female, they do worse. Then checked asian american, they did better, stereotype lift. omen taking a math test with two other women, or two others were men. They knew their W score would not be shared with the others. Just sitting in the room either with men or other women, they did better with women. They did not even need to check a box. e are conscious of the ways in which we are different, but perhaps everyone is cognizant of W these things. This could be why some might opt for same gender classes. o one example is affirmative action. But one argument against affirmative action is that if you S are accepted into a particular university and you know that you were given extra points to get in, it sends the message that you were not such a competitive candidate otherwise. Thus this person thinks that they were stereotype as not worthy of being there otherwise. ne study looked at african american students that had african american names, or ‘more O american’ names. Ghetto typed or not. Thus these things, these labels could be self-fulfilling prophecies. 12/9: Ostracism ipling Williams an ostracism researcher. Ostracism is so difficult because of the human need K for belonging, but also because of the human need for control. Another reason is because when someone is ostracized, so it destroys their sense of self esteem because they think that their must be something wrong with them. And finally one’s sense of the purpose is lost because they feel as though they are dead and feel as though they are experiencing the world without them. ike when a kid went missing they said they just wanted to see if anyone would notice that they L were gone. How do you study ostracism? illiams had one subject and two confederates. Wait their for the experimenter to return. One W confederate discovers a ball and begins tossing it. Eventually the confederates stop throwing to the subject. In a similar experiment, the subject realizes that they are left out of the conversation. The subject is ignored. Williams was the first to do research with cyber ostracism as well. Rockoff37 In a third experiment, extended the ball tossing thing to cyberspace. The subject experiences physiological arousal as a response. ometimes you try to be more pleasant to be around, other times people respond to ostracism S with frustration because they would try to evoke a response. Columbine high school shooting was the result of the ostracism of two students. ut there is something else interesting, 24 hours of ostracism, plus you can be ostracized even B by people you don’t know. There is a psychological impact and also a physiological impact. There is physical pain and social pain and they are linked. The is a study that shows that acetaminophen reduces social pain. ipling played a game where they ignored some people on certain days. They thought that this K simulated ostracism. It disrupted work, caused concern anxiety and paranoia. And these were adults who knew it was fake and they were ostracism researchers. So it wreaked havoc on them. To thwart the deep need to belong destroys the result to survive. ome respond when they are ostracized, so they try to gain the favor of others. But sometime S they strike back with violence and aggression. ftentimes when we hear about social problems we think oh what can I do? If one person O reaches out to the ostracized student so then he feels much less pain. Research shows that acception by one stranger reduces social stress. amous quote no matter who says it: “To the world you may be one person, but to one person F you may be the world.” In Tanach, shmuel 2 – avshalom is in exile he is called back to yerushalayim and he is ostracized. Yoav ignores him, so what does he do when he is ostracized and ignored. So he burns down yoav’s field in response. So avshalom says that he would rather be killed than have such an existence. Ostracism is a metaphor for death. Choni hamagel – Oh chavrusa o misusa. I am choni, the big tzaddik, so he asked to die. lso the story of kamtza and bar kamtza, this gives us an idea of just how painful this could be. A So a famous social psychologist, Elliot Aronson, did very important work on ostracism. Here is the background. Some 50-60 years ago, the schools were desegregated. No longer separate, but equal. They are together by order of the court. Think it was kumbaya? No way! Violent fights broke out in the classrooms. So Austin texas school system reached out to Elliot Aronson, what do we do? How do we deal with the situation? He responded with something called the Jigsaw classroom. When we reconverne on Wednesday we have to discuss this innovative technique. Rockoff38 12/11: Ostracism Final similar to the midterm; multiple choice ast time we were talking about ostracism and how powerful and dangerous this phenomenon L is. On the other hand, we see how easy it is… ights among the schools; how do you function in a school with fistfights in the hallways? So F they approached Dr. Elliot Aronson and he responded with the “jigsaw classroom.” This means that you divide everyone into groups and task each person with a goal. For example choose Israel, someone in charge of food; someone in charge of culture; another about the IDF etc amban explains that yaakov was nowhere near the border of EY yet, someone must know the R geography of the country etc. o everyone has a reason to get to know each other. But in the jigsaw classroom there are S experts groups – each representative of food. So everyone overlaps and has to work together. So it works like a jigsaw puzzle! So maybe there was someone that you thought that you would not like. So you got seated next to someone and got to know them, hey they are kinda cool people. He wrote the book, “Nobody left to hate.” “ More you learn about people, the less you hate them. And before you know it there is nobody left to hate.” Sister in Israel, everyone sat at big tables, encouraged to work together. ebbe in a middle school; he was a rebbe who taught tanach. As he got to the end of the year R he realized that they would not finish the sefer. So they wanted to have the siyum. He broke the class up into a few different groups and he made roles for each one. You are the summarizer. One person will make a cartoon. Another person writes a little skit. Another person is the explainer. He had not yet learned about the jigsaw classroom. There was a certain student who the whole year did not interact well, this was the only time of the year that this kid came out of his shell as they were forced to work together and to depend on one another. ent to a conference of not the APA – the american psychological association. APS – W association of psychological science. APS is relatively new. Dr. Schnall went and each day they heard different lessons. The last day was a festdriff. Supposedly a scholar appreciates things of the mind, so at the festdriff they gave a book of people who wrote chapter in the chazon nachum in his honor. So in the case of elliot aronson they had a day of festdriff, a day of talks in his honor. It was really interesting and one of those who spoke was his son Josh Aronson and worked with Claude Steele on stereotype threat. He read a letter that his father received. “Dear Professor Aronson, Rockoff39 I got admitted to Harvard… 5b in BM – rav chiya says “I planted flax and from what grew I weaved a net, from the net I 8 caught a deer, I shechted the deer and fed the meat to orphans. I took the skin and I made parchments. And from the parchment I wrote separate sefarim. And then he said I want everyone to teach to each other so that way torah wont be forgotten from EY. a beautiful story. So some mefarshim ask different kinds of questions. Why first plant flax? Buy a net. Mefarshim explain that you want it to be totally pure. Buy pre checked lettuce. It said that this lettuce was planted lsheim mitzvas marror. Another kasha, teach all together. So dr. schnall looked, and perhaps it is the jigsaw classroom. It should have the element of chessef etc. it is also about ahava shalom and rayus. andid pics – obedience; silver subway experiment – mory silver told us that when he was grad C student of stanley milgram they would ask people on the subway for their seat. People would do it. When someone is suddenly presented with a command they are more likely to be obedient than if they have time to think. 12/16: Review + Additions alo effect: if you have a general evaluation of a person, usually positive, that will influence how H you view them otherwise If people look good, think that the person is good as well Review: Social Loafing – tendency for people in a group tend to exert less effort They feel less accountable, and they view themselves as dispensable eindividuation: the loss of self awareness and self restraint occurring in group situations that D foster arousal and anonymity roup polarization: the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion G about a topic Start off high prejudice, more extreme; low, even lower Rockoff40 his was initially dubbed the “risky shift” which means that initially there was this misconception T that it is not that people become more risky but if the dilemma if that people respond in a risky way, so groups push people towards further extremes, to be more risky if members of the group share the same opinions In education research they realized that education researchers called the accentuation phenomenon. For example, by terrorism, in like company they become more extreme roupthink: the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in decision making G overrides individual thinking roups, especially high status groups value harmony so much so that they suppress dissent and g therefore there is often unanimity ay of pigs B Challenger explosion Titanic ome have suggested as well that the sinking of the Titanic may have been at least in part due S to groupthink hose who were in charge; did not cast the iceberg warning to the captain before it crashed. T Edward Smith the captain was a directive leader, if the leader o captain Smith was known as a directive leader who signaled which way he favored; the S sanhedrin junior members presented their ideas first to prevent this kind of problem ransformational leaders – through their charisma they inspire their group members to make T them motivated or confident in pursuit of whatever is the goal Transactional leaders – I will pay you Is a good leader a follower? Or is a good leader one who brings along the group in the proper direction? The latter is transformational leadership It seems that the group is deciding to kill Yosef; Lechu V’nahargeyhu Vayishma reuven vayatzieihu myadam, lo nakenu nafesh; dont do that instead do this Do you think that he convinced them? Yehuda says ma betza? We can come up with a better plan! nd by yehuda it says vayishme’u echav – so yehuda was transformational leader because he A transformed them Rockoff41 euen says give him to me; he is a directive leader, he gives directives without presenting R argument; yaakov does not accept his argument; but again there is a contrast between him and yehuda, here yehuda jumps in and he explains the reasoning and the background at great length. aakov does agree and sends binyamin; so explicit in this weeks parsha, have the same two Y and no one else Do groups ever make good decisions? Irving Janis looked at successful group decisions: he Truman administration and the Marshall plan T The Kennedy administration and the Cuban Missile Crisis So he also found common threads in their successes The Power of Individuals: social control vs personal control s powerful as social control may be, we also have personal control; this is known as reactance A which means that when people feel that their agency their free will has been curtailed then there is a boomerang effect. So if a minority is consistent and self-confident then they might bring along the members of the majority. Minority Influence: Consistent, self confident minority; but even more effective is a defector to the minority Norm: accepted, expected, proper behavior Norm: culture shocks; pace of life Cultural influences – changes over time, changes over the generations Prejudice and Discrimination: rejudice: an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members; P prejudice generally involves stereotype beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action (prejudice is thoughts and attitudes) Stereotype: generalized, sometimes accurate, belief about a group of people Rockoff42 Discrimination: the action of acting out our prejudices lder people – fewer people supported interracial dating; that is 20 years… in the scope of O human history that is so so short Social in Equities: he just world phenomenon – people get what they deserve and deserve what they get; the T tendency for people to believe that the world is just Blame the victim; if someone is not successful we blame them and not society Social Roots of Prejudice: Power of ingroups vs outgroups Ingroup: Outgroup: Ingroup bias: Ethnocentrism – we assume the superiority of one’s own ethnic group Emotional roots of prejudice: capegoat theory: prejudice offers an outlet; we want someone to blame S “If the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would have to invent him.” We cling to ingroups when facing threats, frustrations, even death he Doll Tests 1947: first African American man and woman to earn a phd in psychology from T columbia university hey presented white and black dolls to african american kids; they preferred the white dolls T because the minority get the idea that the majority is better and that they are worse 12/18: Review + Additions Cognitive Roots of Prejudice: Rockoff43 utgroup homogeneity: they are all the same, but we are all different O Other-race effect Vivid case effect: the 9/11 hijackers we saudi, arabs, muslims… Believing in a just world also leads to prejudice– minority groups ‘deserve’ it Aggression: Genetic influences – Y chromosome = more aggressive Neural influences – diminished frontal lobe activity Biochemical influences: high testosterone Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors: Aversive Events Frustration Aggression Principle: if blocked from achieving a goal, frustration breeds anger Social and cultural influences: Aggression replacement program: anger management, moral reasoning, more likely to be – aggressive if … Psychological and Social Cultural Factors in Agression: einforcement and Modeling – more likely to act this way if you see that it “works” R Media model for violence – social scripts, how know how to act in particular moments (culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations) What about violent video games? Increased aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors Decreased empathy etc Correlation and causation: correlation does not imply causation; it helps predicts Power Rangers – kids who watch power rangers were 7 times more aggressive rosocial behavior – positive constructive helpful behavior P Antisocial behavior – the opposite! Rockoff44 lbert Bandura – Bobo Doll experiment – stanford university student either watched an A aggressive model, they did the same… Social learning, observational learning, modeling Psychology of Attraction: Proximity – mere (not mirror) exposure effect; so whatever we are exposed to, we tend to like That is why proximity is so important verage is attractive – most preferred the non-existent composite of 100 faces – people liked A that even better (people like symmetry) There are differences based on culture as well – conceptions of attractiveness differ by culture But a youthful appearance is universally attractive Positive correlation between similarity and liking eward theory of attraction – we maintain relationships that offer more benefits rather than R costs Love: assionate love– an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another P Companionate love– bubby and zaidy; the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined quity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to E it (this is a perception of equity) Self-disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of oneself to other lements of conflict: E Social trap: two parties or multiple parties pursue own self interest rather than good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior (tragedy of the commons) irror image perceptions: each group has the exact opposite perspective of one another (israel M vs palestine) elf-fulling prophecies: I believe something so therefore that will happen; sometimes we create S the very thing that we expect it true through our behavior Rockoff45 Promoting peace: Contact: if non-competitive Co-operation: Realistic group conflict theory: Superordinate goals; Sherif and Robber’s Cave Experiment Communication, conciliation RIT: Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives and Tension Reduction; a strategy designed to G decrease international tensions (giving up nuclear weapons, little by little) Norms for Helping: Social exchange theory: people try to reduce cost to themselves and get the best benefit Reciprocity norm: an expectation that people will help, not hurt those who have helped them Social-responsibility norm: an expectation that people will help those needing their help Altruism: Kitty Genovese – stabbed to death in queens NY and no one called the police Bob Latane John Darely – 38 people failed to help Theory of Bystander Intervention – o one will respond if they have not noticed the incident; more likely to notice something if you N are alone mergencies are not always clear E Even if we notice the incident, and do interpret it as an emergency, but who says that we assume responsibility for what happens (diffusion of responsibility) nly when all boxes are checked do we do anything; more people that are present, the less O likely others will help for the reasons that we just said Vayar ki ein ish – so some ppl were there, no one gonna do anything??? Bystander effect Lo raisi tzaddik ne’zav – I never saw a tzaddik starving and did not go to help him! Rockoff46 Maybe leadership is overcoming the bystander effect o what do we do if people dont intervene; so john darely did a study… the good samaritan S study called “from jerusalem to jericho” ubjects were male students in the princeton theological seminary; they were told to walk to S another place on campus and to give a brief lecture; some were told hurry they are waiting, others were told no rush… s the subjects were walking from one building to another, an actor was groaning along the A way; would they help? But there was an additional twist, half in each group were told that the topic of the speech is “job opportunities that divinity students might pursue after graduation” and the other half were told to give a speech about the “good samaritan” (book of luke, there was a man traveling from jerusalem to jericho, beat up and a priest walks by, they dont offer assistance, then a samaritan comes, has rachmanus, the good samaritan, bandages his wounds pays innkeeper etc Do they stop? Students in no hurry, 63 percent stopped In a rush, 10 percent bothered to help the guy That itself is kinda sad But the punchline was that the topic of the speech made no difference! Something to think about o finish up, what do we do if we find ourselves in a situation of emergency, john darely says T you have to get attention, and tell people what to do, that cancels out the diffusion of responsibility When people learn about the bystander effect, they are much less likely to fall prey to it avid myers did a study where people who heard a lecture about the bystander effect, those D who had heard about it, were twice as likely to help when they heard about it his is inspiring bec from milgram we learn tendency to obey, zimbardo, tendency to become T role, asch tendency to go along with the crowd, sherif, easy to hate those with whom we are in competition, FAE how tempting it is to misunderstand others, so by knowing this knowledge we can greater appreciate psychology and also other people.
