Social Psychology (Chapter 8)

Third Lecture Outline:Helping behavior

Prejudice

Aggression and deindividualtion

Bystander studies

• The murder of Kitty Genovese: No one intervened• The larger the group, the less likely someone will

intervene– Someone falls down in front of you at the bus stop.

You are more likely to help them if you are alone than if waiting with other strangers.

• Bystander effect leads to diffusion of responsibility, bystander apathy– Observers need to notice and define the emergency,

take responsibility, and act

Deindividuation

• Once a sense of individual identity is lost, internal constraints against socially prescribed behavior are reduced

• Negative examples– Urban riots and angry mobs commit open vandalism and theft– Unknown women in hoods act very aggressively

• Positive examples– Visitor to a small town may be very friendly as they are unknown– Talking to strangers on a bus– Helping in an emergency, as in Swiss Air Disaster

Altruism is defined as actions that provide benefit to others but that have no obvious benefits for the person who carries them out, often with a potential of cost or risk to the helper.

1. NOTICE THE SITUATION 2. Take responsibility 3. Costs of doing nothing outweigh costs of action 4. Identify a helper to help 5. You become entrapped: Helping escalates

Altruism involves potential risk to the helper. .

Altruism and Dissent: Helping Behavior

“Man reaches into burning car, saves baby”

Group Competition • Unfavorable attitude towards other groups based on weak or

incorrect evidence• Ethnocentrism: Belief that one’s own cultural group is superior

to others• Groups compete, even when artificially created, e.g., summer

camp groups or cabins• Belief that everyone from another group is alike, e.g., residences• These issues apply to cultural/ ethnic groups• Why? Competition, identity, modeling

– Reduced by contact between equals involved in cooperative activity

What do you recall of Lady Dianna’s car crash?

Stereotypes

• Summary impression of a group– We exaggerate differences between groups, e.g., two

urban gangs feel very different– Underestimate differences within the other group

“They are all alike”

• Usually strong because we encode information consistent with our stereotypes, e.g., teenagers “hang out” in groups

• We often associate with people that hold similar stereotypes that reinforce one another

Prejudice

• Negative stereotype and a strong, unreasonable dislike or hatred of a group and its individual members

• Origins: Ignorance, economic, used to manipulate public opinion for political goals– During war, enemies are demonised and the home country

is righteous

• Reduced by balancing power, adopting egalitarian norms, working together, and common goals– Current CBC History series: Trys to portray history

without choosing sides, more emphasis on role of natives and women than other portrayals of history

Social Psychology: Why do people do what they do?