Lecture 17: From Person to People Flashcards
bystander effect
social psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present
Highlights how the presence of others can decrease personal responsibility and influence behavior in emergency situations
what is the relationship between the number of bystanders and the likelihood that any one person will intervene?
The MORE bystanders there are, the LESS likely it is that any one person will intervene
example of the bystander effect and explain it
Kitty Genovese murder 1964
Kitty Genovese was attacked and killed outside her apartment in NY
The attack lasted for 30 minutes and witnesses were aware of the assault since some reported hearing her screams and seeing parts of the attack from their windows
The shocking detail of the case: 37 people heard the murder occurring, but no one called the police since everyone was thinking “someone else will”
what is a key concept tied to the bystander effect?
diffusion of responsibility: Occurs when individuals in a group assume that others will take action or are better suited to handle the situations → ultimately leading to inaction
- When people see others around them, they feel less personally responsible for taking action
what does the bar graph for small (2) vs large group (6) and % who intervened show?
small group (2): 100% intervened
large group (6): ~60% intervened
–> when it is in a smaller group (less diffusion), people are more inclined to intervene and not be a bystander; but for larger groups (more diffusion), people are more likely to stand back and be bystanders
describe the minimal group paradigm and who developed it
developed by Henry Tajfel
Study design
People were split into groups based on trivial or random criteria (ie. coin toss) and then the participants had to decide who to give points to and who to take points away from
The participants never met any of the other participants and knew nothing about them except their group affiliation
Key findings:
People generally chose to give points to people within their group and remove points from people in the opposite group (even if it meant less overall benefit for everyone)
This study demonstrates how easily humans can develop loyalty and favoritism toward their group, even when the group boundaries are trivial or arbitrary
pros of categorization
helpful
efficient
fast
How quickly do we make these thin slicing judgements and how accurate they are? who studied and found this?
Studied and found by Nalini Ambady
Asked people to watch a silent video of a lecturer and asked them to give a guess of how effective/good of a lecturer do they think the person is
Course evaluation: does your little assumption about the lecturer’s ability to teach line up with the teacher course evaluations from students who actually took the course
It seems pretty accurate that your quick judgment lines up with the actual course evaluations
How little time do you need to make a judgment about how good of a lecturer you think they are? 6 seconds (how “thin” it is)
In the first 6 seconds, we have an impression and it doesn’t change (aka “stickiness”)
summary: 6 seconds and it is pretty accurate
thin slicing
really fast judgements that we make about other people
Humans have a tendency for categorization based on ___
Humans have a tendency for categorization based on generalizations
ie. Peaches as a category are sweet, so if you know it is a peach, you can just slide it into the peach category and assume all of the things you know about peaches to that new peach you just categorized
accuracy vs stickiness vs self fulfillment
accuracy: the degree to which our perceptions, beliefs, judgements align with reality
stickiness: how resistant beliefs or attitudes are to change even in the face of new and contradictory information
self fulfillment: occurs when a person’s belief or expectation about a situation/themselves causes behaviors that ultimately lead to the fulfillment of that belief even if it was NOT initially accurate
what are 5 things you can assume a little better than change from a 6 second video?
Talkativeness
Politics
Lying
Psychopathology (study of mental illness)
“gaydar”
what are 4 things we know about groups?
Group bias
Diffusion of responsibility
Categorization
Snap judgment
what is an example of what happens when we combine all the things we know about groups?
Time magazine: cops brutality and race the Diallo verdict
A black man killed by police men (shot 41 times)
The police told the black man to put his hands up, but the black man had a wallet in his hands, but the police men mistook it as a gun and then shot him 41 times
The police officers involved in this that were interviewed, would say that they had no bias “I don’t base my decision to shoot or not to shoot based on categories/races”
1. The person could be lying to the interviewer
2. The person actually believes that they don’t have bias but subconsciously they do (aka implicit bias)
implicit bias
Definition: biases that we don’t or can’t verbally express (because we may not know it even exists within us)
Comes up in educational settings, medical (health care), hiring
explicit biases
Explicit biases: biases that we know and can openly identify and say
how do we figure out if implicit biases exist in society?
we need to look for indirect CLUES of an implicit bias
explain the Hurricane Katrina news example of an implicit bias
Ie. Hurricane Katrina: two photos with people holding things they took from a local grocery thing (same thing, same day but described differently)
1. A black man: a young man walks through chest deep flood water after LOOTING a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday
2. white couple: two residents wade through chest-deep water after FINDING bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina
how can we test if we ourselves have implicit biases?
take the implicit association test
implicit association test and the universal results
What the test does: measure associations you have between two things that you may or may not know you have
An implicit associations test does the same thing (same idea) but with people’s faces and good/bad adjectives to describe them (white or good: clap; black or bad: stomp)
Record how quickly you can do that and then switch up the groups (ie. White or bad; black or good)
Does not matter who you are, but the results are UNIVERSAL across…People on average are slower on clapping when the groups are black and good vs white and bad
describe the association between the playing cards and clapping example with the implicit association test
Association with playing cards: If the card showed is heart or diamond, clap your hands; if the card showed is spade or club, stomp your feet
- Easy to do because hearts and diamonds are both red, and spade and club are both black à an implicit association between the cards and their colors
- However clapping with you see heart or club and stomping when you see diamond and spades is much harder because you are breaking associations (the color associations of the cards)
An implicit associations test does the same thing (same idea) but with people’s faces and good/bad adjectives to describe them (white or good: clap; black or bad: stomp)
Record how quickly you can do that and then switch up the groups (ie. White or bad; black or good)
what are 8 implicit association test subjects?
Race
Age
Sexuality
Weight
Disability
Gender
Gender-science
Gender-career
does it matter if you are a few milliseconds slower at reacting in the implicit associations test (white vs black man)? give example
YES!!
The officers in the Diallo Verdict: if they had a few milliseconds, they might not have shot and killed the person
explain the second study on implicit biases with the object (gun or tool) and a photo of a man (white or black) and the results
A study: you see a picture of an object (gun or tool), when you see the picture of the object, just say if it is a tool or a gun. But before you see the object, a picture of a black or white man flashes before your eyes (does it affect your results and your reaction speed at identifying the object accurately)
Results: you are much faster at calling a gun a gun when you see a black person’s face and you are slightly faster at calling a tool a tool when you see a white person’s face à still accurate but the reaction speed is very different
explain the example of implicit biases for hiring study and the results and what questions it answers
Does this only happen in a lab setting? So if you just react slower, can you control these biases?
NO, it happens in the real world too and it is not certain that you can fully control these biases
Example of implicit biases for hiring: a study
The researchers have made the applications either really good really bad or average
Applications include information about: qualifications, experience, personality description, pregnancy advice
But then you are implicitly told (coded) the race of the applicant (in a fraternity or in the black student union)
This study, the people reviewing the applicants are all white male (the other studies talked about up to this point are all mixed races of people)
Making a decision about who to hire
Results:
- When the qualifications are really good or really bad: no effect of race
- BUT when the qualifications are average: fraternity (76%) preferred over black student union (24%)
Implicit bias effects: effects especially likely when decisions are… (3 things)
Fast (ie. shoot or don’t shoot)
Ambiguous (ie. hiring with unclear criteria or borderline qualifications)
Subtle (ie. how far to sit, how long to talk)
describe the prisoner’s dilemma game
If you tell on your friend, we will give you a deal, but if you don’t we will find you guilty of a lesser crime
Cooperate: prisoners cooperate together
Defect: the prisoner snitches and works with the police
–> for one round: it is statistically more beneficial to defect
describe the British reality show: golden balls
(the last two people get to play the prisoner’s dilemma game for the pot of gold)
The two players choose to SPLIT the money or STEAL the money
Both choose split à split the money
One choose split or one choose steal à the person who chooses steal takes all and the person who choose split goes home with nothing
Both choose steal à both go home with nothing
The woman chose to STEAL, the man chose to SPLIT
–> the woman did what was statistically correct (according to the prisoner’s delimma)
So why do we ever choose to cooperate if statistically it is more beneficial to “cheat” or “steal”?
cooperation proves to be beneficial in the long run (ie. playing the game MULTIPLE times)
describe the iterated prisoner’s dilemma game
you play the game multiple times, so even if defective is the best strategy for the first round, if you play multiple times, cooperating might be the better strategy in the long run
You don’t do that well if you are always cheating or always cooperating
A BETTER strategy in the long run: copy cat strategy (I will do what you do) à if you want to cooperate then we cooperate
The BEST strategy is copy kitten: I will let you cheat one time, but if you do it again, then I will cheat you back (more lenient version)
When you have a reputation, it is better to have a nice/good reputation
what is a better strategy in the long run
A BETTER strategy in the long run: copy cat strategy (I will do what you do) aka if you want to cooperate then we cooperate
what is the best strategy in the long run
The BEST strategy is copy kitten: I will let you cheat one time, but if you do it again, then I will cheat you back (more lenient version of copy cat)
When you have a reputation, it is better to have a nice/good reputation
describe the ultimatum game and what it can be used to measure
A proposer and a responder
Some amount of money is for the proposer: the proposer needs to propose a way to split the money such that the responder will find reasonable enough to say yes
- If the responder agrees, then the split occurs
- If the responder disagrees, then neither get it
You would think the responder would agree all the time, since in any case, they are still gaining money however, that is not the case
The more you play the game, now you know I will reject unfair offers, so you better give me a fair deal
Can use this test as a measure of how generous you are
describe the public goods game
Every player starts off with the same amount of money, and you get to choose how much money you want to put into the sharing pot that will multiply the amount of money total put in
Since the pot always distributes the money equally among the players, there are some circumstances you can take advantage of (ie. Exploit the group and put in less money, but still get more money) → need to think about this strategy
Are we naturally inclined to help the group or are we naturally inclined to be selfish?
what are the 2 hypothesis to this question?
- Deep down, we are self interested and society teaches us to suppress our selfish tendencies and to cooperate instead
- Deep down, we are all good, but situations corrupt us, and we are influenced by those
how did we test the hypothesis to the question if we are naturally generous or selfish?
public goods game –> put a time pressure on the players to quickly make a decision
does putting a time pressure/limit on people show insight on an individual’s innate tendencies?(will they be more generous or selfish)
Result: time pressure makes people NICER (spontaneous giving and calculated greed)
Forcing people to make a decision on how much money they put into the pot, will cause people to be more generous and put more money into it
aka Faster decisions leads to more contribution, while slower decisions leads to less contributions (more time to think about it, so one can choose to be more selfish)
