Social behaviour - obedience and apathy

Question 1

What is meant by the white coat halo?

Answer 1

• medical training and licence to practice
• specialised and inaccessible knowledge
• caring and relief of suffering
• confidentiality
• emotional and sexual detachment
• power and authority

Question 2

What was the Milgram experiment?

Answer 2

• A doctor in a white coat tells an ordinary man to deliver electric shocks to victims
• Context: eichmann in concentration camps in WW2
• Man can hear victim suffering, but continues to deliver shocks on doctors orders, because of authority of ‘white coat’
• 63% of participants continued giving shocks, despite hearing the excruciating pain they are causing, to the highest shock level
• many replication studies have been done across Europe in the 1950s-1990s

Question 3

What was the MHRC encounter?

Answer 3

• different to Milligram’s experiment as there are 9 naive participants
• based on a legal case: business man tried to encourage 9 naive individuals of his shady business deal
• worked for some, majority caught on
• the evidence of rebellion is thought to be a result of the numbers

Question 4

What is Latané’s law of social impact?

Answer 4

These factors influence the target:

1. number (group disobedience/ the more putting pressure on you, the bigger the influence)
2. strength/legitimacy (uniform/seniority - the amount you believe the influencer)
3. immediacy (how close the influencer is to you/how recent the influencing is)

Question 5

What does apathy mean?

Answer 5

Lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern

Question 6

What is the Kitty Genovese case and why did it begin the so-called bystander effect?

Answer 6

• Kitty Genovese was stabbed and raped in her home in 1964
• Neighbours heard screams and didn’t act
• Some didn’t call police as they assumed others would
• Police only came to the crime scene 2 hours after the murderer fled, when Kitty was dead
• number of bystanders nearly always makes a difference

Question 7

When responding to emergencies, what are the 3 social factors that influence your time taken to respond?

Answer 7

1. Social definition - others not responding, no emergency
2. Diffusion of responsibility
   alone= sole responsibility
   part of group = transfer of responsibility
3. audience inhibition
   self-conscious in presence of others

Question 8

When responding to emergencies, what are the 3 non- social factors that influence your time taken to respond?

Answer 8

1. ambiguity of situation e.g playing or being attacked?
2. personality
3. personal threat/cost of intervention - will they turn on me?