Week 5

Question 1

Bystander effect

Answer 1

Phenomenon in which the presence of others inhibits helpfulness- diffusion of responsibility

Question 2

Explanations of the bystander effect

Answer 2

1. Diffusion of responsibility-people alone carry the responsibility of the situation while in a group people let others carry the responsibility
2. Social influence- determines the seriousness of the situation by observing cues
3. Audience inhibition- don’t yearn to look foolish by over-reacting or making mistakes, fear is greater with more people around

Question 3

Example of social influence in bystander effects

Answer 3

Lady in distress- make participants filling in a questionnaire alone, in pairs or with a passive confederate and men alone had higher % of helping
Smoke in the room- participants filling out a questionnaire when smoke fills the room, either alone, in a group of genuine participants and 2 confederates, alone has higher % reporting rate followed by genuine participant group

Question 4

The 3-in-one experiment

Answer 4

Participants “witnessed” an experimenter getting shocked. Conditions- alone, in a pair and high or low level of communication between the pair
Couldn’t see each other (diffusion with audience effect)
Could see the other person but other person could not see them (diffusion+social influence)
Could see each other (diffusion+social influence+audience inhibition)

Question 5

Bystander effect is less strong when…

Answer 5

Bystanders know each other
They know when there is an opportunity to interact later
If the victim is an acquaintance or relative
If the victim is a child being abused publicly

Question 6

Social loafing

Answer 6

When efforts are pooled and individual performance can’t be identified, leads to less individual effort

Question 7

Social loafing in groups

Answer 7

Ringleman
Participants pulled on a rope either alone or in groups
Force did not increase proportionate to the increase in groups size

Question 8

Why do people loaf in groups?

Answer 8

1. Lack of evaluation appreciation- presence of others provides members of anonymity for those who slack off
2. Output equity- people believe others will slack off so they don’t put in the effort
3. Matching to standard- people loaf because they don’t have a standard to match

Question 9

Factors affecting social loafing

Answer 9

1. Whether or not the individual performance is identifiable
2. Cross cultural differences
3. How cohesive the group is
4. Inter-group competition
5. Presences of clear aspirational goals
6. How interesting or meaningful the task is

Question 10

Audience effects

Answer 10

Impact on individual task performance while in the presence of others eg. Inhibit performance due to pressure or improved performance due to competition

Question 11

Research in audience effects

Answer 11

Found that audience effects can improve or decrease performance in humans and animals eg simple/easy maze- presence of others helped performance (social facilitation), complex/difficult maze- the presence of others hurt performance (social inhibition)

Question 12

Stutterers

Answer 12

93% of participants produced more words in free association tasks with another person than alone (social facilitation). When replicated with stutters, the effect reversed, 80% produced more words when alone than in front of someone else (social inhibition)

Question 13

Drive theory

Answer 13

Presence of others->arousal (drive)->increase in performing dominant response-> social facilitation (if correct)/social inhibition (if incorrect)

Question 14

Evaluation Apprehension model

Answer 14

Presence of audience->evaluation apprehension->drive->dominant response leads to social facilitation or inhibition depending on task

Question 15

Distraction conflict theory

Answer 15

Presence of audience->attention conflict (audience is distracting)->drive->dominant response leads to social facilitation or inhibition depending on task eg. There is a difference between blindfolded and un-blindfolded results in front of audience results when changing between familiar and unfamiliar clothes

Question 16

Advantages of distraction-conflict theory

Answer 16

1. Effects resemble social facilitation and inhibition when evoked by distractions
2. Helps explain the audience effects observed in animals

Question 17

Problems with drive theories

Answer 17

1. No evidence in increased arousal using physiological measures
2. What is drive? No specificity in construct
   Led to non-drive explanations in audience effects
3. Self-awareness theory
4. Attention-overload models
5. Self expectations and social evaluation

Question 18

Self awareness theory

Answer 18

Comparison between actual self and ideal self
For easy tasks, discrepancies less pronounced and motivation to close the gap
For difficult tasks, discrepancy is large and no motivation to close the gap because it’s too big
Impaired motivation and performance

Question 19

Attention overload model

Answer 19

Audience presence causes cognitive overload
Narrowing of attention-focus on few central cues
Easy tasks are ones that require small amounts of attention for fewer cues
Difficult tasks require attention for a wide range of cues, narrowing attention diverts attention from cues

Question 20

Self expectations and social evaluation

Answer 20

Easy task-> high self-expectations->expected positive evaluation from audience->social facilitation
Difficult task->low self-expectations->expected negative evaluation from audience->social inhibition