A Pirandellian PrisonPlease go to the following weblink:Zimbardo, P. G., Haney, C., Banks, C., & Jaffe, D. (1973, April 8). A Pirandellian prison: The mind is a formidable jailer. New York Times Magazine,pp. 38-60. http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/pirandellian.pdfYour assignment:1. Briefly describe the problem (or research question), procedure (participants, methods) and results of the study.2. Do you see any potential problems with this study, ie., methodological issues, ethical concerns, etc.?3. Do you agree with the authors’ conclusions? Are there other factors we should consider?4. In your opinion, could this study be repeated today and with the same results? Why or why not?5. From what you know of social psychology or other pertinent psychology courses you have taken, why might this study have been important?Asch and ConformityPlease go to this study.http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/ps18.htmlYour assignment:1. Briefly describe the problem (or research question), the hypothesis, procedure (participants, methods) and results of the study.2. Do you see any potential problems with this study, ie., methodological issues, ethical concerns, etc.?3. Do you agree with the authors’ conclusions? Are there other factors we should consider?4. In your opinion, could this study be repeated today and with the same results? Why or why not?5. From what you know of social psychology or other pertinent psychology courses you have taken, why might this study have been important?The Abiline Paradox: The Management of AgreementWhereas, most of us are familiar with the Bystander Effect and Zimbardo’s Prison Study, this study is very different for those of us who might not have had any courses in organizational psychology. As you will see many of the concepts we have learned early on in introductory psychology, social psychology and other courses come into play in this case. See what you think.Please click on the following link and enter your last name and ID number.Harvey, J. B. (1974). The Abilene Paradox: The management of agreement.Organizational Dynamics, 3(1), 63 – 80. doi: 10.1016/0090-2616(74)90005-9http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=5140990&site=eds-live&scope=siteYour assignment:I found the list of objectives for this article on page 66 would be a good starting point for our discussion. You need not discuss all of these issues in depth, but try to hit the high points of 4 or 5 if you can. I have rephrased these for you below. Also, please relate some of the concepts you have learned in your other courses whenever you can.1) What is the Abilene paradox? Describe some of the the symptoms of organizations caught in the paradox.2) Tell us about one of the case studies that Harvey (1974) describes on pages 67-69.3) Harvey discusses 5 factors when analyzing the paradox. Discuss at least two of these and their importance in the paradox.4) On page 73, Harvey discusses several terms that describe the risk factors of his model (A Possible Abilene Bypass). Discuss several of these as they relate to his model and to your understanding of these terms in social psychology.5) How would someone go about diagnosing the paradox? What suggestions does Harvey make?6) What are his recommendations for coping with the paradox?Your thoughts, and comments, please.Leiby Kletzy’s Abduction and HomicideRead the case at: http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/social_reaction.pdfFirst, provide a short description of the case.Then, identify and explain at least 4 social psychological principles at work in this case.For some ideas, see the worksheets following the case.Bystander InterventionPlease go to this study. You sill need to enter your last name and ID number and then download the study.Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 8(4), 377-383.http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=16645191&site=eds-live&scope=siteYour assignment:1. Briefly describe the problem (or research question), the hypothesis, procedure (participants, methods) and results of the study.2. Do you see any potential problems with this study, ie., methodological issues, ethical concerns, etc.?3. Do you agree with the authors’ conclusions? Are there other factors we should consider?4. In your opinion, could this study be repeated today and with the same results? Why or why not?5. From what you know of social psychology or other pertinent psychology courses you have taken, why might this study have been important?Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 8(4), 377-383. http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=16645191&site=eds-live&scope=siteSTUDY……BYSTANDER INTERVENTION IN EMERGENCIES: DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY3 JOHN M. BARLEY New York University BIBB LATANfi Columbia University Ss overheard an epileptic seizure. They believed either that they alone heard the emergency, or that 1 or 4 unseen others were also present. As predicted the presence of other bystanders reduced the individual’s feelings of personal responsibility and lowered his speed of reporting (p < .01). Duncan multiple-range tests indicate that all but the two- and three-person groups differ significantly from one another (#<.OS). Victim's Likelihood of Being Helped An individual subject is less likely to respond if he thinks that others are present. But what of the victim? Is the inhibition of the response of each individual strong enough to counteract the fact that with five onlookers there are five times as many people available to help? From the data of this experiment, it is possible mathematically to create hypothetical groups with one, two, or five observers.8 The calculations indicate that the victim is about equally likely to get help from one bystander as from two. The victim is considerably more likely to have gotten help from one or two observers than from five during the first minute of the fit. For instance, by 45 seconds after the start of the fit, the victim's chances of having been helped by the single bystanders were about 50%, compared to none in the five observer condition. After the first minute, the likelihood of getting help from at least one person is high in all three conditions. Effect of Group Composition on Helping the Victim Several variations of the three-person group were run. In one pair of variations, the female subject thought the other bystander was either male or female; in another, she thought the other bystander was a premedical student who worked in an emergency ward at Bellevue hospital. As Table 2 shows, the 8 The formula for the probability that at least one person will help by a given time is 1 —(1—P) " where n is the number of observers and P is the probability of a single individual (who thinks he is one of n observers) helping by that time. BYSTANDER INTERVENTION IN EMERGENCIES 381 TABLE 2 EFI'ECTS OF GROUP COMPOSITION ON LIKKLIHOOH AND SPEED OF RESPONSE" Group composition Female S, male other Female S, female other Female 5, male medic other Male S, female other N 13 13 5 13 % responding by end of fit 62 62 100 69 Time in sec. 94 92 60 110 Speed score 74 71 77 68 » Three-person group, mule victim. variations in sex and medical competence of the other bystander had no important or detectable affect on speed of response. Subjects responded equally frequently and fast whether the other bystander was female, male, or medically experienced. Sex of the Subject and Speed of Response Coping with emergencies is often thought to be the duty of males, especially when females are present, but there was no evidence that this was the case in this study. Male subjects responded to the emergency with almost exactly the same speed as did females (Table 2). Reasons for Intervention or Nonintervention After the debriefing at the end of the experiment each subject was given a 15-item checklist and asked to check those thoughts which had "crossed your mind when you heard Subject 1 calling for help." Whatever the condition, each subject checked very few thoughts, and there were no significant differences in number or kind of thoughts in the different experimental groups. The only thoughts checked by more than a few subjects were "I didn't know what to do" (18 out of 65 subjects), "I thought it must be some sort of fake" (20 out of 65), and "I didn't know exactly what was happening" (26 out of 65). It is possible that subjects were ashamed to report socially undesirable rationalizations, or, since the subjects checked the list after the true nature of the experiment had been explained to them, their memories might have been blurred. It is our impression, however, that most subjects checked few reasons because they had few coherent thoughts during the fit. We asked all subjects whether the presence or absence of other bystanders had entered their minds during the time that they were hearing the fit. Subjects in the three- and six-person groups reported that they were aware that other people were present, but they felt that this made no difference to their own behavior. Individual Difference Correlates of Speed of Report The correlations between speed of report and various individual differences on the personality and background measures were obtained by normalizing the distribution of report speeds within each experimental condition and pooling these scores across all conditions (« = 62-65). Personality measures showed no important or significant correlations with speed of reporting the emergency. In fact, only one of the 16 individual difference measures, the size of the community in which the subject grew up, correlated (r = -.26, p < .05) with the speed of helping. DISCUSSION Subjects, whether or not they intervened, believed the fit to be genuine and serious. "My God, he's having a fit," many subjects said to themselves (and were overheard via their microphones) at the onset of the fit. Others gasped or simply said "Oh." Several of the male subjects swore. One subject said to herself, "It's just my kind of luck, something has to happen to me!" Several subjects spoke aloud of their confusion about what course of action to take, "Oh God, what should I do?" When those subjects who intervened stepped out of their rooms, they found the experimental assistant down the hall. With some uncertainty, but without panic, they reported the situation. "Hey, I think Number 1 is very sick. He's having a fit or something." After ostensibly checking on the situation, the experimenter returned to report that "everything is under control." The subjects accepted these assurances with obvious relief. Subjects who failed to report the emergency showed few signs of the apathy and 382 JOHN M. BARLEY AND BIBB LATANTC indifference thought to characterize "unresponsive bystanders." When the experimenter entered her room to terminate the situation, the subject often asked if the victim was "all right." "Is he being taken care of?" "He's all right isn't he?" Many of these subjects showed physical signs of nervousness; they often had trembling hands and sweating palms. If anything, they seemed more emotionally aroused than did the subjects who reported the emergency. Why, then, didn't they respond? It is our impression that nonintervening subjects had not decided not to respond. Rather they were still in a state of indecision and conflict concerning whether to respond or not. The emotional behavior of these nonresponding subjects was a sign of their continuing conflict, a conflict that other subjects resolved by responding. The fit created a conflict situation of the avoidance-avoidance type. On the one hand, subjects worried about the guilt and shame they would feel if they did not help the person in distress. On the other hand, they were concerned not to make fools of themselves by overreacting, not to ruin the ongoing experiment by leaving their intercom, and not to destroy the anonymous nature of the situation which the experimenter had earlier stressed as important. For subjects in the two-person condition, the obvious distress of the victim and his need for help were so important that their conflict was easily resolved. For the subjects who knew there were other bystanders present, the cost of not helping was reduced and the conflict they were in more acute. Caught between the two negative alternatives of letting the victim continue to suffer or the costs of rushing in to help, the nonresponding bystanders vacillated between them rather than choosing not to respond. This distinction may be academic for the victim, since he got no help in either case, but it is an extremely important one for arriving at an understanding of the causes of bystanders' failures to help. Although the subjects experienced stress and conflict during the experiment, their general reactions to it were highly positive. On a questionnaire administered after the experimenter had discussed the nature and purpose of the experiment, every single subject found the experiment either "interesting" or "very interesting" and was willing to participate in similar experiments in the future. All subjects felt they understood what the experiment was about and indicated that they thought the deceptions were necessary and justified. All but one felt they were better informed about the nature of psychological research in general. Male subjects reported the emergency no faster than did females. These results (or lack of them) seem to conflict with the Berkowitz, Klanderman, and Harris (1964) finding that males tend to assume more responsibility and take more initiative than females in giving help to dependent others. Also, females reacted equally fast when the other bystander was another female, a male, or even a person practiced in dealing with medical emergencies. The ineffectiveness of these manipulations of group composition cannot be explained by general insensitivity of the speed measure, since the group-size variable had a marked effect on report speed. It might be helpful in understanding this lack of difference to distinguish two general classes of intervention in emergency situations: direct and reportorial. Direct intervention (breaking up a fight, extinguishing a fire, swimming out to save a drowner) often requires skill, knowledge, or physical power. It may involve danger. American cultural norms and Berkowitz's results seem to suggest that males are more responsible than females for this kind of direct intervention. A second way of dealing with an emergency is to report it to someone qualified to handle it, such as the police. For this kind of intervention, there seem to be no norms requiring male action. In the present study, subjects clearly intended to report the emergency rather than take direct action. For such indirect intervention, sex or medical competence does not appear to affect one's qualifications or responsibilities. Anybody, male or female, medically trained or not, can find the experimenter. In this study, no subject was able to tell how the other subjects reacted to the fit. (Indeed, there were no other subjects actually present.) The effects of group size on BYSTANDER INTERVENTION IN EMERGENCIES 383 speed of helping, therefore, are due simply to the perceived presence of others rather than to the influence of their actions. This means that the experimental situation is unlike emergencies, such as a fire, in which bystanders interact with each other. It is, however, similar to emergencies, such as the Genovese murder, in which spectators knew others were also watching but were prevented by walls between them from communication that might have counteracted the diffusion of responsibility. The present results create serious difficulties for one class of commonly given explanations for the failure of bystanders to intervene in actual emergencies, those involving apathy or indifference. These explanations generally assert that people who fail to intervene are somehow different in kind from the rest of us, that they are "alienated by industrialization," "dehumanized by urbanization," "depersonalized by living in the cold society," or "psychopaths." These explanations serve a dual function for people who adopt them. First, they explain (if only in a nominal way) the puzzling and frightening problem of why people watch others die. Second, they give individuals reason to deny that they too might fail to help in a similar situation. The results of this experiment seem to indicate that such personality variables may not be as important as these explanations suggest. Alienation, Machiavellianism, acceptance of social responsibility, need for approval, and authoritarianism are often cited in these explanations. Yet they did not predict the speed or likelihood of help. In sharp contrast, the perceived number of bystanders did. The explanation of bystander "apathy" may lie more in the bystander's response to other observers than in presumed personality deficiencies of "apathetic" individuals. Although this realization may force us to face the guilt-provoking possibility that we too might fail to intervene, it also suggests that individuals are not, of necessity, "noninterveners" because of their personalities. If people understand the situational forces that can make them hesitate to intervene, they may better overcome them. REFERENCES ARONFREED, J. The origin of self-criticism. Psychological Review, 1964, 71, 193-219. BERKOWITZ, L., KLANDERMAN, S., & HARRIS, R. Effects of experimenter awareness and sex of subject on reactions to dependency relationships. Sociometry, 1964, 27, 327-329. CHRISTIE, R. The prevalence of machiavellian orientations. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, 1964. CROWNE, D., & MARLOWE, D. The approval motive. Now York: Wiley, 1964. DANIELS, L., & BERKOWITZ, L. Liking and response to dependency relationships. Human Relations, 1963, 16, 141-148. MILGRAM, S., & HOLLANDER, P. Murder they heard. Nation, 1964, 198, 602-604. MILLER, N., & BOLLARD, J. Social learning and imitation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941. ROSENTHAL, A. M. Thirty-eight witnesses. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. WHITING, J. W. M., & CHILD, I. Child training and personality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953. (Received July 8, 1967)
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