Discussion Post 1

A Pirandellian Prison

Please 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.pdf

Your 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 Conformity

Please go to this study.http://www.wadsworth.com/psychology_d/templates/student_resources/0155060678_rathus/ps/ps18.html

Your 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 Agreement

Whereas, 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=site

Your 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 Homicide

Read the case at: http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/social_reaction.pdf

First, 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 Intervention

Please 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=site

Your 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=site

 

STUDY……

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). In groups of size 3, males reported no faster than females, and females reported no slower when the 1 other bystander was a male rather than a female. In general, personality and background measures were not predictive of helping. Bystander inaction in real-life emergencies is often explained by “apathy,” “alienation,” and “anomie.” This experiment suggests that the explanation may lie more in the bystander’s response to other observers than in his indifference to the victim. Several years ago, a young woman was stabbed to death in the middle of a street in a residential section of New York City. Although such murders are not entirely routine, the incident received little public attention until several weeks later when the New York Times disclosed another side to the case: at least 38 witnesses had observed the attack— and none had even attempted to intervene. Although the attacker took more than half an hour to kill Kitty Genovese, not one of the 38 people who watched from the safety of their own apartments came out to assist her. Not one even lifted the telephone to call the police (Rosenthal, 1964). Preachers, professors, and news commentators sought the reasons for such apparently conscienceless and inhumane lack of intervention. Their conclusions ranged from “moral decay,” to “dehumanization produced by the urban environment,” to “alienation,” “anomie,” and “existential despair.” An analysis of the situation, however, suggests that factors other than apathy and indifference were involved. A person witnessing an emergency situation, particularly such a frightening and 1 This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grants GS1238 and GS1239. Susan Darley contributed materially to the design of the experiment and ran the subjects, and she and Thomas Moriarty analyzed the data. Richard Nisbett, Susan Millman, Andrew Gordon, and Norma Neiman helped in preparing the tape recordings. dangerous one as a stabbing, is in conflict. There are obvious humanitarian norms about helping the victim, but there are also rational and irrational fears about what might happen to a person who does intervene (Milgram & Hollander, 1964). “I didn’t want to get involved,” is a familiar comment, and behind it lies fears of physical harm, public embarrassment, involvement with police procedures, lost work days and jobs, and other unknown dangers. In certain circumstances, the norms favoring intervention may be weakened, leading bystanders to resolve the conflict in the direction of nonintervention. One of these circumstances may be the presence of other onlookers. For example, in the case above, each observer, by seeing lights and figures in other apartment house windows, knew that others were also watching. However, there was no way to tell how the other observers were reacting. These two facts provide several reasons why any individual may have delayed or failed to help. The responsibility for helping was diffused among the observers; there was also diffusion of any potential blame for not taking action; and finally, it was possible that somebody, unperceived, had already initiated helping action. When only one bystander is present in an emergency, if help is to come, it must come from him. Although he may choose to ignore it (out of concern for his personal safety, or desires “not to get involved”), any pres- 377 ,178 JOHN M. DARLEY AND BIBB LATANTC sure to intervene focuses uniquely on him. When there are several observers present, however, the pressures to intervene do not focus on any one of the observers; instead the responsibility for intervention is shared among all the onlookers and is not unique to any one. As a result, no one helps. A second possibility is that potential blame may be diffused. However much we may wish to think that an individual’s moral behavior is divorced from considerations of personal punishment or reward, there is both theory and evidence to the contrary (Aronfreed, 1964; Miller & Bollard, 1941, Whiting & Child, 19S3). It is perfectly reasonable to assume that, under circumstances of group responsibility for a punishable act, the punishment or blame that accrues to any one individual is often slight or nonexistent. Finally, if others are known to be present, but their behavior cannot be closely observed, any one bystander can assume that one of the other observers is already taking action to end the emergency. Therefore, his own intervention would be only…