Introduction to Psychology
S/R Paper for 11-29-06
By
Halford H. Fairchild
Film: The Milgram
Experiment
Stimulus: An excerpt of the film from the classic Milgram experiment is shown.
Responses: Today, ethical guidelines do not allow
putting people into such miserable, stress-producing situations.
The film illustrates a huge gulf between the
laboratory and the real world. This is
the issue of “external validity.”
Film: The Stanford Prison Experiment (to be shown
on Dec. 5, 2006)
Stimulus: The classic and controversial study by Philip
Zimbardo is shown in a 50 minute film.
Responses: Today, the study is challenged on its ethical
grounds. It illustrates how a
researcher’s biases and values and infect and influence the research
enterprise. Such an effect is
inevitable.
The simulation was quite effective, and important
given contemporary society’s emphasis on the “prison industrial complex.”
In prisons, we find clashing social
psychologies: prisoners and guards;
various ethnic group rivalries and conflicts (especially between Latinos and
Blacks). Prisons are a locus of the most
pernicious racial discrimination.
The roles that guards and prisoners play result in “deindividuation” (a loss of individual identity) – through
guard uniforms (including sun glasses) or prisoners’ numbers, etc.
Making the prisoners naked, and playing at
homosexual roles, was reminiscent of the prisoner abuse in
Why are bags placed over the prisoner’s heads? (intensifying one’s
vulnerability). We saw this, too, at Abu
Graib. Why is
it necessary to degrade? And who is
degraded? The
prisoner? Or
the guard? (Or
the
It is not coincidental that it was a female graduate
student who called a halt to the experiment.
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J.M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.
(Hock, pp. 183-190)
Stimulus: Examined the psychological consequences of
attitude-discrepant behavior.
Responses: This is one of the motives for social
integration (e.g., school desegregation), the belief that intimate contact
would lead to an easing of intergroup antipathies.
Attitudes may be dissonant with each other, or with
behaviors.
War as dissonant with our
American ideals. How is this dissonance reduced
(vilify Hussein, WMDs, other rationalizations).
Awareness is necessary; yet much discrepant
attitude/behaviors are “unconscious,” as in unconscious racism.
LaPiere, R.T. (1934). Attitudes and
actions. (Hock, pp. 287-295)
Stimulus: This classic study demonstrated that
attitudes and actions don’t always go together.
Note this history of social psychology – the beginnings were known as
the “study of attitudes” (Bogardus social distance
scale in 1925).
Responses: Attitudes and behaviors must be of the same
domain (attitudes towards a Chinese gentleman is not the same as a Chinese
couple and a White man). They must be
collected from the same person.
Asch,
S.E. (1953). Opinions and social
pressure. (Hock, pp. 295-300).
Stimulus: The classic line judgment study. Hard to imagine how people could conform to
the impossible.
Responses: One would hardly imagine that people would
conform to tongue pierceings, tattoos, or war.
Darley, J.M., & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies:
Diffusion of responsibility. (Hock, pp. 300-308).
Stimulus: The classic helping study, motivated in part
by the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese.
Gave rise to the idea of bystander phenomenon and diffusion of
responsibility.
Responses: Yet, a great number of people helped in
Hurricane Katrina, perhaps due in part to conformity processes.
Milgram, S.
(1963).
Behavioral Study of Obedience. (Hock, pp. 308-316).
Stimulus: The classic study of getting individuals to
shock a person – mercilessly – in a “learning experiment.”
Responses: Findings were shocking. 26 of 40 S’s, or 65
percent, shocked to the end.