1. Social Psychology (Chapter 8)
Third Lecture Outline:
Helping behavior
Prejudice
Aggression and deindividualtion

3. Bystander studies The murder of Kitty Genovese: No one intervened
The larger the group, the less likely someone will intervene
Someone falls down in front of you at the bus stop. You are more likely to help them if you are alone than if waiting with other strangers.
Bystander effect leads to diffusion of responsibility, bystander apathy
Observers need to notice and define the emergency, take responsibility, and act

4. Deindividuation
Once a sense of individual identity is lost, internal constraints against socially prescribed behavior are reduced
Negative examples
Urban riots and angry mobs commit open vandalism and theft
Unknown women in hoods act very aggressively
Positive examples
Visitor to a small town may be very friendly as they are unknown
Talking to strangers on a bus
Helping in an emergency, as in Swiss Air Disaster

5. Altruism and Dissent: Helping Behavior
“Man reaches into burning car, saves baby”
Altruism is defined as actions that provide benefit to others but that have no obvious benefits for the person who carries them out, often with a potential of cost or risk to the helper.
1. NOTICE THE SITUATION
2. Take responsibility
3. Costs of doing nothing outweigh costs of action
4. Identify a helper to help
5. You become entrapped: Helping escalates
Altruism involves potential risk to the helper. .

6. Group Competition
Unfavorable attitude towards other groups based on weak or incorrect evidence
Ethnocentrism: Belief that one’s own cultural group is superior to others
Groups compete, even when artificially created, e.g., summer camp groups or cabins
Belief that everyone from another group is alike, e.g., residences
These issues apply to cultural/ ethnic groups
Why? Competition, identity, modeling
Reduced by contact between equals involved in cooperative activity

7. What do you recall of Lady Dianna’s car crash?

8. Stereotypes Summary impression of a group
We exaggerate differences between groups, e.g., two urban gangs feel very different
Underestimate differences within the other group “They are all alike”
Usually strong because we encode information consistent with our stereotypes, e.g., teenagers “hang out” in groups
We often associate with people that hold similar stereotypes that reinforce one another

10. Prejudice
Negative stereotype and a strong, unreasonable dislike or hatred of a group and its individual members
Origins: Ignorance, economic, used to manipulate public opinion for political goals
During war, enemies are demonised and the home country is righteous
Reduced by balancing power, adopting egalitarian norms, working together, and common goals
Current CBC History series: Trys to portray history without choosing sides, more emphasis on role of natives and women than other portrayals of history

11. Social Psychology: Why do people do what they do?