Chapter 13 - Social Psychology

Chapter 13 – Social Psychology

                Wow, the end of the year is finally here. This is the final blog post for psychology, so I’m going to go down strong. First, I want to talk about conformity because it’s really funny how we think we’ll act differently from the norm, when in most cases, it’s inevitable.

                We are social beings who look to others for answers on how to act appropriately. Mass hysteria breaks out like a domino effect, fear amounting from the susceptible frenzy of others.

                In the 1960’s show, “Candid Camera”, confederates (people in on an experiment) tested complete strangers’ will of independence. The scene was of an open elevator, with 3 confederates standing facing the door. A person, not aware of the experiment, walked into the elevator and faced the door as the other 3 had. All of a sudden, the 3 confederates decided to face to the right, the confused individual was caught by surprise. Eventually, he conformed to also facing the right, completely oblivious to what was going on around him. It’s a funny story, even funnier to watch in real time, but it shows our unconscious need to abide to the norm, how uncomfortable an unsuspecting individual when they’re off course.

                The Asch study measured people’s will to fight conformity. An outsider was put in a room, seated next to multiple other confederates. They were there for a “perception” test, only the game was as indicated:

                To answer correctly would be to say which line lines up with X, and the answer is obviously B. that’s what you might say if you were a victim of this experiment. However, the confederates’ jobs were to answer incorrectly to test the individual’s will. Most people eventually gave in and followed the norm. 75% of the experimentees conformed at least once of the 12 trials. It’s not a very hard test, but staying true to one’s beliefs is the true test.

                On the down side, groupthink is the emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking.  Groupthink is really just joining the fray for the sake of belonging, doing something irrational because of the security of a group. In 2004, prison guard soldiers of Abu Ghraib followed orders and participated in the cruel, dehumanization of Iraqi POWs. I’m not going to go into details, but the stuff they had the POWs perform was pretty sadistic, like strip naked, humiliation, and mauled by police dogs. There’s not really justification for the lengths they went to, but I have to believe that some of these soldiers were people that one would never have guessed would torture another person to such extremity. This has got to be because of groupthink, everyone’s cruel actions done in response to other’s behaviors.

                Social Loafing is an interesting phenomenon where individuals become less productive as in groups. This one’s real easy to equate with in high school. In large groups where no one really has a strong opinion or will to lead, it’s assumed that the work load will naturally spread out among the group’s members, and thus, nothing gets accomplished. Imagine two teams playing tug-of-war, the more people that are playing, the less each individual has room on the rope and will not be able to pull with all their strength.