[upbeat music]
>> This is the last lecture.
[audience murmurs]
This is some cool things,
because guess what:
we're gonna talk today
about social psychology.
And I'm gonna finish up by
putting up one quick slide
on HealthPsych, and as I do that,
you can write it down,
and I want you to look at
the material in the textbook,
and there's just a little
bit to pay attention to
when it comes to coping with stress,
and I wanted to end our last
topic on health psychology
by having you look at
ways to cope with stress.
I've just kinda summarized
some of the key things
that are in there in that
section on coping with stress,
from how we analyze
what's stressful for us.
Confession has been one
of those powerful concepts
related to the idea of forgiveness
that can be very deep and
powerful in helping people
overcome some of their stress and anxiety.
Learning to sleep, relax and exercise,
biofeedback and monitoring,
and then we talked a little
bit about type A behavior
last time and the relationship
of our spiritual lives
with the area of stress
and health in particular.
So it's kind of just a
summary to health psych;
I'll leave this screen
up for just a minute.
What I wanna do today is shift
over to social psychology,
and this is an area that is
important in many respects.
It's the last topic, and
there's a chapter on this
that you need to make sure and get read,
obviously before the final,
but the final will cover
health psych and social psych.
So I'm gonna cover,
mostly today we're gonna
talk about social psychology,
and this is what I got
my master's and my PhD in
is in social psychology.
I've been studying it for a long time,
and it's a cool topic,
and so it's kind of how
we started this class.
Anybody remember back when,
the very first day of class,
we were talking about why people behave
and why we do what we do,
and how we explain
another person's behavior?
And so really we're gonna pick up
that last kind of topic today
kind of as a continuation
from the whole semester
of explaining and looking
at human behavior,
and that's what social psychologists do,
is they explore and look at
why people do what they do,
why we behave in certain
social situations in a way.
And so that's the plan
today, is to just cover this,
to do it in detail,
so we can watch a couple of different ways
and see our behaviors in
light of how they're looked at
by social psychologists
and some of the key
findings that we have found
in the field of social psych.
So that's the plan.
We're gonna talk about attributions,
conformity and compliance and obedience,
and then finish with a topic
called group influences.
And now a lot of this material is, to me,
really, really interesting,
because it helps us to
answer questions like this:
why do people do what they do?
We do some weird things.
Have you ever seen somebody, for example,
when they're walking, and if they trip,
anybody notice anything?
If you've ever watched somebody trip,
which is not an uncommon
occurrence for a lot of us,
so you're walking down and
all of a sudden you trip,
what's a common behavior
to do after a person trips?
>> Student: Laugh.
>> Okay, they might
laugh, and why would they,
they might feel a little bit,
if it's you, you feel a bit awkward.
Some of you, I've noticed,
and maybe you've seen this before,
maybe you've done this,
have you ever tripped and, to look,
turned around and see
what maybe made you trip?
So you look around, see
what made you maybe trip,
or I've seen people,
anything else you've seen 'em do?
Any of you all try and pretend
like you were starting to jog
[laughter]
when you tripped, like?
I was just startin' to run.
I always start all of my runs with a trip.
[laughter]
Why would we do that?
The answer is oftentimes based upon,
it's based upon things that
we know about other people.
They're seeing us, and
if we see somebody trip,
tell me what you would
attribute their behavior to?
If you were watching, sitting here,
and someone comes walking down
and they trip right, with nothing there,
what might you think about them?
You might thing to yourself,
oh, they're a little bit clumsy.
Or that was funny or awkward.
And we could potentially
explain their behavior
about or based upon
maybe their clumsiness.
And so if we trip, we're
very much aware of the fact
that we go attributions like this,
and so we try and tell the other person,
oh, no, I was actually
walking, starting to jog.
And so what we're gonna
talk about in here is
when we have behaviors that
occur in a social setting,
we do certain things to explain that,
and as we explain those behaviors,
we're very much aware of it.
You are strongly influenced
by social situations,
and your behavior and my
behavior is influenced by that.
I want you to be thinking about examples
about your behavior being
influenced by social situations
and by the most interesting
things that occur.
Oftentimes we'll find
people behave differently
if they're alone than if they're
in a large group of people.
And that's an interesting thought.
You will change your behavior
based upon somebody's dress.
Do you believe that?
They had a person, you can try this.
Go up to a person sitting in
a chair or standing somewhere,
and tell them to move.
Just go up to 'em, say,
"Excuse me, you need to move
over to this chair, please."
They've done this.
They've had people standing
there waiting for a bus,
and they're standing on this side,
and the person walks up to them and says,
"Excuse me, you need to stand
"on the other side of
that post right there."
What would you do if
you're just standin' there
hanging out for a bus, which
isn't likely in Los Angeles,
but some of you have
been on buses recently,
or just standing there and someone says,
"Excuse me, you need to stand over there."
What would you do?
[students murmur]
What if somebody walked
up to you and said,
"Hey, you need to go,
see that guy over there?
"He's parkin' his car in that meter.
"He doesn't have any money for his meter.
"Go give him a quarter."
Or, "Go put a quarter in his meter."
What would you do?
What would you do if somebody said,
"Go put a quarter in that guy's meter?"
What do most people do?
How many say you would
go put a quarter in?
If somebody just walked
up to you and said,
"Hey, that guy doesn't have any money.
"Could you go put a quarter in his meter?"
Look at, you guys are so nice.
[laughter]
How many would say
I would not go put the
quarter in the meter?
That doesn't make any sense to me.
What if you had the quarter?
You see, we make quick
decisions about people,
and guess what we have found?
That people who are dressed just like us
get obeyed when we tell
people to do something
at around 17%, 20% of the
time, if you tell somebody,
excuse me, you need to
move over into this chair.
There's about 20% of the
people that go, "Oh, okay."
What could I change about the situation
to get clearly more
than 50% of the people,
as high as 70% of the people,
to actually move, or to go
put a quarter in the meter?
What would I change about the situation?
>> Student: Your outfit.
>> My outfit.
What could I wear
differently that would get
all kinds of people to obey me?
[students murmur]
Any form of a uniform.
Any form of a uniform.
Any uniform.
Are we influenced by
somebody wearing a uniform?
The answer seems to be
we are influenced by
people wearing uniforms.
We're influenced by
other people in general,
but people wearing, how does
that come into play here?
Well, it's huge in one big area
when it comes to social conformity,
and in particular when
it comes to obedience.
You see, social psychology
tries to explain
something that we've been
dabbling with all semester,
and that is this.
How people think and influence
and relate to one another
is what social psychology is about.
How do we think about other people?
Why do we make an attribution
about somebody that says
they're a bad driver, they're
clumsy, they're mean or angry?
What variables go into that?
Suppose you're sitting
there in a cafeteria,
and I think we talked about this,
but somebody is in the cafeteria,
and they take a bowl of cereal
and they pour it on somebody's head.
And then they walk out.
How many remember us
talking about this, anybody?
We talked about taking a bowl of cereal,
and say, and some are
sitting there in this caf,
and all of the sudden now,
someone takes this cereal,
and they just dump it on
somebody, and they walk out.
Somebody explain, if you're sitting there,
to what do you attribute
that person's behavior?
Let's say she is sitting there with a he,
and you can't hear their conversation;
you just see the cereal flying,
and now he's covered.
And she gets out and walks away.
Somebody raise your hand and explain,
why did she do what she did?
Give me an attribution about her behavior.
Why, you quickly have now
tallied up why she did it.
Why did she do it?
>> Student: Maybe she's
angry at him for some reason?
>> There's something, she's
angry at him, for some reason.
Okay, so she's angry.
We'll put that on this side of the ledger.
Give me another reason
why someone would do that
in the middle of just
sitting there, she's angry,
what else?
What else might go through your mind?
She just pours a bowl of cereal.
>> Student: Breakup?
>> They just broke up.
Okay, all right, so she is, what, upset?
Upset, angry, just broke up.
Give me another one.
>> Student: A joke.
>> It was a joke?
Maybe it was just simply,
she was trying to see what would happen.
[laughs]
>> Student: Maybe he totally offended her.
>> She was offended because
of something he said or did.
So obviously his behavior,
he either got her angry or
got her offended, right?
Somebody else.
What goes through your mind?
If you were to see this event
occur, what would you think?
Would you come up with any,
are there any other ways
to explain her behavior?
What could possibly have gone on?
Maybe something else.
>> Student: He cheated.
>> He cheated.
Or did you say she did or he did?
Yeah, they were dating,
and then he cheated.
[laughter]
So she found out and went, there you go.
[laughter]
Anything else?
How many would think,
that it would be pretty
accurate, your attributions?
How do we do that?
How do you think about people?
To what do you attribute
a person's behavior?
And what variables come into play
in explaining what somebody else is doing?
We said, okay, people change based upon
things like wearing a uniform.
We might treat this person differently
depending upon what we thought.
If we thought to ourselves,
she did this because she's very angry,
very hostile, very unfriendly,
your interactions with her are going to be
different than if you thought,
"She's not angry, hostile,
"and she's not like that normally,"
or "I've never seen anybody
do this before or even her;
"there must have been some provocation."
She did something
because she was provoked.
He must have done something to her.
And your interactions
will be very different,
depending upon how we
explain their behavior.
So this process of explaining
or predicting somebody's behavior
is really the main goal
of social psychology.
Why people behave the way they do,
and why we think the way we do
is massively important to
how we interact with people,
and therefore how social behaviors unfold.
So we do lots of little weird things.
We obey people with uniforms differently.
You obey people differently
if they are an authority figure
than if they're not an authority figure.
We act differently in groups of people
if we believe we're anonymous.
If we can kinda blend in, we
will do things differently
than if we don't blend in with people.
And that makes this a
very interesting topic.
So we start with trying to
say we're going to explain
social behavior, which is similar
to a field like sociology,
who will look at broader social behaviors.
Maybe they'll look at how
people from one cultural group
might differ from a person from
a different cultural group.
Social psychology tries to look
at individual behaviors within a group,
and how a group might
influence a person's behavior.
And so that's how it's
a little bit different.
So we're gonna start with the first area,
this area called attributions.
How do we make an attribution,
and what goes into coming up
with explanations for people?
And so let's start with this process.
We see somebody behave
in a particular way,
and then we attempt to infer
the cause of that behavior.
Somebody trips, we might intend to say,
oh, everybody trips in that spot.
It's not the person that's clumsy,
and we would attribute
that to the situation.
But oftentimes, one of
our errors is we tend
most likely to attribute
another person's behavior
to their disposition.
So if somebody's driving
pretty, let's say,
fast or wild or cutting
people off on the freeway,
we would tend to attribute
that person's driving behavior to them,
and we say they're just a bad driver,
they're crazy, they're whatever,
versus there could be a
situational explanation.
Give me a situational
explanation for somebody
who might be driving
really bad on a freeway.
[students murmur]
Okay, they could be drunk, and
that would be dispositional.
There's something about them.
What's a situational?
>> Student: Medical emergency.
>> Maybe there's a medical emergency.
I remember when my wife said
that we were going to have our baby,
and it was about like two in the morning,
and she goes, "Chris, guess what?
"Baby's coming."
And I'm like, "Gah, really?"
"Uh huh. It's like, now."
So we got on the freeway,
and this time we came all the way
from this part of Los Angeles
down to Orange County,
you know, or to the hospital,
and it was a good 20 minutes,
and I drove like crazy.
It was really fun.
[laughter]
Because I also thought, guy pulls me over,
I got a great excuse,
like, check her out, man.
And I think that cop would've
went [inhales sharply]
but they didn't pull me over.
But I was flying.
Cutting, moving, doing all kinds of things
that now I had a good reason to do it.
[laughter]
So it could be that you would've saw me,
and the explanation could
be he's a bad driver,
or it could be a situation, right?
The situational causes,
then, seem to happen,
but our tendency,
if you had to believe people erred
in making an attribution about somebody,
do we tend to believe
and make an attribution
that it's about the person
when we explain behavior,
or the situation?
What do you think?
Are people most likely to,
watching somebody else,
do we explain their behavior
based on that person's
disposition or the situational influences?
What would you think is the error
we tend to make more often?
[students murmur]
We almost always err on
the side of dispositions.
So if you're standing in line
and someone in front of you at the store,
at the grocery store,
all of a sudden starts to yell
at the person who's checking them out,
and you just hear 'em go, "This
stinks. I hate you," blah,
and they yell at them and
walk out, we tend to go,
"Gew, that's an angry person."
That person, and we
attribute their behavior
a lot to their disposition.
Now it's possible, if we
stayed around long enough,
that maybe out of every 10
people that go through that line,
every 10th person yells at this person,
and it's always the same
person they're yelling at.
Suppose you watch 15 people do that.
Would you now think it's disposition?
Or would you think it's situational?
If you watch the same thing occurring,
and it happens to be this
same checkout person,
we'd go, "They must be
saying or doing something
"to people to tick them off."
So it has more to do with the situation.
So this process leads
us to attribute causes,
and this is a really fun area to study,
and one of the cool things about it
is we tend to make a bias in this.
And our bias tends to be towards
attributing cause to the
person, to the disposition.
In fact, we have a name for it.
It's called the fundamental,
because it happens so
regularly and frequently,
we call it the fundamental
attribution error.
And this error is the tendency of people
who are observing other people
to overemphasize the person
who's doing the acting,
the throwing of the cereal or the yelling
or the driving bad or just
simply doing whatever,
we tend to overemphasize
them as the cause of events.
So it's a fundamental attribution error.
It's so common,
so researched and found
that people's tendency is to do this,
that we call it fundamental.
Can you think of any
situations in which you have,
or you're prone or likely to do this?
Can you think about
times in which this error
might come into play in your thinking
when you explain somebody else's behavior?
Which is, by the way, all the time.
Can you think of any examples
where people might tend to attribute cause
to the observer, or to the actor,
and they overemphasize
that, versus the situation?
Can you think of anything?
I'll give you a couple of hints.
You have one?
>> Student: Weddings?
>> Oh, like what were you thinking--
>> Student: Bridezilla.
>> Oh, okay, so in a wedding you might see
the bride might be
acting in a certain way,
and we might think wow,
she's very emotional
or very whatever, and maybe
not taking into account
the gravity or the
stress of the situation.
Uh huh, good.
Think of something else.
Any other examples?
Here's some ones that kinda come up.
By the way, this is probably
why ventriloquism works.
If you watch a ventriloquist,
and the person has like a,
you know, the doll that is supposedly,
we kinda get into that act,
or kinda watch it and laugh,
because it's pretty
easy to almost attribute
that behavior to that doll.
Now we don't believe that's happening,
but it's almost as if they
take on a personality,
and it's pretty easy for us
to kinda see that as, huh.
And so we kinda buy into this.
There are times in which you'll find
people who are actors,
we tend to overemphasize them and almost,
if you've heard this, being typecast.
And we think of people this way,
and if they played a role, and we've seen,
there was a student in a
play here who played a role.
I had a hard time interacting with them
without thinking they were that person.
And, it wasn't a very good role for them.
And I found myself when I would
see this person on campus,
it would be like, oh, well
you're not a very nice person.
And that was a role they had to play.
Have you heard of anybody
that's an actor or actress
share this before?
They're like, people
sometimes treat me this way.
You ever seen Star Wars, the old ones,
where there was the guy named Spock?
>> Student: Woo hoo!
[students murmur]
>> How many familiar--
>> Student: That's Star Trek!
>> I mean Star Trek.
What did I say?
[laughter]
What did I say?
Oh, Star Wars, sorry.
Yeah, it's a new Star
Wars, and Spock's in it.
It's really weird.
[laughter]
And this show called
Star Trek, with Spock,
and how many know who Spock is?
He's the guy that, what is he like?
[students giving various answers]
He's unemotional.
>> Student: Logical.
>> He's very logical.
And he's very much this,
I'm not going to let
emotions be part of this.
And in Star Trek, he was very well known,
and people would recognize him,
and so much so that the actor himself,
is a guy named Leonard Nimoy.
Leonard Nimoy would go around
and everybody would talk
to him as if he was Spock.
He wrote a book about his experience,
and he titled his book I Am Not Spock.
[laughter]
Because he couldn't go anywhere.
People would say, "Oh, hey Spock.
"Ah, must be hard to be so logical."
He goes, dude, I'm Leonard
Nimoy; I'm an actor.
That's not the way I am.
But we treat people that way.
There's some weird things
that go on with this, ready?
This is pervasive.
This isn't just like a cool
little funny weird things.
People that are victims of crime
are thought of oftentimes as
responsible for their crime.
We sometimes say to them, where were you?
What were you doing?
Why were you doing that
when that happened?
As if they asked for that
crime to happen to them.
You see, because this
attribution is so easy
for us to see somebody yell
and scream at somebody else,
and we think to ourselves,
wow, that's an angry, mean person.
But if we do that,
we would say, oh, but
I explain my behavior
very differently.
In fact, we call that
the almost the counter
to the fundamental attribution error,
is my behavior, I don't scream and yell
because I'm an angry person,
it's because of something I've done
or something that's been
done, rather, to me.
Does that make sense?
My behavior is because of
external situational causes.
Your behavior, or other people's behavior,
is because of something
about their personality.
Does that make sense, the difference?
When we trip it's because we were pushed
or there was something that tripped us.
When somebody else trips,
it's because they are clumsy.
Does that all make sense?
And attribution theorists
have been studying this
and our tendencies to do this,
and my challenge to you is think about
different ways this has happened to you.
It's so pervasive,
and it happens a lot,
and as you start to think
about it and let it process,
come up with examples.
Think about some.
I don't know if you could do that now;
I'll give you an example
of an actor-observer effect
that occurred with me
when I was,
well, it was a football game,
it was a very important football game,
it was under the lights,
and it was snowing.
And I was a wide receiver,
and I went up to the quarterback
after, this was a championship game.
Lot of snow, under the lights,
and I went up and there
were a series of plays
that the other wide receiver
kept dropping the ball.
So in this game I went up,
and here were my exact words.
Quarterback's name was Alan.
"Alan, stop throwing him the ball.
"He's not a good receiver."
Is that an attribution error?
What am I saying about
his receiving abilities?
He's not any good.
He's missing everything.
Does that make sense?
So I literally said those words:
"Alan, stop throwing him the ball.
"Throw it to me."
[laughs]
So he did.
And it was a very important play.
And I was wide open.
And I was like, way wide open.
And here comes the ball,
and I will say this:
if I had made the catch,
and if I do make the catch,
we win the game.
That's how close it was
toward the end of the game.
And so here comes the ball,
and I don't know if I told you,
but the lights were very bright,
and the snow was hitting you in the eye,
[laughter]
and I couldn't see anything,
and he didn't throw it very well
and it was wobbly, and I go like that,
and it hits me and it drops on the ground.
Do you think I went back
to the huddle and said,
oh, man, I'm a bad receiver,
like I said about the other guy?
What did I say?
You threw a wobbly pass.
It hit me here instead of there.
And the lights and the
snow, it's horrible.
It's hittin' me in the eye.
That's what I said.
[laughter]
You see that?
My behavior is because of what?
The snow, the lights,
the bad things out there,
the bad pass,
everybody else is just a bad receiver.
That's the actor-observer effect.
I trip because I was pushed.
You trip because you're clumsy.
Does that make sense?
All right.
We won the game, by the way.
Nobody cared, but I do.
And I caught it, I caught the next pass.
Isn't that awesome?
>> Student: Woo hoo!
>> Yeah, whatever.
So, but I caught it, and it was like,
"Yeah, I'm so happy!"
And then I said, and he's not
a bad receiver, he was fine.
And everything's good at that point.
Actor-observer effect is the
tendency for us to do this.
Can you think of examples that,
there's a ton of these.
Where we, victims of crime,
typecasting actors and actresses,
it's even why ventriloquism works.
So all of these happen.
There's one other one
that attribution theorists
and others look at in social psychology,
and that is if it's
something that's positive,
something good happened,
it tends to be, wow, the reason
I made the catch at the end
was because I'm a really, whatever,
because I gave a lot of effort
and I have good abilities,
but if something negative happens
it's because of external factors.
And it's just another way of talking
about a particular outcome that's positive
is going to occur
because of me doing this.
Negative outcome, somebody
messed up, whatever, whatever.
Okay?
Are there any questions
about attribution error?
Does it make sense, our tendency?
How we do this?
Any questions?
All right.
There's also, this can happen.
You can think about, well,
if you get a good grade,
it's because your effort and ability;
if you get a bad grade, it's
because it's a bad class,
bad exam, didn't take
into account anything,
it was a stupid test.
How many have ever said that before?
It's a stupid test, man, it was bad.
And maybe it was.
It could've been a bad test.
That's called the self-serving bias.
We have to be very careful
about all of these.
So social psychologists
have studied these things for a long time,
and it's pretty cool to look at that,
so pay attention to some
of that in the textbook.
No questions?
Moving on?
All right.
Last opportunities for self-serving bias,
actor-observer, or
fundamental attribution error.
All right, so.
In situations that call for
us to behave in a certain way,
one of the things that
we've been exploring is also
how do people behave when
people ask them to do something?
Or demand that they do
something in obedience?
So another important topic
is this social influence,
and that idea of conformity,
compliance, and obedience,
where it starts off,
which we're all very familiar with,
and that's conformity.
Let me ask you this.
Today, give me an example of some way
in which you have conformed
to some attitude or behavior
that's a group norm.
Raise your hand, you know which,
in something that you've done
today that is conforming.
>> Student: I haven't done it today yet,
but everyone like doesn't
use trays in the caf.
>> Ah, the use of trays in the caf,
or the not-use of trays.
What is it today, is it not using trays?
Is that the most conforming thing?
[students murmur]
You shouldn't use trays, is that the idea?
>> Student: Unless you're a freshman.
>> Unless you're a freshman.
[laughter]
[murmuring]
Most people don't use trays.
Is that right?
Is that a conforming thing?
Would you say, how many agree
that that's a conformity issue
and maybe if nobody's
around you might use a tray
if no one, I don't know if
you would do that or not.
What is conformity?
Is it a way that we,
give me another way that you conform.
Let's try another example.
>> Student: In California,
a lot of people say "like"
in their words.
>> Oh, okay, some of our language.
We might say "like" a lot.
Like, all the time, huh?
Like, almost every time
you hear somebody talk
and they're, like, using it.
And it's, like, hard not to use it if you
try and, like, do it.
[laughter]
And then you're, like, why
did I start doin' that?
This is, like, wrong.
So people use filler words like "like."
Give me another example of how
you might conformed already.
>> Student: My sophomore year,
people went barefoot or wore sandals.
>> A lot of people maybe
barefoot or sandals.
>> Student: All the time.
>> And they're, like, wearing sandals.
[laughter]
Give me another example, that's good.
Today, how have you conformed?
You're wearing clothes.
All y'all.
Coming to class, raising your hands.
Your hair, your hairstyle,
your dress style.
[students murmuring]
Are those conformity?
Stood in line.
How many stood in line
today to get your drink
or get your non-tray items?
[laughter]
Have you ever tried to
break any of these norms,
and have you ever felt that way?
Remember, we started class,
have you ever tried to get on an elevator
and face the wrong way?
Did anybody do that yet?
>> Student: Yes.
>> It's hard to do.
Did anybody this semester
go up to the people
serving the food and say, just,
I'd like mashed potatoes, please.
[laughter]
I don't want it on a plate,
I want it right there.
In my hand.
And the person back there
is going to go, what?
Yeah, and you're gonna
say, nah, right there.
I don't even use a tray or a plate,
and I'm not even gonna
use a fork, baby, watch.
Put it in there.
Okay?
Would you guys find it hard
to conform to some things
or to violate norms?
They're really, really
hard to violate a norm.
We will fight.
Try walking backwards wherever you go.
It's really hard to do.
Try doing other things that kind of, like
seem it's appropriate, and
don't do any odd things,
but you'll find it's really weird
to violate a standard
or a group norm simply,
so we've done this.
We've put people in a situation in which,
like this row right here,
and we said to all y'all,
you're going to be in
an experiment right now,
and we want you to give us your answers
and we say, okay,
and we wanna see do people
who come into a room
to take a little simple test,
would they conform if the
answer was obvious and wrong?
So, by the way, the
person who studied this
was a guy named Solomon Asch,
who started this probably
back even in the '60s and '70s
he started some of his research.
But he would put subjects in this dilemma,
because everybody around them
would be giving the wrong answer.
What would you do?
What if you were studying,
what if you tried this, ready?
You're studying with
four people for a test.
It's coming up close to the final now,
and you know the answer
that all four of you,
you know, you've all been
studying and looking at this,
but now all of a sudden
you get to one question
as you're studying, and
they all have the right,
they have one answer,
and you have a different answer.
You came up with something different
than four people that
you've always worked with,
you've always studied with,
they came up with this answer,
and you have this answer.
And now you don't have time,
you walk into the test,
and that question is now on the test.
Do you go with your answer,
or do you go with the other four people?
That's the dilemma you face.
Do you conform or not?
The pressure that Asch put people under
in this dilemma study is similar.
He would go like this,
and he would ask this row of people
which comparison line matches
with this standard line?
And the answer would be,
and we'd say it out loud is?
>> Students: Two.
>> Two.
>> Student: Two.
>> Two.
Two.
Two.
And we'd go just like that,
and everything's fine.
It's two.
And the study goes on, and
then he goes to the next study.
And the obvious answer is two,
and then this person says
two, and two, and two,
and two, and two, and by the way,
unbeknownst, tell me your name.
>> Zach: My name?
>> Uh huh.
>> Zach: I'm Zach.
>> Zach.
Unbeknownst to Zach, he's the only one
that's the true subject.
Everybody else is part of my study,
and they've all been told,
answer two until you
get to a certain trial,
and then do the wrong answer,
'cause we wanna see what Zach'll do.
Does that make sense?
So he goes like this, two.
And what's this study, what's
the answer to this one?
And they go two, two, two,
two, two, two, two, and two.
And he goes like this,
what's the answer to this?
And the person goes three.
What does, by the way,
is it Zach, did you say?
= [Zach] Yeah.
>> What does Zach do
at that point, usually?
Person says, Randi, what's
the answer to this one?
And you say?
>> Randi: Three.
>> Three.
He goes like this.
Usually, in most experiments, he goes,
like that.
He kinda looks like,
dude, that was messed up.
And then this person says,
>> Student: Three.
>> Three.
And then this person says,
>> Student: Three.
>> Three.
And three, and three,
and now it's Zach turn,
what's Zach going to say?
>> Students: Three.
>> How many of you would say,
I'm sayin' three?
[students murmur]
By the way, what percentage of the time
do people conform to an
obvious wrong answer?
The answer is only about 24% of the time
will this person step away from
what these answers are
and go with his own answer.
So 76% of the people will,
in many of these different trials,
will at some point conform
to the obvious wrong answer.
Why do people do that?
Zach, why did you do that?
>> Zach: 'Cause everyone
else was doin' it.
>> 'Cause everybody else is doing it.
It feels better to be part of the crowd
rather than to stand out.
We wanna be also, maybe
they go like this sometimes.
Zach will go like this
and then people will look,
and then they'll look again,
and they'll look again and think,
I must be messed up or
something must be wrong,
'cause they've been fine before.
And they wanna be right,
and they wanna be liked.
And so many of the times they just simply,
now not all the time.
It's not all the time they do this.
But enough of the time, people feel
this pressure to conform,
and that's what Solomon Asch studied.
Can you think of examples in which
it's really hard to violate the norm?
Sometimes our conformity can
be, it's really, really hard.
Today I had a meeting
with a whole bunch of
other administrators.
There was only one person, well, actually,
two out of 10 were in that
room without a tie on.
That was hard.
And so I, why?
Who, it's a tie, it's a piece of cloth
that you put here and you wear down,
but everybody wore one,
and I felt like I should've wore a tie.
And I was kinda looking around:
I should've wore a tie.
But I didn't.
And I actually feel pretty good about it.
[laughter]
But I can tell you that
there was the feeling
that I should've conformed to that.
Is that conformity?
It's the pressure to conform,
so if I would've went
and just put on a tie,
even though I don't want
to, but everybody else does,
or they wear a certain thing,
that's, we're giving in to,
it's not bad.
Standing in line's not a bad thing.
We conform most of the time.
Okay, Solomon Asch's study:
we tend to conform
because we wanna be liked,
and we wanna be right.
We wanna be liked and we wanna be right.
We also tend to conform more
in a situation in which
seven people out of the eight
have already given the wrong answer,
we tend to look at the group.
If we like the group, if
they've been right enough times,
we'll oftentimes go along with them,
if there's numbers like that.
But sometimes, if just
one person breaks away,
like if the answer was obviously one,
but if this person said,
three, three, one,
three, three,
now Zach has got somebody on his side,
and he oftentimes goes one.
Somebody, they saw it like I did,
and so that really changes your numbers,
and so why we conform,
so there's the numbers.
If you outnumbered eight-to-one,
about 37% of the time
they give the conforming answer.
It drops down in this
particular study to only
about 10% if there's kind of
a peer that goes with you.
So at the end of the day, 37% of people.
And you can find these numbers
in your textbook on conformity,
will be unable to break away,
and they're just going to
go ahead in that situation
and say I'm just gonna go
with the obvious wrong answer.
So why do we conform?
We like to be liked,
and we wanna be right,
and conformity is a very powerful
and important kind of norm
that we all do and follow.
It just kind of helps society go along,
and we tend to do it in a way,
and it would be odd if
everybody didn't conform.
You'd have all kinds of chaos,
and so there's some benefits to it.
Another one that's important
is something called compliance.
Compliance here,
in conformity, it's almost
this assumed group norm.
In compliance, somebody's
actually having you
or giving you a request
to change your behavior
or to do something.
And so we think about
this a lot in situations
where somebody's saying, hey,
would you fill out this survey for me?
Hey, would you be able
to do something for me?
Hey, could you help me with this?
Hey, would you mind taking just
this quick little survey for me?
Or, could I borrow something?
Any of those requests can be influenced
by the thing that occurred
right before the request.
Many times, our compliance
to certain requests
oftentimes depends on
what happened right before
the person asked you the question.
So if the ultimate question is,
hey, would you take
a group of students to the zoo?
They are, let's say,
elementary school students.
Would you take 'em to the zoo
this weekend for two hours?
Takes two hours.
Just go and do it for us.
Would you do that?
That's a direct request.
By the way, in that study,
when they just simply ask people,
somewhere around 17,
almost 20% of the people
went, sure, why not.
I don't know who these,
you need somebody to go?
I'll go.
Two hours, yep, I'll do it.
We can get close to 50% of people
to be able to agree to do this.
50%, if they did a
door-in-the-face technique.
They asked a large request first,
and then they asked the request of
would you take somebody to the zoo.
Give me an example of a large
request, a door in the face.
Can you think of something?
They went up to people and they said,
hey, would you go work and volunteer?
It's about six hours a week every week
for the rest of the semester.
For like 15 weeks in the spring semester,
six hours a week, it's
volunteer, would you go do that
and volunteer with this group of people,
let's say, in this home with kids,
and almost everybody
said, no, I can't do that.
Six hours a week?
I don't have time.
Almost everybody said no.
But if you then said,
so that was the large request,
but then you said,
oh, okay, if you can't do that,
do you think you could
take people to the zoo
this weekend for two hours?
50% of the people said,
oh, I could do that.
Do you see the difference?
Now you get 50% of the people
agreeing to your request,
if you simply asked them something big
and they turned you down.
That is a human tendency to comply
depending upon what request came first.
Sometimes a small request could be,
hey, do you have the time?
Sure, it's whatever time.
Hey, do you think you could
take a three-question survey for me?
And then people are more likely to agree,
because you had a small request,
and then they agreed to
a second, larger request,
called the foot-in-the-door.
So these are all kinds
of techniques people use,
people know about, salesmen use them,
compliance and social psychologists study,
why do people agree to do things,
and what occurs and what
doesn't need to happen,
and what influences people
to agree to a certain kind of request?
All right, those are
compliance techniques.
One last topic in this
area of social influence
is obedience,
and obedience is when somebody says
you need to do this or
you need to change that,
or you need to agree to do something,
and they demand it of you.
And the question about how
often people obey to demands
is one of those very
important types of influences
that has come into play and studied,
and so let me show you an experiment
of a researcher by the
name of Stanley Milgram.
How many have heard of Stanley
Milgram's obedience studies?
Yeah.
Stanley Milgram had an obedience study
in which he began to ask the question
who will obey,
and how far could he get people to obey,
and so he would do this.
He would hook up people
to a shock generator,
and he would say we wanted to find out,
would you obey and hurt somebody,
and I want you to answer this question.
Think about it to yourself.
How many people, if I
brought them into the room,
would actually hurt
somebody by shocking them
every time they got an
answer to a question wrong?
The person who is the
learner and not the teacher,
the learner gets to learn this list.
Ready?
They learn a whole list of things.
And they get time to
practice it, and they think,
and they're the learner.
And then the teacher's holding
a shock generator like this,
and then they say all right,
now it's time to take the test,
and let's start.
And the learner is now going
all right, the answer to
one is A, and it's right.
Great.
The answer to two, they say I
think the answer to two is B.
And the person says wrong.
You're now going to get a
shock. [imitates buzzing]
And the person goes, "Aah!
"That hurt!"
The question that Milgram set up was,
how far would they shock them?
How many volts would they
give 'em of electricity
before they went I'm not
going to do that anymore.
That's too much voltage.
That would hurt too bad.
Will people naturally drop out
after a certain level has been
made or achieved of voltage?
And that's what he did.
He studied this.
And the results were very surprising.
So, here's the 1963,
if you can believe it,
1963 study, depicted in this video clip,
of a learner and a teacher,
and remember, we're
looking at the teacher,
because the teacher,
the one that's holding the
shock generator, ready?
We're seeing, will this person
holding the shock generator,
will they obey, will they obey
a person that says shock that person.
They just missed a
question, shock them again.
They missed a question, shock 'em more.
How much do people obey,
or will they stop and they go,
I'm not going to obey you.
And that was this study that was done.
So, this is the Stanley Milgram study.
This done throughout the '60s,
but this, I think, particular clip
was from early in the '60s.
That shows, and you can see all the shock
and the levels, strong
shock, very strong shock.
Different voltages at the top 185, 255,
intense shock, extreme intense shock, 315,
danger, severe shock.
How many people went all the
way to 450 is the question.
>> Step right in here,
learner, and have a seat there.
You can leave your coat
on the back of that chair real quick.
Take it right off.
That's fine.
Now have a seat right here,
and pull yourself right up to the counter.
Keith, you may look on if you'd like
while we get set up in here.
Would you roll up your
right sleeve, please?
Left sleeve.
That's fine.
Now what I'm going to do
is strap down your arms
to avoid any excessive
movement on your part
during the experiment.
Is that too tight?
This electrode is connected
to the shock generator in the next room.
And this electrode paste
is to provide good contact
to avoid any blister or burn.
>> This is the teacher.
We're seeing how much he obeys.
>> Wrong.
[buzzing]
The answer is knife.
300 volts.
[learner screams]
>> Learner: I absolutely
refuse to answer any more.
Get me out of here.
You can't harm me, here.
Get me out!
Get me out of here!
>> Stanley: Continuing, the
next word is green, please.
>> Green, grass, hat, ink, apple.
Okay, well, can't go
on if he won't answer.
>> Stanley: If the learner doesn't answer
in a reasonable time,
about four or five seconds,
consider the answer wrong,
and follow the same procedure
that you have been
doing for wrong answers.
Say "wrong," tell him the number of volts,
give him the punishment
for an incorrect answer.
>> Oh, man.
>> Stanley: Continue, please.
>> Teacher: Green, grass, hat, ink, apple.
Answer, please.
>> Stanley: Go on with
the procedure, please.
>> 315 volts, the answer is ink.
[click]
[learner screams]
>> I refuse to answer.
>> Next one.
Well, you're gonna keep getting a shock
if you don't answer.
Next one is rake.
330 volts.
[click]
[learner screams]
[student laughter]
>> Learner: Get me out of here, will ya?
I ain't a volunteer.
>> Teacher: Next one.
>> I'll show you more, but I
just wanna make something clear,
by the way.
This is the teacher.
The question is how much does he obey.
He doesn't know this,
but that other guy is not being shocked.
So he's just screaming
as an actor back there.
So just to calm some of you,
'cause you look nervous.
[laughter]
He is doing, we wanted to see,
what could that learner
back there go, "aaaaah!
"I'm not gonna answer!"
We want to see, would this guy still obey?
What percentage of people,
by the way, he's at 300 volts.
The question was, it goes
all the way to 450 volts.
X, X, X, is marked on the screen.
450 volts.
What percentage of people like him
would go all the way to 450 volts,
even if that guy's screaming?
What percent?
There were people that
said I am not doing this.
There were people.
What percentage of the people said,
"I'm not doing this.
"I'm done with this experiment.
"Even if you tell me you have to."
Think about the number
that's coming to mind.
What percent out of 100
would go all the way?
>> Learner: Get me outta here.
Let me out!
Let me out, let me out!
>> Next one, fast.
Bird, car, train, plain.
>> Stanley: Go on, please,
with the procedure.
>> Please answer.
The answer is bird.
345 volts.
[click]
[buzzing]
Blunt, knife, steak, word, arrow.
Answer, please.
>> Stanley: Continue, please.
>> The answer is arrow.
360 volts.
[buzz]
Something's happened. [mumbles]
>> Stanley: Go on, please,
with the experiment.
Please continue.
>> Soft, rug, pillow, hair, grass.
Answer, please.
>> Stanley: Go on, teacher.
>> Hair.
375 volts.
[buzz]
I think something's happened
to that fella in there.
I don't get no answer.
He was hollerin' with less voltage.
Can you check it and see
if he's all right, please?
>> Stanley: Not once we've started.
Please continue, teacher.
>> Cool, day, shade, water, cave.
Answer, please, are
you all right in there?
Are you all right?
>> Stanley: Please continue, teacher.
>> Well, you want me to
keep givin' him shocks?
>> Stanley: Continue.
>> I'm up to 390.
>> Stanley: Continue, please.
[buzz]
>> Something's happened
to that man in there.
>> The question was, by the way,
this guy went all the way to 455 volts.
[students laugh]
So did 67% of the people.
67% of the people
went all the way to 450 volts.
63%.
By the way, good numbers,
this was done in 1963.
And that'll help you give
the clue as to what percent.
19, not 1963. 63.
63% of the people.
Look at this, the victim,
in this particular study,
everybody went to 15 volts,
and everybody went to moderate and strong
and very strong and intense,
and here the victim started to scream,
like what you heard.
And a lot of people dropped out,
but only about 10% said, "I'm
not gonna do this anymore.
"That guy's screaming."
And the guy says, while
the shocks may be painful,
they're not dangerous.
Please continue.
So people would go, okay,
and he would start pounding on the wall.
"I'm not gonna answer.
"It hurts."
And so another 10% of the
people would drop out.
And then 10, 20% would drop out.
But by the time they got to
the very end, the 450 volts,
and the victim was no
longer answering questions,
63% of the people still
went [imitates buzzing]
like that, and did it.
And the question was, why?
Well, go ahead.
>> Student: Yeah, was he being paid,
or was there some sort of
a reward or punishment?
>> That's a great question,
was he being paid.
The answer was they were being paid.
At the time, it was like
five bucks back then.
It'd be like giving you 20 bucks today
to be part of the study.
So could that have motivated them,
like, I wanna get 20
bucks, I don't wanna leave.
I'm gonna keep doin' this.
That was one question they asked.
Any other questions that you have?
What would you think is
going on with that person?
By the way,
do you think that would happen today?
If we did this study today,
would we get the same numbers?
[students murmur]
Might get higher numbers?
They did this with males, females,
they did it with people of
different ethnic groups,
different countries,
though not every country,
they just haven't had
time to go and do this,
but in almost all these
cases in this scenario,
they get about 63% of the
people will go all the way.
They obey an authority.
You could tell, by the way,
that guy was very anxious
and very, you could tell,
being impacted by this.
He didn't wanna do it.
By the way, this study
couldn't be done today.
It's a study that they deem too risky
for the person, that
teacher who's sitting there
having to push this,
he doesn't know the guy's acting.
He thinks it's real.
And now, you're going to reveal to him
at the end of the study,
well we just wanted to find out
how many people would shock all the way,
and you were one of 'em.
[laughter]
And they're like, ah.
So it's ethically a study that
today would not get approved.
This was back in the '60s before they had
some of these ethical guidelines in place,
but it's still revealed some
amazing things about people.
We tend to obey authority.
By the way, check this out.
They brought the guy who was the actor
out of the room,
and they put him in the same
room as the other person.
Do you think that lowered the rates?
When the person could
see him getting shocked,
remember he's acting like
he's getting shocked,
going "aaaaah! Stop it!"
But you could see him;
do you think that
lowered the rates at all?
What if he had to actually
not only see him, but
he had to in one case
put his hand on the shock generator,
the thing that would shock
him like a plate, like this.
And the guy that was doing
the shocking, the teacher,
had to hold the guy's hand
down to get him shocked.
That make sense?
So they're saying, you
put your hand on there
so the guy gets shocked
when he misses the answer.
And about, well, here's the numbers.
30% of the guys would hold
his hand down to get shocked.
65 or 63% when the learner was just heard.
When the learner was seen
it went down to about 40%,
so it did decrease,
and then if they had to
physically hold that learner
or touch them in some
way, not as many complied.
And this was a study that
was done by Stanley Milgram,
mostly because he wanted to
find out the answer to this:
do people really obey authority?
Because they had people going
to trial for war crimes,
and these people would say this in trial:
why did you do this horrible behavior,
maybe killing an innocent
or innocent people,
and they would say, I
was ordered to do it.
They told me to do it.
They ordered me to do it.
I was following orders.
And then the question was,
do really people follow orders like that?
And the answer, unfortunately, has been,
over the course of all of
these studies in the mid-'60s,
that they were discovering that people
were really pretty
obedient to authorities.
And then the question why it occurs
and how do you resist it became then
the focus of study over
the next couple of years,
and while that study in
general wouldn't be done today
in that same regard,
there are ways of finding
out do people still obey,
and the rates seem to be pretty high.
But people tend to resist
this a little bit more
when they find out about the
results of studies like this.
And we find higher resistance rates
when people have been told, hey, listen,
you don't have to obey if
somebody's getting hurt.
You can say no.
And by the way, you
see people in this 30%,
well, it's some 33, 35, 37%
of the people would say,
"I'm not gonna do this; I'm out.
"I don't care.
"You take your money, I'm done."
And they resist, and
seeing other people resist
has actually helped people to go,
"Oh, I don't have to obey an authority
"who's telling me to do
something wrong or bad
"or that would bring harm to somebody."
And resistance is increased
when people see models that do that.
It occurs, again, because of a high demand
to follow authorities and obey them.
Any questions on the
whole study on obedience?
Yeah, go ahead.
[student speaks off microphone]
Yeah, in this regard, like
back in the compliance stuff,
in that area, there's
all kinds of questions
that could be asked about
the morality, for example,
of having somebody, of
trying to do something
that would get them to behave
or comply in a certain area like that.
What's been interesting is
most of these techniques
are pretty much used in sales
all the time against people.
I think that's the idea that
a lot of social ecologists
say, you better be prepared.
I answered the door, it wasn't
maybe a year or two ago,
and someone stood there
and said, hey would you be,
there was just a simple
question that was said,
like, hey do you think if I,
I forget what it was,
would it be cool for a student like me
to be able to go on a vacation to Hawaii
or something like that.
And I remember answering the,
I knew what he was doing, it was,
he wanted me to answer the question.
I said, well, of course it'd be good.
Well then, you know what I can do then?
All's you have to do is
help me buy a magazine.
Okay, so it's a technique.
There's a way.
So I think what happens is we find
a lot of these things occurring out there,
and the question is
when are they occurring?
Why are they occurring?
And what are some ideas behind it?
So, yeah, there's a whole philosophy of,
behind this as to why they occur,
and then even the morality
of doing some of that,
it is very manipulative.
A lot of these are just, that's
exactly what they're doing.
So a lot of sales techniques
of people doing this.
And so the social psychologists
that are studying this
are trying to say, wow, we've
got to be really careful
that we're buying into these things,
or that these are influencing us.
Good question.
Any others on obedience?
All right.
It's an interesting area.
Look at it in the textbook, and study it.
It is very helpful to explore
and to look at some of
these behaviors like that.
And then, in the last one,
here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm just gonna put up four areas
that I want you to look
at in the textbook.
Social facilitation, and
there's a quick definition;
it's when your performance is influenced
depending upon the presence of others.
And something called social loafing,
which is we tend to exert less effort
when we're in a group than if we're alone.
Something called group
polarization and groupthink:
these are topics in the textbook, I think,
that are very interesting,
and they have some cool examples in there
of how each of these work.
So look at them.
Study them.
Read about them.
And are there any questions
about anything we've covered so far?
>> Student: Is it true that
stress brings on gray hair?
>> Well, stress has physiological effects,
so the answer is stress does
and can result in things like
even getting gray hair, yeah.
So does aging.
>> Student: But how does that happen?
Well, is it the aging--
>> Yeah, it is a lot to do with it,
and it's what the hair, yep.
It's a good question.
Huh.
Hey, guess what?
We are done.
[applause]
Good job this semester, y'all.
>> Announcer: Biola
University offers a variety
of biblically centered degree programs
ranging from business to ministry
to the arts and sciences.
Visit Biola.edu to find out
how Biola could make a
difference in your life.
