PSYC 3850 Exam 1

Interactionism

how persons and situations interact and shape eachother

3 parts of interactionism

situational selection

evocation

manipulation

Situational selection

to choose the situations in which one finds oneself

Evocation

certain personality traits may evoke specific responses from the environment (ex. disagreeableness)

Manipulation

various ways people influence social situations

Deindividuation

losing self identity to take on identity of the group

Brownings 4 main evidences for situational risk factors in violence

1. Asch’s Conformity Experiment

2. Miligram’s Obedience to Authority Experiment

3. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment

4. Evidence of Cognitive Dissonance

Reserve Police Battalion 101

issue of choice in the Holocaust violence; 500 ordinary, working class German reserve policemen carried out mass shootings and ghetto clearings in Poland from 1942–44; killed approximately 38,000 people by firing squad and helped deport 48,000 Jews

Battalion 101 and choice

most men could refuse, refusers were generally reassigned rather than executed

Battalion 101 and person-situation debate

ordinary men committed extreme violence when exposed to powerful group and situational pressures

Battalion 101: conformity and violence

men feared being ostracized and followed orders rather than appearing “morally superior”

How did repeated killing effect Battalion 101 men?

violence became routine and produced emotional numbness and desensitization

3 types of men in Battalion 101

Eager killers

Accommodators

Evaders

Person-situation debate

personality theories emphasize individual traits and personalities in actions; social psychology emphasizes group and situational forces and that people lack consistency in all situations

Eager killers

most disturbing, enthusiastic, and sadistic

Accomodaters

simply follow orders but no enthusiasm, don’t volunteer

Evaders

helped organize killing but did not participate, told others it was b/c they “weren’t strong enough” to avoid ostracization

Personality explanation for Battalion 101

men were psychologically abnormal, German personalities were atypical → disproven by Miligram

Social psychology explanation for Battalion 101

people as a group behave different than they would on their own (deindividuation)

Asch Experiment

conformity; showed people a line, then 3 comparison lines and asked them to match but had 3 confederates all say the wrong answer; 66% of participants conformed at least once

Conformity reasoning

people want to be just like everyone else and don’t want to stand out → for survival

Miligram Experiment

obedience to authority; participants told to “shock” learners for wrong answers, 65% shocked to extreme levels b/c they “felt forced” by the researcher despite having physical free will

Diffusion of responsibility in Miligram

displacing blame to make yourself feel less guilty → participants viewed researchers as fully responsible, they were simply following instructions

Pre-war German parenting and obedience

Harsh, authoritarian parenting—with physical punishment, emotional separation, and fear-based discipline—may have made children more fearful and obedient toward authority → supports personality debate

Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment and Deindividuation

prisoners and guards experiment; students assumed guard roles too well and began enjoying torture → lost their sense of identity while playing a group role

Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment and diffusion of responsibility

taking the identity of a group makes people feel less responsible and do things they normally wouldn’t do

3 groups of guards in Zimbardo’s experiment

1. “Good” guards → evaders

2. Obedient guards → accommodators, both largest group

3. Tormenting guards → eager killers

Battalion 101 and Zimbardo conclusions

people in extremely different circumstances can both be pushed to violence→ points to deeper difference on group level → situation debate

Cognitive dissonance

people dislike actions that go against their beliefs or convictions, so they create lies to justify their actions, feel less guilty, and remove dissonance of tension

Festinger and cognitive dissonance

“People come to believe in and love the things they have to suffer for”, people over-justify and shift their opinions to avoid dissonance (ex. change in letters in Battalion)

3 criticisms of situational risk factors

Individual differences were still at play in Milgram and Zimbardo’s experiments 

Findings are not deterministic and do not remove individual responsibility

Group behavior does not predict individual behavior, nor relieves them of individual responsibility for their decisions

Situationism

in criminal violence, idea that behavior is shaped more by situational pressures—such as authority, group conformity, fear of ostracism, rewards, and desensitization—than by fixed personality traits