The Power of the Situation

1. The Power of the Situation • We just learned about how social conditions affect human behavior, thoughts, and feelings • Social influence and obedience affected how people responded to the Asch “line experiment” and the Milgram “obedience study” • Now we will discuss *why* the situation can influence us by learning about the “Stanford Prison Experiment”

2. Stanford Prison Experiment:some background information • Conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo and others in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department. • Volunteers were randomly assigned to play the role of guards and prisoners in a mock prison in the basement. • Both prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their assigned roles, and lead to genuinely dangerous and psychologically damaging situations

3. Stanford Prison Experiment:What would you have done? • If you were a prisoner, how would you have acted? • If you were a guard, how would you have acted? • After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again?

4. Stanford Prison Experiment:Criticisms of the experiment • Unethical • Unscientific • No scientific controls because it was a field experiment • Small sample size of 24, but really just 1 group so N=1 • Conclusions and observations were anecdotal • Participants acted how they were expected to behave • Zimbardo gave guards no rules, said they could “create fear” • Zimbardo admitted he was not a neutral observer but acted like a “superintendent” who enabled the bad behavior

5. Stanford Prison Experiment:A replication? • In 2002 two psychologists from England conducted a partial replication with the assistance of the BBC who broadcast scenes from the study as a reality TV program called The Experiment. • Their results and conclusions were very different from Zimbardo's

6. BBC “The Experiment • How was it similar to Zimbardo’s study? • Randomly selected volunteers assigned to “guards” and “prisoners” • Mock prison created in the George Lucas soundstage in London. • End early (ended two days earlier than planned)

7. BBC “The Experiment” • How did it differ from Zimbardo’s study? • Psychologists only observers, not involved • “Guards” were given guidelines and instructions • Very different results • Guards were not sadistic or abusive, made peace with prisoners • Some guards were “repelled” by the situation, two left in “disgust” • What does this imply about Zimbardo study? • What does this imply about human nature?

8. Abu Ghraib prison • What do these experiments tell us about what happened at Abu Ghraib prison? • Did the power of the situation influence the guards? • Were there other factors involved?

9. Attitudes and Persuasion • An Attitude is a like or dislike that influences our behavior toward a person or thing. • Persuasion refers to any attempt to change your attitudes and thus your behavior. • People’s attitudes tend to fall along a continuum from weak (easily changed) to strong (highly resistant) • How do you change people’s attitudes?

10. Attitudes and Persuasion • A person is more likely to change YOUR attitudes when… • Person variables: • The message is highly important to you • Your mood • Situation variables: • Perceived similarity between the speaker and you • Perception that idea is approved or endorsed by a respected group

11. Attitudes and Persuasion Heightened resistance • What if people know they are about to hear an argument with which they will most likely disagree? • Telling them that this is the case will increase the likelihood that they will reject the argument (the Forewarning Effect). • Presenting a weak version of an argument and following it with a stronger version increases the chance that the strong one will be rejected also (the Inoculation Effect).

12. Cognitive Dissonance • Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time. • To reduce dissonance, people modify one of the two thoughts, or invent new thoughts