And that diffusion of responsibility
leads to some very interesting things in group
processing, which is why they don't want psychologists
all on juries. Even though they call them anyway.
Even though I may have to go and serve,
they'll probably let me go because I know that diffusion of responsibility
will cause group polarization.
Because I'm not personally responsible. What you see is in groups.
Whatever is the prevailing opinion, it doesn't get debated objectively,
it becomes stronger. With more people agreeing
you have that conformity effect. And it's not me making decisions, it's us making
decisions. Now I'm not personally
responsible for making a severe decision. We came to
the decision. Group think
is something that is a compound word without a hyphen in our
jargon. And it happens the desire for group harmony
overrides the need for objective discussion,
suppresses dissent. People don't dissent because they don't want to
rock the boat. There's a discomfort in rocking the boat for most people.
Now some people got a personality, they're always devil's advocate.
They don't mind agitating everybody else. But most of us like to be liked remember?
We like other people to like us, its easier to go along to get along,
and people do that. So if you want to have objectivity
you gotta be mindful of these group effects.
So it turns out that this happens in all kinds of situations.
I don't know if you were going to take a test on this concept,
if somebody was to offer you the example
of a group of people, home owners association, getting together
and they say "let's plant some bushes out by the opening of the subdivision,"
and everybody likes the person
who puts forward the idea. And some person's thinking, "well gosh,
in couple years they'll grow up and they'll obscure our view, and we won't be able see down either
side because the bushes will
obstruct our view, and maybe that's not such a good idea but,
but because nobody seems to be objecting, because nobody else seems to have a
problem with it,
because everybody likes what's going on, they tend to go along to get along.
Even though they have reservations, just like in
Asch's lie experiment, they just go along.
So the group decisions may, well I didn't decide it, I thought that there was a problem with it,
did you voice that problem? Well no, but I figured if it was a problem other people
would have voiced it.
And there you have that issue, the risky shift then,
is the tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision
made by
individual group members. Jurys
are subject to this. The pressure is to find a unanimous
decision, or you don't go home.
You don't go home until you come up with the unanimous decision
or until we figure it's been so long that we will allow a hung jury.
The pressure's to just agree, even if you don't,
even if you have subtle reservations in criminal cases it's beyond the shadow of
a doubt do you know how hard it is
to established right? If it was beyond a shadow of a doubt we probably wouldn't be
a trial. There probably would have plea bargained.
If we're at trial, there's probably some doubts,
otherwise, the defense would never mount a defense. They wouldn't bring it to trial.
So now there's gray areas but there's this idea that you have to agree.
Space shuttle challenger blew-up.
Blew up in mid-air while
millions watched on TV. Horrifying tragedy.
it took them while to figure out what it was, but it turned out they knew that was
a problem.
O rings, external fuel tanks, and the temperature launched that day.
The pressure on NASA to launch was great, the social pressure,
they were behind schedule, they're over budget, There's engineer says those O-rings
trouble me. In fact there there's a number of them. They trouble us.
Because under certain conditions they might fail.
But what had happened every time before hand? Success.
success, success, success, we had already delayed it,
we've delayed again, it's now a very, very, cool morning,
and ya'll know what happens to materials on cold mornings? They contract.
They had actually discussed this.
But the group, including higher-ups,
having discussed it, reached the decision...
we have to be a go for launch.
Everything that we've worked for is now being called into question.
We need to do this, and by making that risky decision
it was tragedy. But it wasn't one person
being a total ass, totally disregarding the safety, they
all cared about the safety of the astronauts,
right? They were deeply concerned they just were able to overlook
this one thing that turned out to be the only thing that mattered that day
because of this process.
How do riots start? ever say to yourself, "man I'd like to get in a riot."
I sure would like to be in a riot. You think you could even start a riot if you
wanted to?
Yea, some of you might be able to.
Riots are the seemingly
organic things that just come out.....not nowhere.
There's usually a lot of pressure, a lot of tension, a lot of other
variables going on. I am going to finish up with this, y'all hang with me,
we've got four minutes total left, but if you could hang with me a minute or two longer,
we'll be done with this material today. But in a crowd you're less
identifiable.
It's harder to know who you are. When you see these giant
riots at sports stadiums, or after
the big game is over and the team won and in they're flipping over cars,
or the team lost and they're flipping over cars right. When you finally
get people accountable, individuals, because now we have things like cameras
everywhere, right.
Before you got caught up in a riot, nobody ever knew you were in a riot, but now
they can find you, and when you pull these people in for questioning
they don't go, "you know what I love rioting man, I'm a riot...mo..f.."
What do they say? They say, "I don't know what happened,
I got caught up in the moment." I got caught up in the moment
I'm not like that. I don't usually do things like that.
I don't know what came over me. It wasn't really me that night.
Maybe I had a few drinks, but everybody else was doing it,
and I got caught up in the moment. People do things
they wouldn't normally do on alcohol,
in large crowds, and behind masks. There's good research that shows just putting on a mask
people will behave differently
if they can't be identified. When you're in a giant crowd, and the crowd's acting a
certain way
it's very easy. The bystander effect comes from diffusion of responsibility.
There's a book out on this, Kitty Genovese's incidents now
and I bought it. It was told poorly the first time, not
accurately by the news source that did it, but here's the thing:
this woman was murdered.
It took 32 minutes. At least around 38 people or so
heard it, or saw it, give me a minute if you don't mind, we're still two minutes before the end of class.
Usually we end two minutes before the end of class.
And didn't do anything. At one point somebody yelled out the window and the guy ran
away.
And you know what he did? No cops came, he came back and continued to stabbed her to death.
She didn't die at the scene, she died later on the way to the hospital.
And the story got out and the story got told
like this. All these people in New York watched this person get killed they didn't do
anything. Bystander apathy,
people just don't care. Living in the big city desensitizes you,
makes you less of a human being, and that was the explanation
for a lot of people. The bystander apathy.
We call it bystander effect now because it turns out
you can make it happen. In experimental situations
it's the way human beings behave. Not everybody saw what was happening,
not everybody knew what to make of it, not everybody was sure they heard what they heard,
that they were hearing something, maybe it was an argument between lovers, and it's nothing I'm supposed to get my..
you know,
mind your own business kind of a thing. People didn't know what to make of it, it was an
ambiguous situation.
So Latane & Darley created an ambiguous situation and put people in it
experimentally.
they don't know that they're is it experimentally. A smoke filled room study.
You can find it on YouTube, what happens?
You go into a room to fill out some surveys, and through the vent, smoke starts coming in.
Smoke starts coming in the room. Now,
smoke comes in the room, you think, well I'll get up and talk to somebody about that. I'm going to say
something.
And if people were alone, they did just that.
They did just that. But the mere presence of other people,
diffusion of responsibility, the people in three-person groups took
on average 4 minutes before they did anything.
At that point you've got peak response levels in the other group of one person.
And only ten percent did. By the time here
six minutes in, not even half the people have even mentioned this.
What do you see when you have an emergency? You see other people standing
around doing what?
Nothing. Well then there may not be an emergency so let me hit you with this
real quick
How many people had red cross for first-aid training?
Certified in it. What do they tell you do?
Here's the thing you do. If you notice an emergency, you don't treat it
as ambiguous. You go up to the person, it's your job, you've been trained
to do it, you carry a card that says you are doing it, and you go and ask them, "sir,
maam, are you okay? Are you okay?" Right, you take take responsibility. In other words the
training tells you
it's your job to interpret whether it's an emergency or not, and here's
thing.
When people are around, its not that they don't care,
it's that they don't know what to do or think somebody else is more qualified to
do it, or they're not sure something's up.
What do they tell you to do when you know somebody's down and they're hurt? They say this,
this,
you call 911 and you go get the AED machine.
And guess what happens when you do that?
They do it. Social influence.
You all have a great day, that's all we're going to hit.