Download Psychology PPT Week Four - K-Dub

General
Psychology
Kyle White
Email: [email protected]
Cell: 918-766-5512
Office: 918-335-6289
Website for PPT: www.kdub1.com
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STUDENT EVALUATION
The performance of adult learners in this course is
assessed through the following components:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Individual Research Paper and Presentation
In-class Group Presentations
Written Presentation Summary Papers
Weekly (i.e., weeks 2-5) Quizzes – Open Book
Class Participation and Attendance
See Syllabus
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Class Agenda
Introductions and Assignments Discussion
Learning Team Assignments
Devotion
Learning Team Discussions
Discussion of Psychology and Christianity
Break
Learning Team Discussions
Discussion of Neurophysiology and Brain
Learning Team Discussions
Discussion of Sensation and Perception
Break
Learning Team Presentation to Class
Discussion of Consciousness and Sleep
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Scripture
James 1:19
19 My dear brothers and sisters, take
note of this: Everyone should be
quick to listen, slow to speak and
slow to become angry,
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Introduction to Psychology
Chapter Thirteen
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LEARNING OUTCOMES
(PSYCH13) Prepare an overview of the insight
related therapies. Using journal articles of your
choice, discuss how your Christian faith
intercepts with psychology’s behavioral and
cognitive therapies.
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LEARNING OUTCOMES
(PSYCH 13) Prepare an overview of the
behavioral and cognitive therapies. Using
journal articles of your choice, discuss how your
Christian faith intercepts with psychology’s
behavioral and cognitive therapies.
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History of Mental Health Treatment
When people have displayed unusual behaviors rooted
in the mind, these people have often been locked away
or “treated” using old ideas of mental illness.
Old ways of getting rid of
“the evil spirits” include:
beating them out of
people.
bleeding them out.
letting the spirits out
through holes drilled in
the skull.
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Reforms in Treatment
This chair was designed to
be an improvement in
medical treatment. It was
meant to have a calming
effect on people with
mania.
Other Reforms in Treatment
Seeing the “insane” as ill
instead of “possessed”
Treating them with
tenderness, not harshness
Housing them in hospitals
rather than locking them up
in asylums
Developing
psychotherapeutic
treatments, medications,
and community supports to
allow life outside hospitals
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Current Forms of Therapy
Psychotherapy:
an interactive
experience with a
trained professional,
working on
understanding and
changing behavior,
thinking, relationships,
and emotions
Biomedical therapy:
the use of medications
and other procedures
acting directly on the
body to reduce the
symptoms of mental
disorders
Combining Therapies
There are various forms of psychotherapy.
An eclectic approach uses
techniques from various forms
of therapy to fit the client’s
problems, strengths, and
preferences.
Medications and psychotherapy
can be used together, and may
help the each other achieve
better reduction in symptoms.
Noteworthy Schools of Psychotherapy
 Psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy
Sigmund Freud’s legacy carried on today
 Humanistic, client-centered therapy
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
 Behavior therapy, using conditioning
B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov applied to people
 Cognitive therapy, changing thoughts
Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis, reducing errors
and distress
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Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) found that
the unusual symptoms of patients
sometimes improved when repressed
inner conflicts and feelings were brought
into conscious awareness.
Psychoanalysis refers
to a set of techniques
for releasing the
tension of repression
and resolving
unconscious inner
conflicts.
Techniques:
 Free association: the patient speaks freely about memories,
dreams, feelings
 Interpretation: the therapist suggests unconscious
meanings and underlying wishes to help the client gain
insight and release tension
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Interpretation in Psychoanalysis
The therapist may see unconscious meaning in resistance,
dreams, and transference.
Resistance:
the therapist notices times when the
patient seems blocked in speaking
about certain subjects
Dreams:
there may be themes or “latent
content” behind the plot of a
patient’s dream
Transference:
the patient may have reactions
toward the therapist that are actually
based on feelings toward someone
from the past
Psychodynamic Therapy
 Less intensive version of
psychoanalysis
 Fewer sessions per week
and fewer years
 Less theory about sex, id,
and superego
 The focus is on improved
self-awareness and insight
into unconscious thoughts
and feelings which may be
rooted in past relationships.
 In addition to insight,
therapists suggest changes
in patterns of thinking and
relating to others.
Interpersonal
Therapy
 A further extension of
psychoanalysis
 The goal is less focused on
insight, and more on
relational behavior change
and symptom relief.
 The focus is less on the past,
and more on current
feelings and relationships
including the interaction
with the therapist.
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Humanistic Therapies
Humanistic psychology (Abraham Maslow and Carl
Rogers) emphasizes the human potential for growth,
self-actualization, and personal fulfillment.
Humanistic therapy
attempts to support
personal growth by
helping people gain
self-awareness and
self-acceptance.
“Client-centered
therapy”
is Carl Rogers’s
name for his
style of
humanistic
therapy.
Humanistic vs. Psychoanalytic Therapy
Goal
Humanistic
psychotherapy
Promote growth
Psychoanalytic
psychotherapy
Cure mental illness
How to
improve
Take responsibility for
feelings and actions
Bring unconscious conflicts
into conscious awareness
Role of
therapist
Provide an environment Provide interpretations (e.g.
in which growth can
of dreams, resistance and
occur
transference)
Content of
Conscious feelings,
therapy actual self and ideal self
Unconscious conflicts
Time focus The present and future
The past
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Style of the ClientCentered Therapist
Being non-directive
Let insight and goals come from the
client, rather than dictating
interpretations.
Being genuine
Be yourself and be truthful; don’t
put on a therapist façade.
Being accepting and showing
unconditional positive regard
Help the client learn to accept
themselves despite any weaknesses.
Being empathetic
Demonstrate careful attention to the
clients’ feelings, partly by reflecting
what you hear the client saying.
Showing Empathy Through
Active Listening
Client-centered therapists
show that they are tuning in
to clients’ feelings and
meanings.
1.Summarize, paraphrase
“So your father wasn’t
around much?”
2.Invite clarification and
elaboration
“When you say
‘anxiety,’ what does
that feel like to you?
What is going on in your
body and thoughts?”
3.Reflect Feelings
“It seems like you are
disappointed; am I
right?”
Behavior Therapy
 Sometimes, insight is not helpful to recover
from some mental health problems. The
client might know the right changes to
make, but finds that it’s hard to change
actual behavior.
 Behavior therapy uses the principles of
learning, especially classical and operant
conditioning, to help reduce unwanted
responses. These might include behaviors
such as addictions, or emotions such as
panic.
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Classical Conditioning Techniques
Counterconditioning
refers to linking new,
positive responses to
previously aversive
stimuli.
If you have been conditioned
to fear stores because you
have had panic attacks there,
you could be led into a store
and then helped with
relaxation exercises. The goal
is to associate stores with
relaxation, a state
incompatible with fear.
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Exposure Therapy
 A conditioned fear
can worsen when
avoidance of the
feared situation gets
reinforced by a quick
reduction in anxiety.
 Guided exposure to
the feared situation
can reverse this
reinforcement by
waiting for anxiety
to subside during
the exposure.
 The person can
habituate to (get
used to) the
anxiety itself, and
then the feared
situation.
What mistake is
Professor Gallagher
making here?
Hint: systematic
desensitization
might have been
more effective,
though less
dramatic
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Versions of Exposure Therapy
Sometimes, exposure to the feared situation is too anxietyprovoking or impractical. In those cases, you can use:
 systematic desensitization. Beginning with a tiny reminder of
the feared situation, keep increasing the exposure intensity as
the person learns to tolerate the previous level.
 virtual reality therapy. This involves exposure to simulations,
such as flying (below) or snakes.
Aversive Conditioning
When a person has been conditioned to have a positive
association with a drug...
Aversive conditioning
can associate the drug
with a negative
response.
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Operant Conditioning Therapy
Operant conditioning
refers to the shaping of
chosen behavior in
response to the
consequences of the
behavior.
Applications of Operant
Conditioning
 Applied behavioral
analysis/application is used
with nonverbal children with
autism. It rewards behaviors
such as sitting with someone
Behavior modification
or making eye contact, and
refers to shaping a client’s
sometimes punishes selfchosen behavior to look
harming behaviors.
more like a desired
behavior, by making sure
 A token economy uses coins,
that desired behaviors are
stars, or other indirect
rewarded and problematic
rewards as “tokens” that can
behaviors are unrewarded
be collected and traded later
or punished.
for real rewards.
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Critiques of Behavior Therapy
Does it work?
And when it does, do the
changes stick, without
insights and other changes
to hold the new behavior in
place?
 It does often work, but
extinguished behaviors
and reactions do
spontaneously reappear.
 To ensure maintenance of
changes, a transition is
needed from artificial
rewards to awareness of
natural, environmental
consequences.
Is it ethical?
Since conditioning operates
below conscious awareness,
couldn’t people’s choices and
reactions be manipulated
without their consent?
To minimize ethical problems:
 acquire consent, at least of
guardians.
 develop goals for treatment
that are more humane than
the alternative. For example,
shaping autistic behavior is
seemingly better than
institutionalization.
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Cognitive Therapies: Theory
Being depressed and/or anxious involves negative thoughts
and interpretations.
In the cognitive perspective, the cause of depression are
not bad events, but our thoughts about those events.
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Cognitive Therapies: Practice
Cognitive therapy
helps people alter
the negative
thinking that
worsens depression
and anxiety.
Therapists might suggest other
thoughts that the clients could
have about their lives, or at
least point out when clients
jump to conclusions that make
them feel worse.
Schools of Cognitive Therapy
Albert Ellis’s rational-emotive behavior therapy
– challenging irrational beliefs and assumptions
Aaron Beck’s cognitive therapy for depression
– correcting cognitive distortions
Donald Meichenbaum’s stress inoculation training
– practicing healthier thinking before facing a stressor,
disappointment, or frustration
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Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy
 Albert Ellis showed how depression is worsened by
irrational beliefs. These include depressing assumptions
about the world such as “everyone should like me” or “I
should never do anything wrong.”
 Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy [REBT] helps
people: 1) notice that they are operating on selfdefeating assumptions, and 2) reward themselves for
replacing these assumptions with realistic beliefs. For
example, a more realistic belief might be, “some people
won’t like me, many will have no opinion; it doesn’t
matter.”
Aaron Beck’s Therapy for Depression
 Aaron Beck helped people see how their depression was
worsened by errors in thinking such as catastrophizing,
(interpreting current events as signs of the worst
possible outcome). For example:
“Now that I’ve made a mistake in my
lecture, I’ve failed as a professor.
Students can’t take me seriously, and
they can’t learn from me.”
 Beck’s style of therapy helps clients notice and
challenge these errors in thinking.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy [CBT]
works to change both cognitions and
behaviors that are part of a mental
health disorder.
Using cognitive behavioral therapy, people with OCD are
led to resist the urge to act on their compulsions, as well
as to learn to manage obsessional thinking.
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Family Therapy
 Having a session with the whole family, at
home or in the office, allows the therapist to
work on the family system, that is, the family’s
patterns of alliances, authority, and
communication.
 A related modality is couples/marital therapy.
Group Therapy
Group therapy assembles about six to nine
people with related needs into a group, facilitated
by a therapist, to work on therapeutic goals
together. The benefits include:
 less cost per person.
 more interaction, feedback, and support.
 clients realize others share their problems and
they are not alone.
Self-Help Groups  Self-help groups are led by group members
instead of a therapist.
 They can be much larger than group therapy,
with less interaction.
 The focus is more on support rather than on
working on goals during the group session.
Is Psychotherapy Effective?
There are different measures of
the value and effectiveness of
psychotherapy:
 whether the client is satisfied
 whether the client senses
improvement
 whether the therapist sees
improvement
 whether there has been an
observable, measured change
in initial symptoms
What Causes Improvement?
Even if clients do improve, is the
improvement really caused by
therapy? It could be:
regression to the mean,
drifting from initial crisis back
to an average state.
the client’s motivation to
appear better in order to please
the therapist or to justify the
cost of therapy.
Studying Treatment Outcomes
To track the effectiveness of an
intervention, use a control group
not receiving the intervention, or
even a placebo group.
To measure effectiveness, use
objective, observable measures of
symptoms rather than relying on
client or therapist perceptions.
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Understanding Outcome Data
If we find that even people in a control group (e.g. on a
waiting list) showed improvement, is therapy a waste of
time?
Number of
persons
People are more
likely to improve
with treatment.
About 80 percent of untreated people have poorer
outcomes than the average treated person.
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Results of Outcome Research
Some forms of psychotherapy have been found to be
effective for certain problems:
Depression
Cognitive-behavioral
Anxiety
Psychodynamic therapy
Phobias
Exposure therapy
Bedwetting
Behavior conditioning
Evaluating “Alternative” Therapies
When new cures emerge, they are often
promoted with testimonials.
Problem:
we don’t know
if those “cures” were
really caused by the
intervention. In
addition, we don’t
know how many
people received no
benefit from the
intervention.
Solution:
controlled
studies with
random
assignment to
nonintervention
conditions.
Challenge:
making sure the
interventions
are performed
by people
trained in that
area.
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Eye Movement Desensitization and
Reprocessing (EMDR)
In EMDR therapy, the
therapist attempts to
unlock and reprocess
previous frozen
traumatic memories.
The therapist waves a
finger or light in front of
the eyes of the client, in
order to integrate past
and present, and left
and right hemispheres.
Some studies show EMDR is effective and some do not. Studies which
did not show effectiveness were critiqued by the founder as being done
without adequate training in EMDR. Is this a valid critique of the
research?
Research suggests that the effectiveness of EMDR, even when it does
work, may not depend on the eye movement technique.
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Light Exposure Therapy
Research supports
the idea that daily
exposure to bright
light, especially
with a blue tint, is
effective in treating
the depressive
symptoms of
seasonal affective
disorder [SAD].
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What do effective psychotherapy styles seem to have in
common?
 Hope: therapists assume
the client has resources
that can be used for
recovery, and that
improvement is possible
 A new perspective: new
interpretations and
narratives (from
“victim” to “survivor”)
can improve mood and
motivate change
 The relationship:
empathy, trust, and
caring provide an
environment for healthy
growth
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Client-Therapist Differences
Therapists differ from clients (and
from each other) in beliefs,
values, cultural background,
conversational style, and
personality.
Ways to serve diverse clients
 Therapists should be receptive,
respectful, curious, and seek
understanding rather than
assuming it.
 The therapist and client do NOT
have to have similar
backgrounds for effective
therapy and a good therapeutic
relationship. It is more
important to have similar ideas
about the function and style of
therapy.
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Selecting a Psychotherapist
 People with a variety of
different graduate degrees
are able to provide
psychotherapy.
 Specific training and
experience in the area of
your difficulty is worth
asking about.
 What is most important is
whether you and the
therapist are able to
establish an alliance.
 Some of this is trial
and error. If problems
arise, you can try working
it out, but switching
therapists is okay.
Therapists and their
Training
Psychotherapists ≠ psychologists
Psychologists (PhD, PsyD) do
therapy plus intelligence and
personality testing.
Psychiatrists (MD, DO) prescribe
medicine and sometimes do
psychotherapy.
Social workers (MSW) as well as
counselors, nurses, and other
professionals may be trained and
licensed to diagnose and treat
mental health disorders.
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Biomedical Therapies
Interventions in the brain and body can affect mood
and behavior.
Biomedical
therapies refer to
physically changing
the brain’s
functioning by
altering its
chemistry with
medications, or
affecting its
circuitry with
electrical or
magnetic impulses
or surgery.
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Drug (Medication) Therapies
Psychopharmacology
refers to the study of
drug effects on
behavior, mood, and
the mind.
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Types of
Medication
Antipsychotic
Reduces the
symptoms of
schizophrenia,
What they especially
“positive”
do
symptoms such as
hallucinations and
delusions
How they
work
Antianxiety
Antidepressant
Temporarily reduces
worried thinking and
physical agitation;
might permanently
erase traumatic
associations
Improves mood and
control over
depressing and
anxious thoughts
nervous
Blocking dopamine Slowing
system activity in
receptors
the body and brain
Obesity, diabetes,
and movement
problems
(sluggishness,
Side effects twitching, or
eventually tardive
dyskinesia--odd
facial/tongue and
body movements)
Slowed thinking,
reduced learning,
dependence, and
withdrawal
Increasing levels of
serotonin
(sometimes
norepinephrine) at
synapses by
inhibiting reuptake;
possible
neurogenesis
Dry mouth,
constipation, and
reduced sexual
desire and/or
response
Inhibiting Reuptake
Many medications increase synaptic neurotransmitter
levels; they stop the sending neuron from taking back its
chemical messages.
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Types of
Medication
Mood
Stabilizers
Reduce the
“highs” of
mania as
What they well as
reduce the
do
depressive
“lows”
How they
work
ADHD
“Stimulants”
Help control
impulses, and
reduce
distractibility
and the need
for stimulation
including
fidgeting
Blocking
Under
reuptake of
investigation dopamine from
synapses
Various;
blood levels
Side effects must be
monitored
Decreased
appetite
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
 Electroconvulsive
therapy [ECT]
induces a mild
seizure that
disrupts severe
depression for
some people.
 This might allow
neural re-wiring,
and might boost
neurogenesis.
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Repeated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Another option is
repeated deepbrain stimulation
using implanted
electrodes.
Like ECT, these
techniques may
disrupt
depressive
electrochemical
brain patterns.
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Psychosurgery
A lobotomy
destroys the
connections between
the frontal lobes and
the rest of the brain.
This decreases
depression, but also
destroys initiative,
judgment, and
cognition.
Microsurgery
might work by
disrupting problematic
neural networks
involved with
aggression or obsessivecompulsive disorder.
Therapeutic Lifestyle Change
We can indirectly affect the
biological components of
mental health problems.
 Exercise can boost
serotonin levels and
reduce stress.
 Changing negative
thoughts can improve
mood and even rewire the
brain.
 Mental health problems
also can be reduced by
meeting our basic needs
for sleep, nutrition, light,
meaningful activity, and
social connection.
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Preventing Psychological Disorders
In addition to treating mental health disorders, some
mental health professionals, especially social workers,
also work to reduce the risk of mental health disorders.
Such prevention efforts include:
 support programs for stressed families.
 community programs to provide healthy activities
and hope for children.
 relationship-building communication skills training.
 working to reduce poverty and discrimination.
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Introduction to Psychology
Chapter Fourteen
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LEARNING OUTCOMES
(PSYCH 14) One of your friends asks you how
you think people develop impressions and
attitudes. Prepare a presentation that briefly
overviews the psychological theories and
findings in this area.
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LEARNING OUTCOMES
(PSYCH 14) The social psychology of how
people are influenced by others and how they
behave in social settings is fascinating. Provide
a presentation to overview these two areas,
relating how psychological theories integrate
or collide with our Christian beliefs. Is there
room for both theories?
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Social Thinking
Attribution: Identifying causes
Attribution: a conclusion
about the cause of an
observed behavior/event.
Attribution Theory: We explain
others’ behavior with two types of
attributions:
Situational Attribution (factors
outside the person doing the action,
such as peer pressure), or
Dispositional Attribution (the
person’s stable, enduring traits,
personality, ability, emotions)
With all that we have
learned about people
so far in this course,
you should make
pretty good guesses
about the nature of
other people’s
behavior, right?
We, especially those
raised in Western,
Individualist cultures,
tend to make
Fundamental
Attribution Error
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Social Thinking:
Fundamental Attribution Error
See if you can find the error in
the following comment:
“I noticed the new guy tripping
and stumbling as he walked in.
How clumsy can you be? Does
he never watch where he’s
going?”
What’s the error?
Hint: Next day…
“Hey, they need to fix this rug! I
tripped on it on the way in!
Not everyone tripped? Well, not
everyone had a test that day and
their cell phone was buzzing.”
The Fundamental
Attribution Error: When
we go too far in assuming
that a person’s behavior
is caused by their
personality.
We think a behavior
demonstrates a trait.
We tend to overemphasize
__________ attribution
and underemphasize
__________ attribution.
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Social Thinking:
Self vs. Other/Actors and Observers
 When we explain our OWN behavior,
we partly reverse the fundamental
attribution error: we tend to blame
the situation for our failures
(although we take personal credit
for successes).
 This happens not just out of
selfishness: it happens whenever we
take the perspective of the actor in a
situation, which is easiest to do for
ourselves and people we know well.
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Social Thinking
Emotional Effects of Attribution
Problematic
behavior:
someone cuts in
front of us.
How we explain
someone’s behavior
affects how we react
to it.
Social Thinking:
Attitudes and Actions
Attitude:
Feelings, ideas,
and beliefs that
affect how we
approach and
react to other
people, objects,
and events.
Attitudes, by
definition, affect
our actions;
We shall see later
that our actions
can also influence
our attitudes.
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Social Thinking:
Persuasion
Two cognitive pathways to affect attitudes
Central Route
Persuasion
Going directly
through the
rational mind,
influencing
attitudes with
evidence and
logic.
“My product has been proven
more effective.”
Peripheral
Route
Persuasion
Changing attitudes
by going around
the rational mind
and appealing to
fears, desires,
associations.
“People who buy my product
are happy, attractive!”
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Social Thinking:
Actions affect attitudes:
If attitudes direct our
actions, can it work the
other way around? How
can it happen that we can
take an action which in
turn shifts our attitude
about that action?
Through three social-cognitive mechanisms:
 The Foot in the Door Phenomenon
 The Effects of Playing a Role, and
 Cognitive Dissonance
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Social Thinking:
Small Compliance Large Compliance
A political campaigner asks if you
would open the door just enough
to pass a clipboard through. [Or a
foot]
You agree to this.
Then you agree to sign a
petition.
Then you agree to make a
small contribution. By
check.
What
happened
here?
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Social Thinking:
Small Compliance Large Compliance
The Foot-in-the-Door
Phenomenon: the tendency
to be more likely to agree to
a large request after
agreeing to a small one.
Affect on attitudes: People
adjust their attitudes along
with their actions, liking
the people they agreed to
help, disliking the people
they agreed to harm.
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Social Thinking:
Role Playing Affects Attitudes
“No man, for any considerable period,
can wear one face to himself, and
another to the multitude, without
finally getting bewildered as to
which may be the true [face].”
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Fake it till you make it.”
--Alcoholics Anonymous slogan
When we play a role, even if we
know it is just pretending, we
eventually tend to adopt the
attitudes that go with the role, and
become the role.
 In arranged marriages,
people often come to
have a deep love for the
person they marry.
 Actors say they “lose
themselves” in roles.
 Participants in the
Stanford Prison Study
ended up adopting the
attitudes of whatever
roles they were
randomly assigned to;
 “guards” had
demeaning views of
“prisoners,”
 “prisoners” had
rebellious dislike of
the “guards.”
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Social Thinking:
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance:
When our actions are not
in harmony with our
attitudes.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory:
the observation that we tend
to resolve this dissonance by
changing our attitudes to fit
our actions.
Origin of Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Festinger’s Study (1957):
Students were paid either large
or small amounts to express
enjoyment of a boring activity.
Then many of the students
changed their attitudes about
the activity. Which amount
shifted attitudes?
 Getting paid more: “I was
paid to say that.”
 Getting paid less: “Why
would I say it was fun? Just
for a dollar? Weird. Maybe
it wasn’t so bad, now that I
think of it.”
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Social Influence
Social situations have many ways of influencing our
behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and decisions. This
social influence can take many forms, including:
 Conformity
 Obedience
 Group situations and group behavior,
which leads to
 social facilitation
 social loafing
 polarization
 deindividuation
 groupthink
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Conformity
What form of social influence is
the subject of this cartoon?
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Social Influence
Conformity: Mimicry and more
Conformity refers to adjusting our
behavior or thinking to fit in with a
group standard.
The power of
Conformity has
many components
and forms,
including
Automatic
Mimicry
affecting
behavior
Social
Norms
affecting
our
thinking
Normative and
Informational Social
Influence
Social Influence
Automatic Mimicry
Some of our mimicry of other people is not by
choice, but automatic:
Contagious Yawning, as well as contagious arm
folding, hand wringing, face rubbing…
Adopting regional accents, grammar, and
vocabulary
Empathetic shifts in mood that fit the mood of
the people around us
Adopting coping styles of parents or peers,
including violence, yelling, withdrawal.
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The Chameleon Effect:
Unconscious Mimicry
In an experiment, a confederate/collaborator of the experimenter
intentionally rubbed his/her face or shook a foot; this seemed to
lead to a greater likelihood of the study participant doing the
same behavior.
Obedience: Response to Commands
Milgram wanted to study the influence of direct
commands on behavior.
The question: Under what social conditions
are people more likely to obey commands?
The experiment: An authority figure tells
participants to administer shocks to a
“learner” (who was actually a confederate of
the researcher) when the learner gives wrong
answers.
Voltages increased; how high
would people go?
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The Design of Milgram’s
Obedience Study
One layout of the study
Ow!
The “Learner”
(working with
researchers)
Please
continue.
(Give the
shock.)
But…
…okay.
Shock levels in volts that participants thought they were giving
Slight (15- Moderate
Strong
60)
(75-120) (135-180)
Very
strong
(195-240)
Intense
(250-300)
Extreme
intensity
(315-360)
Danger:
severe
(375-420)
XXX (435450)
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Compliance in Milgram’s Study
 In surveys, most people predict that in such a
situation they would stop administering
shocks when the “learner” expressed pain.
 But in reality, even when the learner
complained of a heart condition, most people
complied with the experimenter’s directions:
 “Please continue.”
 “You must continue.”
 “The experiment requires that you
continue”…
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How far did compliance go?
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Similarity and Attraction
Opposites Attract? Not usually.
 We already have seen: We like those who share our features.
 We also enjoy being around people who have similar attitudes,
beliefs, humor, interests, intelligence, age, education, and income.
 We like those who have similar feelings, especially if they like us
back.
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Keys to a Lasting Love Relationship
 Equity: Both giving and receiving, sharing responsibilities, with
a sense of partnership
 Self-Disclosure: Sharing self in conversation increases intimacy
 Positive Interactions and Support: Offering sympathy, concern,
laughs, hugs
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Altruism
Unselfish regard for the welfare of
other people;
Helping and protecting others
without need for personal gain,
doing it because it is the right thing
to do, often despite personal risk
or sacrifice.
The Psychology of Altruism
Under what conditions do
people help others?
How do bystanders make a
decision about helping?
What cultural norms reinforce
the motive to help others?
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Social Relations: Altruism/Helping
Bystander Intervention
When there is someone
apparently suffering or otherwise
in need of help, how do people
make a decision to help?
Attention:
Appraisal:
Social Role:
Taking Action:
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Social Relations: Altruism/Helping
Bystander Action: Social factors
Why are there sometimes crowds of
people near a suffering person and no
one is helping?
Because of the [Multiple] Bystander
Effect: Fewer people help when others
are available.
Why does the presence of others
reduce the likelihood that any one
person will help?
1.Because of diffusion of responsibility:
The role of helper does not fall just on
one person.
2.People in a crowd follow the example
of others; which means everyone
waiting for someone else to help first.
3.After a while, people rationalize
inaction: “if no one is helping, they
must know he’s dangerous or faking
it.”
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Social Relations: Altruism/Helping
Other Factors promoting helping
Bystanders are most likely to help when:
The person we might help:
 appears to be in need, deserving of assistance.
 is a woman, and/or is similar to us in some way.
 is in a small town or rural area.
Meanwhile, upon encountering this person:
 We are feeling some guilt, and/or just saw
someone else trying to help.
 We are not in a hurry, and/or not preoccupied.
 Strongest predictor: We are in a good mood.
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