PSY HW #11 - Homework assignment on Milgram\'s experiments on obedience, the influence of PDF

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Homework assignment on Milgram's experiments on obedience, the influence of proximity, physical attractiveness and similarity on interpersonal attraction, the fundamental attribution error and the bystander effect. ...

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1. Describe Milgram’s experiments on obedience and outline the conditions in which obedience was the highest. Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in which there were students and teachers. Students were given words and had to answer each question correctly since an incorrect response led to an electrical shock. Each incorrect answer led to an increase in the voltage of the shock. The conditions in which obedience was the highest was when the experimenter was nearby and was a respected authority figure. Obedience was also the highest when the victim was not nearby and there were no other people who were around that could promote defiance. 2. Describe the influence of proximity, physical attractiveness and similarity on interpersonal attraction. What is the mere exposure effect? Give one example of this effect in your life. Proximity affects interpersonal attraction because people are usually attracted to people they are familiar with and are close to us location wise. Physical attractiveness affects interpersonal attraction because how attractive a person is affects their social popularity and if affects how a person is initially viewed by others. If people share similarities, they are also more likely to have interpersonal attraction. The mere exposure effect is a phenomenon when people are more likely to like something is they are exposed to that stimuli repeatedly. One example of this in my life is how I like my mirror image as opposed to the one I see in photos. 3. Driving to school one wintry day, Marco narrowly misses a car that slides through a red light. “Slow down! What a terrible driver,” he thinks to himself. Moments later, Marco himself slips through an intersection and yelps, “Wow! These roads are awful. The city snow plows need to get out here.” What social psychology principle has Marco just demonstrated? Explain. Marco just demonstrated the social psychology principle of fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution error happens when a person jumps to conclusions on another person’s personality based on their behavior. We think that behaviors are directly related to a person’s personality and not the situation that can cause that behavior. 4. Why didn’t anybody help Kitty Genovese? What social relations principle did this incident illustrate? The social relations principle of the bystander effect is illustrated by the Kitty Genovese case. When people are in a group, they are less likely to recognize a dangerous situation and respond to it as an emergency. During the bystander effect people don’t take responsibility and offer help because they aren’t alone. The more bystanders there are in a situation, the less likely any one of them are to help in an emergency. 5. Jamal’s therapist has suggested that Jamal should “act as if” he is confident, even though he feels insecure and shy. Which social psychological theory would best support this suggestions, and what might the therapist be hoping to achieve?

The social psychological theory of cognitive dissonance theory best supports this suggestion. If Jamal acts confident then he won’t succumb to his negative thoughts about himself since his behavior is the exact opposite.. This juxtaposition causes cognitive dissonance and in order to get rid of the contrasting feelings Jamal may be able to change his attitude of himself just because he is used to acting so confident, he comes confident....