by Sandi Mann
Dig deeper
Read Lise Eliot’s book Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do about It (London: Oneworld Publishing, 2012)
BBC radio programme (transcript) about David Reimer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dr_money_prog_summary.shtml
Homosexuality: nature or nurture?:
http://allpsych.com/journal/homosexuality/#.VQl27Y7kdL8
Fact-check
1 Which of the following does not determine one’s gender?
a Hormones
b Chromosomes
c Brain structure
d Genitalia
2 Which of the following statements about chromosomes of men and women is true?
a Men are usually XX
b Women are usually XY
c Klinefelter’s syndrome is when men are XXY
d Turner’s syndrome is when men are YYX
3 ‘Gender-neutral’ parenting involves:
a Bringing up an intersex child
b Parenting children whose sexual identity is confused
c Activities that usually produce homosexual adults
d Allowing boys to play with ‘girls’ toys’
4 Which of the following is not a sexual orientation?
a Homosexual
b Heterosexual
c Transsexual
d Bisexual
5 Which of the following statements about the causes of sexual orientation is correct?
a The causes of homosexuality are likely to be a mix of both biology and environment
b Homosexuality is a genetic condition
c If your brother is gay, you are likely to be, too
d Homosexuality is caused by traumatic childhood experiences
6 The ‘exotic becomes erotic theory’ of sexual orientation states that:
a Children become attracted to the same gender due to a poor relationship with their same-gendered parent
b Children with homosexual parents are likely to be homosexual too
c Children who grow up feeling different from their peers may be more likely to become homosexual
d Heterosexual and homosexual people have different brain structures
7 Transgender is:
a When you don’t identify with your aligned gender
b When you wish to change genders
c When you are attracted to both genders
d When you are attracted to the same gender
8 Transsexual is:
a When you don’t identify with your aligned gender
b When you wish to change genders
c When you are attracted to both genders
d When you are attracted to the same gender
9 The David Reimer case shows that:
a Gender is entirely dependent on genitalia
b Gender can be changed by altering genitalia
c Gender is determined by more than genitalia
d Gender identity is primarily learned
10 The Theory of Gender Neutrality explains that:
a Gender identity can be changed with the appropriate behavioural interventions
b Bringing up children in a gender neutral way is best
c Giving children gender-neutral names limits the influence of gender socialization
d Homosexual orientation is genetically influenced
12
Social influence
Our emotions, opinions and behaviours are often affected by others; this is termed social influence. Examples of the impact of social influence include conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, and sales and marketing. Most of us behave differently when there are others around us than when we are alone, and this chapter will examine some of the impacts that social influence can have.
The Bystander Effect
One of the best-known phenomena in terms of how people react differently in and out of the presence of other people was first demonstrated in the laboratory by John Darley and Bibb Latané in 1968 after they became interested in the topic following the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 (see the case study below).
Case study: The tragic case of Kitty Genovese
Catherine Susan ‘Kitty’ Genovese (born 1935), of New York City, was stabbed to death by Winston Moseley near her home on 13 March 1964. What was notable about this senseless murder was how many neighbours witnessed the attack – but did nothing to help her. Arriving home at about 3:15 a.m., she parked about 30 metres from her apartment’s door, located in an alleyway at the rear of the building. As she walked towards the building, she was approached by Moseley. Frightened, Genovese began to run across the parking lot and towards the front of her building but Moseley ran after her, quickly overtook her, and stabbed her twice in the back. Several neighbours heard her cry but, on a cold night with the windows closed, only a few of them recognized the sound as a cry for help. At one point a neighbour did shout out and Moseley ran away, leaving Kitty seriously injured, but alive. He then returned and stabbed her several more times, killing her.
Later investigation by police and prosecutors revealed that approximately a dozen individuals nearby had heard or observed portions of the attack – although the number 37 was cited in a New York Times article published two weeks after the murder, which bore the headline ‘Thirty-Seven Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police’.
The alleged lack of reaction (this was disputed in later accounts – see ‘Dig deeper’) by numerous neighbours watching the scene prompted research into diffusion of responsibility and the so-called ‘Bystander Effect’. Social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané started this line of research, showing that contrary to common expectations, larger numbers of bystanders decrease the likelihood that someone will step forward and help a victim. The reasons include the fact that onlookers see that others are not helping either, that onlookers believe others will know better how to help, and that onlookers feel uncertain about helping while others are watching. The Kitty Genovese case thus became a classic feature of social psychology textbooks.
Darley and Latané tried to replicate the sort of situation Kitty’s neighbours found themselves in, with and without other people around. In a typical experiment, the participant was either alone or among a group of other participants, or confederates. An emergency situation was staged and the researchers measured how long it took the participants to intervene (if, indeed, they did intervene). These experiments revealed that, contrary to the common feeling at the time that the more people there were around, the more likely it would be that help would be summoned, the presence of others actually inhibited helping (this is known as diffusion of responsibility). For example, Bibb Latané and Judith Rodin (1969) staged an experiment around a woman in distress. Seventy per cent of people who thought they were alone alone called out or went to help the woman after they believed she had fallen and was hurt, but when there were other people in the room only 40 per cent offered to help.
In trying to account for the way other people inhibit helping behaviours, Darley and Latané note that there are five stages that a bystander goes through when faced with an emergency situation:
1 Bystanders first have to notice that something is going on. People are usually more aware of their surroundings when they are on their own, perhaps because they think it is considered rude or odd to be gazing around too much when they are with other people. In one study, Latané and Darley wanted to see how quickly people would react to the presence of smoke. They took participants to a room to complete a questionnaire – either alone or with a confederate – then released smoke through a vent. Seventy-five per cent of participants working alone reported smoke (half within two minutes), while 62 per cent in the group never reported the smoke at all – even when it was difficult to see (at which point the experiment was stopped).
2 Bystanders then need to interpret the situation as an emergency. According to the principle of social influence, bystanders l
ook to other people in an emergency situation to see how they are behaving. If others are not reacting, then they probably won’t perceive the situation as an emergency either. This is why, when fire alarms go off, so many people stay where they are rather than evacuate. Often, a situation is ambiguous, so we look at how others are interpreting it to decide whether it is a genuine emergency.
3 The bystander then assesses the degree of responsibility they feel. This depends on three things: 1) whether or not they feel the person is deserving of help; 2) their perceived competence (‘Do I have the skills to help?’); and 3) their relationship with the victim (we are less likely to help people we don’t know). The term ‘diffusion of responsibility’ is used to explain how this responsibility is shared among all the people present – and can thus explain why other people can inhibit helping.
4 The bystander will then consider what form of assistance is required. This might be either direct intervention (directly assisting) or detour intervention (such as reporting elsewhere). Sometimes the bystander will simply not know what to do.
5 At this point, they can implement the action choice – or perhaps social embarrassment or other concerns will prevent them from acting.
Not all these stages are connected with the presence of others but enough of them are for us to understand how the presence of other people can inhibit helping.
Social facilitation
Related to the Bystander Effect is the broader concept of social facilitation. This is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks that they are already good at when in the presence of other people. Even the imagined presence of others can have this effect. The Indiana University psychologist Norman Triplett (1861–1931) pioneered research on social facilitation in 1898 when he found that cyclists had faster race times when in the presence of other cyclists. Triplett theorized that the faster times came about because the presence of others made individuals more competitive. Further research led Triplett to theorize that the presence of others increases individuals’ performances in other situations as well. However, in situations where people are less skilled, the presence of others can decrease performance.
The role of social facilitation is important to consider in social situations because it implies that people’s performance does not rely solely on their abilities, but also on their awareness that they are being monitored and evaluated by others; this means that other people can influence how an individual behaves. Researchers since Triplett have tried to account for why and how the presence of others can affect people. For example, in 1965 Robert Zajonc proposed the first activation theory to explain social facilitation. Zajonc argued that the presence of others is arousing, and heightened arousal increases the likelihood of doing well at something that is familiar or that we are skilled at. Thus, arousal improves performance in simple (well-learned) tasks, but impairs performance in complex (not well-learned) tasks.
Spotlight: Cockroaches are subject to social facilitation, too
Zajonc discovered that humans are not unique when it comes to social facilitation; he found that cockroaches ran through an easy maze faster when other cockroaches were watching them or were with them, compared to when the cockroaches ran through the maze alone. In contrast, cockroaches ran more slowly through a difficult maze when there were other cockroaches present than when they ran through it alone.
Other possible ‘activation’ explanations for the social facilitation effect are:
• The alertness hypothesis: this suggests that people are uncertain of how other people will act, so they become more alert in the presence of others and it is this heightened alertness which causes them to perform better on tasks.
• The challenge and threat hypothesis: this states that people perform worse in complex tasks and better in simple tasks when in the presence of others because of their perceptions of threat. This is shown by physiological responses; when performing a simple task in the presence of others, people show a normal cardiovascular response but, when performing a complex task in the presence of others, the cardiovascular response is similar to that of a person being threatened.
• The evaluation apprehension hypothesis: this suggests that it is not the mere presence of others that increases individual activation/arousal, but rather the fear of being evaluated.
In the 1980s explanations shifted from activation theories to attention theories. Attention theories that attempt to explain social facilitation include:
• The distraction-conflict hypothesis: this states that in the presence of others there is a conflict between attending to the person and attending to the task. This conflict leads to arousal. As with Zajonc’s theory, this arousal will help simple tasks but may hinder complex tasks because there is too much conflict and thus too much arousal. This relates to the next theory.
• The overload hypothesis: here it is postulated that distracters do not lead to increased arousal, but rather to cognitive overload (when an individual is bombarded with excessive information in their working memory) and while in cognitive overload individuals will do worse in complex tasks and better in more simple tasks.
The feedback-loop model suggests that when people feel they are being observed, they focus attention on themselves. While in this state, individuals become aware of the differences between their actual behaviour and anticipated behaviour – and thus work harder to match them on tasks where they feel they could do better.
Compliance and weapons of influence
While social facilitation refers to the changes in performance as a mere result of being observed, compliance refers to changes in behaviour as a result of others requesting that change. Compliance is a form of social influence that is different from obedience (see below), which involves a powerful other person: with compliance the other person doesn’t have power to make someone else comply. Psychologists have long been interested in what makes someone compliant and what techniques persuasive people might use to increase compliance (and why these techniques work).
‘Compliance refers to a change in behavior that is requested by another person or group; the individual acted in some way because others asked him or her to do so (but it was possible to refuse or decline).’
Steven Breckler, James Olson and Elizabeth Wiggins, Social Psychology Alive (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006)
One of the psychologists best known for insights on what influences compliance and persuasion is Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. He published a book in 1984 entitled Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion in which he outlined Six Principles of Influence (also known as the Six Weapons of Influence) that he believed were used by those skilled in the art of persuading, convincing and influencing others.
The six principles are as follows:
1 Reciprocity: according to the idea of reciprocity, we feel obliged to return favours that have been bestowed on us. This is because we are uncomfortable with feeling indebted to others. So, if we help someone else, or do something nice for them, or give them a gift, they feel obliged to pay it back. This is why advertisers will give free samples and why charities give free pens and so on – in the hope that we will feel obliged to return the favour by purchasing their goods or making a donation.
2 Commitment (and consistency): Cialdini maintains that we have a deep psychological need to be consistent. Thus, once we’ve committed to something, or we feel as if we have, we are then more inclined to go through with it. So, if you are trying to persuade someone to lend you money, if you can first persuade them that they agree that the venture you wish to spend the money on is worth while, it is then harder for them not to follow through with that by then refusing the loan.
3 Social proof: this relates to the ideas expressed earlier that we look to others to see how we should behave. For example, if other people are buying a certain new phone, watching a particular programme, wearing a type of fashion or eating a certain food, we feel that they must be right
and we are more likely to follow the crowd. This is particularly the case when we are feeling uncertain, and we are even more likely to be influenced if the people we see seem to be similar to us. That’s why adverts often use mums, not celebrities, to advertise food products – and why social media advertising is so effective, since, if we see our friend using a product, we are more likely to want one as well.
4 Liking: we are more likely to be influenced by people we like. Again, this is what makes social media advertising so powerful and why, when we buy a product online, we are urged to share this choice with our friends.
5 Authority: we are more influenced and persuaded by people in positions of authority. This is why skincare products are often advertised by ‘clinicians’ or by using scientific terminology.
6 Scarcity: things are more attractive when their availability is limited – hence marketing that relies on the ‘limited offer’ concept.
Spotlight: A bestseller
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion has sold over 2 million copies and been translated into 26 languages. It has been listed on the New York Times business bestseller list. Fortune Magazine lists Influence on their ‘75 Smartest Business Books’.
Obedience
Unlike compliance, obedience is an act of social influence whereby someone simply orders others to do something rather than trying to persuade them. One of the most important studies on obedience was conducted by Stanley Milgram (see the case study below) and it shows that there are a number of factors that increase the likelihood of obedience. For example, someone who has visible signs of their power and status (e.g. a white lab coat or a suit) is more successful at instilling obedience than someone without. Obedience can also be more successful when commands start off quite reasonable and gentle and only gradually become more extreme and authoritarian – which might go some way to explaining the horrors of Nazi Germany, where the systematic murder of the Jews began with far less severe measures such as segregation.