Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology • Social psychology studies the beliefs and behaviors of the individual (the self) within a group (others). • Humans are social animals: “We view ourselves as others view us”.

2. Social Psychology Investigates Prejudice (unconscious prejudice, in group / out group bias) Social influence (e.g., obedience, altruism) Group dynamics (e.g., groupthink) Attitude change (e.g., persuasion)

3. Where does ‘evil’ lie? Inside the person? (the apple) or Inside the situation? (the barrel)

4. Stanley Milgram asked a similar question in a series of famous studies on obedience to authority. He was partly motivated by a desire to understand how individual members of a civilized society could cooperate in the torture and murder of over 6,000,000 civilians. While a professor of psychology at Yale, he brought over 1,000 research participants into an experimental situation to study the conditions under which participants would willingly administer high levels of painful electric shock to fellow research participants.

5. Psychiatrists predicted that less than 1 person in 100 would administer the highest level of shock requested.

6. In the situation depicted 65% of participants complied fully!

8. Stanford Prison Study • In 1971 Philip Zimbardo randomly assigned Stanford University students to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ for a 2 week experiment. The experiment had to be discontinued after 6 days, because of extreme ‘prisoner’ abuse.

9. Stanford Prison Experiment Overall purposeof the study: To investigate the psychological effects of prison -- for both prisoners and guards Participants Originally 70+ volunteers (via newspaper ads) Screening: Diagnostic interviews and psychological test administered, existence of medical problems, criminal background, substance abuse Total of 24 participants Paid $15/day for participating Random assignment 12 Prisoners 12 Guards

10. Stanford Prison Experiment (cont.) Procedure of the Study • “Prisoner recruitment -- Picked up at home by a police car • Booked, fingerprinted, sprayed, blindfolded and put into holding cell • Uniforms [dress, or smock worn with no underclothes. Prisoner ID number was on front and back of the uniform]. Made to wear a heavy chain on their right ankle’s at all times and a stocking cap over their heads

11. Stanford Prison Experiment (cont.) • Construction of the Prison Environment (to ensure realism) • Use of consultant team including a former prisoner • Input from prisoners and correctional personnel involved • in course entitled “The Psychology of Imprisonment” • Cells were small; enough room for only three cots with room for little else

12. Prisoner Treatment -- Some Examples • Use of "counts" to familiarizing the prisoners with their numbers and exercise control over the prisoners (counts took place several times each shift and often at night) • Punishments(e.g., push-ups) -- sometimes stepping on prisoner’s backs or having others sit on top of the backs of prisoners while doing push-ups • After an early prisoner rebellion --- • Guards used a fire extinguisherto shoot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide on the prisoners. • Guards broke into cells, strippedthe prisoners naked, took beds out, forced the ringleaders of the rebellion into solitaryconfinement • Going to the toilet became a privilege which a guard could grant or deny at his discretion • After the nightly "lock-up," prisoners were often forced to urinate or defecate in a bucket in their cells. Sometimes the guards did not allow prisoners to empty the buckets • Forcing prisoners to perform degrading, repetitive work such as cleaning out toilet bowls with their bare hands

13. Behavior of the “Prisoners” • Negative Affect (e.g., anxiety, depression, rage) • Learned Helplessness • Conversation between prisoners • Use of numbers to refer to themselves (in conversation with a Catholic priest) • Loss of group unity • “Parole Board” -- Most prisoners willing to forfeit the money they had earned up to • that time in order to be paroled • Several behavioral reactions of prisoners (e.g., emotional breakdowns, psychosomatic rash)

14. The “Guards” • Wore khaki uniforms, carried a whistle around their neck and a billy • club and wore dark sun-glasses • Worked eight-hour shifts • Use of arbitrary control by the guards (e.g., Privilege cell) • Most aggressive “guard” viewed as role models • Overall, three types of guards emerged (1) tough, fair ones who followed prison rules, (2) "good guys" who did favors for the prisoners and never punished them, and (3) guards (about 1/3) who were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in humiliating prisoners; they appeared to enjoy the power they possessed • No guard ever came late for his shift, called in sick, left early, or demanded extra pay for overtime work

15. Premature Ending Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D., was brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners After viewing prisoners being marched on a toilet run (bags over their heads, legs chained together, hands on each other's shoulders) she strongly objected in an outrage by saying, "It's terrible what you are doing to these boys!” The study was stopped after only 6 days --- the plan was for a 2-week timeframe

16. 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?

17. Bags were placed over students heads, they were stripped, chained together, sexually humiliated, tripped by guards, forced to clean toilets with their hands.

18. Abu Ghraib 11:25 p.m., Nov. 12, 2003. The detainee is covered in what appears to be mud and human feces.* 11:50 p.m., Nov. 7, 2003. SPC HARMAN has camera or video camera in hand as she stands behind the detainees nude. SOLDIER(S): SPC HARMAN 8:59 p.m., Oct. 18, 2003. Detainees is handcuffed in the nude to a bed and has a pair of panties covering his face. The photograph is taken from inside the cell and at a downward angle *All caption information is taken directly from CID materials • 9 Army soldiers (all enlisted) have been court-martialed and convicted of crimes at Abu Ghraib. Accountability stopped at the rank of staff sergeant -- no commanding officers have been prosecuted • Commanders are legally responsible for orders given and "if he has actual knowledge, or should have knowledge ... that troops or other persons subject to his control are about to commit or have committed a war crime and he fails to take the necessary and reasonable steps to insure compliance with the law of war or to punish violators thereof.” [Paragraph 501 of Army Field Manual 27-10]

19. Abu Ghraib / Stanford Univ.

24. Abu Ghraib under US Command

31. A few ‘rotten apples’ or A rotten barrel?

32. Milgram’s studies at Yale, Zimbardo’s studies at Stanford and a large number of other follow-up studies all found that situational factors (not personal factors) were the overwhelming cause of inhumane behavior. Yet our tendency is to erroneously blame the person. This paradoxical bias can be conceptualized as ‘a special case’ of a general principle called “The Fundamental Attribution Error”.

36. Some Quotes • “Every time you build a prison, you close a school.”- Victor Hugo • “No matter what the question has been in American criminal justice over the last generation, prison has been the answer.” • - Franklin E. Zimring • “We are tracking one group of kids from kindergarten to prison, and we are tracking one group of kids from kindergarten to college.” - Lani Guinier California has built 21 prisons since 1980. In the same period, the University of California system has opened one new campus. Although California's prison population has declined in recent years, the state's spending per prisoner has increased 5 times faster than its spending per K-12 student in the last two decades. The Huffington Post  |  By Saki KnafoPosted: 08/30/2013 1:50 pm EDT