2008-04-18
Zimbardo video today - "the Social Situation" -> how situation determines how people behave and vice-versa. They do the Milgram experiment, we talked about that one (the shock therapy), the Stanford prison experiment, and the Ash experiment. How does an individual behave, think, or feel? Soc-psych tries to understand hu behavior within a broader, social context, looking at all of the ways in which the agents influence each other. The soc-context is the canvas on which we can paint our lives. "We need other people to make us successful. To be isolated means pathologies of both the body and mind." <-- Really?
Fascism/Hitler yelling clip. Adolf Hitler had succeeded in making a social structure and used propaganda on a scale never before seen. The Nazi high command was able to justify "The Final Solution". How could dictators transform rational people into blindfully addictive masses? A team of researchers in the United States began to study how leaders directly influence their followers, such as Kurt Lewin, a refugee of Nazi Germany. He wanted to demonstrate that socially significant events could be translated into hypotheses and tested in an environment. This was a radical depature from rat-psych. He noticed that uniforms+group-dynamics seemed to give people a 'new identity' or something. Autocratic leaders, laisez-farre leaders, democratic leaders - actively encourging decision making, etc. The boys worked the hardest during the autocracy - they were miniature fascists. The laizess-farre (total freedom) === little playfulness ... but they're kids, let them do what they want.
From my paste-buffer (from yesterday?):
My solution to understanding this lack is my faith in what I call ``The Anarchist Principle'': If there is something really cool, and you can't understand why somebody hasn't don it before, it's because you haven't done it yourself. That's DIY for those in the know: Do It Yourself.
Stanley Millgram - electrocution experiments and faking the death of the subjects.
Fundamental Attribution Error
Social psych vision experiment in a flight simulator -> the situational role of being a pilot seemed to enhance vision in 40% of the subjects. However, I would argue that the context promotes concentration and so on, it's a dark room unlike the other rooms where they were testing. That does not seem to be a valid experiment.
the power of cognitive control - 'guiding force over soc-behavior' and at times over-riding objective facts of the situation