Blog Post #13

I thought the Asch’s Conformity, Milgram’s Obedience, and Stanford Prison experiments were all very interesting. Although experiments like Milgram’s Obedience and the Stanford Prison study are no longer acceptable methods of observation, they teach a lot about how human’s will conform to different situations. In Asch’s Conformity experiment, the researchers got people to give obviously incorrect answers by planting others to give the wrong answer. They conformed to the majority rather than saying what they knew was right. Milgram tested to see how obedient people are. In his experiment he had a “teacher” that was told to give shocks to the “student” for wrong answers. Even though the student was in on the experiment and wasn’t receiving shocks, the person giving them believed each shock was more and more painful and that the person they were shocking had a heart condition. Even though many of the teachers did not want to continue much farther than a mild shock, most of them did because they listened to the experimenter. The Stanford Prison experiment shows how people can change to fit into situations - especially when given the role of a prisoner or guard, in this experiment. After a couple days the role playing became very realistic – the guards became sadistic and the prisoners began having stress reactions. The two-week experiment had to be called off after six days because the situation became so intense. All of the experiments show that it’s a part of human nature to conform to the situations we’re in.
Social influence is how we conform, comply, and act in social situations. How we act as individuals can vary greatly with our behavior as part of a group. We tend to mimic others and take on their behaviors too. Once, I was hanging out with a friend of mine when she had strep throat. She was whispering so she wouldn’t lose her voice. Without even realizing it, I started whispering too - even though I could have talked in a normal tone. Another example of my behavior changes within a group comes from when I was a counselor at science camp. There was a karaoke night for the campers – normally I would never get up in front a bunch of kids and sing and dance to music from Grease, but all of us counselors ended up doing it that night. This really shows how social influence can change our behaviors within a group situation.
The most interesting thing I learned in this class was about altruism and bystander intervention in this chapter. When an emergency situation occurs, a bystander has notice the incident, interpret it as an emergency, assume responsibility, and then attempt to help. If there are many other bystanders around, each individual feels less responsible. They may feel like someone else can be the one to help. In situations where individuals see an incident they will be more likely to help because they are the only ones around and therefore feel the most responsible. I think that’s really interesting, but it does make a lot of sense. When I was shopping this weekend, an older boy, who was also blind, had slipped in one of the aisles because he couldn’t see the melted ice and snow. A lot of people were standing around looking at him when my mom and I happened to walk by, but none of them were helping except for an older lady who was trying to see if he’s okay. She found out who he was with and had the store employees page his mother. (He was okay, but a little shaken up). This situation totally exemplifies how most people are less willing to help in group and social situations.

Blog Post #12

According to the book, ongoing patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions that are deviant, distressful, and/or dysfunctional are considered psychological disorders. If some acts “abnormally” they don’t necessarily have a psychological disorder. Unless their abnormal behavior is harmfully dysfunctional, distressing, or deviant, their behavior is probably acceptable. A lot of people behave abnormally from time to time and it has nothing to do with a psychological disorder.
I think I may have an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I can’t eat Skittles unless I can eat them in true rainbow order: red, orange, yellow, green, and violet (purple). I have no logical explanation for why I do this, I just do. It really bothers me if I can eat all of the red Skittles before I eat the green Skittles. A person with a real, diagnosed OCD would experience obsessive thoughts followed by compulsive behaviors. An OCD is an anxiety disorder. Someone with an OCD may constantly think that they left the oven on, but rather than checking just once they will check ten or eleven times. The obsessive thought/worry is leaving the oven on and the behavior is checking to be sure frequently. I think if I had a real obsessive-compulsive disorder, life would be pretty difficult. Having to deal with constant anxiety and distress would make each day hard. Always obsessing over little things and acting weirdly and compulsively would be horrible! It would be impossible to live a “normal” life.
In this section, I thought it was interesting to learn how many people suffer from schizophrenia. I never knew that 1 out of every 100 people suffers from schizophrenia – it’s much more common than I ever realized. I also learned a lot more about the different types of schizophrenia. Some are more severe than others and that schizophrenia can also be genetically inherited.