Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: Three Brilliant Social Psychology Studies

1.The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery

The ‘halo effect' is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent). Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary.

In the same way politicians use the ‘halo effect' to their advantage by trying to appear warm and friendly, while saying little of any substance. People tend to believe their policies are good, because the person appears good. It's that simple.

But you would think we could pick up these sorts of mistaken judgements by simply introspecting and, in a manner of speaking, retrace our thought processes back to the original mistake. In the 1970s, well-known social psychologist Richard Nisbett set out to demonstrate how little access we actually have to our thought processes in general and to the halo effect in particular.

Likeability of lecturers

Nisbett and Wilson wanted to examine the way student participants made judgements about a lecturer (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Students were told the research was investigating teacher evaluations. Specifically, they were told, the experimenters were interested in whether judgements varied depending on the amount of exposure students had to a particular lecturer. This was a total lie.

In fact the students had been divided into two groups who were going to watch two different videos of the same lecturer, who happened to have a strong Belgian accent (this is relevant!). One group watched the lecturer answer a series of questions in an extremely warm and friendly manner. The second group saw exactly the same person answer exactly the questions in a cold and distant manner. Experimenters made sure it was obvious which of the lecturers alter-egos was more likeable. In one he appeared to like teaching and students and in the other he came across as a much more authoritarian figure who didn't like teach at all.

After each group of students watched the videos they were asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and even his accent (mannerisms were kept the same across both videos). Consistent with the halo effect, students who saw the ‘warm' incarnation of the lecturer rated him more attractive, his mannerisms more likeable and even is accent as more appealing. This was unsurprising as it backed up previous work on the halo effect.

Unconscious judgements

The surprise is that students had no clue whatsoever why they gave one lecturer higher ratings, even after they were given every chance. After the study it was suggested to them that how much they liked the lecturer might have affected their evaluations. Despite this, most said that how much they liked the lecturer from what he said had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

For those who had seen the badass lecturer the results were even worse - students got it the wrong way around. Some thought their ratings of his individual characteristics had actually affected their global evaluation of his likeability.

Even after this, the experimenters were not satisfied. They interviewed students again to ask them whether it was possible their global evaluation of the lecturer had affected their ratings of the lecturer's attributes. Still, the students told them it hadn't. They were convinced they had made their judgement about the lecturer's physical appearance, mannerisms and accent without considering how likeable he was.
Common uses of the halo effect

The halo effect in itself is fascinating and now well-known in the business world. According to ‘Reputation Marketing‘ by John Marconi, books that have ‘Harvard Classics' written on the front can demand twice the price of the exact same book without the Harvard endorsement. The same is true in the fashion industry. The addition of a well-known fashion designer's name to a simple pair of jeans can inflate their price tremendously.

But what this experiment demonstrates is that although we can understand the halo effect intellectually, we often have no idea when it is actually happening. This is what makes it such a useful effect for marketers and politicians. We quite naturally make the kinds of adjustments demonstrated in this experiment without even realising it. And then, even when it's pointed out to us, we may well still deny it.

So, the next time you vote for a politician, consider buying a pair of designer jeans or decide whether you like someone, ask yourself whether the halo effect is operating. Are you really evaluating the traits of the person or product you thought you were? Alternatively is some global aspect bleeding over into your specific judgement? This simple check could save you voting for the wrong person, wasting your money or rejecting someone who would be a loyal friend.

 

2.Why Groups and Prejudices Form So Easily: Social Identity Theory

People's behaviour in groups is fascinating and frequently disturbing. As soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups. Just glance at Sherif's Robbers Cave experiment for proof of how easy it is to provoke war between groups.

But think about the types of groups you belong to, and you'll realise they differ dramatically. Some groups are more like soldiers in the same unit or friends who have known each other from childhood. Long-standing, tight-knit, protecting each other. Perhaps it's not surprising people in these groups radically change their behaviour, preferring members of their own group over others in many ways.

Other groups, though, are much looser. Supporters of a large sports club, for example, or work colleagues only together on a project for a few months or even a group of people in an art gallery appreciating a painting.

It seems impossible that people stood together for only 30 seconds to look at a painting can be said to form a group in any measurable way. Surely it's too fleeting, too ephemeral? This is exactly the type of question social psychologist Henry Tajfel and colleagues set out to answer.

They believed it was possible for a group, along with its attendant prejudices, to form at the drop of a hat. In fact they thought a group could form even when there was no face-to-face contact between members, none of the people knew each other and their ‘group' behaviour had no practical consequences. In other words they had absolutely nothing to gain (or lose) from this barely existent group.

Forming a ‘minimal group'

Tajfel and colleagues came up with a neat solution for testing their idea. Participants, who were 14 and 15 year-old boys, were brought into the lab and shown slides of paintings by Klee and Kandinsky. They were told their preferences for the paintings would determine which of two groups they would join.

Of course, this was a lie designed to set up the idea of ‘us' and ‘them' in their minds. The experimenters wanted two groups of boys with not the faintest idea who was also in their own group or what the grouping meant or what they had to lose or gain.

After this setup, the boys were taken to a cubicle, one at a time. Each was then asked to distribute virtual money to the other members of both groups. The only information they had about who they were giving it to was a code number for each boy and that boy's group membership.

There were a series of rules for the distribution of the money that were designed to tease out who the boys favoured: their own group or the other group. The rules were changed slightly in different trials so that it was possible to test a number of theories. Did the boys distribute the money:

* Fairly?
* To obtain maximum joint profit?
* For maximum ingroup (own group) profit?
* For maximum difference between groups?
* Using favouritism? This involves a combination of maximum ingroup profit and maximum difference?

Startling findings

From the way the virtual money was distributed, the boys did indeed demonstrate the classic behavioural markers of group membership: they favoured their own group over the other. And this pattern developed consistently over many, many trials and has subsequently been replicated in other experiments in which groups were, if you can believe it, even more minimal.

When I first came across this experiment, my first reaction was to find it startling. Remember, the boys had no idea who was in their group ‘with them' or who was in the other group. But, the most puzzling aspect of this experiment is that the boys had nothing whatsoever to gain from favouring their own group - there didn't seem to be anything riding on their decisions.

Out in the real world there's a good reason to favour your own group - normally it is also advantageous to yourself. You protect yourself by protecting others like you.

Social identity theory

What Tajfel argued, though, was that there was something riding on the decisions the boys made, but it was something very subtle, yet incredibly profound.

Tajfel argued that people build their own identities from their group memberships. For example, think of each of the groups you belong to: say at work, or within your family. Part of who you are is probably defined by these groups. Putting it the other way around: the nature of your group memberships define your identity.

As our group membership forms our identity, it is only natural for us to want to be part of groups that are both high status and have a positive image. Crucially though, high status groups only have that high status when compared to other groups. In other words: knowing your group is superior requires having a worse group to look down upon.

Seen in the light of social identity theory, then, the boys in the experiment do have a reason to be selfish about the allocation of the virtual cash. It is all about boosting their own identities through making their own group look better.

Criticisms

No experiment can, or should, be automatically taken at face value. Questions have to be asked about whether it is really telling us what the authors claim. There are two criticisms often levelled at this experiment and its interpretation:

1. The participant's behaviour can be explained by simple economic self-interest. But: in another experiment only symbols were used rather than ‘virtual' money and the results were the same.
2. The participants were responding to what they thought the experimenters wanted (psychologists call this ‘demand characteristics'). But: Tajfel argues it is unclear to the participants what the experimenters wanted. Recall that the rules for distributing money frequently changed. Also, the participants were encouraged to think that choosing whose paintings they liked (the ‘first' experiment) was unrelated to the allocation of virtual money (the 'second' experiment).

Despite these criticisms, Tajfel and colleagues' findings have stood the test of time. The experiment, or something like it, has been repeated many times with different variations producing much the same results.

 

3. Why We Don't Help Others: Bystander Apathy

The study investigates the ‘bystander effect'. In social psychology this is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency. John Darley and Bibb Latane were inspired to investigate emergency helping behaviours after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

The newspaper report of the murder stated that 38 people had heard and seen the attack, which lasted an hour, yet they did nothing. Subsequent reports, however, suggest the number of witnesses was much lower and few, perhaps none, had witnessed the whole attack.

Epileptic seizure

Whatever the status of this incident the facts of the study are well-known. Participants were invited into the lab under the pretext they were taking part in a discussion about ‘personal problems' (Darley & Latane, 1968). Participants were talking to a number of unknown others, varying from just one up to four in each of the experimental trials.

Because of the sensitive nature of the discussion they were told the discussion would take place over an intercom. In fact this was just a ruse to ensure the participants couldn't physically see the other people they were talking to.

During the discussion one member of the group would suddenly appear to be having an epileptic seizure.

The experimenters then measured how long it took for participants to go the person's aid. They clearly found that the more people were involved in the group discussion, the slower participants were to respond to the apparent emergency. It seems that the presence of others inhibits people's helping behaviours.
"I-er-um-I think I-I need-er-if-if could-er-er-somebody er-er-er-er-er-er-er give me a little-er-give me a little help here because-er-I-er-I'm-er-erh-h-having a-a-a real problem-er-right now and I-er-if somebody could help me out it would-it would-er-er s-s-sure be-sure be good . . . because-there-er-er-a cause I-er-I-uh-I've got a-a one of the-er-sei er-er-things coming on and-and-and I could really-er-use some help so if somebody would-er-give me a little h-help-uh-er-er-er-er-er c-could somebody-er-er-help-er-uh-uh-uh (choking sounds). . . . I'm gonna die-er-er-I'm . . . gonna die-er-help-er-er-seizure-er-[chokes, then quiet]."

Don't you care?

Some participants made no move to intervene in the apparent emergency. What was going on? Darley and Latane (1968) report that those who did not act were far from uncaring about the seizure victim. Quite the reverse in fact, compared to those who did report the emergency, they appeared to be in a more heightened state of arousal. Many were sweating, had trembling hands and looked to be in considerable discomfort.

The non-helpers appeared to be caught in a double bind that locked them up. One part of them felt shame and guilt for not helping. Another part of them didn't want to expose themselves to embarrassment or to ruin the experiment which, they had been told depended on each conversant remaining anonymous from the others.

More than Milgram?

It's here that I wonder about the originality of the finding. Certainly Milgram's study of obedience casts a long shadow over this experiment. Similar to the Milgram situation, participants here were put under pressure to continue with the experiment by authority figures (the psychologists). Again, someone was suffering discomfort and participants felt conflicted about whether or not to intervene. In this case in an epileptic seizure, in Milgram's study, it was the electrical shocks participants themselves were administering.

This study's originality comes from the finding that the more people are present, the longer participants take to help. And this is certainly an important insight in social psychological terms. Because of the way the experiment was set up participants had no way of knowing how the other people who heard the seizure had responded. This meant that the only variable was how many other people they knew to be present.

Source : www.spring.org.uk