SELF-DEFENSE

BALANCE
If you recall, distress can be based on several possibilities:
1. Incorrect anticipation, as when, for example, you reach out to shake someone's hand -- and yours passes right through his!
2. Uncertain anticipation, as with roaches and mice and the like.
3. Conflicting anticipations, where you expect two or more things at once.
The first two are based on problems in the relations between "mind and world," that is, between your understanding of reality and your perceptions of it. But the last one involves relations within your mind and can occur even without active involvement with the world. When you have conflicting anticipations, it almost doesn't matter what the world has to say, and distress, therefore, can be something very internal, very personal.


Although we tend to assume that adaptation will involve learning new ways to deal with difficult reality, or at least learning to accept reality as it is, it is also quite conceivable, regardless of the source of our distress, that adaptation will involve a denial or distortion of reality and actions that keep the problem at a distance instead of solving it. In other words, adaptation can also serve to separate us from reality.
I call this psychological self-defense. It involves lying to oneself, but, like physical self-defense, it is not necessarily something that must be avoided at all cost: We often, in this difficult life, need to defend ourselves from inevitable confusion. Keep this in mind.
Balance theory
Fritz Heider, a social psychologist with a Gestalt background, developed a theory about these things called balance theory or "P-O-X" theory.
Let's say you are the parent of a small child. Your baby comes home from kindergarten one afternoon bearing a gift. You tear into the crude wrapping and find --surprise! -- a clay ashtray. It is easily the ugliest entity in the universe, and you don't smoke. But your little artist stands there before you with a smile as broad as all outdoors and eyes sparkling with unbounded pride.
You say to your child "oh thank you so much; it's so very beautiful; you sure are good at art; I love it; we'll put it right here in the display case with the antique crystal collection!" What folks who haven't gone through this don't understand is that you meant every word.
Fritz Heider looks at it like this: You are the person (P); your child is the other (O); the clay ashtray is the third element in the triangle (X). And there are several relations among them:

There are two kinds of relations operating within the triangle:
1. Unit relations: Things and people that "belong together," that in some fashion make a good Gestalt. Perhaps you remember from introductory psychology some ideas about perception -- that we tend to "group" things because of similarity, proximity, common fate, and so on: So, two collie dogs walking together side-by-side, in the same direction form more of a unit (gestalt) than a duck and a cow, 100 feet apart, moving in different directions.
In reference to people, we can think of them as belonging together if they share nationality, religion, social status, family membership, etc. -- that is, if they can be subsumed by some social construct. We see things as belonging to people if they are possessions or property or actions and the like.
2. Sentiment relations: Our evaluations of things and people; loving, hating, accepting, rejecting, worshiping, condemning, etc. Heider simplifies matters for our purposes by limiting sentiment to liking and disliking.
In our example, we have a positive sentiment relation towards our child, and our child has a positive unit relation with the clay ashtray. The last side of the triangle to be filled-in is our sentiment relation to the ashtray. It is at his point that Heider makes his prediction: It will be positive.

Heider says that our minds tend to seek out a balanced state when dealing with such situations, wherein the relations among person, other, and thing are "harmonious." Three positive relations are harmonious. So are two negative relations with one positive relation:
"I don't like John.
John has a dog.
I don't like the dog either."

These latter triangles are less happy, but no less balanced.
On the other hand, we tend to avoid unbalanced states. Two positive relations with one negative one is unbalanced:
"I love my child.
She made this ashtray.
I hate the ashtray."
In these triangles, the relations are stressed to change. We will tend to adapt by convincing ourselves that one of the relations is other than it is. You might convince yourself that your child didn't really make the ashtray; you might decide you don't really like your child as much as you thought; or you might decide you like the ashtray. In the broader picture, we do see parents balancing the triangle by "losing" the ashtray or, more sinister, communicating their disappointment, using threats or guilt, and otherwise pushing the child to be the child they would have liked to have had.
There is also the unbalanced triangle with three negatives:
I don't like John;
I don't like dogs;
John doesn't like dogs.
Sometimes we do feel that we should not share even negative feelings with someone we dislike, but it is understood that this is a weaker form than the preceding one. Heider felt that negatives are less powerful than positives in the formula generally.
Heider didn't restrict his balance theory to triangles. If, for example, we have a person and a thing and we look at the unit and sentiment relations between them, we can also see harmony or the stress toward change. "This is my book and I like it" is balanced, as is, in a less powerful way, "this is not my book and I don't like it". On the other hand, "this is not my book and I like it" is unbalanced, and we might tend to buy, borrow, or steal it. "This is my book and I hate it" is also unbalanced, and we might tend to sell it, give it away, or burn it.
Going back to the p-o-x triangle, imagine this unbalanced situation: John likes a painting by a woman he hates. He might decide that he didn't like the painting as much as he thought. He might decide that he didn't hate the women as much as he thought. He might even figure that she didn't really paint the picture. All of these options, you can see, are distortions or denials of reality.
There is another option: He may attempt to repair the imbalance by differentiation, developing a new contrast! That is, he may come to the conclusion that the woman is a good painter but has a horrid personality. Before, John really has only one contrast here: good versus bad, applicable to painting, personality, and whatever else. Now he has two contrasts: good versus bad painting and good versus bad personality, so good people can lack talent and nasty people can have it. By doing this, he is expanding his construct system, loosening up his stereotypical way of thinking. Heider says this is probably not used as much as defensive techniques!
DISSONANCE THEORY
A theory that is similar to Heider's but focuses on somewhat different concerns is Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory. It has a very simple central principle: "An individual strives to produce consonance and to avoid dissonance." We experience dissonance when we become aware that our actions contradict certain beliefs about ourselves. Consonance, as you might imagine, is the peaceful absence of dissonance, synonymous with Heider's "harmony."
If I consider myself an honest person, that belief implies that I don't lie. Yet I catch myself in the middle of a lie. This is dissonant. Or I know that I love my parents. This implies that I write them more than once per year. Yet once a year is exactly how often I write. This, too, is dissonant. Or I don't do things to harm myself. Cigarettes are bad for me. And I am at this moment dragging on a cigarette.
Dissonance, like imbalance, is "stressed to change." I might change my behavior, quit smoking, for example. I might change my belief that I don't do things to harm myself, which is at least honest. But the weakest link in this example is the connection between the two: the idea that cigarettes are bad for me. I have personally told myself such things as "it keeps the weight off," "the anxiety would kill me sooner," "the research had flaws," "cigarettes are just a scapegoat for industrial pollution," "they'll discover a cure soon," "I only smoke a few packs a day," and "it won't happen to me." One way or another, we tend to change our beliefs -- "fix" them -- in an effort to reduce the dissonance: We lie to ourselves.
Most of the research done on dissonance involves a matter of inadequate justification, that is, the reasons for doing something just weren't good enough: I lied to my friend. This is normally dissonant with my belief that I, as a good friend, do not lie -- unless I have "a real good reason" (i.e. an adequate justification), like saving his life, or maybe saving his feelings. Without such a "real good reason," there is inadequate justification.
Insufficient rewards
The most obvious example of inadequate justification is insufficient rewards -- the subject of the most famous cognitive dissonance experiment:
Festinger and Carlsmith had volunteers do a dull, miserable task (such as adding up columns of numbers or stacking spools) for hours at a time. As they were about to leave, the volunteers were asked to tell the next volunteer that the task was actually fun, and were offered money to do this. Some were offered, say, a dollar. Others were offered a twenty. After they did their dirty deed, the experimenter came running after them, saying that he forgot to have them fill out a form. Embedded in the form were questions concerning how much they enjoyed the task. If they had lied to their fellow volunteer for a twenty, they said that the task was boring as hell. If they had done it for a buck, they actually said that the task wasn't so bad! In other words, there was insufficient reward to justify the lie. So they fixed the dissonance by lying to themselves about the task!
One moral to the story is that, if you want to change a person's beliefs, use as little reward as you can get away with. If you give them too much, they will know why they did it: for the reward. If you give them just barely enough to get them to do it, they will need to convince themselves that they did it for other reasons, such as they really wanted to. People are strange.
Why not go all the way, then: If you can get someone to do something dissonant for nothing, they should really go out of their way to convince themselves things aren't dissonant at all.
Deci had subjects working on jigsaw puzzles for hours late at night. Some had been told they would be paid; others thought they were volunteering. He gave them breaks during which they could loaf or continue puzzling. The salaried subjects tended to loaf; the unsalaried subjects tended to continue with their puzzles. They had convinced themselves that they were enjoying themselves.
But notice that there is an alternative interpretation: Puzzles are enjoyable, at least modestly so. Could it be that it was the salaried subjects that had done the dissonance-fixing? Could they have convinced themselves that, since they were being paid to do this, this is work and they could not possibly be enjoying themselves, and so would need to loaf at the first opportunity?
This second interpretation has sinister implications. Think about how we encourage children to study for gold stars, smiley face stamps, and grades. Think about how we make a job worthwhile by paying higher salaries. It is possible that the more external rewards we provide for something, the weaker become the natural internal rewards. Notice the difference between your enjoyment of a book you chose to read and one assigned to read! We will see this idea again.
Insufficient threat
Another version of inadequate justification is insufficient threat -- if you do not do something you would like to do, even though the threat was weak, you will tend to believe that you didn't really want to do it in the first place -- the “sour grapes” syndrome.
If you are not doing something you would like to do because you have been threatened, you will experience some dissonance, naturally. But the stronger the threat, the weaker the dissonance; the weaker the threat, the stronger the dissonance. Doing something improper for a hundred dollars makes sense; so does going against your desires when threatened with disembowelment. Here's an experiment:
Freedman left a fancy, shiny, absolutely irresistible toy robot with a bunch of young children. Some were given a gentle warning not to touch. Others were given stern warnings. Later, another adult gave the children permission to touch the robot. The kids who received the mild warning left it alone; the ones who were threatened went right to it. Other experiments show that the children who were given the mild warning actually change their evaluation of the robot downward.
Again, there is an alternative view, still in keeping with cognitive dissonance, that suggests that the threat raises the evaluation of the robot: the “forbidden fruit" syndrome.
Guilt
Dissonance helps us to understand the distortions we engage in when we feel guilty: (1) I am nice; (2) I do x; (3) x is not nice. Am I therefore not nice after all? Or did I not actually do x? No: x is not so bad, i.e. we rationalize.
Davis and Jones had people individually watch a live interview, then asked some to tell the interviewee that he looked stupid. The experimenters found that those people rated their victim as generally less attractive.
Soldiers have, of course, been taught for millennia to denigrate their enemies -- see them as sub-human trash that one can "waste" with impunity. It is simply too painful for most people to think of themelves as killing nice people!
Glass asked subjects to shock other subjects (for the usual, made-up, "good reasons") and found that people who thought of themselves as good were even more likely to "put-down" their victims. Beware the self-righteous!
Bersheid, using the same basic situation, told some of her subjects that they would be trading places with the person they were shocking. This is presumably a less dissonant dilemma, so less to fix, so less derogation of their "partner." Soldiers also often learn to respect their enemy.
The 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said "my memory says that I did it, my pride says that I could not have done it, and in the end, my memory yields."
Temptation
The flip-side of guilt is temptation: Not doing something despite the possibility of a decent reward. As we said, if someone tempts you to do something dissonant -- e.g. immoral -- and you accept, the larger the reward, the weaker the dissonance, and vice versa. What happens if you decline the reward, if you resist temptation? Now we would expect that the larger the reward, the larger the dissonance.
Judson Mills did the definitive experiment in temptation. He set up a game for children which was easy -- and most useful -- to cheat at. Some of the kids were offered big prizes; some were only offered little ones. Of course, some of the kids in each group cheated, and some did not.
Prior to the game, Mills had asked the kids individually for their attitudes towards various things -- including cheating. As you might expect, most kids had negative attitudes toward cheating, but mildly negative. After the game, he asked for their attitudes again. Those who had cheated for the big prize didn't change their attitudes toward cheating. Those who didn't cheat for the little prize didn't change their attitudes either. Those who did cheat for the little prize showed more lenient attitudes than before. And those who didn't cheat for the big prize became more severe.
Cheat -- big prize -- no change in attitudes
Didn't cheat -- little prize -- no change in attitudes
Cheat -- little prize -- more lenient attitude (guilt!)
Didn't cheat -- big prize -- more severe attitude (temptation!)
The moral of the story is that those who have been sorely tempted are the most likely to"crack down" on the very thing they had been so sorely tempted by! This leads to interesting hypotheses about blue-nose prudes, law-and-order extremists, and homosexual-haters.
Excessive effort
One more way we get "inadequate justification" is through excessive effort: The harder you've worked at something you discover to be dissonant, the more dissonance you will feel, and therefore the more you will try to "fix" it. "I worked hard for X; X is worthless; I don't do worthless things; therefore X couldn't be worthless.
An experiment by Yaryan and Festinger went something like this: Subjects volunteered for a "techniques of studying" experiment. They were asked to study a list of word definitions in preparation for an I.Q. test, but were told that only half of them would actually take the test. One group of these students were told to glance over the list and that it would be available to them during the test; the other group was told to memorize the list because they would not be permitted to take it with them. After they glanced at or memorized the list, they were asked to estimate the odds that they would be one of the people chosen to actually take the test. The glancers estimated--as they had been told--50 %. The memorizers--facing the prospect of having done all this work for nothing--exaggerated their odds, despite the fact that they had been told the odds in advance!
In the ordinary world, we see this idea being used to increase loyalty: Fraternities, military organizations, and primitive tribes put pledges, plebes, and pubescent boys through hell. Afterwards, who would say to themselves "I went through hell and it sure wasn't worth it?"
One curious example familiar to students: We sometimes remember our toughest teachers in a very positive light -- whether their toughness actually contributed to our learning or not!
This can work in reverse as well: If something is too easy, we may devalue the goal. For example, we may take a course in which it is easy to get an A, and then claim that the course was worthless -- which may not be true at all!
Intensifying dissonance
One thing that can intensify dissonance is irrevocability. Once something is done, and you can't "take it back," you had better be happy with it, even if you have to distort reality to do it. Even negative thoughts will feel uncomfortable.
Knox and Inkster asked people at a race track to estimate their favorite horse's odds. Some of these people were waiting to place their bets; others had just placed them. Before betting, people gave odds similar to those in the forms; after betting, they were considerably more confident.
Now, I must add a caveat here: I suspect that there are quite a few people who, like me, know they did the wrong thing after ever decision they make, people who seem to have trouble fixing dissonance or even find themselves drawn to increased uncertainty. I, for example, always know I bought the wrong pair of shoes soon after I've put the first scuff marks on the soles! We'll come back to these folks later.
Another thing that intensifies dissonance is choice: Choosing from a large number of alternatives seems to require that we be happier with our choice than choosing from a limited number. If I have few alternatives, I am not so free to vary; I can understand less than total satisfaction because I literally didn't have the choice. If I have many alternatives, I could have made a better choice. A car bought from a large lot will be defended by its new owner with more vigor than one bought from a small lot. A "successful" bachelor will be more likely to see his bride as the epitome of womanhood than one with a more modest past.
There are two little techniques for keeping dissonance to a minimum that show up neatly here: selective attention and selective memory. We will pay attention more to information that supports our choice, or remember such information more clearly. This is a useful skill, to say the least.
One experiment looked at people who had just decided to buy a particular car. They were told that they would have to wait a few minutes for certain paperwork to be done, and that they could look through a catalog of car ads while they waited. What they weren't told is that they'd be videotaped, and someone would later time how long they looked at what ads. What the researchers found was that people would look longest at the ads for the car they had decided on, and least at ads for similar cars. In other words, they really wanted to confirm their choice, and ignore the close possibilities.
The exceptions
I mentioned that some people not only cannot seem to fix dissonance, but actually seem to make things worse for themselves. In Hans Eysenck's theory, he suggests that introverts are what they are because they can't seem to deny or otherwise ignore traumatic events--they don't have the nice protective devices that the extravert has. If an extravert drops his pants at a party, the next day, when you bring it up, he might say "Yeah? No kidding?" If the same thing happened to an introvert, he would remember it, relive it, for decades afterward. So I would suggest that introverts are the exception to dissonance-fixing phenomena, though not to dissonance itself.
Eysenck also has a second dimension of temperament called neuroticism. He sees this as a matter of "sympathetic hyperactivity," that is, emotional over-response. It is, in fact, the traditional understanding of neurosis that it involves great anxiety. Anxiety, the distressful anticipation of distress, is quite similar to dissonance. So I would suggest that high neuroticism would exaggerate the introvert (as well as extravert) pattern in regard to dissonance and dissonance-fixing. Oddly, this fits well with certain psychopathologies and with certain Freudian interpretations of those psychopathologies. Perhaps one of you will do a dissertation on this!
DEFENSES
As cognitive dissonance researchers themselves have pointed out, the most significant dissonance occurs when we have incongruency between our self-concept (or self-image) and our actual behaviors. This is abundantly confirmed by therapist-theoreticians such as Karen Horney, Carl Rogers, George Kelly, Albert Bandura, Viktor Raimy, and many others.
An occasional lie to support our egos might not be so bad. But lies breed lies: "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" And before you know it, your self-concept and your actual behavior are so far apart that you are faced with nothing but problems.
As Carl Rogers would put it, the more the incongruency between what you believe yourself to be and what you really are, the more you find yourself faced with threatening situations, which in turn encourage you to distort things some more....
Freud talked about this at great length: The poor ego ("I") is surrounded by the often-conflicting demands of three powerful entities: reality, the id (representing our biological drives), and the superego (representing parental -- i.e. society's -- demands). For example, a man might be so angry that he would like to beat his kids. But that's not right, he's not that kind of father, and besides, his wife would take the kids and leave him....

When all those pressures get to be too much, the ego feels overwhelmed, like it's about to be washed away. We all too often feel like we're about to lose control, go out of our minds, go crazy, die....
This is anxiety, and not too different from strong dissonance. To deal with it, the ego sets up barriers against reality, the id, and the superego, which are called the ego defense mechanisms, or defenses, for short.
Freud, his daughter Anna Freud, and later Freudians, elaborated on some two dozen defenses. But we'll leave those to courses on personality theories, and focus instead on the two defenses that Carl Rogers focused on:
Denial -- a term also used by the Freudians -- is to refuse to attend to certain phenomena, to push them into the background and avoid making them "figures." Some students never pick up their tests, for example. Or a widow sets a place at her table for her late husband and has conversations with him.
Rogers includes in denial what the Freudians call repression -- the "denial" of memories. You almost drowned as a child, but now you can't seem to remember it -- or, in fact, the whole weekend. (But you do have a fear of open water -- i.e. you can never completely deny reality!)
Notice that we are talking about selective attention and selective memory again!
We can symbolize denial (and repression) so:

It is primitive, difficult, yet still close to the "surface" of awareness.
Distortion is a bit more sophisticated, more automatic, and harder to spot. It could be symbolized so:

We "sneak around" the threatening phenomena -- perceptions or memories -- with little lies, misperceptions, misconceptions, ....
This is also known as rationalization. When students fail a test, they occasionally go to great lengths to explain their failure: Bad prof, misleading questions, weird book, the party last night -- anything other than reasons which threaten their self-esteem (stupidity, laziness, alcoholism...). Mind you, sometimes the excuses are the reasons -- sometimes it is the professor! Which makes distortion easier to engage in and much more dangerous in the long run!
Note that sometimes we create the reason, in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, a student may get drunk the night before the exam. When he fails, he can say to himself that it was the hangover, not his stupidity.
Therapists have a hard time with people who distort heavily, such as paranoids and histrionic personalities. Sometimes, the web of lies becomes so complex that it can easily include the therapist!
Taken to the extreme, distortion becomes what the existentialists call conventionality or "busy-ness." We don't notice problems because we are so caught up in our own conventional little lives. War? Starvation? Pollution? Injustice? Inhumanity? In a minute... right now, it's time for Wheel of Fortune! Conventionality can be drawn so:

With conventionality, no-one has to anxiously block experiences or invent rationalizations. The problems remain unconscious (ignored) because they have become a part of the social background. Whenever we feel that something must be the way it is, or that it is only natural or rational, when we say that of course we must have war, or of course there have to be rich and poor, or of course this must be forbidden and that absolutely required, we may be facing a society-wide defense!
SOCIAL DISSONANCE AND DISSONANCE FIXING
We've been talking about dissonance-fixing as mostly a matter of subtly or massively altering your self --your beliefs, attitudes, feelings, whatever. You can also reduce dissonance by changing things "out there." For example, "I'm a clean person; a clean person keeps a clean house; my house is a pig sty." The dissonance can be fixed by cleaning the house.
But how about this: "I deserve slavish attention from my spouse; my spouse won't give it to me." Presuming your attitudes don't change, it may be necessary to change your spouse! We can get rid of that spouse and try another (and another, and another...). Or we can manipulate the present spouse, make them feel guilty, badger them, beat them, whatever it takes. I call this social dissonance and social dissonance-fixing.
Someone who has made a detailed study of this is the social psychiatrist Eric Berne, the inventor of Transactional Analysis and the author of Games People Play, among other books. Berne has a Freudian background and so uses Freudian terminology. He elaborates the ego by seeing it as having three "ego-states" which correspond to those three forces it must deal with: The aspect of the ego that is most intimate with reality is the adult; the aspect most intimate with the id is the child; and the aspect most intimate with the superego is the parent. The adult's strength is reason; the child's is play, which may become hedonistic abandon; and the parent's strength is morality, which may become self-righteousness. He draws the ego like this:

If we put two egos next to each other, we have a diagrammatical representation of social interactions, which he calls transactions. There are complementary transactions, like these:

They might represent transactions like "Aren't kids awful?" "They certainly are!" (a), "Let's play!" "Oh goodie!" (b), and "George, straighten up!" "Yes my little passion flower!" (c). Sometimes we don't agree on what transaction we are performing, in which case we have a crossed transaction:

"Now Martha, let's take a look at our finances." "Snookums wanna cuddle?" (a), and "Now Martha, let's take a look at our finances." "Alright. Then you'll have to quit your stupid hobbies!" (b) are examples. These are certainly not happy transactions, and we often find them in troubled relationships. But there is one more: Under the cover of a regular complementary transaction, we may have a simultaneous ulterior transaction.

A cowboy on a dude ranch says to a female visitor "Come, let me show you the barn." To which she responds "Please do! I've always loved barns, since I was a little girl!" Although it is conceivable that they do share a bizarre fascination with barns, it is more likely that they are flirting like crazy. Under the cover of adult-adult, they are playing child-child. They are, in Berne's terms, playing a game.
Berne and his students have come up with hundreds of games. Just to give you a taste, here are a couple of scenarios involving the avoidance of responsibility, a very common theme for games:
"See what you made me do"
Mr. and Mrs. White are engaged in a little foreplay. When things have warmed up a bit, Mrs. White suddenly says "I hope little Johnny's asleep." Mr. White loses his temper at this and shouts "Now you've done it! You've broken the mood! I might as well go to sleep!"
Actually, says Berne, this is a little game that Mr. and Mrs. White play on a regular basis. By going through this game, Mrs. White gets to avoid the sex she's never really felt comfortable with and Mr. White gets to avoid the humiliating failures he occasionally experiences, while neither has to admit their reservations!
Me, I'm always writing the great book, except that I never have quite enough time, and the constant interruptions.... It's wonderful when you don't trust your own abilities to be able to blame your lack of success on the intrusions of others!
"If it weren't for you"
A woman complains about her unrewarding, self-sacrificing life as a housewife. "If it weren't for you" -- she says to her traditional, authoritarian husband -- "I could've gone to school and really made something out of myself!"
In reality, she went to a great deal of trouble to find this joker in order that she wouldn't have to face what she most feared: going to school and facing the world of business. He, of course, is playing his own little game: By playing the "bad guy," he gets what he wants as well. Games are usually little social contracts between the players. They have manipulated each other into maintaining the status quo while evading the dissonance (anxiety, guilt) involved in taking responsibility. It is easier to play roles than it is to face the challenges of life.

More social dissonance and dissonance-fixing
The sociologist Erving Goffman places the whole of dissonance and dissonance-fixing outside the person and into the social interaction. He sees people as actors playing certain roles in a play. This metaphor is the basis of the dramaturgical approach to social psychology.
For example, in a social get-together, no one should lose face. If John insults Mary, for example, the group will feel her loss of face as something akin to a dissonance. Mary or someone in the group will have to challenge John: "What did you say?" "You didn't mean that, did you?" "And what about your family?" etc. If John wants to remain in the group, he must make amends ("fix the dissonance"): "Just kidding, you know!" "Ah Mary, you're such a good sport!" "Jeez, what a jerk I am!" or just "I'm sorry!" Mary (hopefully) accepts his apologies and forgives him, John (hopefully) thanks her, and life goes on. This pattern -- insult, challenge, amends, acceptance, thanks -- is quite real: Try sometime not to play the game like this!
There are lots of variations, of course: The offender can "challenge" himself; amends may be repeated; someone else may make the amends, even the offendee; and so on. Insults can be ignored, winning lots of face points for the person secure enough to do this. But if there are no amends made, the group will either break up or expel (or even hurt) the offender.
The rules can, however, be manipulated. For example, it doesn't matter who does the insulting -- it has to be fixed. So, you can insult yourself! A truly ugly person says "I'm so ugly!" and everyone is obliged to respond with "Nah!" "Beauty is in the eye of he beholder," and "You have a great personality!" Or a truly dumb person says "I'm so stupid" and everyone has to say "Nah!" "You're good with your hands," and "who needs an I.Q. anyway!" They must give this person face.
What is more threatening is aggressive face work such as snubs and digs: People with status often insult others with impunity -- they can afford to. Academics do this all the time by trying to suggest that their tastes are impeccable with dialogs like "Did you watch the concert on PBS last night?" "No, I don't own a TV."
We can go one step further and combine the previous two techniques: An attractive, slender woman says to her chubbo friends "I'm getting so fat! I can barely fit into my size five anymore!" The smartest guy in the class says "Jeez, I only got a 95!" This is clever: They are insulting you by "insulting" themselves, so you can't touch them. Sounds a bit like a game, doesn't it?
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Copyright 1999, C. George Boeree
Dr. C. George Boeree

Hubungan psikologi sosial dengan ilmu-ilmu sosial lainnya

Serge moscovici seorang psikolog sosial perancis menyatakan bahwa psikologi sosial adalah jembatan diantara cabang-cabang pengetahuan sosial lainnya. Sebab psikologi sosial mengakui pentingnya memandang individu dalam suatu system sosial yang lebih luas dan karena itu menarik kedalamnya sosiologi, ilmu politik, antropologi, dan ekonomi. Psikologi sosial mengakui aktifitas manusia yang rentangnya luas dan pengaruh budaya serta perilaku manusia dimasa lampau. Dalam mengambil fokus ini psikologi sosial beririsan dengan filsafat, sejarah, seni dan musik. Selain itu psikologi sosial memiliki perspektif luas dengan berusaha memahami relevansi dari proses internal dari aktivitas manusia terhadap perilaku sosial. Dalam hal ini psikologi sosial misalnya mungkin mempertanyakan bagaimana keadaan orang setelah menyaksikan suatu kejadian menakutkan akan mempengaruhi arousal secara fisiologis, seperti tekanan darah dan serangan jantung. Karena perspektif ini, maka dibahas tentang persepsi, kognisi dan respon fisiologis.

Meskipun demikian, perlu dicatat bahwa cirikhas dari psikologi sosial adalah memfokuskan pada individu daripada kelompok atau unit.sementara ahli ilmu sosial yang lain mempergunakan analisis kemasyarakatan yakni mempergunakan faktor-faktor secara luas untuk menjelaskan perilaku sosial. Misalnya sosiologi lebih tertarik pada struktur dan fungsi kelompok. Kelompok itu dapat kecil (keluarga), atau moderat (perkumpulan mahasiswa, klub sepakbola), atau luas (suatu masyarakat).
Sementara bidang studi lain dari psikologi yang tertarik pada keunikan dari perilaku individu adalah psikologi kerpibadian. Pendekatan psikologi kepribadian adalah membandingkan masing-masing orang. Sementara pendekatan psikologi sosial adalah mengidentifikasikan respon (cara bereaksi) dari sebagian besar atau kebanyakan orang dalam suatu situasi dan meneliti bagaimana situasi itu mempengaruhi respon tersebut.
Marilah kita bandingkan ketiga pendekatan tersebut dengan menggunakan contoh yang spesifik untuk menganalisis terjadinya tindak kekerasan. Pendekatan kemasyarakatan cenderung menunjukkan adanya kaitan antara tingkat kejahatan yang tinggi dengan kemiskinan, urbanisasi yang cepat, dan industrialisasi dalam suatu masyarakat. Untuk membuktikan kesimpulan ini, mereka menunjukkan beberapa fakta tertentu : orang yang miskin lebih sering melakukan kejahatan; kejahatan lebih banyak timbul di daerah kumuh ketimbang di lingkungan elit; kriminalitas meningkat pada masa resesi ekonomi dan menurun di saat kondisi ekonomi membaik.
Sementara pendekatan individual dalam bidang psikologi yang lain (psikologi kepribadian, perkembangan dan klinis) cenderung menjelaskan kriminalitas berdasarkan karakteristik dan pengalaman criminal individu yang unik. Pendekatan ini akan mempelajari perbedaan individual yang menyebabkan sebagian orang melakukan tindak criminal, yang tidak dilakukan oleh orang lain dengan latar belakang yang sama, untuk itu, biasanya mereka memusatkan pada latar belakang individu, misalnya bagaimana perkembangan orang itu? Disiplin apakah yang diterapkan orang tuanya? Mungkin orang tua yang kasar cenderung menumbuhkan anak belajar berperilaku kasar?. Penelitian dapat dilakukan dengan membandingkan latar belakang keluarga anak yang nakal dengan yang tidak nakal. Jadi analisis semacam ini memusatkan pada bagaimana dalam situasi yang sama orang dapat melakukan perilaku yang berbeda karena pengalaman masa lalu yang unik.
Sebaliknya psikologi sosial lebih berpusat pada usaha memahami bagaimana seseorang bereaksi terhadap situasi sosial yang terjadi. Psikologi sosial mempelajari perasaan subyektif yang biasanya muncul dalam situasi sosial tertentu, dan bagaimana perasaan itu mempengaruhi perilaku. Situasi interpersonal apa yang menimbulkan perasaan marah, dan meningkatkan atau menurunkan kemungkinan munculnya perilaku agresi? Sebagai contoh, salah satu prinsip dasar psikologi sosial adalah bahwa situasi frustasi akan membuat orang marah, yang memperbesar kemungkinan timbulnya mereka melakukan perilaku agresi. Akibat situasi yang menimbulkan frustasi ini merupakan penjelasan alternative mengenai sebab timbulnya kejahatan. Hubungan itu tidak hanya menjelaskan mengapa perilaku agresif terjadi dalam situasi tertentu, tetapi juga menjelaskan mengapa faktor ekonomi dan kemasyarakatan menimbulkan kejahatan. Misalnya, orang miskin berduyun-duyun dating ke kota akan mengalami frustasi; mereka ternyata sulit mencari pekerjaan, mereka tidka dapat membeli apa yang mereka inginkan, tidak dapat hidup layak seperti yang mereka bayangkan. Dan frustasi ini merupakan sebab utama munculnya sebagian besar perilaku criminal. Psikologi sosial biasanya juga menyangkut perasaan-perasaan subyektif yang ditimbulkan situasi interpersonal, yang kemudian mempengaruhi perilaku individu. Dalam contoh ini situasi frustasi menimbulkan kemarahan, yang kemudian menyebabkan timbulnya perilaku agresif.
Kesimpulan : pada dasarnya psikologi sosial sangat berhubungan dengan ilmu sosial lain nya, dimana psikologi sosial merupakan bagian dari semua cabang ilmu sosial lainnya!

CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE

DEFENSIVE CONFORMITY
Conformity is actually a rather complex concept, and there are a number of different kinds:
1. The conformity to norms we discussed earlier is often quite unconscious. It has been internalized (learned well), probably in early childhood. Our societal norms are seldom doubted; rather, we take them as givens, as "the way things are." The learning is supported throughout life by the "validity" of the norm -- i.e. it works because it is the norm.
2. But sometimes we choose, consciously, to conform, as when we join a group voluntarily. We adopt certain norms because the group is attractive to us and we identify with the group and its values or goal. In its more dramatic forms, this is called conversion.
3. In other cases, we conform because we are forced to, i.e. we are conscious of our conformity but it seems a lot less voluntary. This is often called compliance, and it can be brought on by anything from a gun to the head or the promise of candy. In other words, it is conformity due to the sanctions the society or group has in effect.
4. But most of what we call conformity in the research literature concerns something "somewhat conscious" and "not quite voluntary." It is usually brought on by social anxiety -- fear of embarrassment, discomfort at confusion, a sense of inferiority, a desire to be liked, and so on. I think it should be called defensive conformity.


The basic research on this kind of conformity has been conducted by Solomon Asch and his students:
Imagine that you have volunteered for a psychology experiment, and you show up at the lab at the promised time. There is a table with four chairs around it, three already occupied by other students. So you take the last chair and prepare yourself for some kind of psychological bizarreness. Finally, the experimenter comes in carrying two stacks of rather large cardboard cards. He introduces himself and thanks you for volunteering and begins to explain: One set of cards, as evidenced by the top card, shows three lines at a time, each line of a different length. The other set shows one line at a time. The task is called "line-length judgment" and looks to be very easy: Even from a distance, the line among the three that matches the single line is very clear.
So we begin. The experimenter points at the first student. He looks at the lines, hems and haws a bit... and chooses the wrong match! Oh well, there's one in every crowd. The experimenter just nods sagely to himself. He points at the second volunteer, and he too hems and haws... and chooses the wrong line! Now you begin to feel a bit uncomfortable. The experimenter points at the third person -- your last chance -- and he, too, chooses the obviously wrong answer. Now it's your turn. Being a person of integrity, you clearly announce the correct answer -- at which point, all three volunteers and the experimenter give you a look like you're from outer space.
The experimenter reveals the second card of each stack, and starts again. And the students again start giving what to you seem like clearly wrong answers. But this time, when your turn comes, what do you do? Well, even in this rather unthreatening social situation, 35% of the time, subjects in this experiment gave what were clearly wrong responses. It's true that some 10% of the subjects never conformed; unfortunately another 10% conformed all the time or all but the first trial. And, although each of us firmly believes that they would be a part of that first 10% -- last of the rugged individualists and all that -- in fact, that's what everybody thinks. You don't quite know how you'll behave until you are there!
(Note: The other subjects were actually "stooges" or confederates of the experimenter -- usually graduate assistants.)
Asch and his students did many variations of this study to find out which variables had significant effects on the amount of conformity:
1. The difficulty or ambiguity of the task. For example, we might make the differences between line lengths much smaller and so the correct answer much less certain. As you might guess, the conformity increases under those circumstances. A similar experiment by Shaw used the counting of metronome clicks. He found that the faster the metronome, the more conformity.
What is happening is that we have more and more need for the group's input as the task becomes more difficult. If in the earlier situation we conformed because we didn't wish to be embarrassed, in the more ambiguous situation, we also "conform" because we are less sure of ourselves and the others become sources of information. Some call this a change from normative pressures to conform to informational pressures to conform.
It might be better, though, to see it as the overlap between two very different processes altogether: On the one hand, we are addressing our need to be accepted by others (and other social needs); on the other hand, we are addressing our need for an accurate understanding of what is going on around us.
2. The relative perceived competence of the subject and the group. In one study, they had the subjects perform the line-judgement task alone first, and they were given feedback on how well they did: "You did really well" or "You aren't very good at this, are you?". The feedback, however, was random, i.e. had nothing to do with performance. In other words, the experimenter manipulated people’s self-esteem.
Then the subjects were put into the regular Asch situation. If they had been told that they had done well -- i.e. felt competent -- they conformed less. If they had been told that they had done badly -- i.e. felt incompetent -- they conformed more. Notice how this also involves a measure of need for information: If you are not competent at something, you turn to others for guidance.
You can also manipulate the perceived competence of the group: Imagine going through the Asch situation with three guys wearing super-thick glasses, leaning forward, squinting furiously, and so on. If you believe them to be incompetent (at this task) you will conform less. Or we could do the reverse: Imagine being there with three architecture students, who should, of course, be rather good at lines....
3. Relative perceived status of the group and the subject. If the influence of competence involves the rational need for information, the influence of status is a lot less rational, and provides a clearer example of "defensive" conformity. If we are convinced that the group is of a higher perceived status (i.e. in our eyes), we conform more. If we are convinced they are of lower status, we conform less.
This is true as well of groups conforming to individuals: If we see a high-status person crossing against a don't walk sign, we are much more likely to follow him than if we see a low-class person doing so. This is even more true when status is combined with competence: Who is it better to follow into New York City traffic, an alert young executive or a bum reeking of gin?
4. Group cohesiveness. If the group is composed of friends, we conform more. Although in one way we have, in a group of friends, the freedom to "be ourselves," our desire to be a cohesive group is a part of what made us friends to begin with!
But we don't need to look only at our tendency to conform to groups we belong to; we also conform to groups we wish to belong to -- our reference groups. The more the subject is attracted to the group, the more conformity. Imagine, for example, a fraternity pledge with a group of fraternity brothers.
Perhaps the most important aspect of group cohesiveness is the sharing of goals. When the group has a common goal, there is more conformity. In one experiment, subjects were told that the group with the most accurate responses would win desirable theater tickets. You would think that everyone would make their most accurate guesses, even if the rest of the group seemed to disagree. Instead, we find more conformity than ever. Nobody wants to "stand out" when something of value is at stake. As the Japanese say, the nail that sticks out tends to get hammered!
5. Group composition. If the subject thinks that the group is made up of a number of different kinds of people, he or she will also conform more. If they were all the same, and they all made the same stupid mistake, you would figure, well, it must be something about them. (Remember attribution?)
But if you're a student and next to you is a banker, and across from you is a housewife, and there at the end is bricklayer -- what on earth could they all have in common to lead them to their bizarre behavior? It must be you who is mistaken, and so you conform.
6. Group size. The easiest variable to study is group size, but the results are disappointingly simple. Conformity is already high with 3 or 4 stooges; it gets a little higher with 6 or 7; it levels off at 15 or 16. Apparently, social pressures in the Asch situation don't increase linearly with group size.
Contrast this, however, with the effects of large crowds on behavior (mob behavior.) If you've seen films of Hitler's rallies or large-scale religious revivals or ever been to a football game, you know that emotional behavior is highly contagious in large crowds. There is something about a crowd that leads to a sense of anonymity or even depersonalization: You lose your sense of individuality and let the mob carry you away.
7. Group unanimity. Group unanimity is perhaps the strongest variable in Asch's research. In the original studies, the stooges were always in unanimous agreement. All you need is one stooge that doesn't conform with the others, and the spell is broken. You may feel free to deviate. This is true even when the non-conforming stooge is still giving a wrong answer!
This is a very important point. Most societies are very hard on non-conformists, because the non-conformist threatens the stability of the social structure. If the non-conformist exhibits his non-conformity with no negative results, others will follow. It is therefore the society's "duty" to make sure there are negative results! Mind you, this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the society and the nature of the non-conformity.
Cultural variables
1. Nationality. When we compare Norwegians and Frenchmen regarding their tendencies to conformity, we find that the Norwegians conform more than do the French. This is no surprise to people familiar with these cultures: The Norwegians have traditionally emphasized social responsibility (since the Viking days!); the French have an equally ancient tradition of particularly colorful individualism. (It is joked that if you want to pick a fight with a Frenchman, pick a subject!)
2. Alienation. The Japanese culture, like the Norwegian, tends to emphasize tradition, cooperation, and responsibility, and, like Norwegians, the Japanese tend to conform more than, say, Americans. But when Japanese college students were compared with American college students, it was found that they conformed less! In fact, they had a tendency to anticonformity,i.e. the tendency to give incorrect answers when the group is giving correct ones (just to be difficult, we might say).
This is the effect of alienation. The Japanese students seemed to feel a bit lost, no longer a part of traditional Japanese culture, yet not a true part of the western culture that dominates university life and studies. We saw this same effect closer to home in the 1960's with the hippie movement: predominantly middle class students no longer felt a part of the dominant, success-oriented culture around them, and often defined themselves, not in terms of "this is what I am" but rather in terms of "I am not you," i.e. anticonformity.
3. Assigned status. Assigned status is status that you are born with, status that is assigned to you by society without any reference to your desires or abilities. The low status that has been assigned to blacks, women, and various ethnic groups are clear examples.
In the 1950's, it was found that, although there was no difference between whites and blacks in their overall tendency to conform, both black kids and white kids conformed more when the majority of the group they were in was white than when it was black. This goes back to things we've already looked at: relative perceived status and relative perceived competence, in the sense of the lower self-esteem that often accompanies low assigned status.
4. Gender differences. In the 1950's and 60's, research indicated almost invariably that women conform more than men. Social psychologists -- at least the male ones -- were ecstatic. After all, we don't come up with many results this strong in social psychology! But Sistrunk and McDavid (1971) reviewed the research and noticed something peculiar: The researchers were all male!
Sistrunk and McDavid started with 100 statements of opinion and fact, such as "Fords are better than Chevies," "cake is easier to make than pie," and "the earth moves around the sun." They then asked 53 people to judge whether a statement was "masculine" (e.g. "Fords..."), "feminine" (e.g. "cake..."), or "neutral" ("the earth..."). Any statement that 80% of the people agreed on was then included in a questionnaire. And with each statement, they included a fake (random) "majority response," e.g. "Most Americans agree."
They then gave the questionnaire to 270 male and female subjects. Here are the results: (The numbers represent "tendency to conform;" don't worry about the absolute number -- just look at the differences and similarities.)
Masc. Fem. Neutral Total
Items Items Items
Males 34.15 43.05 39.65 38.95
Females 42.75 34.55 39.10 38.80
What these figures mean is that, in our culture, women are quite conformist when it comes to sports and cars and other things they either don't know much about or don't care much about; and men are quite conformist about cooking and fashion and other things they don't know or care about. Otherwise, they conform about equally. The earlier results were due to the fact that the men constructing these studies used statements they found interesting -- i.e. male ones!
OBEDIENCE
Obedience is a very similar phenomenon to conformity. It can be distinguished by an emphasis on the impact of legitimacy (as opposed to other social pressures), and by the fact that it usually involves a single person -- the authority.
The most famous study concerning obedience is Stanley Milgram's. Picture yourself in this situation: You have volunteered for a psychology experiment, so you find yourself at Dr. Milgram's office one evening. Another student is already there with Dr. Milgram. Dr. Milgram thanks you both for volunteering and explains that this is a study of the effects of punishment on learning. One of you will be the teacher and the other the learner. To decide, he asks each of you to pick a slip of paper out of a hat: Your slip says teacher, the other volunteer's slip says learner.
So you and Dr. Milgram take the learner to a small room next door, where you help the good doctor strap the learner into what looks like an electric chair. You then paste electrodes to various parts of his body.
You and Dr. Milgram return to his office, where he puts you in front of a microphone, speaker, and a rather dangerous looking piece of electronic machinery with 30 toggle switches in a row along the bottom front, labeled from 30 volts to 450 volts. (The ones toward the end have a little sign above them that says "Danger: High Voltage!")
You are to read a list of nonsense syllables into the microphone to the learner in the next room, and he is to repeat them in the correct order back to you. If he makes a mistake, you are to pull the first switch. This switch will then lock in place, requiring you to use the next higher voltage if the learner makes a mistake the next time.
You read the list, and of course the learner makes a couple of mistakes, so you flick the first switch. You read the list again, but he makes a mistake again, so you flick the next switch. As you move up the line, the learner begins to complain. At 75 volts, he moans a bit. At 150 volts, he's begging to be let out of the experiment. Perhaps you turn to Dr. Milgram, who is sitting nearby correcting test papers, and ask him if it would be alright to stop. He explains that you both volunteered for this and he expects you both to complete the experiment.
At 180 volts, the learner is screaming that he can't stand the pain. You are shaking and sweating bullets. At 300 volts, you flick the switch and you hear the beginning of another scream form in the learner's throat, but it never quite comes out. When you read him the list again, he doesn't even attempt a response. He's unconscious! Perhaps he's even dead! You turn to Dr. Milgram for guidance, and he tells you: "No response is an incorrect response. Don't be concerned: There will be no permanent neurological damage. Please continue."
You continue to shock your fellow-volunteer all the way up to the maximum voltage of 450 volts, unaware, of course, that this was all a set-up and that the learner was a confederate of Dr. Milgram!
Before Milgram did this experiment, he asked several psychiatrists' opinions on what percentage of people would go how far. The psychiatrists (who we suppose would know about crazy behavior) suggested that most people would stop at 150 (when the learner asks to be let out), that only four percent would go up to 300, and that a mere one percent would go all the way to 450 volts.
In Milgram's study, 62 % went all the way.
This was quite a shock (no pun intended) to the psychological community (and well beyond!). This experiment was inspired by the Nurenburg trials, where Nazi officers would often plead that they were only following orders. People assumed that the kind of atrocities committed by these Nazis were the results of warped personalities encouraged by a warped culture, that red-blooded American men would never engage in those kinds of behaviors. We are, after all, rugged individualists! Milgram's study showed rather dramatically that we were not.
A knowledge of history, of course, would have made Milgram's study unnecessary: Obedience to authority and the atrocities that often go with it has been a part of human existence since as far back as we can go. Not very long ago, we have the Nazi example. More recently, we have Idi Amin's Uganda and Pol Pot's Cambodia, and "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia. And even us red-blooded Americans have the massacre at Mai Lai in Vietnam on our conscience, not to mention the treatment received by Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and laborers over our mere two centuries of existence.
62 % is rather incredible. But let's say it's been exaggerated. Say it's only 10 %. Our population is roughly 250 million. 10 % of that is still 25 million, 25 million people who would follow orders to the point of hurting or even killing another human being.
When we combine this tendency to obey with immorality, lack of empathy, or sheer sadism.... A few years ago, the state of Texas advertised for two positions as lethal-injection executioners, paying $600 per death. They received over 30,000 applications. If the state of the world or the nation gets you down now and then, perhaps you should consider how well we are doing, given who we are working with!
Just like the Asch experiment, Milgram's has been altered to find the effects of other variables. One set of experiments looked at the effects of proximity of the learner. In the original experiment, the learner was in a separate room. What if he were in the same room, or right next to you? Or what if you actually had to touch the learner to apply the shock? As you might expect, proximity greatly reduced the amount of obedience: If they were in the same room, full obedience went down to 40%; if they were touching, it went down to 30%.
Milgram's original study was done at "a prestigious ivy-league school" (Yale). What if you did the experiment at a run-down office building in downtown Bridgeport, Connecticut? Well, the percentage of full obedience goes down to 48 %.
In the original study, Milgram, PhD, professor, psychologist, scientist, sat there the entire time, the personification of authority. What if he weren't there? What if all the instructions were given over a phone? The absence of the authority figure reduced the full compliance to 21 %, including heart-breaking attempts to cheat by pretending to flick switches. Similarly, if an "ordinary" person were giving the orders, the obedience went down to 20%.
The variable that most reduced obedience, however, was the presence of an example of defiance. In this scenario, you see a fellow volunteer refuse to shock anyone before the start of the experiment. This reduces full compliance to 10 %. Again, the presence of a "non-conformist" has a powerful effect!
Other variables had little effect. Women were as likely to obey as men were. There were few major differences cross-culturally. And these studies aren't just restricted to the supposedly conformist 1950's: Recent studies show similar or even greater obedience today! (Meeus and Raaijmakers 1986, 1987)
Most of us would like to think that, in hard times, we would be freedom-fighters in the underground, or civil-rights marchers, or other such people-of-principle. Unfortunately, as people who have been in these situations will tell you, you don't really know how you'll act until you are in these situations. For most of us, disobedience of authorities or non-conformity to social pressures is very difficult. However, there is the enlightenment effect (or self-defeating prophecy): Knowing how difficult it is already gives you an edge.
NON-INVOLVEMENT
One more research area that has a strong relation to conformity is non-involvement, also known as bystander intervention research.
A favorite example of extreme non-involvement is the Kitty Genovese murder: At 3:00 in the morning, over a period of 30 minutes, Kitty Genovese was attacked three times in the courtyard of her apartment building. The man first mugged her, left, then returned to rape her, left again, and finally returned to kill her. This entire tragedy was witnessed, and her screams for help heard, by 38 of her neighbors, none of whom came to her rescue or even phoned to police! The lack of response on the part of the neighbors turned out to be a journalistic exaggeration, but the story got people - especially psychologists - interested.
The response to this was the usual: "Typical for New York City;" "Could never happen here;" and "It would have been different if I had been there." Social psychologists Bibb Latane' and John Darley and several of their students decided to put these assertions to the test.
In one of their studies, the volunteer was asked to wait for the experimenter in a waiting room. In this waiting room, there were already two students, reading magazines. After the volunteer had settled into his chair, a puff of smoke would enter the room through a crack in the wall near the volunteer. The other students (stooges, of course) showed no reaction. The puff became a stream; the stream became a flood; and eventually you couldn't see the other side of the room. Through all this, the stooges remained in their seats, reading their magazines... and so did most of the volunteers!
In fact, only 10% of the students responded within 6 minutes. Even if they used three actual students -- i.e., people who were not instructed to do nothing -- only 12 1/2 % responded. When alone, 75% of the students responded within 6 minutes.
Another experiment, by Bibb Latane and Judith Rodin, is even more dramatic. A female experimenter asks the volunteer to fill out a questionnaire, as another student is also (apparently) doing, and retreats behind a curtain into what appears to be a storage room. As the volunteer fills out the form, he or she hears the experimenter climbing a step ladder and struggling with what are apparently heavy boxes. Suddenly, she falls: the ladder clatters and her body thumps onto the concrete floor, and she cries out "Oh my God, my foot... I.. I can't move it!" This goes on for about a minute. The other student continues to fill out the form. So do 80% of the volunteers!
When with someone who doesn't respond to an apparent emergency, only 20% of us do respond. Even when we are alone, only 70% respond. It really makes you wonder about the other 30%, doesn't it? Are they so afraid of embarrassment that they can't even get up to ask if the experimenter is okay?
Well, it seems to be a bit more than a fear of embarrassment going on here -- although embarrassment is likely a component. First, most people seem to experience a degree of empathic fear -- a combination of identifying with the victim and being uncertain about what to do that causes many people to freeze or panic.
Robert Baron found that, when a victim is in pain and the subject felt that they could do something to ease the pain, then the more pain the victim shows, the more quickly the subject responds. But when the victim is in pain and the subject did not know what to do, the more pain, the more slowly the subject responds.
So, if we get a bit nervous and aren’t sure what to do, and there are other people around, we often hope that they will be the ones to respond, so we don't have to. In fact, the more people around, the less likely it is that we will respond. This seems to have been very much a part of the Kitty Genovese case: The apartments formed a U around the courtyard, so the residents could see each others' lights come on and window blinds open. Many of them simply assumed that someone else must have called the police.
If you think about it, it is rather logical: If I am there alone, I have 100% of the responsibility, and I should certainly help. If I am there with one other person, I have 50% of the responsibility, and I can flip a coin. But if I am there with 100 other people, I have only 1% of the responsibility, so it would be terribly presumptuous of me to try to help (and potentially terribly embarrassing!). They call this diffusion of responsibility.
And there are the purely selfish reasons for not helping: Some of Kitty Genovese's neighbors admitted that they didn't want to get involved -- the costs of involvement are too great. If you went out to help, you yourself could get hurt or killed (or sued, as occasionally happens to people who interfere in "domestic arguments.") Even if you only called the police, there'd be statements to make, line-ups to attend, trials to testify at, and possibly even retribution from the criminal, were he to get off on a technicality, say.
(Keep in mind that this is a world where a man who was attempting to commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a New York subway train successfully sued New York City, the subway system, and the brakeman who managed to stop the train in time, for millions of dollars!)
Now most of us like to think of ourselves as nice people, even if we do freeze, panic, leave things to others, or take care of ourselves first. So we have to make sure to justify our decisions. This is most easily done by the distortion of reality called reinterpretation of the situation.
For example, on Fifth Avenue in New York City, in broad daylight, a woman named Eleanor Bradley broke her leg while shopping. She lay there in shock for 40 minutes before someone helped her, while literally hundreds of people walked around her! Obviously, people explained her away: It can't be serious, she's probably a drunk, she's crazy, she's play acting, this is a Candid Camera stunt, whatever.
This is strongly reinforced by the diffusion of responsibility tendency mentioned above: If it were serious, all these other people wouldn't be walking around her, would they? We use others as a source of information, as well as bending to fears of embarrassment or desires to belong.
It might be valuable to consider ways we could counteract these unfortunate tendencies in ourselves. Some good clues can be found in Leonard Bickman's studies. In one, for example, people were engaged in a (phony) experiment involving the use of intercoms. They then heard a crash and screams over the intercom. Those subjects who thought everyone in the experiment was in same building tended to stay where they were; those who thought that only they and the victim were in the same building tended to try to get help.
In another study by Bickman, again using intercoms, a third of the subjects heard screams over the intercom, another third heard screams followed by the voice of a witness getting upset, and the last third heard the scream and the witness define the situation as an emergency. The first third were least likely to help, and the last third most likely.
Precisely because of their artificiality, these studies serve to emphasize that things like diffusion of responsibility and redefining the situation are, in fact, "in the mind of the bystander." We can therefore directly counter these tendencies by simply developing certain habits: Assume personal responsibility (unless someone more qualified is clearly present), and assume that the situation is an emergency (until you know better).
The problem of empathic fear also has a solution: Develop emergency competence. In a number of studies, it has been found that people with some knowledge of emergency procedures are much more likely to help, even in emergencies for which they were not trained! They, like professionals, don't lose their heads in emergencies.
Again, the enlightenment effect or self-defeating prophecy will play its part with you: Just knowing that we tend not to help makes it more likely that you will help. It may wreck future social psychology experiments, but it may save future Kitty Genoveses.
NON-CONFORMITY
If conformity is, quite literally, normal, then non-conformity is, for better or worse, abnormal or deviant. But you can be abnormal in many different ways:
Mental Illness
When people act strangely, one of the easiest things to do is to label them mentally ill. Many people, sadly, get this label only because they are irritating, annoying, or troublesome to others, especially when the others have power and the one getting labeled does not. They don't do what they are supposed to do, so we send them off to therapy or, better yet, an institution.
This is not to say that there is no such thing as mental illness. "True" mental illness usually carries the connotation that the behaviors, experiences, thoughts, or feelings that are so troublesome are not completely under that person's control. Someone who is eccentric, or a political dissident, or a criminal presumably chooses to do what they do. The mentally ill person is not completely free to choose, and is therefore not fully responsible.
Problems that have (1) strong genetic components to them (such as schizophrenia is believed to have), or ones involving (2) damage to the nervous system, (3) psychological traumas, (4) long-term conditioning, or (5) addiction, are more likely candidates for the term mental illness.
This doesn't make it that much easier to distinguish mental illness from other forms of non-conformity: We are, for example, far from establishing clear methods for distinguishing biological from psychological causes. Many people believe that criminals behave as they do because of early traumas and social conditioning. In the former Soviet Union, people with dissenting political opinions were considered insane, since political opinions are, at least in part, established through long-term conditioning. Further, culture itself is a matter of long-term conditioning. And people of principle -- Saint Francis is a particularly good example, or the student that stood in front of the tanks in Tienamen Square -- often act in ways most of us would consider insane!
One thing I should make clear at this point: We are, throughout this section, talking about deviation from norms, not from normality. Many unusual things are not considered deviant (red hair, for example) and some are even valued (beauty, intelligence, strength....).
Criminality
When non-conformity refers to formalized norms such as laws, we call it crime. It is usually assumed that crime is committed by choice, so that demonstrating mental incompetence, lack of intent, accident, or circumstances justifying the act will at least diminish the degree of guilt.
Some criminals can be understood as being undersocialized. They never developed much of a conscience or superego, perhaps because of a childhood filled with neglect, abuse, poverty, and so on. It is also possible that they lacked, from the beginning, the basic capacity for empathy that some consider the foundation for a conscience.
These people are sometimes called sociopaths. An older term was psychopath, but today that tends to bring images of the most extreme cases only. They have little concern for people's feelings, much less for society's norms and laws. Self-centered, they want what they want when they want it, and get what they want assuming they have sufficient skills to do so. We sometimes glorify them -- Billy the Kid, Bonny and Clyde, and so on -- as true non-conformists. But generally we see them as on the borders of mental illness, or past them.
Similar to these are the criminals who may well have a well-developed conscience, but who also have very demanding needs. A drug addict who steals to support his or her habit is one example. Someone who steals in order to eat might be another.
But many criminals are not truly non-conformist at all. Instead they conform to a different set of norms. That is to say, they belong to a criminal subculture. If you are brought up to believe that stealing is fine in many situations that the dominant culture finds criminal, or that killing someone for revenge is a moral duty, not a mortal sin, then it is the strength of your conformity that is the problem! Examples might include crime "families," urban gangs, and groups like the klan.
There are also people who define themselves negatively, that is, as whatever other people are not. This is anticonformity again, and may account for a great deal of purely destructive behavior such as vandalism. Some groups make anticonformity a part of their norms, so that throwing beer cans on people's lawns or spray painting your name everywhere or knocking over grave stones becomes “the thing to do."
The problems created by criminal subcultures and anticonformity can be made worse by the alienation that many of the people involved feel. If there is no place for urban youth to fit in, for example, their need for identity and belonging will make their commitment to the criminal subculture and the desire to strike out against the mainstream culture all the stronger. Note, for example, the increase in neo-Nazi or skinhead activity in Germany as unemployment and the influx of immigrant labor increased. Especially dangerous are those individuals whose weak personalities make them particularly desperate for membership and recognition from any source!
Self-actualizers
Some people who are different are mentally ill or criminals. Most people who are different are just conforming to different sets of norms -- i.e. they aren't "non-conformists" at all! But a few people are truly independent of conformity pressures and use their freedom for the good. The term that has become popular for these people is self-actualizers.
Abe Maslow believed that, when you are no longer pushed around by your physical needs, by your fears, by your social anxieties, or by your inferiority complexes, you are essentially free to do what you want to do -- you are free to "be all that you can be." You are a self-actualizer.
Maslow reviewed the lives of a number of people he felt were prime examples of self-actualizers, including some famous people such as Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt. He ended up with a list of characteristics these people seemed to have in common. I'm not going to give them all, but a number of them are quite significant to the idea of non-conformity at its best.
Self-actualizers strive for (1) autonomy and independence, and they (2) resist enculturation, that is, the social pressures most of us can't seem to resist. They are not impressed by authority or fashion. Instead, they rely on themselves, their values, conscience, reason, and experience.
They have (3) democratic values, meaning that they are open to and comfortable with cultural and individual variety. But they are not just tolerant, they are actually drawn towards variety. And they are more (4) accepting of others and themselves, as they are rather than as anyone says they should be.
More subtle indications of their non-conformity are their preferences for (5) spontaneity over the contrived or the calculated, and (6) simplicity over pretense and artificiality. They have the ability to (7) appreciate things that others take for granted, and a capacity for (8) creativity that allows them to rise above the mundane. All this doesn't mean we are dealing with someone flamboyant, however, or with radical non-conformists: Their love of simplicity often means that they appear rather ordinary on the surface, and their ability to accept self and others often means accepting much of the social order as it is.
But non-conformity is not, by any means, the only quality of the self-actualizer: They also enjoy warm (9) intimate relations with a few friends, and have a great capacity for (10) Gemeinschaftsgefühl -- social concern. In fact, running parallel to the element of non-conformity in their personalities is an even more important element of compassion.
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Copyright 1999, C. George Boeree
Dr. C. George Boeree