WEBVTT 00:00:00.530 --> 00:00:02.960 The following content is provided under a Creative 00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:04.370 Commons license. 00:00:04.370 --> 00:00:07.410 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue to 00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:11.060 offer high quality educational resources for free. 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.960 To make a donation or view additional materials from 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:19.790 hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare at 00:00:19.790 --> 00:00:21.040 ocw.mit.edu. 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.090 PROFESSOR: OK, so up until now in many ways we've thought 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:40.610 about people as individuals-- 00:00:40.610 --> 00:00:44.360 how they see, how they remember, their personality, 00:00:44.360 --> 00:00:48.810 things you can measure by IQ tests, if they have 00:00:48.810 --> 00:00:50.000 psychopathology or not. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.540 We've primarily focused on people as an individual agents 00:00:53.540 --> 00:00:54.590 in the world. 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:56.370 And for this lecture and for the next lecture, we're going 00:00:56.370 --> 00:00:59.780 to flip over and think about people as they interact with 00:00:59.780 --> 00:01:00.840 other people. 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:04.890 And all the way back from 1962, here's an example-- 00:01:04.890 --> 00:01:08.000 and you know so much from your life-- 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.820 of how powerfully we're influenced by other people in 00:01:11.820 --> 00:01:12.990 our behaviors. 00:01:12.990 --> 00:01:16.810 So this is a story of elevator rules. 00:01:16.810 --> 00:01:18.080 You guys know elevator rules, right? 00:01:18.080 --> 00:01:21.040 You get in an elevator, what are you supposed to be so you 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:23.050 don't make other people uncomfortable or where they 00:01:23.050 --> 00:01:23.930 don't make you? 00:01:23.930 --> 00:01:24.120 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 00:01:24.120 --> 00:01:25.560 PROFESSOR: Yeah, which way you're facing. 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:27.300 Not too close in space. 00:01:27.300 --> 00:01:29.450 If there's only two of you and the person huddles right next 00:01:29.450 --> 00:01:30.880 to you, you go, hmm. 00:01:30.880 --> 00:01:32.950 OK. 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:34.330 So anyway here we go. 00:01:41.940 --> 00:01:45.430 So I was a graduate student in brain and cognitive science 00:01:45.430 --> 00:01:47.600 and I got minimally exposed to social psychology. 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:48.860 I was actually a teaching assistant. 00:01:48.860 --> 00:01:50.930 I must have heard something about it. 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:52.830 But it wasn't until I was teaching at Stanford which is 00:01:52.830 --> 00:01:56.140 full of famous social psychologists and I was 00:01:56.140 --> 00:01:57.800 hearing them give their introductory psychology 00:01:57.800 --> 00:02:01.770 lectures that I got amazed by what social psychologists have 00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:03.720 discovered about human nature. 00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:06.550 And maybe because I was exposed to it in one shot, it 00:02:06.550 --> 00:02:09.789 really changed for me personally how I try to think 00:02:09.789 --> 00:02:11.240 about people from that day forward. 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:13.160 So let's see if it does it for you. 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:16.290 And in many ways, we're going to do today the core, core 00:02:16.290 --> 00:02:18.450 famous, most famous things in psychology-- 00:02:18.450 --> 00:02:22.610 that the Stanford Zimbardo prison experiment, the Milgram 00:02:22.610 --> 00:02:24.120 obedience experiment. 00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:27.170 And a theme you'll see is how funny we are as humans in our 00:02:27.170 --> 00:02:29.460 desire to want to fit in. 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:30.860 So what is social psychology? 00:02:30.860 --> 00:02:32.840 The scientific study of the way in which our thoughts, 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:35.460 feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:37.130 imagined presence of other people. 00:02:37.130 --> 00:02:39.330 So it's how we relate to other people. 00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:43.560 And to a certain extent, if you compare it to things like 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:48.290 linguistics or other aspects of psychology, social things 00:02:48.290 --> 00:02:50.670 have seems weakish. 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:54.040 But people have been thinking in the last decade, more and 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:57.880 more, that maybe many things that make humans humans have 00:02:57.880 --> 00:03:01.030 been pulled by powerful social relations that occur 00:03:01.030 --> 00:03:02.450 in groups of humans. 00:03:02.450 --> 00:03:04.920 And so for example, looking across primate species-- 00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:06.110 just across primates-- 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.800 here is the average size of the social group. 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:10.610 Here's the average size of the neocortex. 00:03:10.610 --> 00:03:12.830 And it's a pretty good fit. 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:15.280 And so you could think back in the course of examples. 00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:18.140 For example, the infant who's willing to crawl across a 00:03:18.140 --> 00:03:22.450 dangerous visual cliff if the mother has a positive facial 00:03:22.450 --> 00:03:23.840 expression. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:28.900 Risking injury, or worse, because you have a social 00:03:28.900 --> 00:03:30.340 queue that says it's OK. 00:03:30.340 --> 00:03:32.720 And you're just an infant interpreting that. 00:03:32.720 --> 00:03:35.330 So more and more, the thought that many of the abilities we 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:38.450 have, how we work together, how we communicate together, 00:03:38.450 --> 00:03:42.910 are driven by our fundamental social character. 00:03:42.910 --> 00:03:46.760 And so we'll talk today about the power of the situation. 00:03:46.760 --> 00:03:50.460 This is a big idea in social psychology is that people's 00:03:50.460 --> 00:03:53.950 behavior can be phenomenally altered by the situation 00:03:53.950 --> 00:03:55.670 they're in. 00:03:55.670 --> 00:03:57.120 And we'll talk about attribution-- 00:03:57.120 --> 00:04:01.800 how we decide whether a person behaves a certain way because 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:04.620 of their character or the situation they're in-- 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:08.250 the fundamental attribution error, conformity, compliance, 00:04:08.250 --> 00:04:10.510 obedience, and bystanders. 00:04:10.510 --> 00:04:13.510 There are so many experiments here that amaze me and that 00:04:13.510 --> 00:04:15.730 are still completely relevant today, and I'll 00:04:15.730 --> 00:04:16.930 convince you of that. 00:04:16.930 --> 00:04:20.000 So I think we engage in all the time as humans as 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.570 interpreting the actions and words of others. 00:04:22.570 --> 00:04:24.700 Why did somebody do something. 00:04:24.700 --> 00:04:24.890 Right? 00:04:24.890 --> 00:04:27.570 That fills our lives-- our families, our teachers, our 00:04:27.570 --> 00:04:28.620 friends, or coworkers-- 00:04:28.620 --> 00:04:31.190 why did somebody do something or say something. 00:04:31.190 --> 00:04:35.170 Why is that person looking at me friendly across the room? 00:04:35.170 --> 00:04:38.060 So the causal attribution-- 00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:40.080 what is driving that person's thoughts? 00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:41.760 What's in their mind that's making them 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:43.320 to behave that way? 00:04:43.320 --> 00:04:48.040 And there's at least two kinds of the explanations. 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:49.330 One of them is character. 00:04:49.330 --> 00:04:51.250 So personality psychology is all about that. 00:04:51.250 --> 00:04:53.500 The character of the person is making them behave that way 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:54.910 because they're outgoing or because 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:56.800 they're shy or whatever. 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.030 So Jeremiah helps the elderly person across the street 00:04:59.030 --> 00:05:00.950 because he's a really nice guy. 00:05:00.950 --> 00:05:03.060 Sven had a hard time solving the puzzle because he's kind 00:05:03.060 --> 00:05:04.460 of a dummy. 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:05.500 Tamae gave money to the boy. 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:07.140 Boy is she nice and generous. 00:05:07.140 --> 00:05:12.000 That's the personality predisposition interpretation. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:15.130 So that's the who she is or he is. 00:05:15.130 --> 00:05:17.500 Or they're behaving that way because they're in a 00:05:17.500 --> 00:05:20.090 particular situation. 00:05:20.090 --> 00:05:23.310 So Jeremiah helped the elderly man across the street because 00:05:23.310 --> 00:05:26.020 his friends are breaking in to the apartment the guy's 00:05:26.020 --> 00:05:27.320 leaving behind. 00:05:27.320 --> 00:05:28.890 Or there's another person there and he's trying to 00:05:28.890 --> 00:05:31.850 impress that person what a swell guy he is. 00:05:31.850 --> 00:05:34.080 Sven had a hard time solving the puzzle because it was an 00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:36.480 impossible puzzle. 00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:38.180 He didn't get nearly enough sleep-- 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:39.490 the situation. 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:45.620 She gave money to the boy because he's the drug dealer. 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:47.040 He's a courier running-- 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:47.550 whatever. 00:05:47.550 --> 00:05:48.880 It's the situation, OK? 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:51.760 So you pick it, but all of a sudden the interpretation 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:53.520 completely changes as to what's going on. 00:05:53.520 --> 00:05:55.730 It's about character versus situation. 00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:58.440 So where does the behavior come from-- 00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:00.670 the dispositions of an individual or the situation 00:06:00.670 --> 00:06:01.920 they're in? 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.270 Personality psychologists focus on this. 00:06:04.270 --> 00:06:06.920 Social psychologists focus on this. 00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:10.040 And they will argue that this dominates everything. 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:12.300 This dominates everything. 00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:14.740 Not the only thing, but it dominates everything. 00:06:14.740 --> 00:06:17.970 So let's consider them in one other way. 00:06:17.970 --> 00:06:22.090 So let's say that you are late for an appointment with me. 00:06:22.090 --> 00:06:24.480 So what do I start to think as I'm sitting there waiting for 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:28.200 you and you don't email me, you don't call me. 00:06:28.200 --> 00:06:30.720 You might think, well, this person is a bit inconsiderate, 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:32.820 a bit disorganized, a bit unmotivated. 00:06:32.820 --> 00:06:35.390 It would not be a good idea, for example, to show up for 00:06:35.390 --> 00:06:37.940 job interview late for your appointment, right? 00:06:37.940 --> 00:06:38.370 Why? 00:06:38.370 --> 00:06:41.020 Because we don't want them to think we're disorganized, 00:06:41.020 --> 00:06:44.380 inconsiderate, or unmotivated until we're hired. 00:06:44.380 --> 00:06:46.410 So that's the other person. 00:06:46.410 --> 00:06:47.700 Like why aren't they here? 00:06:47.700 --> 00:06:49.210 They're messing up, and there's something not good 00:06:49.210 --> 00:06:50.690 about their character. 00:06:50.690 --> 00:06:52.920 But imagine when you're late. 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:53.790 Why are you late? 00:06:53.790 --> 00:06:55.750 Because you're disorganized, inconsiderate, and 00:06:55.750 --> 00:06:57.380 unmotivated? 00:06:57.380 --> 00:06:59.100 No, because something came up. 00:06:59.100 --> 00:07:00.930 The situation, right? 00:07:00.930 --> 00:07:04.470 The traffic was worse than you could have imagined. 00:07:04.470 --> 00:07:07.020 Last minute, there was an email that you have to respond 00:07:07.020 --> 00:07:08.670 to or your parent called or whatever. 00:07:08.670 --> 00:07:10.560 Some situation made you late. 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.230 And what I'm going to show you in a moment is that a very 00:07:13.230 --> 00:07:15.070 fundamental thing about people-- in fact, called the 00:07:15.070 --> 00:07:17.390 fundamental attribution error-- 00:07:17.390 --> 00:07:19.840 is that we're biased to interpret the actions of 00:07:19.840 --> 00:07:23.800 others as revealing their character, whereas we're 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:27.950 biased to interpret our own actions as being driven by the 00:07:27.950 --> 00:07:31.380 situation we're in. 00:07:31.380 --> 00:07:34.870 So Lee Ross was the one who came up with this term, the 00:07:34.870 --> 00:07:36.450 fundamental attribution error. 00:07:36.450 --> 00:07:40.230 The other person is driven by character and that's how we 00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:41.900 interpret why they do things. 00:07:41.900 --> 00:07:45.180 We give ourselves a break by the situation. 00:07:45.180 --> 00:07:47.500 And so what they did is, they ran experiments where they 00:07:47.500 --> 00:07:49.830 wanted to make it incredibly clear to Stanford 00:07:49.830 --> 00:07:53.710 undergraduate research participants, incredibly clear 00:07:53.710 --> 00:07:55.910 that the situation was dominant. 00:07:55.910 --> 00:07:58.440 And show that even then, even when you know for certain it's 00:07:58.440 --> 00:08:01.620 the situation, and you know as much as you can possibly know, 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.910 you tend to ascribe character to people. 00:08:04.910 --> 00:08:05.690 OK? 00:08:05.690 --> 00:08:08.150 So they had students run in pairs. 00:08:08.150 --> 00:08:10.700 And they were truly randomly selected to be a quiz master 00:08:10.700 --> 00:08:11.980 or a contestant. 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:13.190 Two students at a time. 00:08:13.190 --> 00:08:16.200 The quiz master comes up with questions and the contestant 00:08:16.200 --> 00:08:17.610 has to answer. 00:08:17.610 --> 00:08:20.360 So they can answer who were the two inventors of calculus. 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.470 And you know the answer might be-- 00:08:23.470 --> 00:08:25.180 and probably you could argue some things 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:26.720 about those, right? 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:28.710 But look, you know this as students-- 00:08:28.710 --> 00:08:30.695 it's sort of unfair that we get to ask you the questions. 00:08:30.695 --> 00:08:33.809 So I get to ask you something like what's the structure just 00:08:33.809 --> 00:08:35.360 in front of the hippocampus that's important 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:36.950 for emotional memory? 00:08:36.950 --> 00:08:40.064 And you might answer, oh no, oh no. 00:08:40.064 --> 00:08:41.429 [LAUGHS] 00:08:41.429 --> 00:08:42.390 That was on the previous test. 00:08:42.390 --> 00:08:43.400 It's not cumulative. 00:08:43.400 --> 00:08:45.940 [LAUGHS] 00:08:45.940 --> 00:08:47.900 and I go, it's the amygdala. 00:08:47.900 --> 00:08:49.620 And I've worked in that field for 30 years and I feel pretty 00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:51.360 proud of knowing that little fact. 00:08:51.360 --> 00:08:56.380 Now, I need a student hand to go up? 00:08:56.380 --> 00:08:56.960 OK. 00:08:56.960 --> 00:08:58.530 Now you asked me a question that you think I might 00:08:58.530 --> 00:08:59.830 struggle on. 00:08:59.830 --> 00:09:02.820 And believe me, there's an infinite number outside the 00:09:02.820 --> 00:09:04.170 location of the amygdala. 00:09:04.170 --> 00:09:07.580 Pick one from physics or math or chemistry. 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:08.990 You're going to embarrass me. 00:09:08.990 --> 00:09:10.770 Make it really hard so I don't look so bad. 00:09:10.770 --> 00:09:13.902 AUDIENCE: There was a football match 00:09:13.902 --> 00:09:15.000 this weekend in England-- 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:15.980 PROFESSOR: There's what, sorry? 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:17.800 AUDIENCE: A football match this weekend in England. 00:09:17.800 --> 00:09:18.940 PROFESSOR: A football match this weekend in England. 00:09:18.940 --> 00:09:19.915 AUDIENCE: Between two of the top of teams 00:09:19.915 --> 00:09:21.030 in the Premier League. 00:09:21.030 --> 00:09:21.840 Who won? 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:23.090 PROFESSOR: Manchester? 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:23.830 No? 00:09:23.830 --> 00:09:25.170 OK, I just made that up. 00:09:25.170 --> 00:09:25.910 No, I don't know. 00:09:25.910 --> 00:09:26.650 So here's the point. 00:09:26.650 --> 00:09:29.020 If I ask questions, I know the answer. 00:09:29.020 --> 00:09:30.550 I picked the question, right? 00:09:30.550 --> 00:09:32.590 And you may or may not know it. 00:09:32.590 --> 00:09:35.610 If you create the question, there's a pretty good chance I 00:09:35.610 --> 00:09:36.880 won't know it. 00:09:36.880 --> 00:09:40.240 OK, so inherently when somebody is the quiz master, 00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:42.160 they're going to know the answer and the other person 00:09:42.160 --> 00:09:42.860 may or may not it. 00:09:42.860 --> 00:09:44.150 A pretty good chance they don't as 00:09:44.150 --> 00:09:44.870 they make up questions. 00:09:44.870 --> 00:09:45.830 You know that. 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:47.570 Logically you know that. 00:09:47.570 --> 00:09:50.500 So the setup was-- 00:09:50.500 --> 00:09:52.840 and the students were only correct 40% of the time-- not 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:55.270 bad-- who were answering the questions spontaneously made 00:09:55.270 --> 00:09:57.700 up by the randomly selected quiz master. 00:09:57.700 --> 00:09:59.570 So this is an experiment-- 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:01.950 knowing this, does it tell you anything about the knowledge 00:10:01.950 --> 00:10:02.580 or intelligence-- 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:04.810 let's call it, just an easy label-- 00:10:04.810 --> 00:10:06.950 of the person asking the questions or the person 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:08.960 answering the questions? 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:09.140 No. 00:10:09.140 --> 00:10:10.110 Does that make sense? 00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:12.710 They were randomly put into positions where one person 00:10:12.710 --> 00:10:14.010 gets to ask and one answers. 00:10:14.010 --> 00:10:18.060 Yet even seeing all this right in front of them, then 00:10:18.060 --> 00:10:21.610 students were asked, compared to a person in general, to the 00:10:21.610 --> 00:10:25.380 average student, are the people up there, the quizzer 00:10:25.380 --> 00:10:28.800 and the receiver, are they less knowledgeable, about 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:31.200 average, or more knowledgeable than the average other 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:32.470 Stanford student? 00:10:32.470 --> 00:10:35.550 And in a pure scientific sense you should say I have no idea. 00:10:35.550 --> 00:10:37.410 Because you created a situation where one person had 00:10:37.410 --> 00:10:39.910 a hopeless advantage compared to the other. 00:10:39.910 --> 00:10:40.760 You told me you were doing that. 00:10:40.760 --> 00:10:41.670 I saw you do that. 00:10:41.670 --> 00:10:43.670 But human beings can help us say-- including the 00:10:43.670 --> 00:10:46.430 contestants say, I guess I'm a bit dumb, but that other 00:10:46.430 --> 00:10:47.900 person was really smart. 00:10:47.900 --> 00:10:51.450 The one who knew about the soccer match in England and 00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:53.040 other questions. 00:10:53.040 --> 00:10:55.760 Or the other person observing-- 00:10:55.760 --> 00:10:58.090 that quiz master seems to know a lot, that student. 00:10:58.090 --> 00:10:59.540 And this other one-- the one who was answering the 00:10:59.540 --> 00:11:01.180 questions-- 00:11:01.180 --> 00:11:03.540 not quite an average MIT student. 00:11:03.540 --> 00:11:04.510 All right? 00:11:04.510 --> 00:11:08.240 Because people can't help but say if I see behavior, it's 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.200 because of the content of your character-- 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:12.170 smarter or dumber in this case. 00:11:12.170 --> 00:11:16.970 Even though I know logically, your mind goes to that 00:11:16.970 --> 00:11:19.940 analysis of behavior in others by their character or 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:21.320 disposition. 00:11:21.320 --> 00:11:22.750 Here's another one. 00:11:22.750 --> 00:11:26.860 Participants read essays that were in favor of Castro, who 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:29.900 is the leader of Cuba, or against Castro. 00:11:29.900 --> 00:11:32.510 In the US, we're mostly against Castro. 00:11:32.510 --> 00:11:34.510 The opinions expressed in the essays were presented as 00:11:34.510 --> 00:11:35.190 either chosen-- 00:11:35.190 --> 00:11:36.980 so the person could choose to speak what 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:37.930 they want to speak-- 00:11:37.930 --> 00:11:40.450 or they were assigned by the experimenter. 00:11:40.450 --> 00:11:43.150 So you were asked, please give a pro-Castro speech or please 00:11:43.150 --> 00:11:44.830 give an anti-Castro speech. 00:11:44.830 --> 00:11:46.490 That's your job here. 00:11:46.490 --> 00:11:50.000 And then the people listening said, OK, what do they really 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:51.140 think about Castro? 00:11:51.140 --> 00:11:52.160 What do they really think? 00:11:52.160 --> 00:11:54.670 OK, even in a situation where you're told they're going to 00:11:54.670 --> 00:11:55.720 be assigned that. 00:11:55.720 --> 00:11:57.990 So what happens? 00:11:57.990 --> 00:12:02.490 Here's how much they believe that the essay writer was 00:12:02.490 --> 00:12:07.030 pro-Castro or anti-Castro in the case where they 00:12:07.030 --> 00:12:08.540 chose what to do. 00:12:08.540 --> 00:12:10.990 But when they were given the assignment, and now you know 00:12:10.990 --> 00:12:13.440 it's really truly random, it's not quite as much as this, but 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:16.860 they still believed that if you write a pro-Castro essay, 00:12:16.860 --> 00:12:19.790 even though you're told the person was assigned that 00:12:19.790 --> 00:12:23.560 essay, as you read it you go, this person seems to really 00:12:23.560 --> 00:12:24.860 believe it. 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:26.570 I think they're really for it because that's their 00:12:26.570 --> 00:12:27.540 predisposition. 00:12:27.540 --> 00:12:30.370 You're told fully this is a situation that's assigned, but 00:12:30.370 --> 00:12:33.300 humans can't help but think, I see through this a little bit. 00:12:33.300 --> 00:12:35.850 And that essay is just a little too well written, a 00:12:35.850 --> 00:12:38.610 little too convincing, for a person just to be randomly 00:12:38.610 --> 00:12:39.760 writing it. 00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:42.495 So humans, even when you give them all the information, that 00:12:42.495 --> 00:12:46.130 it's 100% situational, they can't help but interpret 00:12:46.130 --> 00:12:49.420 things as being built out of character or predisposition in 00:12:49.420 --> 00:12:50.920 that person. 00:12:50.920 --> 00:12:53.960 So people have also thought to this idea of understanding 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:56.880 another person's behavior in terms of their predispositions 00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:59.010 versus the situation. 00:12:59.010 --> 00:13:01.020 That the disposition on one is made automatically, 00:13:01.020 --> 00:13:02.290 reflexively. 00:13:02.290 --> 00:13:04.350 That the situational information sort of follows in 00:13:04.350 --> 00:13:06.420 a controlled, slow, thoughtful way the 00:13:06.420 --> 00:13:07.890 takes energy to correct. 00:13:07.890 --> 00:13:12.470 That humans on the whole first interpret automatically, 00:13:12.470 --> 00:13:15.770 reflexively, the behavior of others as their character. 00:13:15.770 --> 00:13:19.380 And then second, optionally, can correct it thinking about 00:13:19.380 --> 00:13:21.150 the situation. 00:13:21.150 --> 00:13:25.630 So the idea is you see something, you immediately 00:13:25.630 --> 00:13:27.820 decide what the person's character is. 00:13:27.820 --> 00:13:31.360 And then maybe, maybe, we'll slowly, effort-fully and 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:33.850 consciously, think about what the situation 00:13:33.850 --> 00:13:35.040 is that led to that. 00:13:35.040 --> 00:13:37.540 So these are automatic, and this is controlled, 00:13:37.540 --> 00:13:38.580 thoughtful, and deliberative. 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:39.510 So it may not happen. 00:13:39.510 --> 00:13:41.630 So the people to show this-- and it's a slightly 00:13:41.630 --> 00:13:43.230 complicated experiment, but let me show you how. 00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:47.620 They wanted to prove that thinking about the situation 00:13:47.620 --> 00:13:51.490 demands a lot of extra mental resources to overcome the 00:13:51.490 --> 00:13:53.110 initial interpretation. 00:13:53.110 --> 00:13:55.330 So they had participants watched silent video clips. 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:56.730 They said it was silent because they wanted to 00:13:56.730 --> 00:14:00.040 preserve the privacy of the woman who was being videotaped 00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:01.470 having a discussion with a stranger. 00:14:01.470 --> 00:14:03.030 You just see the woman. 00:14:03.030 --> 00:14:04.680 And she looked extremely anxious in some 00:14:04.680 --> 00:14:06.640 clips and not others. 00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:10.270 The task is we want you to rate how anxious is this 00:14:10.270 --> 00:14:11.110 person basically. 00:14:11.110 --> 00:14:14.000 Rate your impression in terms of their character. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.580 Are they an anxious type of person? 00:14:16.580 --> 00:14:18.550 Some of the research people who were the subjects were 00:14:18.550 --> 00:14:22.530 told the target was discussing what the topics were. 00:14:22.530 --> 00:14:24.550 And then they also did one other thing which was some of 00:14:24.550 --> 00:14:27.360 the people we're asked to just watch and rate. 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:29.620 And other people were told, not only do you watch and 00:14:29.620 --> 00:14:32.550 rate, but we're going to test your memory for the content of 00:14:32.550 --> 00:14:33.860 what she said. 00:14:33.860 --> 00:14:34.870 Because of that, they're trying to 00:14:34.870 --> 00:14:36.520 memorize what they hear. 00:14:36.520 --> 00:14:38.640 And the idea is that your filling up their attention 00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:41.560 with what they're memorizing, they can't make the 00:14:41.560 --> 00:14:42.272 correction. 00:14:42.272 --> 00:14:44.350 They're out of mental resources to make the 00:14:44.350 --> 00:14:46.810 situational correction. 00:14:46.810 --> 00:14:48.470 So you're watching these films on anxious 00:14:48.470 --> 00:14:51.060 topics or relaxing topics. 00:14:51.060 --> 00:14:55.470 So the relaxing topics might be these things-- tell me 00:14:55.470 --> 00:14:57.640 about a foreign film you like or a favorite hobby. 00:14:57.640 --> 00:15:00.500 Or speak about your worst public humiliation, a sexual 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:03.360 fantasy you have, a personal failure you had. 00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:06.320 And of course, these things in red, you could expect a person 00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:08.230 talking about that to see more anxious. 00:15:08.230 --> 00:15:10.520 Those are personal, anxiety provoking topics, OK? 00:15:14.170 --> 00:15:15.620 So here's what happens. 00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:17.340 So again, the topics were either anxiety 00:15:17.340 --> 00:15:18.600 provoking or not. 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:21.270 And you were either just watching the film or 00:15:21.270 --> 00:15:23.920 memorizing what you were hearing as well. 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:27.240 And the hypothesis is that this would happen. 00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:30.800 So if you were doing one task and you were told 00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:32.080 what the topic is-- 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.730 it has a relaxing topic or an anxious topic-- 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:39.350 you could separate out what the task is versus the person. 00:15:39.350 --> 00:15:43.430 But if you were trying to memorize simultaneously what 00:15:43.430 --> 00:15:47.510 the content of the film was, that difference disappears. 00:15:47.510 --> 00:15:49.070 The rating is identical. 00:15:49.070 --> 00:15:51.610 The people are not taking into account the topic that's being 00:15:51.610 --> 00:15:54.110 talked about. 00:15:54.110 --> 00:15:57.180 Because they're memorizing, their mind is occupied with 00:15:57.180 --> 00:16:00.080 the content of the scene. 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:04.300 And they're not able to sort of correct the intuitive, 00:16:04.300 --> 00:16:08.880 automatic, reflexive, habitual interpretation of a person's 00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:10.370 actions based on their character. 00:16:14.810 --> 00:16:20.120 So in the news today, as if it were organized for our course, 00:16:20.120 --> 00:16:22.560 there's a fantastic debate about what pictures to release 00:16:22.560 --> 00:16:25.370 or not release from what? 00:16:25.370 --> 00:16:27.760 Yeah, the killing of Osama bin Laden. 00:16:27.760 --> 00:16:30.160 A huge debate going on about whether it should 00:16:30.160 --> 00:16:31.840 be released or not. 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:34.400 That's gotten the public attention. 00:16:34.400 --> 00:16:36.940 One of the biggest reasons why among several, but a big 00:16:36.940 --> 00:16:39.060 reason why there's such a huge debate is another set of 00:16:39.060 --> 00:16:41.260 pictures some years ago from Abu Ghraib prison. 00:16:41.260 --> 00:16:44.070 I'm going to show you those pictures and the consequences 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:46.260 that were felt to follow from the release. 00:16:46.260 --> 00:16:48.280 So this is one of the soldiers who was there, Private Lynndie 00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:50.330 England, who was said to have participated in maltreating 00:16:50.330 --> 00:16:52.960 and torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.860 So you know, when the United States went into Iraq, they 00:16:55.860 --> 00:16:58.590 very much had the thought that they were liberating the 00:16:58.590 --> 00:17:02.530 country from tyranny, which in some sense everybody agrees I 00:17:02.530 --> 00:17:03.130 think just about. 00:17:03.130 --> 00:17:04.990 They were in some sense. 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:08.359 But one of the goals was to convince the population of 00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:11.150 Iraq that the United States was not there to occupy and 00:17:11.150 --> 00:17:14.380 take over but to liberate and free the people of Iraq. 00:17:14.380 --> 00:17:16.859 That was a big message the United States wanted to send 00:17:16.859 --> 00:17:19.470 to the world and to the Iraqis, right? 00:17:19.470 --> 00:17:22.410 Regardless of whatever else you know or believe or have 00:17:22.410 --> 00:17:24.839 political opinion, that was a message the United States 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:25.950 wanted to send to everybody. 00:17:25.950 --> 00:17:27.470 That was huge for them to do. 00:17:27.470 --> 00:17:32.020 That they were there to help free Iraqi citizens not to 00:17:32.020 --> 00:17:34.300 occupy and take over Iraq. 00:17:34.300 --> 00:17:39.980 So imagine when these pictures came out, a very large prison 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:42.200 that was run by Americans in Iraq-- 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:47.060 and these pictures were put on the internet-- of various, 00:17:47.060 --> 00:17:50.880 what looked like and probably were, torturous situations. 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:54.290 Here's an Iraqi person with this hood on their head with 00:17:54.290 --> 00:17:57.830 wires connected to the body. 00:17:57.830 --> 00:18:01.370 Here is that soldier holding a leash, and here's a prisoner 00:18:01.370 --> 00:18:04.600 on the leash. 00:18:04.600 --> 00:18:09.050 Here's a smiling picture with her and another soldier. 00:18:09.050 --> 00:18:13.075 There's a pyramid of naked prisoners piled up, one on top 00:18:13.075 --> 00:18:15.060 of the other in a humiliating position. 00:18:15.060 --> 00:18:18.260 Here's another picture of her, thumbs up, pointing at hooded, 00:18:18.260 --> 00:18:21.840 naked prisoners' genitals. 00:18:21.840 --> 00:18:25.830 OK, and then she was tried in court for these things. 00:18:25.830 --> 00:18:27.550 It was devastating for the United States. 00:18:27.550 --> 00:18:28.690 These pictures were devastating for the United 00:18:28.690 --> 00:18:31.700 States because they were exactly the opposite of the 00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:34.590 picture the US wanted to present, which is one of 00:18:34.590 --> 00:18:37.860 liberation and friendliness and democracy and freedom. 00:18:37.860 --> 00:18:43.050 And here's tyranny, brutality, and prison torture. 00:18:43.050 --> 00:18:48.670 And it figures hugely in the mind of people in Washington 00:18:48.670 --> 00:18:50.070 now as they're debating about these pictures. 00:18:50.070 --> 00:18:51.150 And for the moment, they decided not 00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:52.320 to release any picture. 00:18:52.320 --> 00:18:54.925 The power of these pictures as they floated around to inflame 00:18:54.925 --> 00:18:57.185 and incite arguments. 00:18:57.185 --> 00:18:59.920 And so here two ways you could do it from the viewpoint of 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:00.740 social psychology. 00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:02.160 The disposition attribution. 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:05.760 You imagine you're a juror where she's being tried. 00:19:05.760 --> 00:19:07.550 So the accused knew what she was doing. 00:19:07.550 --> 00:19:08.610 She was laughing and joking. 00:19:08.610 --> 00:19:11.450 She is enjoying participating, all for her own sick humor. 00:19:11.450 --> 00:19:12.670 So here's the crime. 00:19:12.670 --> 00:19:14.990 You get angry and you're not very sympathetic because it's 00:19:14.990 --> 00:19:16.110 from controllable factors. 00:19:16.110 --> 00:19:17.520 She should've controlled herself. 00:19:17.520 --> 00:19:18.165 She's held responsible. 00:19:18.165 --> 00:19:20.450 She should get a severe punishment. 00:19:20.450 --> 00:19:21.820 Or you could ask-- 00:19:21.820 --> 00:19:24.880 and we'll come back to this at the end of the lecture-- 00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:27.870 were there uncontrollable factors well beyond what a 00:19:27.870 --> 00:19:30.710 person could be reasonably asked to control. 00:19:30.710 --> 00:19:32.260 Then you're not so angry at them if you think the 00:19:32.260 --> 00:19:34.010 situation was very problematic. 00:19:34.010 --> 00:19:38.890 For example, she had a boyfriend who was not only 00:19:38.890 --> 00:19:43.430 superior to her militarily, but also was the ring leader. 00:19:43.430 --> 00:19:44.190 She was a follower. 00:19:44.190 --> 00:19:45.980 She was an individual smitten. 00:19:45.980 --> 00:19:48.860 She did whatever he wanted her to do. 00:19:48.860 --> 00:19:52.010 Somewhat more sympathy, person not held responsible, and the 00:19:52.010 --> 00:19:54.740 punishment is more about rehabilitation than 00:19:54.740 --> 00:19:56.010 punishment. 00:19:56.010 --> 00:19:58.070 So those would be two approaches. 00:19:58.070 --> 00:20:00.720 She was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and four 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:02.280 counts of maltreating detainees, one count of 00:20:02.280 --> 00:20:03.180 committing an indecent act. 00:20:03.180 --> 00:20:04.910 She was acquitted on a conspiracy count. 00:20:04.910 --> 00:20:06.690 So I'm going to come back to this in a little bit after we 00:20:06.690 --> 00:20:09.600 talk about the Stanford prison experiment and ask you your 00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:12.450 thoughts about this individual from the information you have. 00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:18.540 So we'll come back to that in a little bit, thinking about 00:20:18.540 --> 00:20:21.490 what is a person responsible for versus the situation. 00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:23.340 So let's start to talk about social influence, which is 00:20:23.340 --> 00:20:25.390 again a change in a person's behavior or beliefs in 00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:27.790 response to the intentional or unintentional 00:20:27.790 --> 00:20:29.730 influences of others. 00:20:29.730 --> 00:20:30.820 And we'll talk about three kinds. 00:20:30.820 --> 00:20:33.560 Conformity, which is changing your behavior or beliefs in 00:20:33.560 --> 00:20:35.850 response to explicit or implicit pressure from others. 00:20:35.850 --> 00:20:38.170 That's the person turning in the elevator. 00:20:38.170 --> 00:20:41.170 Compliance, changing one's behavior to avoid conflict. 00:20:41.170 --> 00:20:45.250 And obedience, which is following the demands of more 00:20:45.250 --> 00:20:48.130 powerful people or organizations. 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:49.310 So conformity. 00:20:49.310 --> 00:20:52.100 I mean, conformity sounds like a bad word, but we conform to 00:20:52.100 --> 00:20:54.100 implicit and explicit social rules. 00:20:54.100 --> 00:20:57.100 It's pretty useful for social groups operating. 00:20:57.100 --> 00:20:59.650 If everybody here was talking and walking in and out and 00:20:59.650 --> 00:21:02.290 stuff like that, we couldn't have a class. 00:21:02.290 --> 00:21:04.650 I mean, if we didn't conform in some ways, we couldn't do 00:21:04.650 --> 00:21:07.390 very much that took more than one person to do. 00:21:07.390 --> 00:21:09.690 And it's seen across people and lifespans and cultures. 00:21:09.690 --> 00:21:15.530 It's how, in certain ways, we work together as people. 00:21:15.530 --> 00:21:18.150 Now the original experiment on this came from a very 00:21:18.150 --> 00:21:19.850 perceptual effect. 00:21:19.850 --> 00:21:22.560 Participants supported for study on visual perception-- 00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:23.990 Muzafer Sherif. 00:21:23.990 --> 00:21:25.930 They were seated in a dark room and saw point of light 00:21:25.930 --> 00:21:27.840 appear, then move, and then disappear. 00:21:27.840 --> 00:21:30.660 And they were asked to judge how far the light moved. 00:21:30.660 --> 00:21:33.410 This was based on a perceptual illusion. 00:21:33.410 --> 00:21:36.730 Because if you stare at a light in a totally dark room, 00:21:36.730 --> 00:21:39.550 you'll start to interpret it moving, even though it does 00:21:39.550 --> 00:21:41.660 not physically move. 00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:42.940 It has to be a blacked out room. 00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:44.440 You have to sit there for a while. 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:46.740 And then you start to get signals about movement that 00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:47.750 are incorrect. 00:21:47.750 --> 00:21:49.880 And this perceptual illusion that a dot is moving was 00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:51.800 called the autokinetic effect. 00:21:51.800 --> 00:21:52.300 And that's OK. 00:21:52.300 --> 00:21:53.900 You've see an amazing allusions, and that would be 00:21:53.900 --> 00:21:56.890 another amazing illusion of a single dot of light in a dark 00:21:56.890 --> 00:21:59.600 room, and you start to think it moves. 00:21:59.600 --> 00:22:01.550 But what the astounding thing was this-- 00:22:01.550 --> 00:22:04.820 here's three individuals who are tested and their rating of 00:22:04.820 --> 00:22:05.610 how much it moved. 00:22:05.610 --> 00:22:08.050 It didn't move, so there are some differences. 00:22:08.050 --> 00:22:10.600 Now the three of them are tested together on day two, 00:22:10.600 --> 00:22:12.200 day three, and day four. 00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:14.670 And you can see that these three different people start 00:22:14.670 --> 00:22:20.280 to converge on the identical, imagined illusory movement, as 00:22:20.280 --> 00:22:22.920 if the responses of the others were influencing one and 00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.430 another on such a simple thing. 00:22:25.430 --> 00:22:28.540 And then this experiment was made even more ridiculous by 00:22:28.540 --> 00:22:31.400 one of the most spectacular experiments just in the 00:22:31.400 --> 00:22:34.980 simplicity and power and replicability. 00:22:34.980 --> 00:22:36.870 So this is from Asch. 00:22:36.870 --> 00:22:40.180 Imagine that you walk into a room and your task is this-- 00:22:40.180 --> 00:22:41.790 now get ready because I'm going to ask for a 00:22:41.790 --> 00:22:44.360 volunteer right now. 00:22:44.360 --> 00:22:45.370 OK, thanks. 00:22:45.370 --> 00:22:47.505 Get ready, this is going to be pretty tough, OK? 00:22:47.505 --> 00:22:49.450 And everybody else will be nice to you because you 00:22:49.450 --> 00:22:50.860 volunteered. 00:22:50.860 --> 00:22:52.430 You see this line here? 00:22:52.430 --> 00:22:55.246 Which of these three lines has the same length? 00:22:55.246 --> 00:22:56.240 AUDIENCE: Number one. 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:56.860 PROFESSOR: Number one. 00:22:56.860 --> 00:22:58.175 That looks good to you? 00:22:58.175 --> 00:23:00.960 Does that look like a really tough thing? 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:01.570 No? 00:23:01.570 --> 00:23:02.130 OK, thanks. 00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:03.840 OK, I was being a little facetious. 00:23:03.840 --> 00:23:05.110 Thank you. 00:23:05.110 --> 00:23:06.860 But you have to understand, this is the gist of the 00:23:06.860 --> 00:23:07.540 experiment. 00:23:07.540 --> 00:23:11.250 Not such a tough thing, pretty obvious. 00:23:11.250 --> 00:23:12.330 Here's what they did. 00:23:12.330 --> 00:23:14.300 Now you are brought into a room and there were six 00:23:14.300 --> 00:23:14.850 confederates. 00:23:14.850 --> 00:23:17.150 So that's the word in social psychology that's used for 00:23:17.150 --> 00:23:19.260 people who are in on the experiment. 00:23:19.260 --> 00:23:19.460 OK? 00:23:19.460 --> 00:23:21.090 They're not really subjects. 00:23:21.090 --> 00:23:22.770 So you walk into a room. 00:23:22.770 --> 00:23:24.390 You don't know what's going on. 00:23:24.390 --> 00:23:26.800 There are six other students sitting there. 00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:28.630 And they do exactly what we did now. 00:23:28.630 --> 00:23:30.810 They show you a line like this and three other lines and say 00:23:30.810 --> 00:23:32.400 you pick it. 00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:33.940 The six other people go first. 00:23:33.940 --> 00:23:35.210 So you're sitting there-- imagine this. 00:23:35.210 --> 00:23:37.610 Imagine the first one says, one, you go, OK. 00:23:37.610 --> 00:23:40.960 Then somebody goes, eh, uh, two. 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:43.650 And you go, hm. 00:23:43.650 --> 00:23:46.800 The next person says, oh yeah, two. 00:23:46.800 --> 00:23:50.240 And by the time they get to you, four of the six have said 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:51.170 number two. 00:23:51.170 --> 00:23:52.670 What do you do? 00:23:52.670 --> 00:23:56.250 Now to an astounding extend what you do is this-- 00:23:56.250 --> 00:23:57.980 you also say two. 00:23:57.980 --> 00:23:59.410 OK, and it's not-- 00:23:59.410 --> 00:24:00.910 like you're saying, I'm just fitting in. 00:24:00.910 --> 00:24:03.130 When they show you the pictures, people are turning 00:24:03.130 --> 00:24:03.580 their head. 00:24:03.580 --> 00:24:04.450 Is there an angle? 00:24:04.450 --> 00:24:05.820 Is it the lighting? 00:24:05.820 --> 00:24:07.870 Why do I think it's number one when 00:24:07.870 --> 00:24:09.070 everybody else is pretty-- 00:24:09.070 --> 00:24:12.070 for such a simple thing, pretty much the same. 00:24:12.070 --> 00:24:14.470 So the confederates are not always wrong, but they're 00:24:14.470 --> 00:24:16.690 pretty often wrong, and in a consistent way. 00:24:16.690 --> 00:24:18.020 It's all set up. 00:24:18.020 --> 00:24:19.540 But you as an individual-- 00:24:19.540 --> 00:24:20.290 and here's one of these. 00:24:20.290 --> 00:24:22.840 You see this person like, OK, if I look hard enough, I'm 00:24:22.840 --> 00:24:23.360 going to figure it out. 00:24:23.360 --> 00:24:25.830 How did they figure out that line number one equals line 00:24:25.830 --> 00:24:27.450 number two? 00:24:27.450 --> 00:24:29.550 If you do it by yourself, less than 1% errors. 00:24:29.550 --> 00:24:31.770 Obviously, the only error you make is if you're not paying 00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:33.830 attention, right? 00:24:33.830 --> 00:24:37.820 With group pressure, not every single time, but all of a 00:24:37.820 --> 00:24:42.650 sudden, 37 times more often, you say it's the wrong the 00:24:42.650 --> 00:24:44.020 line length. 00:24:44.020 --> 00:24:46.860 And almost always, the impression is you really 00:24:46.860 --> 00:24:47.930 believe it. 00:24:47.930 --> 00:24:49.220 The people are really struggling. 00:24:49.220 --> 00:24:50.470 They're really hemming and hawing. 00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:58.950 Not everybody's the same, but only 25% give the correct 00:24:58.950 --> 00:25:00.260 answer throughout the experiment. 00:25:00.260 --> 00:25:04.340 75% of people at least once will give the obviously wrong 00:25:04.340 --> 00:25:07.890 answer because they feel that conformity. 00:25:07.890 --> 00:25:10.990 They need to respond to the other answers given by the 00:25:10.990 --> 00:25:12.950 other students around them. 00:25:12.950 --> 00:25:16.490 Such a simple thing as line length, we cannot help but 00:25:16.490 --> 00:25:20.930 want to fit in and figure out a way to do that. 00:25:20.930 --> 00:25:23.110 What effects this conformity? 00:25:23.110 --> 00:25:25.650 Well, the more confederates, the more powerful it is. 00:25:25.650 --> 00:25:27.910 That makes sense, right? 00:25:27.910 --> 00:25:29.590 So here's the group size effect. 00:25:29.590 --> 00:25:32.240 So if only one person is making it, you just figure 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:35.040 they're not too swift and you can get the line. 00:25:35.040 --> 00:25:36.430 Two people, you're already moving up. 00:25:36.430 --> 00:25:38.620 By the time you get to four people, you're 00:25:38.620 --> 00:25:39.620 all the way up there. 00:25:39.620 --> 00:25:41.650 4 to 15 is about the same. 00:25:41.650 --> 00:25:45.770 So four other people giving you obviously wrong answers, 00:25:45.770 --> 00:25:48.920 you decide there must be something interestingly going 00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:51.220 on and you could figure it like they did. 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:53.650 OK 00:25:53.650 --> 00:25:54.630 Presence of an ally. 00:25:54.630 --> 00:25:57.140 We'll come back to this a couple times. 00:25:57.140 --> 00:26:02.090 All it takes is one person to break the conformity and 00:26:02.090 --> 00:26:03.970 you're willing to break that, too. 00:26:03.970 --> 00:26:05.610 In these experiments, that's set up. 00:26:05.610 --> 00:26:08.340 The ally is one of the confederates who's now told to 00:26:08.340 --> 00:26:09.940 give the right length. 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:14.240 So one brave person can really change what you do, but it's 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:15.790 hard to be that brave person. 00:26:15.790 --> 00:26:18.060 These allies are set up by the experimenter. 00:26:18.060 --> 00:26:18.650 So what happens? 00:26:18.650 --> 00:26:19.570 Here you go. 00:26:19.570 --> 00:26:22.780 Here's the mistakes being made when all the other people are 00:26:22.780 --> 00:26:23.930 saying the wrong length. 00:26:23.930 --> 00:26:26.660 And if one person is giving the right answers, only 00:26:26.660 --> 00:26:27.140 occasionally. 00:26:27.140 --> 00:26:30.640 Still you do it sometimes, but a dramatic difference from one 00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:31.850 person giving the right answer. 00:26:31.850 --> 00:26:35.980 One dissenter opens up your chance to go with the answer 00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:39.490 you know intellectually is correct. 00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:41.230 Embarrassment. 00:26:41.230 --> 00:26:43.240 It's amazing the stuff we all do. 00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:47.230 It's amazing the stuff we all do to avoid being embarrassed. 00:26:47.230 --> 00:26:49.580 Embarrassment is such a powerful thing for 00:26:49.580 --> 00:26:50.470 almost all of us. 00:26:50.470 --> 00:26:52.570 There are some exceptions, but for almost all of us. 00:26:52.570 --> 00:26:55.600 So part of what's going on in conformity is to not to be 00:26:55.600 --> 00:26:57.340 embarrassed to be different. 00:26:57.340 --> 00:27:00.670 And so here's the way they show you that. 00:27:00.670 --> 00:27:03.170 They have you arrive late. 00:27:03.170 --> 00:27:04.550 You're not really arriving late. 00:27:04.550 --> 00:27:06.180 They tell you, oh, you should have been here. 00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:07.220 We had a miscommunication. 00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:08.290 All the other people are here. 00:27:08.290 --> 00:27:09.310 They knew. 00:27:09.310 --> 00:27:11.750 Well, because you arrived late, why don't you just write 00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:12.700 down your answers. 00:27:12.700 --> 00:27:13.980 You don't have to say them out loud. 00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:16.750 Because we can't have you mess up the experiment now. 00:27:16.750 --> 00:27:20.720 Then it's still not perfect, but people reduced by a third 00:27:20.720 --> 00:27:22.750 the number of their incorrect answers. 00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:24.090 Because they don't have to tell other 00:27:24.090 --> 00:27:25.330 people what they saw. 00:27:25.330 --> 00:27:28.030 OK, it's not perfect, but all of a sudden, at least that. 00:27:28.030 --> 00:27:29.110 And a few other things. 00:27:29.110 --> 00:27:31.250 It peaks in ninth grade. 00:27:31.250 --> 00:27:33.500 Women on average a bit more than men. 00:27:33.500 --> 00:27:35.590 Cultures that are more interdependent showed a bit 00:27:35.590 --> 00:27:38.390 more than cultures like the US that emphasize independence. 00:27:38.390 --> 00:27:42.320 But these are all variations on a relatively small thing. 00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:44.640 Fundamentally, humans want to conform. 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:46.560 And they don't form superficially. 00:27:46.560 --> 00:27:49.540 They convince themselves there's something going on and 00:27:49.540 --> 00:27:51.210 then the right thing to do is to conform. 00:27:54.030 --> 00:27:55.060 Why do we conform? 00:27:55.060 --> 00:27:56.210 There's all kinds of hypotheses. 00:27:56.210 --> 00:27:58.240 We want to be right. 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.910 Everybody knew that line length, I want to be right. 00:28:01.910 --> 00:28:02.640 I want to be popular. 00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:05.760 I don't want to be the weird person not doing this stuff. 00:28:05.760 --> 00:28:08.930 So anyway, let's come to compliance which is even more 00:28:08.930 --> 00:28:10.276 oppositional. 00:28:10.276 --> 00:28:14.240 You know this from your life if you have ever spent money 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.010 on something you didn't mean to because there's an 00:28:16.010 --> 00:28:17.570 effective salesperson. 00:28:17.570 --> 00:28:19.090 It's called a foot-in-the-door technique, 00:28:19.090 --> 00:28:20.770 and here's an example. 00:28:20.770 --> 00:28:22.730 Here's what they did in 1962 in California. 00:28:22.730 --> 00:28:25.010 Freedman and Fraser drove to homes-- 00:28:25.010 --> 00:28:28.440 random homes-- show a large unattractive sign that says 00:28:28.440 --> 00:28:30.060 drive carefully. 00:28:30.060 --> 00:28:33.170 Now we can all agree that it's pretty non-controversial to 00:28:33.170 --> 00:28:34.740 drive carefully. 00:28:34.740 --> 00:28:37.060 And they knock on the door and they ask the person will you 00:28:37.060 --> 00:28:39.270 place this on your lawn. 00:28:39.270 --> 00:28:42.000 Now think if somebody comes up to you, knocks on the door, 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.290 and says, would you place this large unattractive sign to 00:28:44.290 --> 00:28:46.130 drive carefully? 00:28:46.130 --> 00:28:47.920 And less than 20% say yes. 00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:49.630 OK that's not a shocking number. 00:28:49.630 --> 00:28:53.020 They're picking something that's like apple pie, right? 00:28:53.020 --> 00:28:54.800 I mean, drive carefully, who could be against that? 00:28:54.800 --> 00:28:57.130 But who wants a weird sign on your lawn, right? 00:28:57.130 --> 00:28:59.990 And they made it unattractive on purpose. 00:28:59.990 --> 00:29:01.390 So 20%. 00:29:01.390 --> 00:29:02.530 Here's the other group. 00:29:02.530 --> 00:29:03.910 They go up to your door, they knock on the door, and they 00:29:03.910 --> 00:29:06.300 say, I have a petition here-- you've had that experience on 00:29:06.300 --> 00:29:07.105 the street or somewhere-- 00:29:07.105 --> 00:29:08.460 I have a petition here. 00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:10.570 Will you sign up to support legislation to 00:29:10.570 --> 00:29:12.750 reduce traffic accidents. 00:29:12.750 --> 00:29:14.870 OK, do you think there's some gimmick here? 00:29:14.870 --> 00:29:17.200 I mean, who's for traffic accidents? 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:18.260 The person says yes. 00:29:18.260 --> 00:29:20.130 OK, I'm going to sign that one. 00:29:20.130 --> 00:29:22.020 So a lot of people sign that one. 00:29:22.020 --> 00:29:23.980 Then you go back to the same house a few weeks later and 00:29:23.980 --> 00:29:26.700 you ask the sign, it moves up to over 50% 00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:28.780 say yes for the sign. 00:29:28.780 --> 00:29:30.450 That's literally the foot-in-the-door. 00:29:30.450 --> 00:29:34.060 Once you sign this petition, then you're incredibly more 00:29:34.060 --> 00:29:36.290 likely to say yes for the sign. 00:29:36.290 --> 00:29:40.090 And what we understand that to be through other experiments, 00:29:40.090 --> 00:29:41.590 we want to be consistent in our behavior. 00:29:41.590 --> 00:29:43.860 Well gee, if we're willing to sign a petition for fewer 00:29:43.860 --> 00:29:48.050 accidents, why wouldn't we put a sign on our lawn to further 00:29:48.050 --> 00:29:51.060 promote people not getting run over. 00:29:51.060 --> 00:29:54.410 All right, but once you make the small agreement, then 00:29:54.410 --> 00:29:56.570 you're willing to do something way larger that by itself you 00:29:56.570 --> 00:29:57.810 would never do. 00:29:57.810 --> 00:30:00.450 And I can't tell you from my own experience how much that 00:30:00.450 --> 00:30:03.380 when people end up doing something they really wish 00:30:03.380 --> 00:30:06.590 they hadn't done, it often starts-- and you may know this 00:30:06.590 --> 00:30:09.740 in yourself-- with a small thing, good or bad. 00:30:09.740 --> 00:30:11.770 It seems small, then you do a little bit more, and then a 00:30:11.770 --> 00:30:14.090 little more, and then all of a sudden, you're surrounded by a 00:30:14.090 --> 00:30:17.550 SWAT team in your dorm room. 00:30:17.550 --> 00:30:19.840 And you say, how did this happen, right? 00:30:19.840 --> 00:30:23.720 It's amazing how often things, good and bad, start with small 00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:26.960 steps, another small step, and all of a sudden you're on a 00:30:26.960 --> 00:30:28.990 slippery slope to doing something you could never have 00:30:28.990 --> 00:30:33.020 imagined if it would have been posed as strongly as you ended 00:30:33.020 --> 00:30:33.910 up doing it. 00:30:33.910 --> 00:30:34.300 Does that make sense? 00:30:34.300 --> 00:30:36.580 OK, so this is compliance. 00:30:36.580 --> 00:30:38.310 Little question, little question, all of a sudden, 00:30:38.310 --> 00:30:41.890 you're doing something you would never do by itself. 00:30:41.890 --> 00:30:42.520 Obedience. 00:30:42.520 --> 00:30:44.570 Now obedience, we think, well, we're not 00:30:44.570 --> 00:30:46.095 going to be that obedient. 00:30:46.095 --> 00:30:48.350 We, to a certain extent, obey our parents, the police, our 00:30:48.350 --> 00:30:49.840 bosses, and firefighters. 00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:53.000 Again, a certain amount of obedience logically we think 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.580 is necessary for social order and civilization so that we're 00:30:55.580 --> 00:30:58.510 all organized in some non-chaotic way. 00:30:58.510 --> 00:31:02.290 And it varies across groups and times and so on. 00:31:02.290 --> 00:31:06.010 But we know there are horrible examples where obedience is 00:31:06.010 --> 00:31:09.430 associated with genocide. 00:31:09.430 --> 00:31:12.730 The defense of many Nazis in Germany was that they were 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:15.080 simply following orders, right? 00:31:15.080 --> 00:31:19.020 And in genocides all over the world, tragically, tragically, 00:31:19.020 --> 00:31:21.140 people will say why do they do that? 00:31:21.140 --> 00:31:23.180 Why would they end up-- and if you had posed it that way to 00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:27.230 people, why would you end up murdering many people, 00:31:27.230 --> 00:31:29.680 innocent people, defenseless people? 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:33.820 So often, part of it is being obedient to some group. 00:31:33.820 --> 00:31:36.880 So now comes one of the all time amazing experiments that 00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:38.950 we can't pull off-- although I'm going to tell you it was 00:31:38.950 --> 00:31:41.230 pulled off in a certain way recently-- 00:31:41.230 --> 00:31:42.580 from Stanley Milgram. 00:31:42.580 --> 00:31:44.810 So it works like this. 00:31:44.810 --> 00:31:47.460 This is the actual flyer that Milgram at Yale sent out, 00:31:47.460 --> 00:31:49.640 "Persons Needed for a Study of Memory." And 00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:50.680 they'll pay you $4. 00:31:50.680 --> 00:31:53.080 At that time that was something. 00:31:53.080 --> 00:31:55.050 And you would come into Professor Stanley Milgram, the 00:31:55.050 --> 00:31:58.110 Department of psychology at Yale University. 00:31:58.110 --> 00:31:59.460 And here was the gimmick. 00:31:59.460 --> 00:32:01.790 It was a newspaper add like that. 00:32:01.790 --> 00:32:02.510 And you would come in. 00:32:02.510 --> 00:32:03.800 And there would be two people in the room. 00:32:03.800 --> 00:32:07.970 One was a confederate and one was you, who naively, honestly 00:32:07.970 --> 00:32:09.680 just shows up to do an experiment. 00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:12.270 They tell you they're here to help science improve learning 00:32:12.270 --> 00:32:14.590 and memory through punishment. 00:32:14.590 --> 00:32:17.820 Can we improve learning and memory through punishment? 00:32:17.820 --> 00:32:20.620 And we're going to say that one of you will randomly 00:32:20.620 --> 00:32:23.060 become the teacher and one will become the learner. 00:32:23.060 --> 00:32:24.480 And they make it look like a lottery. 00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:25.620 They hand out a piece of paper. 00:32:25.620 --> 00:32:27.190 But it's all a set up. 00:32:27.190 --> 00:32:29.310 You will become the teacher. 00:32:29.310 --> 00:32:31.340 The other person will become the learner. 00:32:31.340 --> 00:32:33.880 You will become the teacher. 00:32:33.880 --> 00:32:35.900 And you get sets of word pairs to memorize. 00:32:39.170 --> 00:32:40.980 As a teacher, you give a word and the student is supposedly 00:32:40.980 --> 00:32:41.940 to give you the right answer. 00:32:41.940 --> 00:32:43.690 You have the answer in front of you. 00:32:43.690 --> 00:32:47.210 And you tell them whether they were right or wrong. 00:32:47.210 --> 00:32:49.120 If they give you the correct answer, you're supposed to say 00:32:49.120 --> 00:32:52.450 "good" or "that's right" to encourage good learning. 00:32:52.450 --> 00:32:54.630 If they give you the incorrect response, you're supposed to 00:32:54.630 --> 00:32:58.720 press a button that delivers a shock. 00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:00.570 Here is the device they used. 00:33:00.570 --> 00:33:03.670 And with every one of these buttons, the voltage goes up. 00:33:03.670 --> 00:33:09.430 And you, as the teacher, sample a 45 volt shock which I 00:33:09.430 --> 00:33:12.960 can tell you is moderately uncomfortable. 00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:15.270 It's not terrible, but you know it's not fun. 00:33:15.270 --> 00:33:16.320 OK, so you know that. 00:33:16.320 --> 00:33:19.020 In case you had some illusion about that, you know 45 volts 00:33:19.020 --> 00:33:20.210 is already pretty uncomfortable. 00:33:20.210 --> 00:33:22.350 So you say that's how it feels, OK? 00:33:22.350 --> 00:33:22.840 OK. 00:33:22.840 --> 00:33:24.290 Now the other person goes into the room. 00:33:24.290 --> 00:33:27.000 And you're sitting there as the teacher. 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:28.380 So here's the set up. 00:33:28.380 --> 00:33:31.550 Here you are getting your $4. 00:33:31.550 --> 00:33:34.860 Here's the scientist in a white jacket 00:33:34.860 --> 00:33:36.440 telling you what to do-- 00:33:36.440 --> 00:33:37.450 the researcher. 00:33:37.450 --> 00:33:40.140 Here's the so-called learner, but that's really a 00:33:40.140 --> 00:33:40.880 confederate. 00:33:40.880 --> 00:33:43.100 They're not really getting shocked in the other room. 00:33:43.100 --> 00:33:46.160 But they're going to play act a lot. 00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:49.040 And you're sitting there in front of this device that goes 00:33:49.040 --> 00:33:54.110 from 15 to 450 volts in small steps of 15 volts. 00:33:54.110 --> 00:33:56.450 30 switches across here. 00:33:56.450 --> 00:33:58.670 150 has a label that says strong shock. 00:33:58.670 --> 00:34:00.140 255, intense. 00:34:00.140 --> 00:34:03.000 375, danger, severe shock. 00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:06.110 At 435 and 450, there's no word left for the 00:34:06.110 --> 00:34:06.910 intensity of shock. 00:34:06.910 --> 00:34:08.060 They just put XXX. 00:34:08.060 --> 00:34:09.310 All right? 00:34:11.510 --> 00:34:12.770 Initially, the learner does well. 00:34:12.770 --> 00:34:13.320 Again, it's a set up. 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:15.159 The learner knows what they're supposed to do. 00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:16.860 But then, errors start to make. 00:34:16.860 --> 00:34:17.860 The learner starts-- 00:34:17.860 --> 00:34:21.310 and with every error, you're supposed to go one worse. 00:34:21.310 --> 00:34:23.630 The learner complains that the shocks are starting to hurt as 00:34:23.630 --> 00:34:25.989 they move up to about 100. 00:34:25.989 --> 00:34:29.320 Then they scream in the other room when you give the shock. 00:34:29.320 --> 00:34:30.670 And the participants-- 00:34:30.670 --> 00:34:33.170 I can tell you, they're just like you would think, just 00:34:33.170 --> 00:34:33.770 like you would do. 00:34:33.770 --> 00:34:35.270 You go like, I really don't like this, This 00:34:35.270 --> 00:34:36.389 doesn't seem right. 00:34:36.389 --> 00:34:40.210 And the person running the experiment says, your job is 00:34:40.210 --> 00:34:41.790 to do the next thing. 00:34:41.790 --> 00:34:42.540 OK? 00:34:42.540 --> 00:34:43.569 And the people are suffering. 00:34:43.569 --> 00:34:45.130 And like, this can't be right? 00:34:45.130 --> 00:34:46.489 And how is this happening at Yale? 00:34:46.489 --> 00:34:47.810 And so on. 00:34:47.810 --> 00:34:50.690 So think what you would do. 00:34:50.690 --> 00:34:52.280 The learner complains about his or her 00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:53.750 condition the other room. 00:34:53.750 --> 00:34:54.739 More errors. 00:34:54.739 --> 00:34:58.700 Now the teacher is often begging the other person, 00:34:58.700 --> 00:35:00.020 please listen and pay attention. 00:35:00.020 --> 00:35:01.440 I don't want to shock you any more. 00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:02.345 Come on, get it together. 00:35:02.345 --> 00:35:04.000 I don't want to do it any more. 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:06.500 Then the person starts to scream from the other room. 00:35:06.500 --> 00:35:09.710 "You have no right to keep me here!" Another shock. 00:35:09.710 --> 00:35:10.780 "I refuse to answer anymore. 00:35:10.780 --> 00:35:12.660 You can't hold me here!" The person's shouting this from 00:35:12.660 --> 00:35:13.480 the other room. 00:35:13.480 --> 00:35:17.100 "My heart is bothering me!" At 300 volts, the person says 00:35:17.100 --> 00:35:19.830 they refuse to answer. 00:35:19.830 --> 00:35:22.060 You turn your head to the experimenter and you say, the 00:35:22.060 --> 00:35:24.140 person's not even answering at 300 volts, what do I do? 00:35:24.140 --> 00:35:28.290 And the scientist in the white jacket says, if there's no 00:35:28.290 --> 00:35:31.100 response, that's a wrong response. 00:35:31.100 --> 00:35:32.350 So you give another shock. 00:35:34.750 --> 00:35:37.750 And at 350 volts, the person's not even responding anymore. 00:35:37.750 --> 00:35:39.790 As far as you know, they're sort of dead. 00:35:39.790 --> 00:35:42.050 I mean, you don't know what they're doing, but you think 00:35:42.050 --> 00:35:43.200 something horrible has happened. 00:35:43.200 --> 00:35:44.430 This is fully play acted. 00:35:44.430 --> 00:35:46.380 And the people who went through this were miserable. 00:35:46.380 --> 00:35:48.860 So much so that it's been almost impossible to do this 00:35:48.860 --> 00:35:49.290 ever since. 00:35:49.290 --> 00:35:52.440 People think it's too dangerous for the naive 00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:54.580 research participant who thinks they're nearly shocking 00:35:54.580 --> 00:35:55.830 somebody to death. 00:35:58.760 --> 00:36:00.470 So how many people go all the way up? 00:36:00.470 --> 00:36:03.710 And this person's screaming, begging, saying their heart is 00:36:03.710 --> 00:36:06.720 starting to give out, and finally going silent. 00:36:06.720 --> 00:36:10.100 How many people go all the way up to 450, all the way up? 00:36:10.100 --> 00:36:12.730 Long after the person has stopped responding and you get 00:36:12.730 --> 00:36:15.080 these incredibly bad times? 00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:18.360 So they asked experts and they said, it'll be about 1 to 3%, 00:36:18.360 --> 00:36:19.510 and that's a good way to identify 00:36:19.510 --> 00:36:21.866 psychopaths in the world. 00:36:21.866 --> 00:36:24.510 And you could certainly sit there and you could say what 00:36:24.510 --> 00:36:26.110 I'm going to say, like I would never do that. 00:36:26.110 --> 00:36:28.920 And I'm going to convince you in a minute, guaranteed in 00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:32.780 this room most of you would do that all the way, guaranteed, 00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:33.965 by any scientific evidence. 00:36:33.965 --> 00:36:36.550 And all of us will say I would never do that. 00:36:36.550 --> 00:36:38.640 The power of the situation. 00:36:38.640 --> 00:36:41.590 So how many people went all the way? two thirds 00:36:41.590 --> 00:36:42.870 went all the way. 00:36:42.870 --> 00:36:43.380 Two thirds. 00:36:43.380 --> 00:36:44.160 Look at around. 00:36:44.160 --> 00:36:45.815 Look to your left and to your right. 00:36:45.815 --> 00:36:47.760 If there's three of you, two of you will 00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:49.370 go all the way until-- 00:36:49.370 --> 00:36:51.540 I know, no, not me, not me, not me. 00:36:54.700 --> 00:36:56.810 So here's what experts said. 00:36:56.810 --> 00:36:59.040 Once you get to some intensity level, practically nobody's 00:36:59.040 --> 00:36:59.860 going to do it. 00:36:59.860 --> 00:37:04.510 Here's the two thirds of people who went all the way. 00:37:04.510 --> 00:37:08.690 And so two thirds went all the way, but 00:37:08.690 --> 00:37:09.940 everybody went to 100 volts. 00:37:09.940 --> 00:37:12.280 Almost nobody stopped early on. 00:37:12.280 --> 00:37:14.970 But one third stopped around a third through. 00:37:14.970 --> 00:37:19.320 Two thirds went all the way. 00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:22.260 So people have said, oh, that's the 1950s. 00:37:22.260 --> 00:37:25.370 People were much more conformist and obedient. 00:37:25.370 --> 00:37:30.200 That was before Vietnam, before rock 'n' roll, before 00:37:30.200 --> 00:37:32.280 Watergate, and all this stuff that has 00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:33.700 made us distrust authority. 00:37:33.700 --> 00:37:38.400 And before the internet, we know what's going on. 00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:40.920 So now, you guys go like it's not us. 00:37:40.920 --> 00:37:43.710 That's some sad 1950s people who are just following 00:37:43.710 --> 00:37:44.200 instructions. 00:37:44.200 --> 00:37:47.000 We're independent people of the 21st century. 00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:50.000 So they almost redid this experiment in some reduced way 00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:53.900 a couple years ago and it doesn't make a difference. 00:37:53.900 --> 00:37:57.580 So 2009, here are some things they did to 00:37:57.580 --> 00:37:59.000 get approval of this. 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:00.000 First of all, they carefully-- 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:02.110 even more carefully than before-- screened the subjects 00:38:02.110 --> 00:38:03.790 to make sure they were in good mental health so they weren't 00:38:03.790 --> 00:38:06.120 breaking down people. 00:38:06.120 --> 00:38:08.360 They were told three times they could stop and still get 00:38:08.360 --> 00:38:09.830 $50 for participating. 00:38:09.830 --> 00:38:12.490 They were told multiple times, you can stop, you can stop, 00:38:12.490 --> 00:38:14.260 you can stop. 00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:16.170 After the experiment they were instantly told what the whole 00:38:16.170 --> 00:38:18.880 thing was about, which wasn't that well organized before. 00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:21.080 They had a clinical psychologist sitting there to 00:38:21.080 --> 00:38:24.810 make sure that the person seems not to distressed. 00:38:24.810 --> 00:38:26.920 And they said, look since we know that pretty much 00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:28.390 everybody who went to 150 went all the way, 00:38:28.390 --> 00:38:29.430 we'll stop at 150 volts. 00:38:29.430 --> 00:38:31.430 We won't torture a person all the way through. 00:38:31.430 --> 00:38:33.030 But 150 is pretty big. 00:38:33.030 --> 00:38:34.960 You're doing it for quite a bit of time. 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:38.720 So what happens in 2009? 00:38:38.720 --> 00:38:41.260 For Milgram, 79% went 150 volts. 00:38:41.260 --> 00:38:45.810 In 2009, 70% of undergraduates go to that same length. 00:38:45.810 --> 00:38:47.990 It looks pretty much the same. 00:38:47.990 --> 00:38:49.520 And by the way, in case you thought women were more 00:38:49.520 --> 00:38:52.760 merciful, or not, they are identical to men in these 00:38:52.760 --> 00:38:55.140 studies in 2009. 00:38:55.140 --> 00:38:57.160 It's stunning. 00:38:57.160 --> 00:39:00.350 And so everybody who worries about situations in the world 00:39:00.350 --> 00:39:04.040 where people do horrible things to other people is 00:39:04.040 --> 00:39:06.530 incredibly impressed by this experiment. 00:39:06.530 --> 00:39:11.500 Where so a little pressure, as a volunteer experiment, where 00:39:11.500 --> 00:39:14.890 you can stop any time and walk out, it's not your boss, it"s 00:39:14.890 --> 00:39:17.950 not a general, it's not your culture, it's not your parents 00:39:17.950 --> 00:39:20.770 and schools, just an experimenter-- 00:39:20.770 --> 00:39:22.970 almost everybody goes all the way. 00:39:22.970 --> 00:39:25.360 And that's true in 2009 as well. 00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:28.670 We're incredibly prone, if we have the right situation, to 00:39:28.670 --> 00:39:32.910 be obedient beyond what our humanitarian spirits suggest 00:39:32.910 --> 00:39:35.140 they would be. 00:39:35.140 --> 00:39:37.600 So nobody really knows why we're so obedient. 00:39:37.600 --> 00:39:39.220 Although I'll show you some things that people have 00:39:39.220 --> 00:39:40.280 discovered. 00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:42.340 Does the status of the authority figure matter? 00:39:42.340 --> 00:39:44.310 Does it matter that the person seems like a scientist who 00:39:44.310 --> 00:39:45.970 knows what he or she is doing? 00:39:45.970 --> 00:39:48.940 Is it belief that the source of authority, because they 00:39:48.940 --> 00:39:52.480 know what they're doing, it must be OK? 00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:55.110 How much does it matter that you can't quite figure out how 00:39:55.110 --> 00:39:57.080 to get out of this situation? 00:39:57.080 --> 00:39:59.090 And how much of it is a slippery slope like we've 00:39:59.090 --> 00:39:59.550 talked about? 00:39:59.550 --> 00:40:01.160 Well if I can do five volts, I can do 10. 00:40:01.160 --> 00:40:02.290 If I can do 10, I can 20. 00:40:02.290 --> 00:40:03.720 If I can do 20, I can do 30. 00:40:03.720 --> 00:40:07.730 And somehow, five by five, you end up at 400. 00:40:07.730 --> 00:40:09.020 So these are all ideas. 00:40:09.020 --> 00:40:10.420 So people have looked at this. 00:40:10.420 --> 00:40:12.600 What if the person gives no instructions? 00:40:12.600 --> 00:40:13.520 Almost nobody does it. 00:40:13.520 --> 00:40:16.270 If the person just says, here's the experiment, please 00:40:16.270 --> 00:40:18.660 do it, and then doesn't talk with you when you say you want 00:40:18.660 --> 00:40:20.210 to stop, people stop. 00:40:20.210 --> 00:40:22.090 All they have to say though is "please 00:40:22.090 --> 00:40:25.020 continue" and that's enough. 00:40:25.020 --> 00:40:26.360 Men and women aren't different. 00:40:26.360 --> 00:40:28.960 If you do the experiment not in a psychology-- 00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:32.010 here's the baseline, the 70% that go all the way. 00:40:32.010 --> 00:40:33.150 In an office building, it's less. 00:40:33.150 --> 00:40:33.840 Why do you think that? 00:40:33.840 --> 00:40:36.090 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 00:40:36.090 --> 00:40:37.010 PROFESSOR: People's interpretation of the 00:40:37.010 --> 00:40:40.480 situation is not quite as officially scientific. 00:40:40.480 --> 00:40:42.340 Still, you get a lot. 00:40:42.340 --> 00:40:44.060 If the person in charge doesn't seem like they know 00:40:44.060 --> 00:40:46.020 what they're doing, particularly in a white coat, 00:40:46.020 --> 00:40:48.950 doesn't seem like an advanced scientist, pushes way back the 00:40:48.950 --> 00:40:50.310 authority the person. 00:40:50.310 --> 00:40:54.490 If the experimenter is more formal but away from you so 00:40:54.490 --> 00:40:55.930 you don't see them-- they're talking to you over an 00:40:55.930 --> 00:40:57.130 intercom or something-- 00:40:57.130 --> 00:40:59.610 that pushes you back to do it less likely. 00:40:59.610 --> 00:41:01.970 If the victim is in the same room as you are, 00:41:01.970 --> 00:41:02.880 that reduces it. 00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:05.820 Although still 40% go all the way. 00:41:05.820 --> 00:41:07.920 If you have to touch the person while the person's 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:10.050 being shocked, that reduces it. 00:41:10.050 --> 00:41:11.640 And if you have a confederate-- 00:41:11.640 --> 00:41:13.510 another person working with you on this-- 00:41:13.510 --> 00:41:15.800 who rebels, that also has a huge effect. 00:41:15.800 --> 00:41:18.870 This idea again if there's one dissenter, that frees you 00:41:18.870 --> 00:41:22.430 sometimes to follow your own ideas and thoughts. 00:41:22.430 --> 00:41:25.190 But these one dissenters are set up who 00:41:25.190 --> 00:41:27.170 becomes that one dissenter. 00:41:27.170 --> 00:41:31.890 OK, the famous Stanford prison experiment. 00:41:31.890 --> 00:41:33.500 Same idea, roughly speaking. 00:41:33.500 --> 00:41:35.860 And unbelievably relevant to Abu Ghraib. 00:41:35.860 --> 00:41:38.070 It's almost as if from the viewpoint of psychologists 00:41:38.070 --> 00:41:41.640 they had rerun the Stanford experiment except in Iraq with 00:41:41.640 --> 00:41:44.240 real prisoners and American soldiers. 00:41:44.240 --> 00:41:46.420 But in the Stanford prison experiment, there was a social 00:41:46.420 --> 00:41:48.770 situation where they basically told people that they would be 00:41:48.770 --> 00:41:51.050 either the prisoners or the guards, Stanford 00:41:51.050 --> 00:41:53.500 undergraduates. 00:41:53.500 --> 00:41:56.300 And they would put them in the basement of their psychology 00:41:56.300 --> 00:41:58.300 building and they would use various closets 00:41:58.300 --> 00:42:01.010 as the pretend cells. 00:42:01.010 --> 00:42:02.150 You were assigned to be randomly 00:42:02.150 --> 00:42:03.500 a guard or a prisoner. 00:42:03.500 --> 00:42:05.780 To make it a little bit more realistic, they surprised you 00:42:05.780 --> 00:42:06.480 when they picked you up. 00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:07.720 You had signed up. 00:42:07.720 --> 00:42:10.110 But they would run to your house and a guy would grab you 00:42:10.110 --> 00:42:12.720 and say, you're coming now and you're the prisoner. 00:42:12.720 --> 00:42:14.690 There's a little play acting in this as well. 00:42:14.690 --> 00:42:16.400 And what they found was that the guards-- 00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:18.390 the Stanford students who were randomly assigned to be 00:42:18.390 --> 00:42:22.160 guards-- became so sadistic, and the Stanford students who 00:42:22.160 --> 00:42:24.710 were the prisoners were so stressed-- that the study was 00:42:24.710 --> 00:42:25.530 stopped in six days. 00:42:25.530 --> 00:42:26.780 They were going to do 24 days. 00:42:26.780 --> 00:42:30.500 Because people were sobbing, people were doing horrible 00:42:30.500 --> 00:42:32.280 things to one another. 00:42:32.280 --> 00:42:35.230 Here's pictures of the Stanford-- this reminds you of 00:42:35.230 --> 00:42:35.920 Abu Ghraib, right? 00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:37.660 All lined up like that. 00:42:37.660 --> 00:42:39.920 Typical Stanford students who were dressed 00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:41.280 up and given a baton. 00:42:41.280 --> 00:42:45.100 And they were just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. 00:42:45.100 --> 00:42:49.250 Playing the role of the prison guards, they became abusive 00:42:49.250 --> 00:42:53.390 and mean to an astounding degree. 00:42:53.390 --> 00:42:57.090 And so again, this idea now-- 00:42:57.090 --> 00:42:59.470 weirdly enough, the only authority here is Phil 00:42:59.470 --> 00:43:00.940 Zimbardo, the social psychologist, who said your 00:43:00.940 --> 00:43:02.560 job is to be the guard and your job 00:43:02.560 --> 00:43:04.260 is to be the prisoner. 00:43:04.260 --> 00:43:06.180 So anybody could have stopped sort of at anything. 00:43:06.180 --> 00:43:09.120 But once they got playing these roles, it took them only 00:43:09.120 --> 00:43:13.450 a few hours to really occupy the life of the sadistic guard 00:43:13.450 --> 00:43:16.660 and the life of the victimized prisoner. 00:43:16.660 --> 00:43:21.230 So think of this thing in Abu Ghraib where you had a huge 00:43:21.230 --> 00:43:24.690 number of prisoners, a very small number of American 00:43:24.690 --> 00:43:27.800 soldiers, very few of the American soldiers had any 00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:30.840 training about how to think about being a guard. 00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:33.340 It was almost as if you had rerun the Stanford prison 00:43:33.340 --> 00:43:34.480 experiment. 00:43:34.480 --> 00:43:38.670 Add to it fear on both sides of harm that's intended by the 00:43:38.670 --> 00:43:39.560 other groups. 00:43:39.560 --> 00:43:41.470 Add to it the cultural divisions between the 00:43:41.470 --> 00:43:45.020 Americans and the Iraqis, so they really felt like the 00:43:45.020 --> 00:43:46.210 other group was another group. 00:43:46.210 --> 00:43:48.490 I mean, you know here at Stanford in the basement that 00:43:48.490 --> 00:43:50.780 these were your other students. 00:43:50.780 --> 00:43:52.675 Half the room could be the guards here, Half the room 00:43:52.675 --> 00:43:53.840 could be the prisoners here. 00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:56.640 Nobody has been allowed to rerun this because the 00:43:56.640 --> 00:43:59.770 behavior was so horrible, so fast, that there's nobody-- 00:43:59.770 --> 00:44:01.083 that you're simply just not allowed to do an experiment 00:44:01.083 --> 00:44:02.333 like that again. 00:44:04.420 --> 00:44:07.390 And here again is a picture of the guards, the students 00:44:07.390 --> 00:44:09.120 randomly chosen to be the guards. 00:44:09.120 --> 00:44:10.190 And here's one of the students randomly 00:44:10.190 --> 00:44:12.050 chosen to be the prisoner. 00:44:12.050 --> 00:44:13.290 It looks just like Abu Ghraib. 00:44:13.290 --> 00:44:18.080 It's as if the Army should have heard about that 00:44:18.080 --> 00:44:20.755 experiment before that. 00:44:20.755 --> 00:44:23.330 And here's more pictures of the sort of abuse. 00:44:23.330 --> 00:44:26.460 And you could find lots of videos online about that. 00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:28.550 OK so I'm going to jump forward to this. 00:44:28.550 --> 00:44:30.970 So again we could think, again, the more you know about 00:44:30.970 --> 00:44:34.800 this, how free was this person to do the right thing. 00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:37.690 And how situationally dominated were they by 00:44:37.690 --> 00:44:39.900 authority and by the situation that around them. 00:44:39.900 --> 00:44:42.430 If you think about the Milgram experiment, who's your 00:44:42.430 --> 00:44:43.920 commander in charge of you. 00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:46.580 If you think about the Zimbardo experiment, you have 00:44:46.580 --> 00:44:51.270 the job of being the guard. 00:44:51.270 --> 00:44:54.490 And is she really a bad person, or did you put her a 00:44:54.490 --> 00:44:59.140 hopeless situation to do a good job? 00:44:59.140 --> 00:45:02.320 So the last thing I want to talk-- let's talk about that 00:45:02.320 --> 00:45:02.750 for one second. 00:45:02.750 --> 00:45:03.420 Any thoughts? 00:45:03.420 --> 00:45:04.670 How would you find her? 00:45:07.090 --> 00:45:08.040 Yes? 00:45:08.040 --> 00:45:10.730 AUDIENCE: What kind of torture [INAUDIBLE]? 00:45:10.730 --> 00:45:12.350 PROFESSOR: What kind of abuse was in the prison? 00:45:12.350 --> 00:45:15.630 Well, from what one reads, and who knows how accurate exactly 00:45:15.630 --> 00:45:21.460 that is, one person did die. 00:45:21.460 --> 00:45:24.670 Not much of it was the torture of the sort of water boarding 00:45:24.670 --> 00:45:25.720 that you hear about. 00:45:25.720 --> 00:45:28.690 It was more scaring the heck out of them and embarrassing 00:45:28.690 --> 00:45:30.520 them horribly. 00:45:30.520 --> 00:45:33.140 Taking a bunch of people, having them all be naked, and 00:45:33.140 --> 00:45:37.160 piling them up, putting them on a leash, I'm sure it wasn't 00:45:37.160 --> 00:45:38.180 physically nice. 00:45:38.180 --> 00:45:40.680 It wasn't brutal in the most sense. 00:45:40.680 --> 00:45:44.410 It was more taunting and humiliating. 00:45:44.410 --> 00:45:48.210 But there was some pain involved as well. 00:45:48.210 --> 00:45:49.680 It wasn't murderous. 00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:52.230 You could say that limit. 00:45:52.230 --> 00:45:52.520 Yes? 00:45:52.520 --> 00:45:54.734 AUDIENCE: Has anyone been able to do a follow up? 00:45:54.734 --> 00:45:56.660 I mean, I know given the circumstances [INAUDIBLE]. 00:45:56.660 --> 00:45:57.880 PROFESSOR: It's almost impossible. 00:45:57.880 --> 00:45:58.750 The same thing with the Milgram. 00:45:58.750 --> 00:46:01.860 We did a little bit in 2009 with these limitations, right. 00:46:01.860 --> 00:46:03.890 But the amazing thing is it looks just like-- 00:46:03.890 --> 00:46:07.240 as far as they took it-- just like the 1950s Milgram. 00:46:07.240 --> 00:46:12.080 The Stanford experiment, people now think ethically you 00:46:12.080 --> 00:46:12.820 can't do that. 00:46:12.820 --> 00:46:16.360 Because not only is the behavior of the guards 00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:20.500 abysmal, but the people who were the prisoners were really 00:46:20.500 --> 00:46:23.000 depressed afterwards, were really anxious afterwards. 00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:25.730 It wasn't like stepping in and out of an experiment. 00:46:25.730 --> 00:46:28.070 As were, by the way, the Milgram subjects who went all 00:46:28.070 --> 00:46:28.760 the way up. 00:46:28.760 --> 00:46:31.350 They reported being haunted by this experience for 00:46:31.350 --> 00:46:32.490 many years to come. 00:46:32.490 --> 00:46:34.250 So these kinds of things people would not do now, 00:46:34.250 --> 00:46:38.450 because it's just considered too risky for the 00:46:38.450 --> 00:46:38.990 participants. 00:46:38.990 --> 00:46:39.488 Yes? 00:46:39.488 --> 00:46:44.468 AUDIENCE: So the Stanford people, the students that were 00:46:44.468 --> 00:46:48.706 participating in it, did they go on to live normal lives 00:46:48.706 --> 00:46:48.960 [INAUDIBLE]? 00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:50.260 PROFESSOR: Oh, what's the long-term damage? 00:46:50.260 --> 00:46:51.130 That's a very good question. 00:46:51.130 --> 00:46:53.090 I don't know they're being followed up or-- that's a very 00:46:53.090 --> 00:46:53.690 good question. 00:46:53.690 --> 00:46:56.210 I know for months, the people, especially with the prisoners, 00:46:56.210 --> 00:46:58.900 said they felt very, very, very bad. 00:46:58.900 --> 00:47:01.410 But I don't know if decades later they 00:47:01.410 --> 00:47:02.150 followed them up or not. 00:47:02.150 --> 00:47:05.820 And that would be an interesting question. 00:47:05.820 --> 00:47:06.751 Yes? 00:47:06.751 --> 00:47:10.679 AUDIENCE: Do they consider [INAUDIBLE] 00:47:10.679 --> 00:47:14.116 for instance, if someone were knowledgeable in psychology 00:47:14.116 --> 00:47:15.366 [INAUDIBLE] 00:47:18.490 --> 00:47:20.430 they had been trained for in psychology? 00:47:20.430 --> 00:47:21.680 PROFESSOR: Yes. 00:47:24.770 --> 00:47:27.150 It's not so much psychology, I'd say. 00:47:27.150 --> 00:47:28.740 I'm going to give you my impression, because I don't 00:47:28.740 --> 00:47:29.645 have a good answer. 00:47:29.645 --> 00:47:32.280 It's if you get the right kind of training so you're prepared 00:47:32.280 --> 00:47:34.360 for situation, you have much better chance. 00:47:34.360 --> 00:47:36.490 So remember earlier we talked about-- now it seems very 00:47:36.490 --> 00:47:38.150 academic compared to these experiments-- 00:47:38.150 --> 00:47:40.550 we talked about cognitive busyness. 00:47:40.550 --> 00:47:44.810 That if your mind is not free to evaluate the situation, you 00:47:44.810 --> 00:47:46.830 interpret it in terms of disposition. 00:47:46.830 --> 00:47:48.490 So what does that mean? 00:47:48.490 --> 00:47:52.200 In a scary, complicated situation, we go by our guts. 00:47:52.200 --> 00:47:56.240 And our guts are, the other person is different. 00:47:56.240 --> 00:47:59.140 I'm in charge of them as the guard, right? 00:47:59.140 --> 00:48:01.990 If we're trained so that we have a second habit we can 00:48:01.990 --> 00:48:04.910 fall back on, then we have a better chance of doing the 00:48:04.910 --> 00:48:08.350 right thing when the situation arises. 00:48:08.350 --> 00:48:09.380 This is a general point. 00:48:09.380 --> 00:48:11.370 But yes, just sending in people kind of unprepared-- 00:48:11.370 --> 00:48:13.720 it's not that they have to know psychology, it's that 00:48:13.720 --> 00:48:16.430 they have to be told again and again and again, when you're 00:48:16.430 --> 00:48:20.630 the guard, keep in mind that it's so easy to be abusive. 00:48:20.630 --> 00:48:24.490 It's so easy to be humiliating, that you have to 00:48:24.490 --> 00:48:25.740 guard against that in yourself. 00:48:25.740 --> 00:48:26.770 Does that seem OK? 00:48:26.770 --> 00:48:27.020 Yes. 00:48:27.020 --> 00:48:30.200 So it's training we think is-- 00:48:30.200 --> 00:48:31.400 it's not the intellectual knowledge. 00:48:31.400 --> 00:48:34.450 It's practicing so that when the moment arises, you're 00:48:34.450 --> 00:48:37.780 ready, is I think what people believe is right thing. 00:48:37.780 --> 00:48:38.580 OK. 00:48:38.580 --> 00:48:40.780 So last thing I want to talk about, a couple of things, is 00:48:40.780 --> 00:48:41.735 bystanders and helping. 00:48:41.735 --> 00:48:44.040 And these are just amazing experiments. 00:48:44.040 --> 00:48:47.170 And in many ways, they're all about embarrassment, and how 00:48:47.170 --> 00:48:50.530 embarrassment makes us incredibly less helpful and 00:48:50.530 --> 00:48:54.100 kind to others than we can imagine. 00:48:54.100 --> 00:48:58.030 So the most famous case that began a lot of this research 00:48:58.030 --> 00:49:00.650 was they murder in New York City of Kitty Genovese. 00:49:00.650 --> 00:49:01.970 And I'm going to read to you just a 00:49:01.970 --> 00:49:03.320 minute about her murder. 00:49:03.320 --> 00:49:06.720 It got a fantastic amount of newspaper coverage. 00:49:06.720 --> 00:49:10.540 And this was the walk home she had to her apartment. 00:49:10.540 --> 00:49:13.970 So at approximately 3:20 in the morning of March 13, 1964, 00:49:13.970 --> 00:49:17.000 28-year old Catherine Genovese was returning to her home a 00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:19.210 nice middle-class area of Queens from her 00:49:19.210 --> 00:49:20.410 job as a bar manager. 00:49:20.410 --> 00:49:23.240 She parked her red Fiat at a nearby parking lot, turned off 00:49:23.240 --> 00:49:25.010 the lights and started the walk to her second floor 00:49:25.010 --> 00:49:27.690 apartment some 35 yards away. 00:49:27.690 --> 00:49:30.580 She got as far as a street light when a man grabbed her. 00:49:30.580 --> 00:49:31.490 She screamed. 00:49:31.490 --> 00:49:33.930 The lights went on in a 10 floor apartment building 00:49:33.930 --> 00:49:35.570 nearby, so a lot of people. 00:49:35.570 --> 00:49:36.770 She yelled, "Oh, my God. 00:49:36.770 --> 00:49:37.480 He stabbed me. 00:49:37.480 --> 00:49:39.100 Please help me." Windows opened in 00:49:39.100 --> 00:49:39.870 the apartment building. 00:49:39.870 --> 00:49:43.230 A man's voice shouted, "Let that girl alone." The attacker 00:49:43.230 --> 00:49:46.470 looked up, shrugged, and walked off down the street. 00:49:46.470 --> 00:49:48.000 Ms. Genovese struggled to her feet. 00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:49.860 Lights went back off in the apartment. 00:49:49.860 --> 00:49:53.140 The attacker comes immediately back and stabs her again. 00:49:53.140 --> 00:49:54.680 She again cries out, "I'm dying. 00:49:54.680 --> 00:49:57.490 I'm dying." Again, the lights come on, and the windows open 00:49:57.490 --> 00:49:59.760 in many of the nearby apartments. 00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:01.860 The assailant again left and got into his 00:50:01.860 --> 00:50:03.040 car and drove away. 00:50:03.040 --> 00:50:05.760 She staggers to her feet as a city bus drives by. 00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:07.250 It's 3:30 in the morning now. 00:50:07.250 --> 00:50:09.290 The attacker returns again. 00:50:09.290 --> 00:50:11.880 He finds her in the doorway at foot of the stairs and he 00:50:11.880 --> 00:50:14.075 stabs her a third time, this time with a fatal consequence. 00:50:14.075 --> 00:50:16.560 It's 3:50, OK? 00:50:16.560 --> 00:50:21.100 Half an hour when the police received the first call. 00:50:21.100 --> 00:50:23.490 They responded quickly, and within two minutes they were 00:50:23.490 --> 00:50:24.170 at the scene. 00:50:24.170 --> 00:50:25.370 She was already dead. 00:50:25.370 --> 00:50:26.110 The only person-- 00:50:26.110 --> 00:50:28.830 well, the one person to call was a neighbor who revealed 00:50:28.830 --> 00:50:31.900 that he had phoned only after much thought and an earlier 00:50:31.900 --> 00:50:33.100 phone call to a friend. 00:50:33.100 --> 00:50:34.330 So he doesn't call the police. 00:50:34.330 --> 00:50:36.220 He calls a friend and says, hmm, I wonder what I should do 00:50:36.220 --> 00:50:37.560 here, right? 00:50:37.560 --> 00:50:40.050 And he said, I didn't want to get involved. 00:50:40.050 --> 00:50:42.280 Later, it was learned that there were 37 other witnesses 00:50:42.280 --> 00:50:44.700 to the stalking and stabbing over the half hour period. 00:50:44.700 --> 00:50:47.450 Why did no one offer any help or call the police? 00:50:47.450 --> 00:50:48.860 The story and question were front page 00:50:48.860 --> 00:50:49.890 news across the country. 00:50:49.890 --> 00:50:52.430 Urban and moral decay, apathy, indifference where some of the 00:50:52.430 --> 00:50:53.970 many offered explanations. 00:50:53.970 --> 00:50:56.390 This was one of these cases that people said, this shows 00:50:56.390 --> 00:50:59.420 you how bad off we are, especially in cities, where 00:50:59.420 --> 00:51:02.070 people just don't care about other people. 00:51:02.070 --> 00:51:02.720 OK. 00:51:02.720 --> 00:51:06.380 They won't make a phone call to the police, except one 00:51:06.380 --> 00:51:10.200 person hemming and hawing his way for half an hour. 00:51:10.200 --> 00:51:14.000 So the lack of the bystanders helping this woman, is it 00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:15.950 because people are selfish? 00:51:15.950 --> 00:51:18.380 Nowadays, you can bet you'd have a video of that on 00:51:18.380 --> 00:51:19.100 YouTube, right? 00:51:19.100 --> 00:51:21.710 The question was what about the rest of it? 00:51:21.710 --> 00:51:22.210 [INAUDIBLE] 00:51:22.210 --> 00:51:25.360 my life, fear of getting hurt, what would you have done? 00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:27.460 Now, let me tell you-- 00:51:27.460 --> 00:51:29.570 you'll see the punch line in a moment-- is the more people 00:51:29.570 --> 00:51:31.400 around who could help, the more certain you are that 00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:33.690 nobody's going to help. 00:51:33.690 --> 00:51:37.450 The last thing you want to get help is a bunch of people. 00:51:37.450 --> 00:51:38.200 OK? 00:51:38.200 --> 00:51:40.860 The best chance you have is one person, 00:51:40.860 --> 00:51:42.910 counter-intuitively and against the 00:51:42.910 --> 00:51:44.260 math of multiple people. 00:51:44.260 --> 00:51:45.430 So here we go. 00:51:45.430 --> 00:51:47.750 So the most famous studies-- and show you about three of 00:51:47.750 --> 00:51:50.320 them, because they're just amazing-- 00:51:50.320 --> 00:51:52.900 about how we won't help people. 00:51:52.900 --> 00:51:55.670 Because if we're not sure what the right thing to do is, and 00:51:55.670 --> 00:51:58.750 there's other people there, it's too embarrassing to do 00:51:58.750 --> 00:52:02.930 the most obvious humanitarian gesture. 00:52:02.930 --> 00:52:04.310 They did a series of experiments, most of them 00:52:04.310 --> 00:52:06.590 around Princeton, looking at ideas 00:52:06.590 --> 00:52:07.850 about pluralistic ignorance. 00:52:07.850 --> 00:52:09.750 They say, each witness is uncertain whether there's a 00:52:09.750 --> 00:52:11.155 real emergency, they look around, if 00:52:11.155 --> 00:52:12.330 the others not reacting-- 00:52:12.330 --> 00:52:14.020 this probably part of the story-- decide it must not be 00:52:14.020 --> 00:52:14.990 real emergency. 00:52:14.990 --> 00:52:18.160 Social evaluation of others, what are they doing? 00:52:18.160 --> 00:52:20.280 Diffusion of responsibility, each person felt that somebody 00:52:20.280 --> 00:52:21.170 else is going to get help. 00:52:21.170 --> 00:52:23.470 So these are parts of the story, but here's the 00:52:23.470 --> 00:52:24.820 experiments. 00:52:24.820 --> 00:52:27.410 You arrive for an experiment to discuss personal problems. 00:52:27.410 --> 00:52:27.930 You signed up. 00:52:27.930 --> 00:52:28.745 You're a Princeton undergraduate. 00:52:28.745 --> 00:52:29.850 You show up. 00:52:29.850 --> 00:52:31.830 There's one to four people put in 00:52:31.830 --> 00:52:33.470 different rooms over intercoms. 00:52:33.470 --> 00:52:36.860 So it's one person sometimes alone or two at 00:52:36.860 --> 00:52:39.200 two different intercoms. 00:52:39.200 --> 00:52:42.400 One person, the confederate, over the intercom, 00:52:42.400 --> 00:52:45.800 dramatically enacts a person having a seizure. 00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:46.090 All right. 00:52:46.090 --> 00:52:47.770 So imagine you're a student. 00:52:47.770 --> 00:52:49.980 And one of these people, who you believe is randomly 00:52:49.980 --> 00:52:52.390 another student, starts to say, I think I 00:52:52.390 --> 00:52:53.870 need somebody here-- 00:52:53.870 --> 00:52:54.370 dramatically. 00:52:54.370 --> 00:52:55.410 I can do well enough-- 00:52:55.410 --> 00:52:57.350 because I've got one of the seizures coming on. 00:52:57.350 --> 00:52:59.790 I could really use some help, if somebody could help me, 00:52:59.790 --> 00:53:00.890 somebody could help. 00:53:00.890 --> 00:53:01.630 Choking sounds. 00:53:01.630 --> 00:53:02.300 I'm going to die. 00:53:02.300 --> 00:53:03.640 I'm going to die. 00:53:03.640 --> 00:53:04.500 Choking sound. 00:53:04.500 --> 00:53:07.250 The intercom goes quiet. 00:53:07.250 --> 00:53:10.430 What do you do? 00:53:10.430 --> 00:53:14.810 Well, if there's two of you, about 80% of the time, you're 00:53:14.810 --> 00:53:16.200 going to do something. 00:53:16.200 --> 00:53:19.020 If there are six if you, only 30% of the time will anybody 00:53:19.020 --> 00:53:20.780 do anything. 00:53:20.780 --> 00:53:22.042 Yes? 00:53:22.042 --> 00:53:24.838 AUDIENCE: I think sometimes it's also people 00:53:24.838 --> 00:53:25.770 can be really selfish. 00:53:25.770 --> 00:53:30.390 I heard recently in a Johns Hopkins examination that was 00:53:30.390 --> 00:53:32.840 just a few months ago, somebody started having a 00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:35.780 seizure in the middle of the exam, and not a single person 00:53:35.780 --> 00:53:40.515 stopped their test to help them, not even the TA. 00:53:40.515 --> 00:53:42.140 PROFESSOR: So you're saying people can be really selfish, 00:53:42.140 --> 00:53:43.100 because at Johns Hopkins-- 00:53:43.100 --> 00:53:44.340 AUDIENCE: It was their exam. 00:53:44.340 --> 00:53:44.990 They didn't want to stop. 00:53:44.990 --> 00:53:45.870 PROFESSOR: They had an exam. 00:53:45.870 --> 00:53:47.360 And somebody started having a seizure. 00:53:47.360 --> 00:53:49.630 And neither the students nor the teaching assistant did 00:53:49.630 --> 00:53:50.680 anything to help the person. 00:53:50.680 --> 00:53:51.480 AUDIENCE: For a long time. 00:53:51.480 --> 00:53:52.290 PROFESSOR: For a long time. 00:53:52.290 --> 00:53:53.270 OK. 00:53:53.270 --> 00:53:55.120 So you're going to call it selfish. 00:53:55.120 --> 00:53:57.520 And I'm going to agree, in some sense, that's true. 00:53:57.520 --> 00:53:58.890 But I'm going to tell you, it's amazingly-- 00:53:58.890 --> 00:54:00.080 I didn't hear about the story-- it's 00:54:00.080 --> 00:54:02.770 exactly this thing. 00:54:02.770 --> 00:54:04.285 Everything-- and I'll show you, I 00:54:04.285 --> 00:54:05.480 think, three more examples-- 00:54:05.480 --> 00:54:08.410 every experiment shows that if it's just you and one person, 00:54:08.410 --> 00:54:11.846 you are incredibly more likely to help that person than if 00:54:11.846 --> 00:54:14.210 it's you among five people or 10 people. 00:54:14.210 --> 00:54:17.900 The more people, the more certain you are to do nothing. 00:54:17.900 --> 00:54:19.120 And I'm going to tell you in a moment-- this 00:54:19.120 --> 00:54:20.300 is an amazing example-- 00:54:20.300 --> 00:54:22.260 why the exam matters, too. 00:54:22.260 --> 00:54:22.680 OK? 00:54:22.680 --> 00:54:25.030 Because these experiments will show you that this is deeply 00:54:25.030 --> 00:54:26.370 human, unfortunately. 00:54:26.370 --> 00:54:26.950 OK. 00:54:26.950 --> 00:54:27.810 Deeply human. 00:54:27.810 --> 00:54:31.090 And I think it's not that we're more selfish. 00:54:31.090 --> 00:54:32.950 It's that that were terrible at knowing-- 00:54:32.950 --> 00:54:34.630 this is a question about this-- we're terrible about 00:54:34.630 --> 00:54:37.720 knowing what to do under unusual circumstances. 00:54:37.720 --> 00:54:41.450 And we're overcome by wanting to fit in. 00:54:41.450 --> 00:54:42.810 You look at that person, they're not doing anything. 00:54:42.810 --> 00:54:44.070 They look at you, you're not doing anything. 00:54:44.070 --> 00:54:45.450 You look at that person. 00:54:45.450 --> 00:54:47.490 And you guys are-- you're having a face-off of not doing 00:54:47.490 --> 00:54:48.970 anything while the person's sort of 00:54:48.970 --> 00:54:50.770 sinking into their seizure. 00:54:50.770 --> 00:54:53.050 And you could think it's all about selfishness not helping. 00:54:53.050 --> 00:54:57.230 But we think it's something weirdly about humans that in 00:54:57.230 --> 00:55:00.250 groups, they don't know how to act if it's unusual. 00:55:00.250 --> 00:55:01.900 They just don't know how to do it. 00:55:01.900 --> 00:55:03.720 By themselves, incredibly more likely to help. 00:55:03.720 --> 00:55:04.470 So here's an example. 00:55:04.470 --> 00:55:05.160 I'll show you a couple more. 00:55:05.160 --> 00:55:05.770 Was there a hand? 00:55:05.770 --> 00:55:07.045 Yes? 00:55:07.045 --> 00:55:09.570 AUDIENCE: Is this showing the-- 00:55:09.570 --> 00:55:10.410 PROFESSOR: This is a percentage of 00:55:10.410 --> 00:55:11.130 participants who helped. 00:55:11.130 --> 00:55:12.200 So are you asking the math? 00:55:12.200 --> 00:55:13.992 Are you still better off-- 00:55:13.992 --> 00:55:16.813 AUDIENCE: Is this the percentage of the time the 00:55:16.813 --> 00:55:17.930 person received help or-- 00:55:17.930 --> 00:55:18.370 PROFESSOR: Yes. 00:55:18.370 --> 00:55:19.640 This is a percentage of help. 00:55:19.640 --> 00:55:21.740 You're right that you're still better off with six, but I'll 00:55:21.740 --> 00:55:24.210 show you that very often, it doesn't play out that way. 00:55:24.210 --> 00:55:25.900 But you're right. 00:55:25.900 --> 00:55:27.940 There's a trade-off between the sheer number of people and 00:55:27.940 --> 00:55:28.870 the likelihood per person. 00:55:28.870 --> 00:55:30.390 You're absolutely right. 00:55:30.390 --> 00:55:31.470 That varies a little bit. 00:55:31.470 --> 00:55:34.580 Here's another one called lady in distress. 00:55:34.580 --> 00:55:37.590 A subject walks alone or with a passive confederate, so the 00:55:37.590 --> 00:55:39.360 confederate is set up to do nothing. 00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:42.470 Or with a friend, a real friend, you come as a pair. 00:55:42.470 --> 00:55:44.900 And used you go into a room that's separated by a curtain. 00:55:44.900 --> 00:55:46.930 The experimenter goes to the other room. 00:55:46.930 --> 00:55:49.780 In this case, they made it a woman at the time. 00:55:49.780 --> 00:55:53.060 Turns on a tape recording of a huge fall, 00:55:53.060 --> 00:55:54.060 much bigger than that. 00:55:54.060 --> 00:55:55.130 Boom. 00:55:55.130 --> 00:55:56.580 She's around a curtain. 00:55:56.580 --> 00:56:01.180 And she start moaning, a pre-recorded, painful moan. 00:56:01.180 --> 00:56:03.800 You are sitting on the other side of the curtain. 00:56:03.800 --> 00:56:07.490 Who gets up to go see what happened to the experimenter 00:56:07.490 --> 00:56:09.870 who sounds like they had a huge fall and are 00:56:09.870 --> 00:56:11.350 moaning with pain. 00:56:11.350 --> 00:56:12.370 This is very much like the example you 00:56:12.370 --> 00:56:13.720 said almost, right? 00:56:13.720 --> 00:56:15.120 What do the people do? 00:56:15.120 --> 00:56:17.170 So here's what happens. 00:56:17.170 --> 00:56:20.900 If you're by yourself, a 70% chance you'll go there. 00:56:20.900 --> 00:56:22.590 You could wonder what's happening to the other 30%, 00:56:22.590 --> 00:56:23.940 but OK, that's still-- 00:56:23.940 --> 00:56:25.190 OK. 00:56:26.990 --> 00:56:29.750 If the other person sits there who's set up to not do 00:56:29.750 --> 00:56:35.260 anything, practically nobody ever go and helps. 00:56:35.260 --> 00:56:36.560 Because you're sitting there, and the other 00:56:36.560 --> 00:56:37.260 person's not doing it. 00:56:37.260 --> 00:56:38.680 And you're going, well, I don't know. 00:56:38.680 --> 00:56:40.090 It's kind of weird situation. 00:56:40.090 --> 00:56:42.940 Am I invading a person's privacy? 00:56:42.940 --> 00:56:44.430 Maybe that wasn't what I thought I was. 00:56:44.430 --> 00:56:45.720 Because the other person doesn't seem to be doing 00:56:45.720 --> 00:56:47.780 anything, because they're set up. 00:56:47.780 --> 00:56:49.230 If there's two people who are naive, you're 00:56:49.230 --> 00:56:50.460 somewhere in between. 00:56:50.460 --> 00:56:53.060 If you come with a friend, somewhere in between. 00:56:53.060 --> 00:56:54.570 But here's the weird thing. 00:56:54.570 --> 00:56:56.760 The more people, the more you kind of try to figure out, 00:56:56.760 --> 00:56:57.800 what's the right thing to do? 00:56:57.800 --> 00:56:58.822 And you're not doing anything, so I'm 00:56:58.822 --> 00:56:59.620 not going to do anything. 00:56:59.620 --> 00:57:01.460 The other person's saying you-- does that make sense? 00:57:01.460 --> 00:57:03.920 Every one of these, the more people there are, the more 00:57:03.920 --> 00:57:06.090 people don't know what to do, and they do nothing. 00:57:06.090 --> 00:57:08.110 Because they don't want to do something weird and 00:57:08.110 --> 00:57:10.440 embarrassing like make trouble or not do what 00:57:10.440 --> 00:57:11.620 you're supposed to do. 00:57:11.620 --> 00:57:12.640 Here's another one. 00:57:12.640 --> 00:57:13.880 Where there's smoke, there's fire. 00:57:13.880 --> 00:57:14.920 Subjects filling out survey. 00:57:14.920 --> 00:57:18.410 Smoke enters through a vent. 00:57:18.410 --> 00:57:20.365 You're doing this survey alone, in a group of three or 00:57:20.365 --> 00:57:23.460 with two confederate's who notice but ignore the smoke, 00:57:23.460 --> 00:57:25.040 or a friend you bring with you. 00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:28.270 So who leaves the room within six minutes to go get help 00:57:28.270 --> 00:57:32.720 when smoke is billowing into your room? 00:57:32.720 --> 00:57:34.480 As you sit there again-- this is like the Milgram 00:57:34.480 --> 00:57:35.700 experiment-- you go, well, of course I would do it. 00:57:35.700 --> 00:57:38.130 But amazingly, people are sitting there trying to figure 00:57:38.130 --> 00:57:41.810 out, should I finish this first, is this really a fire, 00:57:41.810 --> 00:57:42.970 what's going on here? 00:57:42.970 --> 00:57:46.080 Alone, 75% of the people get up within six minutes and go 00:57:46.080 --> 00:57:48.590 tell somebody, there's smoke billowing into here. 00:57:48.590 --> 00:57:50.410 With two passive confederate-- so people set up to do 00:57:50.410 --> 00:57:52.840 nothing-- only 10% of the time does the individual get up and 00:57:52.840 --> 00:57:53.780 go tell anybody. 00:57:53.780 --> 00:57:55.530 You look around the other two people aren't doing anything, 00:57:55.530 --> 00:57:59.290 you figure well, that must be the right thing to do. 00:57:59.290 --> 00:58:01.850 Two naive subjects-- 00:58:01.850 --> 00:58:03.500 now that we're doing the math this way-- 00:58:03.500 --> 00:58:07.680 12% by individuals, so a third of the groups 00:58:07.680 --> 00:58:09.690 approximately do something. 00:58:09.690 --> 00:58:11.760 That's still pretty low. 00:58:11.760 --> 00:58:14.600 But if you go interestingly in with a friend, that number 00:58:14.600 --> 00:58:16.580 goes up-- a person you really know and trust. 00:58:16.580 --> 00:58:19.100 Because the interpretation is, if it's somebody, you know, 00:58:19.100 --> 00:58:20.110 you're not going to be embarrassed. 00:58:20.110 --> 00:58:22.090 You can say to that person, well, this is a little wacky, 00:58:22.090 --> 00:58:24.760 but shouldn't we go tell somebody there's smoke here or 00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:26.760 somebody collapsed next door? 00:58:26.760 --> 00:58:28.660 And then the friend goes, yes, it's probably a good idea. 00:58:28.660 --> 00:58:30.250 I don't know, but maybe we should do that, right? 00:58:30.250 --> 00:58:31.730 But if you don't know the person, you're not to have 00:58:31.730 --> 00:58:32.700 that conversation. 00:58:32.700 --> 00:58:36.480 So a friend is very powerful to release you from this. 00:58:36.480 --> 00:58:38.900 But if you don't know the other people-- 00:58:38.900 --> 00:58:39.772 yes? 00:58:39.772 --> 00:58:40.756 AUDIENCE: Does it make a difference if 00:58:40.756 --> 00:58:41.371 it's a family member? 00:58:41.371 --> 00:58:43.216 Like if you [INAUDIBLE]? 00:58:43.216 --> 00:58:45.350 PROFESSOR: I don't know that they've done this. 00:58:45.350 --> 00:58:48.010 So these are usually done with undergraduates, so you just 00:58:48.010 --> 00:58:50.030 bring your roommate or your pal. 00:58:50.030 --> 00:58:51.990 I don't if it matters at other levels. 00:58:51.990 --> 00:58:52.970 So that's a very good question. 00:58:52.970 --> 00:58:53.820 And maybe people looked at that. 00:58:53.820 --> 00:58:56.990 I just don't know. 00:58:56.990 --> 00:58:58.320 This is the last experiment. 00:58:58.320 --> 00:59:00.060 And this is kind of the topper of all of this. 00:59:00.060 --> 00:59:01.740 So this gets back to being in an exam situation. 00:59:01.740 --> 00:59:03.650 I'm glad you brought up the --. 00:59:03.650 --> 00:59:06.730 Because this is almost an ironic experiment 00:59:06.730 --> 00:59:07.830 in a deepest sense. 00:59:07.830 --> 00:59:09.670 It's again Darley at Princeton. 00:59:09.670 --> 00:59:10.550 A Good Samaritan. 00:59:10.550 --> 00:59:15.590 So what's the story of the Good Samaritan from the Bible 00:59:15.590 --> 00:59:16.310 for those-- 00:59:16.310 --> 00:59:16.770 yes? 00:59:16.770 --> 00:59:19.530 AUDIENCE: Pretty much this guy who's dying 00:59:19.530 --> 00:59:21.840 of thirst on a highway. 00:59:21.840 --> 00:59:23.920 PROFESSOR: Somebody really injured on the side of the 00:59:23.920 --> 00:59:24.435 road, right? 00:59:24.435 --> 00:59:24.720 AUDIENCE: Yes. 00:59:24.720 --> 00:59:25.970 It was somebody who needs help in life. 00:59:25.970 --> 00:59:29.534 And a bunch of people go by one person at a time. 00:59:29.534 --> 00:59:32.468 First person goes by, doesn't do anything. 00:59:32.468 --> 00:59:33.446 Second person doesn't do anything. 00:59:33.446 --> 00:59:35.900 Third person called the Good Samaritan -- 00:59:35.900 --> 00:59:37.300 PROFESSOR: He's from Samaria. 00:59:37.300 --> 00:59:38.220 AUDIENCE: All right. 00:59:38.220 --> 00:59:38.550 PROFESSOR: OK. 00:59:38.550 --> 00:59:38.640 No. 00:59:38.640 --> 00:59:40.443 I'm just telling you that's it. 00:59:40.443 --> 00:59:42.898 AUDIENCE: Sorry--. 00:59:42.898 --> 00:59:43.389 PROFESSOR: No, it's good. 00:59:43.389 --> 00:59:43.715 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 00:59:43.715 --> 00:59:47.480 The third guy looks down at the injured man, and 00:59:47.480 --> 00:59:48.310 he helps him out. 00:59:48.310 --> 00:59:48.740 PROFESSOR: Yes. 00:59:48.740 --> 00:59:51.810 Now, I'm going to tell you one more thing, which is 00:59:51.810 --> 00:59:55.630 Samaritans we're not the most affluent members of 00:59:55.630 --> 00:59:56.610 society at the time. 00:59:56.610 --> 00:59:59.730 This matters for the story in a way you're about to hear. 00:59:59.730 --> 01:00:01.600 So a Good Samaritan. 01:00:01.600 --> 01:00:03.600 So they took students-- now, think about this. 01:00:03.600 --> 01:00:07.770 Because they want to show you how absurdly weird it is when 01:00:07.770 --> 01:00:10.410 it is we're willing to step forward and help a person. 01:00:10.410 --> 01:00:12.280 And I don't think it's about goodness. 01:00:12.280 --> 01:00:14.860 It's about the weirdness of our minds and not 01:00:14.860 --> 01:00:16.220 embarrassing ourselves. 01:00:16.220 --> 01:00:20.090 And how preoccupied we are with our other business. 01:00:20.090 --> 01:00:22.590 So social psychologists are going to tell you the reason 01:00:22.590 --> 01:00:25.750 the Good Samaritan stopped was not because he 01:00:25.750 --> 01:00:26.950 was such a good guy. 01:00:26.950 --> 01:00:31.090 It's because he didn't have so much to do. 01:00:31.090 --> 01:00:32.040 And here's the experiment. 01:00:32.040 --> 01:00:33.290 They're going to tell you why. 01:00:35.770 --> 01:00:38.950 These are seminary students studying to become ministers. 01:00:38.950 --> 01:00:40.590 So this is the group. 01:00:40.590 --> 01:00:43.270 They picked this group because they want to show you-- social 01:00:43.270 --> 01:00:46.600 psychologists get irritated by personality psychologists. 01:00:46.600 --> 01:00:48.840 They say, can you pick a nicer group than people studying to 01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:51.520 be ministers? 01:00:51.520 --> 01:00:52.770 That's the disposition. 01:00:56.500 --> 01:00:57.560 They're filling out surveys about 01:00:57.560 --> 01:00:59.630 religious values in a room. 01:00:59.630 --> 01:01:01.210 They're told that they're going to have to present a 01:01:01.210 --> 01:01:06.350 talk about either seminary jobs or-- 01:01:06.350 --> 01:01:07.990 so this is careerism-- 01:01:07.990 --> 01:01:12.040 or a sermon on the Good Samaritan. 01:01:12.040 --> 01:01:13.670 So you're sitting there going, help people, help 01:01:13.670 --> 01:01:16.430 people, help people. 01:01:16.430 --> 01:01:17.970 All right. that's their speech. 01:01:17.970 --> 01:01:19.910 They're prepared. 01:01:19.910 --> 01:01:23.130 Then they're released to go give this talk in front of 01:01:23.130 --> 01:01:25.450 other faculty members and their students, so they want 01:01:25.450 --> 01:01:26.770 to do a good job. 01:01:26.770 --> 01:01:29.090 Either they're sent to the building across the campus 01:01:29.090 --> 01:01:31.340 ahead of time, plenty of time. 01:01:31.340 --> 01:01:32.950 On time, they have-- or they're late. 01:01:32.950 --> 01:01:34.370 They go, oh, my gosh, you didn't go over? 01:01:34.370 --> 01:01:35.355 We told you you should be-- 01:01:35.355 --> 01:01:36.690 you're going to be-- if you don't run, 01:01:36.690 --> 01:01:38.010 you're going to be late. 01:01:38.010 --> 01:01:41.100 You don't want to be late to give your practice sermon or 01:01:41.100 --> 01:01:42.730 speech to the faculty committee 01:01:42.730 --> 01:01:46.100 waiting for you, right. 01:01:46.100 --> 01:01:47.680 And then here's one more thing to keep in mind. 01:01:47.680 --> 01:01:49.470 Some of you probably have visited Princeton, New 01:01:49.470 --> 01:01:51.390 Jersey-- just to give you a sense of this. 01:01:51.390 --> 01:01:55.880 This is even back in the 1960s, but even now-- 01:01:55.880 --> 01:01:58.920 so who's been to Princeton University? 01:01:58.920 --> 01:01:59.350 You have? 01:01:59.350 --> 01:01:59.790 OK. 01:01:59.790 --> 01:02:06.300 Scary urban environment full of threatening noises, the 01:02:06.300 --> 01:02:08.410 campus itself? 01:02:08.410 --> 01:02:13.040 Pastoral place full of eating clubs and references F. Scott 01:02:13.040 --> 01:02:15.490 Fitzgerald. 01:02:15.490 --> 01:02:17.290 I'm just adding in that Princeton is a pretty 01:02:17.290 --> 01:02:20.000 nonthreatening place, the campus itself. 01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:21.170 I'm just adding this in, because you've got 01:02:21.170 --> 01:02:21.500 to keep this in. 01:02:21.500 --> 01:02:23.470 OK. 01:02:23.470 --> 01:02:24.550 Here's the confederate. 01:02:24.550 --> 01:02:29.230 It's a man slumped in a doorway moaning in obvious 01:02:29.230 --> 01:02:32.670 pain, hunched over on the ground going, uh, uh, uh. 01:02:32.670 --> 01:02:36.260 Now, on the path to giving the speech, who stops to help? 01:02:39.590 --> 01:02:42.000 Anything they could measure about the personalities in 01:02:42.000 --> 01:02:46.840 individuals made no difference whether you stopped to help. 01:02:46.840 --> 01:02:50.130 Whether you were saying stop to help, stop to help, stop to 01:02:50.130 --> 01:02:52.110 help, because you were going to give a talk about the Good 01:02:52.110 --> 01:02:57.260 Samaritan or going to talk about career paths doesn't 01:02:57.260 --> 01:02:58.900 make any difference at all. 01:02:58.900 --> 01:03:01.490 So amazingly, the people's zooming by this injured person 01:03:01.490 --> 01:03:03.440 are saying, stop and help the person, stop and-- the guy's 01:03:03.440 --> 01:03:06.790 moaning in the doorway next to them-- 01:03:06.790 --> 01:03:09.510 as they're walking, sorry. 01:03:09.510 --> 01:03:12.270 What counts as to who stops? 01:03:12.270 --> 01:03:12.780 They're by themselves. 01:03:12.780 --> 01:03:13.910 So it's not a group thing now. 01:03:13.910 --> 01:03:15.520 They're by themselves, right? 01:03:15.520 --> 01:03:17.590 It's if they're ahead of time. 01:03:17.590 --> 01:03:20.610 If they have time, because they know they can stop and 01:03:20.610 --> 01:03:25.670 help somebody and still make their talk on time, 63% stop, 01:03:25.670 --> 01:03:30.370 45% if it's going to be close call, 10% if they're rushing, 01:03:30.370 --> 01:03:31.725 because they're going to be late. 01:03:35.220 --> 01:03:38.020 The description you set up, a big group of people taking an 01:03:38.020 --> 01:03:39.460 exam, they're like this. 01:03:39.460 --> 01:03:41.500 They're pressured, their pressured, they're pressured. 01:03:41.500 --> 01:03:42.560 And there's a lot of us. 01:03:42.560 --> 01:03:44.640 Somebody's going to take care this if they need to. 01:03:44.640 --> 01:03:48.090 And I've got things to do, like take an exam. 01:03:48.090 --> 01:03:51.920 Or run over and explain how incredibly important it is 01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:55.960 morally to help those who are injured and around you, right? 01:03:55.960 --> 01:04:01.970 So it can have a more sort of literary experiment showing 01:04:01.970 --> 01:04:06.780 you how weird it is when we stop and help people. 01:04:06.780 --> 01:04:07.682 Yes? 01:04:07.682 --> 01:04:09.158 AUDIENCE: This happened on campus. 01:04:09.158 --> 01:04:10.634 I was walking back to one of the dorms. 01:04:10.634 --> 01:04:14.324 And I walked by and I saw feet sticking out of a bush, like 01:04:14.324 --> 01:04:15.554 someone had collapsed into a bush. 01:04:15.554 --> 01:04:17.891 I didn't quite believe it at first, so I stopped the next 01:04:17.891 --> 01:04:19.982 person and asked, are there feet there? 01:04:19.982 --> 01:04:21.700 Is that actually what I'm seeing? 01:04:21.700 --> 01:04:23.943 So eventually, we called the police, but the response from 01:04:23.943 --> 01:04:25.306 most of the people going by, one was, I'm 01:04:25.306 --> 01:04:26.028 sorry, I can't stop. 01:04:26.028 --> 01:04:27.471 I'm late for MITSO. 01:04:27.471 --> 01:04:28.914 I have to go pset. 01:04:28.914 --> 01:04:31.800 So a lot of people just went by and didn't stop. 01:04:31.800 --> 01:04:31.910 PROFESSOR: OK. 01:04:31.910 --> 01:04:33.960 So you're giving a story in real life, on the campus here. 01:04:33.960 --> 01:04:34.470 AUDIENCE: Yes, exactly. 01:04:34.470 --> 01:04:36.250 PROFESSOR: Where two feet were sticking out from a bush. 01:04:36.250 --> 01:04:37.250 AUDIENCE: Yes [INAUDIBLE]. 01:04:37.250 --> 01:04:37.550 AUDIENCE: All right. 01:04:37.550 --> 01:04:39.960 PROFESSOR: No, no, no, no. 01:04:39.960 --> 01:04:41.190 This is not a set up. 01:04:41.190 --> 01:04:44.280 You're not a confederate. 01:04:44.280 --> 01:04:45.570 So first, you wanted to ask somebody else. 01:04:45.570 --> 01:04:46.600 And but this really interesting. 01:04:46.600 --> 01:04:46.955 I mean-- 01:04:46.955 --> 01:04:47.700 AUDIENCE: To make sure [INAUDIBLE]. 01:04:47.700 --> 01:04:47.900 PROFESSOR: Yes, yes. 01:04:47.900 --> 01:04:48.890 Because that's the first thing, right? 01:04:48.890 --> 01:04:50.310 Like, yes, what do you think? 01:04:50.310 --> 01:04:51.380 Good idea to have a body here? 01:04:51.380 --> 01:04:54.970 Bad idea to have a body here? 01:04:54.970 --> 01:04:56.960 And another person walks by and say what-- we'd like your 01:04:56.960 --> 01:04:58.110 opinion before we do anything. 01:04:58.110 --> 01:05:00.280 And the person says, I can't stop. 01:05:00.280 --> 01:05:01.470 I have things to do, right? 01:05:01.470 --> 01:05:02.570 I have homework. 01:05:02.570 --> 01:05:03.250 Yes. 01:05:03.250 --> 01:05:04.550 It's astounding. 01:05:04.550 --> 01:05:08.630 So I'll just stop with saying, it makes you think-- you used 01:05:08.630 --> 01:05:09.880 the word selfish. 01:05:09.880 --> 01:05:10.840 And that-- no, no. 01:05:10.840 --> 01:05:11.670 I don't mean to pick on you. 01:05:11.670 --> 01:05:14.840 But it's just weird how humans are like this. 01:05:14.840 --> 01:05:16.010 You see this all the time. 01:05:16.010 --> 01:05:20.120 For me personally, all of these things have really 01:05:20.120 --> 01:05:23.050 changed how I interpret situations, and how much I 01:05:23.050 --> 01:05:25.110 think a person's a crummy person. 01:05:25.110 --> 01:05:27.110 Because up until the fundamental attribution error, 01:05:27.110 --> 01:05:28.990 although I always gave myself every break for doing 01:05:28.990 --> 01:05:32.230 everything wrong, I always interpreted other people's 01:05:32.230 --> 01:05:34.930 failings as deep character flaws, right? 01:05:34.930 --> 01:05:39.610 And it has made me personally stop and think. 01:05:39.610 --> 01:05:41.960 If somebody's not doing something I wish they did or 01:05:41.960 --> 01:05:44.730 that I think would be better, maybe from their perspective, 01:05:44.730 --> 01:05:49.690 they're in a situation that's compelling them to perform 01:05:49.690 --> 01:05:52.030 less well than I think they should or something like that. 01:05:52.030 --> 01:05:54.650 So these are unbelievably fascinating things and very 01:05:54.650 --> 01:05:56.100 convincing. 01:05:56.100 --> 01:05:59.370 And it's very sad when they set up prisons not remembering 01:05:59.370 --> 01:06:01.050 these lessons that are so clear cut. 01:06:01.050 --> 01:06:03.380 And I think the huge thing to know about this, as far as we 01:06:03.380 --> 01:06:07.650 possibly understand, this is true of everybody, all of us. 01:06:07.650 --> 01:06:09.300 None of us think we would do this. 01:06:09.300 --> 01:06:11.400 All of us are prone to do this. 01:06:11.400 --> 01:06:14.940 Through many, many, many experiments, without any 01:06:14.940 --> 01:06:17.520 evidence to the contrary, from a scientific viewpoint, it's 01:06:17.520 --> 01:06:20.330 about as convincing a story as you can possibly have. 01:06:20.330 --> 01:06:21.580 Thanks very much.