Social Psychology - Zentered Minds

A Blog by Aadhisha Shirish

Anything that happens in a person’s life has various underlying causes and the social environment surrounding that person has a major role in these happenings. This includes everything ranging from basic emotions to serious crimes. All of these happen due to a social influence, either in the recent past or long time back. Studying this relation between the social and psychological domain in a person’s life and how it causes different events and impacts different occurrences is nothing but a socio-psychological study.

Moving on from a single person to an entire population, there are certain phenomena as well, which are based on these socio-psychological concepts. All these phenomena might not necessarily have a social cause but some might even be regarding the impact it has on the social environment or a person’s behaviour towards other people.

Some of the socio-psychological phenomena are as follows:-

1. Social loafing:

It refers to decay in inspiration and efforts found when individuals combine their endeavors to make a group product. Individuals tend to create less yield or to contribute less effort when working on a task collectively where commitments are combined than when working individually. The result is that individuals are less beneficial when working as a part of a team than when working individually. It is comparable to the free rider effect whereby individuals contribute less to a collective exertion when they perceive their commitments are unnecessary. Typically moreover compared to the sucker effect, whereby individuals withhold their commitments to a team to maintain a strategic distance from being the casualty of social loafing or free rider endeavours of other team members. However, the free rider effect and the sucker effect are smaller terms that allude to particular causes of social loafing. Social loafing is a more extensive build that alludes to any decrease in inspiration and exertion that happens when commitments are pooled contrasted to when they are not pooled.

Ex: – Bystander effect –

This happens when the presence of others discourages a person from mediating in a crisis circumstance, against a bully, or during an ambush or other wrongdoing. The more prominent the quantity of onlookers, the lesser probability it is for any of them to give assistance to an individual in trouble. Individuals are bound to make a move in an emergency when there are not many or no different observers present.

Social clinicians Bibb Latané and John Darley promoted the idea of the bystander effect following the scandalous homicide of Kitty Genovese in New York City in 1964. The 28-year-old lady was wounded to death outside her apartment. At that point, it accounted for that many neighbours neglected to step in to help or call the police.

Latané and Darley credited this effect to two elements: diffusion of responsibility and social impact. The apparent dispersion of obligation implies that the more spectators there are, the less moral duty people will fail to make a move. Social impact implies that people screen the conduct of everyone around them to decide acceptable behaviour.

2. The Saying is believing effect:

In psychology, this says that we will in general recollect and believe what we state to others, regardless of whether we mentioned to them what we thought they needed to hear (rather than the full truth about what we truly think).

Ex: – Higgins’s test wherein subjects are given social portrayals of somebody and advised to depict this individual to a crowd of people with the goal that the crowd would have the option to recognise him. Subjects are told that the crowd knows about this individual as of now, and, in various test conditions, that they either like or dislike the individual.

The outcomes are that subjects would in general tailor their depictions of individuals to accommodate their impression of their crowds’ desires. Moreover, their resulting recollections of the individual depicted were more reliable with their crowd tuned message than the first portrayal that they were given.

3. Mass delusions:

Collective delusions are encapsulated as the unconstrained, quick spread of bogus or overstated convictions inside a population everywhere, briefly influencing a specific locality, culture, or nation. Apparently, the ongoing sightings of a venomous bug in Austria have prompted several individuals thinking they had been chomped, when most had not. In many cases, this is triggered by an environmental incident such as contamination of the water supply that causes people to literally worry themselves sick after getting sick, even though they’re otherwise perfectly healthy. Other examples include strawberries with sugar virus (2006), the dancing plague of 1518, and so forth.

4. Mere exposure effect:

The more regularly individuals have been presented with a stimulus, the more they like it, even when the stimulus is subjected subliminally. It is a psychological phenomenon by which individuals will in general build up an incline for things or individuals that are more known / familiar to them than others. Repeated exposure builds and increases familiarity. It is also called as familiarity effect. According to researches of interpersonal attractions, the more frequently somebody sees an individual, the additionally satisfying and amiable they find that individual. Another example is the point at which you hear a song on the radio and you don’t like it; yet then after you have heard it commonly, you start to like it. Since you become progressively mindful with the tune, verses, and so forth you start to believe that you like it, regardless of your dislike initially. One of its applications is found in the idea of promotion and advertisement.

5. Cross race effect:

People identify appearances of individuals of their own race more precisely than the appearances of individuals of different races. Cross-race effect has a solid association with the in-group advantage phenomenon. With in-group advantage, individuals assess and judge individuals from their own self-characterised bunch as being preferable and more pleasant over individuals from different gatherings. Social psychologists have shown over the most recent 30 years that even the slightest part of the separation, similar to inclination for kind of frozen yogurt or style of music, can trigger in-group advantage.

6. Fundamental attribution error:

It refers to our tendency to clarify somebody’s conduct dependent on inward factors, for example, character or manner, and to think little of the impact that outer variables, for example, situational impacts, have on someone else’s conduct. Individuals will in general clarify others’ conduct regarding their own qualities instead of the circumstance they are in. We may, for instance, clarify the way that somebody is jobless dependent on his character, and censure him for his predicament, when in truth he was as of late laid off because of a languid economy. Obviously, there are times when we’re right about our suppositions; however the fundamental attribution error is our inclination to clarify the conduct of others depends on character or disposition. This is especially obvious when the conduct is negative.

–Blog by Aadhisha Shirish

REFERENCES:

1. http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/examples.htm

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/basics/bystander-effect

3. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/group/social-loafing/

4. http://mrdupdates.blogspot.com/2008/09/saying-is-believing-effect.html

5. https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/chapter/phenomena-and-theories/

6. https://www.wiwi.europa-uni.de/de/lehrstuhl/fine/mikro/bilder_und_pdf-dateien/WS0910/VLBehEconomics/Ausarbeitungen/MereExposure.pd

7. https://study.com/academy/lesson/fundamental-attribution-error-definition-lesson-quiz.html

8. https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

A Blog by Antara Jain

There is immense amount of pain in the world, there are people struggling every single day and most of them are not open enough about the way they feel due to the generic thought that “I know what people are going to say so what’s the point?”. This is exactly where the problem lies – we as individuals fail to recognise the way we put across our words, the way we use our words towards another individual who may be at their lowest point. We are trained to believe that Mental Health Issues and even experiencing any kind of negative emotion is “just a phase”, is just a person being “too sensitive” or being too “dramatic”. We may not recognise this but we tend to invalidate an individual’s feelings to an extent that they become self-critical of their own emotions, they begin to feel how they are or were feeling is irrelevant and somehow their fault, they jump into the cycle of self-blame and eventually begin to believe that there is something wrong with them. There are several things to keep in mind when you are trying to be there for someone – we believe that giving someone advice or comparing their emotions and problems to those of other people who “have it much worse” means being there for someone but it’s literally the opposite. In fact, when you start telling a person who is already falling apart that they indirectly don’t deserve to fall apart or feel so negatively about a certain aspect of their lives because “other people have it much worse”, you’re basically claiming that just because their problems aren’t as bad as those of others, they are not allowed to feel upset. This will lead to nothing but a downward spiral in terms of the individual’s Mental Health.

When someone is sharing about how they’re feeling regarding something you may have done or said to hurt them or just some aspect of their lives which is making them feel low and upset – most of us have a tendency to start talking about ourselves, our problems and how we are feeling. Now imagine being in a situation like that. This person trusted you enough to open up to you, they probably opened up to you because they felt that you would understand – however, if you begin to take away their perception towards the situation and how they felt by making it all about yourself, chances are this individual will never open up to you. It’s imperative to remember that it’s not a competition, it’s not about you in that very moment – it’s about the person who was strong enough to be honest and vulnerable with you. There are also instances where our automatic response is to tell someone how they should feel and how they should not feel: “be positive”, “chill out” , “don’t overreact and over-analyze, just let it go”, “stop overthinking” – such terms are toxic to use when you’re trying to be there for someone, how can we tell someone how to feel?

You’re basically taking away their power to experience their emotions completely, you’re taking away their response to a situation or a thought. In such instances, the individual does not even want your advice, they just want you to be present, they want you to listen to them in a space which is created to be non-judgemental and non-bias – that’s all that people are looking for, a safe space where they can express themselves without being made to feel invalidated or criticised.

After reflecting on our misconceptions and mistakes, let’s throw light on the effective ways to genuinely be there for people who are struggling. Let’s keep in mind that you don’t know the extent of someone’s suffering and you never will but you have the power to use your words in an appropriate manner to instil a sense of courage and hope within the individual – “I can’t imagine what you’re going through but I want you to know that I am here to listen to you”, “I know it’s hard to see strength in oneself when you feel hopeless and this may not matter, but I do see strength and resilience in you”, “Don’t feel bad for feeling the way you’re feeling but I want you to know that you will get through this and I will be here”. Such words are validating and depicts the idea of you being present with the person. Regardless – focus on their positive qualities, focus on their courage and their strength, help them find hope again amidst the words that you use while you’re trying to help. Don’t project your “sympathy” towards them, instead practice empathy – try to understand what the other individual may genuinely be feeling and how this feeling could be affecting their emotional well-being – don’t jump to conclusions and don’t make assumptions. Just be there for them empathetically. A person who is heard and understood is a person who will begin to heal.