Psychology 2720A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Kurt Lewin, Gestalt Psychology

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2720A/B
• Professor: Rachel Calogero

Document Summary

Scienti c study of how ppl think about, in uence & relate to each other (social in uence) Use scienti c method to collect data; descriptive (case studies) vs experimental (lab/ eld) The social part - presence of others (actual, imagined or implied), environmental forces (stress, weather, money or news) & broader social contexts (time, history, culture or religion) Focus on impact of all situational forces and social in uence. Goal = identify universal properties making everyone susceptible to social in uence. Hindsight bias: tendency for ppl to believe they could have foreseen an event thats happened. Bystander effect: kitty genovese - person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders. Operates through diffusion of responsibility (responsibility to help decreases when number of witnesses increases) Bystanders who are alone are signi cantly more likely to help. Take personal responsibility for speaking up or taking action - change norm.