Bystander Effect

I feel as though this happens quite often...like, an every day occurrence. I've been both the bystander and the one looking for assistance from a bystander. The bystander effect is the tendency for someone to be less likely to help another if there are other people present. Why do we automatically assume that the other person is going to help?

In a situation where help is needed and there are multiple people present, there is a diffusion of responsibility. This means that each person feels that they hold little responsibility for helping the person simply because other people are there to help. If there was one individual, the chances of them helping would raise.

Another example that I didn't think of was explained in this article. If nobody else is helping, this is seen as socially acceptable behavior. We assume that since nobody else is helping, help must not be necessary or appropriate.

Collin, Emily, and I did our "Try It Project" on the bystander effect. Diffusion of responsibility was apparent quite a bit. Results also varied depending on the gender of the people, which ties a little bit into the socially acceptable aspect. Girls typically would not help Collin, whereas Emily was helped every time. That may be because they believe that men are perfectly capable of helping themselves. Mr. Dreier is not immune to the bystander effect. He blatantly refused to help Collin when he dropped all his pencils in front of him. Bit rude, don't you think?

Body Language

Social psychology is probably one of the most interesting things to me. How do we interact with people and how do we judge them? Amy Cuddy opens a door into body language. The question she raises is, "Do our non-verbals govern how we think about ourselves?" The answer seems to be, "Yes."

The video is focused on power and how to cause yourself to feel powerful rather than powerless. An opened stance, with arms wide, indicates power. A hunched, closed position indicates a powerless individual (Touching the neck indicates extreme low power). People do not mirror the body language of another person. They typically will pose in the opposite fashion.This is related to gender; women feel less powerful than men. But Cuddy introduced an interesting, effective technique. When you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to feel powerful. Two minutes in a high power or low power pose can shape the mind.

She also explains power in terms of testosterone and stress. Power is about how you react to stress. The tendency is that the more power you feel, the lower your stress level should be. The opposite is true for powerless feelings.

Bottom line: Fake it until you BECOME it.

What I Need....

In preparing for the AP exam, what I need is to get my lazy butt up and learn how to study effectively. Generally, I'm not really motivated to sit and re-read my notes multiple times in a feeble attempt to remember everything. I tend to study better when I am forced to do so, or when the information and terms are presented in a fun manner. I'm really looking forward to the study groups, because I feel that I could get in some much needed study time with people who are obviously studying the same thing. Teamwork!

I'm mostly concerned about parts of the brain and their functions, and sensory/perceptions. Those topics go a bit more in depth, and I didn't spend a ton of time thinking about them. Just about everything else I feel I can comprehend quite a bit easier.

Now on to a quick little thing on alternative therapies. Do they work? Are they better than traditional therapy? I personally think it has a lot to do with the placebo effect. If a client believes that a certain therapy is going to work, then it most likely will. The article contains some first-hand accounts of alternative therapies. What do you think?

Multiple Personalities

It is assumed that self is the center of personality. But what causes multiple personality disorder, when there is more than just one self? Is self-esteem level a factor?

Each "character" present in multiple personality disorder has their own views and opinions of the world and themselves. Most people with this disorder were either physically or sexually abused as children. The article talks a little bit about disassociation, a defense mechanism.

Personally I think self-esteem does play into the disorder in some sense. Having an extremely low self-esteem may cause them to create another personality that has a higher self-esteem. Physical and/or sexual abuse can cause low self-esteem. Is it possible that abuse is just the underlying cause? Maybe abuse and self-esteem interact.

Of course, not everybody with a low self-esteem has multiple personalities. Same goes for those who have experienced abuse. The question remains, what else could be a possible factor?