Humans tend to be social creatures. It’s the norm to be seen as part of some form of social group and over time we associate with a plethora of different social gangs, groups and cliques; families, friendship groups, football teams, blog readers and so on. Presumably most of us would like to think that although we enjoy being a part of such groups, we are still very much our own autonomous selves. We like to think we make our own decisions and although we listen to others opinions, ultimately we control our own lives and are manning the steering wheel. Yet, there are dozens of psychologists with study upon study that paint a very different picture. Throwing us into a group makes us behave very differently indeed. Social psychology is a massive area and there are far too many interesting studies and findings to do justice to them here. Thus, I will be covering just a few; the ‘bystander effect’, group biases even when groups don’t exist and why eating in a group is a bad idea.
Have you ever walked past/over an ill homeless person asking for help? Been caught gawping at a couple having an overly aggressive argument at full throttle and then looked away? Driven past a very sad looking motorist flagging down traffic for help in the rain? If you said yes to any of those or have done something similar you were a ‘Bystander’. Deciding whether to help a stranger in trouble can be a difficult one. However, I suggest making this decision can be made a lot less difficult when in a group, as you are far more likely to decide to do absolutely nothing.
Participants in a study (I can’t for the life of me remember the researchers name) were told they were to discuss the difficulties of settling in at university with another ‘student’ (yet the experimental set up meant that the other 'student’ could not be seen). The other 'student' was actually an actor and at some point during the study would reveal that he was epileptic and later pretend to suffer from an epileptic attack. Ethical? Probably not. Traumatic for the real student? Definitely! What would you have done? Surely report it to the experimenter straight away? Well, it depends who you were with.
The experimenters varied the number participants that the real student thought were present (on their own to 5 other people witnessing the attack). In a victory for humanity, when alone 85% of participants reported the attack to the experimenter (shame on you the other 15%). However, here is where it gets it interesting: when in groups of 2 only 65% reported the attack, and when in even larger groups of 5 only 32% reported it. Meaning that a staggering 68% of participants (compared to 15% when participants were alone) happily ignored a person very obviously suffering from a potentially fatal epileptic attack. Worrying. One explanation to such negligent behaviour is ‘diffusion of responsibility’; assuming someone else will step in. But if everyone else is thinking the same then we have problems.
We all have our favourites; we prefer our friends over strangers and immediate family to long lost cousins and aunts. Why not? It makes perfect sense to exhibit favouritism to those close to us. However, experimental studies show that even being made part of a temporary group with no purpose, history, aims or future is enough to make individuals exhibit all sorts of favouritism to their own groups and treat out-group members rather negatively. What is even more interesting is that studies using all sorts of age groups in varying cultures have found extremely similar findings and very often participants are not even aware of these glaring and seemingly nonsensical bias. For example, a University of Liverpool study showed that simply noticing someone is wearing a football shirt that is different to the team you support substantially decreases your likelihood of helping them after falling over!
Here is a real world example of how worrying about your own group can harm you. Brown (1978) report a case in which factory toolroom workers were receiving a wage that was slightly higher than some production workers in the same factory giving them a slightly higher status. When a round of factory wage negotiations came round. rather than focusing on increasing their own wage (you'd think you might want to do this during wage negotiations), the toolroom workers became worried about preserving the group pay difference. Subsequently they rejected a settlement that would have given them substantially more money but at the same time given the production workers a higher wage than themselves. They instead accepted a much smaller settlement that resulted in them still being higher paid than the production workers. Thus, even though they could have substantially improved their own wage, the toolworkers preferred not to, instead preferring a settlement that maintained their status as a superior group. Faces, noses and spite come to mind.
Ever decided upon a choice in a restaurant or bar and then for some unknown reason changed your mind as others have started ordering? If so, look away now.
Spending many an hour annoying the public in bars and restaurants, psychologist Dan Ariely has run a number of studies which suggests our dining partners often unknowingly sabotage our dinner. The experiments were very simple. Groups in bars or restaurants would be approached and given menus with 4 options to choose from. For example, they could be 4 different types of beer. Now here is the interesting part; For half of the groups the waiter/researcher in disguise would take the tables orders asking each individual what beer they would like to order. This is normal in a bar. For the other half of the tables the waiter/researcher in disguise would provide each person with an individual ordering slip and pencil and ask them to write down their order and keep the identity hidden from their friends/work colleagues/family. This isn't normal in a bar. Once the order was taken our waiter/researcher in disguise then brought the drinks over and provided each group member with another slip to report how much they enjoyed their beer.
What would the difference between the two groups be? Well, when ordering out loud as you would do in a normal bar, the group tended to order more different types of beer per table. Thus, even the less attractive beers would be more likely to be ordered, as the group members who announced their order in the later stages felt as though they had to choose different beers from other group members, even if they had initially wanted a beer that was now 'taken'. We obviously like to portray that we are all very unique and don't follow the crowd. But when individuals were ordering in secret on a piece of paper, they could in no way be influenced by others choices and tended to go for the more desirable sounding beers. Furthermore, the researchers found that when reporting how much they enjoyed the beer, because they had often opted for variety over what looked the best, the 'out-loud' ordering group (what we do in everyday life all the time) tended to enjoy their beer significantly less than the ordering in private group. Perhaps notepads, pens and eyes down could be the way forward?
Applications and Advice
Don’t let the crowd stop you from being a good person. Ask yourself why you’re not helping someone? If it’s because you don’t like them: fair enough. If it’s because you expect someone else will: be that someone else.
Always be the first to order at a restaurant.
Or at least always be the most vocal about what you intend to order.
Don’t ever get involved with a toolroom worker: they are massive tools.
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