Summary of the articles, lectures and presentation of students
Lecture 0
Behavioural study of obedience (Milgram)
Obedience: psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. The
dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. It serves numerous productive functions,
it may be ennobling and educative and refers to acts of charity and kindness, as well as destruction.
Milgram tested obedience by the procedure: naïve subject was ordered to administer an electric
shock to a victim. The instrument indicated verbal designations ranging from slight shock to danger:
severe shock. The responses of the victim, a trained confederate, were standardized. The orders to
administer shocks are given in the context of a ‘learning experiment’ set up to study the effects of
punishment on memory. As the experiment proceeds administered shocks increase in intensity.
Internal resistances become stronger and at a certain point the subject refuses to go on with the
experiment. The point of rupture is the act of disobedience. A value is assigned per participant to the
maximum intensity shock he is willing to administer (ranges from 0 to 30).
They systematically vary the factors believed to alter the degree of obedience.
There were two surprising findings:
1. Sheer strength of obedient tendencies manifested in situations. 26 of the 40 subjects followed
the instructions of an authority who has no special powers to enforce his commands. The
majority applied with the experimental commands, which was unexpected to persons who
observed the experiment in progress, through one-way mirrors. These observers had a full
acquaintance with details of the situation and yet systematically underestimated the amount
of obedience that subjects would display.
2. Extraordinary tension generated by procedures: striking reactions of tension and emotional
strain.
Features explaining part of the high amount of observed obedience:
1. Experiment is sponsored by and takes place on the grounds of Yale university. It may be
reasonably presumed that the personnel are competent and reputable.
2. Experiment is, on face of it, designed to attain a worthy purpose: advancement of knowledge
about learning and memory. Obedience occurs not as an end in itself, but as an instrumental
element in a situation that subject construes as significant, and meaningful. He may not be
able to see its full significance, but he may assume that the experimenter does.
3. Subject perceives that victim has voluntarily submitted to the authority system of
experimenter. He is not an unwilling captive impressed for involuntary service.
4. Subject has entered experiment voluntary and perceives himself under obligation to aid the
experimenter.
5. Certain features of procedure strengthen subject’s sense of obligation to the experiment, for
example he has been paid for coming to the laboratory.
6. From the subject’s standpoint, the fact that he is a teacher and the other the learner is purely
chance, and the subject had the same risk of being the student.
7. There is ambiguity with regard to the prerogatives of a psychologist and the corresponding
rights of his subject.
8. Subjects are assured that shocks administered to subject are painful but not dangerous:
discomfort is momentary, while the scientific gains are enduring.
9. Through shock level 20 victim continues to provide answers on the signal box. The subject
may construe this as a sign that the victim is still willing to play the game.
Some features related to the nature of the conflict which the subject faces:
1. Subject is placed in a position in which he must respond to the competing demands of two
persons: experimenter and victim.
2. While demands of experimenter carry the weight of scientific authority, demands of the victim
spring from his personal experience of pain and suffering.
3. The experiment gives the subject little time for reflection.
4. The conflict stems from the opposition of two deeply ingrained behavior dispositions:
a. Not to harm other people
b. Tendency to obey those whom we perceive to be legitimate authorities.
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,Lecture 1
Having Less, Giving More: The Influence of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior (Piff
…)
Principle of noblesse oblige emerged to guarantee that those in upper echelons of society act
benevolently toward others who have less.
Rand stated that it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject. Arguing that freedoms and
talents of those who rise in social hierarchies are constrained by altruistic inclinations.
Piff et al. examined how social class influences prosocial behavior. Relative to upper class
counterparts, lower class individuals have fewer economic resources, fewer educational opportunities,
less access to social institutions (e.g. universities/social clubs) and subordinate rank in society relative
to others. Moreover, people with lower class backgrounds often face increased stress in close
relationship and violence in homes. Lower class individuals may be expected to be more focused on
own welfare, prioritizing own needs over needs of others. However, they appear to be more engaged
with the needs of others. They are more dependent on others to achieve their desired life outcomes,
more cognizant of others in their social environment and more likely to display other-oriented
nonverbal behaviors.
Social class is rooted in objective features of material wealth, access to resources and conceptions of
socioeconomic status rank vis-à-vis others in society. It influences an individual’s life circumstances
and patterns of construal in ways that are similar to other social identity constructs. Relative to upper
class counterparts, lower class individuals are more attuned to social context and invested in
interactions with others.
Hypothesis: Lower class individuals are more concerned with needs of others relative to upper class
individuals and will act in a more prosocial fashion to improve others’ welfare. Support for this:
- Rank-based processes influence compassion
- To the extent that lower class individuals have fewer resources and are more economically
dependent on others, they should prove to be more prosocial than upper class counterparts.
- Correlational evidence suggests that lower class individuals are more charitable and
generous that their upper-class counterparts (in % of income that goes to charity).
Counter evidence: endowed with fewer resources and prone to experience a reduced sense of control
and increased negative affect, lower class individuals might be expected to prioritize own self-interest
over interests of others and demonstrate less prosocial behavior relative to upper class counterparts.
They tested it in 4 studies with measures of social class reflecting objective indicators of material
resources and subjective perceptions of one’s social class rank in society. The effects of social class
on generosity (1), charitable donations (2), trust (3), and helping behaviors (4) were explored.
Study 1 provided evidence that lower class persons behave in a more prosocial fashion than upper
class. In a behavioral measure of altruism (dictator game) administered days after participants
reported on social class, lower class participants were more generous to strangers than upper class
participants.
Study 2 found that heightened generosity among lower class individuals is reflected in greater support
for charity. Experimental evidence demonstrated a causal association between lower class rank and
increased prosociality. Inducing participants to momentarily perceive themselves as relatively lower
than others in socioeconomic standing caused them to endorse more generous donations to charity. It
argues for two potential sources of influence on prosocial behavior among lower class people:
- Relative lack of economic resources (e.g., lower income)
- Subjective perceptions of one’s subordinate rank vis-à-vis others.
Study 3 showed that lower class participants allocated more points to their partner in the trust game
relative to upper class participants, and this tendency was explained by their social values oriented
toward egalitarianism and the well-being of others. The finding that lower class individuals are more
trusting contrasts with survey research finding that individuals who are economically disadvantaged in
terms of income and education report reduced trust in others.
Study 4 showed that lower class people are more prosocial toward others than upper class
counterparts. Lower class individuals were more likely than upper class individuals to help their
distressed partners by taking on a more onerous portion of the experimental tasks. Feelings of
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,compassion, rooted in a concern for others’ welfare, underlie class-based differences in prosocial
behavior. When experimentally induced to feel compassion, upper class participants behaved just as
prosocially toward their partners as did lower class participants.
The prosocial side of power: how structural power over subordinates can promote
social responsibility (Tost et al.)
Inhibition theory of power: experience of power is associated with a sense of freedom and that
power therefore makes people feel independent of others.
Fiske said that powerholders lack the need, time, energy and motivation to pay attention to others.
Power can be viewed as leading people to have an egocentric focus on their own needs and to act in
ways that are attentive to personal goals and rewards for self. Despite empirical support for this, there
are reasons to believe that these findings may not easily generalize to organizational contexts:
1. Wide range of moderators of these effects have been identified. Existence of moderators
implies that any effect of power on social behavior may be easily altered or eliminated by
social features of the environment. Moderators fall broadly into two categories, involving
either (1) powerholder’s personality, traits, or social values or (2) situation in which power is
experienced.
2. Potential instability of this effect outside lab.
3. There are more accounts of how power may affect powerholder’s orientation to others. A
prosocial view may be better.
Power: asymmetric control over valued resources.
Social power: involves ability to elicit desired behaviors from others because one controls resources
that others value. It is power over others.
Personal power: freedom from others’ control, independence.
Responsibility: feeling of obligation to act in ways that benefit others.
Powerholders tend to focus on one of the aspects: either they experience their power as an
opportunity to pursue their goals (consistent with egocentrism view) or they experience it as a
responsibility or duty to exercise stewardship on behalf of their group. What leads power to be
construed as a responsibility instead of an opportunity? Example is national culture.
The writers argue that structural power in organizational contexts is likely to activate the responsibility
framing and this effect is likely to be brought about by two causal mechanisms:
- Norms of benevolent power use : social expectations that powerholders will use power for
good of others, especially group members. A reason that culture affects the construal of
power is that culture affects norms that prescribe appropriate use of power. Modern
organizations have norms that call for benevolent use of power within the organization and in
organizational teams.
- Dependency awareness: when an individual holds power, others are by definition dependent
on that individual in order to protect their interests and facilitate their goal pursuit. In particular,
in organizations and teams, while relatively powerful individuals hold greater control over
material resources than subordinates, they must still rely on subordinates to accomplish
organizational objectives. Therefore, a powerholder is more likely to pay attention to
subordinates and become aware not only of their own relative independence but also of
subordinates’ dependent state.
Study 1:
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, Goal was to establish existence of effects of structural power on key outcome variables and including
a control condition to determine whether the effects of structural power are linear or instead driven
exclusively by the high or low power conditions.
Participants were told that they would be interacting in a virtual team. They were assigned to the high
or low power role, or to a baseline condition. In the high-power role, they were told they would have
control over which tasks the other group members performed and would evaluate others’
performance. In the baseline condition, participants were not given any information about who would
have control over task assignments and evaluations. In the low power role, participants were told
someone else would control their task assignments and determine their evaluations and that they
would not be able to evaluate that individual.
The findings provide initial evidence that structural power results in awareness of benevolent power
norms as well as feelings of responsibility for and solidarity with team members. It also provides
support for the prediction that benevolent power norms mediate the effect of structural power on
responsibility and that responsibility mediates the effect of structural power on feelings of solidarity.
However, it did not support the prediction that structural power enhances behavioral solidarity.
Study 2:
Compares the effect of structural and psychological power.
Participants engaged in either structural power manipulation or writing task manipulation. The
structural power manipulation was the same one used in Study 1. After engaging in the writing task,
participants were informed they would be interacting in a virtual team for the next task. All participants
were then informed that before the virtual team engaged in its activities, researchers would like to ask
a series of questions about their thoughts about their fellow group members and tasks.
The results demonstrated that structural power leads to feelings of responsibility for and solidarity with
those over whom one has structural power, but these effects do not emerge for psychological power.
It provides support for the mediation predictions, wherein (1) benevolent power norms and
dependency awareness both mediate (in parallel) the effect of structural power on responsibility and
(2) responsibility mediates the effect of structural power on feelings of solidarity.
Study 3
Study 3 has the same design and procedures as study 2, but with a measure of behavioral solidarity.
The results indicated that structural power increased perceptions of benevolent power norms,
dependency awareness, feelings of responsibility for team members, and feelings of solidarity with
team members, but psychological power did not. They found a marginal positive main effect of power
level on behavioral solidarity (regardless of power type), and no interaction. Thus, it appears that both
power manipulations may have enhanced behavioral solidarity.
They did not find support for the sequential mediating effect of responsibility and feelings of solidarity
on behavioral solidarity. Instead, analyses revealed that feelings of solidarity did not predict behavioral
solidarity.
Study 4: Field study
Aim was to understand whether supervisors’ power predicted their feelings of responsibility and
solidarity and subordinates’ reports of supervisor’s behavioral solidarity. It provides external validity for
the effects demonstrated in Studies 1 through 3 in a field context using multi-source data. The findings
demonstrate that supervisors who have a high level of power in their organizations are more likely to
feel responsibility for and solidarity with their subordinates, and the supervisor’s power also had a
positive effect on subordinates’ ratings of the supervisors’ behavioral solidarity with them. The findings
indicate that supervisors’ sense of responsibility mediates the effect of power on feelings of solidarity
as well as the effect of power on behavioral solidarity. However, they did not find support for
responsibility and feelings of solidarity as sequential mediators of the effect of power on behavioral
solidarity.
General discussion
Three experiments and one field study provide support for the prediction that in team and
organizational contexts, structural power induces feelings of responsibility to and a prosocial
orientation of solidarity with those over whom one has power. The effect of structural power on
responsibility was mediated in parallel by perceptions of benevolent power norms and dependency
awareness. These effects emerge only for structural power, not for psychological power. However,
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