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0:00
[upbeat music]
0:05
>> This is the last lecture. [audience murmurs] This is some cool things, because guess what:
0:15
we're gonna talk today about social psychology. And I'm gonna finish up by putting up one quick slide on HealthPsych, and as I do that, you can write it down, and I want you to look at the material in the textbook,
0:32
and there's just a little bit to pay attention to
0:37
when it comes to coping with stress, and I wanted to end our last topic on health psychology by having you look at ways to cope with stress. I've just kinda summarized some of the key things that are in there in that section on coping with stress,
0:55
from how we analyze what's stressful for us. Confession has been one of those powerful concepts related to the idea of forgiveness that can be very deep and powerful in helping people overcome some of their stress and anxiety. Learning to sleep, relax and exercise, biofeedback and monitoring, and then we talked a little bit about type A behavior last time and the relationship of our spiritual lives
1:25
with the area of stress and health in particular.
1:31
So it's kind of just a summary to health psych; I'll leave this screen up for just a minute. What I wanna do today is shift over to social psychology, and this is an area that is important in many respects.
1:47
It's the last topic, and there's a chapter on this that you need to make sure and get read,
1:55
obviously before the final, but the final will cover health psych and social psych.
2:03
So I'm gonna cover, mostly today we're gonna talk about social psychology, and this is what I got my master's and my PhD in is in social psychology. I've been studying it for a long time,
2:16
and it's a cool topic, and so it's kind of how we started this class. Anybody remember back when, the very first day of class, we were talking about why people behave and why we do what we do, and how we explain another person's behavior? And so really we're gonna pick up that last kind of topic today
2:38
kind of as a continuation from the whole semester of explaining and looking at human behavior, and that's what social psychologists do, is they explore and look at why people do what they do, why we behave in certain social situations in a way. And so that's the plan today, is to just cover this, to do it in detail, so we can watch a couple of different ways and see our behaviors in light of how they're looked at by social psychologists and some of the key findings that we have found
3:11
in the field of social psych. So that's the plan. We're gonna talk about attributions, conformity and compliance and obedience, and then finish with a topic called group influences. And now a lot of this material is, to me, really, really interesting, because it helps us to answer questions like this: why do people do what they do? We do some weird things. Have you ever seen somebody, for example, when they're walking, and if they trip, anybody notice anything?
3:43
If you've ever watched somebody trip, which is not an uncommon occurrence for a lot of us, so you're walking down and all of a sudden you trip, what's a common behavior to do after a person trips? >> Student: Laugh. >> Okay, they might laugh, and why would they, they might feel a little bit, if it's you, you feel a bit awkward. Some of you, I've noticed, and maybe you've seen this before, maybe you've done this, have you ever tripped and, to look, turned around and see what maybe made you trip?
4:07
So you look around, see what made you maybe trip, or I've seen people, anything else you've seen 'em do? Any of you all try and pretend like you were starting to jog [laughter] when you tripped, like? I was just startin' to run. I always start all of my runs with a trip. [laughter]
4:26
Why would we do that? The answer is oftentimes based upon, it's based upon things that we know about other people. They're seeing us, and if we see somebody trip, tell me what you would attribute their behavior to? If you were watching, sitting here, and someone comes walking down and they trip right, with nothing there, what might you think about them? You might thing to yourself, oh, they're a little bit clumsy. Or that was funny or awkward. And we could potentially explain their behavior
4:56
about or based upon maybe their clumsiness. And so if we trip, we're very much aware of the fact that we go attributions like this, and so we try and tell the other person, oh, no, I was actually walking, starting to jog.
5:13
And so what we're gonna talk about in here is when we have behaviors that occur in a social setting, we do certain things to explain that, and as we explain those behaviors, we're very much aware of it. You are strongly influenced by social situations, and your behavior and my behavior is influenced by that.
5:38
I want you to be thinking about examples about your behavior being influenced by social situations and by the most interesting things that occur.
5:48
Oftentimes we'll find people behave differently if they're alone than if they're in a large group of people. And that's an interesting thought. You will change your behavior based upon somebody's dress. Do you believe that?
6:05
They had a person, you can try this. Go up to a person sitting in a chair or standing somewhere, and tell them to move.
6:15
Just go up to 'em, say, "Excuse me, you need to move over to this chair, please."
6:20
They've done this. They've had people standing there waiting for a bus, and they're standing on this side, and the person walks up to them and says, "Excuse me, you need to stand "on the other side of that post right there." What would you do if you're just standin' there hanging out for a bus, which isn't likely in Los Angeles, but some of you have been on buses recently, or just standing there and someone says, "Excuse me, you need to stand over there." What would you do? [students murmur]
6:43
What if somebody walked up to you and said, "Hey, you need to go, see that guy over there? "He's parkin' his car in that meter. "He doesn't have any money for his meter. "Go give him a quarter." Or, "Go put a quarter in his meter." What would you do?
7:01
What would you do if somebody said, "Go put a quarter in that guy's meter?" What do most people do?
7:09
How many say you would go put a quarter in? If somebody just walked up to you and said, "Hey, that guy doesn't have any money. "Could you go put a quarter in his meter?" Look at, you guys are so nice. [laughter] How many would say I would not go put the quarter in the meter? That doesn't make any sense to me. What if you had the quarter?
7:24
You see, we make quick decisions about people, and guess what we have found? That people who are dressed just like us get obeyed when we tell people to do something at around 17%, 20% of the time, if you tell somebody, excuse me, you need to move over into this chair. There's about 20% of the people that go, "Oh, okay." What could I change about the situation to get clearly more than 50% of the people, as high as 70% of the people, to actually move, or to go put a quarter in the meter?
7:58
What would I change about the situation?
8:01
>> Student: Your outfit. >> My outfit. What could I wear differently that would get all kinds of people to obey me? [students murmur] Any form of a uniform. Any form of a uniform. Any uniform.
8:17
Are we influenced by somebody wearing a uniform?
8:20
The answer seems to be we are influenced by people wearing uniforms. We're influenced by other people in general, but people wearing, how does that come into play here? Well, it's huge in one big area when it comes to social conformity, and in particular when it comes to obedience.
8:39
You see, social psychology tries to explain something that we've been dabbling with all semester, and that is this.
8:51
How people think and influence and relate to one another
8:59
is what social psychology is about.
9:04
How do we think about other people?
9:07
Why do we make an attribution about somebody that says they're a bad driver, they're clumsy, they're mean or angry?
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What variables go into that? Suppose you're sitting there in a cafeteria, and I think we talked about this, but somebody is in the cafeteria, and they take a bowl of cereal and they pour it on somebody's head.
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And then they walk out.
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How many remember us talking about this, anybody? We talked about taking a bowl of cereal, and say, and some are sitting there in this caf, and all of the sudden now, someone takes this cereal, and they just dump it on somebody, and they walk out. Somebody explain, if you're sitting there, to what do you attribute that person's behavior? Let's say she is sitting there with a he,
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and you can't hear their conversation; you just see the cereal flying, and now he's covered. And she gets out and walks away. Somebody raise your hand and explain, why did she do what she did? Give me an attribution about her behavior. Why, you quickly have now tallied up why she did it. Why did she do it? >> Student: Maybe she's angry at him for some reason? >> There's something, she's angry at him, for some reason. Okay, so she's angry. We'll put that on this side of the ledger.
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Give me another reason why someone would do that in the middle of just sitting there, she's angry, what else? What else might go through your mind? She just pours a bowl of cereal. >> Student: Breakup? >> They just broke up.
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Okay, all right, so she is, what, upset? Upset, angry, just broke up. Give me another one. >> Student: A joke. >> It was a joke? Maybe it was just simply, she was trying to see what would happen. [laughs] >> Student: Maybe he totally offended her. >> She was offended because of something he said or did. So obviously his behavior, he either got her angry or got her offended, right? Somebody else. What goes through your mind? If you were to see this event occur, what would you think?
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Would you come up with any, are there any other ways to explain her behavior? What could possibly have gone on? Maybe something else. >> Student: He cheated. >> He cheated. Or did you say she did or he did? Yeah, they were dating, and then he cheated. [laughter] So she found out and went, there you go. [laughter] Anything else? How many would think,
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that it would be pretty accurate, your attributions? How do we do that?
11:47
How do you think about people? To what do you attribute a person's behavior?
11:53
And what variables come into play
11:56
in explaining what somebody else is doing?
12:00
We said, okay, people change based upon things like wearing a uniform.
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We might treat this person differently depending upon what we thought. If we thought to ourselves, she did this because she's very angry, very hostile, very unfriendly, your interactions with her are going to be different than if you thought, "She's not angry, hostile, "and she's not like that normally," or "I've never seen anybody do this before or even her; "there must have been some provocation." She did something because she was provoked. He must have done something to her.
12:37
And your interactions will be very different, depending upon how we explain their behavior. So this process of explaining or predicting somebody's behavior
12:52
is really the main goal of social psychology.
12:58
Why people behave the way they do, and why we think the way we do
13:05
is massively important to how we interact with people,
13:12
and therefore how social behaviors unfold.
13:19
So we do lots of little weird things. We obey people with uniforms differently. You obey people differently if they are an authority figure than if they're not an authority figure.
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We act differently in groups of people
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if we believe we're anonymous. If we can kinda blend in, we will do things differently than if we don't blend in with people.
13:47
And that makes this a very interesting topic. So we start with trying to say we're going to explain social behavior, which is similar to a field like sociology, who will look at broader social behaviors. Maybe they'll look at how people from one cultural group might differ from a person from a different cultural group.
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Social psychology tries to look at individual behaviors within a group, and how a group might influence a person's behavior. And so that's how it's a little bit different. So we're gonna start with the first area, this area called attributions. How do we make an attribution, and what goes into coming up with explanations for people?
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And so let's start with this process.
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We see somebody behave in a particular way, and then we attempt to infer the cause of that behavior. Somebody trips, we might intend to say, oh, everybody trips in that spot. It's not the person that's clumsy, and we would attribute that to the situation. But oftentimes, one of our errors is we tend most likely to attribute another person's behavior to their disposition. So if somebody's driving pretty, let's say,
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fast or wild or cutting people off on the freeway, we would tend to attribute that person's driving behavior to them, and we say they're just a bad driver, they're crazy, they're whatever, versus there could be a situational explanation. Give me a situational explanation for somebody who might be driving really bad on a freeway. [students murmur] Okay, they could be drunk, and that would be dispositional. There's something about them. What's a situational? >> Student: Medical emergency.
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>> Maybe there's a medical emergency. I remember when my wife said that we were going to have our baby, and it was about like two in the morning, and she goes, "Chris, guess what? "Baby's coming." And I'm like, "Gah, really?" "Uh huh. It's like, now." So we got on the freeway, and this time we came all the way from this part of Los Angeles down to Orange County, you know, or to the hospital, and it was a good 20 minutes, and I drove like crazy. It was really fun. [laughter]
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Because I also thought, guy pulls me over, I got a great excuse, like, check her out, man. And I think that cop would've went [inhales sharply] but they didn't pull me over. But I was flying. Cutting, moving, doing all kinds of things that now I had a good reason to do it. [laughter] So it could be that you would've saw me, and the explanation could be he's a bad driver, or it could be a situation, right? The situational causes, then, seem to happen,
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but our tendency, if you had to believe people erred in making an attribution about somebody, do we tend to believe and make an attribution that it's about the person when we explain behavior, or the situation? What do you think?
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Are people most likely to, watching somebody else, do we explain their behavior based on that person's disposition or the situational influences? What would you think is the error we tend to make more often? [students murmur] We almost always err on the side of dispositions.
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So if you're standing in line and someone in front of you at the store, at the grocery store, all of a sudden starts to yell at the person who's checking them out, and you just hear 'em go, "This stinks. I hate you," blah, and they yell at them and walk out, we tend to go, "Gew, that's an angry person." That person, and we attribute their behavior a lot to their disposition.
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Now it's possible, if we stayed around long enough, that maybe out of every 10 people that go through that line, every 10th person yells at this person, and it's always the same person they're yelling at. Suppose you watch 15 people do that. Would you now think it's disposition? Or would you think it's situational?
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If you watch the same thing occurring, and it happens to be this same checkout person, we'd go, "They must be saying or doing something "to people to tick them off." So it has more to do with the situation. So this process leads us to attribute causes,
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and this is a really fun area to study, and one of the cool things about it is we tend to make a bias in this. And our bias tends to be towards attributing cause to the person, to the disposition.
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In fact, we have a name for it. It's called the fundamental, because it happens so regularly and frequently, we call it the fundamental attribution error. And this error is the tendency of people who are observing other people
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to overemphasize the person who's doing the acting, the throwing of the cereal or the yelling or the driving bad or just simply doing whatever, we tend to overemphasize them as the cause of events.
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So it's a fundamental attribution error. It's so common,
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so researched and found that people's tendency is to do this, that we call it fundamental. Can you think of any situations in which you have, or you're prone or likely to do this? Can you think about times in which this error might come into play in your thinking when you explain somebody else's behavior? Which is, by the way, all the time. Can you think of any examples where people might tend to attribute cause
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to the observer, or to the actor, and they overemphasize that, versus the situation? Can you think of anything? I'll give you a couple of hints. You have one? >> Student: Weddings? >> Oh, like what were you thinking-- >> Student: Bridezilla. >> Oh, okay, so in a wedding you might see the bride might be acting in a certain way, and we might think wow, she's very emotional or very whatever, and maybe not taking into account the gravity or the stress of the situation. Uh huh, good.
20:13
Think of something else. Any other examples? Here's some ones that kinda come up. By the way, this is probably why ventriloquism works. If you watch a ventriloquist, and the person has like a, you know, the doll that is supposedly, we kinda get into that act, or kinda watch it and laugh, because it's pretty easy to almost attribute that behavior to that doll. Now we don't believe that's happening, but it's almost as if they take on a personality,
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and it's pretty easy for us to kinda see that as, huh. And so we kinda buy into this. There are times in which you'll find people who are actors, we tend to overemphasize them and almost, if you've heard this, being typecast. And we think of people this way, and if they played a role, and we've seen, there was a student in a play here who played a role. I had a hard time interacting with them without thinking they were that person.
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And, it wasn't a very good role for them. And I found myself when I would see this person on campus, it would be like, oh, well you're not a very nice person. And that was a role they had to play.
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Have you heard of anybody that's an actor or actress share this before? They're like, people sometimes treat me this way. You ever seen Star Wars, the old ones, where there was the guy named Spock? >> Student: Woo hoo! [students murmur] >> How many familiar-- >> Student: That's Star Trek! >> I mean Star Trek. What did I say? [laughter] What did I say? Oh, Star Wars, sorry. Yeah, it's a new Star Wars, and Spock's in it. It's really weird. [laughter] And this show called Star Trek, with Spock,
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and how many know who Spock is? He's the guy that, what is he like? [students giving various answers] He's unemotional. >> Student: Logical. >> He's very logical. And he's very much this, I'm not going to let emotions be part of this. And in Star Trek, he was very well known, and people would recognize him, and so much so that the actor himself, is a guy named Leonard Nimoy. Leonard Nimoy would go around and everybody would talk to him as if he was Spock. He wrote a book about his experience,
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and he titled his book I Am Not Spock. [laughter] Because he couldn't go anywhere. People would say, "Oh, hey Spock. "Ah, must be hard to be so logical." He goes, dude, I'm Leonard Nimoy; I'm an actor. That's not the way I am. But we treat people that way.
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There's some weird things that go on with this, ready? This is pervasive. This isn't just like a cool little funny weird things. People that are victims of crime are thought of oftentimes as responsible for their crime.
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We sometimes say to them, where were you? What were you doing? Why were you doing that when that happened?
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As if they asked for that crime to happen to them.
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You see, because this attribution is so easy for us to see somebody yell and scream at somebody else, and we think to ourselves, wow, that's an angry, mean person. But if we do that,
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we would say, oh, but I explain my behavior very differently. In fact, we call that the almost the counter to the fundamental attribution error, is my behavior, I don't scream and yell because I'm an angry person, it's because of something I've done or something that's been done, rather, to me.
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Does that make sense? My behavior is because of external situational causes. Your behavior, or other people's behavior, is because of something about their personality. Does that make sense, the difference?
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When we trip it's because we were pushed or there was something that tripped us. When somebody else trips, it's because they are clumsy.
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Does that all make sense? And attribution theorists have been studying this and our tendencies to do this, and my challenge to you is think about different ways this has happened to you. It's so pervasive, and it happens a lot,
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and as you start to think about it and let it process, come up with examples. Think about some. I don't know if you could do that now; I'll give you an example of an actor-observer effect that occurred with me when I was,
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well, it was a football game, it was a very important football game, it was under the lights, and it was snowing. And I was a wide receiver, and I went up to the quarterback after, this was a championship game. Lot of snow, under the lights, and I went up and there were a series of plays that the other wide receiver kept dropping the ball. So in this game I went up, and here were my exact words. Quarterback's name was Alan. "Alan, stop throwing him the ball. "He's not a good receiver."
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Is that an attribution error? What am I saying about his receiving abilities? He's not any good. He's missing everything. Does that make sense? So I literally said those words: "Alan, stop throwing him the ball. "Throw it to me." [laughs] So he did.
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And it was a very important play. And I was wide open. And I was like, way wide open. And here comes the ball, and I will say this: if I had made the catch, and if I do make the catch, we win the game. That's how close it was toward the end of the game. And so here comes the ball, and I don't know if I told you, but the lights were very bright, and the snow was hitting you in the eye,
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[laughter] and I couldn't see anything, and he didn't throw it very well and it was wobbly, and I go like that, and it hits me and it drops on the ground.
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Do you think I went back to the huddle and said, oh, man, I'm a bad receiver, like I said about the other guy? What did I say?
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You threw a wobbly pass. It hit me here instead of there. And the lights and the snow, it's horrible. It's hittin' me in the eye. That's what I said. [laughter] You see that? My behavior is because of what? The snow, the lights, the bad things out there, the bad pass, everybody else is just a bad receiver.
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That's the actor-observer effect. I trip because I was pushed. You trip because you're clumsy. Does that make sense? All right.
27:00
We won the game, by the way. Nobody cared, but I do. And I caught it, I caught the next pass. Isn't that awesome? >> Student: Woo hoo! >> Yeah, whatever. So, but I caught it, and it was like, "Yeah, I'm so happy!" And then I said, and he's not a bad receiver, he was fine. And everything's good at that point.
27:17
Actor-observer effect is the tendency for us to do this. Can you think of examples that, there's a ton of these. Where we, victims of crime, typecasting actors and actresses, it's even why ventriloquism works. So all of these happen. There's one other one that attribution theorists and others look at in social psychology, and that is if it's something that's positive,
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something good happened, it tends to be, wow, the reason I made the catch at the end was because I'm a really, whatever, because I gave a lot of effort and I have good abilities, but if something negative happens it's because of external factors. And it's just another way of talking about a particular outcome that's positive is going to occur because of me doing this. Negative outcome, somebody messed up, whatever, whatever.
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Okay?
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Are there any questions about attribution error? Does it make sense, our tendency?
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How we do this? Any questions?
28:26
All right. There's also, this can happen. You can think about, well, if you get a good grade, it's because your effort and ability; if you get a bad grade, it's because it's a bad class, bad exam, didn't take into account anything, it was a stupid test. How many have ever said that before? It's a stupid test, man, it was bad. And maybe it was. It could've been a bad test.
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That's called the self-serving bias. We have to be very careful about all of these. So social psychologists have studied these things for a long time, and it's pretty cool to look at that, so pay attention to some of that in the textbook. No questions? Moving on?
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All right.
29:13
Last opportunities for self-serving bias, actor-observer, or fundamental attribution error. All right, so.
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In situations that call for us to behave in a certain way,
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one of the things that we've been exploring is also how do people behave when people ask them to do something?
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Or demand that they do something in obedience? So another important topic is this social influence, and that idea of conformity, compliance, and obedience, where it starts off, which we're all very familiar with, and that's conformity. Let me ask you this. Today, give me an example of some way in which you have conformed to some attitude or behavior that's a group norm. Raise your hand, you know which, in something that you've done today that is conforming.
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>> Student: I haven't done it today yet, but everyone like doesn't use trays in the caf. >> Ah, the use of trays in the caf, or the not-use of trays. What is it today, is it not using trays? Is that the most conforming thing? [students murmur] You shouldn't use trays, is that the idea? >> Student: Unless you're a freshman. >> Unless you're a freshman. [laughter] [murmuring] Most people don't use trays. Is that right? Is that a conforming thing?
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Would you say, how many agree that that's a conformity issue and maybe if nobody's around you might use a tray if no one, I don't know if you would do that or not. What is conformity? Is it a way that we, give me another way that you conform. Let's try another example. >> Student: In California, a lot of people say "like" in their words. >> Oh, okay, some of our language. We might say "like" a lot.
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Like, all the time, huh? Like, almost every time you hear somebody talk and they're, like, using it. And it's, like, hard not to use it if you try and, like, do it. [laughter] And then you're, like, why did I start doin' that? This is, like, wrong. So people use filler words like "like."
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Give me another example of how you might conformed already. >> Student: My sophomore year, people went barefoot or wore sandals. >> A lot of people maybe barefoot or sandals. >> Student: All the time. >> And they're, like, wearing sandals. [laughter] Give me another example, that's good. Today, how have you conformed? You're wearing clothes. All y'all.
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Coming to class, raising your hands. Your hair, your hairstyle, your dress style. [students murmuring] Are those conformity? Stood in line. How many stood in line today to get your drink or get your non-tray items? [laughter] Have you ever tried to break any of these norms, and have you ever felt that way? Remember, we started class, have you ever tried to get on an elevator and face the wrong way? Did anybody do that yet? >> Student: Yes. >> It's hard to do.
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Did anybody this semester go up to the people serving the food and say, just, I'd like mashed potatoes, please. [laughter] I don't want it on a plate, I want it right there. In my hand. And the person back there is going to go, what? Yeah, and you're gonna say, nah, right there. I don't even use a tray or a plate,
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and I'm not even gonna use a fork, baby, watch. Put it in there. Okay?
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Would you guys find it hard to conform to some things or to violate norms? They're really, really hard to violate a norm.
32:51
We will fight. Try walking backwards wherever you go.
32:56
It's really hard to do. Try doing other things that kind of, like seem it's appropriate, and don't do any odd things, but you'll find it's really weird to violate a standard or a group norm simply, so we've done this. We've put people in a situation in which, like this row right here, and we said to all y'all, you're going to be in an experiment right now, and we want you to give us your answers and we say, okay, and we wanna see do people who come into a room to take a little simple test,
33:32
would they conform if the answer was obvious and wrong?
33:39
So, by the way, the person who studied this was a guy named Solomon Asch,
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who started this probably back even in the '60s and '70s he started some of his research.
33:54
But he would put subjects in this dilemma, because everybody around them would be giving the wrong answer. What would you do? What if you were studying, what if you tried this, ready? You're studying with four people for a test. It's coming up close to the final now, and you know the answer that all four of you,
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you know, you've all been studying and looking at this,
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but now all of a sudden you get to one question as you're studying, and they all have the right, they have one answer, and you have a different answer.
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You came up with something different than four people that you've always worked with, you've always studied with, they came up with this answer, and you have this answer. And now you don't have time, you walk into the test, and that question is now on the test.
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Do you go with your answer, or do you go with the other four people?
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That's the dilemma you face. Do you conform or not?
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The pressure that Asch put people under in this dilemma study is similar. He would go like this, and he would ask this row of people which comparison line matches with this standard line? And the answer would be, and we'd say it out loud is? >> Students: Two. >> Two. >> Student: Two. >> Two. Two. Two. And we'd go just like that, and everything's fine. It's two.
35:23
And the study goes on, and then he goes to the next study. And the obvious answer is two, and then this person says two, and two, and two, and two, and two, and by the way, unbeknownst, tell me your name. >> Zach: My name? >> Uh huh. >> Zach: I'm Zach. >> Zach. Unbeknownst to Zach, he's the only one that's the true subject. Everybody else is part of my study,
35:51
and they've all been told, answer two until you get to a certain trial, and then do the wrong answer, 'cause we wanna see what Zach'll do. Does that make sense? So he goes like this, two. And what's this study, what's the answer to this one? And they go two, two, two, two, two, two, two, and two. And he goes like this, what's the answer to this? And the person goes three. What does, by the way, is it Zach, did you say? = [Zach] Yeah. >> What does Zach do at that point, usually?
36:20
Person says, Randi, what's the answer to this one? And you say? >> Randi: Three. >> Three. He goes like this. Usually, in most experiments, he goes, like that. He kinda looks like, dude, that was messed up. And then this person says, >> Student: Three. >> Three. And then this person says, >> Student: Three. >> Three. And three, and three, and now it's Zach turn, what's Zach going to say? >> Students: Three. >> How many of you would say, I'm sayin' three? [students murmur]
36:50
By the way, what percentage of the time do people conform to an obvious wrong answer?
36:59
The answer is only about 24% of the time
37:06
will this person step away from
37:12
what these answers are and go with his own answer.
37:17
So 76% of the people will, in many of these different trials, will at some point conform to the obvious wrong answer.
37:29
Why do people do that?
37:31
Zach, why did you do that? >> Zach: 'Cause everyone else was doin' it. >> 'Cause everybody else is doing it. It feels better to be part of the crowd rather than to stand out. We wanna be also, maybe they go like this sometimes. Zach will go like this and then people will look, and then they'll look again, and they'll look again and think, I must be messed up or something must be wrong, 'cause they've been fine before. And they wanna be right, and they wanna be liked.
37:55
And so many of the times they just simply, now not all the time.
38:01
It's not all the time they do this. But enough of the time, people feel this pressure to conform, and that's what Solomon Asch studied. Can you think of examples in which it's really hard to violate the norm? Sometimes our conformity can be, it's really, really hard. Today I had a meeting with a whole bunch of other administrators.
38:26
There was only one person, well, actually, two out of 10 were in that room without a tie on. That was hard. And so I, why? Who, it's a tie, it's a piece of cloth that you put here and you wear down, but everybody wore one, and I felt like I should've wore a tie. And I was kinda looking around: I should've wore a tie. But I didn't. And I actually feel pretty good about it. [laughter] But I can tell you that there was the feeling that I should've conformed to that. Is that conformity?
38:56
It's the pressure to conform, so if I would've went and just put on a tie, even though I don't want to, but everybody else does, or they wear a certain thing, that's, we're giving in to, it's not bad. Standing in line's not a bad thing. We conform most of the time.
39:12
Okay, Solomon Asch's study: we tend to conform because we wanna be liked, and we wanna be right.
39:21
We wanna be liked and we wanna be right.
39:25
We also tend to conform more
39:30
in a situation in which seven people out of the eight have already given the wrong answer, we tend to look at the group. If we like the group, if they've been right enough times, we'll oftentimes go along with them, if there's numbers like that. But sometimes, if just one person breaks away, like if the answer was obviously one, but if this person said, three three one three three now Zach has got somebody on his side, and he oftentimes goes one. Somebody, they saw it like I did,
40:10
and so that really changes your numbers, and so why we conform, so there's the numbers. If you outnumbered eight-to-one, about 37% of the time they give the conforming answer.
40:26
It drops down in this particular study to only about 10% if there's kind of a peer that goes with you.
40:35
So at the end of the day, 37% of people.
40:40
And you can find these numbers in your textbook on conformity, will be unable to break away, and they're just going to go ahead in that situation and say I'm just gonna go with the obvious wrong answer. So why do we conform? We like to be liked, and we wanna be right, and conformity is a very powerful and important kind of norm that we all do and follow. It just kind of helps society go along, and we tend to do it in a way, and it would be odd if everybody didn't conform.
41:15
You'd have all kinds of chaos,
41:18
and so there's some benefits to it. Another one that's important is something called compliance. Compliance here, in conformity, it's almost this assumed group norm.
41:33
In compliance, somebody's actually having you
41:38
or giving you a request to change your behavior or to do something. And so we think about this a lot in situations where somebody's saying, hey, would you fill out this survey for me? Hey, would you be able to do something for me? Hey, could you help me with this? Hey, would you mind taking just this quick little survey for me? Or, could I borrow something? Any of those requests can be influenced by the thing that occurred right before the request. Many times, our compliance to certain requests
42:16
oftentimes depends on what happened right before the person asked you the question. So if the ultimate question is, hey, would you take
42:27
a group of students to the zoo?
42:33
They are, let's say, elementary school students. Would you take 'em to the zoo this weekend for two hours? Takes two hours. Just go and do it for us. Would you do that? That's a direct request. By the way, in that study, when they just simply ask people, somewhere around 17, almost 20% of the people went, sure, why not. I don't know who these, you need somebody to go? I'll go. Two hours, yep, I'll do it. We can get close to 50% of people to be able to agree to do this.
43:06
50%, if they did a door-in-the-face technique.
43:13
They asked a large request first,
43:16
and then they asked the request of would you take somebody to the zoo. Give me an example of a large request, a door in the face. Can you think of something? They went up to people and they said, hey, would you go work and volunteer? It's about six hours a week every week for the rest of the semester. For like 15 weeks in the spring semester, six hours a week, it's volunteer, would you go do that and volunteer with this group of people, let's say, in this home with kids,
43:45
and almost everybody said, no, I can't do that. Six hours a week? I don't have time. Almost everybody said no.
43:52
But if you then said, so that was the large request, but then you said, oh, okay, if you can't do that, do you think you could take people to the zoo this weekend for two hours?
44:03
50% of the people said, oh, I could do that.
44:07
Do you see the difference? Now you get 50% of the people agreeing to your request, if you simply asked them something big and they turned you down.
44:16
That is a human tendency to comply depending upon what request came first.
44:25
Sometimes a small request could be, hey, do you have the time? Sure, it's whatever time. Hey, do you think you could take a three-question survey for me?
44:34
And then people are more likely to agree, because you had a small request, and then they agreed to a second, larger request, called the foot-in-the-door. So these are all kinds of techniques people use, people know about, salesmen use them, compliance and social psychologists study, why do people agree to do things, and what occurs and what doesn't need to happen, and what influences people to agree to a certain kind of request? All right, those are compliance techniques.
45:02
One last topic in this area of social influence is obedience, and obedience is when somebody says you need to do this or you need to change that, or you need to agree to do something, and they demand it of you. And the question about how often people obey to demands
45:29
is one of those very important types of influences that has come into play and studied, and so let me show you an experiment of a researcher by the name of Stanley Milgram. How many have heard of Stanley Milgram's obedience studies? Yeah. Stanley Milgram had an obedience study in which he began to ask the question who will obey, and how far could he get people to obey, and so he would do this. He would hook up people to a shock generator,
46:11
and he would say we wanted to find out, would you obey and hurt somebody, and I want you to answer this question. Think about it to yourself. How many people, if I brought them into the room, would actually hurt somebody by shocking them every time they got an answer to a question wrong?
46:32
The person who is the learner and not the teacher, the learner gets to learn this list. Ready? They learn a whole list of things. And they get time to practice it, and they think, and they're the learner. And then the teacher's holding a shock generator like this, and then they say all right, now it's time to take the test,
46:51
and let's start. And the learner is now going all right, the answer to one is A, and it's right. Great. The answer to two, they say I think the answer to two is B. And the person says wrong. You're now going to get a shock. [imitates buzzing] And the person goes, "Aah! "That hurt!"
47:11
The question that Milgram set up was, how far would they shock them? How many volts would they give 'em of electricity before they went I'm not going to do that anymore.
47:27
That's too much voltage. That would hurt too bad. Will people naturally drop out after a certain level has been made or achieved of voltage? And that's what he did. He studied this. And the results were very surprising. So, here's the 1963, if you can believe it, 1963 study, depicted in this video clip,
47:57
of a learner and a teacher, and remember, we're looking at the teacher,
48:04
because the teacher, the one that's holding the shock generator, ready? We're seeing, will this person holding the shock generator, will they obey, will they obey
48:18
a person that says shock that person. They just missed a question, shock them again. They missed a question, shock 'em more.
48:26
How much do people obey, or will they stop and they go, I'm not going to obey you. And that was this study that was done. So, this is the Stanley Milgram study. This done throughout the '60s, but this, I think, particular clip was from early in the '60s.
48:44
That shows, and you can see all the shock and the levels, strong shock, very strong shock. Different voltages at the top 185, 255, intense shock, extreme intense shock, 315,
49:00
danger, severe shock. How many people went all the way to 450 is the question.
49:06
>> Step right in here, learner, and have a seat there. You can leave your coat on the back of that chair real quick. Take it right off.
49:16
That's fine. Now have a seat right here, and pull yourself right up to the counter.
49:22
Keith, you may look on if you'd like while we get set up in here.
49:26
Would you roll up your right sleeve, please?
49:29
Left sleeve.
49:36
That's fine.
49:38
Now what I'm going to do is strap down your arms to avoid any excessive movement on your part during the experiment. Is that too tight?
49:48
This electrode is connected to the shock generator in the next room.
49:55
And this electrode paste is to provide good contact to avoid any blister or burn.
50:05
>> This is the teacher. We're seeing how much he obeys. >> Wrong. [buzzing] The answer is knife. 300 volts. [learner screams]
50:18
>> Learner: I absolutely refuse to answer any more. Get me out of here. You can't harm me, here. Get me out! Get me out of here! >> Stanley: Continuing, the next word is green, please. >> Green, grass, hat, ink, apple.
50:36
Okay, well, can't go on if he won't answer. >> Stanley: If the learner doesn't answer in a reasonable time, about four or five seconds, consider the answer wrong, and follow the same procedure that you have been doing for wrong answers. Say "wrong," tell him the number of volts, give him the punishment for an incorrect answer. >> Oh, man.
50:52
>> Stanley: Continue, please.
50:56
>> Teacher: Green, grass, hat, ink, apple. Answer please.
51:09
>> Stanley: Go on with the procedure, please. >> 315 volts, the answer is ink. [click] [learner screams]
51:21
>> I refuse to answer. >> Next one.
51:24
Well, you're gonna keep getting a shock if you don't answer.
51:28
Next one is rake.
51:30
330 volts. [click] [learner screams] [student laughter] >> Learner: Get me out of here, will ya? I ain't a volunteer. >> Teacher: Next one. >> I'll show you more, but I just wanna make something clear, by the way.
51:47
This is the teacher. The question is how much does he obey.
51:53
He doesn't know this, but that other guy is not being shocked.
51:57
So he's just screaming as an actor back there.
52:01
So just to calm some of you, 'cause you look nervous. [laughter] He is doing, we wanted to see, what could that learner back there go, "aaaaah! "I'm not gonna answer!" We want to see, would this guy still obey?
52:14
What percentage of people, by the way, he's at 300 volts. The question was, it goes all the way to 450 volts. X, X, X, is marked on the screen. 450 volts. What percentage of people like him would go all the way to 450 volts, even if that guy's screaming? What percent?
52:33
There were people that said I am not doing this. There were people. What percentage of the people said, "I'm not doing this. "I'm done with this experiment. "Even if you tell me you have to." Think about the number that's coming to mind. What percent out of 100 would go all the way?
52:55
>> Learner: Get me outta here. Let me out! Let me out, let me out! >> Next one, fast.
53:04
Bird car train plain.
53:14
>> Stanley: Go on, please, with the procedure. >> Please answer.
53:21
The answer is bird. 345 volts. [click] [buzzing] Blunt knife steak word arrow. Answer please.
53:41
>> Stanley: Continue, please.
53:45
>> The answer is arrow.
53:48
360 volts. [buzz] Something's happened. [mumbles] >> Stanley: Go on, please, with the experiment. Please continue.
54:00
>> Soft, rug, pillow, hair, grass. Answer please.
54:14
>> Stanley: Go on, teacher. >> Hair. 375 volts. [buzz] I think something's happened to that fella in there. I don't get no answer. He was hollerin' with less voltage. Can you check it and see if he's all right, please? >> Stanley: Not once we've started. Please continue, teacher.
54:34
>> Cool, day, shade, water, cave. Answer, please, are you all right in there?
54:41
Are you all right? >> Stanley: Please continue, teacher.
54:46
>> Well, you want me to keep givin' him shocks? >> Stanley: Continue. >> I'm up to 390. >> Stanley: Continue, please. [buzz] >> Something's happened to that man in there.
55:02
>> The question was, by the way, this guy went all the way to 455 volts. [students laugh] So did 67% of the people.
55:15
67% of the people
55:19
went all the way to 450 volts.
55:25
63%. By the way, good numbers, this was done in 1963. And that'll help you give the clue as to what percent. 19, not 1963. 63. 63% of the people. Look at this, the victim, in this particular study, everybody went to 15 volts, and everybody went to moderate and strong and very strong and intense, and here the victim started to scream, like what you heard. And a lot of people dropped out, but only about 10% said, "I'm not gonna do this anymore. "That guy's screaming."
55:57
And the guy says, while the shocks may be painful, they're not dangerous. Please continue.
56:03
So people would go, okay, and he would start pounding on the wall. "I'm not gonna answer. "It hurts." And so another 10% of the people would drop out. And then 10, 20% would drop out. But by the time they got to the very end, the 450 volts, and the victim was no longer answering questions, 63% of the people still went [imitates buzzing] like that, and did it. And the question was, why? Well, go ahead. >> Student: Yeah, was he being paid, or was there some sort of a reward or punishment?
56:37
>> That's a great question, was he being paid. The answer was they were being paid. At the time, it was like five bucks back then. It'd be like giving you 20 bucks today to be part of the study. So could that have motivated them, like, I wanna get 20 bucks, I don't wanna leave. I'm gonna keep doin' this.
56:54
That was one question they asked. Any other questions that you have? What would you think is going on with that person? By the way,
57:02
do you think that would happen today?
57:06
If we did this study today, would we get the same numbers? [students murmur] Might get higher numbers?
57:13
They did this with males, females, they did it with people of different ethnic groups, different countries, though not every country, they just haven't had time to go and do this, but in almost all these cases in this scenario, they get about 63% of the people will go all the way. They obey an authority. You could tell, by the way, that guy was very anxious and very, you could tell, being impacted by this. He didn't wanna do it. By the way, this study couldn't be done today.
57:43
It's a study that they deem too risky for the person, that teacher who's sitting there having to push this, he doesn't know the guy's acting. He thinks it's real. And now, you're going to reveal to him at the end of the study, well we just wanted to find out how many people would shock all the way, and you were one of 'em. [laughter] And they're like, ah. So it's ethically a study that today would not get approved. This was back in the '60s before they had
58:10
some of these ethical guidelines in place, but it's still revealed some amazing things about people. We tend to obey authority. By the way, check this out. They brought the guy who was the actor out of the room, and they put him in the same room as the other person. Do you think that lowered the rates? When the person could see him getting shocked, remember he's acting like he's getting shocked, going "aaaaah! Stop it!" But you could see him; do you think that lowered the rates at all?
58:39
What if he had to actually not only see him, but he had to in one case put his hand on the shock generator, the thing that would shock him like a plate, like this. And the guy that was doing the shocking, the teacher, had to hold the guy's hand down to get him shocked. That make sense? So they're saying, you put your hand on there so the guy gets shocked when he misses the answer. And about, well, here's the numbers. 30% of the guys would hold his hand down to get shocked.
59:14
65 or 63% when the learner was just heard. When the learner was seen it went down to about 40%, so it did decrease, and then if they had to physically hold that learner or touch them in some way, not as many complied. And this was a study that was done by Stanley Milgram, mostly because he wanted to find out the answer to this: do people really obey authority? Because they had people going to trial for war crimes, and these people would say this in trial: why did you do this horrible behavior,
59:49
maybe killing an innocent or innocent people, and they would say, I was ordered to do it. They told me to do it.
59:58
They ordered me to do it. I was following orders. And then the question was, do really people follow orders like that? And the answer, unfortunately, has been, over the course of all of these studies in the mid-'60s, that they were discovering that people were really pretty obedient to authorities. And then the question why it occurs and how do you resist it became then the focus of study over the next couple of years, and while that study in general wouldn't be done today in that same regard,
1:00:29
there are ways of finding out do people still obey, and the rates seem to be pretty high. But people tend to resist this a little bit more when they find out about the results of studies like this.
1:00:41
And we find higher resistance rates when people have been told, hey, listen, you don't have to obey if somebody's getting hurt. You can say no. And by the way, you see people in this 30%, well, it's some 33, 35, 37% of the people would say, "I'm not gonna do this; I'm out. "I don't care. "You take your money, I'm done." And they resist, and seeing other people resist has actually helped people to go, "Oh, I don't have to obey an authority "who's telling me to do something wrong or bad
1:01:15
"or that would bring harm to somebody." And resistance is increased when people see models that do that. It occurs, again, because of a high demand to follow authorities and obey them. Any questions on the whole study on obedience? Yeah, go ahead. [student speaks off microphone]
1:01:47
Yeah, in this regard, like back in the compliance stuff, in that area, there's all kinds of questions that could be asked about the morality, for example, of having somebody, of trying to do something that would get them to behave or comply in a certain area like that. What's been interesting is most of these techniques are pretty much used in sales all the time against people. I think that's the idea that a lot of social ecologists say, you better be prepared.
1:02:18
I answered the door, it wasn't maybe a year or two ago, and someone stood there and said, hey would you be,
1:02:26
there was just a simple question that was said, like, hey do you think if I, I forget what it was, would it be cool for a student like me to be able to go on a vacation to Hawaii or something like that. And I remember answering the, I knew what he was doing, it was, he wanted me to answer the question. I said, well, of course it'd be good. Well then, you know what I can do then? All's you have to do is help me buy a magazine. Okay, so it's a technique. There's a way.
1:02:54
So I think what happens is we find a lot of these things occurring out there, and the question is when are they occurring? Why are they occurring?
1:03:03
And what are some ideas behind it? So, yeah, there's a whole philosophy of, behind this as to why they occur, and then even the morality of doing some of that, it is very manipulative. A lot of these are just, that's exactly what they're doing. So a lot of sales techniques of people doing this. And so the social psychologists that are studying this are trying to say, wow, we've got to be really careful that we're buying into these things, or that these are influencing us.
1:03:31
Good question. Any others on obedience?
1:03:36
All right. It's an interesting area. Look at it in the textbook, and study it. It is very helpful to explore and to look at some of these behaviors like that. And then, in the last one, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna put up four areas that I want you to look at in the textbook. Social facilitation, and there's a quick definition; it's when your performance is influenced depending upon the presence of others. And something called social loafing, which is we tend to exert less effort
1:04:15
when we're in a group than if we're alone.
1:04:19
Something called group polarization and groupthink: these are topics in the textbook, I think, that are very interesting,
1:04:27
and they have some cool examples in there of how each of these work.
1:04:33
So look at them.
1:04:37
Study them.
1:04:39
Read about them. And are there any questions about anything we've covered so far?
1:04:51
>> Student: Is it true that stress brings on gray hair? >> Well, stress has physiological effects, so the answer is stress does and can result in things like even getting gray hair, yeah. So does aging. >> Student: But how does that happen? Well, is it the aging-- >> Yeah, it is a lot to do with it, and it's what the hair, yep. It's a good question. Huh. Hey, guess what? We are done. [applause] Good job this semester, y'all.
1:05:19
>> Announcer: Biola University offers a variety of biblically centered degree programs ranging from business to ministry to the arts and sciences. Visit Biola.edu to find out how Biola could make a difference in your life.
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