It is quite evident that very few of us are the same person within a crowd as opposed to who we are in isolation. In point of fact, the psychological term, “Mob mentality” is used to describe the distinct and unforeseen characteristics that arise when people are in exceptionally large groups. It is also referred to as “Herd behavior” or “Crowd hysteria” since in most cases, the behavior of the mass of people is quite violently sociopathic. What’s even more interesting is that the same psychological phenomenon is witnessed amongst other social species as well.
But why do individuals act differently in large groups as opposed to when they are in much smaller ones? Most psychologists believe that when people become a part of a large group, they experience de-individuation or in other terms, a dramatic loss of self-awareness. Furthermore, groups can result in an increase of emotional excitement that causes one to perform actions that one would not have if one were alone. Consider sporting events and concerts; Its highly unlikely that any of those individuals would sing and yell out loud in such a manner if they were all alone. In addition, The larger the group size the more aggressive each individual can be. This is not only due to increased anonymity of each person but also due to the fact that people perceive the violent action as that of the entire group thus failing to perceive any personal responsibility.
The study of group behavior takes into account numerous factors and analyzes situations in order to spot where, when and why things went wrong. Throughout history, we have witnessed innumerable revolutions, protests and numerous other circumstances where herds of human beings perform the most outrageously barbaric actions. In order to prevent them from occurring, Psychologists believe that it is important to study human beings in groups in order to get to the very heart of the conflict.
(via lookingforether)
Multitasking may harm the social and emotional development of tweenage girls, but face-to-face talks could save the day
Tweenage girls who spend endless hours watching videos and multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development, according to Stanford researchers.
But these unwanted effects might be warded off with something as simple as face-to-face conversations with other people.
The researchers, headed by education professor Roy Pea and Clifford Nass, a professor of communication, surveyed 3,461 girls, ages 8 to 12, about their electronic diversions and their social and emotional lives. “The results were upsetting, disturbing, scary,” Nass said.
The girls, all subscribers to Discovery Girls magazine, took the survey online, detailing the time they spent watching video (television, YouTube, movies,) listening to music, reading, doing homework, emailing, posting to Facebook or MySpace, texting, instant messaging, talking on the phone and video chatting – as well as how often they were doing two or more of those activities simultaneously.
The girls’ answers showed that multitasking and spending many hours watching videos and using online communication were statistically associated with a series of negative experiences: feeling less social success, not feeling normal, having more friends whom parents perceive as bad influences and sleeping less.
The researchers say that while they found a correlation between some media habits and diminished social and emotional skills, a definite cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be proved.
The research was published this week in a special section of the journal Developmental Psychology.
A time for social development
The survey findings are bad news, given that the 8 to 12 age range is critical for the social and emotional development of girls, and because children are becoming active media consumers at an ever-younger age.
But the survey also asked the girls a different, and very important, question: How much time do you spend participating in face-to-face conversations with other people?
The answers, Nass said, indicate that Mom and Dad should consider reviving the well-worn parental admonishment: “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences. Children learn the difficult task of interpreting emotions by watching the faces of other people, Pea said. It’s hard work, he added, and is unlikely to be done if everyone at the dinner table is peering at the screens of their smartphones.
Advice for kids
Nass has some advice: “Kids, spend time, when you are with other people, looking at them, listening closely, and see if you can tell their emotions. And if you can’t, that’s OK, but it means you have some learning to do.
“When we media multitask, we’re not really paying attention to the people around us and we get in a habit of not paying attention, and thus when I’m talking with you, I may be hearing the words but I’m missing all the rich, critical, juicy stuff at the heart of emotional and social life.”
Children’s media choices are changing in a new context of always-on media; neither they nor their parents have ways of self-regulating the extent of their media use and media multitasking, said Pea. “All things in moderation” is his guidance for both children and parents.
The happy-face emotional slant of most Facebook postings doesn’t help, either, he said. As shown in other Stanford University research, seeing the ubiquitous positive postings of online friends can lead to the erroneous conclusion that “Everyone is happy except me,” Nass said.
The good news
There is good news in the recent survey, however. For the negative effects of online gorging, “There seems to be a pretty powerful cure, a pretty powerful inoculant, and that is face-to-face communication,” Nass said.
“Kids in the 8-to-12-year-old range who communicate face-to-face very frequently, show much better social and emotional development, even if they’re using a great deal of media.”
The research was a follow-up to a 2010 experiment that demonstrated that media multitaskers were not really doing two things at once and were paying a mental price for trying. “They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” Nass said then. “Everything distracts them.”
Researchers, in addition to Pea and Nass, included Stanford students Lyn Meheula and Aman Kumar, as well as Holden Bamford, Matthew Nass, Aneesh Simha, Benjamin Stillerman, Steven Yang and Michael Zhou.
