Week 13 — The Power of the Situation: Reading Two Classic Experiments — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Assignment 12 of the term — read two classic social-psychology experiments with careful arithmetic, explain what each result does and does not show, and help a friend planning a crowded event think about who will call for help.

This week you learned how people explain one another's behavior, how actions can change attitudes, and why ordinary people conform, obey, and sometimes fail to help. In Week 2 you learned what an experiment is and why research ethics rules exist; this assignment uses both to read two of psychology's most famous studies. You work two short problems, interpret each one, and explain a classic finding to someone who has never studied psychology. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Analysis Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles.

The task

Two classic experiments this week show how strongly a situation can shape what ordinary people do. In Darley and Latané's 1968 intercom study, participants heard what sounded like another participant having a seizure; helping was operationally defined as reporting the emergency before the recording ended, and 85% reported it when they believed they were the only listener, 62% with one other listener, and 31% with four other listeners. In Milgram's 1963 baseline study, obedience was operationally defined as continuing to the 450-volt switch, and 26 of 40 participants did. No real shocks were given, but participants believed they were real.

Work these two problems, showing your arithmetic:

1. In Darley and Latané's 1968 intercom study, 85% of participants reported the emergency when they believed they were the only listener, and 31% did when they believed four other listeners were present. How many percentage points lower was reporting with four other listeners?
2. In Milgram's 1963 baseline study, 26 of 40 participants continued to the 450-volt switch. What percentage of the 40 participants stopped before the end?

Beside each answer, add one brief interpretation and one limit. For problem 1, explain the drop with diffusion of responsibility, name the independent variable and the dependent variable, and say why the design supports a causal claim about the number of listeners. For problem 2, explain what the obedience result says about the power of the situation rather than about cruel people, describe in words how obedience changed when the situation changed (for example, when two fellow participants refused first), and name one research-ethics protection that studies like this one helped bring about.

Explain it to a non-expert

A friend who has never studied psychology is planning a crowded outdoor festival and says, "With hundreds of people around, someone will always call for help if a person collapses." Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains, in everyday words, why a crowd can make each person less likely to act, one practical change that could help, and one limit of what the classic study can tell your friend. Explain any technical term in everyday words.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a roommate who says a classmate failed a quiz because "he's lazy." Model answer: "When we explain someone else's slip, we tend to blame their character and forget their situation. Psychologists call that the fundamental attribution error. He may have worked a late shift or had the quiz moved without notice, so it's worth asking what was going on before deciding what kind of person he is. I can't tell you why he really did poorly, though; only he can fill in the situation."

Use that pattern for your friend, with your own explanation and evidence.

Show your arithmetic. A reader should be able to reproduce every number you report from the values above without guessing which values or steps you used.

Deliverables

Submit a single brief containing:

• the two answers, each with the arithmetic shown and a brief interpretation and one limit;
• your message to the friend, explaining in everyday words why a crowd can make each person less likely to act, one practical change that could help, and one limit of the classic study; and
• a one-line restatement of the values you used, so your results are reproducible.

Keep it to roughly one page. Clear and correct beats long.

Choose how you show it. Present your brief as written text, or as a recorded audio or video explanation of about three minutes with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the two studies' results with a short note. Every form is graded by the same scoring criteria. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

This version is designed to be completed without AI: do the computations, the interpretations, and the writing yourself, without a chatbot or other AI tool. You may use a calculator or a spreadsheet for the arithmetic. Submitting AI-generated work as your own, or copying another student's numbers, is an integrity violation under the course policy.

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