Midterm Review- Due by Exam

[Mrs Sparrow]

SEMESTER REVIEW:

You must watch and respond to two of the three lectures in preparation for Midterm Exams.  I expect your response to be original, thoughtful, and making many relevant connections to concepts/material from chapters covered this semester.  You may write one single response, or two separate responses. Enjoy!

 

Choice ONE:

Watch well-known behavioral economist Dan Ariely on TED and respond to his lecture.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html

 

Choice TWO:

Watch well-known epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani on TED and respond to her lecture.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_let_s_get_rational_1.html

 

Choice THREE:

Watch primatologist Robert Sapolsky on TED (originally filmed at Stanford) and connect his lecture to our study of human behavior.

 http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html

[khan...@townisp.com]

On Jan 11, 9:22 am, Mrs Sparrow <erinsparro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> SEMESTER REVIEW:
>
> You must watch and respond to two of the three lectures in preparation for
> Midterm Exams.  I expect your response to be original, thoughtful, and
> making many relevant connections to concepts/material from chapters covered
> this semester.  You may write one single response, or two separate
> responses. Enjoy!
>
> Choice ONE:
>
> Watch well-known behavioral economist Dan Ariely on TED and respond to his
> lecture.
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
>
> Choice TWO:
>
> Watch well-known epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani on TED and respond to her
> lecture.
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_...

>
> Choice THREE:
>
> Watch primatologist Robert Sapolsky on TED (originally filmed at Stanford)
> and connect his lecture to our study of human behavior.
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...
> <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...>
>
> <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...>
>
> <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...>


Choice Two: Elizabeth Pisani
Elizabeth Pisani’s friend Frankie had to choose between accepting the
dirty needle in jail or to get high in jail from the heroin he was
addicted to. He experienced cognitive dissonance in that part of him
saw the bloody, dirty needle and thought how dangerous it was being
given to so many people, but another part of him thought about hoping
there would be enough left by the time it got to him. He was forced
to make a choice in order to ease his cognitive dissonance, and he
chose the needle. He became psychologically and physiologically
addicted to heroin, and therefore made stupid, dangerous decisions,
while in jail, in order to ease his cravings and stop the withdrawl
symptoms. She talks about junkies in Indonesia who are almost all
aware of the fact that sharing needles can cause HIV, yet they still
share them. They think only about the short-term effects of sharing
needles-that they won’t go to jail since they aren’t carrying their
own. They don’t consider the fact that sharing needles could
potentially give them a disease that could kill them in 10 years.
Going to jail would be an example of negative punishment because the
police would take away their drug and place them in jail in order to
try to stop their bad habits.

[Hannah Stahl]

Choice 1: Dan Ariely

Ariely started off his talk with describing how the nurses in the
hospital he stayed at after being severely burned would rip off his
bandages quickly to minimize the duration of pain but this increased
the intensity of the pain. They demonstrated a kind of false consensus
effect when he suggested taking them off more slowly, saying that
their way was the right way and patients were not allowed to make
suggestions. This led Ariely to design his own experiments on pain
where he manipulated duration, intensity, and the inclusion of breaks.
What he found was that the nurses were wrong; more specifically, they
were predictably wrong each time they removed his bandages and were
not willing to experiment different ways to do so to reduce pain.
Ariely then generalized his experiments to include all types of people
and moved on to the topic of cheating. In these experiments, he would
give a math test to university students and pay them per question they
got right. Sometimes he would check their paper and other times he
would have them shred the paper and tell him how many they got
correct. As predicted, students reported having more correct when they
had the opportunity to lie about it, but they only lied by a small
amount. Ariely explained how they unconsciously did a cost-benefit
analysis and saw that they could benefit more from cheating with a
relatively small chance of getting caught. The participants faced
cognitive dissonance because they knew that cheating was wrong but
they changed their thoughts so that would allow themselves to lie just
a little bit so they would not tarnish their own self-image.
Furthermore, when someone from a student's own school clearly cheated
and got away with it, that student would be more likely to cheat
because someone who was "in-group" set the norm for them, making it
more acceptable. In this way it was kind of like observational
learning because the student learned they could cheat and get away
with it while not suffering social consequences. The opposite was true
when the cheating student was from another school. Because they were
part of the "out-group" they made the student less likely to cheat.
This can all be applied to the stock market because when students were
removed from the actual money and given tokens that they could later
exchange for cash, they were much more likely to cheat because it
didn't seem as serious. This is why people often cheat in the stock
market when they buy "stocks" and "shares" and not actual money.

[sarah_rook]

Choice Two: Elizabeth Pisani

This video highlighted the moral reasoning behind people's decision to
use drugs or become a sex worker. In the video Pisani spoke about ways
to prevent the transmission of HIV, by giving out clean needles. This
seems like a simple way to solve the problem but at the same time you
are encouraging the use of drugs. Often times drug users develop a
physical dependence for a drug. This is marked by unpleasant symptoms
when the drug is discontinued. Instead of carrying around clean
needles, for fear of getting caught, they use unclean needles. This
action of using unclean needles in order to get high is over-powering
the fear of developing HIV. Nowadays their are available treatments
for HIV, that virtually dismiss all symptoms. As a result people with
HIV are living much longer lives. This has almost become an issue in
itself. At the same time it is helping people by preventing a future
death, but it also is preventing the fear of conducting the virus.
Thorndike's law of effect is also prevalent in this situation. The law
states that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more
likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become
less likely. So people who conduct HIV from dirty needles and still
manage to live relatively normal live due to medicine, will continue
that lifestyle because the favorable consequence is living a normal
life. The same holds true for the sex worker, Inus. She is receiving
favorable consequences, which are a high paying salary as well as a
longer life because of the medicine she is taking. Overall the
medicine has become a good thing as well as a bad thing. It has
prevented the fear f HIV, while at the same time producing longer life
spans for infected people.

[Liz Franger]

Choice Two:
Elizabeth Pisani talked about how sex and drugs can lead to
contracting HIV. She talked about drugs first. She said that many
people have a rationale for sharing needles, and know it's dangerous,
but do it anyways. Their rationale is that going to jail for having
needles is worse than getting HIV and possibly dying early in life.
The need for the drug in the present moment overrides all possible
consequences. When people are addicted to drugs, they are motivated to
do many things to get the drug. Without the drug, they go through
withdrawal, which is discomfort and distress that follows the absence
of the addicting drug. In this situation, they also may be willing to
use someone else's needle, because the need for the drug is greater
than the person's safety. This also can relate to Maslow's hierarchy
of needs because the physiological need for the drug is more important
(and the most basic need in Maslow's opinion) overrides safety needs.
Cognitive dissonance also could be occuring, and although the addicts
know it is dangerous, they proceed to share needs, and alter what they
think to fit this. Pisani talked about sex and HIV next. She said that
the people that get HIV most are people selling sex (and their
partners), "gay men on the party scene" (vs. straight men), and groups
in polygamous relationships (many in eastern and southern Africa). Her
study of Indonesian prostitutes found that prostitutes made 8-10
dollars an hour selling sex, which was astounding compared to factory
workers who make 20 cents an hour. For the prostitutes, this is merely
considered a job, a way to make money. Pisani also found that condoms
were more used in commercial sex than in personal, intimate
relationships. Pisani then talked about the "party boy." She said that
condom use decreases because people aren't scared of HIV, and they
think that the medicines people are on make it better than it is. This
could be fueled by overconfidence, which means that people
overestimate their knowledge and underestimate the risks. They may
think they know more than they do about HIV, and underestimate how bad
it actually can be. Pisani also made the point that the public doesn't
want to help junkies and sex workers with HIV, but will if they
contract aids, by buying them expensive drugs. This last point relates
to the just world phenomenon. HIV can be treated, and because they are
junkies and sex workers, they "get what they deserve." People see them
as bad. Aids is only treatable, but since it is so much worse, people
are more willing to help.

Choice One:
Dan Ariely talked about our moral code and concluded that our morals
are irrational. We don't always stick to the same rules for every
situation. Some of his experiments focused on cheating, which was
interesting. There never was a set way or idea that led people to
cheat. In one experiment, he gave a group 20 math problems to solve,
and not much time to solve them. When they handed they sheet in, they
received money for each question they correctly answered. The typical
amount was 4. In the next group, he had them rip up the paper and tell
him how many they got right. The number correct always increased, but
not by much (average was about 7). Ariely concluded that many people
cheat a little. If this continued, the foot in door phenomenon could
occur. The people could be more willing to take more and more money,
and therefore cheating more, because of these first small steps. When
Ariely increased the amount of money per question, cheating didn't
increase. The incentive to cheat was large, but people didn't take it.
When the cheating was almost blatant, people wouldn't do it. But if
they were distanced from it, like given tokens first, to be exchanged
for money, it was easier for them to cheat. In a second experiment,
Ariely gave the participants the money ahead of time. They were
supposed to give back what they didn't earn. There was one actor, who
stood up after 30 seconds and claimed he was done. He clearly cheated,
and all the participants knew it. Cheating increased when the actor
was wearing a sweatshirt from the college where all the participants
were from. This demonstrates the ingroup, where things are accepted
and everyone wants to conform. It also relates to groupthink. People
self justify their actions (like, "well this guy goes to my school and
cheated), conform to the group (college/idea that cheating is fine),
and are overconfident that they will get away with it. They may go
through deindividuation, and lose some of their self awareness and
beliefs that cheating is wrong. When the actor wore a different
college sweatshirt, the participants were less likely to cheat. This
demonstrates how the actor would be part of the outgroup, and the
participants would be against him and think it was wrong for him to
cheat. Conflict also plays a role in all of this, and the participants
could perceive an incompatibility between their ideas or actions.
Depending on the situation, they could choose one or the other, which
makes their moral code irrational.

[khan...@townisp.com]

I'm not sure if I'm just not seeing it, but is the survey monkey link
on here yet?

[Kailey Filiere]

Choice 1:
When Dan Ariely was badly burned,he suggested to the nurses another
method to minimize his pain when they would take off his bandages. The
nurses refused to listen to what Dan had to say and assured him that
they were trained professionals and knew what they were doing. This is
similar to Zimbardo's experiment when individuals were role-playing
the parts of guards and prisoners. After a short period of time, the
guards were so into their role that they acted powerful and believed
that they were right over the prisoners in every situation- like what
happened with the nurses and Dan. I found it interesting that like
Milgram, Dan also conducted an experiment with shock waves and pain,
but for a different purpose. Dan found that when experiencing a low
duration of pain at a low frequency, pain becomes more tolerable,
which makes sense. Although Milgram's experiment was linked with pain
and punishment, it's cool the same tool was used for a different
experiment. Milgram's experiment is also similar to Dan's experiment
on cheating. In both experiments, individuals would agree to do
something due to fear or punishment or a reward (In Milgram's case,
teachers would give high voltage shocks to the learner fearing that
they would get in trouble by the instructor if they didn't. In Dan's
case, many individuals cheated, hoping to gain more money for the
amount of questions they answered.) Both Asch and Dan used actors in
their experiments to get the results they wanted. Asch used "actors"
in his conformity experiment, having people say that they thought a
line matched the original line when it really didn't. This caused
individuals to confrom to the actor's beliefs, even though they
understood that they were not correct. When the actor in Dan's
experiment claimed that he finished his test before everyone else, he
got to keep his money and leave. Others that saw this then began to
cheat, hoping that they would obtain the same results. The actor in
Dan's experiment was wearing a sweatshirt that said the name of a
school that everyone went to. Since this is familiar to everyone, they
bagan to form an ingroup bias and thought that it was then ok to be
cheating. If he was wearing a different sweatshirt, one that was not
adversiting the common school, Many would feel less inclined to
cheat.
Choice 2:
Elizabeth Pisani stated that many people have a wrong schema about how
one contracts HIV. Many believe that it is about one's gender or
poverty, but in fact it relys mainly on sex and drugs used. Elizabeth
talks about the dangers of injecting drugs and what a drug user sees
as rational and what a "clean" person sees as rational are two
different things. People that are addicted to drugs are physically and
emotionally dependent on the specific drug they use. They make
associations with this drug, thinking about the people they use the
drug with and the places where they have used the drug. They will do
anything to get their next high, meaning that they are even willing to
use a dirty needle. many drug users think about the immediate effects
of the drug (if I take this drug now then I will get high or if i get
caught with a needle, I will be thrown into jail.) They fail to see
the long term effects the drug will have on them (I could have major
health problems in the future and contract HIV, which could kill me
years from now.) Many also have a wrong schema about giving out
condoms and needles to people that need them. Many come to the
conclusion that since needles and condoms are given out, everyone will
be having sex and doing drugs, which isn't exactly the case.
Individuals and organizations that are doing this are being rational,
trying to prevent disease from spreading. I find it interesting how
sex workers and politicians have different views due to their in group
bias. Sex workers may become sexually active due to the pay when
politicians do not understand why these sex workers will work and have
normal jobs.

[khan...@townisp.com]

Choice 1 (My second entry): Dan Ariely claims that if the duration of
the pain he endured were longer and the intensity of the pain smaller,
it would have been an easier process for him to endure. He says we
don’t encode duration in the way that we encode intensity. He said it
would have been less painful if they started at his face and
progressed down towards his feet, because the pain would be less as
they moved down. He also found that a great thing for his nurses to
have done would have been to give him breaks between them to
recuperate. All of these things have to do with how we encode and
process information in our bodies in response to pain. He then
proceeded to discuss that our morals are irrational. He talked about
an experiment involving math problems in which people were given money
for the number of correct answers they received. When given the
opportunity to cheat, a majority of the people cheated a little,
instead of what he assumed would happen, which was that only a few
“bad apples” would cheat a lot. He mentioned how when we are given
the opportunity to cheat, we weigh the costs and benefits of how
likely it would be to get caught cheating, what would one gain if they
did cheat, and how harsh would the consequences be if one did get
caught. This would fall into the category of conventional morality in
Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality because it has to do with following the
rules. It also relates to preconventional morality because obeying
the rules means avoiding punishment, and that is exactly what the non-
cheaters are thinking. Interestingly he found that when people were
given the opportunity to cheat at recalling the Ten Commandments, they
wouldn’t cheat. This is perhaps because of the validity of the Ten
Commandments in the whole idea of cheating and the guilt that may
coincide with that. Ariely noticed in another experiment that when
given tokens to exchange for money a few steps away, cheating doubled,
simply because what they were given initially wasn’t money. For some
reason, people didn’t feel as guilty. Cheating a little bit, then a
little more, could relate to the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.
Finally, he talks about ingroups and how we are more apt to cheat if
those in our ingroup do. This has to do with conformity and fitting
in with your ingroup.

[khan...@townisp.com]

[khan...@townisp.com]

> Choice Two: Elizabeth Pisani
> Elizabeth Pisani’s friend Frankie had to choose between accepting the
> dirty needle in jail or to get high in jail from the heroin he was
> addicted to.  He experienced cognitive dissonance in that part of him
> saw the bloody, dirty needle and thought how dangerous it was being
> given to so many people, but another part of him thought about hoping
> there would be enough left by the time it got to him.  He was forced
> to make a choice in order to ease his cognitive dissonance, and he
> chose the needle.  He became psychologically and physiologically
> addicted to heroin, and therefore made stupid, dangerous decisions,
> while in jail, in order to ease his cravings and stop the withdrawl
> symptoms.  She talks about junkies in Indonesia who are almost all
> aware of the fact that sharing needles can cause HIV, yet they still
> share them.  They think only about the short-term effects of sharing
> needles-that they won’t go to jail since they aren’t carrying their
> own.  They don’t consider the fact that sharing needles could
> potentially give them a disease that could kill them in 10 years.
> Going to jail would be an example of negative punishment because the
> police would take away their drug and place them in jail in order to
> try to stop their bad habits.

Choice 1: Dan Ariely claims that if the duration of the pain he

endured were longer and the intensity of the pain smaller, it would
have been an easier process for him to endure. He says we don’t
encode duration in the way that we encode intensity. He said it would
have been less painful if they started at his face and progressed down
towards his feet, because the pain would be less as they moved down.
He also found that a great thing for his nurses to have done would
have been to give him breaks between them to recuperate. All of these
things have to do with how we encode and process information in our
bodies in response to pain. He then proceeded to discuss that our
morals are irrational. He talked about an experiment involving math
problems in which people were given money for the number of correct
answers they received. When given the opportunity to cheat, a
majority of the people cheated a little, instead of what he assumed
would happen, which was that only a few “bad apples” would cheat a
lot. He mentioned how when we are given the opportunity to cheat, we
weigh the costs and benefits of how likely it would be to get caught
cheating, what would one gain if they did cheat, and how harsh would
the consequences be if one did get caught. This would fall into the
category of conventional morality in Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality
because it has to do with following the rules. It also relates to
preconventional morality because obeying the rules means avoiding

punishment, and that is exactly what the non-cheaters are thinking.

[Mrs Sparrow]

Hi Katelyn, 

If you do not see the following message when you first log-in to the group then i need you to do the following... on the right hand side of your screen click a link that says something like "View in Updated/New Google Groups"- then you should be able to see the welcome message on the home page.  

IF YOU DID NOT RECEIVE AN EMAIL FROM SURVEY MONKEY... To access the Course Evaluation copy and paste this link:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XVZDHFF

You must let Mrs. Sparrow know via email that you have accessed the survey using this link (not your personal email) to get credit. 

[Sunshine]

Choice One:
Dan Ariely's view on rationality was pretty interesting. His
experiments captured my attention because they had a spectacular
conclusion to them, the first being the pain experiments. Since he was
a burn victim, he has to suffer the pain of having bandages being
quickly ripped off his body. He thought the bandages should be removed
slowly, but the nurses thought otherwise and stuck to what they knew
best. After doing some research, Ariely found out that there is less
pain involved if one was to remove the bandages slowly from the head
first, then slowly working down.
The nurses are seen as irrational because they caused unnecessary pain
to their patient. But, as Elizabeth Pisani said, there is a reason for
rationale. The nurses didn't know any better and had been commanded to
take the bandages off. It's just their job and they're doing what
they've been told. I've been faced with similar situations at work,
but I won't go off topic...
This experiments led him to test the promotion of cheating. I found it
very interesting that most people would cheat for tokens that can be
exchanged for cash than cheat for only cash. Even more interesting,
when a person from the same college as the other testers obvoisly
cheated, the other testers had a higher probability. But when someone
from a rival college obviously cheated, the probability of other
testers cheating was lessened. This gives clear evidence to conformity
and the in-group norm.

Choice Two:
Elizabeth Pisani gave a very insightful speech on rational thinking in
the world of AIDS and HIV. She gave listeners a completely different
perspective of those who are junkies, sex workers, or just hard-core
partiers. Since junkies have a physical addiction, they will
experience withdrawls if they do not get their drugs. If they get
caught with needles, they're going to jail. So, less needles means
you're less likely to go to jail. It also means more needle sharing is
needed. This causes HIV, and it's a tough struggle for junkies until
the needle exchange programs were implemented.
Sex workers are in it for the money. Since the pay for factory work is
so minute in the poorer african countries, more people have been
resorting to sex in order to make more money. Sex causes HIV is left
unprotected, but people need to nurture themselves and possibly even
their family, so they choose to make more money than be safe.
Pisani gave a bunch of data during her speech that seemed pretty
reasonable to the points she was making, proving that something needs
to be changed.

[sarah_rook]

(Second Response)
Choice 1: Dan Ariely
In the beginning of this talk, Dan speaks about the morals of the
nurses at the hospital and how their morals are sometimes irrational.
He explained how when they were taking the bandages off of his burns
they pulled them off in a very fast manner which produced high
intensity over a short period of time. He had suggested to the nurses
that they instead pull them of slowly, which would decrease the
intensity and increase the duration. In fact, the nurses were wrong
because the body responds stronger to intensity than to duration.
Therefore the nurses should have listened to the suggestion that Dan
had made. The nurses actions could be explained in several ways, one
way being that the nurses were simply modeling behavior that they had
seen doctors or other nurses perform. Modeling is the process of
observing and imitating a specific behavior. The nurses behavior could
have also been influenced by the in-group bias. The in-group bias is a
tendency to favor one's own group. So in the case of the burn victim,
the nurses would have been in favor of their way of removing the
bandages, instead of the way that the patient had suggested removing
the bandages. After, Dan then goes into the experiments that he had
done with cheating. He found that few people don't cheat a lot,
instead a lot of people cheated a little. I didn't find this
surprising because he then went into how people see other people cheat
everyday, this could serve as a opportunity for observational
learning. People who see others cheat, then feel that it is okay for
them to cheat also, seeing that they got away with it. The in-group
bias is also evident in the cheating incidents at the university. When
the students saw that the cheating student was from their own school,
they felt that it was okay to cheat. When the student was not a part
of their university they didn't feel that it was okay to cheat.
Overall this experiment was very interesting and I like the take that
Dan had on morality.

[Steve Trudeau]

Choice 2:
I found Pisani’s reflection on our reluctance to support aid for HIV
positive junkies and prostitutes similar to the just world phenomenon.
Many do not support using their tax money to support HIV treatment for
those who inject and share needles because we view their disease as a
consequence of their choices. As a result, we develop a prejudice and
a stigma against such individuals not only for moral disagreements,
but also due to the resentment of having to financially support
someone who uses their money on drugs. Once addicted to the drug
however, their use of the drug is no longer just for pleasure. On the
contrary, many long time addicts report that the drug ceases to be
enjoyable as their tolerance builds up and they become sensitize to
it. They only continue using the drug to satisfy a craving, not for
pleasure. Once these drug users develop AIDS to its full extent and
become emaciated, we forget the indifference we once held them in and
feel pressed to help ease their suffering through the medication we
had previously resented having to supply. The prejudice becomes more
entrenched in society through group polarization, which furthers our
reluctance to help. As a society, this attitude is particularly
dangerous as we treat only the most severe cases, leaving the culture
that allowed them to occur intact. This allows new cases to occur
without resistance while we focus only on helping those who are
already affected.

Choice 1:
I found it interesting that Ariely’s experiments showed that people
consistently cheated, even if only a little. If one were to ask any of
them, almost all would undoubtedly say that they would never cheat.
Yet when given the opportunity to do so inconspicuously, such as in
Ariely’s groups or kids on the internet illegally downloading music
expecting no one to look in so much internet traffic to catch them,
participants consistently do. This may be in some way attributable to
deindividuation, such that as the group of people to shroud their own
cheating increases, people feel less exposed and more comfortable to
cheat. Especially in a situation in which a participant already set a
high bar, such as the shill in Ariely’s experiments that finished
quickly. Such a standard already attained without any questioning by
the experimenters shows the participants that they can get away with
cheating. Without such an accomplice, cognitive dissonance would
likely make the participants uneasy about cheating, especially when
reminded of morality by the ten commandments or an honor code. This
cognitive dissonance, while it might not prevent them from cheating,
would certainly act to keep the cheating to a lesser level to maintain
a positive self-concept. With the accomplice, the students are more
likely to cheat and rationalize it with the belief that if the
experimenters are not careful enough to guard their money, they
deserve to lose it. I found it interesting that in-group bias had such
an influential effect, that the mere presence of a rival school’s
sweatshirt was enough to repulse students into not cheating, though
they could get away with it. The students only conformed when they
looked favorably on the accomplice as a member of their own group and
felt comfortable being associated with the accomplice, similar to
Asch’s experiments in which conformity increased when others were
viewed favorably as being of high social status.
I was also interested by his mentioning of Ettie, who was
overconfident in her belief that removing bandages quickly was the
best approach rather than slowly over time. Like most people, Ettie
was more confident than correct, and couldn’t imagine that another
method of removing bandages could be more effective because she was
already so accustomed to removing them quickly. With hindsight biased,
backed Ariely’s experiments, it may have seemed obvious to Ettie that
the brain remembers intensity more than duration, and associates pain
of the last moments of a procedure more than the beginning. This
overconfidence was fueled by the nurses collectively who, because of
groupthink, agreed on the single method of removing bandages and
became less and less receptive to alternative ideas.

[Fiona Merullo]

response 1: Dan Ariely talks about how human behavior is predictably
irrational. That is, humans often follow their intuition, even if it's
not correct. In Ariely's case, he first encountered this irrational
behavior when he was in the hospital. His nurses removed his bandages
one way, because they believed this was the best possible way to do it
according to their intuition. But Ariely believed it should be done
another way because that is how HIS intuition made it seem. This led
Ariely to test which behavior actually was a better procedure; Ariely
argues that rather than just believing intuition, humans need to test
and observe the beliefs.

Ariely then goes on to talk about cheating. He explains that
rationally, people should apply a typical cost benefit analysis to
decide whether or not they should cheat. That is, weigh the costs: if
it worth it to cheat, how likely are they to get caught, etc. But
Ariely explains that people do not do this when deciding if they
should cheat. Instead cheating is guided by their moral compass.
People want to still feel good about themselves, but at the same time
they do want to cheat in order to get a promised reward. This
demonstrates cognitive dissonance theory: people know cheating is
immoral, but they also want to get the reward. At some point, they
just choose one. In the case of cheating, I think Ariely would agree
that actions guide attitude. The people cheat, but then to make
themselves feel better they tell themselves they only cheated a little
bit. Sometimes in cheating, attitude guides action in the sense that
the attitude of wanting to be a good person guided their cheating,
because it made them less likely to cheat. This is the case when
people do things like sign an honor code or swear on the bible; they
believe that since they are reminded of morality, they should not
cheat. Ariely explains that most operate on the basis of the
"personal fudge factor". That is, how far can they stretch morality
while still feeling like a good person.

Ariely also brings up ingroup and outgroup bias in regards to
cheating. He explains that if those who are like you (in the ingroup)
cheat, you will think that is ok to cheat. This can be linked to
conformity, because you may be altering your views (if you think
cheating is bad) in order to conform to your ingroup. On the other
hand, if the outgroup cheats, you will be less likely to cheat because
you do not want to be associated with the outgroup.

Motivation for cheating may come from the promised reward. The
extrinsic motivation to get a reward (a good grade on a test, money,
etc) is stronger than the intrinsic motivation to feel good about
yourself (to not feel like a cheater).

Overall, Ariely seems like someone who would agree with the
fundamental attribution error. We often say that those who cheat are
just immoral and bad, but we do not take into account the
circumstances of why they cheated.

On Jan 11, 9:22 am, Mrs Sparrow <erinsparro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> SEMESTER REVIEW:
>
> You must watch and respond to two of the three lectures in preparation for
> Midterm Exams.  I expect your response to be original, thoughtful, and
> making many relevant connections to concepts/material from chapters covered
> this semester.  You may write one single response, or two separate
> responses. Enjoy!
>
> Choice ONE:
>
> Watch well-known behavioral economist Dan Ariely on TED and respond to his
> lecture.
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
>
> Choice TWO:
>
> Watch well-known epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani on TED and respond to her
> lecture.
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_...

>
> Choice THREE:
>
> Watch primatologist Robert Sapolsky on TED (originally filmed at Stanford)
> and connect his lecture to our study of human behavior.
>

[Maddy McKinley]

Choice 1: Dan Ariely talked about how he was badly burned and went to
the hospital. The nurses would pull off his bandages quickly in oder
to cause less pain. This actually caused him more pain because the
quick pull intensified the pain. He advised the nurses to pull off his
bandages more slowly to ease the pain, but they did not listen to
their patient. Dan then explained that a longer duration of a dull
pain is less likely to be remembered than a fast intensified pain.
Although shorter, the quick pull of the bandage causes more pain,
causing the brain to encode the pain differently than it would if the
pain lasted longer but was easier to handle. The quick intensified
pain would be more likely remembered, so said Dan. This reminded me of
flashbulb memories which are vivid vivid memory of an emotionally
significant moment or event. Dan then went on to talk about cheating
where he gave the incentive of money for every correct answer given on
a test. He found that when he went on the student's word of how many
questions were answered correctly, the majority of them cheated "only
a little bit". People, he most commonly noted, cheat "only a little
bit". They only do a little because they don't want to get caught, and
they don't want to damage their perspective of how they view their
identity.

Choice 2: Elizabeth Pisani talked about how drugs and unprotected sex
produce HIV. She started by talking about how people are addicted to
drugs. These junkies will do anything to get their next high, even if
that means using someone else's dirty and used needle. If they don't
use the drug they will go into withdrawl, where the body goes into
panic without the drug causing symptoms such as high ever, tremors,
and even death. People who are addicted to drugs are not able to think
about the prolonged future of their actions. They are only concerned
about their next high. This reminded me of Maslow's hierarchy of needs
where physical needs must come before safety. Unprotected sex is a
major part of spreading HIV. People believe that the infection is more
tame than it actually is. Therefore, people are less afraid of it and
don't use as much protection. The number of partner's one has also
causes the spread of HIV. Prostitutes in Indonesia have a big
incentive of gaining more money by selling their bodies than by
working in a factory. These people think they aren't doing anything
wrong, just like how the junkies don't think they are doing anything
wrong by using someone else's needle. Politicians believe that if we
were to give out new needles and condoms to people then we'd all be
having sex and shooting up, but this is not exactly the case. Health
researchers just wish to ensure protection among everyone in an effort
to help prevent the spread of harmful and life threatening diseases.

[Spencer Stevens]

Choice One:
Dan Ariely began his talk with a discussion of the nurses who pulled
his bandages off in a painful way. As they were doing this, he seemed
a little irritated by their constant ripping, and he tried to reason
with them, but they refused his suggestions. He may have experienced
the fundamental attribution error in this moment. He thought the
nurses simply had it in their characters to rip the bandages off
without breaks and then to refuse his request rather than consider the
fact that they had set guidelines to follow and probably also were
trying to complete the job and pursue the care of other patients. I
know at first I thought the nurses were rude to Ariely, but, now that
I’ve considered their circumstances, I do not believe they were rude
or speaking out of turn. He shifted to discussing his experiments with
cheating, and I was surprised to hear that—when given the opportunity
to cheat—subjects really didn’t cheat much; they did a little,
claiming they answered more questions than they actually did, but they
claimed they only answered a few more questions correctly. I think
this could relate to Kohlberg’s studies into morality, and I believe
the subjects fell somewhere near the level of conventional morality;
they actually broke the rules and cheated, but they didn’t break the
rules too much. Another person in the preconventional level of
morality might have said they answered all 20 questions correctly, but
the average amount of people stayed relatively within bounds of normal
morality. I believe another reason the subjects cheated was due to
conformity and normative social influence. If one of the subjects
answered three questions correctly but heard everyone else claiming
“Six!” or “Seven!” that person, to feel like he or she fit in, might
also boost their number of correct answers. According to normative
social influence, people usually act in order to gain social approval
or avoid disapproval, so a person who only answered three questions
correctly in a room of people who CLAIMED they answered seven would
want to make themselves appear to have answered more to avoid being
seen as stupid. Something I found incredibly interesting in Ariely’s
speech was his description of his study at Carnegie Mellon in which an
actor would “finish” the set of questions very quickly and leave. I
thought the fact that the sweatshirt he wore influenced the others in
the room was, as Ariely pointed out, an example of ingroup bias.
Students from Carnegie Mellon, seeing a fellow student finish so
quickly, might decide to cheat and say they answered more questions
than they actually did based on normative social influence. However,
upon seeing a University of Pittsburgh student exit so soon, students
might think to themselves, “He definitely cheated!” and would possibly
be less inclined to cheat because they want to appear better than the
other, “rival” school.

Choice Two:
Elizabeth Pisani talked about a jailed drug addict’s decision to
inject heroin into his bloodstream even though the needle was used by
multiple other prisoners. He had the incentive to feel high from the
injections of heroin, and he chose to disregard his own health in
order to feel that high. He had a physical addiction to the drug,
evidently, since he was almost unable to resist it and claimed he
needed it. Since his previous heroin addiction probably decreased his
own production of endorphins, he felt he needed the heroin to be able
to feel another rush of pleasure. Shifting to the HIV section of
Pisani’s talk, I found it interesting how the use of condoms by gay
men seems to be steadily dropping due to advances in medication for
dealing with the virus. With the high rate of the hormone testosterone
in gay male relationships, it doesn’t surprise me that many gay men
would be overconfident and find it, due to the over-propagation of
gender stereotypes, “unmanly” to use protection, even if having sexual
relations with multiple men or even complete strangers. I believe that
some factors contributing to teen pregnancy are also prevalent in
considering HIV positivity: people are ignorant to the risks of having
unprotected sex, they’re not given enough information regarding birth
control (or, in the case of gay men, information about condoms more
importantly and relevantly preventing STDs), and the media portrays an
image of sexual promiscuity being the norm and safe. I believe both
drug addiction and having unprotected sex relate to utilitarianism and
the thought that the benefits—gaining a high or deriving sexual
pleasure—outweigh the costs—obtaining HIV or other diseases.

[Fiona Merullo]

Response two: Elizabeth Pisani brings up some interesting points about
HIV and AIDs. One of her main points was that drug use makes you
irrational and this is one thing that causes the spread of HIV. Put
bluntly, Pisani says "drugs make you stupid". This is very correct. On
the physiological side of addiction, drug use interferes with your
natural neurotransmitters. You become addicted to the drug and you
will experience withdrawal if you stop taking it. Withdrawal is
negative and makes you feel sick, therefore drug users would naturally
want to avoid this. Pisani explains that although nearly 100% of drug
users interviewed know both the dangers of needle sharing and where to
get clean needles, they do not use clean needles because they do not
want to get caught. If caught with clean needles they could be sent to
jail where they would not be able to have the drug and therefore they
would experience withdrawal. The stages of addiction include a point
in which the need to get high outways the pleasure the user feels, and
the user will do anything to get a fix. This includes risking getting
HIV; drug users would rather get HIV ten years from now than
experience withdrawal symptoms now. It may not be rational to people
like us, but it is rational to the drug user.

Pisani also discusses new HIV treatments in terms of protected vs
unprotected sex.. While these treatments do not cure HIV they do lower
the symptoms and virus count, making you less likely to pass it on.
But since these new HIV treatments are becoming more widely available,
people are taking less precautionary measures (such was wearing
condoms) to prevent getting HIV in the first place. This can be
explained be overconfidence; they believe that even if they do get
HIV, they can just get the treatment and it won't be a big deal,
therefore they do not need to wear a condom. But this way of thinking
is inaccurate. Since these treatments, people with HIV are staying
alive longer so therefore there is actually an increased amount of
people living with HIV. But there are a lot of irrational decisions
involved with sex, including not wearing a condom.

Pisani mentions that there is a common idea that certain groups are
more at risk of getting or spreading HIV or AIDs than others. Pisani
explains that although this is true, it's not true in the way people
think it is. Those who are most at risk of HIV are those who have a
lot of sexual partners in a short amount of time. While there ARE
certain groups who do overall exhibit more promiscuous sexual activity
in a short amount of time, it is an over-generalization to say that
these groups are the only ones who get HIV or are the ones causing
the AIDS epidemic. This is exactly how stereotypes form, because
stereotypes are an over-generalization that does come from factual
truth. So while it is true that gay man on the party scene have more
partners than straight men, it is a stereotype to say that everyone
who has HIV is gay or to say that all gay people have HIV. Similarly,
to say that gay people are the CAUSE of the AIDS epidemic (as it was
originally thought) would be scapegoating.

On Jan 11, 9:22 am, Mrs Sparrow <erinsparro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> SEMESTER REVIEW:
>
> You must watch and respond to two of the three lectures in preparation for
> Midterm Exams.  I expect your response to be original, thoughtful, and
> making many relevant connections to concepts/material from chapters covered
> this semester.  You may write one single response, or two separate
> responses. Enjoy!
>
> Choice ONE:
>
> Watch well-known behavioral economist Dan Ariely on TED and respond to his
> lecture.
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
>
> Choice TWO:
>
> Watch well-known epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani on TED and respond to her
> lecture.
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_...

>
> Choice THREE:
>
> Watch primatologist Robert Sapolsky on TED (originally filmed at Stanford)
> and connect his lecture to our study of human behavior.
>

[Julie Hamilton]

Choice 1:
Dan Ariely is a well-known behavior economist. In his speech he
connected predictable rationality to the economy like the stock
market. First he discussed when he was burned and the intuition of
there being a less painful way to take off the Band-Aids. Dan said how
it is difficult to think your our intuition is wrong and to test it.
He thought it would be better to take the Band-Aids off slowly,
whereas the nurses thought it would be better to do it quickly. Dan
experimented and discovered the nurses were wrong. We don’t encode
pain for duration of time like we do intensity. It would have been
less painful to spread out the removing of the Band-Aids over a longer
period of time. In chapter 5, we discussed what pain is. Pain is the
body’s way of telling something is wrong. Without pain our joints
would fail from excess strain and unchecked infections and injuries. A
theory on pain is that it is controlled by a gate in the spinal cord.
Treatments to control pain often combine physiological and
psychological elements. Another topic Dan talked about was cheating.
He said from his experiments he discovered a lot of people cheat a
little bit. He discovered people cheat more if someone from their
ingroup does and they cheat less if someone from the outgroup does.
The outgroup allows the people to be aware of their honesty, whereas
the ingroup makes people think it’s more appropriate to cheat. The
ingroup is people who one shares a common identity and the outgroup is
those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup. Dan said if
people are reminded about their morality then they will cheat less.
Kohlberg’s stages of morality show this. He also discovered that if
money wasn’t involved in a step, instead tokens were used people
cheated twice as much. People cheat as long as it doesn’t change their
thoughts about themselves.

Choice 2:
Elizabeth Pisani discussed rational thoughts. She talked about how if
you give people information and services it will lead to long, healthy
lives. Irrational thinking is usually due to sex and drugs. She talked
about how addicts think they are thinking rationally. The people she
talked to said that they know that HIV is spread through sharing
needles but they do it anyways. Addiction is compulsive drug craving
and use. In many places like Indonesia, if people are found with a
needle they will spend their life in jail. Drug addicts have to decide
between going to jail and sharing needles. This shows cognitive
dissonance, which is a conflict between two inner conflicts. They end
up choosing to share needles. Studies have shown that all needle
programs are effective. People aren’t as afraid of HIV anymore because
treatments are so successful. Pisani said that more treatment isn’t
the answer. The incentive-sensitization theory is wanting versus
liking. Pisani’s friend Frank shared a story about his time in jail.
Frank wanted the heroin so badly that he was willing to risk the
chance of getting HIV infected. Wanting is more of a craving then a
pleasure. Heroin is an opiate that depresses neural activity to lessen
pain and anxiety.

[Allie Schlener]

Choice 1

Dan Ariely talked about morality especially about cheating. At first
he used the example of ripping of the bandages slowly compared to
quickly and at the end he ties that back into his story saying that
the nurse didn't take his advice because she felt so strongly about
her intuition that she could not take his opinion. This is a perfect
example of egocentrism because it demonstrated her inability to take
his point of view. He also said that cheating went up if someone in
the in-group cheated and down if it was someone in the out group. This
doesn't surprise me much because if it's someone that you share a
common identity with, you will feel that it is "ok" to cheat if they
are cheating. But if it is someone in the out group, they are
perceived as different and you make the action of cheating seem as if
it's something you would never do because you are not like the people
in that group.

Choice 2

Elizabeth Pisani has an interesting view on politics that most people
would not have thought about. She explained that everyone has rational
reasons for making the decisions they make. Politics don't give out
clean needles because that would be supporting drugs. Junkies share
needles to avoid being put in jail. People, especially gay men, don't
pay much attention to protected sex because they know that HIV is not
as serious as it used to be. Hearing all of this was enlightening for
me because I had never thought about it in this way. Pisani begins her
talk by talking about drugs and drug addicts. She said that drugs make
people stupid, as they did for her friend Frankie. He saw the blood on
the needle and knew that it could be dangerous, but he was hoping that
there would be some drugs left in the needle so he could reach his
high. Because Frankie was an addict, his motivation to get drugs were
based on the physiological withdrawal symptoms he would have been
experiencing in jail from not having the drugs and his incentive to
take the drugs was the high that he would be receiving. This idea also
corresponds to the drive-reduction theory. He was experiencing a
physiological need for the drugs which created a drive and lead to him
doing drive-reducing behavior which would have been taking the drug.
The next topic that she discussed was sex. Sex is a physiologically
based motive, like hunger, but it is more affected by learning and
values. Since sex is a physiologically based motive like hunger, it
would be on the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs which would
first need to be satisfied before higher level needs. Also, in the
book there was a graph in chapter twelve that represented the falling
levels of college students that thought there should be laws
preventing homosexual relationships which means that people are
starting to accept them more which could be influencing the rising
rates of HIV in homosexual men.

[Julie O'Connor]

Choice One:
In his TED talk, behavioral economist Dan Ariely commented on moral
code. He began his talk by sharing his experience in the burn
department at a hospital. He did not agree with the nurses’ approach
to ripping off his band-aids. He suggested that the pain would improve
if they ripped the bandages with great intensity. However, the nurses
disagreed and argued that they were trained professionals, well aware
of what they were doing. Ariely’s experience at the hospital caused
him to come to the conclusion that people typically trust their
intuition, though it is not always accurate. He felt his opinion was
correct in that the nurses should rip the bandages off slowly; yet the
nurses believed they were correct in quickly removing the bandages.
Both of their beliefs were influenced by their intuitions. The
fundamental attribution error plays a role in this experience as well.
This is defined as the tendency for observers, when analyzing
another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and
overestimate one’s personal disposition. Ariely made this error when
he misattributed the nurses’ decision to continue ripping the bandages
off slowly. He felt the nurses were being selfish and were merely
following their personal intuition. On the other hand, the nurses were
trained in this field and had to follow a set procedure in ripping his
bandages, as they reasoned they knew the correct model for a patient
and therefore did not welcome his suggestions. Ariely may have
perceived this as them being impolite. Following this experience,
Ariely discussed his experiments with cheating that I feel overall
exemplifies Bandura’s observational learning. Ariely mentioned that we
observe people cheat in everyday life and thus feel cheating is an
acceptable social norm. His experiment at a university also
represented observational learning through modeling. When an actor
wore a Carnegie Mellon sweatshirt and claimed he answered all of the
questions, cheating increased. When the actor wore a University of
Pittsburgh sweatshirt, cheating decreased. Those who related to the
actor observed his behavior and imitated it by cheating even more
(modeling). It appears that ingroup bias is also present here because
when students of Carnegie Mellon could relate to the actor, they felt
it acceptable to cheat because they shared a common identity. When
they could not relate to the actor (outgroup), they did not model the
behavior. Conformity, adjusting one’s behavior to coincide with a
group’s standards, is seen when people could relate to the actor. Once
they saw that they related to the actor and that it was acceptable to
cheat, they adjusted their behavior and the amount of cheating
increased.

Choice Two:
Elizabeth Pisani directed her talk to focus on the rationality of HIV,
sex, and drugs. HIV increases with users sharing needles to prevent
themselves from getting caught with needles. Providing clean needles
for the users would decrease the spread of HIV, yet politicians do not
support this because they feel it may shed a positive light on drug
use. From an utilitarian perspective, the greater amount of good would
be done by stopping the spread of HIV by providing drug users clean
needles, rather than allowing users to exchange dirty
needles.According to Pisani’s video, sterile needle programs are
effective. Politicians should focus on educating people about drugs if
they are concerned with creating a positive outlook on drug use. It is
difficult for drug users to quit as we studied in chapter 7 because
they are physically and psychologically dependent on the drug. They
have a physiological need for the drug or their body would experience
withdrawal consisting of pain and cravings. Drug users are also
psychologically addicted to relieve emotions.
Pisani’s discussion on sex relates to the drive-reduction theory. The
theory states that a need creates an aroused tension state that
motivates an organism to satisfy the need. Someone about to engage in
unprotected sex focuses more on satisfying their need rather than
possible future consequences. The pleasure they desire also connects
to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The need to belong and feel loved may
overcome their decision to use protection, especially if the partner
refuses to use it.

[Shreya Sitaraman]

Response 1: Dan Ariely
I found Dan Ariely’s experiments to be entertaining and interesting,
even though I didn’t really understand how it connected to economics.
Personally, I always used to think that cheating was correlated to
morality and upbringing, so I found his ideas quite thought-provoking.
I didn’t realize that conformity would play such a huge role in
cheating. In retrospect, it makes sense because an individual would
not want to feel left out if he or she thought that they were less
capable than the rest of the group. I also found it interesting how
his experiments proved that when related to religion or a ‘fudge
factor,’ people are likely to cheat less. I wonder if the experiment
would have had the same results if money was directly involved like in
the other experiment where participants were paid based on how many
questions they ‘answered’ correctly. I find the ‘fudge factor’ idea
slightly absurd though because according to Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs, this concept of religion and morality is at the top of the
pyramid. There are many more needs that precede it. According to the
experiment though, self-actualization is a very important need.



Response 2: Elizabeth Pisani
I thought Elizabeth Pisani’s ideas were also really thought-provoking.
I’ve always believed that people whom the rest of the world considers
‘insane’ are making decisions that are perfectly rational to
themselves and I’ve always been fascinated to know what their
reasoning is. In this case, it’s almost like a social trap. Every
addict is looking out for themselves while unknowingly (or knowingly)
spreading a detrimental disease that will harm them all.
In terms of the political dilemma that Pisani describes, it seems that
the politicians only listen to the voices of the voters, which might
not include the people who actually do drugs or have HIV. These
ordinary people probably exhibit the just world phenomenon and believe
that the people who end up with drugs problems and diseases deserve
what they got for making ‘bad decisions.’ I’ve often heard that the
biggest problem people with HIV face is the money to pay for the
expensive medicine, but I agree with Pisani that the social stigma
associated with HIV must be even worse to deal with.





On Jan 17, 7:15 pm, "Julie O'Connor" <julie.oconno...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Alicia Hillsamer]

Choice One:
Dan Ariely had an interesting story about the nurses and how they know
the right way to reduce pain by ripping the bandage off quickly as
opposed to what the patient once. He also connected being a burn
patient and questioning it and experimenting with it. It led to him
experimenting with various things. Also he talked about how people
were getting things wrong all the time. This connects to the just
world phenomenon with the tendency for people to believe the world is
just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what
they get. Also how people tend to be more wrong than right. When he
tested the people and had some cheat more faced a cognitive dissonance
on whether to cheat or not although they knew it was wrong. Also some
of the participants conformed to what the others were doing because
they didn't want to stand out. Ultimatley, Dan Ariely questions the
moral code people face and how easily it can be broken.

Choice Two:
Elizabeth Pisani starts off her talk with a quote that " people do
stupid things --- that's what spreads HIV." She argues that it's half
true saying that people only do stupid things as a result of good
reasons. She connects HIV to stress and drugs. Also she talks about
her friend Frankie who was addicted to heroin but how he had some
conflict of whether to inject the drug that was used by other people.
All the inmates faced a cognitive dissonance on whether to share the
needles or risk getting HIV. Due to the addiction they developed and
the reward the person would get leads the person who's addicted to
inject the needle instead of going to jail. Also going to jail is a
negative punishment which involves taking something good or desirable
away in order to reduce the occurrence of a particular behavior.

[Matt Minafo]

I really liked this TED Talk, and I suppose I have liked all of them
so far. In this one, Dan Ariely discusses morality and that instantly
reminded me of Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality, but more on that later.
In the beginning, he mentioned how he had been in the hospital for a
severe burn and his nurses preferred to rip off his bandages quickly,
claiming that he experienced less pain this way. He then deceded to
test this and found that, “We don’t encode duration in the way that we
encode intensity.” This means that people would feel less pain if
there was more spaced out and lower intensity pain. This reminds me of
something that I read about in the textbook where it said that people
only remember the last level of pain they experienced. In his context,
people will not consider the length of the pain so much as the last
feeling of pain, which would be less intense. Then Ariely discussed
morality more directly. He explained that people commonly consider
cheating to occur when people consider the costs to benefits. This
applies to a preconventional stage of Kohlberg’s stages of morality,
since people consider the risk of punishment as a reason not to cheat.
He went on to discuss how people would double their rate of cheating
when they earned tokens instead of physical money. Being a step
removed from money, people would cheat more because from a
conventional stage of morality, stealing is bad because it is against
the law. When people are stealing tokens, they are no longer
considering it from a legal perspective, and taking the tokens seems
less significant. At this point, I was actually reminded of the movie
Office Space, since the main character is fine with the idea of
stealing from his company, because all he is doing is rounding down
business transactions and stealing fractions of a penny. He doesn’t
consider this stealing because it doesn’t seem like stealing in the
traditional sense. I also thought it was interesting when he included
a confederate who “solved” all 20 problems in 30 seconds. After seeing
his example, cheating went up if the confederate is perceived as part
of “in-group.” This shows the other subjects someone who is like them,
so he provides a model of behavior and essentially shows that it is
all right. He cheating decreased, however, when he was perceived as
part of the “out-group.” This highlights that he is a bad person for
cheating and the others want to take the moral highground to make him
look worse by comparison. Lastly, Ariely explained that when you
remind people of morality cheating decreases. This is more of a
postconventional type of morality reminder because people think of the
universal principles of honesty and ethics. They may even consider
their religion and the teachings against stealing.

I also liked the TED Talk with Elizabeth Pisani, who discussed the
rationality and irrationality of HIV proliferation. While watching
this, I felt very sorry for that prisoner who was waiting for his
injection of heroine after twenty or more people had used the same
needle. He clearly was considering the immediate reward of the high
from heroine over the long term punishment of possibly contracting HIV
from the shared needle. This similar situation was seen when drug
users, in Cambodia I believe, weighed the options of carrying a clean
needle (and risking going to jail) with sharing a needle and not
having to consider going to jail for it, since it isn’t their needle.
Both cases, Pisani explained, were rational given the circumstances.
She also explained that legislators are making politically rational
decisions using what they consider to be the will of the people.
Pisani urged the viewers to demand clean needle or needle exchange
programs in order to drive down rates of HIV. What really got me was
the statistics that she showed for HIV prevalence in places with
needle exchange programs and those without them. I mean seeing the
United Kingdom with only 1.6% of injectors having HIV versus 50% in
New York City, I was shocked. I mean, the policymakers have to balance
the health interests of the people with possibility of encouraging
drugs. I do think that these programs would do more good than any
harm. She also explained how condom use is very high in commercial
sex, but it is not so high during intimate sex. Pisani mentions the
illusion of love and romance being a reason to have unprotected sex.
This reminded me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The third most
compelling need (behind basic food, water and safety) is the need to
belong or be loved. This is the reason why some people may give in to
a partner who desires unprotected sex; they are under the illusion
that they need to do so to prove their love to their partner. I really
liked both of these videos, as they gave insightful messages and had a
useful application to the real world.

On Jan 11, 9:22 am, Mrs Sparrow <erinsparro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> SEMESTER REVIEW:
>
> You must watch and respond to two of the three lectures in preparation for
> Midterm Exams.  I expect your response to be original, thoughtful, and
> making many relevant connections to concepts/material from chapters covered
> this semester.  You may write one single response, or two separate
> responses. Enjoy!
>
> Choice ONE:
>
> Watch well-known behavioral economist Dan Ariely on TED and respond to his
> lecture.
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_on_our_buggy_moral_code.html
>
> Choice TWO:
>
> Watch well-known epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani on TED and respond to her
> lecture.
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_pisani_sex_drugs_and_hiv_...

>
> Choice THREE:
>
> Watch primatologist Robert Sapolsky on TED (originally filmed at Stanford)
> and connect his lecture to our study of human behavior.
>

[Bridie McKenna]

DAN ARIELY ON OUR BUGGY MORAL CODE
In the introduction of his TED Talk, Dan Ariely describes his
experiences at a hospital after being severely burned, and the pain he
experienced when the bandages were removed. He suggested alternative
methods to reduce the pain, but the nurses insisted that they were
correct. The nurses were not being malicious, rather they were victims
of the false census effect, the idea that they are right and everyone
else agrees. Next he looked at the idea of cheating. I thought that
the most interesting experiment he conducted about cheating was the
one involving the students at the Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh. It was interesting to see how effect the responses of the
students were based on whether the actor was a member of the in-group
or the out-group. When the actor was wearing a Carnegie Mellon
sweatshirt, he was a member of the in-group, and therefore his
cheating was seen as acceptable, a sort of free pass for the rest of
the students to cheat as well. When the actor wore a University of
Pittsburgh sweatshirt, he became associated with the out-group, and
the Carnegie Mellon students developed a superior attitude and did not
cheat. My favorite part of the video was the conclusion, when Ariely
talked about going back to the nurses with his findings. The nurses
did not listen to Ariely's requests to experiment with their bandage
removal techniques not because they wanted to hurt him, but because
they truly believed that their method was the best one. His favorite
nurse Etty even said that causing Ariely pain also caused her
emotional stress, but it still wasn't enough to let go of her
intuition.

[Hannah Stahl]

Choice 2: Elizabeth Pisani

Elizabeth Pisani started off her talk by saying how people get HIV
because of stupid things, but then went on to explain why people do
stupid things for rational reasons. She told a story about one of her
friends who was in jail to show what a "junkie" thinks is rational. As
he waited in a line to take a hit of some drug from the same needle
that everyone else was using, he knew it was disgusting and
dangerously contaminated but his addiction was so strong that he still
hoped there was some left by the time it got to him so he would be
able to get high. This shows just how addctive psychoactive drugs can
be, especially ones like meth, heroin, and cocaine. We learned in
class that people can be predisposed to such addictions by certain
genes that they may carry. Pisani's friend was clearly highly addicted
and had gone from just liking the drug for its pleasurable effecs to
craving it because he was psychologically and maybe physiologically
dependent on it. He has also most likely passed through the stages of
addiction, from feeling pleasure, to associative learning, to
incentive salience where he even seeks out cues linked with the drug.
Pisani explained how drug users usually know where to get clean
needles but often don't because they will be persecuted if they are
found with a needle on them by the police. The believe that possibly
getting HIV in the future is not as bad as going to jail that day.
This type of thinking would appear in stage one of Kholberg's stages
of morality, which has all to do with avoiding punishment and nothing
to do with one's own values. Pisani pointed out how both addicts and
society want drug users to use clean needles, decreasing HIV and
therefore the money spent treating HIV patients. However politicians
do what voters respond to and most would not support a clean-needle
exchange program. She also mentioned the "compassion conundrum" which
is when people are not willing to help sex workers or addicts, the
outgroup, but will want to treat them when they get AIDS because they
feel bad for them. Pisani talked about how we must change what's
rational in sexual decision-making because the more people we treat
for HIV, the more prevention must occur since there are more people
living with HIV who could potentially infect others. She declared that
we are the voters and must make policy based on common sense and
scientific evidence to curb the spread of HIV and AIDS.

[Ben Vokes]

Choice 1: Dan Ariely’s TED Talk on irrationality and cheating in
personal lives, professions and economics was very intriguing. In the
hospital, Dan’s burn bandages were ripped off, measures taken by the
nurse’s own intuitions on pain reduction. However, after performing
his own experiments on pain, Dan proved that lengthy durations of
minimal pain with rests were more efficient when it came to pain
reduction. Dan discusses cheating, describing how his experiments
proved that many people generally cheat a little; however, when
reminded of morality, cheat less on tests, etc. This connects to
Kohlber’s stages of morality. Individuals at this age show post
conventional morality in which their own incentives and ideas of
society have already been created, and their reasoning is affected by
their own inner judgment tests or moral guidelines. The interesting
thing about this one experiment is that when individuals tested, they
were more likely to cheat after viewing cheating individuals who
attended their own school. If the individual who cheated wore a
sweatshirt other than the school that the general population went to,
people cheated less. This was due tot the fact that people will
generally fit the norms of their in-group rather than an unfamiliar
out-group with which they do not associate.The connection to the stock
market and economic side of cheating related to his third finding, the
greater the distance from what people want (i.e. wanted money, only
could have tokens), the greater the increase in cheating. Theories can
be made about the rise in cheating due to distance from the reward.

Choice 2: Elizabeth Pisani’s TED Talk on HIV is very interesting. It
is full of blatant common sense that seems to be invisible in the eyes
of victims and politicians alike. Direct correlations can be seen
between free health care and the decrease of HIV epidemics. Free
health care has been issued in the UK, Australia, and the Netherlands
which supports a low statistic of HIV. In countries that deny free
health care, large populations are being affected by HIV. It is
important to stress the influence of positive stimuli within a
population. No good comes from negative stimuli which would in turn
increases an individual’s drive or desire. Specifically, in the case
of Freddie who resides in jail, his drives are more impulsive drives
which need to be satisfied, ignoring present and future consequences.
Weighing options of getting caught with a needle later or using it now
proves impulsive actions that need to be satisfied at that very
moment. Future drives or needs are usually overridden by impulsive
drives. It was interesting to see the statistics which state that one
of ten heroin users use clean needles and only one in four even carry
clean needles. Ignoring drugs, when it comes to sexual orientation one
in four gay men have links to HIV as well as a large number of
affected are any individuals in prostitution rings. Condoms and clean
needles are being placed aside because of people’s incentives. This
shows the importance of higher levels of thinking and the significance
of the drive reduction theory.

[Chris Akerson]

Number 1
I found Dan Ariely's talk very interesting. The fact that he says
everyone cheats just a little bit is a fairly bold statement. But he
has the evidence to prove it and in reality it does make sense that
people would cheat very little. In the case of the shredded up test I
am not surprised at all that people would lie a little bit about how
many they got correct. I think the reason why this happens is actually
conformity. The people who reveal their scores likely think to
themselves that the other participants must be cheating. They see them
shredding up their paper and assume that the person must cheat, so
they do the same as a way to fit in with the high scores being
revealed by the other "cheaters." This cycle continues with each
participant in the group. Ariely also talks about the ingroup and
outgroup affecting cheating. Like we learned, the ingroup is the "us"
and the outgroup is "them." As expected it is more likely for us to
act in the same way as people who are just like us, even if these
actions are cheating. The outgroup consists of people not like
ourselves and therefore if they cheat they are excluded and seen as
bad people so the participant wants to be a better person than them
and decides not to cheat. Ariely has certainly opened my eyes as to
how psychology affects people in everyday life, in something as
serious as cheating.

Number 2
I couldn't agree more with many of the things that Pisani about how
people refuse to support people with HIV or AIDS. Her reasoning is
correct and falls perfectly along with the just-world phenomonon,
which basically states that everyone "gets what they deserve." A
person sees the word AIDS and immediately has a negative view of it.
It is impossible for someone not to think this way. They're thought
process is very often "this person is a drug addict who shares
needles." They believe that this person is a drug addict who doesn't
even deserve to live nevermind receive their hard-earned money.
Depending on the extremity of a person's beliefs they could even think
"this person is homosexual" and not want to help. It's a sad fact but
it's true that even in today's world people feel that strongly against
homosexuals. In many cases these people are physiologically addicted
to the drug, and it is literally impossible for them to get off the
drug without a great deal of help. They will undergo incredibly
painful withdrawals, and for people who are perhaps living on the
streets it is very difficult for these people to get off the drug. It
may have just been one bad decision that lead to these people being in
this situation, yet people refuse to help them because they hear the
word AIDS and immediately believe they don't deserve to be helped.

[Bridie McKenna]

ELIZABETH PISANI: SEX, DRUGS, and HIV -- LET'S GET RATIONAL
Elizabeth Pisani offered very interesting views on the public health
problems the world faces today as a result of HIV and AIDS. What I
enjoyed most about her talk was how she proved that people should be
sympathetic toward those who have make seemingly stupid decisions that
result in the spread of HIV. While she did not say that people should
blame junkies for being addicted to drugs, she pointed out how people
knew that they shouldn't share needles but were choosing to anyway to
avoid being arrested. It is a common misconception that junkies are
ignorant to the dangers associated with sharing needles, when in
actuality they know that they are doing something wrong but they
choose to anyway to avoid other, seemingly more harsh consequences. We
are used to hearing about the spread of HIV as a result of commercial
sex, but Pisani points out that condom use is between 80 and 100% for
commercial sex, but significantly lower when the illusion of romance
is involved. I enjoyed this video because it was an honest and to the
point reality check of what was really going on with public health and
HIV.

[michaela harrington]

Choice one:
Most people feel comfortable cheating a little without feeling
guilty. This concept is connected to stage 2 of Kohlberg's stages of
morality, which is Individualism and exchange. The people who cheated
a little thought the gain was worth it and they wouldn't feel guilty
because they only cheated a little. People were also more likely to
cheat if money wasn't actually used but a token was used. People feel
more guilt if it is money because it is a worse to cheat to get money
than it is to get a token. It was also said that when the actor said
he was done it made the same students from his school more comfortable
to cheat. They identified with the actor and didn't feel as guilty
when they saw someone in their "group" cheated too. But when the
participants signed a honor code it made the average of cheating go
down because they would feel guilty for breaking a promise.

[Charles Garrido]

Choice One:
In Dan Ariely's lecture, I found it interesting how immediate and how
quickly some concepts could have been applied to what he had been
talking about. Suffering burns over his body, the nurses exhibited a
false consensus effect thinking that their patient would share the
same view as they would and even displayed overconfidence in
overestimating how correct they were in their methods. This all comes
after the fact that Dan had explained to them that he had been feeling
pain. Pain is supposed to alarm us to a physical problem. With and
understandable lack of previous experience and no definite answer as
to what was expected of him (from a societal view) as to how he should
have reacted to the pain, it's understandable that the pain was too
much to bear. The lecture even loosely relates back to Sir Ken
Robinson's talk on changing paradigms as both used divergent thinking
to find more than one answer to a question we dismissed as mundane.
What is the proper way to take off bandages? Dan used divergent
thinking to look for those other answers that nobody else had the
drive to find. He was intrinsically motivated to find the answer for
the answer's sake. It sort of reflects a type A personality on his
part, taking the initiative to accept the challenge simply because it
was there and unanswered. Then Dan flowed into the concept of
cheating. What he said related to later chapters (like chapter 15) in
which cheating worked on a self-serving bias in which we cheated only
"a little bit" to make ourselves feel better about it. The cheating is
so ingrained into our society in what we all perceive as our
individual ingroups, that we conform to following the example set
before us. Then he wittingly ends coming full circle to the idea that
this all comes back to overconfidence and the cognitive dissonance we
experience when the new information is presented to us and we are torn
between what we intuitively thought was correct and what may actually
be correct.

Choice Two:
Another lecture in which cognitive dissonance is readily apparent. On
one end of the spectrum Frankie understood that heroin was harmful, on
the other end of the spectrum the addiction, the combined physical and
physiological dependence, was so great that Frankie justified using
the needle with negative reinforcement to remove the withdrawl and
gain the reward the drug promised. In the later examples, it becomes
apparent that more often than not, there seems to be a lapse in the
future planning power of the frontal lobes and the incentive for
immediately engaging in harmful behavior to gain an immediate effect
outweighs the long-term consequences. Then the hindsight bias comes
along, we feel as though we should have known better and knew what to
do if we had a second chance, more excuses to avoid taking the
responsibility of doing the harmful behavior. Why? Because of the self-
serving bias in which we don't want to hold ourselves in a negative
regard, we only want to hold ourselves in a positive regard. Many of
these end up within the predictive validity of the tests and studies
used to learn the information in the first place. It's as though it's
a vicious cycle that people following the norm cannot break. Like
having a gun in your mouth and craving gunpowder, it's almost too hard
to break the social norm... our need to belong it too great to do what
is right sometimes.

[Rachel Kositsky]

Choice 1:
Dan Ariely presents an engaging description of human behavior. His
experiences from recuperating from severe burns at a hospital provided
him with a question about ingrained beliefs about the best way to take
off a bandage. To test his hypothesis that if the bandage is taken off
slower and with less intensity then the patient would suffer less
overall pain, Ariely conducted an experiment. His conclusion that
lessening the intensity of the pain but prolonging the duration was
preferred over ripping the bandage off provided a concrete answer
backed up by experimentation. An objective finding like this
counteracts the incorrect intuition of Ariely’s nurses, who were
overconfident in their assumptions.
I was amused by Ariely’s investigation into cheating. It turns out
there are a lot of factors that influence if and how much we cheat.
Generally, many people cheat a little instead of a couple people
cheating a lot. The incentive of a monetary reward pulled them to
overstate how many correct problems they had. However, the internal
motivation of having a (mostly) clean conscience restricted their
cheating to just a little bit. And in the experimental condition where
the subjects had to recall the Ten Commandments, the reference to
religion and its associated morality reinforced their need for esteem
(in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), and internally motivated them to not
cheat. Another factor to cheating was the established social norm of
cheating. If another student from their in-group (signified by a
Carnegie Mellon University sweatshirt) set a norm for cheating by
getting away with it, his normative social influence led to increased
cheating. If a student from an out-group (wearing a sweatshirt from a
different university) set the norm, cheating would decrease as the
other CMU students would not accept that norm.


Choice 2:
Elizabeth Pisani’s presentation about HIV and the different
perspectives surrounding it was as informative as it was entertaining.
Through her collection of research, she presents a compelling picture
of the reasons HIV is spread. For the drug addicts she describes, the
dilemma of whether to share needles or not is very real. On one hand,
there is the knowledge of the danger of infection from needles and
transmission of HIV. On the other, there is the overwhelming drive
from the psychological and physiological dependence on the drug, so
that addicts crave the drug even when the needle is dirty, as with
Pisani’s friend in jail. The policy in Indonesia of arresting someone
with needles inadvertently acts as a negative reinforcement to sharing
needles, and merely increases that behavior. However, a needle
exchange policy has been shown to be effective in reducing sharing
needles and the spread of HIV among drug users. Their knowledge of the
dangers of sharing needles most likely lodges in the cerebral cortex,
a higher level area of the brain, while the drive for drugs comes from
the limbic system, whose emotional drives could have been stronger and
controlled behavior.
The reasoning Pisani outlined for politicians was that they created
unfavorable policies to drug addicts because they had the positive
incentive of popularity and more votes. Their attitudes that addicts
do not deserve to have generous policies affect their actions of
making these policies. Pisani also explained the reasons some sex
workers would have for their job. Primarily, they have an incentive of
more pay. Having enough money helps fulfill lower needs on Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs – physiological needs and safety. Theses needs,
which are satisfied with money, are more pressing than the need of
esteem or belongingness which may possibly suffer.

[michaela harrington]

Choice two:
Drug users in Indonesia know where to get clean needles and know
that it is dangerous to share needles because it can spread HIV.
However, they are more afraid that if they get caught with a needle
then they will go to jail. This causes a tension between their
thoughts and their actions, which is cognitive dissonance. They are
using dirty needles even though they know it is wrong. But they think
it is more rational to use dirty needles then go to jail. They change
their attitudes toward sharing needles because they don't want to risk
going to jail. They weighed the reward and punishment of their actions
and decided the immediate reward of getting high and not going to jail
is greater then the risk of getting HIV. Since they are addicts they
don't consider the option of not to do drugs. They have a physological
need to do drugs so they take the risk of HIV in order to satisfy
their needs.

[yili...@live.com]

Option 2
Like Frankie’s irrational desire to have a blood-encrusted, completely
unsanitary needle injected into his skin demonstrates, addiction and
psychological dependence on a drug changes thinking in ways that
Maslow, Kohlberg, and Piaget do not account for. The need for the
substances overwhelms all other drives. In addition to the junkies’
reasons about sharing needles to avoid going to jail—as incarceration
is certainly worse than a lifelong disease that makes one completely
vulnerable to so many diseases—another reason is that they don’t
believe they’re going to get HIV. It’s the same with smoking and
marijuana—everyone knows that it’s possible to become addicted after
just one use, yet people live by the philosophy that “it can’t
possibly happen to me,” though statistics and experts prove them wrong
every day. People point to vivid cases of smoking uncles who live
until they’re 90 years old and believe that they too will have the
same dumb luck. Same thing with using condoms. Despite education
programs there are still so many people who stand by the belief that
it can’t happen to them—this is especially true when one is
intoxicated. This view is furthered by exposure to media. In movies
and television, the characters do crazy, dangerous things and never
bother using protection and never suffer the consequences. It makes it
seem like this type of reckless behavior is the norm, when it really
isn’t and shouldn’t be. Though I initially disagreed with her, I guess
Pisani has the right idea. I mean, even when prostitution and sharing
needles are illegal, it doesn’t stop people from doing it any more
than it stops people from speeding. There’s always a way to get around
the law (like buying a radar detector), so if politicians were to
think about the population as a whole it really would be beneficial to
aide these people they personally frown upon.

Option 1
Ariely’s concluding point about his intuition and the nurses’ clashing
–that our intuitions are untrustworthy unless experimented on—is
consistent with the reason for developing a correlation coefficient
discussed in the earliest chapters. Sometimes a set of data may look
like they could possibly have a relationship but each person will
analyze a graph differently and interpret a different correlation, so
r sets the standard by which we all can judge the relationship. In
Ariely’s experiments, since he cannot develop a mathematical formula,
the way to check whose intuition is correct would certainly be through
experimentation.
Overall I thought he gave a really good explanation of cheating. Like
he said, cheating seems like it would be a simple cost-benefit
economics principle, but there are so many other things involved in
the costs and the benefits. Though monetary gain certainly increases
the benefits, people generally don’t want to think of themselves as
terrible people—even prisoners who have been convicted for horrible
crimes still insist on their innocence—so even when the benefits and
stakes are high, it’s not worth the money to feel bad about
themselves. Kohlberg’s theory of mortality also plays a role in this.
People in the conventional stage may have lower rates for cheating
than people in the postconventional stage because they are focused on
upholding laws like no cheating.

> > <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_h...>- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Lekhya Vaddepati]

Choice 1:
Dan Ariely’s lecture is quite amusing as he talks about individual’s
moral thinking when deciding to cheat or steal. He conducts an
experiment at Carnegie Mellon University and at University of
Pittsburg among various college students. As the experiment continued,
he realized that most people thought that cheating was okay to do but,
only to a certain extent. Cognitive dissonance contributes to moral
code of cheating because people will always be conflicted with a
decision on what may right and what is actually right. Ariely also
proved that cheating occurs commonly when a in-group individual is
suspected to cheat because most people in a society to favor one’s own
group. For example, the first person to cheat at Carnegie Mellon was
actually wearing a UPITT sweatshirt. This resulted that there was less
cheating this time because he was identified as the out-group and
people feared to cheat this time. I think this is an important point
that Ariely made which actually reflects poorly on our society. We
tend to cheat among the people that we know the most because we are
more likely to think its okay if we steal or cheat only “a little
bit.”

Choice 2:
Elizabeth Pisani’s lecture focuses on today’s political system not
helping to fight the spread of HIV. HIV is a devastating disease which
risks people all over the world from junkies to sex workers on the
street. She argues that political systems are preventing our dollars
to help this disease and many individuals think that HIV is a result
to individual’s poor choices. As a society we start to discriminate
people with HIV because people tend to think that being an HIV
patient, they have done something wrong. We immediately start to
distinguish between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior in
the society. Pisani also talked about how drugs influence one’s moral
judgments. She spoke how people easily become addicted to a drug and
they eventually become tolerant to that drug that they cannot live
without the substance. She makes a good point that it is important to
help individuals with such problems or else, these cases will only
spread and become worse.

[Kayleigh Gallagher]

I found Dan Ariely's talk very interesting. I think that the first
thing he talked about, with the hospital and bandages, is kind of like
a flashbulb memory, for he remembered it so clearly, and it would have
been an emotionally significant event. It could also represent the
false consensus effect, for the nurses figured that they would prefer
the fast way of ripping it off, so he would also. Continuing his
discussion of morals, he told a story about cheating. When given the
incentive of money for each correct answer, people decided to cheat.
The people chose to go against their standard morals due to the
possible reward, which shows the difficulty in maintaining ones
morals. This morality level is normal, for many people don't reach the
highest level of morality, which is difficult to achieve. The cheating
experiment also demonstrates conformity, for this also plays a role in
ones answers. If they believe everyone else is going to answer with
one choice, they may switch theirs to fit in with the group. The fear
of being seen as stupid would cause them to cheat. This relates to
Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because the need to fit in come before
self acquisition.