However, it is more comforting to think that we as individuals have control over our health and can prevent illness through personal responsibility. This means we have no responsibility to extend greater healthcare coverage to others who do not have insurance as presumably they have not 'worked hard' enough to deserve such a benefit.
Question 2
Instinctively it might seem as if "the greater the cohesiveness or solidarity of a group, the better its decisions will be." Common sense suggests that cohesiveness produces a greater sense of agreement and solidarity. It is easier to enforce a decision that is made in a unified manner. But the problem with solidarity is the phenomenon known as 'groupthink' or the assumption that if the other members of the group think something is right, than it is correct.
Human beings are social animals, and the need to please others and to receive support is hard-wired into the human psyche. Furthermore, it can be very difficult to assume that others are wrong, even if you believe you are right even on factual matters: one study of a group found that, when shown two obviously different-sized lines, people still tended to agree with planted confederates in the room that said the two lines were the same. The risks of groupthink increase tremendously with more subjective decisions.
Groupthink increases exponentially when individuals are of similar backgrounds, and of a similar culture. It makes it easier to have a sense of insulation from the rest of the world, and to judge others in a quick and uncritical fashion. The group's decisions seem supremely rational because no one with a differing opinion is present to challenge such rationality, and the presence of other like-minded people creates an illusion of invincibility and unanimity (What is groupthink, 2010, PSYSR). However, if the group were exposed to challenges and other opinions, this illusion would be shattered -- and a better, more...
attribution error helps explain, not only why people are surprised by the results of Milgram's experiment, but also why people are surprised whenever other seemingly good people go bad things. They fundamental attribution error refers to a person's tendency to blame internal characteristics when evaluating someone else's behavior. Generally, this means that when someone else engages in negative behaviors, the observer is likely to believe that behavior is the
29, p > 0.5). Discussion This study set out to test the hypotheses that people from Eastern cultural backgrounds compared to those from Western backgrounds would make fewer dispositional attributions about the behavior of fictitious characters that the read about and would also demonstrate a more collective attitude towards themselves. With respect to the first hypothesis, that Western participants would make a greater number of dispositional attributions that would participants with Eastern cultural
Here, people always attribute causes to actions and happenings, with the belief that everything has an explanation only if we could look deeper enough (Changing Minds, 2011). This theory serves to show how people have very different perspectives to happenings or events in the daily lives, and these varying views can easily stray into power imbalance, prejudice and such like vices ultimately affecting the communication process. Under attribution theory, there
The fact that she always got everything done that she needed to failed to impress itself on my mind because of the manner in which everything was accomplished. It never seemed like she was working that hard or cared especially about her job, and I almost instantly decided that this was due simply to a laziness in her personality before deliberating on any other possible outcomes. Several days after
Sommers The Power of the Situation and the Fundamental Attribution Error As noted by Sommers (2009), while there is a tendency within our culture to view the human character as stable and unalterable, the contextual power of a situation can cause individuals to behave in unexpected ways. Perhaps the most powerful example of situational influence is during times of war, where individuals are socialized to become obedient to a commanding officer's orders
Social Psychology The Power of the Situation Sam Sommers (2008) writes in an article entitled The Elusive Power of Daily Situations about an incident in which he broke a finger of each one of his hands and had to undergo a minor surgical operation that was necessary to ensure the healing process. He describes how this situation was altered for him by his anxiety over the various choices and complications that were
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