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Lecture 10 Responding to the Environment — Transcript

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0:14well welcome back to environmental
0:16psychology in the last two lectures we
0:19emphasized the ways in which people
0:21actively change their environments to
0:23modify them in some way so people modify
0:26their personal space or the
0:28territoriality or they engage in
0:30wasteful or sustainable behaviors to
0:33change the quality of the
0:34environment in today's lecture we're
0:36going to focus on how people respond to
0:39their environments physiologically
0:41behaviorally
0:43psychologically and there are at least
0:45two ways in which environments influence
0:48people's responses on the one hand
0:50environments provide a wide range of
0:53opportunities so in this first slide you
0:56see the pristine clean air of a Lakeside
0:59environment in British
1:01Columbia and in the bottom figure in the
1:04bottom picture you see a contaminated
1:06environment which is a kind of
1:07constraint because it has Health
1:09implications for people that are quite
1:12detrimental if they're exposed to those
1:14toxins now it turns out that most
1:18situations involve a
1:20combination of opportunities and
1:22constraints so in this slide we see that
1:24in downtown Manhattan people are
1:27confronted with very high levels of
1:29density and congestion and those
1:32represent some of the constraints that
1:33people are exposed to in a highdensity
1:35environment such as New
1:38York at the same time residents of
1:41Manhattan have access to a very wide
1:43range of cultural Entertainment Sports
1:46and other recreational activities so
1:49it's a a cultural center that affords
1:52all kinds of excellent opportunities to
1:55pursue one's goals and interests and it
1:58turns out that people respond to
2:00environments with this mix of
2:02opportunities and constraints depending
2:05on which of those constraints and
2:07opportunities they most highly value and
2:09are most important to them so many
2:11people will be quite willing to accept
2:15some of the environmental stressors of
2:16congestion and density if they put a
2:19higher value on some of the cultural
2:22opportunities afforded by that
2:23environment so people weigh these costs
2:26and benefits of environmental
2:28opportunities and constraints and that
2:30determines overall how well they adapt
2:33to the environment how much they like
2:35that environment and that's going to
2:37vary from Individual to individual
2:38because everybody's going to have very
2:40different preferences and priorities in
2:43terms of what they want from their
2:45environment now I'm going to show you a
2:48a YouTube video here from Bangkok
2:51Thailand to give you an idea of the
2:54levels of density that some residents of
2:56Bangkok are dealing with and you can
2:57compare that to our North American
3:00example of Midtown
3:05Manhattan so that video gives you an
3:08idea of the level of density that uh
3:10some folks in Bangkok Thailand are
3:11dealing with on a day-to-day
3:14basis now this slide takes us back to a
3:18couple of studies that we discussed
3:20earlier in the course involving some
3:23very important opportunities and
3:25constraints for individuals in those
3:27environments so in the upper part of
3:30that slide you see a diagram of the
3:35residential apartments that were studied
3:37by festinger shakor and Bach at
3:40MIT and we saw from their research that
3:43the architectural design of those
3:45residential Apartments had a profound
3:48influence on residents opportunities to
3:52form friendships and social networks
3:54with others living in that same
3:56community and specifically we found that
4:00individuals that lived closest together
4:02spatial proximity had a direct effect on
4:05their tendency to form friendships with
4:07those close
4:09Neighbors in the second diagram in that
4:12slide we see a summary of some of the
4:14research findings from Barker and Gump
4:16study of large and small high schools
4:19their research on Behavior settings in
4:21large and small high
4:22schools and what they found is that for
4:25students going to very small high
4:27schools there was a kind of pressure on
4:29them to get involved in more activities
4:31to keep those settings going so they
4:33were on the football team and they were
4:34on the newspaper and they were
4:37cheerleader and they participated in
4:39student government so when you have a
4:41small High School you need more
4:43individuals doing multiple kinds of
4:45participations to keep that setting
4:47going whereas in a large High School
4:49there's much less pressure on individual
4:52students to get involved in those
4:53activities in fact it's harder for them
4:54to get involved because the entrance
4:57requirements for example getting into
4:59the school Oran orra is much tougher
5:01when you're in a very large high school
5:03with thousands of
5:04students so in that graph from Barker
5:07and gumps research we see on the left
5:09axis the participation rate of students
5:11in extracurricular activities per 1,000
5:14students in their schools and on the
5:18bottom axis the the xaxis we see nine
5:21different classes of high school sizes
5:23ranging from the very smallest at the
5:25one on the graph to the very largest at
5:28nine on the graph where you have
5:30thousands of students enrolled in that
5:32high
5:32school and what we see in this graph is
5:36generally an inverse correlation between
5:39High School size and participation rates
5:41so the larger the high school the less
5:44likely it is for students in those
5:46schools to become widely involved in a a
5:49variety of different extracurricular
5:51participations so in a sense High School
5:53size and very large High School size
5:55imposes some constraints on those
5:57students because it makes it more
5:59difficult for them to get involved in
6:01these different extracurricular
6:03activities and to meet other students
6:04and form friendships with
6:08them now opportunities to form social
6:11networks and social ties may be a life
6:13or death matter in some situations and
6:16we see that from this very important
6:18study published by burkeman and Sim in
6:211979 burkman and Sim we're interested in
6:24knowing the the relationship between
6:26social integration whether somebody is
6:29isolated socially or they have a lot of
6:31social
6:31ties and their health status and in
6:34particular their mortality
6:36rate so they randomly sampled 7,000
6:40individuals from Alama County
6:42California and they followed these
6:44individuals for nine
6:46years and in the very first year the
6:48very first part of that study they
6:50collected a lot of data on the
6:52individuals so one of the scales that
6:55were computed for each participant in
6:57that study was a social integration
6:59index and you see in the top part of
7:01that slide a diagram showing an
7:04individual's potential social
7:06relationships with family with church
7:08members with colleagues at work with
7:11friends and the individuals who had a
7:14very high number of social connections
7:16or
7:17relationships were coded as the highest
7:20integration participants and those that
7:22were most isolated had the fewest social
7:24connections across those different
7:26domains of their life were coded as the
7:28lowest social integration ation
7:30individuals and the overall finding from
7:32this study is that individuals who are
7:34most isolated were most likely to die
7:38over the nine years that they were
7:39followed in this longitudinal
7:41prospective study so the bottom graph
7:44there from this study shows three
7:46different age cohorts among the 7,000 or
7:49so individuals that were in this study
7:52there actually 6,000 928 but that's a
7:55very large number of stud of individuals
7:57who were followed over the course of the
7:58study so one of the cohorts on the left
8:01side are individuals aged 30 to 49 the
8:05middle cohort were individuals 50 to 59
8:08years of age and on the right side you
8:11see those 60 to 69 years of age so this
8:15is simply splitting up the sample in
8:16terms of these different age ranges and
8:19you see that some of the differences
8:22between those who are socially isolated
8:24and socially integrated are most
8:26pronounced among the older cohort which
8:28makes sense because those individuals
8:30are going to be more susceptible to
8:32health problems in any event but
8:34interestingly when you look at the
8:36darkest columns there the dark blue
8:38columns and the light blue columns for
8:41men and women those are the most
8:43isolated least integrated
8:46individuals and what we find is that or
8:48what burkman and Sim found is that for
8:52women the most isolated least integrated
8:55individuals were 2.8 times more likely
8:58to die over the course of that study the
9:00nine-year follow-up period than those
9:02that had the highest number of social
9:04ties and similarly for the males
9:07participating in that study those who
9:09were least integrated had the fewest
9:10social ties were 2.3 times more likely
9:13to die than those that had the most
9:15social ties so we see a very profound
9:17impact on being involved in Social
9:21relationships and the tendency to die
9:23prematurely over the 9-year follow-up
9:25period in this study now importantly the
9:28researchers control for a number of
9:30potentially confounding variables so at
9:33the very early time point in the study
9:35they measured individuals perceptions of
9:37their health status they asked them
9:39about their health practices whether
9:41they consume alcohol or smoke or whether
9:44they're regularly Physically Active uh
9:47they coded each individual for their
9:49socioeconomic status and of course they
9:52measured their levels of social
9:53integration on the integration scale and
9:56controlling for most of those factors
10:00social
10:01integration still had a very significant
10:03impact on people's mortality rates over
10:05the course of that study so controlling
10:07for their health practices controlling
10:09for their socioeconomic status
10:11controlling for their subjective
10:13appraisals of their health and their
10:15actual physical health status none of
10:19those none of those factors negated the
10:22significant influence of social
10:25integration and its relationship to
10:27health so the individuals most isolated
10:29we're most likely to die in that study
10:31it's a very important study it's very
10:32well
10:34controlled moreover that study has been
10:37replicated in many uh subsequent studies
10:40so it's a it's a pretty stable finding
10:42on the other hand we still don't know
10:44the the mechanisms or the pathways that
10:46lead from a social tie a social
10:49relationship and a physiological Health
10:52situation how that how social ties get
10:55under our skin or into our bodies is it
10:58because that individuals
10:59uh get valuable health information from
11:01their friends that they're related to or
11:04from family members is it because being
11:07involved in close relationships makes
11:09people feel better more accepted more
11:12worthy and those positive emotions uh
11:15help to buffer negative stress reactions
11:17in the
11:18body is it the health practices that
11:21people model from others that they're
11:23related to so we know from the uh study
11:26by Christus and fer that we talked about
11:28earlier in the course that in social
11:31networks where individuals that one is
11:34connected to start to get heavier
11:36physically heavier they're more likely
11:38to become overweight themselves so there
11:40are number of ways in which social
11:41networks can affect our physical health
11:44or our tendency to develop a disease but
11:48the Striking and important finding from
11:49this study is that social integration
11:52had a very positive effect in protecting
11:54people from premature mortality whereas
11:56social
11:57isolation uh was a risk factor and more
12:01predictive of early
12:05mortality now the next slide raises the
12:08question whether virtual social networks
12:11have the same protective value for
12:13health as place-based networks we know
12:17that today unlike in 1979 when burkeman
12:20and Sim did their study people are
12:23deriving social connections and
12:25friendships much more online than ever
12:28previously and so a question arises does
12:31support from a Facebook friend if one
12:33has 600 or 700 or a th000 Facebook
12:35friends does that convey the same
12:38protective value for one's Health as an
12:41individual that a person's engaged in on
12:44a day-to-day basis face to face in a
12:46place-based environment and that's an
12:47open question we don't know the answer
12:49to that question at this point so in
12:52this particular slide we see the
12:54pictures of a particular individual's
12:56friendships number of friends on on
12:58Facebook
13:00and to the right the right portion of
13:02that slide we see a wide variety of
13:04social networking sites on the internet
13:05so this is the the virtual opportunities
13:09provided for friendship is becoming a
13:11very important factor in people's lives
13:12but we don't know how those kinds of
13:15friendships compare to more traditional
13:17place-based friendships and social
13:19networks in influencing People's
13:23Health now this next slide indicates a
13:27variety of different stress pressors
13:29that impose constraints on individuals
13:31in their day-to-day lives and in this
13:33lecture we're going to look at the
13:35evidence relating to each of these kinds
13:37of
13:38stressors so ambient temperature for
13:40example has been studied in relation to
13:42people's Tendencies toward violence and
13:45crime and we'll talk about some studies
13:47of that residential relocation we know
13:50is a very stressful disruptive kind of
13:52experience that people go through and
13:54that sometimes has implications for
13:56their psychological well-being and even
13:58their physical
14:00wellbeing conditions of poverty are
14:02particularly detrimental because they
14:05engage a wide range of stressors that
14:07people are exposed to from dilapidated
14:09housing poorer schools broken families
14:12worries about Community crime so it's a
14:15multistressor condition poverty and
14:18that's another factor that has dramatic
14:21influences on people's
14:23wellbeing chronic noise exposure we know
14:26that chronic noise can increase people
14:29physiological arousal from heart rate to
14:31blood pressure and particularly
14:33uncontrollable and unpredictable noise
14:35has very detrimental effects on people's
14:37task
14:38performance and other psychological
14:42indicators Urban density and traffic
14:44congestion very important class of
14:46stressors that uh there's been a lot of
14:48research on those looking at the kinds
14:50of Health implications of living in
14:53chronically High dense chronically dense
14:57environments the health implication
14:59of living in environments that are
15:01extremely high density just like the one
15:03we saw in Bangkok or in Midtown
15:07Manhattan stimulation overload we read
15:09mgr's paper on Urban dwellers efforts to
15:12try to cope with the onslaught of all
15:15the information and and stimulation that
15:17they're exposed to in Midtown Manhattan
15:21and finally natural and technological
15:23disasters these are a very important
15:25class of stressors and they're very
15:28powerful class of stressors that people
15:30are exposed to because they have such
15:32tremendous disruptive power in their
15:35lives whether we're talking about a
15:37hurricane or a tsunami or an earthquake
15:39we know the widespread Devastation and
15:42destruction that those kinds of
15:43stressors can impose and the kinds of
15:46constraints they place on people's lives
15:48so these are some of the types of
15:50stressors that we'll be talking about
15:52today as they impose various kinds of
15:54constraints on
15:57individuals in this slide we see some
15:59graphs from earlier research on ambient
16:01temperature in cities and residents
16:05propensity to engage in Murder rape uh
16:09and aggressive crime so the first graph
16:11on the top of that slide shows the
16:13murder and rapes per day in relation to
16:17temperature or heat so as heat goes up
16:20the levels of urban crime in terms of
16:23murders and rapes per day goes up it's
16:25almost a a it's a generally linear Trend
16:29even though there's a dip there uh at
16:31temperature 86 through 91 it's still by
16:34and large a linear Trend showing a
16:36positive correlation between heat and
16:38those forms of violence and in the graph
16:42below the aggressive crime ratio refers
16:45to those crimes that
16:46involve violence toward another person
16:50as opposed to crimes such as burglary
16:53which don't necessarily involve uh
16:55violence per se physical violence or
16:57white collar crime
16:59but for aggressive crimes we see that
17:01same
17:02relationship that the higher the
17:04temperature the more the heat goes up
17:06the Greater the propensity for people to
17:08engage in aggressive crime so these are
17:11very interesting findings we we often
17:13take ambient temperature of our
17:15surroundings for granted sure it can be
17:17a discomfort it can be a hassle but
17:20until these studies were done we didn't
17:22realize that it actually correlates to
17:24some extent with crime rates violence
17:28rates and urban conditions the
17:31conditions that people are living in and
17:32their their overall well-being so very
17:34important studies of
17:36temperature an important framework for
17:40understanding the effects of stressors
17:42on individuals was developed by a
17:45medical researcher at McGill University
17:47in Montreal Canada named Hans
17:50cier and during his work as a medical
17:53student at McGill he noticed that across
17:56many different patients whether they
17:58were suffer suffering from cancer or a
18:00gunshot wound or extreme variations in
18:04temperature uh they all came in with a
18:07certain set of common symptoms that he
18:10began to refer to as the General
18:12Adaptation Syndrome and by the General
18:14Adaptation Syndrome he meant that these
18:18different types of diseases and uh
18:21injury conditions that people were
18:23dealing with all were characterized by a
18:26common set of symptoms that went above
18:28and beyond the specific symptoms of a
18:30given disease some of these symptoms
18:32included a higher rate of ulcers stomach
18:35ulcers swollen adrenal glands indicating
18:39that adrenaline secretion was higher in
18:42those individuals which is part of the
18:43fight flight response in
18:46organisms also shrinkage of the thymus
18:48gland indicating some compromise of the
18:52individual's immune system so these were
18:54all symptoms included in this General
18:56Adaptation Syndrome that Celia observed
18:58as a medical student and then began to
19:01publish his work when he graduated from
19:04medical school and his book the stress
19:06of life is one of the most important
19:08Milestone Publications on the
19:10conceptualization of stress as it
19:13affects people's physical
19:15health cier defines stress very much in
19:19biomedical or physiological terms so his
19:22definition of stress or physiological
19:25stress is the non-specific response of
19:27the body to Environ Al demands that
19:30exceed the body's capacity to cope with
19:32those demands so when an individual is
19:35in a situation where they're overwhelmed
19:37with too many physical demands or
19:40disease constraints on their body they
19:43go into a potential stress response
19:46which has these physiological symptoms
19:48that I referred
19:49to now later conceptualizations of
19:52stress such as those formulated by
19:55Richard Lazarus and his colleagues at
19:57the University of California Berkeley
19:59Place much greater emphasis on people's
20:02perception of Demands and their
20:04perceptions of their own capacity to
20:06cope with those demands so rather than
20:08there being an absolute value of
20:10physical demands that affect individuals
20:13in a uniform
20:14way the people's responses individuals
20:17responses to these stressors vary
20:19depending on their particular appraisal
20:21of the situation so uh we'll we'll talk
20:23some more about lazarus's conception of
20:26psychological stress but in cel's
20:29instance in cel's model stress is very
20:33much conceptualized as a biomedical or
20:35physiological
20:37issue now in this slide we see a
20:40representation of his General Adaptation
20:42Syndrome in terms of three different
20:44phases the first phase being the alarm
20:47stage where someone is confronted with
20:49extreme demands and often in that phase
20:52they rise to the occasion their body is
20:54able to adapt uh they're able to cope
20:57with that stressor for a period of a
20:58time and so this is referred to as the
21:01stage of resistance the middle stage but
21:04if they're chronically exposed to very
21:06extreme stressors for too long they
21:09begin to go into the stage of exhaustion
21:12where their body begins to get fatigued
21:15and their coping capacity begins to give
21:17out and that's where people become
21:19particularly prone to disease problems
21:23to premature mortality as was found in
21:25the Berkman and S study so it's
21:28important to know that in cel's model
21:31there are there it's a very temporal or
21:33phasic kind of model where initially
21:35people are able to cope and deal with
21:38those stressors fairly well but if they
21:40persist too long then they start to show
21:43this stage of exhaustion and when we
21:45talk about poverty being a multistressor
21:48kind of situation for people where in
21:50poverty situations they're locked into
21:52chronic exposure to fear of community
21:56violence to broken amilies to low income
22:00and all the problems that presents to
22:03families in those kinds of uh chronic
22:06and long-term situations people are
22:07particularly likely to experience the
22:09stage of exhaustion they they begin to
22:12give up it's it's harder to keep coping
22:14because there are so many aspects of
22:16their surroundings that seem to be
22:17stacked against
22:19them so we've mentioned these these
22:21physiological symptoms of the General
22:23Adaptation Syndrome we said they're
22:24they're non-specific they're General to
22:26a lot of different diseases so it's not
22:28like you can diagnose a you know a
22:30particular disease with a set of
22:31symptoms these are are symptoms that cut
22:34across many different kinds of diseases
22:35that stress
22:37US Direct pathogens are those things
22:41that we encounter in terms of stressors
22:43or microbes that have an impact a
22:47negative impact on our bodies sort of
22:48immediately and directly so they're sort
22:50of deterministic The Germ theory was
22:52like that it said when we get exposed to
22:54germs the body goes into a kind of host
22:57reaction to that and often is overcome
23:00and isn't able to resist the disease you
23:02get sick and we saw that there are other
23:05things that enter in like psychological
23:07stress or psychological sense of
23:10coherence that protect people from
23:12getting sick and we saw that in Sheldon
23:14Cohen's study of uh people's
23:16susceptibility to colds as a function of
23:18their General stress levels in their
23:20lives an indirect pathogen causes damage
23:24because they provoke exaggerated
23:26defensive responses so when we're woring
23:28about something or we're feeling out of
23:31sorts because something traumatic or
23:32acute has happened to us that kind of
23:36stress that goes on for a while creates
23:38inflammation in the body and we know
23:40that even though Cela didn't study
23:42things like inflammation processes in
23:44the blood vessels or cortisol and other
23:49uh kind of hormones that get uh secreted
23:52by the body under stress those are
23:54similar kind of physiological responses
23:56to prolonged stress along with ulcers
23:58adrenal gland uh enlargement and thymus
24:03shrinkage so these are some of those
24:06kind of indirect pathogens U that can
24:09lead to these very major disease States
24:12here cancer diabetes and heart disease
24:15if somebody is smoking uh in a chronic
24:18way or physically inactive or eating
24:22badly or they have obesity which put
24:24puts extra metabolic load on their
24:26bodies and causes inflammation due to
24:30chronic stress that's a kind of indirect
24:32pathogen it's indirect because you may
24:34be stressed about a relationship or you
24:36may be stressed about losing a loved one
24:39but that stress is what's causing the
24:40inflammation and indirectly over time
24:44that's having a negative impact on you
24:46not just the immediate event that
24:48created the stress in the first place so
24:49it's important when people are going
24:51through stress to try to turn that off
24:53to the extent possible as soon as
24:55possible so it's it doesn't become
24:56chronic and more Insidious over
25:01time now some of the stressors I'm going
25:03to talk about involve a heavy component
25:06a large component of psychological
25:09appraisal should I be worried about this
25:11stressor or not is it of consequence or
25:13not so we get to lazarus's notion of
25:17psychological stress and it's very much
25:19about the perception of a of a demand or
25:21a stressor being threatening to you and
25:23if you don't see it that way then you're
25:24not going to have those negative
25:27physiological symptoms that Cate talked
25:29about so it's not just the objective
25:32reality out there it's how you're
25:34perceiving it and when we talked about
25:35Sal mti's uh hardiness training article
25:39what he was trying to do there through
25:41hardiness training was to promote what
25:42he called transformational coping
25:45transformational coping is to take a
25:46negative life event and reframe it in a
25:49way that it becomes more doable or
25:52solvable so you're not stuck with
25:54something you can't uh rise to and
25:57resolve but rather it's something you
25:58reframe in your mind and you transform
26:01it so that you become an active coper
26:04and that has to do with your perceived
26:07capacity to react to and cope with those
26:09demands that previously you felt were uh
26:12just
26:14overwhelming now lazarus's model of
26:17stress appraisal involves these
26:20different processes primary appraisal is
26:23where we consider if a situation poses a
26:26threat a challenge or a harm or loss
26:29and you know the determining factors of
26:31that are are features of the immediate
26:33situation your psychological makeup your
26:36personality your sense of confidence or
26:38efficacy the secondary process is
26:42evaluating your resources to cope with
26:43that demand so this is the demand itself
26:45is it a big or worrisome demand or not
26:48this one is do you have the wherewithal
26:50to deal with it and cope with it
26:52effectively so that's the secondary
26:54process and that has to do with your
26:56perceived availability of resources
26:58either from within yourself or the
27:00environment and that's where social
27:01networks can be really helpful because
27:03they can provide you with the support to
27:05get through something tough or they can
27:07provide you with monetary resources to
27:09buffer the effects of a bad time and
27:12then you reappraise a situation all over
27:14again to see if it's getting better
27:17getting worse and whether there's been a
27:19marked change in the situation or in you
27:21in your coping capacity if you've gone
27:23through hardiness training maybe you've
27:25become more of a transformational coper
27:27and you're able to deal with that
27:28situation
27:30better now we said that we were going to
27:32look at some different kinds of
27:34stressors and demands on
27:36people moving residents can be a hassle
27:40right you have to box things up you have
27:42to say goodbye to good friends in one
27:44environment try to make new friends in a
27:45new environment so even under the best
27:47of circumstances it can be demanding and
27:50stressful and a kind of a
27:52constraint and in fact in the stressful
27:55life event scale it's one of those
27:57events that gets fairly high points
27:59because whether you you want to go
28:01somewhere that you're looking forward to
28:02moving to or you're moving to some place
28:04that you are sorry about it it's still a
28:07hassle now what we have here is this
28:11different process that people go through
28:13from birth to death where they have
28:15different life stages so here's a person
28:18who as an adult is in a life stage where
28:21they have a job they have a home or an
28:23apartment they have their social
28:26recreational activities and settings in
28:28their community and they have this
28:30commute between home and
28:31work and they can look back over their
28:34life and and decide are they have they
28:36gotten better have they improved their
28:38lot or not but this anticipation thing
28:41is looking toward a move a relocation
28:44where they're going to lose their home
28:45go into a smaller
28:46apartment and get rid of their job and
28:49get rid of their commute which they may
28:51be happy about so they have their
28:53apartment and some social relations
28:54they're looking toward that and a lot of
28:57elderly people are fa with being Rel
28:59relocated to an institutional facility
29:02where they're scaling down they're not
29:04going to have all of this and they're
29:06going to have to live in a more
29:07controlled situation that uh can be very
29:10difficult for them and there's been some
29:12interesting re research on cognitive
29:14mapping with elderly that shows that if
29:17you can give them a positive image and a
29:21schema for their new environment where
29:22they get to know what it is they're not
29:24so surprised when they get there it
29:26highlights some of the positive features
29:27of that new en enironment when they make
29:29that transition they're less likely to
29:31suffer disease or death because elderly
29:34can be pretty frail when they're going
29:35into institutionalized settings so the
29:37way we frame these Life Changes
29:41relocation has a lot to do with just how
29:43stressful that life event is going to be
29:45now if this person is choosing to retire
29:48and downsize and looking forward to
29:49playing more golf or whatever they like
29:51to do in their spare time get rid of a
29:53uh you know nasty commute they may be
29:55very happy about that change but if
29:58somebody got laid off of work because of
29:59bad economy and they're looking at being
30:02forced into much smaller quarters and
30:05they've lost their job and they're
30:06feeling pretty crummy about that then
30:08that's a much more stressful relocation
30:11event so in terms of lazarus's appraisal
30:14process we can look at a
30:16relocation in very different ways
30:18depending on how people are framing it
30:21now you'd think that most people if
30:22they're moving into better circumstances
30:24like moving from a slum to more modern
30:28housing they'd be happy about that
30:30they'd be better off but what Mark freed
30:33a sociologist at Boston University found
30:36is that people go through the a grief
30:39syndrome and these are people that he
30:41studied here were people living in
30:43poverty environments and because of
30:45urban renewal strategies they were
30:47forced to move to a quote nicer building
30:51so their neighborhood was getting
30:52bulldozed and I showed you some examples
30:54in Beijing where sort of uh old
30:58Courtyard neighborhoods are being
30:59bulldozed so that people can put up
31:01these the government and developers can
31:03put up these high-rise residential
31:05complexes but what happened to these
31:07people that went from the poverty
31:09environment to a so-called nicer
31:11building is they were extremely stressed
31:13and they went through what freed called
31:14a grief syndrome uh symptoms of
31:17depression uh physiological stress like
31:20celier talks about that often occur
31:22after individuals are involuntarily
31:24pushed out of their existing environment
31:28from a highly valued residential
31:30environment like their neighborhood even
31:31though it was low income they had their
31:33friends there they had their contacts
31:35and supports now they're being pushed to
31:37an unfamiliar area and that can create
31:39some very uh serious stress for people
31:42so even if it looks like objectively
31:44they're going to something better it
31:46doesn't always play out that way
31:50psychologically we said earlier that
31:52stressors have cumulative additive
31:55effects so if people are living in
31:58poverty and poverty is one of those
32:00lifestyle circumstances that involves a
32:03lot of uh multiple stressors from poor
32:06housing to crowded schools to
32:09Neighborhood violence worries broken
32:11families low income so all of these
32:13things together are contributing to the
32:15stress environment of poverty so these
32:18effects of stressors can be quite
32:19additive and cumulative and that makes
32:22those stressors more chronic it makes
32:24them harder to deal with and that's
32:25where people go into this stage of
32:27exhaustion give up they don't see any
32:29way out uh they lose
32:32hope now losing hope how many of you
32:35have heard the term learned helplessness
32:38you've probably heard this some of your
32:39PSB Majors have heard this in other
32:41classes and it refers to a kind of
32:43syndrome both cognitive em uh
32:46motivational and
32:48emotional which comes about because of
32:52uh recurring encounters with
32:54uncontrollable events the more you get
32:57exposed to UNC controlable events the
32:59more you begin to believe that you can't
33:01do anything the world is stacked against
33:02you and everything is under somebody
33:05else's control not your own internal
33:07control now the research on this comes
33:09from uh Marty selman's work with dogs
33:13actually where he had some of the dogs
33:15caged up and uh some of the dogs were
33:20shocked these dogs here were shocked
33:23repeatedly whenever they tried to uh get
33:26out of that and they were harnessed so
33:28that they couldn't get over this uh
33:30barrier to the non-electrified area and
33:34so they went through that shock training
33:36where they were harnessed and prevented
33:38from getting to a better place and then
33:42they put them in a a second phase uh
33:44where you had dogs that were not shocked
33:47initially and restrained and those that
33:49were and you can see that even when
33:51those dogs could were not restrained and
33:53they could jump over that barrier the
33:55ones that went through the helplessness
33:56training were much more likely to do
33:59that behavior they just cowered in that
34:01part of the cage uh when the shock went
34:04on
34:05question internal locus of control is a
34:08personality trait defined as an
34:12individual seeing the events in their
34:14life as being under the control of
34:16either themselves internally or external
34:19events so it's a personality
34:21disposition learned helplessness is a
34:24more chronic kind of Developmental thing
34:26that that happens
34:28where you're you're exposed to repeated
34:31uncontrollable events and you begin to
34:32give up now you can have external people
34:36who and and their gradations it's not
34:39completely dichotomous you're either an
34:41internal or external some people can be
34:43sort of high externals they have some
34:46belief that they could do something to
34:47improve their situation and some people
34:50might be low internal they have some
34:52sense of efficacy but they're not that
34:54confident helplessness implies the kind
34:56of extreme end where you're an external
34:58and you've kind of given up so it's a
35:01good question uh motivational syndrome
35:04learned helplessness versus a
35:05personality trait internal external
35:07control yes it's a kind of yeah
35:10Katherine's mentioning that this could
35:12be seen as a kind of conditioning
35:14Paradigm where the animals are being
35:16conditioned to give up because they're
35:17restrained they're shocked they can't do
35:19anything about it and that's yeah that's
35:21a good point a
35:23parallel so is everybody clear about
35:25learned helplessness
35:28what that is and we want to talk about
35:30how some environmental stressors can
35:32lead to learned helplessness poverty
35:34certainly is a good candidate for that
35:36let's talk about noise we said noise is
35:38one of those stressors we're going to
35:40look at and a lot of you deal with loud
35:43noise or loud music depending on how you
35:45want to Define it and everybody's
35:47perception or appraisal of music is
35:49different so some people you know regard
35:52one type of music as noise others don't
35:54but noise is is Def is essentially
35:56unwanted sound
35:58and you can measure it in terms of its
35:59loudness and decb its predictability do
36:02we know when it's going to happen or not
36:05and whether it's controllable can you
36:06turn it off so if you live across the
36:08street of the campus and the drummers
36:09get going in a parking structure and
36:11you're trying to go to sleep you know
36:13it's pretty uncontrollable noise and
36:15it's probably unpredictable because they
36:16may take a little break from their
36:18practice and then then they kick in
36:19again and you don't know when it's going
36:21to happen that those qualities here
36:24these psychological qualities of noise
36:26are as detrimental to people or more so
36:30than the loudness of noise so we want to
36:32take a look at at some examples of that
36:34so glass and singer did this really
36:37interesting set of experiments in
36:39laboratory settings on people's
36:41reactions to
36:43noise and they exposed people to about
36:4630 minutes of a mange of different
36:48sounds played very loudly and while they
36:53were playing the sound they measured uh
36:55certain physiological stress indicators
36:57such as skin conductance or or how much
36:59your uh the surface of your skin might
37:02be perspiring and that conducts
37:04electricity better it's a measure of of
37:06arousal um people could in some cases
37:10escape the noise they could push a they
37:11were told they could push a panic button
37:14and turn it off if they didn't like it
37:16in another case they were told nothing
37:18about a panic button they had to sit
37:19there and take it the data analyses of
37:21course excluded anybody that pushed the
37:23panic button in the control high control
37:25condition so they only wanted to see
37:26people that
37:28perceived they had the control but they
37:30didn't feel they had to use it versus
37:31the people that didn't perceive they had
37:33control they also varied the
37:35predictability of the noise so it would
37:37come in very even burst boom boom boom
37:41or it would come very erratically boom b
37:44boom you know that kind of thing and
37:47they wanted to see whether those
37:48psychological qualities of the noise the
37:49predictability and the
37:50controllability had equal or greater
37:53impacts on people's behavior than the
37:56loudness of the noise and the way they
37:57measured this interestingly was not so
37:59much in the experimental situation where
38:01they're getting exposed to the noise for
38:03the first 30 minutes but after noise
38:06exposure when they went to a quiet room
38:08because glass and singer reason that
38:10often stressors have After Effects we
38:12can rise to the occasion and deal with
38:15him while we're in the midst of the
38:17situation so you can get through that
38:18rush hour traffic but you might come
38:21home and be really angry at you know the
38:22first person you say hello to when you
38:24get out of that car because it's having
38:26that kind of after effect on you so they
38:28were interested in these delayed effects
38:31of
38:31stressors now these are some data from
38:34their experiment which show people's
38:37responses and here they're doing a proof
38:40reading task after noise
38:42exposure and you've got people that are
38:44being exposed to unpredictable loud or
38:46soft noise and this is the percentage of
38:48proofreading errors they made and you
38:50can see they're kind of close up there
38:52between the loud and soft here you've
38:54got loud predictable noise fewer errors
38:57and soft predictable noise and then a
38:59control group that had no noise so you
39:03know this is suggesting that even when
39:06you've got a loud predictable noise the
39:09negative effects in terms of poor
39:11performance are greater in the soft
39:13decel condition where it's unpredictable
39:16so the predictability is getting in the
39:18way here even when you're exposing
39:20people to softer noise it's still
39:22disruptive because of its
39:23unpredictability here you've got the
39:25condition where they're told they have
39:28the panic button they can push it if
39:29they want to turn the noise off in the
39:31laboratory or they they're not told that
39:33they have no perceived control and here
39:36you have the percentage of Errors again
39:38and then they take them into the quiet
39:39room afterward and they say okay here do
39:41some tasks and the people with no
39:44perceive control are are making much
39:46more many more errors here than the
39:48people with the perceive control so this
39:51perception of control turns out to be a
39:53really uh critical issue for people
39:57these are the skin conductance scores I
40:00told you about in uh different there we
40:04go in the loud unpredictable soft noise
40:07loud predictable soft noise control
40:09condition and what you see is that
40:11people even in the loud unpredictable
40:13condition can can adjust or adapt over
40:16time these are the different phases of
40:18that 30- minute exposure to noise so in
40:20all cases they are adapting even though
40:22the loud noise creates a spike at the
40:25beginning they all sort of come down in
40:27that physiological arousal and
40:29Physiology is where cier was looking for
40:32stress indicators so this is during the
40:35the uh successive blocks of noise and
40:37you can see that pattern of of
40:39physiological
40:43adaptation what we know about uh stress
40:46is that the indicators can work
40:49differently so you can have skin
40:50conductance going down but if somebody
40:54is in a distress situation where they're
40:56worried about something or afraid they
40:58can't cope you get not only a burst of
41:00adrenaline but you also get what's
41:02called cortisol it's an indicator in the
41:04blood of stress response here when
41:07somebody's working on something they
41:08really like and they're they're geared
41:10up for it they're enjoying it but they
41:12don't have distress you don't have that
41:14cortisol in fact you have a lower
41:16cortisol reading and here when people
41:18are distressed they're not working on
41:20anything but they may be sitting around
41:22uh worrying about something you've got
41:24the adrenaline and the cortisol again so
41:25the profiles the physi iCal profiles of
41:30how people respond to stressors really
41:31varies depending on the the nature of
41:33the stimul of the situation so we we
41:36talked about these After Effects these
41:38delayed effects and and you see that in
41:39glass and singer study because what's
41:42happening there is people are taken out
41:45of the noisy room into the quiet room
41:46and that's where you're seeing these
41:47decrements in performance on proof
41:50reading they also gave them soluble and
41:52insoluble puzzles and that was an
41:54interesting uh task as well and I'll say
41:56a little bit more about about
41:58those so we're going to talk about rush
42:01hour and traffic
42:02congestion and here you've got a
42:05situation this is Beijing by the way on
42:07one of the Ring roads and this is the
42:09405 in
42:10Irvine and uh how does traffic
42:14congestion affect us and it turns out it
42:16affects some people pretty badly uh
42:19particularly if they feel that they're
42:20constrain to live far away from work and
42:22they have to make that long commute even
42:24though they don't want to versus a
42:26family that decided to live far away
42:28from the job because they like the
42:29neighborhood the schools are good the
42:31kids are happy there safe environment so
42:33the person's willing to make that long
42:35commute they're not as stressed by it so
42:37to try to take a look at how traffic
42:40congestion affects people professor nbac
42:42and I rais in
42:44PSB uh When We Were Young assistant
42:47professors we decided to do a study of
42:49commuting patterns among Southern
42:51Californians coming to Irvine to either
42:54alagan Corporation or FL Corporation and
42:57some of them were uh commuting 20 to 30
42:59minutes several miles away others were
43:01commuting maybe 5 to 6 minutes and we
43:03were interested in how does that
43:05exposure to traffic congestion uh really
43:08affects uh people's experience and their
43:10stress so this is Ray and me back in the
43:13day uh with our blood pressure monitor
43:15here and the employee would drive into
43:17the parking lot at one of those
43:19companies and we would put their arm in
43:21the the uh cuff and we would get their
43:23blood pressure we would then go into
43:25later in the day we'd go into the
43:26conference room at work and have those
43:29individuals fill out uh various uh
43:32surveys and do various tasks if you look
43:35at their commuting condition or
43:36situation in terms of its objective
43:38features like they're driving 20 mil 30
43:41minutes on average versus a shorter
43:43commute and how they perceive their
43:45commute subjectively we had some people
43:48pretty satisfied with their commute
43:50they'd say I'm highly inj involved in my
43:52job I like the people I work with and
43:55other aspects of my work environment
43:57about their home they'd say I chose to
43:59live there because I like the
44:00neighborhood the home is well suited to
44:02my needs well this subjective appraisal
44:05Allah Lazarus uh made all the difference
44:08because the people commuting the same
44:10amount of distance and time had very
44:13different experiences depending on
44:14whether they were sort of resentful and
44:16fighting that commute versus okay I
44:19chose to do this uh while I'm commuting
44:22I'll listen to a tape or I'll shave or
44:24something like that nowadays people will
44:27uh have a lot of ways of staying in
44:28touch and calling ahead with their cell
44:30phone if they're going to be late
44:32there's less stress because of that
44:33because you can use these Technologies
44:35to let people at the other end know that
44:37you're you're coming in a little bit
44:38later one of the reasons we have this
44:40ecological contextual approach to
44:42environmental psychology is the factors
44:45that are in the broader situation like
44:48the fact that we now have cell phones
44:50and we have job sharing and people can
44:52telecommute from their home to work and
44:55there are norms that sort of make that
44:57that doable now they don't have to put
44:59up with that rush hour traffic as much
45:01so if we repeated this study today the
45:03societal context is so different I'm not
45:06sure we would find the same kind of
45:07relationships between uh traffic
45:11distance and time and the increased
45:13physiological stress especially among
45:15people who had low control they had low
45:17control of where they lived where they
45:18worked and that's the the group that
45:20showed the most stress in our study but
45:22as they have these other Technologies to
45:24fall back on uh maybe we would replicate
45:27those same findings today and by the
45:30same token we said that in the festing
45:32OR shakor and box studies at MIT where
45:34they looked at the effects of
45:36residential proximity on friendship
45:38formation when they you know went to a
45:41different context the suburbs of Boston
45:43instead of married graduate students at
45:45MIT where the neighborhood was more
45:48diverse more affluent people were more
45:50mobile they didn't see those Direct
45:52effects of the deterministic effects of
45:55proximity on friendship formation
45:57so the context that that's surrounding
45:59the variables we're most interested in
46:01is really important and that's what we
46:02mean by contextual analysis or
46:05ecological analysis looking at the
46:06broader picture because there's layers
46:08of influence on how those variables work
46:13together all right I want to talk a
46:15little bit about the Los Angeles noise
46:18project study that shell Cohen Gary
46:21Evans Dave cran and I did uh back in the
46:2480s and we've seen this slide before
46:26when we talked about environmental
46:27Injustice the fact that these schools
46:29are all in minority neighborhoods in LA
46:32but I want to talk about it today in
46:33terms of our studies of stress among the
46:36children going to those schools
46:40so we set up the study where we had
46:42these four elementary schools in the
46:44flight path of the
46:46airport and they were in the Englewood
46:49area and uh pretty
46:52lowincome um racial minority and then we
46:56had control schools that were in quieter
46:58zones matched for similar socioeconomic
47:01status and racial composition of the
47:03schools and so that was our our basic
47:06design we had these four uh treatment
47:09schools in the noise Zone and then we
47:10had some schools in San Pedro and other
47:12areas that were matched for
47:14socioeconomic uh status uh but they
47:16weren't noisy we also had a a before and
47:19after phase where we measured uh kids in
47:22the spring and then the airport with
47:25some funding that they gave to the
47:26school
47:27uh the schools were able to do sound
47:29insulation on the schools to see if that
47:31sound abatement helped the kids in the
47:33fall so when we went back and measured
47:35the children's stress levels in the fall
47:37did they change as a function of that
47:39architectural modification in their
47:41schools all right so this is what the
47:43planes look like from the vantage point
47:45of the children going to these noisy
47:47schools in the flight path and this is
47:51more of a a kind of map at the area
47:53where we were in the Englewood and
47:55Lennox school districts for these uh
47:57main target schools in the nois
48:00zone and we were primarily interested in
48:03this relationship the hypothesis was
48:05does high blood PR or the key research
48:07question does higher exposure to school
48:09noise increase blood pressure at school
48:12when we measured their blood pressures
48:14at school that it also affect their
48:15academic performance and performance on
48:17various
48:19tasks we also did some analysis where we
48:22measured the children's uh residential
48:24location were was it in the noise
48:27Contours of LA airport or outside of the
48:29noise Contours because we were
48:30interested in the additive effects of
48:33school noise exposure and home noise
48:35exposure on the blood pressure readings
48:37we're getting at school as well as on
48:39their stress levels at home so both of
48:41these Behavior settings can contribute
48:44to those measures so this is sort of
48:47expanding our analysis spatially or
48:49ecologically to see whether the home
48:51noise and the school noise has an
48:53additive effect like Gary Evans talks
48:55about in his his paper on
48:59poverty these data suggest that the
49:02noise and quiet schools that we uh chose
49:04for our sample were were not
49:05significantly different you see this not
49:07significant here on family size on
49:10Father's education and mother's
49:12education so no differences which was
49:14good because we wanted to kind of try to
49:17boil down the effects to the effects of
49:19noise now we didn't do a random a
49:22randomized controlled experiment
49:23obviously because you can't assign
49:24people to live in a noisy zone or a
49:26quiet zone so we had to do what's called
49:28a quasa experimental design where you
49:31control for these important variables
49:33statistically you try to match your
49:34schools as best you can then you focus
49:37on the variable of interest namely noise
49:40level so we looked at blood pressures
49:42and these are third and fourth graders
49:44and what we saw is that uh here you've
49:48got physiological differences are more
49:50pronounced among the children that were
49:51in the school's less years and for the
49:53children that were in the school more
49:55years there's less difference but you
49:58still see that the noisy school kids
50:00have higher systolic blood pressures and
50:02higher diastolic blood pressures and
50:06these are not in the hypertensive range
50:08but the question is if students are
50:09going to school in these environments
50:11chronically for several years does that
50:14predispose them to hypertension later on
50:16and that's an issue that's come up in a
50:18lot of subsequent cases where uh airport
50:22proposals have been floated like in
50:24Orange County where it was shot down
50:25actually and it didn't go through is
50:27that because we have a more affluent
50:30Community here that could push back or
50:31is it because there was more data
50:33showing what the negative effects of
50:35noise are on people in any event these
50:37were some of the data we found uh we had
50:41for other measures we we had the
50:42children come into a sound insulated
50:44trailer where they couldn't hear the
50:46airplanes going over their school so it
50:48was a very insulated environment we
50:50tested five of them at a time they did
50:52these tasks here they had to pick out
50:54shapes that we showed them from a list
50:56of cards they did proof reading scaled
50:59for third and fourth grade level they
51:01did soluble and insoluble puzzles so we
51:04we mirrored a lot of what glass and
51:06singer did in the laboratory studies but
51:08we were doing it out in the field in
51:09this quasi experimental uh
51:13Paradigm here we found that uh when you
51:16give children a soluble puzzle something
51:18they can actually solve and I'll show
51:19you some examples of what those are um
51:23the noisy school children especially
51:25those that have been exposed to that
51:27noise for more years in the school are
51:29take much longer many more seconds to
51:31solve that puzzle than the kids in the
51:33quiet
51:34school and that's not exactly the case
51:38here obviously but as you see the time
51:41elapsing here there's more of a
51:42difference between those groups so
51:44looking between glass and singer's lab
51:46studies and our field study we saw some
51:48interesting parallels that you have
51:50after effects of noise exposure whether
51:52it's in the laboratory or in the field
51:54to airplane noise on children's perens
51:56to make errors on tasks give up on
51:59puzzles that they could solve uh this is
52:01one other data or result we had on proof
52:04reading where we gave the children uh
52:07proof reading tasks and you can see here
52:09although the no the quiet children are
52:12not as effective on that task for the
52:14people that haven't been in the school
52:16as long as you get out here among those
52:18that have been in the school for four or
52:19more years uh the quiet school children
52:22have a a marked advantage in terms of
52:25their uh ability to detect errors proof
52:28reading errors and pick out
52:31ease uh can you go back to that slide
52:33for a minute yeah I just want to clarify
52:36the it wasn't it wasn't so much
52:38proofreading errors it was like could
52:40they find the ease in all the words on
52:42the page so what we were asking them to
52:43do was uh every time they saw an e to
52:46cross it out so this this is measuring
52:48the percentage of e that they were able
52:50to find and locate as they did that task
52:52so it wasn't quite the same task as
52:54glass and singer were doing with the
52:57but it was similar now just as we saw
53:00these after effects of noise and
53:03children uh this is a study by Maryann
53:06Franken hoer in Sweden where she was
53:10looking at the adrenal and secretion
53:13rates for workers undergoing a period of
53:16overtime work and these are the weeks
53:19here where they were working extra hours
53:21up to 15 extra hours a week you can see
53:23that peaking here around week seven or
53:25eight
53:27and she took urinary uh samples and
53:31analyzed them for adrenaline levels both
53:34during the daytime hours at work and
53:37then at home at night she she followed
53:38them back home and in the evening hours
53:41uh had them provide these samples and
53:43what she found is you can see this
53:44delayed spiking of adrenaline secretion
53:47at home once people are out of the sort
53:50of work environment itself these effects
53:53are cumulative they stay with them as
53:55they go home so that was a kind of
53:57interesting uh
53:59demonstration that you can see these
54:02increases even in the the supposedly
54:04non-stress environment uh after they get
54:07home from a a place where they're
54:09putting in extra time so it's another
54:11indication of these physiological after
54:13effects of
54:18stress all right we're going to give you
54:20a a short break and then we're going to
54:21come back and finish up so take a relax
54:24a little bit and we'll be back Yeah
54:27question yeah so we've been talking
54:29about different processes that can
54:31create these After Effects when people
54:32are exposed to constraints and
54:35demands we talked about learned
54:36helplessness which is a motivational
54:38kind of giving up right because you get
54:40overwhelmed you just don't believe you
54:42can do anything anymore so you give up
54:44now I'm going to talk about something
54:46which is a little different kind of
54:47process called attentional overload when
54:51our attentional capacity is so taxed by
54:54having to process too much information
54:56that we start to get irritable we start
54:58to make mistakes we just can't track
55:00everything because there's too much
55:02coming at us and I think a lot of us can
55:04relate to that these days when we're
55:05getting Communications from so many
55:07different devices and channels and so
55:09many emails each day you know how do you
55:12sort of digest all that and keep it all
55:13organized so we're going to talk about
55:16this this overload issue and it comes up
55:18a lot in the Matthews and Canon study of
55:21the lawn mower and helping somebody who
55:23has a cast on their arm how many of you
55:25read that article the the Matthews and
55:27Canon got I want more arms going up it's
55:30really important no it's a really yeah
55:33so is it what's your name again K yeah
55:37so Kow um well I won't ask you to to
55:40recount the whole article but I'm glad
55:42that you read it and uh I want you all
55:45to really pay attention to that one it's
55:47an important one and it's an interesting
55:48one and I'll show you why but these are
55:51some societal examples where when we had
55:54the Challenger shuttle disaster and also
55:57the Columbia
55:58disaster a lot of the people at NASA
56:01went back and they examined the
56:03decision-making
56:04process uh when the Colombia went up and
56:07there was this problem with the heat
56:09shield and some of the uh surface of the
56:12rocket had been knocked off and they
56:13made the decision not to try to repair
56:15that in space and some people at Nasa
56:17said well partly that maybe that was due
56:20to people being overloaded too much
56:22information coming too quickly maybe
56:24they got into kind of Habitual routines
56:26of of decision making but sometimes
56:29these situations might be attributable
56:32to overload uh when you have medical
56:34errors and this is a book about put out
56:36by The Institute of medicine Which
56:39documents a lot of errors that happen in
56:41hospitals where the wrong organ is taken
56:43out or the wrong limb is removed and you
56:47know people know the high stress kind of
56:49environment that a hospital is where
56:51people are working overtime a lot of
56:52residents are on you know without a lot
56:55of sleep there and so this issue of
56:57attentional fatigue comes up in many
56:59different settings it's been a factor
57:02that may contribute to errors among
57:05Physicians nurses air traffic
57:07controllers uh drivers you know if we're
57:09texting and we're trying to pay
57:10attention to our texting and we missed
57:12something on the road and boom we're in
57:14an accident irritability and
57:16aggressiveness reduced sensitivity to
57:18social cues which is the topic that the
57:20Matthews and Canon study addressed how
57:23is it that attentional overload affects
57:25our resp responsiveness to social
57:28cues so let's take a look at that
57:32study okay so what do you see there even
57:35if you haven't read the article we're
57:36kind of boiling it down with the the
57:38this slide what's going on there you've
57:41got a A person wearing a cast you've got
57:44someone not wearing a cast and the
57:46scenario is this the experimenter has
57:50people working as part of the study they
57:53get out of a car in a residential
57:55neighborhood and as they're getting to
57:57the sidewalk moving toward the front
57:59door of a house at the sidewalk they're
58:01carrying all these books and they drop
58:02the books all over the sidewalk and this
58:05happens just at the time that someone is
58:07walking down the sidewalk you know the
58:09unsuspecting subject in the study and
58:12they're confronted with somebody having
58:14this pratfall where they have books all
58:15over the ground and they have to make a
58:17decision do I stop and help them pick it
58:18up or not so that's the the Paradigm now
58:21what's the other interesting thing going
58:23on KO in that situation you remember in
58:26terms of the noise
58:27Source right so KO is pointing out that
58:31on the lawn of the home where the
58:33person's going to be walking up to the
58:35front door somebody's operating a
58:37lawnmower and the lawn mower is either
58:39on or it's off and when it's on it's
58:41putting out really high noxious sound
58:45that maybe somebody wants to get away
58:46from or maybe it's distracting them from
58:48certain key cues now the the critical
58:52issue in this study is whether people
58:55stop and help the person that dropped
58:56the books and you'd think that if
58:58somebody's wearing a cast because of the
59:00norm of social responsibility you know
59:02we talked about Norms in an earlier
59:05lecture how that affects people's
59:06responsiveness to sustainable
59:09Behavior well in this case the wearing
59:12of a cast was supposed to activate the
59:15norm of social responsibility you help
59:17someone who's in need they're
59:19disabled whereas when someone isn't
59:21wearing the cast that Norm isn't as
59:23Salient and so what they found is in the
59:26loud condition where the lawnmower is
59:29going on and it's really loud there was
59:32no difference in people stopping there
59:33was a very low percentage of people
59:36helping out in the in the loud uh lawn
59:38mower condition but in the soft
59:40condition you see this distinction here
59:43this this gap between people stopping to
59:46help someone with a cast and people
59:48stopping to help someone without a cast
59:51so you can see in the soft condition
59:52soft noise condition where there's no
59:54lawn mower getting in the way that
59:56people pay attention to the social queue
59:58the norm of social responsibility does
1:00:00get activated and they help and if
1:00:02somebody isn't wearing a cast well too
1:00:04bad they they don't get helped as much
1:00:06but in the loud noise condition that
1:00:08difference is totally wiped out so it's
1:00:10almost as if the noise is impinging so
1:00:13much on people's awareness and their
1:00:16their attention or maybe it's creating
1:00:18some feelings of irritation they want to
1:00:21get away from that situation uh they
1:00:23don't help in either case so so it's an
1:00:26example of what we were saying in the
1:00:28previous slide that often stressors can
1:00:31reduce our sensitivity to social cues
1:00:34and this is just another plotting of
1:00:36those data where you have passerbys who
1:00:39stopped the percentage who stopped and
1:00:41helped and in the low noise condition uh
1:00:44you see it's much greater for someone
1:00:45who's wearing a cast than the person who
1:00:47wasn't wearing a cast whereas in the the
1:00:49high noise condition it doesn't matter
1:00:51whether you're wearing a cast or not so
1:00:52it's a pretty interesting study showing
1:00:54some of these phena that we're talking
1:00:56about and it relates to uh what is
1:00:59called the tensional overload Theory and
1:01:02it stipulates that people have limited
1:01:05attentional capacity each of us has just
1:01:07about so much we can attend to at any
1:01:09given time and if we go over that limit
1:01:11we can't drive and text and you know
1:01:14shave at the same time and sometimes
1:01:16people try to do all that multitasking
1:01:17but it doesn't work very well so
1:01:19information overload occurs any time the
1:01:22demand for attention exceeds the
1:01:24available capacity
1:01:26cognitive fatigue uh is a is the
1:01:29hypothesis that if the available
1:01:32capacity is not fixed but in fact it
1:01:34shrinks when there are prolonged demands
1:01:37on attention so uh too much attentional
1:01:40overload reduces our capacity to do
1:01:42anything else so you can attend to fewer
1:01:44inputs after prolong demands than in a
1:01:47rested State and you get fatigued over
1:01:49time you get this cumulative inability
1:01:51to process because you're tired mentally
1:01:54tired so it's a function of task load
1:01:57and task duration and remember Stanley
1:01:59Milgram in one of the first articles we
1:02:01read talked about the New Yorkers
1:02:04experience of overload living in
1:02:06Manhattan how they're exposed to so much
1:02:08stimulation they have to tune that out
1:02:10or modulate it otherwise they're going
1:02:12to be overwhelmed and not able to
1:02:14function there the presence of an
1:02:16environmental stressor like a law loud
1:02:18lawn mower because it requires
1:02:21attention is likely to create overload
1:02:25the amount of attention required to
1:02:26monitor an environmental stimulus is an
1:02:29increasing function of uncertainty that
1:02:31it arouses concerning its significance
1:02:33to us so if we're worried about
1:02:35something that could be a danger to us
1:02:37and threaten us we have to devote more
1:02:39attention to it we can't just kind of
1:02:41treat it as inconsequential and ignore
1:02:44it the most usual strategy uh that
1:02:48people use to deal with overload is
1:02:50focusing available attention on aspects
1:02:52of the environment that are most
1:02:53relevant to task performance at the cost
1:02:56of less relevant inputs so you know if
1:03:00your main task is texting and your
1:03:01secondary task is driving that's going
1:03:03to cause some problems so how people
1:03:05sort of prioritize what their most
1:03:07important task is is really pretty
1:03:09crucial but we looked at these uh
1:03:12attentional overload hypotheses in our
1:03:14noise study and there have been a number
1:03:16of other studies in the environment
1:03:18Behavior field that have replicated uh
1:03:20the kinds of findings that are suggested
1:03:23by these hypotheses
1:03:26this looks complicated but it's a simple
1:03:28idea it's called the jerk's dots and
1:03:30curve and it shows the relationship
1:03:32between the quality of somebody's
1:03:34performance or the uh quality of their
1:03:37health from low to
1:03:39high as being a function of stimulation
1:03:42level so if you're low if you're under
1:03:44arouse you have low stimulation you have
1:03:47porous performance and poorest health so
1:03:51your illness is higher here here the
1:03:53illness is less your health is better
1:03:56when you have moderate uh intermediate
1:03:59kind of levels of arousal you are
1:04:02stimulated you perform well but if you
1:04:04get overstimulated your performance and
1:04:06your health start to go down you have
1:04:08more illness here and poor performance
1:04:10so this is just tracking illness and
1:04:13performance on these two different y
1:04:15axes and the uh x-axis here is levels of
1:04:19arousal so you can see it's a curval
1:04:21linear function Performance Health and
1:04:23arousal levels that's called the the
1:04:25year jks dots and curve and not
1:04:27surprisingly this works differently for
1:04:29simple and complex tasks so if you look
1:04:33at the jks Dotson curve for in this case
1:04:37simple tasks up here people have a
1:04:40higher tolerance for arousal their
1:04:43performance is better and their arousal
1:04:45doesn't start to decline until further
1:04:47out on the arousal scale whereas if
1:04:49they're working on a complex task like
1:04:52driving um and trying to text at the
1:04:54same time here your arousal level uh
1:04:57starts to interfere with that task you
1:04:59can see the difference here between a
1:05:00simple and and a complex task which is
1:05:03not that surprising but it's interesting
1:05:05that the arousal levels that interfere
1:05:06with the performance are lower so they
1:05:09start to have that negative impact on
1:05:10performance earlier for a complex task
1:05:13versus a simple task so these this is a
1:05:15finding that's been replicated in a lot
1:05:17of different studies as well now we said
1:05:20that we would look at uh natural and
1:05:22technological disasters as a stressor
1:05:24and this is the last category of con RS
1:05:26I want to talk about and I'll show you
1:05:29some examples of natural and
1:05:31technological disasters and we want to
1:05:33talk about what's the psychological
1:05:35differences between those two categories
1:05:37of events and there's been a fair amount
1:05:39of research on that here you've got the
1:05:40Indian Ocean tsunami in
1:05:442004
1:05:45and uh here you've got the more recent
1:05:49uh earthquake in Japan and the tsunami
1:05:52there and as we said earlier in the
1:05:54course nowadays these events are brought
1:05:57to us in real time or very shortly after
1:06:00they happen so we have all the Vivid
1:06:01details of the suffering and the horror
1:06:04of the environment doing something
1:06:06that's extremely dramatic atypical and
1:06:09harmful to the people in its
1:06:12way now in the article assigned uh by
1:06:16Bal Fleming and Davidson they they talk
1:06:18about natural disasters having a a low
1:06:21point a natural low point where the
1:06:23worst is over and you know kind of after
1:06:26an earthquake uh pretty much the worst
1:06:28shaking is over although there are
1:06:30aftershocks so it's a little bit
1:06:31unpredictable but when a tornado comes
1:06:33through you you definitely know when the
1:06:36worst has happened and when the worst is
1:06:38over technological disasters don't have
1:06:41that clear low point so if you're living
1:06:43near Santa ofy and there's an accident
1:06:46there involving some leakage of
1:06:48radioactive gases it's unclear to you
1:06:50whether that's a harm to your health in
1:06:52the long run or not because you can't
1:06:54see those gases you're stuck with that
1:06:56uncertainty and that's a good example of
1:06:58a chronic stressor that can have these
1:07:00indirect long-term effects on our
1:07:02physiology and health so they claim that
1:07:05in this article natural disasters are
1:07:07more likely to have a low Point than
1:07:09technological
1:07:10disasters and you can see this in the uh
1:07:14tsunami that hit Bond AE in Indonesia in
1:07:182004 where the low Point obviously was
1:07:21after all that water basically erased
1:07:24this part of the Community I mean it was
1:07:27utter
1:07:28Devastation and if you go on the
1:07:31internet now and you look at what's
1:07:33happening in bond a they've rebuilt all
1:07:35that it's it's recovered but this was
1:07:37the low Point clearly uh when that
1:07:40happened so you've got natural disasters
1:07:43and you've got technological disasters
1:07:45and this one was not as bad as what
1:07:48happened in Fukushima nor at
1:07:51Chernobyl but nonetheless it created a
1:07:53lot of uncertainty because it was clear
1:07:55that some radioactive gases escaped into
1:07:57the atmosphere and people were pretty
1:07:59worried about
1:08:02that and at Three Mile Island uh Bal
1:08:07Andrew Bal and his colleagues looked at
1:08:10blood pressure levels among residents at
1:08:123 Mile Island
1:08:13Pennsylvania one year before the
1:08:15accident they went to doctor's records
1:08:17and they looked at what people's blood
1:08:18pressures were before the uh accident at
1:08:21TMI and then one year after the accident
1:08:24and these are people living in a control
1:08:26Community with a an energy reactor that
1:08:28wasn't nuclear didn't have a problem
1:08:31these are people at 3mi uh 3M Island
1:08:35that expressed little stress over the
1:08:37event they didn't feel they were
1:08:38particularly harmed or vulnerable to
1:08:41that radioactive gas these were people
1:08:43who are worrying about it worrying about
1:08:45their exposure uncertain uh rather than
1:08:48sort of transformationally coping and
1:08:50saying it's okay I probably wasn't
1:08:52exposed they were sort of focusing on
1:08:54and sens sensitizing to the possible
1:08:56danger their blood pressure one year
1:08:59after the accident was much higher so
1:09:01this is another example of what Lazarus
1:09:03means by appraisal of the stressor two
1:09:05people or two sets of people living in
1:09:07the same Community undergoing that
1:09:10technological disaster but the stress
1:09:12level is much higher here because of the
1:09:13appraisal of this blue group uh that
1:09:16things were worse for
1:09:19them okay so there are a lot of
1:09:21different kinds of technolog of natural
1:09:23disasters and technological disasters
1:09:25this is at Love Canal how many have been
1:09:27to Love Canal in Buffalo New York
1:09:29anybody ever been up there this is a
1:09:32community that was virtually closed
1:09:34closed down in a matter of a few months
1:09:37because the New York State Department of
1:09:39Health was getting reports of all these
1:09:42uh elevated cancer rates infant
1:09:43mortality they went out to study the
1:09:46soil here and they found that it was
1:09:48highly contaminated from an earlier
1:09:50company hooker Chemical Company doing a
1:09:53dump of toxic chemicals in this area
1:09:55here which became a school ground and
1:09:58the effects of that chemical dump
1:10:00weren't known until this community grew
1:10:02up over it and then you started having
1:10:05all these health problems so that was a
1:10:07technological disaster that basically
1:10:08closed down that whole Community when I
1:10:10visited there uh basically these homes
1:10:13were boarded up and and people had to
1:10:15get out of their homes lose their home
1:10:17value because of that disaster
1:10:21now let me just close with u two last
1:10:24power points and you can look at these
1:10:27uh in more detail when you download the
1:10:28slides these are this is basically from
1:10:30the Bal at Al article showing how
1:10:33natural and technological disasters are
1:10:35different in terms of things like their
1:10:38low point or their perceptions of
1:10:40people's perceptions of control over
1:10:42them or Persistence of effects after
1:10:44they occur so what I would like you to
1:10:47be aware of is generally how do they
1:10:50distinguish between natural and
1:10:51technological disasters in terms of the
1:10:53low point or lack of low point the
1:10:55visible extensive damage versus The
1:10:57Invisible damage that people worry about
1:10:59in technological disasters community
1:11:02support and helping versus blame acute
1:11:05Health impacts versus chronic now one
1:11:08last point before we break and that is
1:11:09that their distinction obviously is
1:11:12overgeneralized there are aspects of
1:11:15Katrina you know the the the hurricane
1:11:17in New Orleans that involve both natural
1:11:20and technological features right so the
1:11:22hurricane came along and devastated that
1:11:24community
1:11:26but the fact that the levies were not
1:11:28constructed properly was a human caused
1:11:31issue right that was a technological
1:11:33problem so a lot of times our disasters
1:11:35are not so cleanly uh identifiable as
1:11:39just natural and technological but they
1:11:41have components of both so that's
1:11:43important to be aware but but generally
1:11:45some of these points about the low Point
1:11:48uh or about the visible and invisible
1:11:49damage are compelling you know they they
1:11:52do sort of differentiate those stressors
1:11:54in some very important ways
1:11:56so one more question is it ja uh relle
1:11:59well if it's a terrorist event you've
1:12:01got a human caused intentional disaster
1:12:04so it's a special category of
1:12:06technological but but it can hurt our
1:12:09natural system right they can pollute
1:12:11rivers or they can cause some problem to
1:12:13a natural system so you have these
1:12:15strange combinations of natural and
1:12:17technological so yeah all right have a
1:12:20good weekend we'll see you on Tuesday

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