Harvey A. Hornstein

Opinion similarity and helping: Three field experiments investigating the bases of promotive tension

Previous research has demonstrated that people can develop relationships (called promotive social relationships) which provide a basis for the arousal of tension. In order to reduce this tension they will help another person. The three field experiments reported here are part of a continuing investigation of the social conditions which cause one person to experience such tension coordinated to anothers goal attainment. In these three experiments subjects had the opportunity to help a stranger whose opinions varied, in degrees, from 100% agreement with their own to 100% disagreement. The opinions were either of high importance (Experiment I), low importance (Experiment II), or mixed high and low importance (Experiment III). Evidence from the three experiments consistently leads to the conclusion that the formation of promotive social relationships is primarily determined by opinion similarity and subsequent social categorization, not attraction. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, related research is identified, and additional information about the relationship between opinion similarity and attraction in field settings is provided.

The effects of different magnitudes of threat upon interpersonal bargaining

Abstract The rationale underlying this study was that the success of threat is a positive function of the threateners deterrent force. Deterrent force was said to increase as the absolute magnitude of threat potential increases, and as the discrepancy between ones own and ones opponents threat potential increases. However, the data do not support this view of deterrence. They do suggest that certain distributions of threat potential increase the likelihood of agreement. Also, the data support the notion that threat and aggression tend to lessen the probability of agreement. It was suggested that S s′ perception of each other as equals or the fact that profits were fictional may have caused S s to resist showing deferent behavior.

A Comparison of Similarity and Interdependence as Triggers for In-Group Formation

In four experiments, subjects were informed of a threat from various sources to members of a social category to which they belonged. They were also given the opportunity to help a target person. The results of the first two experiments showed that in-group bias occurred only when the threat was from a social source rather than a nonsocial source or when there was no threat. The third experiment showed that the bias favored only those similar on the threatened category rather than those similar on another non-threatened category. The fourth experiment showed that when subjects knew the source of the threat, the bias was against only members of the threatening group, even when the threat was attributed to similar others. These findings indicate that interdependence resulting from a shared threat, rather than similarity alone, seems to play a key role in the formation of in-group boundaries.

Socially mediated Zeigarnik effects as a function of sentiment, valence, and desire for goal attainment ☆

Abstract In a previous study, Hornstein et al. (1971) explored anonymous and unrewarded facilitation of a strangers goal attainment under various conditions of sentiment. Continuing to investigate this area, the term “promotive tension arousal” is introduced to label the process by which one persons tension arousal is coordinated to anothers interrupted goal attainment. The present natural field experiment amplifies the work of Lewin, Deutsch, and Horwitz to confirm the following predictions: more helping occurs when a liked other approaches a positive than a negative goal; for a liked other with a strong desire for this positive goal, helping increases as the goal is approached, while for a liked other with a strong desire for a negative goal, helping decreases as the goal is neared. These results are interpreted as clearly evidencing approach and avoidance gradients operating within a relationship that allows for the arousal of promotive tension.

Penalty and interpersonal attraction as factors influencing the decision to help another person

Abstract Subjects in this experiment, who believed that they were involved in an impression-formation and decision-making task, were each confronted with a dilemma: they had to choose between (a) earning money for themselves while allowing another to be shocked, and (b) foregoing the profit in order to prevent the other from being shocked. One-half the subjects anticipated a penalty if they chose to allow the other to be shocked; the rest held no such anticipation. In addition there were three conditions of interpersonal attraction: Like, Dislike, and (a control) No manipulation. The data indicate that subjects who liked the other chose to help more often when they anticipated punishment, but less often when no punishment was anticipated. The reverse was true for subjects who disliked the other. Three interpretations of these findings are discussed.

The Effects of Temptation and Information about a Stranger on Helping

In previous research on helping the responses of subjects who received no information about a strangers opinions and who received information confirming the others similarity, expressed equally positive sentiment toward the stranger and helped equally often (and more than a third group who expressed negative sentiment after learning that the stranger held dis similar opinions). The present study, stimttlated by this anomaly, found that although the two groups expressed equally positive sentiment toward the other, they helped equally as often only when there was little temptation to do otherwise. With greater temptation the difference in the frequency of helping was comparatively large. This was interpreted as suggesting that information about another can both create and destroy promotive social bonds.

Some Conceptual Issues in Individual and Group-Oriented Strategies of Intervention into Organizations

This paper is an attempt to conceptualize and contrast some of the psychological and sociological assumptions underlying two different strategies of social intervention: an individually oriented strategy which assumes that individual change is the primary mediator of organization change and a group-oriented strategy which assumes that group-level phenomena, such as norms and values, are the primary mediators of organization change. It is not assumed that the views presented in this paper are complete or uncontroversial. On the contrary, by articulating these assumptions and their interrelationships, we hope to begin building systemic conceptual frameworks for describing the dynamics of social intervention. The understanding of social process provided by these frameworks may aid the practitioner in his application of an intervention approach and may help the theoretician-researcher to be more aware of gaps in his knowledge of social process.

Stand When Your Number is Called: An Empirical Attempt to Classify Types of Social Change Agents

Interviews and questionnaires were administered to a varied group of professional social change agents. A four-category typology of change agent types was developedfrom an inductive analysis of the data. The categorization scheme best accounted for differences in the following areas: personal characteristics, values relative to social change, conceptualizations about what mediates change, change technologies employed, and the settings in which change work is carried out. The four types of change agents which emerged were: (1) the Outside Pressure Type who works to change systems from outside through the application of pressure using such tactics as mass demonstration, civil disobedience, and violence; (2) the Analysis for the Top Type who works primarily with business and government units to improve efficiency and output and employs analytic procedures to develop expert advice; (3) the Organization Development Type who works to improve a system s problem-solving capabilities through applied behavioral science techniques; and (4) the People Change Technology Type who works to change individual functioning in organizations through such techniques as behavior modification and need achievement.

MINERVA: A Participatory Technology System

This article describes a proposed system of social communication by which large groups of citizens dispersed across the country can respond regularly to social, economic and political situations, and calls for the introduction of legislation that would require corporations which are installing CATV cables in neighborhoods to reserve one-third of their cable capacity for all not-for-profit institutions in the community.The article is the result of work of the Center for Policy Research, New York City and Washington, D.C. All the authors are members of the staff of the Center. Amitai Etzioni is also professor of sociology at Columbia University; Harvey Hornstein, associate professor of psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University; and Peter Abrams, Thomas Stephens and Noel Tichy are doctoral candidates at Columbia. Eugene Leonard is the president of Systems Resources Corporation.

Before I speak I want to say something: the setup for persuasionPre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade Robert Cialdini, (Simon & Schuster, 2016).

Harvey A. Hornstein, formerly a faculty member in the Program in Social and Organizational Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and chairman of that institution’s Department of Psychology, now operates a private organizational consulting practice for firms in a wide variety of industries (harvey.hornstein@ gmail.com). He has written nine books, including Brutal Bosses and Their Prey (1997). Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade