Briana Thompson
CSI Writing Class
Professor Sheinkopf
7/14/14

In Groups We Shrink

When being with a group of people we tend to act different than we normally would towards certain situations.According to Carol Tavris story “In Groups We Shrink”shows the difference between two groups put into two different setting to see how the would react to certain issue that happen around them. During these two experiments you can see how one group did not respond as well to a threat to themselves and the other group did not respond to a the threat of others. The people you hang around can affect the way you react when things happen around you. There is a little boy lost in the street and comes to you for help and asks can you help me find my mommy i don't know where she went?. You might think to yourself I should help this little boy and take him to the police so they can help him find him mommy and also that way the little boy could be safe. But because you're with a group of your friends you choose to walk away from the little boy because nobody else wants help and or made a move to help the boy.Then you may think to yourself well that little boy will find help from somebody or is already being helped and that is the reason why nobody helped him yet. This is what psychologists calls “diffusion of responsibility” when you are with a group of people and become lazy and tend to the observer instead of the helper.You also lose your individuality in the story Tavris mentioned how he staged two experiments. The first one was in