The Power Of The Situation :: essays research papers

The Power of the Situation     A week of urban havoc was ignited by the April 29, 1992 jury acquittalof four white police officers who were captured on videotape beating blackmotorist Rodney King. The angry response in South Central produced its ownbrutal footage, most dramatically the live broadcast from a hovering TVnews helicopter of two black men striking unconscious with a brick, kicking, andthen dancing over the body of, white truck driver Reginald Denny. The finalthree-day toll of what many community activists took to rebelliously calling anuprising, revolt, or rebellion, was put at 53 dead, some $1 billion in propertydamage, nearly 2,000 arrests, and countless businesses in ashes. These two men,Damian Williams and atomic number 1 Watson undoubtedly committed a heinous crime, plainlythousands more looted, burned, and destroyed property with the same disregardfor life and property. Were all these people criminals who used the verdicts asan excuse to com mit crimes, or was the nature of the social situation theprimarydeterminant of this nefarious behavior? In the course of this paper, Iplan to explore this question from a psychological perspective with an emphasizeon conformity and social norms, bystander intervention, social perception andreality, and finally, prejudice. Generally looking at the Los Angeles riots,and specifically drawing upon the Reginald Denny beating and consequent trial,the power of the situation becomes evident, as thousands of people living in anextremely poor and crime-ridden area of Los Angeles, lashed out against aperception of injustice through violence.     The conditions that come before people to perceive themselves as victims ofunjust actions are rather complex. In this case, the favorable verdicts towardsthe officers who beat Rodney King was the "unjust action", not only for RodneyKing, but for the community he came from. The perceived damage to desiredsocial identities a nd justice led to resentment on the part of a historicallypoor and disadvantaged class of citizens. The psyche attempts to explainthe event (the verdicts) by processes of attribution in which grievance may ormay not be formed. (DeRidder, Schruijer, and Tripathi, 1992). The attributionof duty and blame is activated when confronted with unexpectedbehavior, unwanted consequences, or stressful, puzzling, and important events(Wong & Weiner, 1981). Thus the attribution process may be activated eitherwhen the individual experiences harm, or perceives an anti-normative action byanother person or group.     Contrary to popular belief, not everyone residing in south-central LosAngeles looted. Instead the majority stayed in their homes until theparticipants ceased their soul-destroying activities. This does not take away fromthe validity of the attribution theory due to the individual differences in