One of my favorite places to observe social psychology in action is on reality TV. Make no mistake, there is very little “reality” in any of this programming, but it can be fascinating to observe how producers working for MTV, VH1, ABC, NBC, Food Network, and now even Netflix manipulate people, situations, and recordings to give us contrived, but riveting television. Take any episode of just about any reality television show and you can observe behavior that in any other context would be downright bizarre. It is easy, as a result, to dismiss these participants as particularly strange, aggressive, manipulative, or antisocial, but as a Social Psychologist, you know to blame, not the person, but the situation! In fact, recent works, like “Bachelor Nation” detail the incredible lengths to which show producers will go in manipulating participants and the environment to secure particularly prime-time-worthy antics. In this assignment, I want you to take on the role of a producer for your own favorite guilty pleasure, and then use what you have learned about groups, aggression, altruism, competition, and cooperation to get the best-worst behavior out of your participants.
Step 1: Select and review an appropriate television program
Even if you’re a fan of all things reality TV, you can probably tell that some of these programs are a better pick for this assignment than others. This time around, you want to select a show that focuses on a formula first established almost 20 years ago—a group of people compete to be the best or most successful at something, while also balancing their interpersonal interactions outside of their specific competition. Each (usually weekly) episode, the contestants take part in a test to prove their skill and, at its conclusion, one (or a few) who fail to rise to the level of the others’ is asked to leave, narrowing the pool of hopeful participants week after week. You may already have a favorite in mind, but if you aren’t a habitual watcher of such guilty pleasures, consider selecting one of my favorites below:
If You Love “Love”: The Bachelor/Bachelorette
If You Love Pseudo-Psychology: Love is Blind
If You Long to Travel: The Amazing Race
If You Always Think the Original is Best: Survivor
If You Want Something Artsy: Blown Away
If You’re Hungry: Top Chef
If You’re Hungry for Ugly Food: Nailed It!
If You Don’t Want Too Much Bad Behavior: The Great British Baking Show
If you love competition and surprise bromances: The Circle
Step 2: Identify the behaviors you want
After selecting one of these shows, dial up some clips, a highlight reel, or even a handful of episodes to give yourself an idea of how it works, what the show looks for, and some of the “so bad it’s good” behavior you’re likely to see. What do participants do or say that is particularly attention getting, problematic, or unacceptable in normal social situations. When do they argue, fight, cheat, steel, undercut, and team up against others? Make a list of the tastiest transgressions, and think about how you, as a producer would get these.
Step 3: Research techniques to cultivate these behaviors
In doing so, think about how you, as a producer, might get this kind of behavior out of participants, hosts, and contestants. In these shows, producers are the definition of “hands-on.” They use leading questions in contestants’ interviews, feed rumors, and push participants into altercations. Producers create highly artificial situations designed to draw out specific behavior, and make sure participants notice when someone else is doing something that is likely to make them jealous, angry, upset, excited—you know, just the kind of emotions that are going to make someone act like a fool on national television. Producers decide the details of competitions—the specific tasks, the timing, the location, who is involved, “surprise” elements, and what contestants may eat or drink while on set, and where they live when they’re not on camera.
Keep this level of control in mind as you research scientifically-supported techniques to produce bad behavior. Use the research skills you have developed this semester to find at least:
2 sources from this class (videos, podcasts, textbook passages, etc.)
2 popular (non-peer-reviewed) sources
that will help you develop a plan to get the most problematic behavior out of your participants. According to psychologists, for example, what kinds of situational elements are likely to produce aggression and competition? What situational elements will prevent participants from acting altruistically or cooperating (at least in a constructive way)?
Step 4: Construct a plan to produce a riveting hour of television
Once your research is finished, complete this assignment by writing up your plan to manipulate contestants’ behavior in the interests of capturing the biggest audience possible. Specifically, you will want to make sure that your submission includes information on:
Long-term situational factors. What about the show you selected is likely to affect participants over the course of many weeks? Is there something, for example, that is integral to the structure of the show that drives people to behaving badly?
Short-term situational modifications. As a producer, what could you do in specific situations to encourage problematic actions? How could you change specific settings, arrangements, or contests?
Interventions that target specific individuals. Is there a certain kind of person who is likely to fall prey to your interventions? How might you manipulate them into acting particularly badly?
Group-focused manipulations. What can you do that will shape the behavior of the whole group? You might target specific troublemakers, but can you make changes to settings, timing, or other situational factors that are likely to affect the behavior of the whole group?
Follow the guidelines below in writing up your plan and submit it to Canvas before the deadline to receive credit for this assignment.
Assignment guidelines
Turn in your assignment. Submit your completed response for this assignment to Canvas before the posted deadline.
Be sure to follow the instructions. Make sure your response includes all the required information above.
Make sure it is long enough to be thorough. Your response should be at least 1000 words (4 pages, double spaced), in a reasonably sized (11pt or 12pt) sans-serif font (e.g. Arial, Helvetica, Open Sans)
Identify your sources. Be sure to reference your sources in your essay whenever you use information from them. You do not need to use a specific formatting style (APA, MLA, etc.) but make it clear where the information comes from and when it was either created or collected. You may use footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical citations, but I want to know where your information comes from. If you do not reference the great research you found, I will have no way to tell that you used it!
Example: Not surprisingly, contestants on these shows respond particularly poorly to perceived slights. Even when the offender is a person with whom they have never interacted, and who will likely never see them again, participants demonstrate a well-known, deep-seated, biological need to belong and maintain social status within their (Baumeister and Leary, 1962).
Include a list of sources. In addition to referencing your sources in the text of your paper, please also include (on a separate page, after the last page of your paper) a list of your sources. Again, you do not need to use a specific formatting guideline (APA, MLA, etc.) but be consistent and make sure I have critical information on each source—title, author, source, date of publication.
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