Law Legalese and Psychos…

Like we have discussed, in Civil Law the goal is not necessarily to take disputes to trials, as they are lengthy and expensive. The goal, rather, is to be able to come to a mutual agreement outside of courts, when possible. One of the avenues to do this is through mediators, which is what is happening in the dispute between Air Canada and its union workers over Pension Fund shortfalls. This would likely fall under Contract Law in the whole civil law family.

The Federal Court of Canada (the part of the Canadian court system that has jurisdiction over complaints and issues against any government agency) ruled a month or so ago that the Federal government, by not allowing a man currently living in Sudan to return to Canada, was violating his Charter rights to mobility under Section 6. Harper’s reasons for disallowing the man’s return is that he is on a “terrorist watch list” with the United Nations and Harper’s clinging to a rule that known terrorists are not allowed on international flights. The United Nations responded, though, after the ruling to say specifically that Harper is misreading and misrepresenting the purpose of that rule.

The Harper government announced in to the media that they were going to appeal the Federal Court’s ruling, just the same as they announced after the same Federal Court ruled that Harper’s government was also violating the Canadian Charter rights of Khadr, the young man who has been held in Guantamo Bay’s military base for years. Harper seems to think that he can just hold off on complying with the rulings by going through these appeals. It is his right to do so, but after a pattern starts to develop, do you think he’s sort of just stalling and ignoring the court rulings?

The Federal Court, now, has ordered Harper’s government to comply with their ruling within 30 days.

What type of consequence do you think the Federal Court of Canada can impose against the Federal Government for failing to comply with their orders? There has to be a time limit, I would think, before they would be in contempt of court. It’s interesting!!

Here is a link to the Federal Court Ruling on the case.

This experiment explores common situations to test to see what variables are more likely to elicit a protective response from strangers. A normal-looking woman leaves her belongings unattended at the beach and a man (part of the experiment) comes by and steals her Ipod and speakers. No one really helps, though they notice, but if the normal-looking woman makes small talk with people nearby, they are much more likely to respond to the thief.
Switch the normal-looking woman for someone much more attractive and things change. She doesn’t have to even make small talk – people step in to react when the thief steals her things but the difference is they all noticed her more… because we notice beautiful people, we’re more aware of them when they’re near us. Take that same beautiful woman, though, and tell her to come on to another woman’s husband a bit… she’s suddenly not someone to just observe, she becomes a threat and is treated quite differently.

We’ve been talking about Attribution theory, how we categorize people and assume qualities they have based on how they fit into our schemas, or prior categories of knowledge. Beautiful people are considered differently – we assume if they are beautiful then they are also all the other positive qualities: moral, intelligent, honest, caring, good, etc.

We have just finished our own social experiment testing male photos and female photos and asked our volunteers (both male and female) to rate them in order from the ones they beleived would be most friendly to least. We were somewhat surprised that both men and women rated the male photographs in a similar manner (results were very much the same) but the order men rated the women was quite different (surprisingly so for a few photos) than the way women ordered them. Men and woman obviously categorize people visually by different criteria. The most attractive looking women were rated as very friendly by men but rated in the middle by women. Very attractive women seem to be read as a threat by other women, as is the example in one scenario of this video. Maybe is there an example here of an Attribution theory error – the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy… where the woman treated the beautiful woman (in the experiment) based on her initial impression of her and  then looked for behaviour from the woman to confirm that initial impression.

What do you think now that we’ve found some evidence that men and women categorize others differently?

When a pharmacist refuses to fill a young girl’s prescription for contraceptives, the others in the waiting room react. The conflict for them is whether he has the right to refuse her based on his morals?

From a social psychology point of view, this video is a good exploration of Attitudes, how they are formed and what function they serve the people in this experiment.

Our attitudes are part of our Emotional Aspect of Being, are patterns of beliefs and values and shape our future actions. There are three types of Attitudes (A, B, C: Affectively based (emotional), Behaviourally based (observing behaviours of others) and Cognitively based (reacting with our rational thoughts over our emotions).

We’ve learned, also, that Attitudes are very much linked to Motivation – they help us gain approval or acceptance of others, help us make sense of our surroundings, protect ourselves from uncomfortable truths around us, and help us demonstrate our own unique ideas and values.

In this video, it is interesting that some feel more comfortable expressing showing their attitude, either directly to the young girl(s) or to the pharmacist himself. Others only share an attitude after the confrontation has passed.

For this particular situation, with the young girls (actresses) being only 16, there is also a conflict for people in their values – they may believe a woman has the right to take care of herself and the pharmacist has no right to refuse her that, but they may also disagree with the idea of a young girl having premarital sex … so there is a conflict between their values. Our Congitive Dissonance man would say the pharmacist is doing the wrong thing but for the right reason.

When a woman shows up for a blind date from an online dating site but looks nothing like her photo.

We’ve discussed one of the errors in the Attribution Theory – the idea of Primacy Effect. Once we have already established an impression of someone, even when confronted with opposing information we are slow to change our impression. These people, having exchanged emails and photos, would have established an impression of what each other were like. Even when confronted with a completely different person, some of them are uncertain and just continue on, or they are confused at the very least.

Is this a benefit with online dating – that impressions formed by attractiveness only counts for so much but the interaction through emails etc draws the majority of interest from their personality instead? Maybe this is a way to get away from those impressions formed initially by looks, since we in generally are so apt to do that.

This experiment turns into a pretty emotional one. While some people are unaffected by the discrimination they observe, others are completely offended on behalf of the victim. One man who objects to her treatment can relate because of his own experiences, but other people (two different white women) seem completely offended by the idea that anyone would be treated in such a way.

Consider (though we haven’t talked about this year) what is it about some people that makes them step forward on behalf of a stranger? Some people are content to witness something in their surroundings but are somewhat unaffected by it, while others are compelled to act. What is the motivating factor? Could it have anything to do with each person’s place in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, maybe? The stronger ones who are higher in the chart, closer to self-actualization, may feel more comfortable stepping forward while others, less secure in themselves and their level of needs, stand back? If the basis for Maslow’s needs is that people act to remove deficiencies or continually move up in the levels, what’s the motivating factor when the person themselves are not in danger? Ie: If you want to move to step three (social needs) and therefore have attained safety / security, would you feel threatened personally if someone near you were in (a type of ) danger like this woman?  Or maybe they’re at the fourth level (esteem needs) and taking responsibility of their surroundings.

You may notice, as well, the three things necessary in Motivation: 1) Arousal (something triggers your attention), 2) Direction (a goal-oriented movement to act) and 3) Persistence (affecting the intensity and duraction of your action).

Maybe some people are just especially emotional – is it by their hormones (biological), their mental and emotional empathy for others(Cognitive), or maybe they are just weaker and more insecure than others and threatened by things they see (again… cognitive). What do you think?

You could also reflect on the facial expressions, as seen on the woman’s face before the video plays. She’s very effectively communicating her response.

I’ve added several videos to YouTube from the What Would You Do tv show on Dateline ABC. With each video, I’ve written a bit of an analysis describing what aspect of our social psychology class the videos may relate to and sharing some of the questions the videos elicit but leave unanswered.

Observing the behaviour of people who pass by a vehicle with a baby locked in the car. (Staged)

This would connect with both the Physical Aspect of Being and the Emotional. We know that, in several ways, the body and mind works to maintain the status quo or balance(homeoestasis) so it is interesting to see people who seeminly are uninvolved or unaffected by this situation get involved and become a part of the situation. What Motivates them? Their intrinsic cognitive motivation where they do it for their own purposes (intrinsic) and mentally recognize a threat (to someone else in this case) but they cognitively try to eliminate the threat or risk to the infant. Maybe, by recognizing a threat to another human being, especially one who cannot protect themselves, they themselves feel threatened and feel compelled, by instinct? to act? Who knows…

We’ve also learned that emotions are different from feelings. While emotions are more intense and momentary, feelings are longer-lasting and more general. The reactions these “advocates” have are straight emotional ones – intense states. Does it seem like the man was able to calm down more quickly than the woman, after they were debriefed? We learned that the male parasympathetic nervous system responds more quickly than a womans – that fight / flight system kicks in but can calm a man down more quickly.

So much to consider… now that we’ve been studying this course!!

Question: How do you think the actress playing the reckless mother felt during each scenario when she was confronted by such passionately angry people?? Would her fight/flight reflex kick in… and would you expect her experience to be as emotional as the people who confronted her?

ALSO! Consider as well the difference between people who act on their own and the people who were acting as a group! We’ve discussed the fact that people respond differently when they are on their own – they assume it’s not their problem and that someone else will deal with it – but in a group you gain motivation because you have that reassurance that others support your belief. It’s pretty cool to see three ordinary strangers work together to protect a child they feel is in danger!

We haven’t covered Civil Law yet, but when we do I’d like to refer to this article as a reference point. The family is claiming the Hospital failed to meet a reasonable expectation of standard care resulting in the death of their family member. Maybe by the time we have discussed civil law something new will have been reported regarding the trial.

Everyone in Canada heard about and was shocked at the death of another individual as a result of being tasered by police officers. He was a Ukranian man who was just moving to join his mother, however he did not know English, had been detained for unknown reasons at the international airport for several hours, and was aggitated as a result. Police officers were called by airport security to deal with the situation and, upon arriving, proceded to taser him at least two times. It was not long after, though, that he was pronounced dead because of heart complications.

Watch someone’s personal video of the event.

After this incident, it only added more fuel to fire concerns that the RCMP were overusing their tasers or using them improperly. Whether or not the tasers are safe was being questioned as well as the policy within the RCMP of their use in the first place.

With this recent news though, it has been made clear that the initial information that was given to the media regarding the circumstances of Mr. Dziekanski’s death was quite inaccurate. Instead of clarifying those errors upon discovering them, though, he was told to keep it quiet and that it would eventually be made known but at a later time.

In the first two days after Dziekanski died, the RCMP’s public statements on the incident contained false information about how many officers were involved, how many times Dziekanski was stunned and what state Dziekanski was in (initial reports described him as violent with police when, in fact, he had been calm).

Police originally said they only discharged their Taser twice whereas it was subsequently revealed they had fired it five times. The RCMP also repeatedly said three Mounties were involved in the incident while a video taken by a civilian on the scene that emerged afterward showed four men in RCMP uniforms.

The RCMP also said they didn’t use pepper spray on Dziekanski because of the large number of people at the airport at the time. But the video shows Dziekanski standing alone with the four officers in an otherwise empty area, which is separated from the airport’s public area by a thick glass wall.

Carr testified Wednesday he went to Supt. Wayne Rideout, the head of the homicide investigation team, seeking to correct the record.

“My direction was to hold on: ‘We will not talk about evidence. Everything will be corrected eventually. It’s just not going to be right now’,” Carr testified.

 

This is just a thought, but if someone were investigating a murder and gave false information, albeit unknowingly, but then maintained that falsehood, wouldn’t that look quite suspicious? Watch the video below and learn more about their reasons for deciding not to correct the inaccurate initial details they gave, which includes the reality that he was tasered five times, not two.

Download (This will open in a web browser.)

There is a great site that shows the details for the 18 people who have died as a result of taser use in Canada. From looking at it, the majority of them were found to be high on cocaine, when they were tasered, which was the cause of death rather than the taser.

This article, also has a lot of related information. This man claims he was tasered up to forteen times by RCMP officers while he was being held. The article cites several Charter rights the man feels were violated as a result of the alleged actions by the officers. (On a side note, though, my brother had just transfered from that detachment and I’ve met some of those officers there. I was actually in one of those cells and had my picture taken by my brother with a criminal ID plate in front of me. I agree this man has the right to a trial for what he alleges happened, but I find it unlikely there’s any basis for it.)

Topics related to our course:

1. Reasonable use of force – we are protected from an unreasonable use of force by the Charter. We are also still considered innocent until proven guilty so the use of these tasers should be with extreme caution and provocation towards the officers on the part of the suspect.
2. Accountability – that no one is above the law, including law enforcement officers and the organization they work for.
3. Federal responsibility to ensure the protection of citizens – which may mean the inquiries made into the process of taser use by officers and what their restrictions should be.
4. Charter right – even though Dzeikanski was not a Canadian citizen, he was still protected by the same rights and freedoms as we enjoy.