Psychology of noise upon behaviour
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Describe psychological evidence which demonstrates the negative effects of noise on human behaviour.
A study by Mathews and Canon (1975) showed that noise had a negative effect on helping behaviour. They found that the higher the noise level, the less helping behaviour was evident. The findings of this study support the theory that white noise can act as a 'stressor' and therefore people will be more reluctant to help others if they feel stressed. It has been suggested that this could be related to the theory of diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility means that when individuals know that many others are present, then they themselves do not bear the full burden of responsibility. They make the assumption that someone else must be taking care of that or surely someone must have done something by that particular time.
Psychologists have also suggested that noise can affect how aggressive a person is or acts. A study which investigated this view point is that by Geen and O'Neal (1969). In this study, it was found that the group of participants that had watched an aggressive boxing film and exposed to white noise, were significantly more aggressive than those who had watched a non-aggressive sports film with normal background noise, supporting the theory that noise does have a negative effect upon human behaviour...