2a) Social Psychology Flashcards
5a - Social Psychology
Key concepts
- Conformity and influencing factors
- Obedience and influencing factors
- Social loafing and influencing factors
- Group decision making esp: “Group think”, definition and influencing factors
- The bystander effect and how to overcome it
- Leadership styles (know the three types and advantages/disadvantages)
- Key studies:
Asch (1956) Conformity
Milgram (1974) Obedience
Darley & Latane (1968) Bystander effect
Define Attitude
• Attitude: a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a stimulus, such as a person, action, object, or concept
define framing
whether a message emphasises the benefits or losses of that behaviour
Define Social Loafing (diffusion of responsibility)
tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working in a group than when working alone
Social loafing influencing factors
increased social loafing when:
- person believes that individual performance is not being monitored
- The task (goal) or the group has less value or meaning to the person
- The person generally displays low motivation to strive for success
- The person expects that other group members will display high effort
Depends on gender and culture
• Occurs more strongly in all-male groups
• Occurs more often in individualistic cultures
Social loafing may disappear when:
• Individual performance is monitored
• Members highly value their group or the task goal
how might you reduce might social loafing?
Social loafing may disappear when: • Individual performance is monitored • Members highly value their group or the task goal • smaller groups • members are of similar competence
Describe the Asch
- individuals were asked to compare lines
- in a group asked to compare length of line
- actors intentionally chose wrong line
- and individuals were seen to over time follow the rest of the group
- greater inclination to conform
what are factors that affect conformity?
• Group size:
- Conformity increases as group size increases
- No increases over five group members
• Presence of a dissenter:
- One person disagreeing with the others greatly reduces group conformity
• Culture:
- Greater in collectivistic cultures
What is the bystander Apathy effect?
when presence of multiple bystanders inhibits each person’s tendency to help
- correlates with diffusion of responsibility
Describe the Darley + Latane Experiment?
asked to discussion about personal problems
put into different rooms
actor –> acted like they had seizure
if person was told they were alone –> 87% helped
if they were told there were other people in the different rooms –> less % helped
Describe the bystander effect study
- actor pretended like they were hurt / injured
- people passed by
How might you increase helping behavior?
- Reducing restraints on helping:
• Reduce ambiguity and increase responsibility
• Enhance concern for self image
2. Socialise altruism: • Teaching moral inclusion • Modelling helping behaviour • Attributing helpful behaviour to altruistic motives • Education about barriers to helping
Describe the Milgram Experiment?
demonstrates obedience to authority
- individuals were “teachers” and were responsible for assigning punishment in association with memory
- “harmless” shock generator was used to apply punishment
- results showed that shocks grew increasingly intense with each mistake
- also showed that they were more likely to give fatal shocks when there was an authoritative figure with them
What are factors that influence obedience?
- Remoteness of the victim
- Closeness and legitimacy of the authority figure (e.g separate room)
- Diffusion of responsibility: obedience increases when someone else does the dirty work
- Not personal characteristics
Define what is meant by group think
tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they they are striving to seek
agreement
