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
When is group think most likely to occur?
- Is under high stress to reach a decision
- Is insulated from outside input
- Has a directive leader
- Has high cohesiveness
What are the 3 leadership types
Autocratic
Participative / Democrative
Laissez-faire
What are advantages of an autocratic leadership style?
Enables quick decision making
Clear hierarchy of responsibility
What are advantages of an Democratic leadership style?
Can win cooperation and motivate team
Can improve quality of decision making
What are advantages of a Laissez Faire leadership style?
Allows autonomous working
Allows expertise to be utilised
What are disadvantages of an autocratic leadership style?
- Can be demotivating
- Can lead to errors
What are disadvantages of an democratic leadership style?
- Time consuming
- Can lead to disagreements
What are disadvantages of a Laissez Faire leadership style?
- Can lead to lack of direction
- Lack of ultimate responsibility holder
how do you resolve dissonance ?
- change behavior (e.g give up smoking)
- acquire new information ( e.g someone else smoked and live till 90)
- reduce importance of cognitions
messages (when changing attitudes) are more effective if:
- reaches recipient
- is attention grabbing
- easily understood
- relevant + important
- easily remembered
- note - too much fear –> avoidance
messages (when changing attitudes) are more persuasive if told by:
- credible individuals
- trustworthy individuals
- attractive individuals
when would you use gain frame OR loss frame messages in health care setting?
promoting prevention
–> gain frame
detecting health promotions
–> loss frame
define stereotype
Stereotype – Generalisations made about a group of people or members of that group, such as race, ethnicity, or gender. Or more specific such as different medical specialisations (e.g. surgeons)
Define prejudice
Prejudice – To judge, often negatively, without having relevant facts, usually about a group or its individual members
Define discrimination
Discrimination – Behaviours that follow from negative evaluations or attitudes towards members of particular groups
what are the 5 process of a bystander decision?
- Notice the event
2.Decide if the event is really an emergency
Social comparison: look to see how others are responding
- Assuming responsibility to intervene
Diffusion of Responsibility: believing that someone else will help - Self-efficacy in dealing with the situation
- Decision to help (based on cost-benefit analysis e.g. danger)
define group polarization
Group polarization - the tendency of people to make decisions that are more extreme when they are in a group as opposed to a decision made alone or independently
