ch 12 Flashcards
Zajonc’s theory of mere presence
1)the presence of others makes us more aroused(ooolalalala)
2)arousal tends to make us more narrow and rigidly focused, we are more liely to make a dominant response
3)the increase in dominant response tendencies facilitates performance on simples tasks and inhibits performance on difficult tasks
Easy task
Presence of others->facilitating dominant response->correct response,improve performance
Difficult task
presence of others->dominant response not likely to be correct->hinder performance
cockroach experiment
Results: the presence of another cockroach facilitated performance on simple maze (dominant responses) but hindered performance on complex maze
When most people reflect on why they would be aroused in the presence of others, it’s not just their presence that seems decisive, instead its evaluation apprehension
concern about looking bad in the eyes of others, about being evaluated, that seems important
mere presence or evaluation experiemnt
Gave participants a list of 10 nonsense words and had them pronounce two of ten words once, two words twice, two words 5 times, ..etc with the more practiced words being the dominant response
Results:participants performing in front of an evaluative audience made more dominant responses than those performing alone did, but those performing in front of blindfolded audience did not
Demonstrates that its not the concern of mere presence but source of evaluation
Carried out a study showing that the mere presence of another person in the absence of any concern about that person being evaluative is enough to create arousal facilitating performance on easy task
While there they had to dress for the experiment, which required them to take off their own shoes and put on lab socks, lab shoes, lab coat
Conclusion: even though participants did not think they were performing, results prove Zajonc’s theory right, participants took off and put on their own shoes more quickly and the labs items more slow when in presence of another person even when other person had his back turned
Effects were stronger for attentive audience than mere presence suggesting evaluation apprehension can add to a person’s arousal and intensify the effect of mere presence results
self-censorship(groupthink)
he decision to withhold infro or opinions
Ideas for improving groupthink
Group leaders refrain from making opinions known at beginning
Avoid tunnel vision and illusion of consensus by making sure group isnt cut off from outside input
People who aren’t in early stage of discussion can provide fresh perspective
Designate a devil’s advocate- one person who brings up weaknesses
Group polarization:
group decisions tend to be more extreme than those made by individuals
French students expressed their opinion on president Charles de Gaulle and about americans, first individually then again after discussed in groups
Results: initially pos sentiments on president charles became even more pos, and their initially neg towards americans became more neg
Tendency to compare ourselves to others encourages group polarization
People tend to think that they are farther out on the correct side of the opinion distribution on most issues (ie: people think they are more generous than the average person)
What happens when all group members are inclined to make the same choice (risky choice) and are also inclined to think of themselves as more likely than average to take risks
Many people will find that their tolerance for risk is closer to average than they thought
This leads to some individuals to attempt to show that they are in fact more risk tolerant than avg.
The group as a whole then becomes a bit riskier on those issues for when a risky approach is warranted
effects of power
People who feel power over their lives feel happier, greater agency, experience less stress, and enjoy more physical health
2 pathways to gaining power within groups:
1)virtue:doing things that are good for the group
2)vice:actions that give us power using dominance such as fraud,manipulation
