chapter 13: social psychology 2 Flashcards
social pressure
a set of psychological forces that are exerted on us by others’ judgements, examples, expectations, and demands
who influences us the most
people who’re physically or psychologically closest to us
how does social pressure arise
from the ways we interpret and respond emotionally to the social situations around us
is social pressure useful
it can be, promotes our social acceptability and helps create order and predictability in social interactions, but can also lead us to behave in ways that are foolish or morally repugnant
social facilitation
being observed improves performance
social interference/inhibition
an audience hinders performance
who studies social facilitation
zajonc
what did zajonc say about social facilitation
the presence of others facilitates performance of dominant actions and interferes with performance of non dominant actions
dominant actions
actions that are so simple, species-typical, or well learned that they can be produced automatically, with little conscious thought
non dominant actions
actions that require considerable conscious thought or attention
how does social facilitation/interference work
presence of an audience increases a person’s level of drive or arousal - tightened drive increases the person’s effort, but also interferes with controlled, calm, conscious thought and attention and worsens the performance of non dominant actions
what findings supported zajonc’s theory
the presence of observers does increase drive and arousal (self-reports and physiological indices - increased heart rate and muscle tension)
can facilitation and interference occur on the same task and what does that depend on + example
yes, depends on the performers’ skill
ex1: expert pool players performed better when watched by a group of 4
ex2: college students asked to explain something that they just learned, interference when they had been given negative feedback just before and decreased when given positive feedback
choking under pressure
the highly aroused mental state produced by any strong form of pressure to perform well can cause performance to worsen
working memory
control conscious attention and holds those items of information that are needed to solve a problem
when is chocking under pressure especially likely
with tasks that make strong demands on working memory
why does anxiety affect nondominant actions
they put heavy demands on working memory, anxiety creates distracting thoughts (about being evaluated, the difficulty of the task, about the consequences of failing) - usurp much of the limited capacity of working memory, interfere with concentration
students and math problems experiment
some told that they’re part of the team that will fail if they don’t do the task well - they performed much worse on unpracticed difficult problems, but not on the easy or practiced problems which were less taxing on the working memory
who described stereotype threat
Claude steele
stereotype threat
threat that test-takers experience when they’re reminded of the stereotypical belief that the group to which they belong to isn’t expect to do well on the test
stereotype threat examples
African Americans and IQ tests, older adults on working-memory tests, women on math tests, christians on science tests
when is stereotype threat first noticed
in elementary and middle school children, even in girls as young as 5
do white males also show stereotype threat
yes, for math, with the stereotype that white people have less math ability
what is stereotype threat an example of
self-fulfilling prophecy
how does stereotype threat work
it produces anxiety and mental distraction, undermines confidence while increasing motivation
how to overcome stereotype threat
being aware of it - leads test-takers to attribute their anxiety to stereotype threat rather than to the difficulty of the problems or to some inadequacy in themselves
or self-affirming thoughts before the test (listing your own strengths and values) - boosting confidence/reducing the importance attributed to the test
impression management
the entire set of ways by which people consciously or unconsciously modify their behavior to influence others’ impressions of them
goffman
an approach to thinking about human behavior based on Shakespeare’s metaphor: all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are just players
goffman’s book
“the presentation of self in everyday life” - people are actors playing at different times on different stages to different audiences - not aware they’re performing
alternative to the stage metaphor
there need not be a division in our minds between the images we try to project and our sincere beliefs about ourselves - at any moment we may simply be trying to exhibit our best self, or those aspect that seem more appropriate
intuitive politicians
perform in front of others not just to tell a good story or portray a character at a given moment, but also to achieve real-life ends over the long term that may be selfish or noble
how do others influence our behavior
not just through their roles as observers and evaluators but also through the examples they set
normative influence
social influence that works through the person’s desire to be part of a group or to be approved by other
informational influence
social influence that works through providing clues about the objective nature of an event
what’s the advantage of social life
sharing information, we don’t have to learn everything from scratch, follow the examples of others and profit from trials and errors that they had
how is normative influence useful
promotes group cohesion and acceptance by the group - social groups can exist only if some degree of behavioral coordination exists
types of influence
informative and normative
when is normative influence first noticed and how
in 2- and 3-year-olds - shown a puppet doing something, will correct a person who fails to use the same words and actions when repeating the task
who when lines
Solomon Asch in the 1950s
Asch experiment procedure
college students shown a standard line and 3 comparison, asked to judge which one was identical to the standard - student seated next to last
Asch experiment results
Of more than 100 subjects, 75% were swayed by the confederates on at least one of the 12 trials, most (95%) responded independently at least once + on average, subjects conformed on 37% of the trials (on more than 1/3 of the trials on which the confederates gave a wrong answer, the subject also gave a wrong answer, usually the same one)
how are the results of replications of Asch experiment
replicated in 17 countries, decline in conformity in North America after the 1950s, some variation in different cultures, but still
conformity moral dilemma
present subjects with hypothetical moral dilemmas some of which people think are permissible and others which most people think are impermissible – subjects who rated the dilemmas in the presence of confederates who rated the impermissible dilemmas as permissible were more likely to also rate them the same way
what experiment did Cialdini do
the public signs one
public signs experiment + why
many past visitors removed wood (7.9%) vs please don’t (1.67%), baseline was 3%
by saying people have done it - social norm
