Chapter 8 Lecture 1 Flashcards
Festinger suggested that when we are in groups, the emotions and impulses that are normally kept under control are ____. Why?
expressed. This happens because we lose our personal identity = deindividuation.
When a detachment/loss of personal identity happens, we tend to feel:
less repsonsible for our actions, so we are more likely to act out.
Freudian explanation for deindividuation.
We have some very aggressive impulses and tendencies that we suppress constantly. When in a group, they get expressed because we may not be singled out.
Research has shown that just because people are in a group, it doesn’t mean that people will lash out with more aggression all the time.
Festinger suggests that being in a group does lead to more aggression and impulsive behaviour if these three conditions are met:
1) anonymitiy
2) arousal
3) altered responsibility ( feeling less responsible for own behaviour)
describe Diener’s study about anonymity and how if you feel anonymous, you’re more likely to engage in impulsive behaviour
NATURALISTIC Halloween study:
independent variables: in a group or not, are they anonymous or not
dependent variable:
with an experimenter, the children were told they could have only one candy. The children were TOLD that they checked who didn’t obey.
- dependent variable was candy theft/ taking more candy than supposed to.
- highest rate of candy theft was seen when kids in groups and costume has made them anonymous.
explain the Fraser (1974) halloween party for children study about anonymity
- choices of games to play; aggressive or non-aggressive games
- able to win tokens from playing games to cash in for prizes
- if you chose an aggressive game you would win fewer tokens
phase 1: play game with regular clothes
phase 2: play game in costume that concealed identity
control: also play game with regular clothes
results: in phase 2, there was a spoken choose aggressive games. In phase 3/control, the choice of aggressive games drops back down.
- interesting to see the sam children change their behaviour in a short period of time; costly to choose aggressive games (get less tokens), but the children still choose to do it.
Explain the Zimbardo experiment about anonymity and big city living
- thought that when we live in big cities, people feel more anonymous, which would explain higher crime rates in urban centres.
- he bought two cars and parked one in the bronx, NYC, and the other car was parked in Palo Alto CA
- in both places, they raised the hood of car, removed license plate, so car would look abandoned.
- observers were hidden, recorded any acts of vanalism
- In NYC, observers witnessed vandalism (stripping parts) within 10 minutes. In less than three days, car was completely wrecked. 23 incidents of vandalism
- in california, nothing happened to the car. One rainy day, another car pulled up to the abandoned car to lower the hood.
explain the study done by Rogers and Kitchen on arousal in a group. What kind of design was it?
- they had participants dance and chant to loud rhythmic music to create arousal
- within each control and experimental group, half of the participants were given a garment to make them anonymous, half were not.
2 BY 2 DESIGN:
- EITHER AROUSED OR NOT
- ANONYMOUS OR NOT
- later, in an “unrelated” experiment, participants were given an opportunity to shock another participant ( MEASURE OF AGGRESSION)
RESULTS:
combination of AROUSAL and anonymity resulted in participants giving the highest amount of chock.
According to Denier 1976, what made people ore aggressive?
he found that when people are aroused, they are:
1) less self conscious or aware
2) unable to recall behaviour as accurately (memory distortion)
3) less concerned about social evaluation.
4) aggression increased if they feel anonymous
How was altered responsibility tested?
tested by either setting up a situation of diffusion of responsibility (WHOLE GROUP IS RESPONSIBLE INSTEAD OF JUST ONE), or an authority figure accepts responsibility
Explain Denier’s (1975) experiment on altered responsibility with role-playing task. What are the two conditions?
- measured altered responsibility in male participants in the lab.
- told them they would be engaging in a role playing game where they will be engaging in a fast physical activity
- then they brought them into a lab where there is a male confederate sitting on the flood of the lab with a bunch of random stuff like plastic guns, ping pong balls, elastic bands etc.
- the other half of the participants are told that Your tasks is to be aggressive towards an innocent person who has done nothing to you
Responsible condition: participants told that even though it’s an experiment, they are responsible for their own actions
altered responsibility condition: told that “because they are in an experiment, the experimenter is responsible for whatever happens”
- hypothesis: participants wouldn’t feel comfortable behaving aggressive towards an innocent person, but if it was justified as just a game, there would be higher levels of aggression
- when they told (BOTH SETS OF PTS) participants it was just a game, those participants who’d a very high level of aggression towards the confederate.
- PARTICIPANTS WERE ALMOST 2X AS AGGRESSIVE WHEN THEY WERE TOLD IT WAS THE EXPERIMENTER’S RSEPONSIBILITY FOR WHATEVER HAPPENED.
Define the (outdated) risky shift phenomenon and causes
- risky shift: when people are in a group, they tend to make riskier decisions that as an individual.
causes: 1) diffusion of responsibility
2) arousal: there s a level of arousal that we feel with other people when we have a group discussion.
risky shift is not completely true. Groups don’t just cause recklessness, they just exacerbate the direction (risky or cautious) that individuals of the group already house.
Group polarization
the exacerbation/accentuation of already-present attitudes when people are placed in a group.
Explain the group polarization study by Moscovici and Zavalloni about premier attitudes
- asked students to discuss their attitudes towards their premier (good attitude at the time), or to discuss their attitudes about Americans (generally negative)
- the premier group felt even MORE positive about their premier after the discussion compared to original ranking
- American group felt even more NEGATIVE attitudes about americans after discussion
- displays an ATTITUDE SHIFT TOT HE EXTREMEM AFTER DISCUSSION.
Explain the group polarization study by Bishiop and Meyers (1970) about prejudice
- gathered students personal opinion on property rights on minorityy groups
- identified some students who were prejudice towards african americans or not
- had them engage in discussions (all prejudice or all non prejudice)
- after group discussion, the prejudice group discussed even more prejudice, and the non prejudice students were even less prejudice.
