Lecture 6- Social Influence Flashcards
What is social facilitation?
social facilitation is how the physical presence of others influences our behaviour
What did Schmitt (1986) find out about how our performances when made to complete a simple task in front of others?
Schmitt found that people completing simple tasks in front of people their task ability improved
What did Schmitt (1986) find out about how our performances when made to complete a complex task in front of others?
Schmitt found that people completing complex tasks in front of people their task ability decreased
What happens to our performance if our dominant response is appropriate?
our performance is enhanced
What happens to our performance if our dominant response is inappropriate?
our performance is impaired
When investigating pool players, what did Michael et al (1982) find about the accuracy of good players in the presence of others?
in the presence of others, good pool players increased their accuracy from 71% to 80%
When investigating pool players, what did Michael et al (1982) find about the accuracy of bad players in the presence of others?
the accuracy of bad players decreased from 35% to 25%
What is the diffusion of responsibility?
this is the idea that as a group size increases, individual responsibility decreases
What did Latane and Darley find out about the diffusion of responsibility in the context of a waiting room?
while in a waiting room, participants noticed that smoke was entering the room out of the vents, if participants were alone, 75% of participants reacted, while participants who were surrounded by unbothered actors, less than 1% reacted to the smoke
What is deindividuation?
people in crowds tend to lose their self identification, and tend to do things that they do not usually do
What did Zimbardo (1970) find about deindividuation?
In Zimbardo’s 1970 prison experiment, he found that anonymity leads to aggression
What did Beaman et al (1979) find out about self-awareness, using a mirror on halloween?
he found that 34% of kids took extra lollies, but when a mirror was placed behind the bowl, only 12% of kids took the extra lollies
What is conformity?
conformity is when people’s attitudes change around others to fit the social norm of the context
What did Solomon Asch do to explain and show conformity?
had participants join a group of people and they had to guess what line from an image was the longer, the answer was very obvious, but when the other ‘participants’ choose other lines, the participants tended to change their answers to fit and agree with the rest of the group
