Module 41: Social Influence

Question 1

people are most likely to adjust their behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard in the following circumstances:

Answer 1

▪ They feel incompetent or insecure.
▪ Their group has at least three people.
▪ Everyone else agrees.
▪ They admire the group’s status and attractiveness.
▪ They have not already committed to another response.
▪ They know they are being observed.
▪ Their culture encourages respect for social standards.

Question 2

normative social influence:

Answer 2

Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

Question 3

informational social influence:

Answer 3

Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

Question 4

stanley milgram’s experiment

Answer 4

▪ People obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming another person.
▪ Strong social influences can make ordinary people conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior.
▪ In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people’s compliance with lesser evils.

Question 5

milgram experiments findings

Answer 5

▪ Obedience was highest when:
-The person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure.
-The research was supported by a prestigious institution.
-The victim was depersonalized or at a distance.
-There were no role models for defiance.

Question 6

Zimbardo prison experiment

Answer 6

two weeks in prison experiment with some of the students looking prisoners and some of the students would start to say, how they took on those roles and how we influence that environment would affect their behavior

Question 7

social facilitation

Answer 7

The presence of others arouses people, improving performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing performance on difficult tasks.

Question 8

Home-team advantage

Answer 8

▪ When others observe us, we perform well-learned tasks more quickly and accurately.
▪ On new and difficult tasks, performance is slower and less accurate.

Question 9

social loafing

Answer 9

Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

Question 10

causes of social loafing

Answer 10

acting as part of group and feeling less accountable
feeling that individual contribution does not matter
Taking advantage when there is lack of identification with the group

Question 11

deindividualization

Answer 11

A loss of self-awareness and self-restraint that occurs in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity
Thrives in many different settings

Question 12

group polarization

Answer 12

▪ Group discussions with like-minded others strengthen members’ prevailing beliefs and attitudes.
▪ Internet communication magnifies this effect, for better or for worse.

Question 13

groupthink

Answer 13

people are driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making group, with this desire overriding the realistic appraisal of alternatives

Question 14

individual power

Answer 14

the power of the individual and the power of the situation interact
a small minority that consistently expresses its views may sway the majority

Question 15

bystander effect

Answer 15

individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in presence of other people.
diffusion of responsibility