Social Effect On Behavior Flashcards
A term that refers to alertness and readiness to respond
Psychological arousal
The idea that w perform tasks better in group settings where psychological arousal is higher is known as
Social facilitation
In simple and familiar tasks what is the shape of the psychological arousal and performance graph?
Linear. As psychological arousal increases so does performance
Ex. Bike riding- social facilitation example too
For a complex task, what is the shape of the psychological arousal and performance graph
Upside down U shape or bell curve. The best performance is in moderate arousal
What is the upside-down U shaped curve of psychological arousal and performance graph during complex tasks called?
Yerkes-Dodson law
The idea that you can work less hard, or be less productive, in a group setting because other people will up the slack
Social loafing
- does not have to be a conscious act (for ex. Clapping less hard when there are more people)
- applicable as long as there’s some measurable output
Refers to people’s tendency not to offer help to someone in distress if other people, or bystanders are present.
Bystander effect
Reasons for bystander effect
- Diffusion of responsibility
- We model our behavior on that of other people around us
- Social etiquette- it might be considered impolite to pay too much attention to strangers in a public space
the bystander effect was spurred by the murder of?
Kitty Genovese
Describes how people tend to lose their sense of self-awareness in a large setting, due to a high degree of psychological arousal and low degree of perceived responsibility
Deindividuation
3 main factors that contribute to deindividuation
- Anonymity
- Diffused responsibility
- Group size- increases the effects of both anonymity and diffused responsibility
Refers to the tendency of a group to make decisions or arrive at final opinions that are more extreme than the initial positions of the individual members of the group. Initial opinions get amplified over the course of a discussion
Group polarization
Two factors that contribute to group polarization
Informational and normative influence
Refers to the idea that in a group discussion, people are more likely to express points of view in line with the dominant viewpoint, and the disproportionate attention paid to such information reinforces individuals’ pre-existing viewpoints
Informational influence
Refers to our desire to be socially accepted, affirmed, or admired within a group. This is more easily accomplished by agreeing with people than by disagreeing with people.
Normative influence
Irrational decisions are made within a group due to pressures toward harmony and individual conformity
Groupthink
8 factors that are characteristic of groupthink
- Collective rationalization
- Excessive stereotyping
- Illusion of invulnerability
- Illusion of morality
- Illusion of unanimity
- Mindguards
- Pressure of dissenters
- Self-censorship
Refers to the belief that no serious harm will happen to the group. This unjustified optimism can result to excessive risk-taking
Illusion of invulnerability
Refers to a rigid, unbending belief in the moral righteousness of the group’s cause, which helps blind group members to objections and leads them to overlook possible consequences of type or action
Illusion of immorality
Refers to the assumption that the majority opinions in the group are unanimous
Illusion of unanimity
This buffers illusion of unanimity because members who do disagree don’t share their opinion
Self-censorship
Members feel pressure not to express opinions contrary to the majority group
Pressure on dissenters
Refers to the tendency for group members to find reasons to ignore warnings and to avoids reconsidering their actions or assumptions
Collective rationalization
Negative views about outside opinions or viewpoints lead group members not to take other perspectives seriously
Excessive stereotyping
Refers to a phenomenon where certain members of the group filter out information that could destabilize teh group’s consensus
Mindguards
Describes situations where someone’s behavior, beliefs, or thinking changes to line up with the perspectives of others or with social norms in the community
Conformity
The term for when someone’s beliefs or behaviors just happen to line up with those of the group
Convergence
This emphasizes that convergence refers to pre-existing overlap
Congruence
A subtype of conformity which corresponds to a genuine change in someone’s beliefs
Internalization or conversion
A subset of conformity in which someone just goes along with the group but internally dissents
Compliance
Middle ground between internalization and compliance, where someone’s behavior and beliefs change, but only kind of, and only in the presence of the group
Identification
T or F. Conformity can be internalized norms that we conform to even when NO ONE ELSE is present
True
Matching line experiment in which a group of confederate and one subject is presented a test. The subjects are more likely to state the the incorrect answer because to conform
Solomon Asch experiment
Refers to responses to request form someone who has no power to directly enforce that request
Compliance
*differentiate from compliance as the subtype of conformity
Involves offering something at a lower price only to raise it at the last minute, once the customer is invested in the purchase
Low-ball technique
Refers to a change in behavior in response to a direct request from someone who has power to enforce that request
Obedience
Stanley Milgram experiment
Electric shocks
Philip Zimbardo’ Stanford Prison Experiment
You know this!
Refers to the myriad of ways in which those norms are taught, enforced, and perpetuated
Social control
Occurs when someone doesn’t follow a norm
Deviance
This type of norm must be encoded somewhere, usually in a law or a regulation. Have specific penalties for violating them
Formal norms
Ex. Law, employee handbooks, charter of an organization
This type of norms are just expectations and have no fixed penalties for violating them
Informal norms
Refers to relatively insignificant informal norms that typically involve small details of everyday behavior
Ex. Fashion trends
Folkways
Important informal norms that can you can get some serious disapproval for violating
Mores
Ex. Cheating on a partner or being jerk to people who work retail
Refer to the most restrictive norms, or things that you just don’t do. This blur the line between formal and informal norms; some taboos are forbidden by law and others are not
Taboos
Ex. Incest and cannibalism
Refers both to any punishment or negative consequence for violating a social norm and to any reward for following those norms. This is closely linked to social control. These are specific ways that social control manifests
Sanctions
Refers to how the desire of approval from our peers- or the fear of disapproval from them- can be a particularly powerful motivator. This is another mechanism of social control
Peer pressure
Refers to a situation in which there’s no longer a good match between society’s stated norms and the norms that an individual responds to. . This is often framed as a weakening or withering of social norms, but in any cases such a mismatch results in a breakdown of traditional systems of moral regulation, sometimes accompanied by negative feelings of apathy or despair.
Anomie- coined by Emile Durkheim
This term does not just mean weird behavior; instead, it must be defined relative to a specific social norm that is violated. Although this isn’t necessarily negative, it is the case that theoretical approaches to this have focused on negative, criminal behavior
Deviance
Focuses on deviance as behavior that’s learned socially.
*instead of “people do bad things because they’re awful human beings” this theory says :”maybe people do bad things because they learned to do so in some social setting”
Differential association theory
The differential association theory draws form the _________ ___________ school of sociology in terms of how it sees behaviors as learned phenomena with culturally-determined significance
Symbolic interactionist
Focuses on how people’s behavior is affected by being labeled as deviant. Being labeled as a deviant shapes peoples identity in a way that increases the frequency of deviant behavior
Labeling approach
Refers to deviant acts committed before some receives a label
Primary deviance
Refers to such acts that are committed after someone has been labeled, partially in reaction to that label. These are likely to be treated more harshly by society, and this concept has been found useful in trying to explain the process through which someone becomes a hardened criminal
Secondary deviance
Looks at why people engage in deviant behavior, and in particular focuses on the role of social and economic pressures in pushing people towards criminal behavior
Strain theory
Hypothesizes that people who experience social, economic, or even personal stressors may have negative emotional experiences that push them towards deviance or crime.
General strain theory
Refers to how we learn the whole range of informal and formal norms that govern society by interacting with other people and institutions.
Socialization
Occurs hen a new behavior suddenly becomes extremely popular, and then its popularity fades. One characteristic of this is its tendency not to stand up that well to time
Fads
When the behavior that spreads like wildfire is freaking out about some perceived threat. Key point is that it must be irrational,. Even verging on the point of a collective delusion
Mass hysteria
More temporary than mass hysteria or fads. These can be thought of as spontaneous episodes of civil disorder where people violently lash out against authority in some form or another, although sometime the target is unclear.
Riots- classic example of deindividuation
