Social Influence Flashcards
What was the results of Triplett’s 1898 study on Audience effects?
More effort when watched e.g cyclist faster with others than alone
What were the results of Triplett’s 1898 study on Audience effects?
More effort when watched e.g cyclist faster with others than alone
Children mixed results
What is social facilitation?
Improved performance in the presence of an audience. Well learned, simple and easy tasks
What is social inhibition?
Deterioration in performance in the presence of other.
Poorly-learned, difficult and complex tasks
What three theories explain social inhibitions and social facilitation?
- Drive/arousal theory - mere presence of people
- Evaluation apprehension theory - evaluation apprehension
- Distraction-conflict theory - attentional conflict
What is the drive arousal theory?
Arousal occurs when a person is exposed to an audience.
e.g Cockroaches study Zajonc et al 1969
HARD MAZE - Ran slower with an audience than without = Social Inhibition
EASY MAZE - Ran faster with an audience = Social Facilitation
What is evaluation apprehension theory?
Having an audience present leads us to be concerned about the evaluation. Others evaluate us therefore arousal occurs
What were the results of the Cottrell et al., study about social facilitation?
No social facilitation in blindfolded/mere presence condition (when compared to controlled/alone)
Social facilitation occurred in the attentive audience condition
Message = Audience need to pay attention for the arousal to occur
What is the distraction-conflict theory?
That attentional conflict/distraction creates the arousal
What is attentional conflict?
Tendency to pay attention to the audience vs tendency to pay attention to the task
What is social loafing?
A reduction in individual effort when working on a task involving group effort
What could be the possible reasons for social loafing?
Coordination loss - having to coordinate with others
Motivation loss - Not willing to put in the effort (More likely)
What are the 4 explanations for social loafing?
- Matching of effort - expect others to loaf as well
- Dispensibility of effort - own contribution won’t be worth much
- Evaluation potential - Reduced identifiability of contribution
- Task meaningfulness/personal relevance - small relevance and value little effort
How to reduce social loafing?
- Smaller group sizes
- Have individual accountability
- Group members believing the group will be effective in achieving important goals
- People place greater values on groups than individuals
What do the cultural differences appear dependent on in reducing social loafing?
Type of Task
Make up of the group
What is intentional influence?
When others try to intentionally influence our behaviours when we are alone