Social Influences on Behaviour

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

study of interaction between the person and the situation

• Behaviour is a function of the person and the environment
• challenges freudian theories and behaviourism in regards to conditioning in the past
• focuses on present moment- present situation is a key influence on behaviour

Question 2

Mimicry

Answer 2

taking on behaviours, emotional displays, and facial expressions of others

Question 3

Chameleon Effect

Answer 3

people mimic others non-consciously

i.e. laughing when others laugh

Question 4

Social Norms

Answer 4

unwritten guidelines for how to to behave in social contexts

Question 5

Social Loafing

Answer 5

individual puts less effort into woking on a task with others

Question 6

Low Efficacy Beliefs

Answer 6

asks are thought to be too difficult, so people don’t know where to begin

-Believing one’s contributions are insignificant

• Not caring about group’s outcome
  - Feeling like others are not trying very hard

Question 7

Social Facilitation

Answer 7

one’s performance is affected by presence of others

i. e.cycling faster when others are cycling as well
- greater skills/ simpler skills= more likely for social facilitation

Question 8

Groupthink

Answer 8

stifling of diversity that occurs when individuals are not able to express their true perspectives, instead having to focus on agreeing with others and maintaining harmony in group

• Problems- ignoring potential problems in ideas considered, applying social pressure to influence others, group becomes overconfident
  i. e. Challenger explosion

Question 9

Asch Experiments

Answer 9

participnats seated at a table with several other people who were actually working with experimenter

• Looked at picture of 3 lines and chose which was the same length as a “standard line”
• When allowed to give answers privately, were correct almost 100% of the time
• When answers given in front of others, at first were correct, but then confederates (working with experimenter) gave wrong answer, resulted in 75% of participants giving wrong answer

-Experiment found that it doesn’t take many people to build group pressure, as well as individuals can be very powerful (one confederate giving right answer enough to shatter group’s power)

Question 10

Normative Influence

Answer 10

social pressure to adopt group perspective in order to be accepted

Question 11

Informational Influence

Answer 11

people internalize values and beliefs of group, coming to believe same things and feel the same ways themselves

Question 12

Diffusion of Responsibility

Answer 12

responsibility of taking action is spread across more than one person, thus making no single individual feel personally responsible

Question 13

Pluralistic Ignorance

Answer 13

disjunction between private beliefs of individuals and public behaviour they display to others

i. e. everyone smelling smoke but no one getting up to investigate because they don’t want to cause a scene
- can be dispelled by one person speaking/ acting (ie revolutions)

Question 14

Milgram Experiment

Answer 14

• Found that 65% of people continued shocking student

- Experiment done with 2 confederate teachers refusing to continue, resulted in 90% of participants also refusing

Question 15

Eichmann Factor

Answer 15

participants read words, someone else shocked, resulted in participant feeling less responsible and therefore more likely to continue