Social Processes, Attitudes, and Behavior

Question 1

Michelangelo Phenomenon

Answer 1

• Interdependent individuals influence each other to develop toward their ideal selves.

Question 2

Social Action

Answer 2

• Social Action: Actions and behaviors that individuals are performing or modulating because others are around; considers only the individual that is surrounded by others.
• Social Facilitation: People tend to perform better on simple tasks when in the presence of others. Yerkes-Dodson Law of Social Facilitation states that being in the presence of others will significantly raise arousal, which enhances the ability to perform Simple Tasks (tasks one is already good at) and hinders the ability to perform Complex Tasks (new or less familiar tasks). Expert pianist performs better in concerts than when alone, but someone with very limited music knowledge performs worse in social settings than when alone.
• Deindividuation: Loss of one’s self-awareness in a group setting and the associated adoption of a more group oriented identity (mob mentality); occurs due to group cohesion and individual anonymity in group setting. Deindividuation often leads to Antinormative Behavior (behavior against the norm; behavior not socially acceptable in most social circumstances), such as group riot violence.
• Bystander Effect: Individuals do not intervene to assist those who are in perceive need when others are present in social groups; likelihood and timeliness of response is inversely related to the number of bystanders. When in groups, people are less likely to notice danger, take cues from others, respond according to degree of perceived danger (more likely to respond in high-danger scenarios), degree of responsibility felt (determined by bystander’s competency or relationship to victim), and cohesiveness of group (group of strangers less likely to intervene than group of well-acquainted individuals).
• Social Loafing: Individuals tend to reduce effort when in a group setting, can be reduction in mental effort (working on group projects), physical effort (carrying heavy object), or initiative (coming up with solutions to a problem).
• Peer Pressure: Social influence placed on an individual by one’s Peers (individuals who are equals within a social group).
• Stress and presence of peers can lead to Risky Behaviors (such as violent activities, reckless driving, binge eating).
• Peer Pressure causes changes in behavior, attitudes, or beliefs via Identity Shift Effect (in order to avoid an external threat of social rejection, individual conforms to the norms of the group and begins to experience internal conflict because new behavior or attitude is outside of individual’s normal character; in order to eliminate internal conflict, he experiences identity shift and adopts standards of group as his own). Person first exchanges external conflict (social rejection/humiliation) for internal conflict (self-rejection/guilt), then resolves internal conflict by realigning mindset with that of the group (via identity shift). This highlights larger theme of Cognitive Dissonance (simultaneous presence of two opposing thoughts/opinions), which leads to internal state of discomfort and manifests as anxiety, fear, anger, confusion.
• Asch’s Conformity Experiment (actors told to unanimously respond either correctly or incorrectly to lengths of lines to see participants response) showed that people will conform to opinion held by group if it avoids going against the group.

Question 3

Group Processes

Answer 3

• Social Interaction: Two or more individuals can both shape each other’s behaviors and actions.
• Group Polarization: Tendency for groups to collaboratively make decisions that are more extreme than the individual ideas and inclinations of the members within the group, leading to either riskier or more cautious decision-making (Choice Shift). Choice Shift refers to specific measured changes in decisions before and after group interaction, whereas Group Polarization refers to the general tendency of a group to move to more extreme conclusions and decisions as a result of interaction. Often seen in policy making, jury deliberation, and terrorism.
• Groupthink: Desire for maximizing harmony and minimizing conflict within group causes a loss of independent critical thinking and results in a group of people coming to an incorrect or poor decision without assessing alternative ideas or considering external viewpoints; influenced by group cohesiveness, group structure, leadership, and situational context.
• Janis’ Groupthink Study: Examined eight factors of groupthink; (1) Illusion of Invulnerability (members encourage risks, ignore possible pitfalls, and are too optimistic), (2) Collective Rationalization (members ignore expressed concerns about group approved ideas), (3) Illusion of Morality (members believe ideas produced by group are morally and ethically correct, disregarding evidence to the contrary), (4) Excessive Stereotyping (members construct stereotypes of those expressing outside opinions), (5) Pressure for Conformity (members feel pressured not to express opinions that disagree with a group and view opposition as disloyal), (6) Self-Censorship (members withhold ideas and opinions that disagree with the group), (7) Illusion of Unanimity (members believe the decisions and judgments of the group to be without disagreement even if it does exist), (8) Mindguards (some members may decide to take on a role protecting group against opposing views).
• Riots: Occur due to antinormative behaviors (social action) or shared political or social motivation (groupthink or group polarization).
• Fad: Behavior that is transiently viewed as popular and desirable by a large community (owning pet rocks or wearing bell bottom pants).
• Mass Hysteria: Shared intense concern about the threats to society that occurs due to groupthink that leads to a shared delusion augmented by distrust, rumors, propaganda, and fear mongering (Salem witch trials).

Question 4

Culture

Answer 4

• Culture: Beliefs, behaviors, actions, and characteristics of a group or society of people; learned by living within society, observing behaviors and traits, and adopting them, and is passed down from generation to generation.
• Cultural Shock: Occurs when one travels outside of his own society and the cultural differences within the new society seem quite dramatic.
• Cultural Assimilation: Usually uneven merging of cultures (melting pot) into one homogeneous culture. Four primary factors used to assess immigrant assimilation: Socioeconomic Status, Geographic Distribution, Language Attainment, and Intermarriage. Assimilation slowed by Ethnic Enclaves (neighborhoods with high concentration of one specific ethnicity, such as Chinatown).
• Multiculturalism (Cultural Diversity): Communities or societies containing coexisting cultures or ethnic groups (cultural mosaic).
• Subcultures: Groups of people within a culture that distinguish themselves from the primary culture to which they belong. Differentiated from majority by race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and symbolic attachment (LGBT communities).
• Counterculture: Subculture group gravitates towards an identity that subverts the majority culture’s definitions of normalcy and deliberately opposes the prevailing social mores (hippy and punk countercultures).

Question 5

Socialization and Norms

Answer 5

• Socialization: The process of developing, inheriting, and spreading norms, customs, and beliefs necessary for inclusion in society.
• Cultural Transmission (Cultural Learning): Process by which beliefs, customs, and cultural norms are passed down from one generation to another within a society.
• Cultural Diffusion: Spread of norms, customs, and beliefs from one culture to another.
• Primary Socialization: Occurs during childhood when we initially learn acceptable actions and attitudes in our society primarily through observation of parents and other adults in close proximity.
• Secondary Socialization: Occurs during adolescence and adulthood outside of the home and is based on learning the rules and acceptable behaviors of specific social environments within the larger society (behavior necessary to thrive in school is different from that in the home setting and from that which is acceptable on a sports field or in a church); involves refining behaviors established in primary socialization.
• Anticipatory Socialization: Person prepares for future changes in occupations, living situations, or relationships (premed student shadowing physician to assimilate and practice appropriate behavior in anticipation of becoming a physician).
• Resocialization: Old behaviors are discarded in favor of new ones through intensive retraining; can have positive or negative connotations (undergoing military training to obey orders and commands without hesitation, or being indoctrinated into a cult).
• Norms: Societal rules that define boundaries of acceptable behavior; often differ between groups within society and between cultures.
• Mores: Widely observed social norms.
• Social Control: Regulating the behavior of individuals and groups within society.
• Sanctions (penalties for misconduct or rewards for appropriate behavior) and Norms often used to maintain Social Control. Formal Sanctions are enforced by formal social institutions like governments or employers, such as receiving promotion (positive) or jail sentence (negative). Informal Sanctions are enforced by social groups, such as being allowed to sit at particular table in cafeteria (positive) or exclusion from social group (negative).
• Taboo: Socially unacceptable, disgusting, or reprehensible behaviors.
• Folkways: Behavioral norms that are considered polite in particular social interactions (shaking hands after match).

Question 6

Agents of Socialization

Answer 6

• Agent of Socialization: Any part of society that is important when learning social norms and values.

• parents and family members
• social circles (friends and teachers)
• work circles (colleagues and bosses)
• environment (such as starting college or new job)
• ethnic background
• religion
• government
• geography (acceptable behaviors in downtown Manhattan not identical to acceptable behaviors in rural Montana)
• media (popular culture, television, internet).

Question 7

Deviance and Stigma

Answer 7

• Deviance: Any violation of norms, rules, or expectations within a society, not necessarily negative; can vary in severity, from jaywalking to committing murder, and includes any act that is disapproved by larger society, such as promiscuity.
• Social Stigma: Extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group based on perceived differences from the rest of society; includes differences in beliefs, abilities, behaviors, and appearance. Stigma can be spread to affect others associated with individual and can evolve over time (divorce stigmatized in past, but not as strongly anymore).
• Labeling Theory: The labels given to a person affect not only others’ response to and perception of that person but also affect that person‘s self image, leading to deviance or conformity (if society labels woman as promiscuous, this label could either lead to further promiscuity or monogamy).
• Role Engulfment: Internalizing a label and assuming the role implied by the label may lead to the assumed role taking over a person‘s identity.
• Differential Association Theory: Deviance can be learned through exposure to others who engage in deviant behavior, and normative behavior can be learned through interaction with norm-abiding individuals; when associations with others engaging in deviant behavior are more numerous or intense than those engaging in normative behavior, the individual begins to gravitate toward deviant behavior himself (falls into the wrong crowd).
• Strain Theory: Deviance arises as a natural reaction to the disconnect between social goals and social structure. American dream is a desirable social goal, but the structure of society is unable to guarantee the education and opportunity needed to achieve this goal to all citizens, so deviant behaviors such as theft arise as an attempt to achieve the social goal outside the limiting social structure.

Question 8

Conformity

Answer 8

• Conformity: Matching one’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group or societal norms; pressure to conform can be an actual pressure from others or a perceived pressure or expectation. Asch experiment showed strength of social influence on Normative Conformity (desire to fit into group because of fear of rejection). Two types of Conformity.

• Internalization: Changing one’s behavior to fit in with a group while also privately agreeing with the ideas of the group.
• Identification: Outward acceptance of others’ ideas without personally taking on those ideas.
• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment: Internalization experiment in which students were assigned to be either guards or prisoners; both groups internalized their roles (guards became more aggressive and prisoners became more submissive).
• Likelihood of conformity differs among cultures; Western cultures value independent thought and unique ideas and are less likely to conform, Eastern cultures value group mentality and collectivism that tend toward conformity.

Question 9

Compliance

Answer 9

• Compliance: Change in behavior based on a direct request; person or group asking individual to make change typically has no power or authority to command individual yet will ask him to change his behavior.

• Foot-in-the-Door Technique: Begins with a small request, and after gaining compliance, a larger request is made. Students asks you if he can borrow your notes because he had to miss class, but later in the day, he asks you if you can make copies of your notes because he does not have access to a copier.
• Door-in-the-Face Technique: Large request is made at first and if refused, a second smaller request is made, with the smaller request often being the actual goal of the requester. Student asks you to make a copy of your notes from class and bring them to the next class, and when you deny the request, the student asks to borrow your notes so he can make copies for himself.
• Lowball Technique: Requester Will get an initial commitment from an individual, and then raise the cost of the commitment (cost being money, time, or effort). Your boss asks you to head a committee with a time commitment of five hours per month for meetings, but after you agree to head the committee, you discover that the commitment also includes written reports from each meeting and a quarterly presentation.
• That’s-not-All Technique: Individual is made an offer, but before making a decision, is told the deal is even better than expected. Buy these earrings for only $19.99, but wait, order now and we’ll also include this necklace, valued at $49.99, absolutely free!

Question 10

Obedience

Answer 10

• Obedience: Changing one’s behavior in response to a direct order or expectation expressed by a figure with authority. Classmate has no authority to demand notes from you, but if a teacher demands that you provide your notes from class to him, you would be obeying rather than complying. People more likely to obey then comply due to perceived or real social power of authority figure.
• Milgram’s Obedience Experiment: Participants were assigned role of teachers, and were told by researchers to deliver increasingly painful shocks to learners (confederates were to act as if actually shocked) for ever wrong answer given. Participants expressed discomfort in delivering higher and higher voltage shocks but ultimately obeyed the researchers.

Question 11

Attitudes and Behaviors

Answer 11

• Social Cognition: The ways in which we perceive others impact our behavior towards them.
• Attitude: Expression of positive or negative feeling toward a person, place, thing, or scenario; develops from experiences with others who affect our opinions and behaviors. The three primary components of attitude include the Affective component (the way a person feels toward something; emotional component), Behavioral component (the way a person acts with respect to something), Cognitive component (the way individual think about something; usually justification for other two components). Snakes scare me (affective), so I avoid snakes at all costs (behavioral), because snakes can be poisonous (cognitive).

Question 12

Theories of Attitudes

Answer 12

• Functional Attitudes Theory: Attitudes serve four functions, including Knowledge, Ego Expression, Adaptation, and Ego Defense.
• Knowledge Function: Attitudes help provide organization to thoughts and experiences, and knowing the attitudes of others helps to predict their behavior (one would predict that an individual who cares about political action would vote in an upcoming election).
• Ego-Expressive Function: Attitudes allow us to communicate and solidify our self-identity (person who strongly identifies with the Trump administration wears a MAGA hat that helps identify her as having a positive attitude towards that administration).
• Adaptive Function: Expression of socially acceptable attitudes will lead to acceptance (person declaring to social group that he enjoyed a popular movie can help build social bonds).
• Ego-Defensive Function: Attitudes protect our self-esteem or justify actions that we know are wrong (child who has difficulty doing math develops a negative attitude toward the subject).

• Learning Theory: Attitudes are developed through different forms of learning; by direct contact with object (child forms positive attitude toward chocolate immediately after tasting it), by direct instruction from others (child taught to not use curse words by parents forms negative attitude toward curse words and toward those who use curse words), by peer pressure (teenager develops positive attitude toward smoking if he notices that all of his friends smoke), and by classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning.

• Elaboration Likelihood Model: Separates individuals on a continuum based on how they process persuasive information.
• Central Route Processing: Thinking deeply about information, scrutinizing its meaning and purpose, and drawing conclusions or making decisions based on this analysis. Attempt to influence attitude via elaborative information uses Central Route to Persuasion, such as scientific papers.
• Peripheral Route Processing: Using the appearance of the person delivering the argument, catchphrases and slogans, and credibility to draw conclusions and make decisions. Attempt to influence attitude via superficial information uses Peripheral Route to Persuasion, such as visually appealing logos.
• Two voters watch a well-informed and charismatic political speak; one is swayed by his cogent arguments (central route processing), while the other is swayed by his likability (peripheral route processing).

• Social Cognitive Theory: Attitudes are formed through observation of behavior, personal factors, and the environment, as seen in Bandura’s Triadic Reciprocal Causation. Work ethic of employees in a company (behavior) is affected by how hard their colleagues work, their previous attitudes toward hard work (personal factors), and the system and infrastructure of the company (environment).