Social Psych Exam 2 Flashcards
Social Influence
how others’ comments/actions/presence change our attitudes, beliefs, feelings and behavior
Conformity
change in behavior, belief, attitudes as a result of real or imagined group pressure
Benefits of Conformity
- Helps avoid conflict
- Helps us learn from others
- Helps us better navigate the world (conformity becomes so habitual we don’t even notice it)
Acceptance
Person’s outward behavior goes along w/ the group, and their internal opinion falls in line as well
Compliance
person’s outward behavior goes along w/ the group, but internal opinion remains unchanged
- reap reward
- avoid punishment
Autokinetic Effect
illusion that a stationary pinpoint of light
shown in a completely dark room actually moves (Sherif’s Studies of Norm Formation)
Factors increasing conformity
- uniformity of agreement
- cohesion (“we feeling”)
- size of group
- high status of group
- expertise of group
- low self-esteem of participant
- collectivistic culture
- Tightness (strong norms and little tolerance for deviance in culture)
Factors decreasing conformity
- Anonymity of own response
- high self-esteem of participant
- prior commitment (public statement)
- individualistic culture
- Looseness (less strong norms and more tolerance for deviance in culture)
Normative influence
- conforming for approval and acceptance
- social norm information powerfully sways behavior
- desire to be liked
Informational influence
- conforming for information and direction
- privately accept other’s opinions
- more likely in ambiguous situations
- desire to be correct
Obedience
Changing behavior because of explicit pressure from person of power
Processes involved in obedience
- high status of authority figure and setting
- belief that authority figure will be responsible
- no clear-cut point for switching to disobedience
- when harmful consequences become apparent, ‘in’ too deep
- low empathy with victim
- extreme uncertainty
Factors determine obedience
- victim’s emotional distance
- authority closeness and legitimacy
- institutional authority
- group influence
‘The banality of evil’ a 5-step social identity model of the development of collective hate
- Identification - creating a cohesive ingroup
- exclusion - placing targets outside the ingroup
- threat - the outgroup as endangering the enactment of ingroup identity
- virtue - representing the ingroup as (uniquely) good
- celebration - eulogizing inhumanity as the defense of virtue
conformity and obedience studies
Sherif: conformity in highly ambiguous situations (private)
Asch: conformity in non-ambiguous situations (public)
Milgram: obedience to authority (deeper look: boundaries and mechanisms)
Three types of social influence
conformity, obedience, compliance
Persuasion
process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors
Aspects of persuasion
- the source
- the message
- the audience
persuasion: the source
- credibility
- attractiveness
- certainty
- identity (gender-women often scrutinized more, race, socioeconomic status)
persuasion: the method - 2 paths
central route [explicit attitude]:
- focus on arguments and information (assumes an attentive, active, critical, and thoughtful audience)
- high motivation and ability, more enduring change
–> issue is personally relevant
–> person is knowledgeable in domain
–> quality of argument
peripheral route [implicit attitudes]:
- influenced by incidental cues (relies of heuristics, cues that trigger automatic acceptance without much thinking)
- low motivation and ability, easy but temporary
–> not personally relevant
–> person is distracted or fatigued
–> message is incolplete or hard-to-comprehend
–> source attractiveness, fame, expertise
–> number and length of arguments
–> consensus
Identifiable victim effect
tendency to be more persuaded by the plight of a single, vivid individual than by more abstract aggregate of individuals
Emotional innumeracy
people exhibit an emotional flatline to mass suffering
Fear-arousing messages are more effective if they
- make the individual feel frightened and vulnerable
- make the fear-arousing event appear likely
- offer a solution to avoid the feared event
- make the solution appear doable
counterarguments
reasons why a persuasive message might be wrong
what is a group
two or more people who interact and influence one another (a perception of “us” vs “them”)
group cohesiveness
degree to which members of a group feel connected to one another
purpose of groups
meet humans needs
1. affiliation
2. achieve
3. social identity
4. safety and security
5. meaningful information
social facilitation
improved effort and individual performance in the presence of other – only for simple or well-practiced tasks
- individual goal
-individual effort evaluated
possible factors for arousal around others
- mere presence (produce social facilitation)
- distraction
- evaluation apprehension (produce social facilitation)
social loafing
the tendency to exert less effort when working of a group task in which individual contribution cannot be monitored
- common goal
- individuals not accountable for effort
To prevent:
1. difficult tasks
2. assess individual contributions
–> avoid diffusion of responsibility
3. value the task
–> reward individual contributions
4. group cohesiveness
Why:
process loss
coordination loss
decrease evaluation apprehension
process loss
reduction of effort in groups from lack of motivation
coordination loss
lack of cooperation and communication weakens group’s effectiveness
decrease evaluation apprehension
- participants believe they are evaluated only when acting alone
- group situation decreases evaluation apprehension by diffusing responsibility across all group members
Aggression
physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm
- physical aggression
- social aggression
- hostile aggression
- instrumental aggression
physical aggression
any behavior or act aimed at harming a person or animal or damaging physical property
social aggression
social relationships and social status are used to damage reputations and inflict emotional harm on others, and centers on behaviors such as gossiping, ostracism, and threatening to end a friendship
hostile aggression
impulsive, emotion-based intent to cause harm
instrumental aggression
reasoned, purposeful intent to harm as a means to some other goal
Theories of aggression
nurture
- frustration-aggression hypothesis (relative deprivation)
unjustified frustration –> anger + aggression cues –> aggression
- sociocultural influences (social learning theory, culture of honor)
Nature
- biological influences
Frustration
blocking of goal-directed behavior
displacement
outgroup targets vulnerable
learned social behavior theory
we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and being rewarded, family influences
culture of honor
perceive insult as threat to masculinity
rape-prone societies
- high levels of violence generally
- history of frequent warfare
- emphasis on machismo and male-toughness - women have unequal status
- stereotypes and prejudice relegating women to lower status in society
- women prevented from receiving education and participating in political decision-making
biological influences for aggression
- sympathetic nervous system reactivity (low resting heart rate)
- brain influences (hypothalamus and amygdala)
- genetic influences ( specific gene linked to aggression when provoked)
- testosterone???
aggression cues: weapons effect
mere presence of weapons increases aggressive thoughts and behaviors
media influences: violence
viewing violence increases violence
- especially among people with aggressive tendencies
- especially when viewing an attractive person commit justified, realistic violence that goes unpunished and that shows no pain or harm to the victim
media affects cognition
- desensitization
- social scripts (culturally provided mental instructions for how to act)
- altered perception of reality (media portrayals of violence in crease perceptions of threat)
- cognitive priming (viewing violence primes aggression-related ideas)
impacts of playing violent video games
- Increases in aggressive behaviors
- Increases in aggressive thoughts
- Increases in aggressive emotions (especially anger)
- Increase blood pressure & heart rate
- Habituation in the brain
- Greater likelihood of carrying a weapon
- Decreases in self-control and increases in antisocial behavior
- Decreases in helping others and in empathy for others
- Linked to dehumanization of others & self
