Social Psychology Flashcards
Define social psychology.
The scientific study of how peoples’ thoughts, feelings and behaviour are influenced by the presence of others.
Describe social influence.
The change in behaviour (intentional or unintentional) that occurs as a result of a person’s social environment
What is a group/the characteristics of a group?
Two or more people who interact regularly, identify as a collective, have interdependence on members and share a common purpose.
Define and describe Social Facilitation.
The tendency for individuals to perform better in the mere prescence of others in comparison to performing the task on their own.
- may occur when people are observed without observers participating in the task e.g. a sporting event, where the presence of spectators makes the athlete run faster (Audience Effect)
- may also occur when a person is performing a task in front of co-actors performing the same task e.g. getting more study done in a library where one sees others studying, than at home (Co-Action Effect)
How did Triplett study social facilitation?
Triplett (1898) observed that cyclists rode faster when racing against each other, than when they rode alone against the clock. He tested the idea that this was due to the presence of others in a lab experiment where children were asked to reel a fishng rod as fast as they could, individually or among co-actors. Triplett found that participants who performed the task with co-actors reeled the line faster then those who reeled the line alone, allowing him to conclude that the co-actors caused this boost in performance.
Define Social Inhibition.
The tendency for the presence of others to hinder an individual’s performance of a task.
What is the Yerkes-Dodson Law?
An empirical relationship between arousal and performance which states that performance increases with mental/physiological arousal up until a certain point, meaning there is an optimum level of arousal for performance and an over or under-arousal leads to a decrease in performance.
Using Zajonc’s Drive Theory of Social Faciliation, explain why social facilitation and inhibition occur.
Zajonc (1965) used the Yerkes-Dodson Law to theorise that since arousal from others can improve or worsen performance, the presence of others brings about a person’s dominant/best-learned response. This means social facilitation occurs in simple tasks, where the dominant response is likely to be correct, and social inhibition occurs in complex tasks (where the dominant response is probably incorrect) as the arousal from other people and the difficulty of the task bring arousal past its optimal level.
Define evaluation apprehension and describe how it was studied.
The fear of being judged by others (either formally or informally). Cottrell (1968) tested whether this phenomenon exists by blindfolding participants and asked them to perform a perception experiment, and found there was no change in their performance, which he concluded was because the participants were blindfolded and evaluation apprehension did not occur.
Define and explain the Bystander Effect.
The tendency for an individual to be less likely to take action/help someone in a situation than if they were alone, which occurs due to a diffusion of responsiblilty (since other people are present, individuals assume that ohters will help). It may also occur due to audience inhibition (the individual feels self-conscious/afraid of breaking social norms when helping).
What is Group Polarisation and what is its basic assumption?
Tendency for the opinions of individuals to become more extreme when they are in a group with people who hold similar attitudes. The principle of group polarisation is that whatever the inital preference of the group prior to its discussion, this preference is strengthened during the discussion.
Define the Risky Shift Phenomenon.
Form of group polarisation referring to a change in the group’s attitude that raises the chance for negative consequences (group decisions tend to be more risky than individual ones, but may sometiomes be more careful if that is the group’s initial leaning).
Name and describe three causes of group polarisation.
1) Persuasion via. the central route - members of a group bring their own set of arguments/perspectives to a discussion, some of which other group members may not have considered. Being presented more arguments in support of the group shifts peoples’ views more towards the group’s position.
2) Social comparison - during group discussions, people evaluate the feelings and views of the group. As a result of humans’ desire to gain acceptance, people compare their own ideas to those held by the group, and take a similar position.
3) Confirmation Bias - people will pay more attention to and readily accept information that confirms their views, strengthening the group’s position as counter-arguments are seen as weak and unclear.
How did Myers and Bishop test Group Polarisation?
Myers and Bishop (1970) tested group polarisation by surveying students and classifying them based on their racial prejudice, and then putting students with similar amounts of prejudice in group discussions about racial issues. They found that students who were prejudiced to begin with were even more biased after the discussion and students who were initaally less prejudiced were even more accepting after the discussion. This allowed Bishop and Myers to conclude that the group of people with similar attitudes strenghtened individuals’ attitudes.
Define conformity and explain how it is different to obedience.
A change in attitudes, beliefs or behaviour as a result of real or imagined group pressure. Unlike obedience, conformity lacks the presence of an authority figure or a direct command.
According to Kelman (1958), what are the three levels of conformity?
1) Compliance - a person changes their public behaviour to be accepted/avoid rejection in the short-term, despite their private views staying the same.
2) Identification - a person changes their public behsviour in order to gain entry into a group. This only occurs in the presence of the goup and thus, may not change an individual’s private views.
3) Internalisation - a person changes their public behaviour and private beliefs, as the beliefs of the group become part of the individual’s belief system. This means this change is long-term and even occurs in the absence of the group.
Outline two explanations for conformity.
Normative Social Influence - Conforming to group standards to feel accepted and fit into scoial/group norms. Humans confrom in this way to gain social approval and avoid rejection (associated with compliance and identification).
Informational Social Influence - conforming to gain knowledge, especially about an ambiguous situation in order to act appropriately and avoid standing out.
Describe three factors that influence conformity.
1) Group size - people are more likely to conform in larger groups (up to 5 people) as the increased amount of people may increase a person’s fear of rejection or being wrong.
2) Ambiguity of the situation - people are more likely to conform in unfamiliar situations where they do not know how to behave (Asch found that people conformed more when he made the differences between the lengths of the lines smaller)
3) Culture - people in collectivist cultures are more likely to conform than those in individualistic cultures to feel a sense of unity/group membership
How did Asch test conformity?
Asch (1951, 1955) tested conformity through a visual judgement task:
- aim - to investigate whether an individual would give an incorrect answer to conform to the group.
- method - 123 American male students participated in a test where they wer shown 3 lines and had to choose which one was the same as a target line. Each naiive/real participant was tested with 7 confederates/fake participants, and during the first few trials, the confederates gave correct answers regarding the target line, but the confederates began choosing the wrong line as the target line (which they had previously agreed upon) for 12 out of the 18 trials, which were called critical trials.
- findings - Asch found that approximatelt 1/3 of participants who heard the confederate conformed with the clearly incorrect answer. He found that 75% of participants conformed in at least 1 of the critical trials while in the control group (with no confederates), less than 1% gave the wrong answer)
- conclusion - when participnts were interviewed about their responses, most said they did not believe in their conforming answers, but went along with them to avoid rejection, allwoing Asch to conclude that the participant’s answers were a result of normative social influence
Evaluate Asch’s line study.
- the study contained a biased sample (123 American males), meaning the study has low population validity and findings cannot be generalised to females or other cultures
- the study has low ecological validity as it used an artificial situation (determining the length of lines) to measure conformity, a task which the sample is unlikely to face in everyday life, making the findings ungeneralisable
- the results of the study were not consistent over time (lacks test-retest reliability). This was seen when Perrin and Spencer carried out the same study in 1980 and found that on only 1/369 trials did the participant conform.
Define obedience.
A change in behaviour in response to a direct command from an authority figure.
Describe Milgram’s experiment on obedience (1963).
Aim - To investigate the extent to which people would obey an instruction while knowing the consequence.
Procedure - 40 American males aged 20-50 were recruited with the belief that they were taking part in a memory study. They were introduced to confederates who would play the ‘learner’ while they were the ‘teachers’. The learner was strapped to electrodes and asked to learn a list of word pairs. The learner was assessed on these words and if they guessed incorrectly, the true participant was told to administer an electric shock, increasing in voltage after every incorrect answer up to a maximum of 450 volts. The learner intentionally gave mostly wrong answers and did not actually recieved the administered shocks (unbeknownst to the participant). If a particpant was hesitant to continue, the experimenter would say probs such as “the experiment requires you to continue” and “you have no choice but to continue”.
Findings - All o fthe participants continued to at least 300 volts and 65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts
Conclusion - ordinary people tend to follow orders given by authority figures, even to the extent of endangering another human. Milgram concluded that this is because obedience to authority is learned through one’s socialisation, and due to agentic shift.
Evaluate Milgram’s experiment.
+ Milgram’s study has test-restest reliability, and its findings have been supported by a 2010 study in the documentary ‘Le Jeu de la Mort’, where 90% of participants gave the maximum voltage, indicating that Milgram’s findings were not a chance occurence.
- biased sample - the sample consisted of 40 adult American males selected through convenience sampling. This means that findings lack population validity as they cannot be generalised to the wider poplation (e.g. females or children)
- not ethically sound - participants were not protected from physiological or psychological harm as many participants pleaded to stop the experiment and showed physical signs of distress (e.g. sweating. trembling, seizures). As a result of this ethical breach, Milgram’s study cannot be considered valid.
Identify three situational variables and explain how they affect obedience.
- location: Milgram’s original study was conducted at Yale University, but he conducted a variation of the study in a run-down building. The experimenter is percieved to have less authority in this situation, and obedience fell to 47.5%.
- uniform: The experimenter wore a grey lab coat in the original study, but in a variation, the experimenter was called away for a phone call and was replaced by a confederate in everyday clothes. Obedience dropped to t 20% in this variation as the participant was not seen as a legitimate authority figure.
- Proximity: In one variation, the participant and confedrate were in the same room, resulting in obedience dropping to 40%, which may be attributed to the fact that participants could directly see the consequences of their actions, increasing the sense of personal responsibility. Similarly, obedience dropped to 20.5% in a variation where the experimenter left the room, as the participant feels that the experimenter will not take responsibilty for the consequences.
