Social Psychology (Ch 16) Flashcards
Stanley milgram
Shock experiment disguised as learning experiment
63% of people obeyed until the very end
65% obeeyed in a follow up condition where the confederate
Started with small shocks.
Went to end if there was pressure from the experimenter
-10 later experiments showed that women’s conformity rates were similar to that of men’s
Conformity
Yielding to real or imagined social pressure Solomon asch
Power of the situation - Philip zimbardo Stanford prison experiment (1971)
- assigned participants as roles. T
hose assigned as guards actually stated to act like guards and beat the prisoners
- cut short
- social roles - shared expectations on how people are supposed to behave
- renewed interest in Abu Ghtaib prison scandal (2004)
- the lucifer effect
Guards came up with bizarre psychological punishments as they couldn’t do physical violence
-considered one of the most unethical studies ever done because people suffered from it
Solomon asch
line test, conformity
People would yield to majority opinion even when it conflicts with their own
Group size and unanimity mattered
3-9 is optimal group size
In the first line test rounds the person wouldn’t conform but then eventually would? ( this is how the video had it)
-but actually most people told the truth than not. the participants conformed a little more than 1/3 of the time
Abu ghraib
American soldiers used psychological torture to extract information from terrorists
(Separate event): +Greece Soldiers used foot in the door and role playing to get other guards to increasingly be brutal to prisoners
Lucifer effect
Name for How good people turn evil
Social roles
Shared expectations on how people are supposed to behave
Why did the soldiers feel that torturing the prisoners at Abu ghraib was okay?
They were following orders There was escalation of the evil tasks (there were in other situations, I’m not sure if there was at Abu Ghraib specifically
Why did some people stop in the mil gram experiment
They were people who had resisted earlier They felt personally responsible for possibly harming the people they were shocking
Social facilitation
Usually when involving simple, well practiced skills -your behavior improves in front of a crowd -eg workin out harder in a gym with other people around rather than when you are by yourself
Group influence
-social facilitation -social impairment -deindividualization
Social impairment
When task is difficult Sometimes when in crowd your behavior gets worse -eg in class presentation you know how how to speak properly and you know the content but you stutter and say um in front of class
Deindividualization
Lose self-restraint in group situations Mob mentality - anonymous Nuthouse cheering section - you will cheer nonstop when there are 300 people but not if the audience is just you and 5 friends -anonymous YouTube commenters
Group Influence
SFSID
Kitty Genovese Case
(1) REAL LIFE:-Woman stabbed for 35 minutes -38 people saw it, only one called police (2) Experiment:-Talking to recording where someone on hte ohter side had a fake seizure. the more people in recording, the less likely the person was to seek help for the “person” having a seizure
- Diffusion of responsibility
What happens when you try to evaluate the personality of someone else?
You view their personality as more fixed and less based on context than you do of you own personality -eg. in class activity where we evaluated our teachers’ personalities and our own personalities
Person Perception
forming impressions Physical appearance Stereotypes
Social Psychology
How our thoughts and behaviors are influenced by others 6 topics: Person perception Attribution processes Interpersonal attraction Attitudes Conformity & obedience Behavior in groups
Physical Appearance
Attractiveness and personality traits People describe desirable personality traits to those who are good looking, even though little correlation exists in reality. Why? Vastly overrepresented in media – seen in good light. This means that they get better jobs and earn higher salaries.
Stereotypes
– expectations of different groups schemas? Illusory correlations Prejudice discrimination Out-group homogeneity
Schemas
can lead to prejudices
Illusory Correlation
e.g. adopted someone leading to pregnancy
prejudice
undesereved undeserved negative attitude about a group you absorb the prejudices of the people your are with Contact Theory
discrimination
acting on your prejudices
In-group bias
you prefer people in your in-group your ingroup fluctuates throughout the day based on social context
Out-group homogeneity -
members of your in-group are more diverse than members of other groups -Other -race effect
other race effect
outgroup homogenity, except specifically with race “All asians are good at math” “all white people are rich” Thinking people in your out-group are one-dimensional
Clark Experiment (1940s)
gave black and white girls identical black and white dolls. Both the white and the black girls agreed that the white dolls were better
Paper Bag test
At certain fraternities (even black fraternities), you could only get into hte fraternity if your skin was lighter that than a paper bag
Contact Theory
- The more you are around someone, the less your are prdjudiced to them - Boy Scout Case example: red vs blue rivalry built up for 3 weeks, broken down in 1 hour after working together to sovle a crisis
Jane Elliot
Brown eyed, blue eyed experiment “We couldn’t htink as well with the collars (denoting the inferior eye color) on” “Don’t judge unless you walk in that person’s mocassins”
Attributions
Explaining Behavior Ex: How walnut won the league championship
Bias in Attribution
- Fundamental Attribution Error
- Just World Phenomenon
- Self-serving Bias
¨Fundamental Attribution Error
¡observers’ bias in favor of internal attributions in explaining other’s behavior
overestimating internal/traits of others and not thinking enough of situational factors
¨Just-World-Phenomenon
¡Defensive attribution
- blame-the-victim
- the girl with the short rhots was asking for rape
Self-serving Bias
Attribute our succes to personal factors and our failures to situations factors
Key Relationship Factors
¡Physical attractiveness - Matching hypothesis
¡Similarity §Age, race, religion, social class, education, intelligence, attractiveness, values, attitudes
¡Reciprocity – liking those who like you
Love
- ¡Passionate love - sexual feelings, intense emotion
- §Increases dopamine ¡
- Companionate love - warm affection
- §Intimacy – closeness
- §Commitment – intent to maintain relationship
- ¡Attachment (secure, avoidant, anxious/ambivalent)
Attitudes
- ¡Positive or negative evaluations
- ¡mere exposure effect – the more you are around something, the more you will come to like it
- ¡ attitudes and behaviors don’t always match
- §1930s LaPiere study
- ¡cognitive dissonance – when related cognitions contradict each other
- §happens outside of awareness
- §Festinger-Carlsmith study (1959)
- ¡
mere exposure effect –
the more you are around something, the more you will come to like it
§1930s LaPiere study
¡ attitudes and behaviors don’t always match
– traveled with Chinese wife and colleague – no discrimination. Mailed out survey 6 months later: 92% said they wouldn’t serve Chinese.
¡cognitive dissonance –
when related cognitions contradict each other
- §happens outside of awareness
- §Festinger-Carlsmith study (1959)
Festinger-Carlsmith:
cognitive dissonance
college students given boring task, then asked to do a “favor” for the research assistant and tell the next person it was really fun – were paid either $1 or $20 (today 80-90) to lie. Those paid $1 later reported it more enjoyable
Compliance Strategies
- ¡foot-in-the-door phenomenon –
- ¡ ¡door-in-the-face phenomenon –
- ¡ norms of reciprocity
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
a tendency for people who agree to a small action to comply later with a larger one
-milgram: well 40 volts isn’t too much more painful than 30 volts, which ive already shocked him with
Door in tn face phenomenon
The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down; much like a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader’s face. The respondent is then more likely to agree to a second, more reasonable request, compared to the same reasonable request made in isolation.[1][2] The DITF technique can be contrasted with the foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique, in which a persuader begins with a small request and gradually increases the demands of each request
While the FITD technique differs from DITF, it is also a persuasion technique that increases the likelihood a respondent will agree to the second request
Norms of reciprocity
a compliance strategy
the expectation that people will respond favorably to each other by returning benefits for benefits, and responding with either indifference or hostility to harms
gratitude, Golden rule, mutual goodwill
Prom king/queen.: Giving every one cookies. A person looks at ballot “Oh that person gave me a cookie. i’ll return the favor and vote form them.”
Group Decision Making
- group polarization
- groupthink
Group Decision Making
group polarization
groupthink – agreement at the expense of critical thinking
◦like a self-serving bias
Group Polarization
– tendency of a group’s beliefs to get stronger ◦isolated from a mediating voice
_◦risky shift - _
risky shift
The risky shift occurs when a group collectively agrees on a course of action that is more extreme than they would have made if asked individually.
groupthink.
n group conditions, people with relatively moderate viewpoints tend to assume that their groupmates hold more extreme views, and to alter their own views in compensation–a phenomenon known as
group polarization
tendency of a group’s beliefs to get stronger ◦isolated from a mediating voice
◦risky shift
Risky shift is one side of a more general phenomenon called _________. Depending on the initial tendencies of group members, a group discussion may lead to a more risky decision or a more conservative decision
Self-Service Bias
Diffusion of Responsibility
social loafing –
◦we feel less responsible for the outcome
bystander effect – people are less likely to provide needed help when in groups
◦Kitty Genovese
pluralistic ignorance – people look to others to decide what is appropriate behavior
Aggression & Antisocial Behavior
instrumental aggression – intended for a particular purpose
hostile aggression – no clear purpose
why are people aggressive?
◦Freud linked it to Thanatos (the death instinct)
◦can be adaptive
frustration-aggression hypothesis – feeling frustrated makes aggression more likely
◦modeling (Bobo doll experiment)
instrumental aggression –
intended for a particular purpose
hostile aggression –
no clear purpose
why are people aggressive?
◦Freud linked it to Thanatos (the death instinct)
◦can be adaptive
frustration-aggression hypothesis – feeling frustrated makes aggression more likely
◦modeling (Bobo doll experiment)
frustration-aggression hypothesis –
feeling frustrated makes aggression more likely
Thanatos
(the death instinct)
According to Freud humans have a life instinct (eros) and a death instinct, called thanatos. This death instinct compels humans to engage in risky and destructive behaviors that could lead to death (remember, it is an instinct for personal death). Behaviors such as thrill seeking, aggression, and risk taking can be considered actions stemming from thanatos
Bad apples or bad barrels?
When ordinary people are put in a novel, evil place, such as most prisons, Situations win, People Lose” Offered Philip Zimbardo (2004), adding, “That is true for teh majority of people in all hte relevant social psychological research done over the past 40 years. << regarding Abu Ghraib.
There weren’t just a few bad guards. The atrocious situation they were in pretty much made every guard in there an atrocious person
Social psychology
the scientific study of how we think abu,t influence ,and relate to one another
the two-factor theory
hich theory best explains why the excitement that lingers after a frightening event can facilitate passionate love?
Researchers who have reversed te perspectives of actor and observer - by having a each view a replya of the situation filmed from thue other’s perspective - have also
reversed the attributions
seeing hte wolrd from thue actor’s perspective, the observerst better appreciate the situation
vice versa
reflecting on our past selves of 5 or 10 years ago also switches our perspective. we now adopt an ovserver’s perspective and attribute our behavior mostly to our traits.
David Napolitan and George Doethals
illustrated fundamental attribution error. Had Williams College students talk with women who acted aloof and critical or warm and friendly. beforhand they told half the students that hte woman’s behavior would be spontaneous. the told hte other half the truth - that she had been instructed to act frieldly.
the students attributed her baehavior to her personal disposition even when told that her behaior was situational.
strong social pressurs can
weaken the attitude-beahvior connection
attitudes do affect behavior when
external influences are minimal, especially when the attitude is table, specific to het behavior, and esaily recalled
attitudets
follow behavior (works for good deeds and bad).
write on behalf of a position you have qualms about, you begin to believe your own words
following school desegrgation, white americans expressed diminishing racial prejudice.
what we do we gradually become
Changing our behavior
can change how we think abou others and how we feel about ourselves
if we are unloving, we can become more loving by behaving as if we were so - by doing thoughtful things, expressing affection, giving affirmation. “Assume a virtue, if you have it not “ “For use can almost change hte stamp of nature”. - Hamlet
mood linkage
sharing up and down moods
we feel happier around happy people than aound depressed ones
Chartrand and Bargh
Cameleon effect
participants mimicked confederates
empathic, mimicking people are liked more
Suggestibility and Behavior clustering
after school shooting (Columbine 1999) 49 states received threats of columbine violence
after suicide of Marilyn Monroe, # of suicides in America increased by over 200 than its August average
Asch conditions that strengthen conformity
further experiments revealed (athough not finding as much as conformity as Asch) that conformity increases when:
- one is made to feel incompetent or insecure
- the group has at least three people
- the group is unanimous (the dissent of just one other person greatly increases social courage)
- one admires the group’s status and attractiveness
- one has made no prior commitment to any response
- others in hte group observe one’s behavior
- one’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
normative social influence
influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid social disapproval
informational social influence
influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality
in individualist cultures
conformity rates are lower (Bond & Smith, 1996)
in hte individualistic US< university students tend to see htemselves, in domains ranging from consumer purchases to political views,
as less conforming than others.
we are, in our own eyes, individuals amid a crowd of sheep
Robert Baron (1996) follow up to Asch
made task easy (viewing the task for 5 seconds) or hard (half a second) and uninmportant ( just a preliminary test of some eyewitness identification procedures) or important ( establishing norms for an actual police procedure, with award of $20.
Stanley Milgram variations.
obedience was highest when
- the person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure
- the authority figure was supproted by a prestigious intstution (Yale as opposed to somewhere else)
- the victim was depersonalized or at a distance, even in another room (in combat with an enemy they can see, many soldiers either do not fire their rifles or do not aim them properly. such refusals to kill are rare among those who operate more distant artillery or aircraft weapons (Gadgett, 1989)
- there were no rorle models for defiance, that is no other participants were seen disobeying the experimenter
what you do well, you are likey to do _______- in front of an audience, especially a friendly audience; whatyou normally ____________ will be harder when you are being watched
better; find diffiicult
comedy routines
get more laughter/funnier in packed house
if sitting close to one another
people like friendlier people more, and less friendly people less
deindividuation
happens when aroused and with dimished sense of responsibile
ideological separation + deliveration
= even more polarization between groups. liberal Boulder Colorado and conservative Colorado Springs political dialogue
give example of polarization in America
percentage of landslide counties are increasing
examples of groupthink causes problems
- failure to anticipate attack on Pearl Harbor
- escelation of Vietnam War
- 1000 days (Cuban invasian)
- Watergate coverup
- Chernobyl
- Challenger
*
how is groupthink prevented
- when a leader welcomes various opinions
- invites experts’ critiques of developing plans
- assigns people to identify possible problems
Just as the suppression of dissent bends a group toward bad decisions, so open debate often shapes good one.s this is especially so with diverse groups, whose varied perspectives enalbe creative or superior outcomes
diverse groups on outcomes
- their varied perspectives enalbe creative or superior outcomes ( Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007)
minority influence
standing ground as minority can get majority to think about minority position and change.
despite gender equality in intelligence scores
people tend to perceive their fathers as more intelligent than their mothers (Furnham & Rawles, 1995)
blame-the-victim dynamic
if the circumstances of poverty breed a higher crime rate, someone can then use the higher crime rate to justify continuin the discrimination against thoe who live in poverty
even arbitrarily creating an us-them distinctio - by grouping people with the toss of a coin
- leads people s=to show favoritism to their own group when dividing any rewards (Tajfel, 1982; Wilder, 1981)
fundamental attribution error
the tendency for observers, when analyzind another’s behavior to underestimate the impact of the situation and to evrestimate the impact of personal disposition.”She’s acting cranky because she’s mean” rather than “she must be having a bad day”
Central route to persuasion*
occurs when interested people focus on arguments and respond with favorable thoughts (more thoughtful, less superficial)-as opposed to peripheral route to persuasion
Peripheral route to persuasion
occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness or “well that famous dude supports it in that commercial. It must be good”
foot-in-the-door phenomenon
the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger requestWell I shocked him with 30V. 45Volts isn’t too much more
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
the theory that we act to redue the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are consistence. eg. when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.e.g. you don’t believe in smoking but your best friend smokes. you either get a new best friend or you believe smoking is ok”why are you working for this company. your job sucks.”“Hmm. Well if I’m working for the company that means I love it. That’s right I love my company! my job does not suck!”
Chameleon Effect
-refers to the unconscious tendency to mimic others’ behavior. -Chartrand and Bargh discovered and named this effect after observing subjects unconsciously mimic confederates.[11] Subjects tend to mimic the behavior of the confederate, rubbing his or her face or jiggling a knee.
Chartrand and Bargh study*
Chameleon EffectSubjects perform a task in which they work closely with a confederate that is trained to repeatedly engage in one of two behaviors: rubbing his or her face or jiggling a knee. Subjects tend to mimic the behavior of the confederate, both when the confederate makes eye contact and smiles frequently at the subject and when the confederate does not make eye contact and was non-smiling. Furthermore, when confederates mimic the behavior of the participant, the participant later rates the confederate as more ‘likable’ than confederates who do not mimic behavior. This effect was shown to be more pronounced in people that are more dispositionally empathetic. The authors suggest that this unconscious mimicry could lead to greater group cohesion and coordination.
Normative Social Influence
- a reason for conforming-influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapprovalclapping when others clap, eating as others eat, believing what others believe, even seeing what others see
informational social influence*
influence resuling from one’s willingnees to accept others’ opinions about realityAn example of not doing this:Rebecaa Denton in 2004 drove on wrong side of road in Britain for 30 minutes thinking everyone else was driving on the wrong side of the road
social loafing
tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attinaing a common goal than when individually accountablein group projects one+ people just end up slacking
deindividualization
the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymitywhen alone at a basketball game you may clap every once and a while. If with group of 50 in the Nuthouse with 500 fans you’ll be screaming and standing and taking your shirt off
group polarization
the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion wihin the groupdiscussion among like-minded people tends to strenghen preexisting attitudesIf the first-year students at College X tend to be more intellectually oriented than those at College Y, that difference will probably be amplified by the time they are seniors.
minority influence
Minority influence, a form of social influence, takes place when a member of a minority group, like an individual, influences a majority to accept the minority’s beliefs or behaviour. There are two types of social influence: majority influence (conformity) and minority influence (innovation).ex: first Christians converting Jews to Christianity
stereotypes
a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people”all asians are good at math”
discrimination
unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its membersprejudice - negative attitudediscrimination - negative behaviorex: not allowing people with dark skin into your fraternity
blame-the-victim dynamic
sort of like the just world phenomenon - the tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what htey deserve and deserve what they getthus if some girl gets raped, saying “well she shouldn’t have been in that bad neighborhood” or “she was wearing too short of shorts”
outgroup homogeneity
members of your in-group are more diverse than members of other groups -Other -race effecte.g. easier to distinguish between faces of your own race than those of a different race
hindsight bias
I knew it all along phenomenonMcCain before Iraq war - this war will be quick6 years into the war - I knew this war would be long
• Frustration-aggression principle
frustration - the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggressiona baseball study showed that MLB pitchers were more likely to hit batters when the previous batter had just made a home run ( a frustration inducing event)
Social scripts
scripts defined by culture on how people should behave in certain situationsin accordance with action TV shows, boys when threatened may act manly/violently and eliminate the threat
Mere exposure effect
-the more you are around something, the more you will come to like it- hte phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of thema young Taiwanese man wrote more than 700 letters to his girlfiend, urging her to marry him. She did marry - the mail carrier
self-disclosure
revealing intimate aspects of oneself to othersIn an expiriment (Aron) those pairs who had to increasingly conduct self-disclosing conversation from “when did you last sing to yourself?” to “When did you last cry in front of another person? by yourself?” felt remarkably close to their conversation partner, much closer than others who had spent the time with small talk questions such as “what was your high school like?”Given self-disclosing intimacy plus mutually supportive equality, the odds favor enduring companionate love.
bystander effect
the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are presentKitty Genoevese case
Social trap
a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally purusing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.Fights, wars, corporate price wars
GRIT
-Charles OsgoodGraduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction - a strategy designed to decrease international tensions- in applying GRIT, one side first announces its recognition of mutual interests and its intent to reduce tensions. it then itiates one or more small, conicliatory acts. without weakining one’s retailiatiatory capability, this modest beginning opens hte door for reciprocity by the other party. should hte enemy respond with hostility, one reciprocates in kind. But so, too, with any conciliatory response. Thus, U.S. President John Kennedy’s gesture of stopping atmospheric nulcear test began a seires of reciprocated conciliatory acts that culminated in the 1993 atmospheirc test-ban treaty.In lab experiments, PRIT has been an effective strategy for increasing trust and cooperation( Lindskold et. al, 1978) . even during intense personal conflict, when communcation has been nonexistent, a small conciliatory gesture - a smile, a touche, a word of apology - may work wonders.
Power of the situation - Philip zimbardo Stanford prison experiment (1971)
- assigned participants as roles. Those assigned as guards actually stated to act like guards and beat the prisoners-cut short-social roles - shared expectations on how people are supposed to behave -renewed interest in Abu Ghtaib prison scandal (2004) -the lucifer effect Guards came up with bizarre psychological punishments as they couldn’t do physical violence -considered one of the most unethical studies ever done because people suffered from it
Solomon asch
line test, conformityPeople would yield to majority opinion even when it conflicts with their own Group size and unanimity mattered 3-9 is optimal group size In the first line test rounds the person wouldn’t conform but then eventually would? ( this is how the video had it)
Stanley milgram
Shock experiment disguised as learning experiment65% of people obeyed until the very end Started with small shocks. Went to end if there was pressure from the experimenterdraw img layout of experiment
