Social Psychology I

Question 1

What is Social Psychology

Answer 1

The study of how people influence the behaviours, beliefs,
and attitudes of others.

Question 2

Social Comparison Theory

Answer 2

Theory that states we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others

Question 3

Humans as a social species

Answer 3

1. GRAVITATING TO EACH OTHER
2. THE NEED TO BELONG: WHY WE FORM GROUPS
3. SOCIAL COMPARISON

Question 4

What are the 6 Social Influences?

Answer 4

• Conformity
• Obedience
• Performance in a group
• Helping in the presence of others
• Social loafing
• Deindividuation

Question 5

What is Conformity

Answer 5

Conformity is going along with the crowd. It’s the tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure.

Question 6

What factors affect the rate of conformity in Ash’s study?

Answer 6

• Unanimity vs. supporter
• Difficulty and familiarity of task
• Size of the majority
• Individual and cultural differences

Question 6

Individual differences in Ash’s study

Answer 6

• Nobody conformed on 100% of trials
• 25% of participants NEVER conformed
• 75% of participants conformed at least once

Question 7

Conformity, Asch’s study: Line matching

Answer 7

Ash conducted a study to compare a standard line with three comparison lines: 1, 2, and 3. He had 8 participants, On the first trial, the correct answer is clearly “1.” You listen intently
as the first few participants call out their answers. Participant 1: “1.” Participant 2: “1.” Participant 3: “1.” Participant 4: “1.” As Participant 5, you simply follow and say “1.” The three participants following you give the same answer: 1. “This study’s going to be a breeze,” you say to yourself. The second trial displays a similar problem, just as easy to answer, in which the correct answer is clearly “2” (see above). Again you listen while the participants call out their answers. Participant 1: “3.” Participant 2: “3.” Participant 3: “3.” Participant 4: “3.” You can hardly believe your eyes. It seems obvious that “2” is the correct answer, but everyone is calling “3.” What on Earth is going on? Are your eyes deceiving you? What are you going to do?

Question 7

In Ash’s study…

Answer 7

Participants went along most of the time.

• Individual differences
• Nobody conformed on 100% of trials
• 25% of participants NEVER conformed
• 75% of participants conformed at least once

Question 8

Difficulty and familiarity of task

Answer 8

Knowing that someone else in the group differed from the majority even if that person held a different view from that of the participant— made the participant less likely to conform.

Question 9

Unanimity vs. supporter

Answer 9

If all confederates gave the wrong answer ,the participant was more likely to conform. Nevertheless, if one confederate gave the correct response, the level of conformity plummeted by three-fourths.

Question 10

What were the Evaluations of Asch’s Study?

Answer 10

• Androcentric
• Ethical concerns
• Expensive, time-consuming
• Lacks ecological validity

Question 10

Size

Answer 10

The size of the majority made a difference, but only up to about five or six confederates. People were no more likely to conform in a group of 10 than in a group of 5.

Question 11

Individual and cultural differences

Answer 11

People’s responses to social pressure are also associated with individual and cultural differences, under- scoring the point that not all of us conform all of the time. People with low self-esteem are especially prone to conformity, almost certainly because they fear disapproval. Most Asians are also more likely to comply to group norms than are Americans, probably because most Asian cultures are more collectivist than is American culture

Question 12

Why Do People Conform?: Field Experiment By
Milgram

Answer 12

Milgram states that people conform because of obedience to an authority figure

Question 13

Explain Milgram’s experiment

Answer 13

The study involved three participants: the experimenter, the learner, and the teacher. The learner was actually a confederate of the experimenter, and the teacher was the real participant. The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks to the learner whenever the learner gave a wrong answer to a question. The shocks started at a low level and increased in intensity with each wrong answer. The learner was not actually receiving shocks, but they pretended to be in pain and begged the teacher to stop. Despite this, the experimenter instructed the teacher to continue shocking the learner.

Question 14

Why Do People Conform: Brain imaging studies

Answer 14

• Increased amygdala activity (anxiety)
• Brain’s desire to reduce conflict

Question 15

Obedience

Answer 15

Change behaviour due to direct
commands from an authority
figure

Question 16

The prods used by the experimenter in the Milgrams

Answer 16

• Please continue (or please go on).
• The experiment requires that you continue.
• It is absolutely essential that you continue.
• You have no other choice; you must go on.

Question 17

Factors Affecting Obedience

Answer 17

• Situational factors
• Experimenter’s authority
• Distance between participant and learner
• Distance between participant and experimenter
• Unanimity

Question 18

Evaluations of Milgram’s Experiment

Answer 18

• Foundation for understanding why people will obey extreme orders
• Ethical concerns
• Questionably validity

Question 19

Why Do People Obey?

Answer 19

• Legitimate authority
• Agency theory
• Graduated commitmen

Question 20

Factors Affecting Obedience

Answer 20

Personality differences

• Higher authoritarianism
• Higher conscientiousness and agreeableness
• Higher moral reasoning

Question 21

Social facilitation

Answer 21

Performance easily in a group
Simple or well-learned tasks

Question 22

Zajonc’s Model of Social Facilitation

Answer 22

According to R. B. Zajonc’s (1965) in the theory of social facilitation, the mere presence of others increases arousal and, thereby, the frequency of dominant responses (i.e., responses with the greatest habit strength).

*improves performance on well learned and easy tasks but hinders performance on difficult or novel tasks

Question 23

Social disruption

Answer 23

S worsening of performance in the presence of others, occurs on tasks we find difficult.

Question 24

Bystander Nonintervention

Answer 24

AKA the bystander effect

People are less likely to respond
to emergency when in groups
then when alone.

Question 25

Bystander Nonintervention: Why?

Answer 25

• Diffusion of responsibility
• Pluralistic ignorance

Question 26

How to reduce social loafing?

Answer 26

One of the best antidotes to social loafing is to ensure that each person in the group is identifiable, for example, by guaranteeing that managers and bosses can evaluate each individual’s performance. By doing so, we can help “diffuse” the diffusion of responsibility that often arises in groups

*Establishing individual accountability
* Assign distinct responsibilities
* Encouraging team loyalty
* Decreasing the “sucker effect”

Question 26

Social Loafing

Answer 26

The tendency for people to put less effort into a task when they are in a group than when they are alone

Question 27

Why do people slack off in groups?

Answer 27

People working in groups typically feel less responsible for the outcome of a project than they do when working alone. As a result, they don’t invest as much effort.

Question 28

Deindividuation

Answer 28

Tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behavior when they are stripped of their usual identities