Social Psychology I Flashcards
What is Social Psychology
The study of how people influence the behaviours, beliefs,
and attitudes of others.
Social Comparison Theory
Theory that states we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others
Humans as a social species
- GRAVITATING TO EACH OTHER
- THE NEED TO BELONG: WHY WE FORM GROUPS
- SOCIAL COMPARISON
What are the 6 Social Influences?
- Conformity
- Obedience
- Performance in a group
- Helping in the presence of others
- Social loafing
- Deindividuation
What is Conformity
Conformity is going along with the crowd. It’s the tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure.
What factors affect the rate of conformity in Ash’s study?
- Unanimity vs. supporter
- Difficulty and familiarity of task
- Size of the majority
- Individual and cultural differences
Individual differences in Ash’s study
- Nobody conformed on 100% of trials
- 25% of participants NEVER conformed
- 75% of participants conformed at least once
Conformity, Asch’s study: Line matching
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?
In Ash’s study…
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
Difficulty and familiarity of task
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.
Unanimity vs. supporter
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.
What were the Evaluations of Asch’s Study?
- Androcentric
- Ethical concerns
- Expensive, time-consuming
- Lacks ecological validity
Size
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.
Individual and cultural differences
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
Why Do People Conform?: Field Experiment By
Milgram
Milgram states that people conform because of obedience to an authority figure
Explain Milgram’s experiment
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.
Why Do People Conform: Brain imaging studies
- Increased amygdala activity (anxiety)
- Brain’s desire to reduce conflict
Obedience
Change behaviour due to direct
commands from an authority
figure
The prods used by the experimenter in the Milgrams
- 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.
Factors Affecting Obedience
- Situational factors
- Experimenter’s authority
- Distance between participant and learner
- Distance between participant and experimenter
- Unanimity
Evaluations of Milgram’s Experiment
- Foundation for understanding why people will obey extreme orders
- Ethical concerns
- Questionably validity
Why Do People Obey?
- Legitimate authority
- Agency theory
- Graduated commitmen
Factors Affecting Obedience
Personality differences
- Higher authoritarianism
- Higher conscientiousness and agreeableness
- Higher moral reasoning
Social facilitation
Performance easily in a group
Simple or well-learned tasks
Zajonc’s Model of Social Facilitation
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
Social disruption
S worsening of performance in the presence of others, occurs on tasks we find difficult.
Bystander Nonintervention
AKA the bystander effect
People are less likely to respond
to emergency when in groups
then when alone.
Bystander Nonintervention: Why?
- Diffusion of responsibility
- Pluralistic ignorance
How to reduce social loafing?
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”
Social Loafing
The tendency for people to put less effort into a task when they are in a group than when they are alone
Why do people slack off in groups?
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.
Deindividuation
Tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behavior when they are stripped of their usual identities
