Stage 1- Social Influence Lecture 3 Flashcards
What is social influence?
Attitudes, perceptions, behaviours can be influenced by the real or implied presence of others
What is social facilitation?
How adding a group can affect you, e.g. you perform differently in the presence of others, performance improves
What did Norman Triplett perform?
In 1898 he performed the first social psychology experiment
Norman Triplett experiment?
He observed that cyclists performed worse when put against the clock
In a separate experiment he asked 40 school children to take part in a fishing reel study and found its not just competition/ co-operating- its the mere presence of others- social facilitation
Chen 1937/
Observed ants excavating soil for 4 days
Day 1- alone 2- groups of 2 3- groups of 3 4- alone
Ants excavating quicker in the presence of others- more soil was moved in the presence of others
Zajonc?
Type of tasks contributes to performance outcome
Presence+ easy task= good performance
Presence+ hard task= poor performance
Zajonc theory?
Presence= arousal - evolutionary response- dominant response
Dominant response- facilitates easy tasks - likely to help an easy task, hinder a difficult task
Conclusion of Zajonc?
Social facilitation occurs in simple tasks that require dominant responses
Social interference occurs for complex tasks that require non dominant responses
Cockroach maze?
Two routes in a maze- a simple (straight path) and complex (path with a turn)
Cockroaches were faster together in simple path
Faster alone in complex
Cottrell- evaluation apprehension?
PP learn nonsense words
PP were then asked to guess whether they saw word in recognition task- all words were new
Attentive audiences watching pp affect responses
Markus 1978?
PP asked to get changed before an experiment into lab clothes- then told experiment had been cancelled and asked to remove lab clothes, they were timed how long it took them to undress in both conditions- alone, someone watching, repair man with back turned)
Taking own stuff off- audience/repair/alone
Take lab stuff off- alone/ repair/ audience - quick
Distraction conflict?
Conflict between attending to task and to others who are present
Presence of others?
Tasks are considered a challenge when there are sufficient resources- considered a threat when not
Social loafing?
Individuals contribution to a collective activity cannot be evaluated - work less hard when in a group e.g. if asked to cheer, wont cheer as loud in a group
Karau and Williams?
Loafing depends on how important a person believes their contribution is- men may overestimate value of contribution
Why can social loafing be considered as a negative?
Someone else will do the work attitude
What is obedience?
When a person accedes to the demands of others (people in authority)
Milgram 1963?
Looked at blind obedience- Yale Uni study- how likely is someone to obey even when it goes beyond personal morality- was an ad for a memory study- student/teacher/experimenter
Prods to encourage obedience?
The experiment requires you to continue
Please continue
Milgram results?
80% willing to give extremely strong shock
65% went all way to 450v- when learner appeared silent
Subjects appeared nervous/uncomfortable
Evaluation Milgram?
Ethics- deceit/ distress- APA decided however work was ethical
84% happy to have taken part
2% said they were sorry
Demand characteristics - artificial/ prestigious setting
Zimbardo defended Milgram work
Hofling 1966?
Call from doctor- administer 20mg of unknown drug - a double dose- violated policy, 21/22 went to administer drug before being stopped
Agentic theory?
We act as agent of someone in authority- can deny personal responsibility (lack autonomy) and say we are simply following orders
Role of a buffer?
Not seeing the consequences of your actions makes it easier to administer them
Conformity?
Changing ones behaviour in response to perceived social norms
Sherif 1935?
Auto kinetic effect (ambiguous lab task)- small spot of light projected onto screen in dark room- appears to move but is still, asked to judge the distance of lights movement
Individual predictions can be seen to converge over trials when other pp predictions are heard
Asch 1935 methodology?
Line judgement task
1 PP 7 confeds
3 lines- 1 standard - 3 comparisions
6 trials confeds say right answer, 12 say wrong
Asch results?
25% refused to be influenced by confeds
75% conformed at least once
5% conformed on every trial
50% conformed to wrong answers on 6 or more trials
Asch unanimity?
Critical- less if coalition was formed- reached peak in groups of 4
What are norms?
What the group develops as their general way of thinking/feeling/behaving
Private conformity?
Personal/private acceptance of a norm eg. you trust decisions - may suggest you lack confidence or assume group decisions are right
Public conformity?
Appear to conform but do not actually accept the norm- view it rather as a form of approval- value group membership
How does type of task affect conformity?
For intellectual tasks- conform to norms of any group
Value tasks conform to norm of those who share the same opinion as you
What are the benefits of complying?
Evolutionary advantage
Positive reputation
Available in many forms- social situations/sales/marketing
Foot in door concept?
Comply with small request, followed by larger - long term
