w11 social group Flashcards
social cognition is
thinking about self and others
this is biased and socially constructed
3 demonstrations of power of the situation
Which 2 are ethically contentious?
- Asch’s 1956 conformity study
- Milgram’s 1963 obedience study
- Zimbardo’s prison experiment
Obedience and prison are ethically contentious
- Asch’s conformity study
conformity - influenced by those around us
confederates + participant
asked which of 3 lines matches the original line length
all confederates say same
conformity study results
participants conformed to confederates choice 37% of time
75% conformed on at least 1/12 trials
groups of 3 or more conformed more
conformity effect is reduced when:
private responses
others dissented
Deutsch + Gerard
Types of social influence
- informational - conform to others because you think they know something you dont
- normative - conform with others to fit in
we change our behaviour/belief in response to…
real or imagined influence of others
influence can sometimes be intentional
- Milgram’s obedience study
participants assigned role of teacher
instructed by experimenter to administer ‘shocks’ to learners when errors
learner was an actor
no actual shocks given
told to ‘continue with experiment’
Milgram’s study results
2/3 volunteeers were going to administer what was believed a very dangerous shock
successive prompts from experimenter (authority) - ‘experiment requiries that you continue’ ‘it is essential’
65% of participants continued past ‘danger’ shock on machine
milgram - obedience adjusted depending on how proximal to the experiment
someone else gave shock 92.5%
milgram 65%
office building 48%
teacher + learner in same room 40%
milgram critiques
- were they just following instructions?
- not obedience?
- did they identify with the experiment?
- Zimbardo’s prison experiment
males for 2-week prison life study
randomly assigned as ‘guards’ or ‘prisoners’
- prisoners were arrested and given ID
- guards had uniform and instructed to do whatever necessary to maintain law
Zimbardo observations
zimbardo acting as prison warden
day 1- guards harass prisoners
2 - prisoners rebelled, guards retailated
3 - prisoners act crazy
4 - guards exhibited ‘genuine sadistic tendencies’
6 - study was abandoned
zimbardo results
quickly took on assigned roles
– the situation led ordinary people to behave in extraordinary ways
critiquing Zimbardo
- participants behaving how they think they should act/what ZImbardo wanted
- zimbardo - people looking to him as authority
- haslam + richter - recreate study, different behaviours observed
thoughts and behaviours are shaped by:
what other people are doing
what we expect them to do
authority structures
social situations have…
PoWeRfUL influence over actions
what is a group?
a number of people/things that are located/gathered together
social psyc - what is a group?
- Campbells notion of entitativity
- tajfels notion of social identity
- Campbell - entitativity
the property of a group, appear to be distnct and bounded entity
1. common fate - individuals experience inter-related outcomes
2. similarity - extent individuals resemble each other
3. proximity - distance btwn individuals
Entitativity scale
low - unstructured + independent
high - interdependent + structured
groups in terms of real perceivable properties of group
group research - group perormance
audience effects:
social facilitation
presence of others
- eg cyclists rode faster with others
- chickens, fish eat more when others present
social inhibition
eg. higher quality philosophical arguments when alone
drive theory
presence of others is autonomically arousing + increases dominant response
Zajonc
how drive theory works
example
asked to play instrument at party
gets nervous increase dominant response
1. well-learned = performance increases (facilitation)
OR
2. dont know the song well, dominant response incorrect = performance decreases (inhibition)