Chapters 12.3, 12.4, and 12.7 Key Terms

attitude

evaluations of our feelings toward a person, idea, or object that are typically positive or negative

• The three components are: affective (feelings) → “I love M&M’s”, behavioral (the effect of the ___ on behavior) → “I’m going to eat a ½ pound of M&M’s in one sitting!”, and cognitive (belief and knowledge) → “I know M&M’s are bad for me”

• Is influenced by internal forces that we can control as well as external forces

LaPicre Study

The researcher accompanied a young Chinese couple to 251 hotels and restaurants all across the US to see how many would serve the Chinese couple (Chinese were incredibly discriminated against in the 1930’s)

• Six months later, he wrote a letter/survey to the hotels and restaurants inquiring about whether they would accept Chinese people

  • Results = Most establishments said they would not accept Chinese guests in the letter, BUT most actually did serve them

    • During the trip, the couple was only refused ONCE (a 99.5% acceptance rate)

      • In response to the survey/letter, 92% of those who responded said they would NOT serve Chinese guests (an acceptance rate of only 8%)

        • Would actually serve Chinese guests because this time was during the Great Depression (1934) → environment affected this study the most

Social facilitation

In the presence of others, improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks, and worsened performance on difficult tasks.

• When people are watching us, we get better at simple tasks and worse at complex tasks

  • Sean was doing well in bowling in the early/practice rounds, but the more people were watching, the worse he did (the task now feels harder)

cognitive dissonance

psychological discomfort that arises from a conflict in a person’s behaviors, attitudes, or beliefs that runs counter to one’s positive self-perception

• ONLY conflicting cognitions (thoughts, beliefs, or opinions) that threaten individual’s positive self-image cause this

Can reduce cognitive dissonance by:

• Changing our discrepant behavior (ex. stop smoking)

• Changing out cognitions through rationalization or denial (ex. telling ourselves that health risks can be reduced by smoking filtered cigarettes)

• Adding a new cognition (ex. “Smoking suppresses my appetite so I don’t become overweight, which is good.”)

justification of effort

theory that people value goals and achievements more when they have put more effort into them

• If something is difficult to achieve, we believe it’s more worthwhile

• ex. The study conducted by Arson and Mills (1959)

Arson & Mills (1959)

Conducted a study where college students volunteered to join a campus group → randomly assigned the students into three conditions: easy initiation into the group, no initiation, and a hard initiation

• All students than participated in the first group meeting, which was purposely designed to be incredibly boring → after they asked the students to rate the first session

  • Found that those with a hard initiation ranked the first meeting more favorably than those who had an easier time getting into the club

Persuasion

process of changing our attitude toward something based on some form of communication

• Usually comes from outside forces

Yale Attitude Change Approach: Presenter

Describes the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes

• Credibility of speaker (the more trustworthy they appear, the easier it is to persuade someone)

• Physical attractiveness of speaker (the more attractive they are, the easier it is to persuade → why famous actors are used in advertisements)

• Subtlety (the quality of being important but not obvious → the more subtle, the better)

• Sidedness (having more than one side)

• timing

• having both sides presented

Yale Attitude Change Approach: Audience

• Attention (they must be paying attention to be persuaded)

• age (young adults from 18-25 are more persuadable)

• intelligence (less intelligence = easily persuaded)

• self-esteem (moderate self-esteem = more easily persuaded than those with either high or low self-esteem)

Central Route

This is the “rational” route of persuasion. It involves careful reasoning about the arguments behind a persuasive message.

• Shows the facts and statistics of the car to convince someone to buy it

• Less effective than other route persuasion but lasts longer

Peripheral Route

This is the “irrational” route of persuasion. It involves the mindless acceptance and use of heuristics and shortcuts.

• To get someone to buy a car, you show a pic of Brad Pitt driving the car, or an American flag on the car to a patriot to make them see it’s patriotic

• Is more effective than other route persuasion, BUT doesn’t last as long

How the Central Route Works

1. The target person pays attention to the content of the message

2. The target person elaborates on the content of the message

3. The person either accepts or rejects the message

How the Peripheral Route Works

The target person relies on lots of mental shortcuts (heuristics) such as:

• The attractiveness heuristic

• The effects of mood (transfer of affect)

  • ex. ads put you in a good mood (happy music, bright colors, smiling, humor, babies, and puppies)

Conformity

When individuals change their behavior to go along with the group, even if they disagree with the group/they are acting in accordance with social pressures or a group norm.

• ex. going to party → see everyone’s drinking → you drink to fit in

Compliance

Acting in accordance with the explicit desires or wishes of another.

• ex. going to a party with a friend → friend asks you to drink → you start to drink because they asked

Obedience

Acting in accordance with the explicit command of an authority.

• Is the charger of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure

  • People often comply with the request because they’re concerned about a consequence if they don’t comply

• ex. Your college states that you can’t drink until you're 21 → following the USA’s laws

Solomon-Asch

This psychologist took a pod of people (all of whom were confederates in the experiment except for one) and had them compare three strands of different sizes to the standard line. All the others in the group chose the obviously wrong line and stated that it matched the standard line → the person who wasn’t in on the experiment quickly folded and agreed (had to voice their opinion out loud), even though the evidence right in front of them proved they were wrong.

• NOTHING on the line on this experiment, and yet people still conformed

• 50% of the real participants conformed to group pressure at least once

The Asch Effect

The influence of the group majority on an individuals’ judgement

Factors that make it more likely for a person to yield:

1. Made to feel incompetent by the group

2. Numbers matter (in groups of three or less, you’re less likely to conform and in groups of 7 you’re more likely to conform)

3. If everybody in the group agrees (even in a large group of 15+, if one other person disagrees with the group, then you’re more likely to not conform)

4. More likely to conform if you admire the other members

5. More likely to conform if your opinion ISN’T made known BEFORE the group’s (You walk into the pod with three pieces of string, and before any other person voices their opinion, they ask you what you think first, and you’ll stick with it)

6. If you’re being watched (if someone is looking for a quicker/right answer, you’re more likely to conform)

7. If you’re joining a group of like-minded people, you’re more likely to conform

Normative Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval (conform to fit in, feel good, and be accepted by the group)

• Desire to fit in/be liked (more emotional)

• Shown in the Asch Experiments

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality (conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, especially when the situation is ambiguous)

• Desire to be seen as smart as the rest of the group (more logical)

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

Participants were first given a show, and thought they got the role of teacher by change (chose a piece of paper). They were then told they were to teach other students the correct answers to a memorization test, and if the “learner” was wrong, they were told to shock them

• The “teachers” did not know the listeners were confederates and weren’t getting shocked

  • Learner purposefully pretends to get answers wrong, and as it goes on starts to beg for it to stop, complaining about their heart, and at a certain point pretends to be unresponsive

    • 65% of the participants continued to shock to maximum voltage and to the point that the lister was unresponsive (despite the listeners begging them to stop)

Conditions of the Milgram Obedience Trials

1. Students are more likely to go to through with the shocks if there is a professorial person in a lab coat to tell them to keep going (if the person who told you to keep going is more esteemed looking/figurehead) 

2. If you’re physically close (if you could make eye contact with the student in the chair) → less likely to do it 

   1. The more anonymous you are, the more likely you are to go through with it 

3. If no one went against it/raised an objection, you would continue 

   1. If even one person voiced an objection = a lot more likely to voice your opinion

4. If you’re told you’re doing this for a prestigious university (ex., Princeton) then you’re more likely to continue than if it were for a local sports team/community college

Groupthink

group members modify their opinions to match what they believe is the group consensus

• The group often takes actions that the individuals would not perform outside the group setting

• Symptoms of this:

  • perceiving the group as invulnerable

  • believing the group is morally correct

  • self-censorship by group members

  • quashing the dissenting group member’s opinions

  • shielding of the group leader from dissent

  • perceiving an illusion of unanimity

  • holding the stereotypes towards the out-group

Group Polarization

The strengthening/enhancement of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group

• If a group initially favors a viewpoint, after discussion, it’s a stronger endorsement of that view

  • Those initially opposed to viewpoint → stronger opposition after discussion

Social Loafing

Involves a reduction in an individual’s output on tasks where contributions are pooled

• Individual efforts not evaluated = less motivated to perform well

• increases as the size of the group increases

• The more difficult the task, the LESS this occurs

• ex. When you have a group responsible for a project, some group members are more likely to be less responsible and more relaxed because of the assumption that someone else will cover for you (everyone in the group does this → group projects are never anybody’s best work)

Deindividuation

A loss of a sense of personal identity and responsibility in a group, which can lead people to do things that they would normally not do alone.

• ex. mobs/riots or storming a football field after your team wins

Why deindividuation occurs

• A decrease in evaluation apprehension

• A decrease in self-awareness

• Diffusion of responsibility

Latane, Williams, & Harkins

Participants were simply told to clap or cheer as loudly as they could

• The participants were either alone or in groups of 2, 4, or 6 people

• The sound produced was scientifically measured and then calculated per person

• Found that the more people there was, the quieter the noise was produced individually

  • Shows social loafing

Diener et al. Experiment

Experimental Procedures:

• Children were observed trick-or-treating

• In each home, there was a bowl of candy

• An experimenter greeted the children

• The experimenter told the children, “You each may take one of the candies.”

• A hidden observer recorded what the children took from the bowl

• Independent Variable:

  • Group Size

    • alone

    • in a group

  • Anonymity

    • anonymous (children at this time usually wore a mask, kept their faces hidden)

    • not anonymous (experimenter would ask child to take off their mask, ask their name, where they lived, etc)

• Dependent Variable

  • Did the child transgress?

Conclusion

• Kids stole more if they were anonymous, regardless of whether they were in a group or alone

  • Kids who were anonymous AND in a group stole the most

Three Steps to Group Polarization

• The initial average opinion of the group is in one direction

• The members of the group discuss the issue, and during this process, they start “feeding” off each other

• The end results are a very polarized group opinion

Variations of the Milgram Study

1. The learner in the other room and made no complaints:

   1. 93% went all the way to 450 volts

2. Learner in the other room, and made complaints:

   1. 65% went all the way

3. Learner in the same room

   1. 40% went all the way

4. Learner in the same room, the teacher had to force the learner’s hand onto the chock plate

   1. 30% went all the way

Shows the importance of psychological distance

Psychological distance

The greater this is, the easier it is to hurt someone, and the smaller the distance, the harder it is to hurt them.

• ex. Vietnam War = hand-to-hand combat and very personal → led many soldiers of opposing sides to turn away if they ran into each other in the jungle instead of killing one another VS the USA bombing ships they claim are drug ships using a drone to bomb them (as impersonal as it gets)

Prosocial Behavior

voluntary behavior with the intent to help other people

Altruism

humans’ desire to help others, even if the costs outweigh the benefits of helping (unselfish regard for the welfare of others)

Empathy

capacity to understand another person’s perspective—to feel what they feel

Homophily

tendency for people to form social networks, including friendships, marriage, business relationships, and many other types of relationships, with others who are similar

Reciprocity

give and take in relationships (contribute to the relationship and expect benefits back)

Self-disclosure

sharing personal information in relationships (form intimate connections with people whom we disclose important information about ourselves)

Social Exchange Theory

We act as naive economists in keeping a tally of costs and benefits of forming and maintaining a relationship with othersp, with the goal to maximize benefits and minimize costs

Three ingredients for liking another

1. Physical proximity

   1. Mere exposure effect

2. Physical attractiveness

   1. `Symmetry = your face matches (sameness)

   2. Culture dictates what we find attractive

3. Similarity

   1. We tend to shop for our mates and organize our lusts in the direction of people that fit into our social familiarity/demographics (find someone like you or your parents)

      1. Same economic background, beliefs, etc

      2. Recognition that we tend to be attracted to people who reward us (people who seem to be attracted to you as well)

Triangular Theory of Love

model of love based on three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment; several types of love exist, depending on the presence or absence of each of these components

TTL: Romantic Love

Passion + intimacy: no commitment (first stage of love)

TTL: Companionate Love

intimacy + commitment: close friendships and family relationships (will share secrets, etc)

TTL: Fatuous Love

passion + commitment: long-term sexual love affairs (promise that they’re the only one)

TTL: Consummate Love

intimacy + passion + commitment: the ideal, complete form of love

TTL: Empty Love

commitment: will still stay together (even if they don’t love each other) for the kids