Social Psych Exam #3

Conformity

• Changing your behavior to match others without a direct request

  • peer pressure

Compliance

• Where you are changing a behavior to a direct request

Obedience

• direct request is coming from authority figure

  • Form of compliance 

Asch (1956)

• demonstrated that individuals often ignore reality to conform to a unanimous but incorrect group majority. Using a simple line-matching task, 75% of participants conformed at least once to the wrong answer.

Normative influence

• demonstrated that individuals often ignore reality to conform to a unanimous but incorrect group majority. Using a simple line-matching task, 75% of participants conformed at least once to the wrong answer.

Informational influence

• Going along with the group because they genuinely believe that the group is correct and that they are wrong 

Schacter experiment (1961)

• Looked at what happens when someone goes against the group

  • Group of actual participants plus one confederate who was told to say the opposite of whatever the group says

  • Steps participants took to try to convince the confederates to agree with them 

  • Step 1: Argue with and convince the confederate to come along with the group Step 2: Ignore the confederate (talk over them, cut them off etc) Step 3: Punish the confederate (expelling them from the group;, giving them the worst job to do, find ways to make them unhappy with the group)

Normative influence (two types)

Descriptive and injunctive

Descriptive

• Going along with the actual behaviors that the group does

Injunctive

• Going along with what is typically approved by the group 

When is normative influence like to happen?

• Size- When group is large, normative influence is more likely to occur 

Moscovici’s theory

• A majority is going to influence an individual by the size of the majority. A minority is going to influence an individual by the style of their argument   

Unanimity

• When everyone else is saying the same thing, it creates more pressure, normative influence is more likely to occur.

Immediacy

• When the task is more temporarily up to you (complete quickly, no time in between to complete task) or if the group is physically close to you (standing over your shoulder compared to being a across the room from you), normative influence is more likely to occur

Social strength

• When the group matters to you, normative influence is more likely to occur

Bond & Smith (1996)

• Found that people from collectivist cultures were more likely to conform than individualist cultures 

When is injunctive influence likely to happen?

Informational influence aka social validation

Sherif (1935)

• The autokinetic effect is where you show a beam of light, and people will perceive movement in the beam of light, even though it's a stationary thing 

  • Had people come in and give ratings of the movement by themselves. Then had them come back with three others. Found that participants all came up with an agreeable movement. Third session, when they came back by themselves and created another rating. Ratings turned out more similar to the second session than the first session. Tell Difference from Normative or Informational influence. Staying the same, it’s informational; if it changes, it’s normative 

Ambiguity

• When there is not a clear answer we are a lot more likely to see informational influence take hold

Crisis

• More likely to fall for informational influence when there is a crisis, works ambiguity 

Experts

• We are going to look to experts more in a given situation especially in an ambiguous situation or a crisis 

Social Contagion

• How fads work, starts with one individual or a small group and thus spreads and grows into larger population 

  • When an illness spreads through individual through a social contagion 

Mass Psychogenic Illness

• A psychosomatic illness spreads in individuals through social contagion 

Tanganyikan Laughing Epidemic

• 3 girls were laughing and could not stop and 95 of the other students couldn’t stop laughing, they started laughing so much it hurt, it started spreading to family members 

Dancing Plague of 1518

• 50-400 died from this; they started dancing and could not stop 

Warren County High School

• A teacher smelled gasoline and felt lightheaded, many went to the ER, after going back to school, even more went to the ER

Psychiatrist survey (Miligram)

• How many psycharirtists will fall to the obedience, they p-redacted 1 in 1,000 would fall prey to the on evidence, in actuality it was ⅔

Principles of compliance

1. Foot in the door

2. Low ball

3. Bait and switch

4. Labeling

5. Obligation

Commitment and consistency

• Humans have an inherent desire to be consistent. Get them to drop what you want.

Foot in the door

• You start with a small request and then do a bigger request until you get to your actual request. 

  • Ex: Ask you parents for $5 one week, $10 next week, $20 next week, and then $100. (Slowly increased until you get to your final goal)

Freedman & Fraser (1966)

• Asked half of participants to wear stickers that said “Be a safe driver” the other half didn’t wear any stickers. They followed up by asking them to put a big ugly sign that says be a safe driver on their lawn. Control group 2%-3% put the lawn sign and 76% of the participants wore the sticker.

Low-ball

• Pull you in with a cheap offer and hide hidden fees. Give a low price then there’s secret hidden costs that raise the price to more than you initially were expecting to pay. 

Bait-and-switch

• Lure someone in with an attractive offer and then you switch it to another option

  • Ex: Target will advertise 80 inch TV for $200 but there only is one. You get to the store and it is sold out, but since you went to go to the store then you have to go with the not as good offer.

Labeling

• Salesperson will give you some sort of label to get you to act in a way that is consistent with that label 

  • Ex: “You seem like someone who really cares about the environment”. I know you have a small budget but let me show you these electric cars that are over your budget 

Obligation

• I am obliged to go through with my purchase and follow through 

Reciprocation

• Because you did something for me, I will do something for you 

Door in the face

• Opposite approach. Starts BIG and gets smaller. You ask for something big that you are expecting to say no to, then you follow up with a smaller more reasonable request 

  • The person feels bad they said no, so they will feel like they need to move closer to your request 

• Conceivable: Needs to be feasible to be fulfilled

  • Ex: Can't ask for a unicorn 🦄

• Same Person: The same person has to make the big request and the small request 

  • Doesn’t;t work if it is two different people

That’s not all

• Making their offer more attractive so you should reciprocate that offer by purchasing it

Infomercials

• Using buy one get one free, free shipping, spin the wheel to get X amount off your purchase 

Burger (1986)

•  A field study where they were doing a bake sale, selling cupcakes. They had three different conditions. 1st was the control cupcakes for $1, 2nd was bargain condition, they used to be $1.25 and now they’re on sale for $1, 3rd “that’s not all” if you buy them right now you’ll get them for $1 each. They found that 25% bought the cupcakes in the control, 25% bought it in bargain condition,and 56% bought it in the that’s not all condition. 

Favors

• Get people to do favors for you and you do your part (return object) and they are more likely to do future favors

  • ex: Ben Franklin asked to borrow a book (favor) then returned the book and the person was more willing to do future favors

Scarcity

• What is rare is good (we assume that it must be a good product even if it is artificial rarity)

• Limited Number of a product, you feel a pressure that you might miss out on the product 

  • ex: Amazon saying that there is only 2 products left to buy so you think you should rush to buy it 

• Fast-Approaching Deadline—Amount of time that is with the scarcity

  • The advertiser will tell you how long it's on sale (ex. Only for Labor Day weekend)

Attention

• Pique: If you spike their interest ion flash their attention to you, they are more likely to follow your request 

• Disrupt then reframe: If we are able to disrupt their cognition and reframe our request then they are likely to follow it. Dismantling attention will have people comply with our request

David & Knowles (1999)

• offered a post card for $3 or offered a postcard for 300 pennies. We don’t think of pricing in pennies, even though they are the same price. $3 post card 30% wanted it, 65% agreed to purchase the card for 300 pennies 

Friendship and liking

• We are more likely to go along people that we like (Go along with request from your friend vs stranger)

Incidental similarity

• Trying to find some way that you are similar to the person you are saying a request from. 

  • Ex: Binghamton University bumper sticker on your car and car salesman says “Oh my kid goes there” so now you feel like you are similar  

Ingratiation

• Complimenting the person you are requesting something from. There is no risk because the person likes you

  • it has to be genuine, so if you think they are lying then it won’t work 

Self-promotion

• Increase people's thoughts about ourselves by highlighting our successes

  • If it seems like we are bragging, it can go too far. 

Persuasion

• An attempt to change someone’s private attitude 

Who is asking you to change their mind?

• Is this a source that I should believe when it comes to this topic? (Source credibility)

Hoveland and & Weiss (1951)

• He was looking at propaganda that was heavy in WW1 and WW2. They gave people speeches that were audio acting for atomic submarines. They were the same speeches, but they said to half of them it was from the guy who created an atomic bomb vs. the other was just a journalist from a soviet paper so less credible.

  • Got their attitudes before reading the speeches, after reading the speeches, and one month after reading them. Immediately after reading the speeches, rated the atomic submarines higher (Oppenheimer) vs the journalist had little effect. A month after, the attitudes equaled out so the source did not matter  

    • Forgetting the source, but remembering the message **

Sleeper effect

• Someone can be influential even with fairly low source credibility, it just takes a longer time 

  • Expertise: If someone is an expert in what they are talking about then it can be seen as credible 

  • Trustworthiness: You have to be able to trust the source 

    • even if they have a PhD, but they lie then their expertise becomes irrelevant y 

    • We will go with a trustworthy novice vs untrusted expert 

Source likability

• If we like someone, we are more likely to be persuaded by them.

• Similarity

• Attractiveness

• Power

Similarity

• When someone is similar to us, we put them in the ingroup category. We like people who are in our ingroup more generally. 

Attractiveness

• the idea that beautiful is good. We assume that people that are beautiful have a lot of other attractive qualities. 

Power

• People that have actual power over us such as bosses or our parents

  • When there is a majority propelled saying the same thing, it is more persuasive 

  • If you perceive someone to have power over you, then that makes them persuade rather than the actual power they have over you.

Personal importance

• Messages that are important to us tend to be more persuasive 

  • You are a lot but likely to be persuaded by a personal reference 

Humor

• 40% of ads use humor to deliver a message, we at more likely to pay attempt to that information and remember 

Fear

• Has a bell curve. Too little is not successful and too much fear gets you to shut down. A middle moderate of the bell curve gets you to act due to persuasion. 

• Susceptible to danger—If the stimulus is not dangerous, then others will not feel fear. 

• Told how to avoid it—If the person doesn't know how to avoid the fear, then you are just scaring them and not giving a way to take change.

Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano (1967)

• Gave current smokers about lung cancer (making them susceptible to danger) VS. a packed how to quit (how to avoid it). Or they gave them not just movies and pamphlets. 

  • The combination of the movie and pamphlets were effective for long term decrease in smoking. 

One-sided

• These arguments can still be effective but will only work on uninformed receivers. If you present under one side of the argument may be ineffective for informed receivers. Uninformed people don’t know another side exists so they can be persuaded by your side. If you have an informed receiver, then they think that you are hiding something or being sneaky. 

Primacy vs. recency

• Primacy the first argument your guess and extent is the last argument you heard. When all of your options are presented at once, then your FIRST (primacy) will be more effective. But, if the persuasion time in the time period of arguments, then the argument your fresh LAST (recency) then that will be more effective.

  • Ex: A lot of political campaign will increase right before the election (recency)

Receptivity

• Did you receive the message? Yes or No? If they do not receive a message and won’t be effective 

Yielding

• You have to accept the message. 

Emotional state

• People are more open top perfusion when they are in a good mood. 

Intelligence

• Similar to fear, people at the high and low scale will not be persuaded. The middle ground will cause a lot more people to be open to persuasion. 

Need for cognition

• How much people like to think about things. Some people like logic puzzles and think about things. Some people like to turn their brain off and not think about things.

  • People with a high need for cognition can think about your argument and be persuaded by your argument. Low need for cognition will be persuaded by a weaker argument, a stronger argument will be more complex and they will shut down because they don’t want complexity.

Self-presentation

• Those that are high in self presentation(care about how they present themselves to the world), will care more about messages that have status symbols and perceptions of the outside world or have things make them look. Low self presentation people don’t care how they are being presented out in the world. 

  • Depends on the message will affect persuasion  

Individualist vs collectivist

• Individualist will be more influenced by messages focused on the individual. Collectivists will be more influenced on messages about culture, family etc.

Han & Shavitt (1994)

• When these two ads were shown then the more individualist ad wa amor influential in the USA. In South Korea, the collectivist culture was more perused by the collectivist ad. 

Ego depletion

• Related to self regulation, reservoir of self control. When the self regulation is depleted, then we are more susceptible to persuasion 

Wheeler, Brinkley, & Herman (2007)

• Had participants go through an ego depletion ad and look at attitude change. This requires a high level of attention. Low ego depletions d didn’t have to go though this. They gave them things to read. Low ego depletion ad, where they still had their reservoir only strong arguments changed them. High ego depletion were more influenced by weak arguments.

Active

• Require more effort on the persuader to change opinion of the recipient 

Passive

• Weakly held opinions will not require as much effort on the persuader to change. 

Repetition

• Can be effective. It can only be effective if it starts from a neutral or positive aspect. Negative aspects can not be effective at all, you will hate it. 

Advertisement wear-out

• Getting tired of the same ad, becomes annoying 

Repetition with variation

• You can recognize the same symbol but they are doing different things every time.

Straightforwardness

• We are influenced by things that are less straightforward. 

Product placement

• the idea behind is you are overhearing people use a product 

Subliminal advertisement

• Advertsiment at a unsocial level. usually is largely ineffective but it CAN be effective If the person is predisposed to a related action 

Karremans, Stroebe, & Claus (2006)

• They flashed a Lipton iced tea or complete nonsense. This did this at a very subliminal level. They asked if they would rather have a  can of Lipton iced tea or some other brand as compensation. 

  • DV: Who choose Lipton iced tea or other drink as additional compensation

  • Results: The subliminal message was only effective if they were already thirsty 

Elaboration likelihood

• There are two different routes you can take to persuade someone.

Theories of persuasion

1. Central

2. Peripheral

Central

• You are focused on the message. The message is strong enough to persuade someone based on the merit of the message

  • In political advertisements. A stronger route for higher need for cognition that would be persuaded by a stronger message. 

  • MORE LONG-LASTING CHANGE but takes more effort on the person persuading and the person being persuaded 

Peripheral

• You are trying to use ANYTHING outside of the message to persuade your reception. 

  • For example: Children’s cereal. They distract you with cartoon mascots, contests you can enter, toys in the box. They are trying to get you to not look at the message 

  • SHORT-LASTING CHANGE and it is going to be easier open the persuader and person being persuaded 

Resistance is not futile

1. Attitude inoculation

2. Forewarning

3. Stop being lazy

Attitude inoculation

• Like a vaccine. You introduce yourself to some of the counterarguments in order to be stronger/secure in your argument.

  • Effective if the counter argument is not strong 

Forewarning

• If you warn people that they are going to be persuaded, then they will build a wall up to avoid being unduly influenced 

  • We don’t like our autonomy being comprised so we build up defenses 

Stop being lazy

We tend to be more resistant and use more cognition resources

Groups

• A minimum of two people to be a group. They don’t necessarily have to interact but usually do interact.

Dynamical systems

• A changing system that is made up of many different variables and the way the variables interact can change over time. 

Cohesiveness

• How close a group feels. It is generally higher in a group that is more similar. 

Interdependent

• They rely on other group members in some way. It doesn’t have to be substantial or consistent. The weight of this can change. 

Outgroup presence

• If there is some competing group or other group in the environment, it is easier for you to build connections within a group. 

  • Helps forms groups and make bonds stronger

Roles

• A set of expected behaviors 

Instrumental

• The role that helps your group succeed at a task.

  • Ex: IF you play trivia, it doesn’t help if everyone is good at movie trivia and not sports trivia. But if someone is a movie expert, sport expert, history expert then it is ______

Expressive

• The connections within the group. These are the people helping with cohesiveness and bonding that keeps the group together. 

Zimbardo (1971)

• Stanford prison experiment. The head researcher related to this.

• Controversy: 

  • External validity was high, they tried to make internal validity higher by finding most competent people 

  • The guards build the prison.

  • The study was supposed to be 2 weeks, but they shut it down early 

  • Why we have code of ethics in APA

  • Both Milligram and Zimbardo wanted to be famous in psychology. Their experiments were meant to be “spectacular” and draw attention 

  • Zimbardo was acting as the prisoner warden, when the prisoner guards weren’t acting like guards they would have a meeting to tell them to act like guards.

  • The prisoners were trained to fake mental breakdowns so they can leave the study 

  • We have to understand it mythology and influenced future studies but we need to Recognize when things are bad science

Deindividuation

• When your individuality matters less to you and you are consumed by the group. We tend to feel more comfortable going against our morals. 

  • Arousal: When we feel high levels of arousal, we feel uncomfortable and move away from our individual identity. 

  • Anonymity: If there is some reason you can be more anonymous it increases deindividuation

    • During Halloween and Stanford prison experiment with reflective sunglasses 

Decreased responsibility

• If you are not the person responsible for your actions then you don’t feel that bad 

  • “Well I am not the authority figure so they can shut it down”