Social Psychology Exam 3

Informational Influence

The desire to be correct/accurate. It involves private acceptance of norm.

when we change behavior because we are not sure of what is right, so we follow.

multiple choice look at people and they’ve chosen A, you pick A

When we are not sure what the correct way to respond is, we look to other people to know what is correct ie. in who wants to be a billionaire, when using the audience lifeline, they think the majority answer of the audience is the right answer.

Norm

Rule or standard for what is acceptable, appropriate, or correct in terms of judgement, value, perception, belief, behavior.

What did the Sherif’s studies on the emergence and perseverance of group norm dictate?

In a dark rom a light is shown. Although the light is actually stationary, it appears to be moving-autokinetic effect- the amount that the light seems to be moving is different per person, there is stimulus ambiguity.

when the 3 subjects were asked to talk about the movement of the light together, they all came to an agreement of how much the light had moved. When they were asked individually, the participants reverted to what they had originally thought before making a group decision.

Ambigious stimulus = informational

Emergence of Norms- Informational influence (Serif, 1936)

WHAT WERE THE 3 REASONS WHY WE KNOW ITS INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCE?

1. High degree of ambiguity- the subjects don’t know how far the light moved, they look to each other for the answer.

2. Minimal pressure to conform- they weren’t told to conform and biggest you can have is a 2 to 1 majority.

3. Norm persevered through numerous trials, even when subjects gave estimates alone- they internalized the norm.

Private Acceptance

Believed the group was correct when alone

Normative Influence - Asch’s Conformity Research

• subjects have to choose which comparison line matches the standard line

• the judgements of line length is unambiguous- anyone would know the answer- when alone, the subjects chose the correct line 99% of the time.

• as a group, everyone purposely chose the wrong answer, subjects conformed to the group in 37% of the trials.

• when another person would say the right answer with the subject, the subject was less likely to conform even if the majority still chose the wrong answer.

• when the rest of the group had to say the answer out loud while the subject had to write his answer on paper, there was less pressure to conform as was also less likely to conform here too,

When does Normative influence drops??

• One person doesn’t comply, you have less pressure when another person agrees with you = 37% - 5%

• written on paper (public compliance if they do)

Proportion of conformity:

There were about 25% of subjects who never conformed, 5% of subjects conformed every trial. majority of subjects went along with only some of the critical trials, overall conformity rate was 37%

Percentage of students who said they would conform in an Asch line-length study:

• people underestimate their susceptibility to confirm because of the self-serving bias. 11% said they would when 37% did in study.

Group Size and Conformity

• Conformity gets higher with group size, when the group is also unanimous

When does conformity increase?

• subject is solitary dissenter; when they’re the only one who disagrees with the group

• the behavior is public

• people are unsure of a situation, or it’s a crisis (ambiguity increases inclination to conform)

• group size increases (up to a point)

• group is ‘important” to the person; want to be accepted and approved of the people in the group and maintain status and membership in the group

• people are of lower status; people of higher status are less likely to conform with other when others are obviously incorrect

• the motivation to be accurate is high (informational influence) and ambiguity is high (money wills till make people confirm)

Does need to be accurate increase informational influence? (Baron et al., 1996)

• it depends of the level of ambiguity

• people asked to watch a video of crime. One video has high and other has low ambiguity as to identifying the perpetrator/

• they get individually rewarded for their correct decision and it will have an impact on societal issue of false convictions

• the people will be paired with confederates who will identify incorrect perpetrators

• when level of importance is low, ambiguity makes no difference

• when level of importance is high and ambiguity is high = people confirm more

• when level of importance is high and ambiguity is low = people confirm less

Mindless Compliance:

• The role of automaticity in compliance, we don’t think about it, doubt it, or question it, we just do it.

Soft Compliance:

• going along with a request, when someone asks you to do something

what are the 2 techniques for obtaining compliance with requests?

• “foot in the door” and “door in the face”

• norm of reciprocity- if someone asks for something and you say no and then they scale it way back, you feel like you owe them something, you feel like they tried to meet you somewhere in the middle and now you feel obligated to do the same.

what is an example of the ‘foot in the door’ technique

• door to door salesperson trained to get foot in door, cross the threshold, once you do that, you’re much more likely to make a sale.

• ie. ask someone to sign a petition for funding the homeless, then follow up with asking to contribute $5 to help. saying no is much harder now because you’ll look like a hypocrite if you do.

what is an example of “door in the face” technique

• ask something you know someone will say no to, it is so over the top. but then you follow that with a smaller, less burdensome request, the person is more likely to say yes to the second request.

• ie. asked if woman would chaperone distressed teen, she says no, then asks if she would at least donate $5 to the homeless and she agrees.

Obedience (Compliance with Authority) Milgram 1974

• milligram obedience to authority by shocking subjects, 63% followed through to 450 volts (end)

Milgram foot in the door

• you agree to shock the person with increasing intensity ten times in a row, it’s harder to stop the 11th time; if you obey ten times it’s harder to disobey the 11th time.

Milgram cognitive dissonance/self-justification:

• blaming the victim for not answering

Milgram Normative Influence:

• Agree to participate in study = commit to agree to follow instructions of the experiment.

Milgram Informational Influence:

• Subjects don’t know what’s happening to the learner, they don’t see the learner, they don’t know about how painful or harmful the shocks are, they turn to the experimenter for the right information, there is so much ambiguity.

• experimenter us from yale and knows better than I do.

Milgram External Attribution:

• attribute responsibility to the experimenter, not themselves. Abandon personal responsibility, “I am just following orders”

Power of situation (Arendt’s “banality of evil”)

• Social situations can cause people to act in ways that contradict their values and their behavioral standards; people can be made to behave uncharacteristic to who they are.

• Arend’ts banality of evil - almost any of us can go along when authority figure command that we do so. Jewish psychologist, sat in during court, Germans seemed like nice poeple, and many people would be dirven to do the same thing if we were in the situation

Varying the conditions: Increasing or Decreasing compliance:

• Distance of Authority: father = decrease

• Distance of Victim: closer = decrease

• Status of Authority: not a scientist = decrease

• Status of Individual: High community authority = decrease

• Presence of others and their behavior: more subjects = Increase, one declines = decrease

Implications of Milgram’s findings:

• fundamental attribution error: situation not personality

• external validity: this is nothing like Nazy germany, well if peope are willing to go to war with such little pressure of a man in a white coat, it’s not so far off to think nazis could go so far if their family is in jeopardy.

• ethical issues: psychological stress

what is unanimity?

• agreement by all people: you don’t know answer to test and everyone around you is putting A, you put A.

What is cohesion?

• one is more likely to follow directions of a leader, high motivation to avoid disagreeing.

Public vs. Private behavior

• compliance in public vs private ( cops vs no cops and speed limit)

Prior Commitment

• first to answer and everyone answers wrong = less likely to change, if Milgram asked people what they would stop before they went, they would stop at the same time.

Novelty or Ambiguity of Situation- Informational Influence

• have never been in a situation like that before, and don’t know what the consequences are.

Individual Differences in Compliance and Conformity

• Gender: women are more likely to conform

• Personality: highly agreeableness and conscientiousness = high conformity

• Cultural: individualistic: less, collectivist; more

Descriptive Norms

• what do people actually do ( or refrain from doing) literring?

Injuctive Norms

• what should people do ( or refrain from doing) not litter

what is a group?

Three or more dependent people who interact and are interdependent, need majority and minority.

what are the benefits of group membership and what do they do?

• Facilitate goal achievement trip to moon, no one individual can do that, need thousands to come together and work to make it happen.

• Provide information: social comparison and ambiguity resolution.

• Identity: when you are asked to described yourself, you name clubs, sororities, etc. the groups are part of you

• Establishing social norms and rules

Social Comparison:

• where do we stand compared to others?

Ambiguity resolution:

• how do other people react? Should i be reacting the same way?

The compositions of groups:

• members tend to be similar because people are attracted to similar others and because groups operate in ways that encourage similarly among members; less conflict, makes you more similar in the end.

Influential aspects of groups (3)

• norms: everyone should follow

• roles: you have a specific one to follow

• group cohesion: unity

Social Facilitation:

• changing performance for group

Triplett’s Observations- bike race

• bikers performed better than time trials when riding with others. Work harder when others are around.

Zajonc- pool shot

• performance enhanced on simple, well learned tasks, impaired on complex, poorly learned ones.

• skilled players- more shots made in front of the audience

• unskilled players- less shots made in front of the audience

• arousal facilitates: the dominant response; if the dominant response is to perform effectively (ie. to make pool shot), then that is facilitated/more likely, if dominant response is to perform poorly, then they are more likely to perform worse.

Cockroaches research:

• cockroach escapes light faster on simple maze when other roaches are around.

• cockroach takes longer to escape light on complex maze when other roaches are around.

Why does arousal facilitate the dominate response?

• evaluation apprehension: nervous in the presence of people

• Attentional diversion: attention is moved from tasks and onto person when there are other people, skilled = automated

• Mere presence of others- physiological arousal which is activation of sympathetic nervous system.

What is social loafing?

• the reduction in effort that occurs when people are not monitored individually but when they are monitored as a group; output of group measured, not output of individual.

• when the group’s output is measured as a whole, the group will reduce effort

• non-conscious reduction in effort.

Ingham’s rope pull: tug of war experiment

• no one can tell how hard an individual is pulling.

• monitored individual effort when they believe whole group effort is monitored —> pulled less with force

• ½ told individual effort was being monited —> pulled with more force.

Latane’s clapping and shouting study:

• make as much noise as possible —> everybody in the study blindfolded and wearing noise-canceling headphones —> can’t hear or see what everyone else is doing.

• ½ told individual noise was measured, ½ told only group nose was measured.

• made more noise when they believed individual noise was being measured.

Performancce/Effort Decline as Group Size Increases

1 person -100%; 2 people- 90%; 3 people- 85%; 4 people- 80%; 10 people -75%

• larger group = more social loafing.

Free-riding

• Intentional reduction in effort when they know their individual efforts aren’t being monitored

Why do people free ride?

• reduced evaluation apprehension: less afraid of being judged

• decreased arousal.

Social Loafing is less pronounced if :

• challenging involving tasks- care about performance

• group consists of friends/high cohesion

• culture is collectivist: good of the group is elevated above the individual

• people believed their individual contribution can be monitored.

Deindividuation:

• Abandoning restraint and loss of sense of individual responsibility,

• Increased responsiveness to situational cues

• Decreased accessibility and influence of personal values

• loss of evaluation apprehension

• Increased impulsivity/decreased self regulation