Week 3: Social Thinking and Social Influence

Attributions

judgements about the causes of our own and other people's behaviour and outcomes.

Internal attributions

- infer that people's behaviour is caused by their characteristics

External attributions

- infer that aspects of the situation cause a behaviour.

Fundamental Attribution Error

We underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the role of personal factors when explaining people's behaviour.

Confirmation Bias

• Tendency to look for evidence that will confirm a conclusion

• Tendency not to look for evidence that could disconfirm beliefs

Memory Cueing Explanation

Certain contents of the problem cue, or call to mind, personal experiences that are relevant to the rule

Perceiver expectations

How we expect others to behave can influence our actual perceptions of them

Stereotypes

"widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group."

Stereotypes Examples

include ethnicity, race, gender, religion

• Also based on physical appearance (e.g., whatis-beautiful-is-good stereotype)

• For example, attractive people are perceived more favorably than justified. Aka The Halo Effect

Social categorizations

cognitive "shortcuts" in which we categorize people.

• People perceive similar individuals to be members of their ingroup (us) and dissimilar people to be members of the outgroup (them).

Threats to social identity

- when the collective self-esteem of a group is threatened, two response may occur:

• Ingroup favoritism

• Outgroup denigration

Prejudice

a negative attitude toward members of a group

Discrimination

"involves behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group"

The Problem of Prejudice

• Prejudice and discrimination often go together, but this is not always the case.

• Prejudices and stereotypes can be triggered without conscious awareness and can have consequences for behavior.

Cognitive strategies

make an effort to override stereotypes by using controlled processing.

Superordinate goal

goals that require two or more groups to work together to achieve mutual ends" can reduce intergroup hostility.

Solomon Asch's (1955)

classic study demonstrated that people conformed easily to wrong answers given by others in a mock perception test.

• Conformity also increased, to a point, as group size increased, peaking at seven members.

Influences of Confrimity

• Group Size

- Conformity increases as group size increases, up to a point

• Presence of a dissenter

- At least one reduces conformity

Why do we conform?

Information and normative social influences

Informational social influence

We follow others behaviours because we believe they have accurate knowledge and what they are doing is "right".

Normative social influence

We follow others to obtain rewards that come from acceptance or also avoiding rejection.

Conformity

"occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure."

Compliance

"occurs when people yield to social pressure in their public behavior, even though their private beliefs have not changed.

Obedience

"is a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority."

Stanley Milgram's classic study (1963)

demonstrated that people's tendency to obey is strong, even if they are asked to harm another person.

- Two volunteers for the study. One is assigned as the "teacher", the other is assigned as the "learner".

- Deliver a shock when a mistake was made

- Milgram asked psychologists, students, etc, to predict level of obedience - 1%

- In actual fact 65% obeyed to highest level of shock value.

Milgram (1974) explained the behavior of his participants by suggesting that people actions and two states of behavior when they are in a social situation:

autonomous and agentic state

autonomous state

people direct their own actions, and they take responsibility for the results of those actions

agentic state

people allow others to direct their actions and then pass off the responsibility for the consequences to the person giving the orders. In other words, they act as agents for another person's will.

Factors and Variations - The Milgram Study

Uniform

In the original baseline study - the experimenter wore a grey lab coat as a symbol of his authority (a kind of uniform). Milgram carried out a variation in which the experimenter was called away because of a phone call right at the start of the procedure. The role of the experimenter was then taken over by an 'ordinary member of the public' (a confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a lab coat.

The obedience level dropped to 20%.

What keeps someone in an autonomous state rather than an agentic state?

1. Removal of responsibility

2. Belief in the Authority figure

Factors and Variations - Two Teacher Condition Milgram Study

When participants could instruct an assistant (confederate) to press the switches, 92.5% shocked to the maximum 450 volts. When there is less personal responsibility obedience increases. This relates to Milgram's Agency Theory.

Techniques are used by telemarketers and salespeople

1. Norm of Reciprocity

2. Door-in-the-Face technique

3. Foot-in-the-door technique

4. Lowballing

Norm of Reciprocity

expectation that when others treat us well, we should respond in kind. Example - Hari Krishna's "Flower Power" technique.

Door-in-the-Face technique

Persuader makes a large request, expecting you to reject it and then presents a smaller request.

Foot-in-the-door technique

persuader gets you to comply with a small request first and later presents a larger request.

Lowballing

- persuader gets you to commit to some action and then

- before you actually perform the behaviour

- they increase the "cost" of that same behaviour.

The scarcity principle

People believe that if something is scarce, it must be good, and they are more likely to buy it.

scarcity principle - exploited by ads claiming

"Limited supply available"

"For a limited time only"

Order "while they last"

"Time is running out"

Ultimatum Game - Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, and Cohen (2003)

found that unfair offers were followed by activations in the insula, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The insula has been predominantly implicated in response to negative emotional states such as anger and disgust.