Lecture 9 - Social Psychology

Two types of species

• What is unique about the species type that we are

• List

  • Solitary species

  • Social species

• Our ability to cooperate is one of the major reasons we succeed as a species.

• Our ability to cooperate comes with strings attached.

Social Psychology definition

• the branch of psychology that studies how individuals think about, influence and relate to other people

Some things to keep in mind - not important

• how do we think about being influenced: in reality, is this trye

• Level of resistant to social pressures

• What are we commonly participating in?

• Most people view being influenced as weakness (they shouldn’t)

• Most people believe that they are highly resistant to social pressures

  • (they’re wrong)

• In certain cases, both tendencies could be a “strength”

• Achieve group cohesion + finish tasks

• We are continually participating in social networks

Social networks

• size of network

• Two things important in a network (relating to relationships)

  • Number of the types of relationships

• Characteristic of social networks

• Humans have a history of working in small groups (e.g. tribes) (~150 members, according to Dunbar)

• However, quantity of relationships is not all that matters – quality matters too

• While overall network size can be large, the number of close relationships within is modest

• Networks can change with time

  • Technology, stress, age

Socioemotional selectivity theory

• what is this theory about

Predicts older adults have fewer relationships which are based on different motives (i.e. emotion regulation).

Need to belong theory

• what is the basis of the theory

• One related study - what was it, what were the results

• Humans have a fundamental drive to form/maintain relationships

• Absence of relationships might be harmful

  • Solitary confinement in prison + lockdowns (effects differ by age)

• Few experimental studies of isolation (most are correlational)

• In one study, only 1 of 5 subjects lasted > 3 days

  • Subjects given the belief they would end up alone showed unhealthy behaviors,

  • procrastination and impaired cognition

Loneliness

• loneliness definition

• isolation definition

• What are both definitions related to

• What happened during COVID

• Treatment of loneliness - level of difficulty - types of treatments

• Loneliness is related to, but distinct from, isolation

  • Isolation = lack of contact, not necessarily bad

  • Loneliness = feeling, inherently negative

  • Both related to health outcomes (mental, physical)

• Reports of loneliness are increasing (“epidemic”)

  • Before COVID: 1/3, with 1/12 cases being severe

• Loneliness is not easily treatable (either by forced interaction, support networks or social skills training)

Social contagion

• main definition

• Level of impact depends on what?

• Mass hysteria definition

  • Affects of mass hysteria (2)

• three Examples

• When a belief rapidly spreads throughout a group

  • Though is often pejorative, impact depends on belief

• Related term: mass hysteria

  • Large group, behaviors both irrational and harmful

• Many potential examples

  • Urban legends, UFO reports

  • Emotional contagions well-accepted; clinical contagions (e.g. dissociative identity disorder and depression) suggested but more controversial

Dissociative Identity Disorder

• what occurs in the individual - what is the issue

  • Two symptoms

• Common in what type of people

• Why is it controversial

• Affected person claims to have at least two identities

  • Identities may alternately display

  • Memory impairment of prior states common

• More common in women (reason unknown)

• Controversial; concerns about cultural factors or improper interventions

Social loafing

• what is social loafing

• what affects the variation

• Some example

• Where is this less evident

• Tendency to put in less effort/do less work in groups

• Possible variation of bystander effect (e.g. diffusion of responsibility)

• Many examples. In a group:

  • cheerleaders are less loud in a group, people pull less hard on the rope, people generate fewer ideas/less creative ideas

• May be less evident in collectivist societies

Deindividuation

• What is deindividuation

• Two key factors

• Main example

  • hint: kids

• Potential examples

  • Three examples

• Engage in behavior atypical for us but consistent w/contextual norms

• Key factors are a feeling of anonymity and lack of accountability

• Behavior when masked is a great example

  • Children wearing masks more likely to take ‘forbidden candy’

  • Presence of a mirror may reduce candy taken

• Major potential examples: online behavior, crowd behavior and the Stanford Prison Study

1 – Online behavior

• bad types of behaviours

  • Less effect on people - e..g for fun example

  • More effect = bad

    • who is more affected

    • Issues in victims (2 kinds)

    • How often it happens - how many types of people

---

• what can it involve what type of issue in social people

• In cases when people use their real identity

  • Reasons

  • Pros of this

  • what is the main desire if they use their real identity

• Sometimes its cute + funny, like hijacking online polls and voting for ridiculous options

• Sometimes its cruel + terrifying, as in cyber-bullying

  • Males more frequently perpetrators

  • Associated w/psychological + academic problems in victims

  • Common; much wider age spectrum than most think

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• Though it often involves deindividuation, it does not require it

• In some cases: people used real identities and articulated real beliefs

  • Typical behavior, no anonymity but possibility of accountability

• In such cases, the motivating factor is likely a desire to enforce certain ideals: cultural, political and religious values

2 – Deindividuation in Crowds

• When does this occurs - what types of crowds/events

• Typically are crowds like this?

• People routinely gather in large groups

• One of the most striking example of this is protests

  • Many throughout history, some of which include 10 000+ people in one place

• Most crowds and protests are peaceful

3 – The Stanford Prison Study

• type of experiment

• what is this study about

• What happened in the study of the individuals

  • How were the individuals behaving

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• What did the participants initially think

• how many guard behaved badly

• What did the prisoners experience?

• Initial duration vs actual duration of the study

• Observational, not experimental

• 24 participants were randomly assigned to roles of prisoner and guard, head of the study was the superintendent

• People reportedly became consumed in their roles, losing their own identity and behaving atypically

• One of the most popular and controversial studies

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• Though initially most participants believed that they were incapable of cruelty, cruel behaviors did emerge

• Some guards (~33%) showed aggressive and concerning behaviors

  • Forced prisoners to perform humiliating lineups, do push-ups, sing, strip naked and clean toilets with their bare hands (partial list only)

• Study was supposed to be two weeks but was ended after six days

Criticisms of the Stanford Prison Study

• size

• Who was picked - what is this issue called

• What did the experimenter do (two things)

  • What is another affect of this

• Two main issues

• Small sample size (n)

• Selection bias (whoever responded to the ad)

• Demand characteristics + observer effect

• Emphasis on qualitative, anecdotal reports that are difficult to verify and analyze quantitatively

• Experimenter (Zimbardo) was involved (superint.)

• Numerous ethical issues (never fully repeated)

When discussing influence…

• Obedience meaning

• Conformity meaning

• Are they bad?

• Obedience: Listening to a figure of authority (e.g. a persuasive politician or a strong sergeant)

  • Generally explicit

• Conformity: Adopting the predominant belief or behavior of a group due to pressure from that group

  • Generally implicit

• Obedience and conformity are not, by themselves, bad

  • Issues arise with blindly following without asking questions

Milgram’s story

• who was he

• What did he think about

• What did his research tell us

• Child of Jewish parents who grew up through World War 2

• Preoccupied with the atrocities of the Holocaust and wondered how people could commit such horrific acts

• Prevailing view at the time was such acts were due to “twisted minds”

• However, Milgram’s research suggested that situational factors could have also played a role (bad situations, rather than bad people)

Milgram Experiment

• three people involved

• HInt/analogy: Milgram TEL me if the shock hurts

• (E) is an experimenter overseeing everything

• Participant acts as a teacher (T) who asks the learner (L) questions

• (T) is told to give (L) a shock for wrong answers

• (L) is an actor who pretends to be shocked and protests to the shocks

Important Factors

• Two factors affecting willingness

• When did they stop? How many?

• What other voice can stop this? - what is this called

• What was not a factor

• Compliance is related what two factors

• Failure to comply may be related to what?

• Why is this experiment getting critism?

• Proximity + contact with learner reduced willingness to give shocks

• Some participants stopped complying as intensity increased (15 to 450 V), but the majority (66%) stayed

• When a confederate scientist was present and disagreed with the experimenter, compliance was 0%

  • Value of dissenting voices

    ---

• No major cultural differences or gender differences

• Compliance is not related to sadistic tendencies, but is related to other traits (obedience and authoritarianism)

• Failure to comply is related to moral development, though this relationship is not especially strong

• Despite many increasing criticism of late (e.g. ethics, internal validity)

Asch’s study on conformity

• What is the experiment about

• What affected their conformity?

  • How does it increase?

• Subjects participated in a study w/several confederates

• Subject had to declare which of 3 lines was longer

• Before the subject made their judgement, they heard several confederates make an incorrect judgment

  • Subjects readily conformed to the wrong opinion

  • Rate of conformity increased w/group size to a point

On conformity

• What issue about individuals affects high conformity

• Are cultural difference possible? If so (more for which culture, less for which culture)

• What differences is not considered for conformity

• We all show some capacity; the question is how much and how often

• Low self-esteem predicts high conformity

• Cultural differences possible; conformity may be greater in collectivist cultures than in individualistic cultures

• Gender differences in conformity are disputed

Individualism vs. Collectivism

• Index meaning

  • High =

  • Low =

• Index reflects the degree to which people are integrated into groups

• High index of individualism = individualistic society

• Low index of individualism = collectivist society

Individualism vs. Collectivism - continued

• what type of society tend toward individualism

• What type of society tend toward collectivism

• What may they both influence

• Western societies tend towards individualism whereas Eastern societies tend towards collectivism

• Individualism and collectivism may influence many behaviors (family attitudes, facial expressions, prosocial behaviors + even creativity)

• Again, we must avoid stereotypes and focus on what is scientifically proven

Cults

• who are they and what do they do

• Can they be studied?

• Some features of cults

• Groups with intense and unquestioning devotion to a single cause

  • NXIVM, Heaven’s Gate and more

• Difficult to study due to their secretive nature

• Several consistent features:

  • persuasive leader who inspires loyalty

  • members disconnected from the outside world

  • questions and dissent discouraged

  • training practices that gradually indoctrinate (ensure they believe in their beliefs) members

Misconceptions

• level of difficulty of finding cults

• Safety of the cult from the society

• Are cult members ok? What about the leaders

• What is required for cults to work

• Cults are easy to identify and define

• Most cults are dangerous to others

  • Most are peaceful to others, even if harmful to members

• Most people in cults are mentally ill (FAE)

  • 33% (higher than normal but not a majority), most cult leaders are mentally ill

• • Brainwashing is required (controversial)

Prosocial behavior

• What is this

• What is another name for this

• What is this behaviour associated with

  • What do they feel?

• Voluntary behavior for the benefit of others (e.g. friends, family, strangers or enemies)

• For today, assume altruistic = prosocial

• Prosocial behaviors are associated w/higher psychological + physical well-being in the helper

  • It “feels good to be good”

What about punishment?

• What type of punishment and What can this be considered what type of behaviour

  • Give three cases why this may be the case or could be the case

• Controversial idea

• Just punishments can also be regarded as prosocial

  • May discourage bad behavior, benefiting the group

  • Educate the transgressor

  • Costly punishments (where the punisher pays a cost to deliver punishment) are perceived as more legitimate

• Controversial idea

  • Punishment may not be based on universal principles; could simply be defensive response to your community being attacked

Predicting prosociality

• Mood (esp. good moods)

• Timing (when we’re not rushed)

• Potential for escape (likely to help if we can’t leave)

• Background (e.g. doctor, nurse…)

• Trait extroversion (L07) and empathy*

• Characteristics of the person in need (matching)

• Egotistic reasons (relieving personal distress, joy of others we’ve helped, image of being a “better person”)

Bystander effect

• what is it

• Some reasons why people do this?

• Level of difficulty to replicate the experiment

• Reduced likelihood to assist others when in groups

• Many explanations:

  • Pluralistic ignorance (“maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s not really a problem”)

  • Diffusion of responsibility (“someone else will do it”)

  • Cost of intervention, which can be physical or psychological (e.g. feelings of judgment/vulnerability)

• Bystander effects are among the strongest and most replicable effects

Aggression

• purpose of the behaviour

• Type of studies of aggression

• Why is studying aggression hard

• Behavior intended to harm others, either verbally or physically

• Most real-world studies of aggression are observational

• Most laboratory studies of aggression use different measures (i.e. a test) that do not resemble aggression in the real world (e.g. assault)

• Degree and severity is affected by many factors

Aggression is more likely if…

• gender

• situation

• feeling

• state of individual

• something related to the world

• Two other things (weather + what you drink)

• Male, especially for direct aggression (w/confrontation)

• Provocation by the individual (specific)

• Overall frustration (non-specific, lashing out at anyone)

• Physiological arousal (w/provocation + frustration)

• Reinforced by media (e.g. television, video games) and cues (e.g. guns)

• Alcohol and temperature

Heuristics

• what is it

• The importance of heuristics

  • An issue with heuristics

• An approach to decision-making, problem-solving or discovery

• During our lifetime, we are faced with many problems and must make many important decisions quickly

• In this regard, heuristics are useful

• Heuristics can be executed quickly and don’t require a lot of information

  • but they aren’t always accurate

The availability heuristic

• What information do you use to make a decision

  • Hint: most bad

  • Five characteristics

• recent

• frequent

• extreme

• vivid

• negative

Representativeness Heuristic

• What is it

• When is this good

• When is it bad?

• Our tendency to organize information based on the similarity of that information to already established categories

• To an extent, this heuristic can be useful (e.g. sorting objects)

• Applied to people, heuristics can be problematic

Stereotyping

• leads to what type of behaviours

• Is anyone not involved in sterotyping?

• Is it always bad?

  • When in this case it is good?

• Is stereotyping always visible?

• Can lead to prejudicial and discriminatory behavior

• We all have some risk for stereotyping

• We all also benefit from experience, which can affect or thoughts, feelings and behaviors

• If we’re made aware of a stereotype, we can change our behavior

• However, we’re not always aware of the stereotypes we have

Implicit discrimination

• main definitoin

• What does it affect (two things)

• Type of measure for it (what is it called - the test)

  • One specific type

• Driven by associations of which the individual is unaware (implicit associations)

• These learned associations may influence unconscious processing and drive decision-making

• One relevant measure is the implicit associations test (IAT)

• Several variations; critical to all is the measurement of response time

IAT

• full name

• What is this test about

• Subjects are shown a word or image and categorize it into one of two groups by hitting a key (“E” or “I”)

• Response time and keystroke are logged

• Differences in response time may reflect implicit associations (which could be biases)

Criticism of the IAT

• concern

• Conclusions issues

• Arguments of the criticism

• Changes

• Test-retest reliability concerns

• Correlation to discriminatory behavior unclear

• However, it has been argued that

  • weak effects become important on the societal level

  • IAT could be combined with other tests

• Population scores change over time

Group biases

• emerges when?

• How can it be counteracted

• Biases emerge even if the groups involved are relatively new and based on arbitrary criteria

  • Dot counting (Tajfel’s minimal group paradigm)

  • Eye color (Elliot’s original classroom study)*

• Can be counteracted partially

  • Forced cooperation (e.g. Robber’s cave study)

  • Increased contact (e.g. Jigsaw Classrooms), provided proper context*

Stereotype Threat

• what two things does it affect

• The main definition

• Level of affect on people

• Stereotypes might not just affect our judgment of others, but our own behavior

• Stereotype threat is when a fear fulfilling a stereotype in a task negatively affects performance of that task

• Meta-analysis suggest effect is smaller than expected

Attributions

• What is this theory about

• two types of attributions

• In theory, the outcome of any event in a person’s life is due to the

  interaction of two factors: their traits and their environment

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• In dispositional attribution, outcome explained by trait

  • You underperformed on the test because you are a bad student with a poor work ethic, low intelligence or more…

• In situational attribution, outcome explained by environment

  • You underperformed because you were distracted by tragedy

fundamental attribution error

• Definition

• When evaluating others, we consistently overestimate the role of dispositional factors.

  • a.k.a dispositional attribution

Famous FAE experiment

• What happened in the experiment

  • what did the participants have to do, and then decide

  • What did they know?

• What is there not much of these kinds of experiment?

  • Example

• When is bias greater? In collectivist culture or individualistic cultures

• Subjects randomly assigned to debate pro- and anti-Castro positions

• Afterwards, each debater submitted a rating of other debater’s beliefs

• Even though the participants knew speech assignment was random, they assumed the debaters agreed with the ideas that they presented

  ---

• Major reason why we do not include situational factors in our evaluation of others is that we are unaware of them

• Relevant to our view of world history: we often fail to consider the unique situational factors that world leaders were under at the time they made their decisions

• Bias may be lower in collectivist cultures and greater in individualistic cultures

Defensive Attributions

• What is self-serving bias

  • What does it affect

• When is bias more common in individualistic cultures

  • What specifically about the culture increase the bias

• We particularly overemphasize dispositional factors when we succeed and overemphasize situational factors we fail (self-serving bias)

• Bias is common in individualistic cultures (Western) where there is emphasis on achievements

• Self-serving biases might negatively affect performance