PSYC 260 Exam 2

Charles Hofling's Study

Unknown doctor asked nurses to administer a made up drug, and 21/22 nurses complied
- when asked, most people said they wouldn't obey

Stanley Milgram's Study

learner had a heart condition and the teacher administer shock when they got question wrong, and shock levels increased.
- Some people laughed while administering the shocks
- Obedience declined when further away spatially from the experimenter
- Showed that the Holocaust was not uniquely German
- More obedience if not held responsible
- Disobedience didn't increase with increased shock level
- Women voiced more objections but obedience didn't change
- Greater distance from victim made obedience increase
-Institutional authority increases obedience

Burger Reading

Replicated Milgrams study- today people also obey

Blass Reading

Milgram's research grew out of Asch's research- obedience experiments

Conformity

a change in behavior or belief as a result of social pressure

Line Judgment task (Asch's study)

-⅓ of subjects conformed in critical trials
- 3/4 subjects conformed at least once

Variations of Asch's study

- increase the majority who gave wrong answer- would increase the rate of conformity
- planting dissenters so its no longer unanimous, huge effect
- changing the differences in the line size, never found a point at which people wouldn't conform (up to 7 inches)

Ross, Bierbraur and Hoffman's Perspectives on Asch's Study

Said the study was extreme and extraordinary pressures to conform
- the situation created a unique attribution crisis
- conceptual replication with money as reward: gave reason for why they conformed, broke attribution crisis

Bond and Smith: role of culture and other factors on conformity

-collectivist culture is more conforming
-women conformed more than men
-conform more with own group
-prosocial behavior if others do the same, especially in public, increases conformity

Moscovici, Lage, and
Naffrechoux: minority influence on conformity

-Consistent minority can have a significant influence

acceptance

Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.

compliance

Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing.

obedience

A type of compliance involving acting in accord with a direct order or command.

mass hysteria

Suggestibility to problems that spreads throughout a large group of people.

cohesiveness

A "we feeling"; the extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attraction to one another.

normative influence

Conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance

informational influence

Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people.

reactance

A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.

Source: Credibility

positive relationship between credibility and persuasiveness of the source
- the taller, the more credible you seem, so you're more persuasive

Source: Attractiveness

Attractiveness is not gendered
- more attractive source, more persuasive

Source: Perceived similarity

if source is similar to the self, more persuasive
- ideological similarities drive the effect more

Source: Power

physical cue for deception- frequent blinking, mouth movement, self-grooming, continuous smiling

Message: Dynamic style

more persuasive if they're trusted and if the perceiver isn't involved in the issue

Message: fast speaking

more persuasive, especially if charismatic, no hesitation

Message: Humor

can help persuade and can hurt by distracting from the message, more effective if audience is happy
- association with good feelings

Counterarguments

better to say counterargument to your position and give your side after to strongly knock down
- effective in building resistance

repeating messages

after repeating 3 times, not persuasive

using message based on facts

central route to persuasion

message using emotions

peripheral route to persuasion, this is most effective with uninterested audiences, and it matters if the attitude was formed from peripheral route

fear messages

most effective when offer solutions to avoid the problem
-

political ads

small effect on voting preferences because it doesn't change political views
- does help with political knowledge

persuasion

The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

central route to persuasion

Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

peripheral route to persuasion

Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.

credibility

Believability. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy

sleeper effect

A delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, such as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it.

attractiveness

Having qualities that appeal to an audience. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference.

foot-in-the-door phenomenon

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

lowball effect

A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.

door-in-the-face technique

A strategy for gaining a concession. After someone first turns down a large request (the door-in-the-face), the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request.

primacy effect

Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence
- when information presented back to back, and people have to respond later.

recency effect

Information presented last sometimes has the most influence. Recency effects are less common than primacy effects.
- if messages presented at different times, and have to respond right after second message

channel of communication

The way the message is delivered — whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way.

channel: personal vs media influence

personal is more influential

channel: active vs passive influence

active experience strengthen attitudes, passive experience when experienced repeatedly breeds liking and familiarity

two-step flow of communication

The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders (influencers), who in turn influence others.

influence of age on attitudes

Attitudes do not change; older people largely hold onto the attitudes they adopted when they were young.

need for cognition

The motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as "The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me" and disagreement with items such as "I only think as hard as I have to."
- central routes of processing, analytical people
- Stimulating thinking makes strong messages more persuasive and (because of counterarguing) weak messages less persuasive.

attitude inoculation

Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available.
- way to resist persuasion

counterargument

Reasons why a persuasive message might be wrong

Anatomy of Telephone Appeal

- the opening: introduce personal identification, strengthen perceived similarity to strengthen compliance
- the ask: establish a norm, joining in-group, and give bargaining room
- the response: how much will you give for complying, sign of caring, powerful norms of reciprocity
- the closing: thank for their time and pledge, and ask how they would like to give their pledge, doing something that's convenient, consensus information is huge for compliance

Factors enhancing compliance

-similarities: reciprocity
-dialogue: emotional vs persuasion
-social norms: even if bad norms, consensus effect
-self-prediction: get people to imagine that they will do something, will comply especially in public
-even a penny: saying this phrase increases compliance
-underestimate the compliance effect
-100 techniques

Cialdini and Schroeder: Even a Penny

Compliance jumped from 29% to 50% with the phrase "even a penny helps"
-amount donated didn't change

Freedman and Fraser: Foot in the Door Technique

Conditions:
1. small request: small sign, issue: community traffic
2. small request: small sign, issue: keep CA beautiful
3. small request: sign petition, issue: traffic
4. small request: sign petition, issue: keep CA beautiful
5. control (17% compliance)

Experimenter: large request to put up big sign for traffic issue
Compliance with a small request increased compliance with a subsequent larger request, even when small request differed in style and substance from the larger request
-self-perception, sees themselves as the type of person to do those things

Bryan and Walton: Helping vs being a helper

labeling the child as a helper makes them become more helpful because self-perception

Burger- foot in the door compliance procedure

- can be effective when labelled as a "supporter" and when the large request is a continuation of a small request
- can backfire if same person makes a large request right after making the small request- reduce compliance

Dutton and Lennox: Tokenism

Phase 1:
- subjects were told they were prejudice against black people and had their ego blown
- later they were either: panhandled by black person, white person, not panhandled, or they did not receive that feedback (control)
and gave coins to black people
Phase 2:
- subjects asked to volunteer at school campaign against racism
- found that if:
panhandled by black person: 31.8% compliance
panhandled by white person: 54.8%
not panhandled: 46.2%
no feedback: 17.9%

Panhandled by white person increased compliance because they thought they were already not prejudice when they gave black people money (bolstered self-image)

Foot-in-the-door technique is backfired by tokenism when large request is asked right after the small request

Tokenism

backfires the foot-in-the-door technique, doing something initially to reduce criticism

Cialdini, Vincient: Door in the Face Technique

- asked to do two-year commitment to work at a juvie center, after being told no they scaled back and asked them to volunteer once for 2 hrs
- compliance was increased, doubled likelihood of compliance

Gueguen & Meineri

At restaurant, customers refuse dessert are more likely to accept a cup or coffee if the server asked right after the dessert refusal than if they waited 3 minutes

Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett, Miller: Lowball technique

when students asked to participate in an early morning experiment, more than twice as likely to do so if the time was mentioned after they consented than if the time was mentioned as part of the request (jumped from 31% agree to 56% agree)

Limits to low-ball technique

compliance increases when people state their initial agreement publicly and if the cost of complying is raised only slightly

Cialdini Reading: Crafting Normative Messages

They found that there was more littering in the littered environment, and more littering occurred when the participant viewed a confederate littering- establish the norm of littering
- least amount of littering under the anti-littering norm environment
- error to focus an audience on the descriptive norm
- Public service communicators should focus on the injunctive norm (what is approved or disapproved)

Burger, Messian, Patel, del Prado, & Anderson (2004): The effects of incidental similarities on compliance

People rely on heuristic processing when responding to requests. Participants who shared similarity with the requester were more likely to comply to request, but only if the incidental similarity was with the requester

Tenets of Principled Negotiation

(1) Separate the problem from the people
(2) Focus on underlying interests, not expressed positions
(3) Generate a variety of options before deciding what to do
(4) Insist that the result be based on some objective standard

Negotiation mistakes

- assume that the negotiators job is to narrow the gap between positions rather than broaden positions
- negotiators assume their task is distributive when it is actually integrative
- differences of opinion get in the way of agreement
- negotiators tend to be overconfident that the other side will accept their own position

distributive bargaining

zero sum task- what one side gains the other side loses

integrative bargaining

non-zero sum task, integrate interests of both sides

Parallel between effective negotiation and effective group behavior

discover underlying interests or preferences of group/other side

Abilene paradox

the tendency of people to resist voicing their true thoughts or feelings in order to please others and avoid conflict
- everyone collectively agrees to do something that contradicts what they really want to do which defeats the purposes they are trying to achieve

How to avoid the Abilene Paradox

assess risk of taking action, own up to beliefs and feelings, confort the group about what they silently agreed upon

Reasons for Abilene Paradox

- action anxiety
- conjure up negative fantasies about what would happen if chose other action
- real risk
- fear of being ostracized
- assignment of blame (but its unanimous)

Individual vs Group performance task

- groups tend to outperform individuals when given tasks for logic
- group performance helps individuals improve too
- noninteracting groups do better than brainstorming groups because conformity and production blocking
- during brainstorming, interacting groups do better than noninteracting groups

group

Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as "us."

social facilitation

the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others.

evaluation apprehension

Concern for how others are evaluating us
- creates arousal in the presence of others

social loafing

The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable

free riders

People who benefit from the group but give little in return

deindividuation

Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad

self-awareness

A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions

group polarization

Group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group.

social comparison

Evaluating one's opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others

pluralistic ignorance

A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding

groupthink

"The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action."

Symptoms of groupthink

(1) an illusion of invulnerability, (2) rationalization, (3) unquestioned belief in the group's morality, (4) stereotyped views of the opposition, (5) pressure to conform, (6) self-censorship of misgivings, (7) an illusion of unanimity, and (8) "mindguards" who protect the group from unpleasant information.

preventing groupthink

be impartial, allow critical evaluation, subdivide the group, welcome critiques from outside members, second-chance meeting

leadership

The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group

task leadership

Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals

social leadership

Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support

transformational leadership

Leadership that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence

intergroup dynamics

interactions between groups

ingroup bias

the tendency to favor one's own group and see it as superior to other groups

Rabbie and Horwitz: chance win or loss of radio

chance condition: radios go to coin toss winners
experimenter condition: experimenter chooses group
group condition: group seems to give itself radios
control condition: no mention of radios
- finding: students who either received or were denied radios displayed group-level biases whereas students in the control condition did not

Johnson: attractiveness of party members

Liberals and conservatives both guessed that relatively attractive were supporters of their own party

outgroup homogeneity bias

the perception that outgroup members are more similar to one another than are ingroup members

Jones: student eating club study

students rated their members as more varied in personality than members of the outgroup

ingroup homogeneity biases

if ingroup is small and the attributes important to its identity, an ingroup homogeneity effect may occur

Rubin and Badea: ingroup homogeneity biases

if it is assumed that people use homogeneity ratings to indicate the extent to which groups possess traits, then this stereotype effect may be interpreted as an expression of perceived trait possession

biases in punishment

The tendency to punish outgroup offenders more severely than ingroup offenders, and to punish people who harm ingroup members more severely than people who harm outgroup members

biased responses to pain and suffering

a greater sensitivity to the pain and suffering of ingroup members than outgroup members