36/Social Thinking and Social Influence: Comprehensive Notes

Social Thinking

• Personality psychologists:
  • Focus on the person and their traits.
  • Study why different people act differently in a given situation.
• Social psychologists:
  • Focus on the situation.
  • Study why the same person acts differently in different situations.
• Social psychology vs. sociology:
  • Social psychology: Focuses on how individuals view and affect one another.
  • Sociology: Studies societies and social groupings.
• Fundamental attribution error:
  • Definition: The tendency to attribute others' behavior to their dispositions rather than the situation.
  • Example: Assuming someone is shy because they are quiet in class, but they may be outgoing at a party.
  • Consequences: Our attributions have real consequences.

Attitudes and Actions

• Attitudes:
  • Emotions.
• Actions:
  • Behaviors.
• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon:
  • Definition: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
  • Example: Starting with a trivial act makes the next act easier; a small lie paves the way to a bigger lie.
  • "To get people to agree to something bid. Start small and build."
• Door-in-the-face effect:
  • Definition: Asking for a large request that will likely be turned down, then following up with a smaller, more reasonable request.
  • Example: Asking someone to volunteer daily for two weeks, then asking them to volunteer for 30 minutes after they decline the first request.
• Role playing affects attitudes:
  • Adopting a new role (e.g., college student, spouse, employee) influences behavior.
  • Striving to follow social prescriptions associated with the role.
  • Initially, people slightly change themselves to fit the role, but people differ.
• Person and situation interaction:
  • In extreme situations, some people succumb while others resist.

Cognitive Dissonance

• Actions affect attitudes:
  • Examples: Turning prisoners into collaborators, role players into believers.
• Cognitive dissonance theory (Leon Festinger, 1957):
  • When we realize our attitudes and actions don't match, we experience tension (cognitive dissonance).
  • To relieve this tension, we often align our attitudes with our past actions.
  • Example: If depressed, change attributions to be more positive.
• Changing behavior to change attitudes:
  • Act as if you like someone to become more loving.
  • Doing thoughtful things, expressing affection, giving information.
  • Robert Levine: "Each time you ask yourself, how should I act observes?"
• Conduct sculpts character:
  • Acting a certain way can lead to becoming that way.
  • "Not only can we think ourselves into action, we can act ourselves into a way of thinking."

Social Influence

• Social psychology's lesson: The power of social influence is enormous.
• Social norms:
  • Influence from social norms.
  • Examples: Dress code on campus vs. Wall Street.
  • Knowing how to act makes life function smoothly.

Cultural Influences

• Culture:
  • Definition: Behaviors, ideas, values shared by a group and passed down.
• Humans as cultural animals:
  • "Humans are cultural animals more than any other species."
  • Imitate and build upon the wisdom of previous generations.
• Collectivism vs. Individualism:
  • Collectivist cultures (Asian, African, Latin American): Focus on "we," group standards, accommodating others.
  • Individualist cultures (Western European, English-speaking): Focus on "me," independent self.
• Tight vs. Loose Cultures:
  • Tight cultures: Strictly adhere to social norms (e.g., waiting for the light to walk, even at midnight).
  • Loose cultures: Tolerate variability and deviation from norms (e.g., some jaywalking, littering).
  • Tight cultures coordinate actions well, loose cultures allow creativity.
• Cultural change over time:
  • cultures evolve.
  • Cultures change when people adopt innovations of a few.
  • Religion encouraged people to control their selfish impulses and cooperate.
  • Examples of rapid cultural change: Cars, radio, electric lighting. Increase depression, increase economic inequality fewer hours of sleep, and fewer hours with family.. The human gene pool evolves far too slowly.

Conformity

• Social contagion:
  • Definition: The tendency to go with the group, do what it does, think what it thinks.
  • Examples: Yawning, laughing, coughing, spikes in suicide rates after publicized suicides.
• Asch's experiments:
  • College students were asked questions alone or less than 1% of the time.
  • A third of the time, participants conformed to the group, even when the group was wrong.
• Factors increasing conformity:
  • Feeling incompetent or insecure.
  • Being in a group with at least three people.
  • Everyone else in the group agrees.
  • Admiring the group's status and attractiveness.
  • Not having made a prior commitment.
  • Knowing others will observe behavior.
  • Being from a culture that encourages respect for social standards.
• Normative social influence:
  • Conforming to avoid rejection or gain social approval.
  • Stronger in collectivist and tight cultures.
• Dynamic norms:
  • Responsiveness to changing norms (e.g., eating less meat, consuming fewer sugary drinks).

Obedience

• Milgram's obedience experiments:
  • Demonstrated the power of social influence.

Group Behavior

• Social facilitation:
  • Definition: Improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.
  • Home advantage in sports: 54% in MLB, 60% in NBA, 63% in English Premier League soccer.
• Social loafing:
  • Definition: Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward a common goal than when individually accountable.
  • More common in individualist cultures.
  • Causes: Feeling less accountable, dispensable individual contributions, overestimating one's own contributions.
• Deindividuation:
  • Definition: Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
  • Can lead to decreased effort, lowered self restraint, humor or fuel mob violence.
• Groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
• Table 36.1: Behavior in the presence of others
  • Social facilitation: being absurd. Increased arousal. amplified dominant behavior.
  • Social loafing: group projects. Diminished feelings of responsibility. Decreased effort.
  • deindividuation: group setting that fosters arousal and anonymity. Reduced self awareness. Lowered self restraint.

Group Polarization

• Group polarization:
  • Definition: Enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.
  • We live in an increasingly polarized world.
  • Partisanship in the US Congress has increased with time.