Conformity & Obedience

Solomon Asch - conformity study 1955; will the participant conform to what the other participants “see” even though it’s wrong

Conformity is more likely if:

• we feel incompetent or insecure

• large group

• group is unanimous

• we admire an individual in group

• answer is visual

• from a culture that values social norms

Normative social influence - we want to gain approval (sensitive to social norms)

Informational social influence - we want to be seen as having the correct answer (sensitivity to being wrong)

• We do this to empathize and have a greater linkage with people

Stanley Milgram - shock experiment; promotes the question: Will people do unethical things to obey authority?

Conformity - complying with social pressures

• Chameleon effect - life’s natural tendencies to mimic another (similar to mood linkage but with behavior)

• social norms - understood rules for accepted and expected behavior

Philip Zimbardo - Stanford Prison Experiment 1971

Obedience - following orders

• Obedience is highest when:

  • the person giving orders was close at hand and perceived to be an authority figure

  • the authority figure was supported by a prestigious university

  • the victim was personalized or at a distance

  • there were no role models for defiance

Attribution & Persuasion

Attribution - when we try to figure out why someone is behaving the way they are

• Dispositional attribution - we assume that a person’s behavior results from who they are (stable personality traits)

• Situational attribution - a person’s behavior results from the situation they’re in

• Fundamental attribution error - we have a tendency to attribute people’s behavior to their disposition far too often and we underestimate the impact of the situation

Persuasion:

• Central route persuasion - attempting to convince someone of something using specific, detailed arguments about the thing itself (effective for big decisions)

• Peripheral route persuasion - attempting to convince someone of something using incidental cues sometimes not even related to the thing (small decisions)

  • ex. Celebrity endorsement

• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon - if a person first agrees to a small request, they’re more likely to agree to a 2nd larger request

• Door-in-the-face phenomenon - starting with an unreasonable request (that is larger than what you’re looking for) then scaling it back to what you’re actually looking for

Leon Festinger - 1950s

• Cognitive Dissonance theory - when our thoughts/beliefs and behaviors are inconsistent with one another, we feel uncomfortable

Biases/Errors in Thinking

The Just World phenomenon - the belief that people get what they deserve

Self-fulfilling prophecies - when we are convinced that a situation will have a particular outcome, we (usually unconsciously) direct our behavior toward that outcome

The Spotlight effect - we assume that people are paying more attention to our behavior than they actually are

Hindsight bias - the tendency to think “I knew it all along” even if we didn’t actually predict the event that happened

Confirmation bias - once we have formed an opinion about a person or thing, we only look at evidence that supports that opinion

Belief perseverance - we stick to our beliefs, even when presented with evidence that they might be incorrect

Self-serving Bias - the tendency to interpret situations in a way that benefits ourselves

Group Behavior

Social facilitation - strengthened performance in others’ presence

• on tougher tasks, people perform worse when observed

Social loafing - the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

• Causes:

  • people acting as part of a group feel less accountable

  • group members may view their individual contributions as dispensable

  • when group members share equally in benefits regardless of how much they contribute

Deindividuation - the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

Group Polarization - the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group

Groupthink - the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives

The Power of Individuals:

• social control - the power of the situation

• personal control - the power of the individual

Cultural influences:

• culture - the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

• norm - an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior

The Bystander effect - anyone given bystander is less likely to give help if other bystanders are present

• diffusion of responsibility

• In order for us to intervene in a situation we must:

  • notice the incident

  • interpret the situation as an emergency

  • we have to take on personal responsibility and tell ourselves “I have to help”

• The best odds of someone giving help occur when:

  • the person appears to be in need and deserves help

  • they’re in some way similar to us

  • they’re a woman

  • we have observed someone else being helpful

  • we’re not in a hurry

  • we’re in a small town or rural area

  • we’re feeling guilty

  • we’re focused on others and not preoccupied

  • we’re in a good mood

Aggression

Aggression - any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy

The biology of aggression:

• genetic influences (nature)

• neural influences (nurture)

Psychological & Social-cultural factors:

• frustration-aggression principle - the principle that frustration (the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal) creates anger, which generates aggression

• Social script - culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations

Attraction & Love

Mere exposure effect - repeated exposure to a thing or person usually increases our liking of it

Physical attractiveness - usually the first thing we notice, impacts first impressions of their personality

• doesn’t seem to be related to our own self-esteem

Reward Theory of attraction - argues that we develop attraction/relationships with people we have positive fulfilling interactions with

• interactions like this activate the brain’s reward system

Romantic Love:

• Passionate love - strongest at the beginning f relationships; intense feelings of passion towards another person (obsessed); fades over time

• Companionate love - a sense of attachment and the feeling of connection with the other person

Prejudice/Stereotyping/Discrimination

Prejudice - an unjustifiable, usually negative, attitude about a group of people

• 3 parts:

  • Beliefs (usually stereotypes)

  • Emotions (hostility, fear)

  • Predisposition to action (discrimination)

• Roots of Prejudice

  • Just world phenomenon - in a “haves” vs “have not” situation, “haves” use it to justify what they have

  • Us (ingroup) vs them (outgroup) mentality resulting from our human desire to belong and fit into groups

    • Ingroup bias - favoring our own group, sometimes to a dangerous extent (ex nationalism)

  • Scapegoat theory - when things go wrong we find someone to blame it on

    • provides an outlet for frustration and anger

  • We have a strong need to categorize (simplifies a complicated world)

    • Other-race effect - tendency to recall faces of our own race better than faces of other races

    • Outgroup homogeneity - we perceive members of other races as being more similar than they are

Prejudice - holding an erroneous (wrong) brief about a group

Stereotypes - a common type of erroneous belief ( all members of a group share some characteristics)

Discrimination - acting on an erroneous belief

Altruism, Conflict, & Peacemaking

Altruism - unselfish regard for the welfare of others

The Norms for Helping:

• Social exchange theory - the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize the costs

• Respricocity norms - an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

• Social-responsibility norm - an expectation that people will help those needing their help

Conflict and Peacemaking:

• conflict - a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas

• social trap - a situation in which the conflicting g parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior

• Mirror image perceptions - mutual views often held by conflicting people

• Self-fulfilling prophecy - a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

• Superordinate goals - shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

• GRIT - graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension - reduction a strategy designed to decrease international tensions