PSYC1030 Week 6: Persuasion, Aggression, & Pro-sociality
Compliance and Cialdini’s Principles
Compliance: Agreeing to a request from someone without authority.
Cialdini’s Six Principles:
Reciprocation: Obligation to return favors. Includes Reciprocal Concessions (Door-in-the-face technique): starting with a large request and following with a smaller one (Cialdini et al., 1975).
Consistency: Desire to be aligned with past actions. Includes Foot-in-the-door (small request then large; Freedman & Fraser, 1966) and Low-balling (revealing hidden costs after commitment; Cialdini et al., 1978).
Social Proof: Looking to others when unsure.
Liking: Saying yes to people we like.
Scarcity: Valuing limited or rare items.
Authority: Obeying those seen as knowledgeable or in charge.
Contrast Effects: Relative judgments where a $1000$ dollar table seems reasonable compared to a $3000$ dollar one.
Obedience
Definition: Changing behavior in response to a specific command from an authority figure.
Milgram (1963): Found that of participants obeyed until the maximum shock level of volts.
Contributing Factors: High status of authority, lack of clear disobedience point, belief that authority takes responsibility, and empathy barriers (e.g., physical distance from the victim).
Aggression Theories and Models
Definition: Behavior intended to harm others. Can be physical or relational, reactive (impulsive), or proactive (calculated).
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: Blocked goals lead to frustration, which leads to aggression (Dollard et al., 1939).
Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1961): Aggression is learned via observation and vicarious reinforcement (e.g., Bobo Doll study).
General Aggression Model (GAM): Combines person variables (traits) and situational variables (heat, provocation) to influence internal states (cognition, affect, arousal), resulting in thoughtful or impulsive action.
Violent Media: Meta-analyses show small positive effects on aggression, but some randomized controlled trials (Kuhn et al., 2018) found no increase in aggression after two months of daily play.
Social and Environmental Aggression Factors
Alcohol Myopia: Alcohol increases sensitivity to immediate environments and reduces future-oriented thinking, making provocation more dangerous.
Cyber Aggression: Driven by the Online Disinhibition Effect, anonymity, and reduced social cues.
Crowd Behavior:
De-individuation: Anonymity reduces fear of evaluation; personal identity is submerged into collective identity.
SIDE Model: Social Identity Model of De-individuation Effects suggests personal identity is replaced by social identity, and aggression is often rule-following behavior within the group norm.
Pro-sociality and the Bystander Effect
Pro-social Behavior: Voluntary actions intended to benefit others (sharing, volunteering, assisting).
Theories of Altruism:
Kin Selection Theory (Hamilton, 1963): Helping relatives to ensure genetic survival.
Reciprocal Altruism (Trivers, 1971): Helping based on the expectation of returned help.
Negative-State Relief Model: Helping to reduce one's own distress.
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: Helping driven by genuine empathy.
Bystander Effect (Darley & Latané, 1968):
Diffusion of Responsibility: Assuming others will act.
Pluralistic Ignorance: Looking to others for cues, assuming if they don't act, it isn't an emergency.
Evaluation Apprehension: Fear of being judged for acting.
Ostracism: Purposeful social exclusion; leads to feelings of helplessness and can trigger later aggression (e.g., school shootings).
Assessment Overview
Written Assignment: of total grade.
Due Date: at pm on Blackboard.
Task: Review a science communication article (e.g., Psychology Today) and compare it to its cited academic paper ( words).