Social Influences on Behavior

• How do groups influence our behavior?
  • Being in a group will change how we see / perceive things. 
• Deindividuation - can be dangerous to a crowd AND to society (The KKK)! 
  • Phenomenon when a person becomes “submerged in a group” and loses a sense of identity. 
  • UCONN national victory–one person does chaos, and it snowballs. 
  • Tend to do things that would not normally do when alone (they feel invisible, anonymous)
  • Anonymous movement, behavior in a concert, sporting events, European football games where fans can get trampled, Tour de France. 
  • The internet is common for this place: we hide behind an avatar, feeling of anonymity. 

● How do groups affect our performance?

• Behavior may change where you are and who you are with.
• Personas can change based on the group that a person is with. 
• Norman Triplett (1897)–social influences on motivation
  • Noticed bicycle racers tended to go faster when others were present.
  • 3 experiments:
  • race against the clock
  • with another cyclist, but not competing
  • with another cyclist, in competition.
  • result: regardless of competition, went faster with another cyclist.
  • found similar results in experiment with adolescents winding fishing reels.
• Robert Zajonc
  • Social facilitation v. Social impairment–the presence of others increases our general level of arousal. Adds layer of tension.
  • Arousal increases tendency to perform behaviors that are most dominant (the ones we know best)
  • the person over your shoulder looking at what you’re doing adds pressure.
  • Then the yerkes-dodson law comes to play–whether or not you can perform based on the difficulty of the task and how demanding it is.
  • Performance may suffer for hard, unfamiliar tasks.
• Social loafing: exerting less effort when performing a group task than when performing the same task alone
  • Harder to evaluate the performance of individuals when in a group
  • Rewards may come to group regardless of individual giving more effort
  • Group’s rewards usually divided equally rather than by effort.
• How do groups influence our decision making? 
  • Group polarization: interaction and discussion of individuals in a group with similar beliefs / attitudes tends to make these beliefs / attitudes more extreme
  • “risky shift” and “conservative shift”
  • trying to get an applause, slap on the back, a cheer, a laugh, 1-UPing each other. Shift of risky or non-risky behaviors. ESPECIALLY IN SOCIAL MEDIA.
  • In social media, you are the product. The ad agencies are the consumers. The secret sauce to make good product is anger, boosts engagement. Creates echo chambers, moves us towards one direction or another. 
• Groupthink–pattern of thinking in which group members fail to realistically evaluate the wisdom of various options and decisions
  • Likely when place higher value on reaching decision / consensus than assuring decision is right.
  • Best way to avoid is by encouraging diverse perspectives and dissent to be expressed.
  • the YES men term!!! DONT SURROUND YOURSELF WITH YES PEOPLE!!!
  • Nobody says anything until it actually goes wrong
• Conformity
  • Changing behavior or beliefs to match those of others, generally as result of a real or imagined, though unspoken group pressure. 
  • makes sense evolutionary perspective–easier to survive in a group, if we stand out, we don’t get much protection from the herd. 
  • Compliance–adjusting one’s behavior because of an explicit or implicit request. “You must do this or else”
  • “I must do this to fit in with the rest of the group” thought
• Solomon Asch’s Conformity Study
  • Subjects were asked to pick which 3 lines was the same size as the standard line, but the Subject didn’t realize that other subjects in the panels were confederates.
  • 6 trials, Confederates would choose correct answer but on 12 of the trials, they created a social reality by all choosing the wrong line. 
  • Control condition–less than 1% participants ever made a mistake
  • Experimental condition–about 70% made at least one error by conforming to group norm. Conformed on over 1/3 of all responses.
  • Why did they conform?
  • Normative social influence (public conformity)–individual would say the wrong answer, but know they are wrong but wanted to fit in.
  • Informative social influence–outward conformity AND internal acceptance. Saw others as acceptance / evidence of reality, were convinced their perception was wrong so they changed their minds. “I’ve seen it, other people have done it, so it has to be right”
  • !! Research lacked debriefing, and consent.
• Factors influencing Conformity–no influence on gender. Both males and females came the same around this topic.
  • Ambiguity–when something is less certain, we like to rely more on other’s opinions. They could be faking, but we’re dealing with so much uncertainty that we’re fine with going with it.
  • Group size and unanimity–the more people we have, the more it will influence our decision.
  • If even one person disagrees, it will greatly reduce conformity. 
  • Once we see a second object, it’s liberating–we go follow second one. 
  • Social Status–we like to follow famous people ideas.
  • Prior committments
  • Culture that prompts importance of social standards
  • Revolutionary Spirit cultures may encourage people to shake things up.