Social Psychology: Notes & Definitions

Definitions 1. Conformity a. A change in behavior or belief as the result of real or imagined group pressure 2. Acceptance a. Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure 3. Compliance a. Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing 4. Obedience a. Type of compliance involving acting in accord with a direct order or command 5. Autokinetic phenomenon a. Self (auto) motion (kinetic) b. The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark 6. Mass hysteria a. Suggestibility to problems that spreads throughout a large group of people 7. Cohesiveness a. A “we feeling” b. The extent to which members of a group are bound together, such as by attractions to one another 8. Normative influence a. Conformity based on a person’s desire to fulfill others’ expectations, often to gain acceptance 9. Informational influence a. Conformity occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people 10. Reactance a. A motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom b. Arises when someone threatens our freedom of action 11. Persuasion a. The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors 12. Central route to persuasion a. Occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts 13. Peripheral route to persuasion a. Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness 14. Credibility a. Believability b. A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy 15. 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 discounting it 16. Attractiveness a. Having qualities that appeal to an audience b. An appealing communicator (often someone similar to the audience) is most persuasive on matters of subjective preference 17. Foot-in-the-door phenomenon a. Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request 18. Lowball technique a. Tactic for getting people to agree to something b. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requeter ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it 19. Door-in-the-face technique a. Strategy for gaining a concession b. After someone first turns down a large request (the door-in-the-face), the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request 20. Primacy effect a. Other things being equal, information presented first usually has the most influence 21. Recency effect a. Information presented last sometimes has the most influence b. Less common than primacy effects (see figure 3) 22. Channel off communication a. The way the message is delivered- whether face-to-face, in writing, on film, or in some other way 23. Two-step flow of communication a. Process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others 24. Need for cognition a. The motivation to think and analyze b. 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” 25. Attitude inoculation a. Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available 26. Counterarguments a. Reasons why a persuasive message might be wrong 27. Group a. Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as “us” 28. Co-actors a. Co-participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity 29. Social facilitation a. Original meaning: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present b. Current meaning: the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others 30. Evaluation apprehension a. Concern for how others are evaluating us 31. Social loafing a. Tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable 32. Free riders a. People who benefit from the group but give little in return 33. Deindividuation a. Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension b. Occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad 34. Self-awareness a. A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself b. Makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions 35. Group polarization a. Group-produced enhancement of members’ preexisting tendencies b. Strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split with the group 36. Social comparison a. Evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others 37. Pluralistic ignorance a. False impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding 38. Groupthink a. 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 39. Leadership a. The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group 40. Task leadership a. Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals 41. Social leadership a. Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support 42. Transformational leadership a. Leadership that, enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence 43. Prejudice a. Preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members 44. Stereotype a. Belief about the personal attributes of a group of people b. Are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information (and sometimes accurate) 45. Discrimination a. Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members 46. Racism a. An individual’s prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race b. Institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race 47. Sexism a. An individual’s prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex b. Institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex 48. Social dominance orientation a. Motivation to have one’s group dominate other social groups 49. Ethnocentric a. Believing in the superiority of one’s own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups 50. Authoritarian personality a. Personality that is predisposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status 51. Realistic group conflict theory a. Theory that prejudices arises from competition between groups for scarce resources 52. Social identity a. The “we” aspect of our self-concept: the part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group members 53. Ingroup a. “Us” - a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity 54. Outgroup a. “Them”- a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their group 55. Ingroup bias a. The tendency to favor one’s own group 56. Terror management a. According to terror management theory, people’s self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality 57. Outgroup homogeneity effect a. Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. Thus “they are alike; we are diverse” 58. Own-race bias (cross-race effect, other-race effect) a. Tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race 59. Group-serving bias a. Explaining away outgroup members’ positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behavior by one’s own group) 60. Just-world phenomenon a. Tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get 61. Subtyping a. Accommodating individuals who deviate from one’s stereotype by thinking of them as “exceptions to the rule” 62. Subgrouping a. Accommodating individuals who deviate from one’s stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group 63. Stereotype threat a. A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype b. Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one’s reputation into one’s selfconcept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects _____________________________________________________________________________ Chapter Notes Chapter 6: Conformity and Obedience 1. Social influence a. The ways in which people are affected by the real or imagined presence of others i. Not a simple yes or no process ii. Yielding to influence → resisting influence: obedience, compliance conformity, middle, independence, assertiveness, defiance 1. Social pressure/norms = conformity and independence 2. Requests = compliance and assertiveness 3. Orders = obedience and defiance b. Automatic social influence i. May occur at an automatic level 1. Infants may mimic faces and gestures 2. Laugh and yawn when others do so 3. Facial muscles respond to subliminal expressions c. Mimicry of behavior i. We are consciously influenced by the actions of others 1. Study: Confederates looked up at a building on busy NYC street a. Results: 1 person looked up = 40% did too; 2 people looked up = 60% did too; 3 people looked up = 65% did too; 5+ people looked up = 80% did too ii. We are influenced by the activation of social groups 1. Study: Subjects primed with neutral or elderly primes, then timed how long it took them to walk down a hallway a. Took longer for old primed people to walk down hallway iii. We tend to be chameleons to facilitate social interactions 1. Study: Subjects worked with confederates who exhibited certain motor behaviors (S1) or mimicked theirs (S2) 2. Conformity a. Tendency to change perceptions, opinions, or behavior to match apparent group norms i. Examples: sports fans, Nazis, cults, bullying b. Conforming perceptions i. Perceptions can be influenced by what we think others see ii. Study: Subjects guess how far a fixed light point moves in a pitch dark room (first along, then in groups of 3) 1. Ambiguous stimuli; showed autokinetic effect 2. First in pregroup session, P1 thinks it moved 8 inches 3. Bring 3 participants together and the responses move closer together as time goes on; they think that they must be wrong c. Conforming responses (Asch) i. Responses can be influenced by others even when the right answer is easy to see (no ambiguity) d. Why do people conform? i. Informational influence 1. Others provide information ii. Normative influence 1. Social pressure a. Decreases in Asch study when participants could write their answers down e. Two types of conformity i. Private (Really believe it) ii. Public (Go along to get along) f. Group Size i. Conformity increases with group size up to a certain point 1. Not much additional influence after 4 people ii. What matters is our perception of how many distinct others (“units”) there are 1. Two groups of 3 are more influential than one group of 6 g. Allies i. Effect of dissenting ally in Asch’s study 1. When one person dissented, conformity dropped almost 80% ii. Why do dissenting allies reduce majority influence on our behavior? 1. Validates dissenting response 2. Reduces unanimous pressure to conform h. Norms i. Acceptability of prejudice varies for different social groups 1. Okay to dislike drug addicts but not blind people ii. We can be influenced by our norm perception 1. Pluralistic ignorance a. Misperceive what is normative i. Hook up or drinking culture on college campuses i. Culture i. Cultures differ in how conformity is valued 1. Individualists value autonomy and independence 2. Collectivists value social harmony and “fitting in” ii. Subcultures also vary in conformity acceptance 1. Social activism and binge drinking is often encouraged on college campuses but not always outside of it j. Demographics i. Age differences 1. Conformity is more common among young vs old due to unstable sense of identity and exposure to more peer pressure ii. Gender differences 1. Women conform more when they think they’re being observed a. Increased social desirability on self-report measures 2. Conformity occurs more on opposite-sex tasks where knowledge is low iii. Need for uniqueness (NFU) 1. When presented with majority opinions, those with a high NFU conform less, but NFU can also be manipulated through false feedback 2. Psychological resistance to not fit in with a group k. Minority influence i. ii. The Process 1. Minorities gain influence by first accumulating idiosyncrasy credits (brownie points) 2. Once ingroup status is established, minorities can then dissent in a strong, persistent manner a. Have to appear flexible and open-minded, rather than radical The Impact 1. Majorities have power and control → normative influence → public conformity 2. Minorities seem more committed → informational influence → private conformity 3. Impact depends on type of judgment a. Majorities have greater influence on factual questions b. Minorities have equal influence on opinion questions 3. Compliance a. A change in behavior elicited by a direct request i. Person on the street asks for a donation, a friend asks for a favor, a professor requests the students not to use laptops b. What affects compliance? i. Language of request 1. Fast talkers are assumed to be intelligent and well-informed, but also catches people by surprise 2. People are often affected by the phrasing, rather than the actual content, of the request a. Unusual requests (may increase reasons why you need it) i. Asking for 17 cents vs change b. Appearance of a reason i. Study: People waiting to make copies were given a valid (busy), irrelevant (need to make copies), or no reason to skip ahead of them ii. Findings: same effect (90%) with valid/irrelevant reasons, but less effective (60%) with no reason at all; people do not fully process reason why you need to cut, just assume you have a valid reason to be asking ii. Vulnerability (Kassin et al.) 1. Procedure: Subjects were given a typing task and told not to hit the “ALT” key otherwise data would be lost 2. Manipulation: 2 (vulnerability = low/high) x 2 (false incriminating evidence = none/present) 3. Dependent Variables: a. Compliance i. Do they sign the confession? b. Internalization i. Extent to which they believed the lie c. Confabulation i. Created/added to lie 4. Results: Fast typing (i.e., vulnerable) people with incriminating evidence were more willing to sign a false confession 4. Obedience a. Change in behavior in response to commands of authority i. Study: Teacher ordered by experimenter to “shock” learner, who first screams in pain and then becomes unresponsive (Milgram) 1. 65% obedience rate ii. Factors influencing obedience 1. Participant gender did not moderate Milgram’s study, but other factors did reduce levels of obedience: a. Institutional prestige (location of study) b. Closeness and legitimacy of authority c. Emotional distance to victim d. Presence of rebels b. Obedience and social rules i. Obedience can occur even when authority is arbitrarily assigned 1. Study: Subjects were randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners, who quickly adopted their authority and obedient roles 2. Update: New evidence suggests that Zimbardo may have encouraged the role playing, leading to inauthentic behavior 3. Implications: Immediate power of the situation is strong, but evil acts may require a person x environment interaction Chapter 7: Persuasion 1. Two routes to persuasion a. Central i. Involves systematically considering issue 1. Persuasiveness of a message will depend on the quality of its content ii. Systematic thinking is not always objective 1. We are often motivated to hold a specific attitude and will engage in confirmatory hypothesis testing a. Ex. debates b. Peripheral i. Involves using heuristics to evaluate the message 1. Experts = correct 2. Length = strength 3. Ingroup = right 4. Statistics = truth ii. Persuasiveness of message will depend on which heuristic is activated and used 1. Ex. expert outgroup member can activate two different heuristics a. Expert = good; think outgroup is bad → message ignored c. Which route? i. Is the message recipient motivated to think carefully about the message? 1. Personally relevant? 2. Do they like thinking carefully about things? ii. Is the message recipient able to think carefully about the message? 1. Do they have time? 2. Are they stressed out or busy with other things? 2. Factors that influence persuasion? a. Who says what to whom i. Who: the source 1. Likeability a. Similarity i. We tend to like those who are similar to us b. Physical attractiveness i. We tend to like attractive others, especially when products match 1. Ex. beauty/clothing industry 2. Credibility a. Expertise i. We tend to believe experts, even when domainirrelevant ii. Ex. Tom Brady for watches b. Trustworthiness i. Can be based on stereotypes and perceptions of selfinterest ii. Ex. Car salesman = stereotype of not being trustworthy iii. Ex. doctor = stereotype of being trustworthy, so buy what they are selling even if not medicine based iv. Ex. self interested ($) = # of endorsements by celebs increase/decrease their trustworthiness