1. Mary Jones

2. What is…? Social psychology -The scientific study of how we influence one another's behavior and thinking -Focuses on how situational forces influence our behavior and thinking Social influence -Examines how other people and the social forces they create influence an individual's behavior

3. In This Chapter How Others Influence Our Behavior How We Think about Our Own and Others' Behavior

4. How Others Influence Our Behavior

5. Why We Conform Conformity -Is defined as a change in behavior, belief, or both to conform to a group norm as a result of real or imagined group pressure -Has negative connotations in Western cultures; some conformity is needed for society to function

6. Why We Conform Major types of social influence Information social influence Situational factors Normative social influence

7. The Sherif Study and Informational Social Influence Participants were placed in a completely dark room and exposed to a stationary point of light The task was to estimate the distance this light moved The light never moved (autokinetic effect), but participants reported movement when alone and in a group setting -After several exposures, the individual estimates converged on a common group norm -A year later, participants were brought back and made estimates alone; these estimates remained at the group norm What did this indicate about social influence?

8. The Sherif Study and Informational Social Influence This pattern of results suggests the impact of informational social influence that stems from the desire to be correct in situations in which the correct action of judgment is uncertain When a task is ambiguous or difficult and people want to be correct they look to others for information Results of Sherif's Study of Conformity

9. The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence In Asch's study, the visual judgments were easy visual discriminations involving line-length judgments In this study, the correct answer/behavior was obvious When making such judgments alone, almost no mistakes were made Experimental confederates, part of the experimental setting, made deliberate mistakes on certain trials.

10. An Example of Asch's Line-Length Judgment Task

11. The Asch Study and Normative Social Influence About 75% of the participants gave an obviously wrong answer at least once, and overall, conformity occurred 37% of the time This conformity occurred despite the fact that the “correct” answer, unlike in Sherif's study, was obvious Asch's results illustrate the power of normative social influence, influence stemming from our desire to gain the approval of and to avoid the disapproval of other people

12. Situational Factors that Impact Conformity Unanimity of the groupMode of respondingStatus of group members

13. Situational Factors that Impact Conformity If the group is unanimous, conformity will increase. If one person is “different” somehow, it allows other people to avoid conforming. The mode of responding is also critical. Secret ballots lead to less conformity than public, verbal reports. The status of group members intervenes. More conformity is observed from a person that is of lesser status than the other group members or is attracted to the group and wants to be part of it.

14. Why We Comply Compliance -Involves acting in accordance to a direct request from another person or group -Occurs in many facets of life

15. Compliance Techniques Foot-in-the-doorDoor-in-the-faceLow-ballThat's-not-all

16. Compliance Techniques Foot-in-the-door -Compliance to a large request is gained by prefacing it with a very small, almost mindless request -Tendency is for people who have complied with the small request to comply with the next, larger request -Technique works because behavior (complying with the initial request) affects attitudes, leading to more positive helping behavior and a view of oneself as a generally charitable person -Freedman and Fraser's (1966) classic yard sign study -Technique was used by the Communist Chinese in the Korean War on prisoners of war

17. Compliance Techniques Door-in-the-face -Opposite of the foot-in-the-door technique -Compliance is gained by starting with a large unreasonable request that is turned down, and then following it with a more reasonable smaller request -Success is due to tendency toward reciprocity and making mutual concessions

18. Compliance Techniques Low-ball -Compliance to a costly request is achieved by first getting compliance to an attractive, less costly request, but then reneging on it -This works because many feel obligated to go through with a deal after agreeing to an earlier request, even if the first request has changed for the worse -People want to remain consistent in their actions

19. Compliance Techniques That's-not-all -People are more likely to comply to a request after a build-up to make the request sound “better” -Technique is often used in television infomercials -As in the door-in-the-face technique, reciprocity is at work

20. Four Compliance Techniques

21. Why We Obey Obedience -Involves following the commands of a person in authority -Good in some instances and bad in other instances

22. Why We Obey Milgram's experiment The Astroten study The Jonestown massacre

23. Milgram's Basic Experimental Paradigm Experimenter tells student volunteers that the study is examining the effects of punishment by electric shock on learning, and specifically learning a list of word pairs. One of the participants will be the teacher and the other participant will be the learner. Students draw slips for these roles, and all students draw the slip of the teacher, so the other participant (experimental confederate) becomes the learner Student teachers accompany the learner into an adjoining room and helps strap him to a chair and shock generator A test shock is given to all students to familiarize them with the shock stimuli Student teachers believe they are administering increasing levels of shock with each missed respond Despite cries of pain, students continue with the shocks

24. Milgram's Initial Obedience Finding Before this experiment Milgram asked various types of people what they and other people would do Most thought people would stop at relatively low shock levels Psychiatrists believed that maybe one person in a thousand would go to the end of the shock generator In reality, almost two out of every three participants (65%) continued to obey the experimenter and administered the maximum possible shock of 450 volts

25. Interpreting Milgram's Findings Why? The difference between what we say we will do and what we actually do illustrates the power of situational social forces on our behavior The foot-in-the-door technique was used because participants started off giving very mild shocks (15 volts) and increased the voltage relatively slowly. Similar results have been found with females and participants in other cultures.

26. Situational Factors that Impact Obedience Can you explain how these factors impacted obedience in the Milgram experiment? Physical presence of the experimenter Physical closeness of teacher and learner Setting of the study Experimenter unanimity Teacher responsibility

27. Results for Some of Milgram's Experimental Conditions

28. Criticisms of Milgram's Experiment What do the critics say? Violations of ethical guidelines Experimental obligation because of agreement to and payment for participation

29. The “Astroten” Study Hofling and colleagues (1966) Participants were nurses on duty alone in a hospital ward Each nurse responded to a call from a personally unknown staff doctor who authorized a potentially dangerous dosage of Astroten to be given to a patient in the ward Of 22 nurses phoned, 21 did not question the order

30. The “Astroten” Study A separate sample of 33 nurses were asked about this situation and what they would do if they were placed in it All but 2 said they would NOT obey the doctor's order This demonstrated the difference between what we think we will do and what we actually do in a given situation

31. The Jonestown Massacre In 1978, more than 900 people who were members of Reverend Jim Jones's religious cult in Jonestown, Guyana committed mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid These were Americans who moved to South America from San Francisco in 1977 Using various compliance techniques, Jones developed unquestioned faith as the cult leader and discouraged individualism

32. The Jonestown Massacre What techniques were used? Using the ________, Jones was able to increase financial support required of each member until they had turned over essentially everything they owned. Jones had recruiters ask people walking by to help the poor. When they refused, the recruiters then asked them just to donate five minutes of time to put letters in envelopes. This illustrates the ________. ________ was also at work, as being moved from San Francisco to Guyana created an uncertain environment in which followers would look to others to guide their own.

33. How Groups Influence Us Group influence Social facilitation Social loafing the the diffusion of responsibility Bystander effect Deindividuation Group polarization

34. How Groups Influence Us Social facilitation -Facilitation of dominant response on a task due to social arousal -Leads to improvement on simple or well-learned tasks and worse performance on complex or unlearned tasks when other people are present -Occurs because the presence of others increases physiological arousal, and under conditions of increased arousal, people tend to give whatever response is most dominant

35. How Groups Influence Us Social loafing -Occurs when people pool their efforts to achieve a common goal -Is the tendency for people to exert less effort when working toward a common goal in a group than when individually accountable

36. How Groups Influence Us Diffusion of responsibility -Occurs when responsibility for a task is spread across all members of the group so individual accountability is lessened

37. How Groups Influence Us Bystander effect (Darley and Latané) -Posits the probability of a person's helping in an emergency is greater when there are no other bystanders than when there are other bystanders Kitty Genovese 1964 murder -When returning home from work late one night Kitty Genovese was attacked and murdered in front of her apartment building -At least 38 neighbors heard her cries for help but no one intervened and police were not called until the victim died. -Do you think this was a case of “big city” apathy? Why? Why not?

38. How Groups Influence Us Bystander effect/college students Darley and Latané (1968) -College students ostensibly participated in a round- robin discussion of college adjustment problems over an intercom system -Suddenly, one student (confederate) starts having a seizure and cries out for help -Participant willingness to help depended on how many other individuals the participant thought were available to help the student having the seizure Can you explain why this occurred?

39. The Bystander Effect The probability of helping decreased as the responsibility for helping was diffused across more participants.

40. How Groups Influence Us Deindividuation -Involves loss of self- awareness and self- restraint in a group situation that fosters arousal and anonymity -Supports feelings of less restraint that enable people to forget their moral values and act spontaneously without thinking -Allows action within anonymity of the group situation Deindividuation and the Ku Klux Klan

41. How Groups Influence Us Group polarization -Involves strengthening of a group's prevailing opinion about a topic following group discussion of that topic -Is impacted by normative social influence

42. How Groups Influence Us Groupthink -Mode of group thinking that impairs decision making -Occurs when the desire for group harmony overrides a realistic appraisal of the possible decisions -Leads to an illusion of infallibility or belief that the group cannot make mistakes

43. How We Think about Our Own and Others' Behavior

44. How We Make Attributions Attributions -Process by which people explain their own behavior and the behavior of others -Poses the question: What do we think are the causes of our behavior and the behavior of others?

45. How We Make Attributions An internal attribution involves explaining behavior in terms of a person's disposition/personal characteristics An external attribution involves explaining behavior in terms of a person's circumstances/situation

46. Attributions for the Behavior of Others Fundamental attribution error Self-fulfilling prophecy

47. Attributions for the Behavior of Others Fundamental attribution error -Observer tends to overestimate internal dispositional influences and underestimate external situational influences upon others' behavior -External factors are ignored when explaining the behaviors of other people Can you apply this error to the actions of the teachers in the Milgram experiment?

48. Attributions for the Behavior of Others Just-world hypothesis -Observer places blame on victims by assuming that the world is just and that people get what they deserve -This hypothesis helps justify cruelty to others Primacy effect -Is partially responsible for the fundamental attribution error -Occurs when early information is weighted more heavily than later information in forming an impression of another person

49. Attributions for the Behavior of Others Self-fulfilling prophecy -Occurs when expectations of a person elicit behavior from the person that confirms our expectations

50. Attributions for Our Own Behavior Actor- observer bias Self-serving bias

51. Attributions for Our Own Behavior Actor- observer bias Tendency to attribute personal behavior to situational influences Tendency to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional influences

52. Attributions for Our Own Behavior Self- serving bias Tendency to overestimate dispositional influences when the outcome of our behavior is positive Tendency to overestimate situational influences when the outcome of our behavior is positive

53. Self-Serving Bias Self-serving bias can also influence our estimates of the extent to which other people think and act as we do -False consensus effect -False uniqueness effect

54. Self-Serving Bias False consensus effect -Tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and unsuccessful behaviors False uniqueness effect -Tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and successful behaviors

55. Attributional Bias

56. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Attitudes -Include evaluative reactions (positive or negative) toward things, events, and other people -Tend to guide our behavior When the attitudes are ones that we feel strongly about When we are consciously aware of our attitudes When outside influences on our behavior are not strong

57. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes

58. Festinger and Carlsmith's study In the study, participants completed a boring task. After an hour, the experimenter explained that the experiment was concerned with the effects of a person's expectations on their task performance and that participants were in the control group. The experimenter became upset because a student assistant didn't show up. The assistant was to pose as a student who just participated in the experiment and to tell the next waiting student that the task was enjoyable. Students were asked to take the place of the assistant and were offered pay of $1 or $20 for lying. Before leaving, students were asked to rate their enjoyment and reactions to study participation. What did the students say about their participation?

59. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Festinger and Carlsmith's study: Findings -Participants who were paid only $1 rated the boring tasks as fairly enjoyable -Participants who were paid $20 rated the boring tasks as boring Why?

60. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory -Proposes that people change their attitudes to reduce the cognitive discomfort created by inconsistencies between their attitudes and their behavior Leon Festinger

61. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Let's apply cognitive dissonance theory to the participants in the boring task study who lied for $1 -Why did they rate the task as enjoyable? -Their attitude was that the tasks were incredibly boring, but this was inconsistent with their behavior— lying about the tasks for only $1 This inconsistency would cause them to have cognitive dissonance To reduce this dissonance, the participants changed their attitude to be that the tasks were fairly enjoyable, relieving the inconsistency and resulting dissonance

62. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Another key aspect of cognitive dissonance -We don't suffer dissonance if we have sufficient justification for our behavior -Participants paid $20 in the study had perfectly good reason to be inconsistent but not experience dissonance -Once people make a tough choice, they will strengthen their commitment to that choice in order to reduce cognitive dissonance

63. When Our Behavior Contradicts Our Attitudes Bem's self-perception theory -Proposes that when we are unsure of our attitudes we infer them by examining our behavior and the context in which it occurs -Contends that we don't change our attitude because of our behavior, but rather we use our behavior to infer our attitude

64. Cognitive Dissonance vs. Self-Perception Cognitive dissonance theory is a better explanation for behavior that contradicts well- established attitudes. Such behavior creates mental discomfort, and we change our attitudes to reduce it. Self-perception theory explains situations in which our attitudes are not well-defined. We infer our attitudes from our behavior

65. The Impact of Role-Playing Role -A social position that carries with it expected behaviors from the person in it -Defined by the socially expected pattern of behavior for it, and these definitions impact both behavior and attitudes

66. The Impact of Role-Playing Zimbardo's study (1970s) -In a now-classic study, Zimbardo recruited male college students to participate in a study held in the basement of the Stanford University psychology building—renovated to be a mock prison -The most emotionally-stable volunteers were selected for the study and then randomly assigned to play the roles of prisoner and prison guard. -The participants began to take their respective roles too seriously -Role-playing quickly became reality

67. The Impact of Role-Playing Zimbardo's study criticism -Not clear if participants behavior was motivated by natural acceptances of situational roles or active leadership by Zimbardo -Findings may be confounded by demand characteristics -Only a few guards were abusive A guard harassing a prisoner in the Stanford Prison Experiment. A guard mistreating a prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

68. The Impact of Role-Playing Haslam and Reicher/BBC study -Recreated SPE study (with ethical study) -Results: Guards failed to impose their authority and rebelled after six days -Guards and prisoners formed communal system that collapsed -Findings via social identity theory: Power resides in group ability to establish sense of shared identity The guards and prisoners who participated in the BBC Prison Study.