Social psychology Flashcards
(113 cards)
1
Q
Aspects of self-identity
A
Personal identity-Who we are as individuals
Social identity-Who we are based on our groups
Cultural identity-Who we are based on our upbringing
2
Q
The Social Self
A
The self is a unitary and continuous awareness of who one is (Morf & Koole,
2012)
• The same person who fell asleep last night and woke up this morning
• This is not to say the self never changes! Our sense of self can change due to external
factors (new job, moving country) or our own efforts (therapy, personality change) over time
Many aspects of the self are influenced by social experiences
• How we think of ourselves (what are you ‘like’?)
• What (and who) we like and dislike
• Habits we form
• Values we adhere to
• How we (learn to) behave
3
Q
Even personality is
affected by social context
A
In a study:
• Elaborate cover story - the bread and butter of social psychology studies
• Present yourself as an extraverted or introverted person
• Extraverted: “outgoing, socially skilled, a people person, eager to meet new people”
• Introverted: “shy, thoughtful, sensitive, and quiet, not pushy or bossy”
• In public or in private
• Then participants rated their “true selves”
-high extrovert rate in the public
4
Q
Social Identity
A
We often think about identity as something unique to us, that distinguishes us from other people
But a big part of who we are comes from the groups we belong to (Tajfel, 1979)
Identity is something that binds us with others, not separates us from others
5
Q
Early conceptions of social selves
A
The Social Me (William James, 1890)
• What we know about ourselves from social relationships
• Who a person is in one context (e.g., at work) isn’t necessarily the same person they are in another context (e.g., at home)
Working self-concept (Markus & Wurf, 1987)
• A subset of our self-knowledge is brought to mind in a given context
• The self relevant to relationships may be the mind’s prime focus in romantic contexts; the self related to competition in sports contexts
6
Q
Self-categorisation theory
A
- We group things together to help us understand the world
- Categorisation as a process emphasises the differences between groups and the similarities within groups
- At the group level, we categorise people into ‘ingroups’ (groups to which we belong) and ‘outgroups’ (groups to which we don’t belong)
- The self can be construed at various levels of identity abstraction
- Different identities become salient in different contexts (a psychology student in this lecture; a mother when homeschooling)
- Shifting the salience of different identities can make previous outgroup members (e.g., engineering students) become ingroup members (e.g., fellow University of Melbourne students)
- ‘Who we are’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves
7
Q
Cultural Identity
A
Our sense of self derived from groups we belong to that have a distinct culture (nationality, ethnicity, social class, etc)
A form of social identity, but one that is often with us from the day we are born and encompasses a total way of life and the way we view the world
Can be fostered directly (through socialisation efforts) or indirectly (through background exposure to ways of life, predispositions toward seeing the world in a particular way)
8
Q
Culture and the Social Self
A
Cultural self-construal (Markus & Kitayama,
1991)
• Individualist (or independent): the self is an autonomous entity separate from others; people should assert their independence and celebrate their uniqueness
• My environment should change to fit me
• Many Western countries: USA, Australia, UK
• Collectivist (or interdependent): the self is fundamentally connected to other people; people should seek to fit in a community and fulfil appropriate roles
• I should change to fit my environment
• Many East Asian, South Asian, African and Latin American countries
9
Q
Individualist / Independent self-construal vs Collectivist / Interdependent self-construal
A
Individualist / Independent self-construal • Separate from social context • Be unique, express yourself • Promote your own goals • Say “what’s on your mind” Collectivist / Interdependent self-construal • Connected with social context • Fit in, occupy your proper place • Promote others’ goals • “Read others’ minds”
10
Q
‘Who am I’ exercise (Kuhn & McPartland,
1954)
A
• List 20 statements that describe who you are
• Americans’ self-descriptions tend to be context-free responses about traits and preferences (“I like camping”; “Hard working”)
• Responses by people from interdependent cultures tend to be context dependent and refer to relationships (“I’m serious at work”; “I’m Jan’s friend”)
Even within cultures there are differences in self-construal (Ma & Schoeneman, 1997)
• ‘Who am I’ exercise among different groups living in Kenya
• Undergraduate students living in Nairobi with greater exposure to Western culture and being educated in Western tradition
• Traditional Maasai herding peoples who had very little contact with Western principles
11
Q
Humans have basic psychological needs
A
• Belonging: to be accepted by others
• Self-esteem: to be liked by others
• Control: to be capable of achieving goals
• Meaning: to have relevance in the world
Connection with others fosters these needs (Greenaway et al., 2016)
• People were asked to remember they gained or lost an important identity or group membership
• Then reflected on how this event affected basic needs
-those that lost a group score lower in all aspect of need satisfaction
12
Q
Social belonging, self esteem?
The Sociometer Hypothesis (Leary et al.,
1995)
A
- Things that make us feel good about ourselves (self-esteem) are also the things that make others accept and like us (belonging)
- Like a fuel gauge, self-esteem is a readout of our likely standing with others
- High self-esteem signals social inclusion
- Low self-esteem signals social exclusion
- Self-esteem cues us when we need to attend to and shore up our social bonds
- Leary and colleagues argue we don’t need self-esteem for personal reasons, just social reasons
13
Q
Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)
A
• Two assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to gain accurate self-evaluations
2. Comparisons with other people help us reality-check our own self-evaluations
• We make two types of comparisons (Wills, 1981):
1. Downward comparisons: when we compare ourselves to others we think are worse than us on a particular dimension (can improve our self-evaluation)
2. Upward comparisons: when we compare ourselves to others we think are better than us on a particular dimension (can worsen our self-evaluation)
14
Q
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
(Tesser, 1988
A
• Two assumptions of this theory
1. We seek to maintain or improve our self-evaluation
2. Comparisons with others influence our self-evaluation
• Two processes in this theory
1. Reflection: Other people improve our self-evaluation
2. Comparison: Other people worsen our self-evaluation
15
Q
Reflection and Comparison
A
Reflection
• Usually happens when evaluation happens in a domain that is not relevant to the self
• My sister won her rowing race at 6am in the freezing Melbourne winter - I feel so good!
• Self-evaluation goes up because the self shares in the success
Comparison
• Usually happens when evaluation happens in a domain that is relevant to the self
• My friend got the highest score on the MBB2 assignment - I need to eat my feelings
• Self-evaluation goes down because it invites unfavourable comparison with our own abilities
Both processes are exacerbated with a close other
16
Q
BIRG-ing
Basking in Reflected Glory
A
Others’ success becomes our success
Align ourselves publicly with successful others
Wearing team clothing, saying “we” (Cialdini et al., 1976)
Motive for enhancement: we want to feel good
17
Q
CORF-ing
A
Others’ failure becomes our failure, unless…
We distance ourselves publicly from those others
Taking down signs of support (Boen et al., 2002)
Motive for protection: we want to avoid feeling bad
18
Q
The Better-Than-Average Effect (Alicke &
Govorun, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988)
A
• Most of us tend to view ourselves positively
• So much so that people think they are above average on a wide range of positive dimensions
• Most drivers said their driving skill was closer to “expert” than “poor”…while hospitalised for being in a car accident (Preston & Harris, 1965)
• Does not differ when comparing a general or
similar other
19
Q
Different form of loneliness
A
- Psychological distance: Loneliness
- Social distance: Social network centrality
- Induced distance: Rejection and discrimination
20
Q
Loneliness
A
Subjective feeling of distress when social relations are not going how we would like
• Discrepancy between the level of connectedness we want to have and what we currently have
• We can be surrounded by others and still be lonely or can be alone but not feel lonely
• Loneliness is affected by lack of relationship quantity (e.g., number of friends)
• But is more affected by lack of relationship quality - feeling misunderstood or that relationships are not meaningful
Different from social isolation, which is a state of having minimal contact with others
21
Q
Effect of loneliness
A
Worse physical health Greater social anxiety Fewer social interactions Greater depression Worse life satisfaction More negative emotions
22
Q
Social Distance in Social Networks
A
A way of quantifying social structures
• Characterises networked structures in terms of nodes (individuals within the network) and the ties that link them
• Yields several measures - who knows whom in a network, popularity within a network, closeness between people in a network etc
Given the importance of connectedness with others, lack of inclusion in a social network is detrimental for health
23
Q
Social Networks and Physical
Health
A
Greater social integration is associated with lower mortality
• The fewer social ties people had, the more likely they were to die over the next 9 years
• Same pattern for men and women and across age groups
24
Q
Loneliness is catching
A
• Cacioppo and colleagues (2009) found people directly connected to a lonely person in a social network were 52% more likely to be lonely
• Loneliness grows in networks over time - extends up to a friend of a friend of a friend
• Growth is particularly strong when the lonely tie is close - a friend or family member
• Three explanations for this:
• Induction: Emotion contagion within a network
• Homophily: Similar people are connected (like with like)
• Shared environment: Exposure to the same social
challenges and upheavals
25
Ostracism
* In modern terms, refers to social shunning
| * “Any act of ignoring and excluding of an individual or group by an individual or a group”
26
Why do we ostracise?
* Group reasons
* Strengthen the group: make the group cohesive
* Protect the group: correct unacceptable behaviour
* Individual reasons
* Individuals who ostracise feel more powerful and in control
27
Cyberball
Online version of a ball-tossing game
Participants are instructed to throw a ball with other players - when
included, participants receive the ball 1/3rd of the time; when excluded
they receive the ball once or twice and then never receive it again
Still used regularly in studies today, despite the laughably simple rendering
Effects of being excluded in cyberball are similar to “in person” ostracism
- it’s a very effective method of inducing ostracism
That said, some modern paradigms seek to incorporate more ecological
validity in the exclusion process
28
Ostracism Hurts
From an evolutionary perspective, ostracism
signals danger (no access to social resources)
As a result, being excluded or ostracised
harms basic psychological needs and makes
us feel bad
In fact, we’re so sensitive to social feedback
that ostracism hurts no matter who does it!
29
Discrimination
How others treat us on the basis of our group membership impacts on our mental and physical health
Discrimination can lead to ill-health
30
Discrimination
How others treat us on the basis of our
group membership impacts on our health
Discrimination can lead to ill-health through:
• Stress and emotional reactions with detrimental
impacts on mental health
• Negative coping responses (e.g., smoking, drug
use)
• Reduced access to resources (e.g., education,
employment, housing, medical care)
• Physical injury via racially-motivated assault
31
Is Social Media Good or Bad for Us?
Stimulation hypothesis: Online interactions strengthen
existing relationships and thus have a social benefit
Displacement hypothesis: Social media replaces offline,
face-to-face interactions, thus incurring social costs
32
Stimulation Hypothesis
Social media can strengthen social ties
• Active use to connect with others (e.g., private exchanges with others, public posts with the intent to broadcast to others) is associated with greater perceived social support and better wellbeing (Frison & Eggermont, 2015, Burke, 2011)
• Online communication can stimulate selfdisclosure, which improves relationships and well-being (Valkenberg & Peter, 2009)
• Computer-mediated-communication reduces social contextual cues
• People become less concerned with how others view them
• Feel fewer inhibitions about disclosing information
33
Displacement Hypothesis
Social media can weaken social ties
• Passive use (e.g., monitoring others’ lives without direct exchanges) is associated with less perceived social support and worse well-being (Frison & Eggermont, 2015)
• Accessing social media because it seems easier than communicating face-to-face increases loneliness (Teppers et al., 2014) Social comparison is problematic
• People who are on Facebook longer and more frequently tend to think others are happier and have better lives than them (Chou et al., 2012)
• Social comparison anxiety on Instagram predicts greater depression (Mackson et al., 2019)
34
The Impact of Social Media Depends on Us
How we use social media matters
• Active vs. passive: engaging socially vs. lurking
• Motives for use: connect with others vs. avoid social anxiety
When actively used to enhance existing relationships and forge new social connections, social media can be a force for good When passively used to escape the social world or compare ourselves with others, social media can be harmful
35
Dale Carnegie’s Golden Rules for Becoming Friendlier
1. Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want
4. Become genuinely interested in other people
5. Smile
6. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound
7. Be a good listener; encourage others to talk about themselves
8. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
9. Make the other person feel important - do it sincerely
36
Snap Judgements
Lack of sufficient information rarely stops us from making judgements about others
• We often make snap judgements about people - quick impressions based on the most brief of glances
• Willis & Todorov (2006) showed people faces and had them rate those faces on a range of traits (likeable, competent, honest, aggressive, extraverted etc)
• Some participants rated at their own pace (“gold standard” comparison)
• Others rated after seeing the faces for 1 second, half a second, or 100 milliseconds
-high correlation of honest
37
Impressions that make a difference
Our judgements of others predict consequential decisions, not least in the
form of voting behaviour
• Politicians with faces judged to be more competent after 1 second exposure were 69%
more likely to win their election (Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005)
• Replicates when the faces are shown for 1 tenth of a second (Ballew & Todorov, 2007)
• Snap competence judgements made before an election accurately predict who will win that
election in 70% of cases (Ballew & Todorov, 2007)
Of course, snap judgements of competence aren’t necessarily based in reality
but they can affect perceivers’ thoughts and behaviour
38
Thin Slicing
The ability to find patterns in events based on “thin slices”, or narrow windows, of experience
• Our ability to draw relatively accurate conclusions about the emotions and attitudes of people in short interactions
• Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) had participants form judgements of university lecturers and high school teachers
• The catch: judgements were based on 10 second videos of the person teaching
• Participant judgements were compared against student evaluations (lecturer) and principal ratings (high school teacher)
39
Person Perception
- How we perceive others is a complex process influenced by a number of factors
- But judgements do appear to be based on two primary dimensions: warmth and competence
- Warmth-Traits that help us assess others’ intent in a social context
- Competant-Traits that help us assess others’ ability to act on their intent
40
Fundamental Dimensions
Abele & Wojciszke (2007) had participants rate 300 traits drawn from existing psychological scales
• Agency/Communion
• Individualism/Collectivism
• Morality/Competence
• Big 5 personality dimensions
Two dimensions emerged that explained 90% of variance in the traits
Warmth- desire from other
Competant- desire from self
-Warmth and competence are independent but important dimensions on which we judge people
-Warmth judgements appear to be primary, and are made more quickly than competence judgements
41
Impression by Innuendo
We like to form well-rounded impressions of people, meaning we may infer qualities about people if we don’t have concrete evidence about those qualities
Kervyn et al. (2012) devised a study to test the “innuendo effect”
42
Updating a First Impression
Impression formation: the process by which people combine information about others to make overall judgements
Two ways in which impressions are updated:
• Algebraically
• Configurationally
43
Algebraic Models
Impressions formed on the basis of a mechanical combination of information about a person
Three ways of combining information to form overall impressions
• Summative
• Averaging
• Weighted averaging
44
Configurational Model
Based on Gestalt principles: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
People combine information they receive about someone into an overall impression that can be different from the simple sum of items of information about that person
• Central traits: influential in impression formation
• Peripheral traits: less influential in impression formation
45
Getting to Know Someone
Initial liking: factors that make us like others
| Getting closer: sharing and secrecy
46
What Do We Like in Others
- We like people who are familiar
- We like people who are similar
- We like people who are attractive
47
What strategies help us get
| closer with others?
Healthy patterns of communication foster more satisfying social bonds
In general, communication that builds trust improves relationships
• Sharing with others
• Self-disclosure
• (Lack of) secrecy
48
The Capitalisation Cycle
• Sharing information with others is a good way to deepen connections with others
• In the case of positive information (e.g., good news), this can result in capitalisation
- a process in which we turbo-charge our own positive experience and social intimacy
• BUT it depends on an engaged other
49
Effect of secrecy
Secrecy can undermine social relationships and make us feel more alone (Slepian, Halevy, & Galinsky, 2019)
• Having secrets confided in us makes us feel closer to the person confiding to us (Slepian & Greenaway, 2018)
50
Milgram’s Obedience
| Studies
Experiments to examine how individuals could obey orders that instructed them to harm others
The experiments had three roles
• The experimenter
• The “teacher” (naive participant)
• The “learner” (confederate)
Experiments were ostensibly about the effects of punishment on learning
• The teacher is instructed by the experimenter to run a series of learning trials, and administer an electric shock to the learner in case of a mistake
Teachers were instructed to increase the shock voltage one step at a time with each incorrect response
Levers were marked:
• “Slight shock”
• “Extremely intense shock”
• “Danger: Severe shock”
• “XXX”
Confederate learners consistently made errors and reacted verbally and physically to the shocks with escalating severity
Most teachers showed a great deal of emotional conflict and told the experimenter they wanted to stop
The experimenter responded with escalating statements
Teachers concerned about the learner’s physical condition were told “Although the shocks may be painful, there is no physical damage, please go on”
51
Milgram’s Obedience
| Studies outcome
- Milgram asked psychiatrists who read the study protocol to predict rates of obedience at varying levels of shock intensity
- Very few psychiatrists thought participants would administer shocks at the ‘XXX’ level
- In reality, most participants (68% in one study) administered shocks to the ‘XXX’ level
52
The high rate of obedience is typically
| attributed to a number of factors
* The authority figure has high status
* Participants believe the authority figure (not themselves) is responsible for the actions
* No clear-cut point to switch to disobedience
* Many obedience situations have gradual escalation - following orders at first has mild consequences with more harmful consequences coming later (at which point you’ve already obeyed a lot…)
53
different versions of Milgram’s Obedience
| Studies
-In reality, Milgram conducted 23 different versions of his ‘experiment’, varying many different conditions
-Obedience varied greatly across the different conditions
-(Nick) Haslam, Loughnan, & Perry (2014) accessed Milgram’s original data and meta-analysed the findings
across 21 of the 23 conditions.
-Overall, fewer than half of the participants continued to the maximum voltage In other words, the majority disobeyed
54
Factors that reduced likelihood of
| obeying
Factors that reduced likelihood of obeying included a non-committed experimenter, having a close relationship with the learner, and seeing other people disobey
55
Replications &
Reenactments of Milgram’s Obedience
Studies
Would people disobey today?
• Burger (2009) replicated Milgram under more ethical conditions (‘only’ 150 volts, pre-study
interviews with a clinical psychologist, told 3 times they could withdraw from the study)
• Found similar results: 70% of people obeyed to a critical shock level
• No gender differences, but people with greater desire for control and more empathic
concern for others were more reluctant
Shock Room (film, 2015)
• (Alex) Haslam, Reicher, & Millard (2015) reenacted Milgram with naive actors
• Almost everyone refused to administer the final shock
• The final straw for most people? Being told “you have no other choice”
56
Stanford Prison
| Experiment
Zimbardo and colleagues (1973) conducted a study designed to simulate prison life
Participants were college students who answered an ad and were randomly assigned to groups
• Prison guards
• Prisoners
“Prisoners” were arrested and brought to the basement of the Stanford psychology building; the Prison warden (Zimbardo) explained prison rules to all involved
A number of “prisoners” became emotionally disturbed
Some “guards” began tormenting and abusing prisoners
The experiment was supposed to last for two weeks, but was stopped after 6 days
57
Criticisms of Stanford Prison
| Experiment
Not an experiment!
In reality, despite the brutal conditions, only 30% of guards behaved cruelly (Fromm, 1973)
Self-selection
• Carnahan & McFarland (2007) conducted an experiment showing the mention of “prison life” in the study recruitment
materials likely biased who volunteered to take part (high in aggression, low in empathy)
Demand characteristics
• Banuazizi & Mohavedi (1975) had students read a description of the study procedure
• 80% correctly identified the hypotheses; 89% predicted the guards would be oppressive
Motivated leadership
• Far from being an impartial observer, Zimbardo actively encouraged guards to act in hostile ways
• Used an appeal to shared identity among the guards (using language like “we”, “us and them”; [Alex] Haslam et al., 2019)
58
Replications &
Reenactments of Stanford Prison
Experiment
BBC Prison Study (Reicher & [Alex] Haslam, 2006)
• Restaged Zimbardo’s famous ‘experiment’, with some key differences
• This time, leadership emerged among the prisoners that led to a very different outcome
• Prisoners identified strongly with their group; guards did not
• Prisoners ended up with better mental health than the guards
59
Persuasion method
Appeals to the head Appeals to the heart
60
Emotion-based
| approaches
Compliance with requests is higher when people are in a positive mood
(Andrade & Ho, 2007; Isen, Clark, & Schwartz, 1976)
This happens for two main reasons:
• Mood colours our interpretation of events: requests seem less intrusive when we feel good
• Emotion maintenance: we want to continue feeling good, and granting a request is one way to do so
61
Reason-based
| approaches
We often make decisions by weighing the pros and cons of engaging in a particular action
Some persuasion attempts are focused on changing people’s decision calculus
Reason-based approaches induce compliance by providing good reasons for people to agree to a request
62
Norm of reciprocity
When someone does something for us, we feel pressure to help in return
• People are expected to provide benefits for those who provided benefits for them (Fiske, 1991)
• To fail to respond is to violate a social expectation and run the risk of social condemnation (Cotterell et al., 1992)
Regan (1971) had a confederate bring a participant a soft drink during an experiment
• Later, the confederate explained they were selling raffle tickets
• Participants who were given the soft drink bought twice as many raffle tickets as those not offered a soft drink
63
Power of Commitment
Once a choice has been made, people feel pressure from themselves and others to act consistently with that commitment
• Even if the commitment becomes increasingly costly
• This can be exploited by others Cialdini et al. (1978) asked participants to take part in an experiment. Everybody agreed. Then they were informed the experiment started at 7am.
• 56% agreed to do the experiment
• 31% agreed when told the start time up front
64
Door-in-the-face
Ask for a very large favour that will certainly be refused, and then follow the request with a more modest favour
The drop in size of the request appears to be a concession on the part of the asker
People feel compelled to respond to a concession by making a their own concession Fuelled by reciprocity
65
Foot-in-the-door
Make a small request to which most people agree, then follow it up with a larger request that was the real favour all along
Human behaviour, like a ball rolling downhill, is subject to momentum
Don’t want to go back on our word; complying with the favour becomes part of our self-image
66
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Explains how people change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979)
Proposes two pathways to persuasion:
• Central: people think carefully and deliberately about the content of the message, attending to argument strength
• Peripheral: people attend to easy-toprocess, superficial cues related to argument length or message source
67
when is central route used
issue is personally relevant
Knowledgable in domain
Change of opinion due to Quality of argument
68
When is preriferal method used
• Issue is not personally relevant
• Distracted or fatigued
• Incomplete or hard-tocomprehend message
Change of opinion due
• Source attractiveness, fame, similarity, expertise
• Number and length of arguments
• Consensus
69
Norm-based approaches
Our tendency to conform to the behaviour of others around us can be harnessed to achieve compliance
Schultz et al. (2007) gave households information about their own energy use in comparison to their neighbourhood average
People changed their behaviour to fit the
norm:
• Above-average users used less energy
• Below-average users used more energy
70
two
| types of normative information people pay attention to
• Descriptive norms: what people actually do (e.g., actual compliance with COVID-19 restrictions)
• Prescriptive norms: what people are supposed to do (e.g., social approval/disapproval about complying with COVID-19 restrictions)
Descriptive and prescriptive norms can be the same (e.g., most people believe we should obey the speed limit and most do obey the speed limit most of the time) or different (e.g., people think we shouldn’t binge-drink for health reasons, but binge-drinking is common in student samples)
71
Types of Social Influence
Majority influence
• When most group members behave in a certain way, one tends to behave in a similar fashion
Minority influence
• Even if there is a strong majority, a consistent minority in the group can affect group members’ attitudes and behaviour
72
Majority Influence
Asch (1956) had a group of students perform a simple perceptual task: determine which of three lines was the same length as a target line
• The correct answer was abundantly clear
• Each person called out their judgement publicly, one at a time
• Everyone but a single participant was a confederate - instructed to respond incorrectly with the same wrong answer
• Asch counted how many times participants gave the same incorrect answer as everyone else
75% of participants conformed at least once
On average, participants conformed on 1/3rd of trials
73
Factors that affect
| Majority Influence
Anonymity • When we privately write - rather than publicly say - our answer, conformity drops
Expertise and status • We are more likely to conform to the views of others we think are experts on the topic
Group size • Conformity increases with more people reporting incorrectly, but only up to a point
Group unanimity • One person dissenting - even if it doesn’t support our view - reduces conformity
74
Minority Influence
Majority opinion doesn’t always prevail
- if it did, there would be no social change
Moscovici et al. (1969) asked participants to determine whether slides were green or blue
• Participants nearly always thought the stimuli were blue
• Participants could hear other people in the study, an inconsistent or consistent minority of whom said the slides were green
Participants in the blue-green experiment conformed to the consistent minority’s opinion more than the inconsistent minority
Participants then did what they thought was a different study where they again evaluated whether slides were green or blue (privately, this time)
• Participants exposed to the consistent minority indicated more green slides than those in the control condition
75
Normative Influence
We are influenced by others because we want to gain their social approval or avoid their disapproval
More common in majority influence
76
Informational Influence
We are influenced by others because we accept information from them as evidence about reality
More common in minority influence
77
How selfish are we?
A widespread assumption in Western thought is that humans are fundamentally selfish
Freud: actions are motivated by the ‘pleasure principle’ - we do things that maximise personal pleasure
Machiavelli: humans are “fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain
78
Dictator Game
A paradigm for investigating trust and
generosity
• Player 1 (the allocator) is given some money, e.g., $10
• Player 1 decides how much to give to Player 2 (the recipient)
• Player 2 receives the offered amount and Player 1 receives the rest
Dictator Game
On average, people give almost half even though they can give zero (Henrich et al., 2011)
71% of people give between 40% and 50% of their resource (Fehr & Schmidt, 1999)
79
What encourages people to give?
• Social closeness to or distance from the recipient (eg., when both anonymous, allocators tend to give less; Hoffman et
al., 1996)
• Trust and prosociality (e.g., people who are more socially oriented and care about others more tend to give more; Bekkers, 2007)
• Demographic factors (e.g., women and older allocators tend to be more generous; Engel, 2010)
80
Giving Feels Good
Spending money on others makes us happier than spending money on ourselves
• Spending more of our income on others increases happiness acutely and over time (Dunn et al., 2008)
• Prosocial spending creates a positive feedback loop: helping others feels good so we do it more (Aknin et al., 2011)
• A ‘psychological universal’: generalises across cultures (Aknin et al., 2013) and starts as early as 1 year old (Warneken & Tomasello, 2006
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Social Loafing
Social loafing: the tendency to exert less effort when working on a group task in which individual contributions cannot be monitored (Karau & Williams, 1993)
Ringelmann (1913) investigated social performance in an individual or cooperative rope-pulling task
• When pulling alone, people exerted more force (they tried harder!) compared to when they pulled in pairs or groups
• The larger the group, the smaller the amount of force exerted
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Why do we loaf
- Deindividuation: people feel they can ‘hide in the crowd’ and avoid the negative consequences of slacking off
- Equity: people have preconceived ideas that people don’t work hard in groups, so reduce their own effort
- Reward: people feel their personal effort won’t be recognised even if they try hard
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How to prevent loafing
1. Assign responsibilities and tasks; make clear who is accountable for what
2. Establish clear standards and rules for what good performance looks like
3. Evaluate individual performance as well as group performance
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Social Facilitation
We don’t always slack off in groups -
in fact, the mere presence of others
can give us a boost
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Co-Action Effects
Performance boost when accompanied by others engaged in the same activity
Triplett (1898) noticed that cyclists performed better when racing against each other than the clock
• Did another experiment in which children wound fishing line alone or in pairs
• Children worked faster when with a partner doing the same task
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Audience Effects
Performance boost when in the presence of passive spectators
People perform better on fine-motor tasks (Travis, 1925) and simple maths tasks (Dashiell, 1935) when an audience is present vs. absent
Thought to be in part because other people heighten physiological arousal and evaluation apprehension, both of which serve to enhance performance
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when does Social Loafing occur
More likely on complex/unfamiliar tasks
More likely when personal effort can’t be identified
More likely when motivation is low
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when does Social Facilitation occur
More likely on simple/easy tasks
More likely when personal effort can be identified
More likely when motivation is high
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Altruism
Prosocial behaviour that benefits others without regard to consequences for oneself
Batson and Shaw (1991) propose several motives for altruism
• Social reward: being esteemed or valued by others (e.g., praise, recognition)
• Personal distress: reduce our own distress about others’ suffering
• Empathic concern: identifying with someone in need and intending to help
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Competitive altruism
If people are motivated by social reward, they may try to outdo one another in altruistic acts
• The person who gives away the most seal meat among the Inuit of Alaska enjoy the highest status (Hardy & van Vugt, 2006)
• In lab studies, people will give greater social status to group members who act altruistically (Nowak & Sigmund, 2005)
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t’s all about me!
Batson and colleagues (1983) were told they would interact with another participant (actually a confederate) who would be subjected to 10 electric shocks
• Easy-to-escape condition: participant could leave after seeing 2 shocks
• Hard-to-escape condition: participants had to stay through all 10 shocks
• Participants’ main emotional response was assessed: personal distress vs. empathy for the other person
• Given the opportunity to trade places with the confederate and take the shocks
-those that have emphaty are more likely to switch place and those distress have the lowest rate in the easy
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bystander effect
n March 1964, The New York Times reported 37 people watched uselessly from their apartments while Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in an alley
The number was later upgraded to 38 The reports shocked the American public and social psychology researchers, who mbegan to study the phenomenon that came to be known as the ‘bystander effect
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Bystander Intervention
Assistance given by a witness to someone in need
We might hope that people respond unquestioningly, but in reality people can be reluctant to intervene during seeming emergencies
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The Smoke Under the
| Door Experiment
Latané & Darley (1968) had male undergraduates take part in a study on “problems at an urban university”
In a waiting room participants faced an ambiguous but potentially dangerous situation in which smoke began to puff into the room
• One group of participants did the study alone
• Another group did the study with two confederates trained not to respond overtly to the smoke
• A third group did the study with two other real
participants
-alone respond the most to group to confet
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Why did bystanders not
| intervene
Diffusion of responsibility: the presence of other people reduces each person’s sense of responsibility (“surely someone else will act…”)
Pluralistic ignorance: each bystander may be uncertain about the legitimacy of the “emergency” - see (lack of) reactions from others and decide it mustn’t be dangerous
Evaluation apprehension: people fear making mistakes and being seen as foolish, which makes them reluctant to intervene in critical situations n a review of the literature, Latané
and Nida (1981) concluded that people were more likely to help and be helped when a critical incident was witnessed by one person alone than when witnessed by a group
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Do people really not help?
Sometimes people are more likely to help when in groups than alone
• Fischer et al. (2011) propose a ‘reverse bystander effect’ (more bystanders = greater likelihood of helping) when emergencies are less ambiguous and and it is clear what bystanders should do
• CCTV footage of real violent incidents in public spaces suggests that bystander intervention is the norm in these cases rather than the exception (Levine et al., 2020)
When people feel able to do something, they’re more likely to help
• Pantin and Carver (1982) had people watch a short video of what to do in medical emergencies (or not) and several weeks later exposed them to someone ostensibly having a choking fit
• Participants who watched the video responded more quickly in the emergency than those who didn’t, regardless of group size
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Factors that increase
| likelihood of helping
Fischer and colleagues (2011) conducted a meta-analysis of bystander effects The bystander effect was reduced when:
• The situation was more dangerous
• The perpetrator was present
• The victim was a close other
• Other bystanders were real (rather than instructed confederates)
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How to increase helping
1. Reduce the ambiguity of the situation - gather information about what is happening and how to respond
2. Speak up - discuss with others around you whether this is an emergency situation and what to do
3. Invite empathy for the victim - see them as a real person with feelings rather than a nameless ‘other’
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Prejudice
An attitude or affective response (positive or negative) toward a group and its members
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Discrimination
favourable or unfavourable treatment of individuals based on their group membership
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Prejudice encompasses all three
components of an attitude (the
ABCs)
* Affective: how much someone likes or dislikes someone based on their group; strong feelings about a group
* Cognitive: thoughts that reinforce a person’s feelings - knowledge and beliefs about a group (often held as stereotypes)
* Behavioural: intentions to turn thoughts and feelings into an action - to behave in ways toward a group
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Types of Prejudice
Blatant prejudice (Allport, 1958)
• Sometimes called ‘old fashioned’ prejudice
• Explicit rejection of the outgroup
• Belief in the inferiority of the outgroup
• Opposition to contact with the outgroup
• Outward expression of negativity toward the outgroup
Subtle prejudice (e.g., Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995; McConahay, 1986)
• Covert forms of prejudice
• Can involve rejection of explicitly prejudiced beliefs while still feeling animosity (“I’m not racist, but…”)
• Can be reflected in unacknowledged or unconscious negative feelings toward members of certain groups (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986)
• Sometimes assessed using ‘implicit’ measures that don’t rely on asking people to self-report on their attitudes
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A Case Study: Sexism
Glick and Fiske (2001) coined the term ‘ambivalent sexism’, which recognises that prejudiced attitudes can contain both negative and positive features
• Hostile sexism: blatant, overtly negative evaluations of women (beliefs that women are incompetent, unintelligent, overly emotional, and manipulative)
• Benevolent sexism: subtle, seemingly positive evaluations of women that reinforce traditional gender roles (beliefs that women should be protected, revered as wives, mothers, child caretakers)
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The Economic
| Perspective of prejude
Some of the most intense intergroup tensions arise between groups that compete for the same limited resource (e.g., money, jobs, land)
This perspective is outlined in Realistic Group Conflict Theory
• Predicts (correctly) that prejudice will increase under conditions of economic difficulty, such as recessions and high unemployment (e.g., King et al., 2010)
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The Robbers Cave
| Experiment
Sherif et al. (1961) conducted a study under the guise of a two-week summer camp with 22 boys
Boys were allocated to two groups: The Eagles and The Rattlers
• Stage 1: ingroup formation in which each group got to know one another, norms and leadership developed (low pre)
• Stage 2: group conflict in which the groups competed in activities for limited prizes(high pre)
• Stage 3: conflict resolution in which the groups worked together to achieve a number of superordinate (i.e., collective) goals(low pre)
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The Motivational
| Perspective of prejudge
Hostility can emerge between groups even in the absence of direct competition
Intergroup hostility can develop merely because another group exists
The mere existence of group boundaries can be sufficient to initiate intergroup prejudice
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The Minimal Group
| Paradigm
A method of studying prejudice pioneered by Henri Tajfel (1970)
Designed to reveal the minimal conditions required for ingroup favouritism and outgroup derogation to occur
• Preferring the art of abstract painters Kandinsky or Klee
• Even arbitrary distinctions can trigger a tendency to favour one’s own ingroup over outgroups - even when it comes at the ingroup’s expense
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Social Identity Theory
- Combines with self-categorisation theory to form ‘the social identity approach’
- Our identity is comprised in large part of social groups we belong to
- Hence, in order to feel good about ourselves, we strive to feel good about and boost the status of our ingroups
- People who are more identified with the group tend to show greater ingroup favouritism (e.g., McCoy & Major, 2003)
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Minimal but not
| meaningless
The typical interpretation of the minimal group paradigm is that group bias emerges even when the basis for membership is meaningless
But new evidence shows people perceive ‘overestimators’ and ‘underestimators’ differently We ascribe meaning to even seemingly meaningless groups, which can further encourage group bias
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The Cognitive Miser
Prejudice as a byproduct of our tendency to categorise things and people
People tend to favour simpler ways of thinking than more effortful ways of thinking (Fiske & Taylor, 1984)
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The Cognitive Perspective
This gives rise to stereotypes, which help us process information rapidly and efficiently but can be biased
• Beliefs that all members of a group have the same qualities, which define the
group and differentiate it from other groups (Hogg & Abrams, 1988)
Main features:
1. Define people in terms of their social category membership
2. Stereotypes are shared (amount to more than one person’s opinion)
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Stereotypes expiriment
Researchers brought a baby into a social psychology clas
• Half were told the baby’s name was Keith’ and the other half ‘Karen’
• Participants rated the baby on stereotypical personality traits male higher in active, aggression, athletic, assertive
Participants watched a recording in which two people had an argument and one pushed the other
• Half saw a Black person push a White person; the other saw a White person push a Black person
• Rated how violent the episode was black higher than white
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Prejudice Reduction
Economic lessons
Reduce intergroup competition and increase intergroup cooperation (‘recategorisation’)
Motivational lessons
Set ingroup norms against prejudice and for tolerance (‘normative influence’)
Cognitive lessons
Weaken the effects of stereotypes by exposing people to individuals from lots of different groups (‘intergroup contact’)
