Social Psych (Exam 3)

Normative: public compliance without private acceptance

• following group norms “to be liked”

• Asch (1951, 1956)

  • line test

Informational: private acceptance

• following group norms because you believe they are right

• Sherif (1936)

  • autokinetic studies

  • people’s responses got closer and closer together after each round

shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups

• Injunctive: what is believed ought to be done to be accepted

• Descriptive: what is actually done and observed to be done

the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead

• Ex: “the typical college student drinks 5 drinks on weekends”

  • meant to reduce binge drinking

  • someone who drinks less than 5 realizes that they could drink more and it wouldn’t be out of the norm

When conforming (gave incorrect answer)

• used areas of brain related to visual perception (same as baseline)

When disagreeing (gave correct answer)

• used amygdala & right caudate nucleus

Group Unanimity

• “True partner”: member of group who breaks conformity with the same answer as you

• “Compromise Partner”: member of group who breaks conformity with different answer than you

Public Response

• Asch: Written vs Loud

No Prior Commitment

Importance of being accurate

• Baron et al. (1996)

a phenomenon in which people mistakenly believe that others predominantly hold an opinion different from their own

systematic attempt to advance a cause by manipulating mass attitudes and
behaviors, often through misleading or emotionally charged information

Rapid transmission of behaviors or emotions through a crowd

widespread subjective symptoms thought
to be associated with environmental exposure to a toxic substance in
the absence of objective evidence

Strength

• How important is the reference group to us?

• status of group

• is group cohesive

Immediacy

• closeness in time or space

Number

• groups of 3 or more

• Max influence by 4-5

True Partner

Compromise Partner

Idiosyncrasy Credits: mental currency that allows you to occasionally deviate from group norms without fear of reprisal

Psychological Reactance: motive to protect or restore one’s sense of freedom

• if we feel our freedom is threatened

  • support for co-ed dorms ex.

  • banned books ex.

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Foot-In-Door: smaller requests are asked in order to gain compliance with larger requests

• better for long-term compliance

• Freedman & Fraser, 1966

Door-In-Face: larger requests are asked, with the expectation that it will be rejected, in order to gain compliance for smaller requests

• better for short-term compliance

• Reciprocity Norm: requires that people repay in kind what others have done for them

• Cialdini et al, 1975: “take the delinquents to the zoo”

Compliance in response to a direct request to change your behavior

• especially when there is perceived legit authority figure

Milgram’s Obedience Film

• Shock Study (15-450 Volts)

• No gender, social class, or educational differences affected obedience to emit shocks

Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact
with and influence one another and perceive one another as ‘us’

• have their own social norms and roles
  

strengthening of the dominant response when in the presence of others and
individual performance can be evaluated

• Cockroach maze study (1969)

tendency for people to do worse on simple
tasks when they are in the presence of others and individual
performance cannot be evaluated

• Sheppard: Gum for the troops study (2001)

Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension that leads to
loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a
crowd or anonymous

• Trick or treater study (1976)

any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving

• potential causes

  • conformity pressure

  • communication issues

• Stasser & Titus (1985)

Type of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and
solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a
realistic manner

Challenger explosion example

• occurs when…

  • group is highly cohesive

  • group is protecting from opposing views

  • Directive leader

  • time pressure

  • no allowance for alternative views

illusion of vulnerability

belief in moral correctness of the group

justification of group decisions

stereotyped views of outgroups

conformity pressures

‘mindguards’

tendency for groups to make
decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of individual members

• Myers & Bishop (1970)

  • prejudice in high-prejudice group increased after discussion

  • prejudice in low-prejudice group decreased after discussion

Affective component: Prejudice

Behavioral component: Discrimination

Cognitive component: Stereotypes

Grouping stimuli according to perceived
similarities

• The first step in prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes

group(s) with which one identifies

everyone outside your in-group

the ‘we’ aspect of our self concept that comes from our group memberships

positive feeling and special treatment for those in our in-group

tendency for people to view members of out-groups as being more alike than members of the group they belong to

• Blascovich, Wyer, Swart, & Kibler (1997)

  • study where you pick the white, grey, or black circle after being shown various faces

• Quattrone & Jones (1980)

  • Rutgers and Princeton, music judgments study

A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based SOLELY on their membership in that group

• Affective component

  • Implicit Prejudice

  • Explicit Prejudice

Explicit: biased attitudes we are aware of

• measured in self-report

Implicit: unconscious biased attitudes

• measured in Implicit Association Tests (IATs) or other tests that rely on automatic processing

  • Goff, Steele, & Davies (2008)

    • distance of chairs study

a test that measures speed of positive and negative reactions to target groups

• relies on automatic processing

Unequal status

Realistic conflict theory

Scapegoating

Justify differential status, treatment, access to opportunities through negative or condescending perceptions of out-group

Members of in-group feel directly threatened by members of out-group

• Sheriff (1961) Robber’s cave study

  • eagles vs rattlers groups at camp

    • who made friends with who

• Elliot Aronson’s Jigsaw Classroom

When no clear or logical competitor exists in times of hardship and scarce resources, lash out at out-group members who are easy targets

Acknowledge race, prejudice, and structural inequalities in conversations with children

Effective reduction through contact…

• Friendly, informal, one-to-one contact with out-group members

• Friendly, informal, one-to-one interactions with multiple members of out-group

• Mutual interdependence

• A common goal

• Equal status

• Social norms that promote and support equality and are reinforced by group leader

  • Elliot Aronson’s Jigsaw Classroom

    • cooperative activities reduced prejudice amongst students

we we act (stems from prejudice) toward an out-group

• behavioral component

A form of prejudice/discrimination that surfaces in subtle ways when its safe, socially acceptable, and easy to rationalize

• microaggressions: indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group.

  • Harber (1998, 2010)

    • people read profile on essay writer before grading essay

      • essays written by writers who were believed to be African American were graded less harshly

      • graders expected less from these writers

A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people, a type of schema

• cognitive component

the extent to which individual targets of specific stereotypes “focus on their stereotyped status and believe it pervades their life experiences”

the risk of confirming negative stereotypes about an individual's racial, ethnic, gender, or cultural group

• the fear can negatively affect how the person acts and performs

Remove environmental cues that might prime thinking about a relevant stereotype or targeted identity

Take steps to directly counter stereotypes prior to administering task (“No group differences have been found on this task”)

Create mental “overlap” among social categories by focusing on commonalities

Expose individuals to positive “role models” from target group who refute stereotypes

Have individuals affirm their individual, rather than group, identities, characteristics, and values prior to engaging in task

Re-frame purpose of test or activity

Teach students about stereotype threat

Re-frame arousal in terms of social facilitation (strong performance on task)

Controlled Stereotype Processing: When we are motivated and able to use our cognitive resources, we may reject the stereotype

• list stereotypes you are aware of

• list attitudes toward group

Automatic Stereotype Processing: schemas

• subconscious priming with stereotype words

conversion model

bookkeeping model

subgrouping model

takes a large critical disconfirmation to create sudden and often dramatic change

as you learn about a group the stereotype changes with each bit of new information

Subtyping: Individuals who deviate from stereotype are ‘exceptions to the rule’

Subgrouping: Individuals who deviate from stereotype lead to formation of a new ‘subset’ of the stereotyped group