CHAPTER 13 SOCIAL INFLUENCE

What causes social loafing? Three things:

1.People acting as part of a group feel less accountable, and therefore worry less about what others think. 2. Group members may view their individual contributions as dispensable (Harkins & Szymanski, 1989; Kerr & Bruun, 1983). 3. When group members share equally in the benefits, regardless of how much they contribute, some may slack off (as you perhaps have observed on group assignments). Unless highly motivated and strongly identified with the group, people may free ride on others' efforts.

Examples of dangers of groupthink, ?

1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the escalation of the Vietnam war; the U.S. Watergate cover-up; the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident (Reason, 1987); the U.S. space shuttle Challenger explosion (Esser & Lindoerfer, 1989); and the Iraq war, launched on the false idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, 2004).

Gandhi

As the life of Hindu nationalist and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi powerfully testifies, a consistent and persistent minority voice can sometimes sway the majority. Gandhi's nonviolent appeals and fasts were instrumental in winning India's independence from Britain in 1947.

Social psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974), a high school classmate of Philip Zimbardo and then a student of Solomon Asch, knew that people often give in to ?

Social pressures

Psychology's most famous obedience experiments, in which most participants obeyed an authority figure's demands to inflict presumed painful, dangerous shocks on an innocent participant, were conducted by social psychologist ______________ ______________.

Stanley Milgram

What did Milgram's obedience experiments teach us about the power of social influence?

Stanley Milgram's experiments—in which people obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming another person—demonstrated that strong social influences can make ordinary people conform to falsehoods or give in to cruelty. Obedience was highest when (a) the person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure; (b) the research was supported by a prestigious institution; (c) the victim was depersonalized or at a distance; and (d) there were no role models for defiance.

Social loafing Causes?

Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable Acting as part of group and feeling less accountable Feeling individual contribution does not matter Taking advantage when there is lack of identification with group

What situations have researchers found to be most likely to encourage obedience in participants?

The Milgram studies showed that people were most likely to follow orders when the experimenter was nearby and was a legitimate authority figure, the victim was not nearby, and there were no models for defiance.

You are organizing a meeting of fiercely competitive political candidates. To add to the fun, friends have suggested handing out masks of the candidates' faces for supporters to wear. What phenomenon might these masks engage?

The anonymity provided by the masks, combined with the arousal of the contentious setting, might create deindividuation (lessened self-awareness and self-restraint).

The chameleon effect (mimicry)

They had students work in a room alongside another person, who was actually a confederate working for the experimenters. Sometimes the confederates rubbed their own face. Sometimes they shook their foot. Sure enough, the students tended to rub their face when with the face-rubbing person and shake their foot when with the foot-shaking person. Other studies have found people synchronizing their grammar to match material

What is social facilitation, and why is it more likely to occur with a well-learned task?

This improved performance in the presence of others is most likely to occur with a well-learned task, because the added arousal caused by an audience tends to strengthen the most likely response. This also predicts poorer performance on a difficult task in others' presence.

Normative social influence: Informational social influence:

To gain approval to accept others' opinions as new information

Asch's conformity experiments

To study conformity, Solomon Asch (1955) devised a simple test. Imagine yourself as a participant in what you believe is a study of visual perception. You arrive in time to take a seat at a table with five other people. The experimenter asks the group to state, one by one, which of three comparison lines is identical to a standard line. You see clearly that the answer is Line 2, and you await your turn to say so. Your boredom begins to show when the next set of lines proves equally easy. Now comes the third trial, and the correct answer seems just as clear-cut (FIGURE 13.3). But the first person gives what strikes you as a wrong answer: "Line 3." When the second person and then the third and fourth give the same wrong answer, you sit up straight and squint. When the fifth person agrees with the first four, you feel your heart begin to pound. The experimenter then looks to you for your answer. Torn between the unanimity voiced by the five others and the evidence of your own eyes, you feel tense and suddenly unsure. You hesitate before answering, wondering whether you should suffer the discomfort of being the oddball.

Home team advantage

When others observe us, we perform well-learned tasks more quickly and accurately. But on new and difficult tasks, performance is less quick and accurate.

In studies of groups in which one or two individuals consistently express a controversial attitude or an unusual perceptual judgment, one finding repeatedly stands out:

When you are the minority, you are far more likely to sway the majority if you hold firmly to your position and don't waffle. This tactic won't make you popular, but it may make you influential, especially if your self-confidence stimulates others to consider why you react as you do. Even when a minority's influence is not yet visible, people may privately develop sympathy for the minority position and rethink their views

conformity

adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

We are more likely to conform when

are made to feel incompetent or insecure. are in a group with at least three people. are in a group in which everyone else agrees. (If just one other person disagrees, the odds of our disagreeing greatly increase.) admire the group's status and attractiveness. have not made a prior commitment to any response. know that others in the group will observe our behavior. are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards.

The powers of social influence are enormous, but so are the powers of the?

committed individual.

Social facilitation also helps explain a funny effect of?

crowding. Crowding triggers arousal.

. The uninhibited behavior that results can range from a food fight to vandalism or rioting. This process of losing self-awareness and self-restraint, called ?

deindividuation, often occurs when group participation makes people both aroused and anonymous.

When like-minded groups discuss a topic, and the result is the strengthening of the prevailing opinion, this is called ______________ ______________.

group polarization

the beliefs and attitudes we bring to a group grow stronger as we discuss them with like-minded others. This process, called?

group polarization, can have beneficial results, as when it amplifies a sought-after spiritual awareness or reinforces the resolve of those in a self-help group. But it can also have dire consequences.

When a group's desire for harmony overrides its realistic analysis of other options, ______________ has occurred.

groupthink

To describe this harmonious but unrealistic group thinking, Janis coined the term?

groupthink.

The energizing effect of an enthusiastic audience probably contributes to the

home advantage that has shown up in studies of more than a quarter-million college and professional athletic events in various countries (Allen & Jones, 2014; Jamieson, 2010). Home teams win about 6 in 10 games (somewhat fewer for baseball, cricket, and American football, somewhat more for basketball, rugby, and soccer—see TABLE 13.1). For most sports, home cooking is best.

social facilitation

improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

Normative social influence

influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval.

informational social influence

influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth," observed Joseph Joubert, an eighteenth-century French essayist. When we accept others' opinions about reality, we are responding to ?

informational social influence. As Rebecca Denton demonstrated in 2004, sometimes it pays to assume others are right and to follow their lead. Denton set a record for the farthest distance driven on the wrong side of a British divided highway—30 miles, with only one minor sideswipe, before the motorway ran out and police were able to puncture her tires. Denton, who was intoxicated, later explained that she thought the hundreds of other drivers coming at her were all on the wrong side of the road

Later studies showed that groupthink—fed by?

overconfidence, conformity, self-justification, and group polarization—contributed to other fiascos as well.

In social facilitation (Triplett),

presence of others arouses people, improving performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing it on difficult ones. Performance can also be hindered because the most likely, but not necessarily the correct response occurs. Home town advantage Crowding effect

Frequently, we conform to avoid

rejection or to gain social approval. In such cases, we are responding to normative social influence. We are sensitive to social norms—understood rules for accepted and expected behavior—because the price we pay for being different can be severe. We need to belong.At other times we conform to be accurate.

People tend to exert less effort when working with a group than they would alone, which is called ______________ ______________.

social loafing

Group polarization

the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.

➜deindividuation

the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Groupthink

the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

What strengthens conformity to a group?

Finding the group attractive

What is automatic mimicry, and how do conformity experiments reveal the power of social influence?

Automatic mimicry (the chameleon effect)—our tendency to unconsciously imitate others' expressions, postures, and voice tones—is a form of conformity. Solomon Asch and others have found that we are most likely to adjust our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard when (a) we feel incompetent or insecure, (b) our group has at least three people, (c) everyone else agrees, (d) we admire the group's status and attractiveness, (e) we have not already committed to another response, (f) we know we are being observed, and (g) our culture encourages respect for social standards. We may conform to gain approval (normative social influence) or because we are willing to accept others' opinions as new information (informational social influence).

What is automatic mimicry, and how do conformity experiments reveal the power of social influence?

Automatic mimicry helps us to empathize—to feel what others are feeling. This helps explain why we feel happier around happy people than around depressed people. -Suggestibility and mimicry are subtle types of conformity—adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard.

Like minds network in the blogosphere

Blue liberal blogs link mostly to one another, as do red conservative blogs. (The intervening colors display links across the liberal-conservative boundary.) Each dot represents a blog, and each dot's size reflects the number of other blogs linking to that blog. (From Lazer et al., 2009.) By connecting and magnifying the inclinations of likeminded people, the Internet can be very, very bad, but also very, very good.

Deindividuation example

During England's 2011 riots and looting, rioters were disinhibited by social arousal and by the anonymity provided by darkness and their hoods and masks. Later, some of those arrested expressed bewilderment over their own behavior.

Group polarization

Group discussions with like-minded others strengthen members' prevailing beliefs and attitudes. Internet communication magnifies this effect, for better and for worse.

Group polarization example

If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions. Talking over racial issues increased prejudice in a high-prejudice group of high school students and decreased it in a low-prejudice group (Myers & Bishop, 1970).

MILGRAM'S FOLLOW-UP OBEDIENCE EXPERIMENT

In a repeat of the earlier experiment, 65 percent of the adult male "teachers" fully obeyed the experimenter's commands to continue. They did so despite the "learner's" earlier mention of a heart condition and despite hearing cries of protest after they administered what they thought were 150 volts and agonized protests after 330 volts. (Data from Milgram, 1974.)

Milgram's follow-up obedience experiment

In a repeat of the earlier experiment, 65 percent of the adult male "teachers" fully obeyed the experimenter's commands to continue. They did so despite the "learner's" earlier mention of a heart condition and despite hearing cries of protest after they administered what they thought were 150 volts and agonized protests after 330 volts. (Data from Milgram, 1974.)

What are group polarization and groupthink, and how much power do we have as individuals?

In group polarization, group discussions with like-minded others strengthen members' prevailing beliefs and attitudes. Internet communication magnifies this effect, for better and for worse. Groupthink is driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making group, overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives. The power of the individual and the power of the situation interact. A small minority that consistently expresses its views may sway the majority.

WORKING HARD, OR HARDLY WORKING?

In group projects, such as this Earth Day beach cleanup, social loafing often occurs, as individuals free ride on the efforts of others.

How is our behavior affected by the presence of others?

In social facilitation, the mere presence of others arouses us, improving our performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing it on difficult ones. In social loafing, participating in a group project makes us feel less responsible, and we may free ride on others' efforts. When the presence of others both arouses us and makes us feel anonymous, we may experience deindividuation—loss of self-awareness and self-restraint.

Deindividuation

Involves loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity Thrives in many different settings

Findings?

Obedience in the Milgram experiments was highest when Person giving orders was nearby and was perceived as a legitimate authority figure Research was supported by a prestigious institution Victim was depersonalized or at a distance There were no role models for defiance

Social networking influence

On the 2010 U.S. congressional election day, Facebook gave people an informational message that encouraged voting. The message had measurably more influence when supplemented with a social message that showed friends who had voted (Bond et al., 2012).

A phenomenon called "positive herding"

On websites, positive ratings generate more positive ratings. -In a massive experiment on the 2010 U.S. congressional election day, Facebook showed 61 million people a message that encouraged their voting, with a link to a local voting place and a clickable "I voted" button. Those who also received these messages with pictures of Facebook friends who had already voted became slightly more likely to vote—enough so to have generated an estimated 282,000 additional voters

Group Think

People are driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making group, overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Stanley Milgram's experiments

People obeyed orders even when they thought they were harming another person. Strong social influences can make ordinary people conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior. In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people's compliance with lesser evils.

Individual power

Power of the individual and the power of the situation interact. A small minority that consistently expresses its views may sway the majority.

Janis believed—groupthink is prevented when a?

leader welcomes various opinions, invites experts' critiques of developing plans, and assigns people to identify possible problems. Just as the suppression of dissent bends a group toward bad decisions, open debate often shapes good ones. This is especially the case with diverse groups, whose varied perspectives often enable creative or superior outcomes. None of us is as smart as all of us.

The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities is?

minority influence

Obedience was highest when

the person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure. Such was the case in 2005 when Temple University's basketball coach sent a 250-pound bench player, Nehemiah Ingram, into a game with instructions to commit "hard fouls." Following orders, Ingram fouled out in four minutes after breaking an opposing player's right arm. the authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution. Compliance was somewhat lower when Milgram dissociated his experiments from Yale University. People have wondered: Why, during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, did so many Hutu citizens slaughter their Tutsi neighbors? It was partly because they were part of "a culture in which orders from above, even if evil," were understood as having the force of law (Kamatali, 2014). the victim was depersonalized or at a distance, even in another room. Similarly, many soldiers in combat either have not fired their rifles at an enemy they can see, or have not aimed them properly. Such refusals to kill have been rare among soldiers who were operating long-distance artillery or aircraft weapons (Padgett, 1989). Those who killed from a distance—by operating remotely piloted drones—also have suffered much less posttraumatic stress than have on-the-ground Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans (Miller, 2012). Standing up for democracy Some individuals—roughly one in three in Milgram's experiments—resist social coercion, as did this unarmed man in Beijing, by single-handedly challenging an advancing line of tanks the day after the 1989 Tiananmen Square student uprising was suppressed. there were no role models for defiance. "Teachers" did not see any other participant disobey the experimenter.

social loafing

the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

cognitive dissonance theory

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

Suggestibility and mimicry sometimes lead to

tragedy. Copycat violence threats after Colorado's Columbine High School shootings