Social Psychology 151

Public Conformity

( go along to get along) Conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in that the other people are saying or doing.

Informational influence

(Others provide information) Influence of other people that leads us to conform because we see them as a source of information to guide our behavior; we conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action. (e.g. Autokinetic Effect)

Low-balling

(Secure agreement, then reveal hidden costs) When a salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost, subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price; frequently, the customer will agree to make the purchase of the inflated price.

Normative influence

(Social Pressure) The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them; this type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors. (e.g. Asch's Line judgement)

Private Conformity

(really believe in it) Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right

Conformity

1. A change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. Change perceptions, opinions, or behavior in ways that are consistent with group norms.

Brehm's (1956) Difficult decisions study (rationalizing liking objects more after we've chosen them)

1. After we have made a decision, we will feel dissonance regarding the possibility of it being wrong. We will often change our perceptions to reduce this dissonance and make the decision seem more attractive. 2. Brehm (1956) asked shoppers to rate the attractiveness of household appliances. They were then allowed to choose, as a gift, between two appliances they had rated equally attractive. Twenty minutes later, they were asked to re-evaluate the appliances. Guess what? They now rated their gift somewhat more highly. And the items they did not choose they rated as worse.

What individual differences affect the likelihood of conforming?

1. Age differences young adolescents most vulnerable older people(63-85) conform less to an incorrect majority. 2. Gender differences 1. weak and unreliable 2. conform more on opposite sex tasks 3. social pressure based on gender norms.

What are the ways we can reduce dissonance?

1. Change your attitude: "Being frugal is overrated" 2. Change your perception: "It wasn't THAT expensive" 3. Add consonant cognitions: "I did buy them on sale" 4. Minimize the importance of the conflict: "I'm a nice person, so what it I spend too much sometimes?" 5. Reduce perceived choice: "I had to buy them for the wedding next week."

Harmon Jones (1996) study (drinking vinegar vs. sugar drinks)

1. Inconsistency alone may produce dissonance effects even w/o negative consequences. 2. Study where participants rated regular koolaid and koolaid mixed with vinegar blindly. 1. One group (HIGH CHOICE) got to choose to comment on whatever they felt like. 2. (NO CHOICE) had to choose whether what they had was good or bad. 3. Subjects were not consistent with what they wrote which in turn experiences dissonance from their behavior. ****Not sure exactly what the results were in relation to the dissonance. In the graph the no choice subjects had a high rating of the regular koolaid, but the high choice subjects rated it higher. In the vinegar koolaid ratings, the no choice rated it low, the high choice rated it much higher- close marks to the regular koolaid.

What cultural differences exist in the likelihood of conforming?

1. Individualistic cultures: value autonomy and independence. 2. Collectivistic cultures: value social harmony and fitting in for sake of the community. conformity rates generally higher in collectivistic cultures.

Do bigger punishments produce greater change?

1. No, small punishments produce greater change in attitude. 1. If a small punishment is administered then the person will think they are holding back the desired behavior because they have self control rather than being forced not to behave in a certain way. Small punishments cause greater change for when a person refrains from performing a behavior based on a mild punishment they do not have sufficient external justification for why they refrained. This causes cognitive dissonance and one is forced to change their belief so that it becomes consistent with their behavior, which reduced the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance. 2. A large punishment will cause people to not behave in a certain way while the punisher is present, but when the punisher is not present they will find no reason to hold back the desired behavior (because they have sufficient external justification for their behavior).

Automatic stereotyping

1. Once we learn to associate a group with a trait (e.g., from our parents, peers, media images), the presents of that group can automatically activate the trait. 2. Stereotype is automatically activated when there is chronic accessibility (culture, individual experiences), and when motivated with goals to protect self-esteem, affiliate with others, or be egalitarian. 3. Even if you don't have an explicit feelings about the stereotype your implicit feelings will become salient when the group becomes present.

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) Dissonance Study (boring task)

1. Participants take part in an extremely boring study, but is asked to tell the next person the experiment was enjoyable. 2. Offered $1 or $20 to lie to the next person, or not asked to lie 3. Main question: How would getting paid affect their attitude? In other words, who later rated the experiment as most enjoyable? 4. The people that got $1 rated the experiment as most enjoyable because they wanted to change their attitudes to comply with their behaviors. Them lying could not be justified by $1, but they could make themselves believe that the activity really wasn't that bad, it wasn't incredibly boring.

What factors make compliance more likely?

1. Talking fast 2. Catching people by surprise can increase compliance. 3. People are affected by the phrasing of the request. 4. An appearance of a reason. 1. ie: (Xerox machine request study)

What are the necessary conditions for dissonance and attempts at its reduction to occur?

1. Unwanted negative consequences 2. Personal responsibility: choice and foreseeability 3. Physiological arousal; decreases after attitude change 4. Attribution of arousal to discrepancy

Asch's Line Judgment Task

1. Virtually all participants were accurate in comparing line sizes when alone. Subjects went along with the clearly incorrect majority 37% of the time. 25% of subjects NEVER conformed. 50% conformed for at least half of the presentations.

Superordinate Identity

1. thinking about identity at increasingly higher levels 1. (example: not democrat vs republican but american, not america vs canada but north american, not north American but global 2. helps establish common ground between groups in conflict

Compliance

A change in behavior elicited by a direct request/ favor.

Obedience

A change in behavior in response to the commands of an authority figure.

Insufficient Deterrence

A condition in which people refrain from engaging in a desirable activity, even when only mild punishment is threatened. ex. Give a child a smaller punishment will overtime have greater affect on that child not doing the thing they were punished for.

Social Dilemma

A conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone

Ambivalent Sexism

A form of sexism characterized by attitudes about women that reflect both negative, resentful beliefs and feelings and affectionate and chivalrous but potentially patronizing beliefs and feelings 1. Even positive stereotypes can have negative consequences. Benevolent and hostile sexism against women are still saying that women are weak.

Prejudice

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

Groupthink

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

Prisoner's Dilemma

A situation modeled by game theory in which rational actors pursuing their individual interests all achieve worse outcomes than they could have by working together.

Why does foot-in-the-door work?

Agreeing to a small request will possibly make us agree to the larger request. Works best when small request is not too trivial, and subject wants to view self as consistent.

Integrative Agreement

All parties obtain outcomes that are superior to what they would have obtained from an equal division of the contested resources.

Stereotype Threat

Apprehension that one's behavior might confirm a stereotype while in a stereotype-relevant situation. (awareness of negative stereotype → stress → impairs performance).

Aronson & Mills (1959) embarrassment test (sexual readings study)

Aronson and Mills: 1. women come in and do a study about sexual beliefs. Two conditions: 1. low effort: read words out loud (prostitute) 2. high effort: (explicit words) and a passage from a novel (sexual novel). 3. Watch a boring video on animal sexual behavior. Women in high effort rated the movie as interesting because they had to do something difficult beforehand and were trying to justify it."The harder it was to acquire the more we like it later"

Modern Racism (aka. Subtle racism)

As norms for racism and sexism change, prejudice has gone "underground." Prejudice against minorities primarily surfaces when prejudice can be rationalized and made socially acceptable.

Collective

Assembled into or viewed as a whole.

Social Influence and its 4 types

Automatic social influence Conformity Compliance Obedience

Stereotype Lift

Awareness of positive stereotype can boost one's performance.

Hostile Sexism

Belief that women are inferior (less intelligent, worthless, etc).

Stereotypes

Cognitive beliefs that associate people with certain traits based on their group membership.

Does everyone care equally about being consistent? Who cares less and why?

Collectivists are less concerned with consistency, show fewer dissonance effects. Collectivists focus more on INTERdependence rather than independence. They are group-goal oriented rather than personal goal oriented. Often people from collectivist cultures act in ways consistent with the situation, not just on the basis of personal beliefs.

How do people continue to support beliefs when presented with scientific evidence that its wrong?

Confirmation bias -They would come up with reasons for flaw in the study, such as internal validity.

Mixed Motives

Conflicting motives in social situation (i.e., compete vs. cooperate).

How does group size influence conformity?

Conformity increases with group size but only up to a point. Depends on our perception of how many distinct individuals there are- couples and groups of people or separate individuals.

Social Categorization Theory

Describes the circumstances under which a person will perceive collections of people (including themselves) as a group and the consequences of perceiving people in group terms.

What kinds of decisions produce dissonance?

Difficult decisions: Alternative courses of action are similarly desirable (A choice between two equally desirable things, situations where we act contrary to our internal beliefs for no good reason, ect.)

Evolutionary Perspective

In-groups provide security, depend on them for survival, need to cooperate and trust. Those who favored their group (trusted them and thought they were better than the other groups) were more likely to survive, therefore passing the trait on to subsequent generations.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Inconsistent cognitions produce a psychological tension that people are motivated to reduce Change your attitude: being frugal is overrated Change your perception: it wasn't THAT expensive Add consonant cognitions: i did buy them on sale minimize the importance of the conflict: i'm a nice person, so what if i spend too much sometimes reduce perceived choice: i had to buy them for the wedding next week.

Persuasive Arguments Theory

Individuals become more convinced of their views when they hear novel arguments in support of their position (exposure to information).

What's the difference between informational and normative influence?

Informational influence is when other people provide info to us which in then influences our beliefs and behaviors while Normative influence is influence through social pressure.

Complementary Stereotyping

Members of high and low status groups are seen as possessing complementary sets of positive and negative characteristics

Who in US society endorses meritocratic beliefs (i.e. do only people at the top endorse it)?

Meritocratic beliefs are endorsed by people across the social spectrum.

Biased support of meritocratic beliefs study

Meritocratic beliefs is the idea that hard work and determination leads to success, exposed to belief about persistence, if we fail in life it is our fault, try again to succeed. The biased support/ideas of meritocratic beliefs:

Contact Hypothesis

Mutual interdependence, common goal, interpersonal contact, multiple contacts, social norms of equality

Do there need to be negative consequences for you to experience dissonance?

No, inconsistency alone can cause dissonance (Ex: the sweet beverage or vinegar beverage experiment)

Do bigger rewards produce greater change?

No, small rewards produce greater change in attitude. Behaving in a way that is against your attitude would not be justified by a small reward and in turn will change your attitude to reduce dissonance.

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Occur when a perceiver's false expectations cause them to behave in ways that elicits the expected behavior from members of the outgroup, that in turn reinforces their initial stereotyped belief. ex. Standardized test

What are some of the consequences of system justifying beliefs?

People defend, bolster, and rationalize the status quo simply because it exists. People justify "getting the short end of the stick" because "its the way it is" - it's the same reason why women justify getting paid less than men working the same job. These beliefs don't permit us to see the flaws in the system, therefore nothing is done to change anything.

Group cohesiveness

Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members.

Victim Blaming

Tend to assume that victims did something to deserve their negative outcomes

Mimicry

The act or art of copying or imitating closely.

Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

The assumption that there is more similarity among members of an outgroup than among members of one's ingroup.

Pluralistic ignorance

The case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation a certain way, when in fact they are not. (for example we misperceive what is normative: College children assume that their peers drink more than they actually do)

Norm of Reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

Social Identity Theory

The idea that an individual's self-concept can derive from perceived membership in a relevant social group.

Meritocratic Beliefs

The idea that hard work and determination lead to success., the idea that hardwork and determination lead to success "from rags to riches"

Realistic Conflict Theory

The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination.

Evaluation Apprehension Theory

The idea that social rewards and punishments that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us.

Social Comparison Theory

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.

Deindividuation

The loosing of normal constraints on behavior when people can't be identified (like when in a crowd, wearing a mask).

Do we like something more or less the more we "pay" for it?

The more we pay for something the more we like it . We do this in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance that arises when we feel that we did something foolish for no good reason. Since there is insufficient external reason (i.e benefits) for engaging in demoralizing, difficult, or boring task, all we can do to reduce the discomfort we are experiencing is to change our belief (i.e. liking it more).

Group polarization

The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of individuals.

Social Facilitation

The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.

Ultimate Attribution Error

The tendency to attribute an individual's behavior to the shared disposition of an entire group of people., assumption that behaviors among individual members of a group are due to their internal dispositions

Illusory Correlations

The tendency to see a relation between variables even when they are actually uncorrelated.

Collective Effort Model

The theory that individuals will exert effort on a collective task to the degree that they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value.

Psychological Reactance

The theory that people react against threats to their freedom by asserting themselves and perceiving the threatened freedom as more attractive.

Cognitive Dissonance

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

Group

Three or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.

Why do people conform?

Two reasons: 1. Informational influence (others provide us with info) 2. Normative influence (social pressure) Two types: 1. Private conformity (really believe it) 2. Public conformity (go along to get along)

Discrimination

Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because of his or her membership in that specific group.

What are some of the consequences of victim blaming?

Victims of crimes or accidents often seen as causing their fate (e.g. rape victims, battered wives) - maybe in the long run less people will report crimes

Belief in a Just world

Want to perceive the world as rational, consistent, and fair

Are we influenced by true norms or our perception of them?

We are influenced by perceptions of the norms, not the norms per se.

Shared Distinctiveness

We are more likely to notice distinctive persons (outgroup or minority group members) and distinctive events or traits. (expectations and confirmation bias).We then come to assume that that distinctive trait is typical for all members of the outgroup.

Social Categorization

When somebody judges what another person is like by attributing the same characteristics of a group that the person is a part of to that person.

When are people more likely to endorse system justifying beliefs?

When they perceive that the system is threatened. For example, when the American economy is suffering Americans are more likely to say positive things about the economy, otherwise they are supporting a failing system.

Sucker Effect

When you get stuck with all of the work in a group of free riders because you care too much to not do anything.

Stereotype Threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

Confirmation Bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

Distraction Conflict Theory

a theory based on the idea that being aware of another person's presence creates a conflict between attending to that person and attending to the task at hand and that it is this attentional conflict that is arousing and that produces social facilitation effects 1. Attentional conflict between distraction and task. (i.e., "tunnel vision).

Subtyping

accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule"

Minimal Group Paradigm

an experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these "minimal groups" are inclined to behave toward one another.

Latent Ability

caused by Stereotype threat- ex. from 'a class divided' film: blue eye kids did better at cards in first day when they were 'superior' than the next day when they were not. 2. Basic prediction: When threat is removed, stereotyped group members should outperform nonstereotyped group members.

Door-in-the face

initially making a very large unreasonable request that the target is likely to turn down, then making the critical request

Fixed-pie beliefs (Zero-sum game)

only so much that can go around (e.g orange story) 1. zero sum: there can only be one winner 2. non zero sum: everyone can get what they want

Foot-in-the-door technique

persuasive technique involving making a small request before making a bigger one

Insufficient Justification

reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient." If you perceive little or no justification for your voluntary behavior, then you will feel pressure to change your attitude.

Benevolent Sexism

sexism that reflects a superficially positive attitude put women on pedestal but nonethe less reinforces women's subordination.

Commons Dilemma (Sin of omission)

social dilemma in which individuals must contribute to a common pool on order to maintain the public good (for example: if too many people don't pay taxes, we will all lose valuable services (public schools, parks,ect..)

Mere Presence Theory

the proposition that the mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation effects

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

System Justification Theory

the theory that people are motivated to see the existing political and social status quo as desirable, fair, good, and legitimate. Motivated to accept and perpetuate the 'status quo' even if they are accidental, arbitrary, or unjus

Automatic social influence

unconsciously mimic what other's do. We unwittingly mimic each other all the time.