Test 3
Agreement for women's features judged by men
Cute-neotenous (childlike) features, large widely-spaced eyes, small nose & chin; Mature-prominent cheekbones, high eyebrows, large pupils, big smile
Latané and Darley's (1968) Experiment
smoke-filled room experiment showed that people will risk harm to themselves rather than possibly look foolish.
situational norms
Guide behavior in a given situation or environment
Procedures used to determine facial features associated with attractiveness
Identifying attractive individuals and discovering what characteristics they share; creating a composite image of combined faces
Resisting Obedience
If one is reminded that they, not the authority figure, will be held responsible for their actions, they are much less likely to obey.
Cialdini Low Balling Study
Lowball group: More than 50% agreed to participate; more than half kept their appointments; Control: Less than 33% agreed; less than 25% showed (1978)
Asch's (1950s) Research on Conformity
Participants were asked to indicate which of three lines matched a standard line in length; 76% conformed at least once to the group's false judgment; Overall, they agreed with the errors 37% of the time
direct effect of emotions on attraction
Positive affect leads to liking others, negative affect leads to disliking others.
Social norms
Rules regarding how people are expected to behave in specific situations
Festinger's social comparison theory
Similar others provide consensual validation of one's beliefs (1954)
Autokinetic phenomenon
The apparent movement of a single, stationary source of light in a dark room; often used to study the emergence of social norms and social influence
repeated exposure effect
Zajonc's (1968) finding that frequent contact with any mildly negative, neutral, or positive stimulus results in an increasingly positive evaluation of that stimulus
affect
a person's emotional state: positive and negative feelings and moods
Conformity
a type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behavior in order to adhere to social norms
Reciprocal Altruism
cooperative behavior among unrelated individuals that benefits both individuals
Lowball Procedure
an offer or deal is changed to make it less attractive to the target person after this person has accepted it
Environmental spoiling
any time you live or work close to others you'll encounter people whose lifestyles differ and may conflict with our own; proximity may lead to hostility and conflict.
Appearance-Rejection sensitivity
apprehension or worry about whether one's physical appearance is adequate and about the possible negative reactions of other people; can lead to anger and dissatisfaction with oneself
Group size
as group size increases, conformity increases
Affect-Centered Model of Attraction
attraction stems from emotions; framework in which attraction is assumed to be based on positive and negative emotions
Normative Social Influence
based on the desire to be liked or accepted by others
Informational Social Influence
based on the desire to possess accurate social perceptions
need for affiliation
basic motive to seek and maintain interpersonal relationships
Personality Dispositions
behavioral tendencies based on genetics, learning experiences, or both, which tend to be stable over time and across situations
First impressions
can arouse strong affect and may overcome the effects of proximity; indicates the influences of past experiences, stereotypes, and attributions that do not apply to a particular person, but yet are used in the evaluation of him or her
Minority influence
can influence majorities when they are consistent, flexible, and congruent with social trends; can provoke majorities to engage in systematic processing of the issues; often must form strong arguments to defend their positions and may overestimate the support for their views.
Altruistic Personality
combination of dispositional variables associated with prosocial behavior
Physical attractiveness
combination of traits that are evaluated as beautiful or handsome at the positive extreme and as unattractive at the negative extreme
Empathy
complex affective and cognitive response to another person's emotional distress; feeling the other person's emotions, feeling sympathetic, trying to solve the problem, and taking the perspective of others
Inclusive Fitness
concept that natural selection applies not only to individuals, but also involves behaviors that benefit other individuals with whom genes are shared (kin selection)
Social Influence
efforts by one or more individuals to change the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, or behaviors of one or more others
appearance anxiety
excessive worry about appearance and concern about negative reactions from others; women are more likely than men to feel this
Moreland and Beach Study (1992)
female research assistant posing as a member of a class, No interation; end of semester, members of class shown her photo and asked how much they liked her
Obedience
form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more others to perform some action(s)
principles that underlie compliance
friendship/liking, commitment/consistency, reciprocity, scarcity, social validation (related to informational social influence), authority
Prosocial Behavior
helpful action that benefits other people without necessarily providing any direct benefits to the person performing the act, and may even involve a risk for the person who helps
diffusion of responsibility
how much responsibility falls on each person depends on how many bystanders are present in the situation. If one is alone when an emergency arises, he/she is 100% responsible. If there are one hundred bystanders, however, each person assumes only 1% of the responsibility
Incidental similarity
idea that if we draw attention to a small similarity between ourselves and a target person (e.g., that we have the same birthday), this increases liking and, in turn, increases the likelihood of compliance; studied by Burger and colleagues (2004).
Indirect or associated effects on attraction
if another person is simply present when our emotions are aroused, we feel increased attraction if we are in a good mood (e.g., we just received a good test grade) or we feel decreased attraction if we are in a bad mood (e.g., we just received a bad test grade).
Commitment/Consistency
if we have made a commitment to a position or action, we tend to comply with requests for actions that are consistent with the position or action as opposed to requests that are inconsistent.
Altruism
involves actions that are motivated by selfless concern for other people
Interpersonal attraction
involves factors that form the basis for our relationships; people may come together because of shared interests, mutual friends, or being in close proximity with one another; reflects our attitude toward another individual
Pluralistic ignorance
refers to our tendency to use social comparison to figure out what to do in a given situation, even though typically, no one is completely sure as to what is happening
Proportion of Similarity
number of specific topics on which two people express similar views divided by the total number of topics discussed
Selective altruism
occurs when there are more people in need than we could possibly help, but we can help one person
Evolutionary factors
offer an explanation regarding why affect is a basic component of human behavior
Milgram's Obedience Study
participants told to deliver increasing levels of shock to a "learner" each time he made an error on a learning task; 65% obeyed to the fullest extent (proceeded to the end of the series, to the final 450-volt level)
"halo" effect
people show a tendency to attribute more desirable traits to physically attractive people than to unattractive people
Individuation
people's need to be distinguishable from others in some respects
Normative Focus Theory
proposes that norms will have an influence on our behavior only if they are personally relevant; predicts that people are more likely to conform to injunctive norms when they are salient to them
Genetic Determinism Model
prosocial behavior is driven by genetic attributes that evolved because they enhanced the probability of transmitting one's genes to future generations
Negative-State Relief Model
prosocial behavior is motivated by the bystander's desire to reduce his or her own uncomfortable negative emotions
Empathic Joy Hypothesis
prosocial behavior is motivated by the positive emotion a helper anticipates experiencing as the result of having a beneficial impact on the life of someone in need
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
prosocial behavior is motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need; people are more likely to help others for whom they feel much empathy.
External Determinants of Attraction
proximity and observable characteristics
Heroism
refers to behaviors that involve "courageous risk-taking" in order to achieve a socially valued objective
bystander effect
refers to the consistent finding that the probability of prosocial behavior is affected by the number of other people present in the situation. As the amount of bystanders goes up, the likelihood that any one individual will help goes down. In addition, for those who do provide help, there is an increase in how much time passes before help is provided.
Door-in-the-face Technique
requesters begin with a large request and then, when this is refused, retreat to a smaller one
Foot-in-the-door Technique
requesters begin with a small request and then, when it is granted, escalate to a larger one
Ingratiation
requesters first induce target to like them; use flattery, improve one's appearance, emit positive nonverbal cues, do small favors for target person
That's Not All Technique
requesters offer additional benefits to target persons before they have decided whether to comply with or reject specific requests
Destructive Obedience
seen in Milgram's studies, may have occurred because the person in authority is assumed to take the responsibility for the consequences of one's actions.
Interactive Determinants of Attraction
similarity and mutual liking
Injunctive Norms
specify what ought to be done; can increase conformity
repulsion hypothesis
stated that increases in attraction are not the result of similar attitudes, rather attraction is decreased when dissimilar attitudes are present; offered by Rosenbaum (1986)
Playing Hard to Get
suggesting that a person or object is scarce and hard to obtain
Deadline Technique
target persons are told that they have only limited time to take advantage of some offer or to obtain some item
Mimicry
the automatic tendency to imitate those with whom one interacts, and results in the increase in one's prosocial tendencies
Cohesiveness
the degree of attraction felt by an individual toward an influencing group; When high the pressure to conform is magnified(i.e., when we like and respect people and feel closely tied to them); When low, we feel little pressure to conform (because we do not want to be like those people that we do not like or respect)
Internal Determinants of Attraction
the need to affiliate and the basic role of affect
proximity
the physical closeness between two individuals with respect to where they live, where they sit in a classroom, where they work, and so on; Smaller physical distances are related to an increased likelihood that two people will come into repeated contact and exposure to each other, feel positive affect, and develop mutual attraction.
adaptive response
traits and actions that increase the chances of reproductive success for the self or for others with similar genes
Compliance
type of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another
Friendship/Liking
we are more likely to comply if a friend or someone we like makes a request as opposed to a stranger or someone we do not like.
Authority
we are more likely to comply if the request comes from an authority figure (it can be someone with real authority or someone who "appears" to have authority).
Reciprocity
we are more likely to comply if the request comes from someone who has done a favor for us in the past.
Social Validation
we are more likely to comply if we believe that similar others are behaving in the same way.
Similarity-dissimilarity effect
we respond positively to indications that another person is similar to us and negatively to indications that another person is dissimilar from us
Scarcity
we tend to comply with a request if it involves outcomes or objects that are relatively scarce.
Descriptive Norms
what most people do in a given situation; can increase conformity
Contrast effect
what someone has been looking at (e.g., pictures of attractive people) prior to rating the attractiveness of a stranger influences the rating given
Effect of affect on evaluation is greatest
when the audience is uninformed, when they are unaware that their emotional state is being manipulated, when they are engaged in making decisions
symbolic social influence
where our behavior can be influenced by another person who is not even with us at the time
