Module 41-Social Influence
Which comment is MOST likely to be made by the leader of a group characterized by groupthink?
"We have been united on matters in the past, and I hope that will continue."
A Polish research team found 90 percent obedience to a shock level of 150 volts.
90 %
Deindividuation
a process of losing self-awareness & restraint occurs when group participation makes people both aroused and anonymous
group polarization effect
a shift toward a more extreme position resulting from group discussion ***like minds polarize
In the summer of 1942, nearly 500 middle-aged German reserve police officers were dispatched to German-occupied Jozefow, Poland. On July 13, the group's visibly upset commander informed his recruits, mostly family men, of their orders. They were to round up the village's Jews, who were said to be aiding the enemy. Able-bodied men would be sent to work camps, and the rest would be shot on the spot. The commander gave the recruits a chance to refuse to participate in the executions. Only ________ immediately refused. Within 17 hours, the remaining 485 officers killed 1500 helpless citizens, including women, children, and the elderly, shooting them in the back of the head as they lay face down. Hearing the victims' pleas, and seeing the gruesome results, some 20 percent of the officers did eventually dissent, managing either to miss their victims or to slip away and hide until the slaughter was over.
about one dozen (12)
Social thinking is to social influence as _____ is to _____.
attribution; conformity
The natural mimicry of mood linkage enables us to __________________ with others.
empathize
What was the Milgram experiment measuring?
obedience conformity to study the effect of punishment on learning
When we perform better on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others, this is called:
social facilitation
The local basketball team seems to perform better in front of their home audience on their home court. According to the text, the phenomenon of the home field advantage is BEST understood with reference to:
social facilitation.
People in many Asian, African, and Latin American countries place a high value on __________________.
collectivism
Sometimes it pays to assume others are right and _____________________. One Welsh driver set a record for the longest 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. The driver, who was intoxicated, later explained that she thought ____________________________________.
follow their lead the hundreds of other drivers coming at her were all on the wrong side of the road.
Empathic mimicking—as when a conversation partner nods their head as you do—fosters ________________. We tend to _______________those we like, and to like those who ________________.
fondness mimic mimic us
Milgram did not entrap his teachers by asking them first to zap learners with enough electricity to make their hair stand on end. Using the ________________________________________________________________________________, he instead began with a little tickle of electricity and escalated step by step. To those throwing the switches, the small action became justified, making the next act tolerable. So it happens when people succumb, gradually, to evil.
foot-in-the-door technique
Other scholars, however, after delving into Milgram's archives, report that his debriefing was less extensive and his participants' distress ____________he had suggested.
greater than
If just one other person disagrees, the odds of our disagreeing _____________.
greatly increase
Groupthink is fueled by a desire for:
group harmony.
A political party contains both "centrist" members and more left-wing members known as "progressives." After prolonged online discussion of potential presidential candidates, the centrists are more centrist than ever, and the progressives have drifted farther leftward. This example BEST illustrates:
group polarization.
If the political conservatism of female students who join sororities is greater than that of female students who do not, the gap in the political attitudes of the two groups will probably widen as they progress through college. This would be BEST explained in terms of:
group polarization.
Critics of Milgram's experiments have also speculated that participants may have been _________________________ rather than being blindly obedient.
identifying with the researcher and his scientific goals
Deindividuation
immersion in a group causes people to become less aware of their individual values leads to social facilitation AND social loafing leads to arousal AND diminished responsibility
Social loafing occurs when ________.
individual performance cannot be evaluated and the task is easy People feel diminished responsibility
Groupthink----Janis 1982
Fed by: *overconfidence *conformity *self-justification *group polarization
In 1852 British soldiers traveling with civilians aboard the steamship Birkenhead, which became impaled on a rock, helped the civilians onto three available lifeboats—not nearly enough for everyone. The commanding officer ordered the soldiers to remain steady. The lifeboats filled and the steamship Birkenhead sank with many soldiers still onboard. As the boat sank, all left onboard were plunged into the sea, most to be drowned or devoured by sharks.
For almost a century, noted James Michener (1978), "the Birkenhead drill remained the measure by which heroic behavior at sea was measured."
Janis studied instances in which U.S. presidents and their advisers collectively made good decisions, such as when the Truman administration formulated the Marshall Plan, which offered assistance to Europe after World War II, and when the Kennedy administration successfully prevented the Soviets from installing missiles in Cuba. What was Janis's conclusion?
Groupthink is prevented when a leader—whether in government or in business—welcomes various opinions, invites experts' critiques of developing plans, and assigns people to identify possible problems.
José's friends ask him to participate in some activities. He feels pressure to join them even though the adventures might not be in his best interest. Which reason might be strengthening José's conformity to the group?
He admires the group's status and attractiveness.
Mark, Jane, and Meagan are working on a class project together. Mark is not helping as much as he could, and he knows it. Why is he social loafing?
He may view his individual contribution as dispensable.
John is not a great golfer; he has only been playing golf for 2 years. One day, John was playing alone, and a foursome in front of him told him he could play through. All four of the others watched him tee off. According to social facilitation research, what type of performance would you expect from John?
He will not perform well due to increased arousal.
social contagion (the chameleon effect)
If one of us yawns, laughs, coughs, scratches, stares at the sky, or checks our phone, others in our group will often do the same. We also take on the emotional tones of those around us—their expressions, postures, inflections—and even their grammar
Groupthink & Bay of Pigs
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his advisers decided to invade Cuba with 1400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles. When the invaders were easily captured and quickly linked to the U.S. government, Kennedy wondered aloud, "How could I have been so stupid?" Janis, social psychologist, discovered that the soaring morale of the recently elected president and his advisers fostered undue confidence. To preserve the good feeling, group members suppressed or self-censored their dissenting views, especially after President Kennedy voiced his enthusiasm for the scheme. Since no one spoke strongly against the idea, everyone assumed the support was unanimous. To describe this harmonious but unrealistic group thinking, Janis coined the term groupthink.
Did Milgram's teachers figure out the hoax—that no real shock was being delivered and the learner was in fact an accomplice pretending to feel pain?
no
conformity
adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard compliance with standards, rules, laws To study conformity, Solomon Asch (1955) devised a simple test of visual perception.
In a 2010 lecture at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo said about the human capacity for obedience and cruelty that _________________.
all evil begins with 15 volts
social norms
rules for expected and accepted behavior.
Compliance was somewhat lower when Milgram dissociated his experiments from Yale University. What accounts for the difference?
the authority figure was supported by a powerful or prestigious institution
If one student in a classroom begins to cough, others are likely to do the same. This BEST illustrates:
the chameleon effect.
In 2016, for the first time in survey history, most U.S. Republicans and Democrats reported having __________views of the other party. And a record _______ percent of Americans perceived their nation as divided.
very unfavorable 77 percent
Groupthink is prevented when a leader:
welcomes various opinions invites experts' critiques of developing plans assigns people to identify possible problems.
In which situation is one MOST likely to conform?
when everyone else in the group agrees
In which situation is one MOST likely to conform? *when with one other person *when others in the group are observing one's behavior *when there is disagreement in the group *when one thinks that the group is unattractive
when others in the group are observing one's behavior
Why does social facilitation enhance performance?
when others observe us, we become aroused, and this arousal amplifies our reactions
Social loafing occurs when ________.
an individual exerts less effort in a group because of decreased individual accountability
After a light turns green, drivers take about 15 percent less time to travel the first 100 yards when another car is beside them at the intersection than when they are alone. This BEST illustrates:
social facilitation.
Norman Triplett observed that adolescents wound a fishing reel faster in the presence of someone working simultaneously on the same task. This BEST illustrates:
social facilitation.
Avani has spent many long hours practicing her violin solo. Due to a phenomenon called _____, the presence of an audience at the upcoming recital should _____ her performance.
social facilitation; improve
Social loafing refers to the tendency for people to:
exert less effort when working in groups than when working alone.
In a phenomenon called _____, groups make decisions that are more extreme than would the individual members of the group.
group polarization
When like-minded groups discuss a topic, and the result is the strengthening of the prevailing opinion, this is called __________________.
group polarization
Which phenomenon is MOST likely to explain the growth of Islamic terrorism in the 1990s?
group polarization
When a group's desire for harmony overrides its realistic analysis of other options, ____________ has occurred.
groupthink
Which phenomenon was at least partially responsible for the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the escalation of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Watergate cover-up, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger explosion, and the Iraq War?
groupthink
Group polarization can be socially toxic, as when
high-prejudice students who discuss racial issues together become more prejudiced
social facilitation
improved performance of simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others ****DOES NOT OCCUR with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered
Conformity based on a desire for approval is called _____ social influence. Conformity based on the desire to be accurate is called _____ social influence.
normative; informational
Dahlia is trying to make partner at one of the city's most prestigious law firms. It is generally understood that associates remain hard at work in the office until at least 7 or 8 each evening. This is an element of the firm's:
norms
Dr. Cheng studies social influence at a university in China. He is concerned because he is finding that rates of conformity in his experiments are much higher than those reported by his cousin, another social influence researcher, who does his research in the United States. Which reason might account for this difference?
Dr. Cheng is conducting his experiments in a country that prizes collectivism, whereas his cousin is conducting experiments in a country that prizes individualism.
People tend to exert less effort when working with a group than they would alone, which is called __________________.
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 is called:
social loafing.
Stanley Milgram
studied how people give in to direct commands due to social pressures was a student of Asch electric shock experiments
Solomon Asch
studied how people give in to social pressures visual perception experiments
crowding
Effect of others' presence increases with their number Being in a crowd intensifies positive or negative reactions Triggers & Enhances Arousal
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. the authority figure was supported by a powerful or prestigious institution
_____ result(s) from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval, whereas _____ result(s) from a person's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality.
Normative social influence; informational social influence
informational social influence
the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality influence other people have on use because we want to be right
Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger)
***discomfort felt when actions conflict with attitudes An uncomfortable psychological conflict between beliefs and behavior. Also the motivational position that the individual will take to reduce the dissonance.
Conformity is to obedience as _____ is to _____.
Asch; Milgram
Spikes in _____________ sometimes also follow the same highly publicized event.
suicide rates
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," Ingram followed orders and fouled out in 4 minutes after breaking an opposing player's right arm. This demostrated:
the person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure
In later experiments, Milgram discovered some conditions that influence people's behavior. When he varied the situation, full obedience ranged from 0 to 93 percent. Obedience was highest when:
the person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure the authority figure was supported by a powerful or prestigious institution the victim was depersonalized or at a distance, even in another room there were no role models for defiance
Compared with identifiable women in a control group, New York University women dressed in depersonalizing Ku Klux Klan-style hoods delivered ________________ presumed electric shock to a victim.
twice as much
After Milgram experiment participants learned of the deception and actual research purposes, _____________ regretted taking part. Perhaps by then the participants had reduced their _________________.
virtually none cognitive dissonance
When are people MOST likely to obey an order related to harming someone else?
when the person being harmed is far away
When are people MOST likely to obey?
when the person giving orders is seen as an authority figure
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
Cruelty does not require devilish villains. All it takes is ordinary people corrupted by an evil situation. Ordinary students may follow orders to haze initiates into their group. Ordinary employees may follow orders to produce and market harmful products. Ordinary soldiers may follow orders to punish and torture prisoners. This demonstrates that:
Attitudes follow behavior
We are more likely to conform when we:
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 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
Why conform by doing as others do and saying what others say in order to ___________________________ or _____________________.
avoid rejection to gain social approval
Milgram saw the fundamental lesson of his work as follows: "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can ____________________________________-.
become agents in a terrible destructive process
We are sensitive to social norms because the price we pay for _______________can be severe.
being different
Joanna disagrees with her classmates on an issue. During a class discussion of the issue, Joanna is MOST likely to conform to her classmates' opinion if she:
believes the rest of the class is unanimous in their position.
What you do well, you are likely to do even ____________________________
better in front of an audience, especially a friendly audience.
dynamic norms
change in beliefs and behavior over short and current periods of time
To energize an event involving a crowd:
choose a room or set up seating that will just barely accommodate everyone
People are most conforming to social norms in ___________________ cultures, which prize ___________________.
collectivist group harmony
Solomon Asch's studies showed the power of: A. culture. B. information. C. hedonism. D. conformity.
conformity
What causes behavior clusters?
conformity
Suggestibility and mimicry are subtle types of:
conformity.
The reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group is known as:
deindividuation
When reading the comments posted on the internet about a current news article, Cheryl notices that many of them are racist in nature. What might account for this?
deindividuation
You are organizing a meeting of fiercely competitive political candidates and their supporters. 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?
deindividuation
Frieda is typically very shy. However, while watching a rock concert with a huge crowd, she lost her inhibitions. Frieda's unusual behavior is BEST understood in terms of:
deindividuation.
In combat, when soldiers could see the enemy either __________________________ or ____________________________. Such refusals to kill are rarer among soldiers operating long-distance artillery or aircraft weapons (Padgett, 1989).
did not fire their rifles OR did not aim the rifles properly
In combat, when soldiers kill from a distance by operating remotely piloted drones, artillery, or aircraft weapons, they:
do suffer stress, but much less posttraumatic stress than do veterans of on-the-ground conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq
When feeling pressured, some people react by _______________.
doing the opposite of what is expected
People also are responsive to ________________, such as toward eating less meat, consuming less sugary drinks, or supporting gay rights.
dynamic norms
Alexandra is well liked by her friends. When you watch her, you can see that she mimics her friends' gestures and seems to match their moods. Alexandra's behavior would suggest that this automatic mimicry is a component of:
empathy
Tyler is with three of his friends at a restaurant. One of his friends yawns, then another friend does so, and then finally Tyler yawns. Research suggests that Tyler and his friends who also mimicked the yawn may show increased levels of:
empathy.
Milgram's teachers typically displayed _______________________.
genuine distress: They perspired, trembled, laughed nervously, and bit their lips.
When it comes to conformity, staying with the herd sustains ________________________.
group membership
In a 2008 press conference given by former President Barack Obama, what did he say was one of the dangers of the White House?
groupthink everybody agrees with everything there are no dissenting views
In any society, great evils often grow out of people's compliance with lesser evils. The Nazi leaders suspected that most German civil servants would resist shooting or gassing Jews directly, but they were willing to _______________________________________.
handle the paperwork of the Holocaust
People involves in group tasks may slack off unless ___________________________, especially when they ____________________.
highly motivated and strongly identified with the group share equally in the benefits, regardless of how much they contribute
Studies of more than a quarter-million college and professional athletic events in various countries show that the _________________________.
home-team advantage is real 54 % for MLB 60 % for NBA 63 % for English Premiere Soccer
Western Europeans and people in most English-speaking countries tend to prize ________________________.
individualism
Social loafing is MOST pronounced in _____ cultures such as _____.
individualist; Australia
in our own eyes, we are ____________________ amid a crowd of sheep.
individuals
normative social influence
influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
All in all, said Milgram, the experiments provoked ______ enduring stress than university students experience when facing and failing big exams.
less
Group polarization can have beneficial results. An example of this occurred when
low-prejudice students become even more accepting while discussing racial issues
Experiments across 17 countries have found _______________conformity rates in individualist cultures.
lower
Experiments in the United States, India, Thailand, Japan, China, and Taiwan have found social loafing on various tasks, though it was especially common among ____________________________.
men in individualist cultures
Social networks serve as contagious pathways for:
moods: happiness and loneliness drug use the behavior patterns that lead to obesity and sleep loss
When seated close to one another, people like a friendly person even __________ and an unfriendly person _______________.
more even less
Among people abducted into a violent group, those forced to perpetrate violence are _______________________________.
most likely to then identify with the group
In one study on social loafing, blindfolded students were asked to pull on a rope as hard as they could. The students pulled hardest when they thought:
no one else was pulling with them.
When 40 of the teachers who had agonized most were later interviewed by a psychiatrist, ________ appeared to be suffering emotional aftereffects.
none
In making wedding preparations, JaMarcus conforms to the expectations of his future bride's family in order to win their favor. His behavior illustrates the importance of _____ social influence.
normative
Marcie is invited to a black-tie dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. She has never been served a 10-course meal before, so she is unfamiliar with the social etiquette regarding silverware selection. Because Marcie is in a foreign environment, she gets through the night by watching others who appear to know what they are doing. For each course, she follows their selection of silverware. Marcie is displaying _____ social influence.
normative
Like humans, migrating and herding animals conform for ____________ and ________________________ reasons.
normative informational
When we follow rules because we know other people will not approve of us if we don't, we are responding to: A. the hedonic motive. B. normative influence. C. informational influence. D. cultural construction.
normative influence
Despite her mother's please to use a more ergonomic backpack, Antonia insists on carrying all of her books to school in an oversized purse., the way her fashionable friends do. Antonia is affected by what type of social influence?
normative social influence
Javier has the potential to be an honor student but frustrates his teachers because of his actions. Rather than work to succeed, he tends to dumb down to act more like the students with whom he hangs out. He has at times answered questions incorrectly in class, on purpose, in order to be more like his friends. Javier's behavior is an example of:
normative social influence.
Makayla has heard that the teachers are considering switching her to the gifted class. Makayla decides to dumb down to act more like her friends. She begins answering questions incorrectly in class, on purpose, in order to be more like her friends. Her behavior is an example of:
normative social influence.
Milgram is to _____ as _____ is to cognitive dissonance.
obedience; Festinger
Despite the dangers of groupthink, two heads are
often better than one
Great minds ____________.
often don't think alike "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt
positive herding
on websites, positive ratings generate more positive ratings
In 2018, an American man sent ___________________ pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and their perceived supporters after venting his partisan resentments on the internet, which "echoed them back. It validated and cultivated them.
over a dozen
Using the Asch procedure, conformity to group judgments would be LEAST likely when:
participants are not observed by other group members when giving their answers.
social loafing
phenomenon whereby individuals become less productive in groups
Teams of smart people tend to surpass individual smart people at ___________________________.
predicting political events
Even when a minority's influence is not yet visible, people may _____________________________.
privately develop sympathy for the minority position and rethink their views
Following highly publicized mass shootings, people are more likely to ______________________ and ________________________.
purchase guns threaten violence
mood linkage
sharing ups and downs with the type of people around them
Analyses of terrorist organizations reveal that the terrorist mentality emerges ______________. As susceptible individuals interact in __________, their views grow ____________________.
slowly among those who share a grievance isolation (prison---training camps) more extreme
The energizing effect of an enthusiastic audience helps explain the home-team advantage. This is an example of:
social facilitation
Most people tend to eat more when eating with others. This is an example of:
social facilitation
Were Milgram's results a product of the 1960s American mindset?
No
American university students tend to see themselves as _____________conforming than others.
less
minority influence
the power of one or two individuals to sway majorities the process by which dissenters produce change within a group
personal control
the power of the individual
social control
the power of the situation (influenced by the group)
mood contagion
the spillover of one's positive or negative moods onto others facial expression of emotion can generate feelings of others
In Jozefow, Poland and Le Chambon, France, as in Milgram's experiments, ____________________________. After the first acts of compliance or resistance, attitudes began to follow and justify behavior.
those who resisted usually did so early
empathize
to show or feel understanding of another's feelings or problems
Why do people in groups sometimes behave badly? A. Groups can make us feel deindividuated. B. People only behave in groups as they would behave as individuals. C. Norms that typically restrain us are reinforced by others in groups. D. All of these choices are true.
Groups can make us feel deindividuated.
Following others is ___________; compared with solo geese, a flock of geese migrate ___________.
informative more accurately
The phenomenon of social loafing means that at least in some instances, the group is _____ than the sum of its individual members.
less
Going for a walk with someone with whom you disagree ___________________ and ____________________________.
synchronizes your movements increases rapport and empathy
Professor Garcia is assigning a group project for her research methods course. What could she do in an attempt to reduce social loafing?
try to make students feel accountable for their part by awarding points for participation, thereby making their share in the grade different
In Asch's experiments on visual perception, college students, when answering questions alone, erred less than _____________________.
1 % of the time
Deindividuation thrives in many settings.
*Internet anonymity enables people to feed and freely express their anger, sometimes with bullying and hate speech *Online trolls, illustrating the dark side of free speech, report enjoying their unleashed abuse of others *Tribal warriors wearing face paints or masks are more likely than those with exposed faces to kill, torture, or mutilate captured enemies. When we shed self-awareness and self-restraint—whether in a mob, at a concert, at a ball game, or at worship—we become more responsive to the group experience, bad or good.
Does group influence ever distort important national decisions?
1961 Bay of Pigs failure to anticipate the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the escalation of the Vietnam war; the U.S. Watergate cover-up the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident the U.S. space shuttle Challenger explosion the Iraq war, launched on the false idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
In a massive experiment on the 2010 U.S. congressional election day, Facebook showed 61 million people a message that encouraged voting, with a link to a local voting place and a clickable "I voted" button. For some recipients, the messages also contained pictures of Facebook friends who had already voted. Those who received "tell your friends you voted" messages were slightly more likely to vote, and that difference generated an estimated ________________________________.
282 thousand additional votes
In the Milgam shock experiment video on conformity, what percentage of research participants stopped the experiment?
3 out of 12 less than 35%
When playing pool, poor shooters made __________ of their shots when alone and ________________ when being watched.
36 % when alone 25 % when watched
In 1990, a one-minute speech in the U.S. Congress would enable you to guess the speaker's party just __________ percent of the time; by 2009, partisanship was evident _________ percent of the time.
55 percent 83 percent
In a more recent replication of the Milgram experiment, ___________ percent of the participants obeyed up to the 150-volt point, which was only a modest reduction from Milgram's 83 percent at that level.
70 %
Expert pool players who made ___________________________ of their shots when alone, and _______________when four people came to watch them.
71 % of their shots when alone 80 % when four people came to watch them
When a French reality TV show replicated Milgram's study, ______ percent of the teachers, egged on by a cheering audience, obeyed and tortured a screaming victim.
81 %
In a University of Massachusetts rope experiment the research team asked blindfolded students "to pull as hard as [they] can" on a rope. When they fooled the students into believing three others were also pulling behind them, students exerted only ____________ as when they knew they were pulling alone.
82 % as much effort
In the Milgam shock experiment video on conformity, what percentage of research participants went all the way to end without stopping?
9 out of 12 over 65 %
When Milgram asked 40 men to administer the learning test while someone else did the shocking, ______________ percent complied.
93%
Groupthink
A situation in which group members seek unanimous agreement despite their individual doubts motivated by desire to achieve group harmony
When Milgram asked nonparticipants what they would do in the shock experiment, most were sure they would stop soon after the learner first indicated pain, certainly before he shrieked in agony. Forty psychiatrists agreed with that prediction. Were the predictions accurate?
Not even close. More than 60 percent complied fully—right up to the last switch. When he ran a new study, with 40 new "teachers" and a learner who complained of a "slight heart condition," the results were similar. A full 65 percent of the new teachers obeyed the experimenter, right up to 450 volts. In 10 later studies, women obeyed at rates similar to men's.
What have social psychologists learned about the power of the individual?
Social & Personal Control Interact Social Control---the power of the situation Personal Control---the power of the individual
What was a possible motivation for the Milgram to conduct the electric shock experiments?
Some of Milgram's family members had survived Nazi concentration camps.
Why does social facilitation improve performance of a well-learned task?
The added arousal caused by the presence of an audience tends to strengthen the most likely response. ***This also predicts poorer performance on a difficult task performed in the presence of others.
Why does social facilitation account for the home advantage noted in both college and professional athletic events?
The enthusiastic audience has an energizing effect.
What might explain why, when asked controversial questions, students' answers are more diverse when using anonymous electronic clickers than when raising their hands?
The students may feel as though others in the class are observing their behavior when they have to raise their hands.
What might account for why, in college residence halls, students' attitudes become more similar to those living near them?
They may feel as though others in the residence hall are observing their behavior.
What happened when blindfolded people seated in a group clapped or shouted as loudly as they could while hearing through headphones other people clapping or shouting loudly?
When participants thought they were part of a group effort, the participants produced about one-third less noise than when clapping or shouting "alone." 1/3 less noise than when alone
What causes social loafing?
When people act as part of a group, they may *feel less accountable and therefore worry less about what others think *view individual contributions as dispensable *overestimate their own contributions, downplaying others' efforts *free ride on others' efforts
group polarization & the internet
With news feeds and retweets, we fuel one another with information—and misinformation—and click on content we agree with Within the internet's echo chamber of the like-minded, views become more extreme. Suspicion becomes conviction. Disagreements with the other tribe can escalate to demonization.
During a discussion, Dr. Mansfield argues that Asch's participants conformed to the confederates' responses because they wished to be correct about the lengths of the lines in the experiment. Dr. Roach counters that the participants conformed because they simply sought the confederates' approval. Dr. Mansfield is suggesting that Asch's conformity is an example of _____ social influence. Dr. Roach is suggesting instead that it reflects _____ social influence.
informational; normative
According to social psychologist Irving Janis, the problems associated with groupthink can be avoided by both businesses and government in decision making when:
leaders invite various opinions and listen to others' critiques.
In the French village of Le Chambon villagers openly defied orders to cooperate with the "New Order" and sheltered French Jews destined for deportation to Germany, and they sometimes helped them escape across the Swiss border. The villagers' Protestant ancestors had themselves been persecuted, and their pastors taught them to "resist whenever our adversaries will demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel". Ordered by police to give a list of sheltered Jews, the head pastor modeled defiance: "I don't know of Jews, I only know of human beings." At great personal risk, the people of Le Chambon made an initial commitment to resist. They suffered from poverty and were punished for their disobedience. Still, supported by their beliefs, their role models, their interactions with one another, and their own initial acts, they remained defiant to the war's end.
supported by their beliefs, their role models, their interactions with one another, and their own initial acts, they remained defiant to the war's end.
group polarization
tendency of group members to move to an extreme position after discussing an issue as a group The beliefs and attitudes we bring to a group grow stronger as we discuss them with like-minded others.
We feel happier in the presence of happy people than in the presence of depressed people. Based on the textbook's discussion, which factor BEST explains this phenomenon?
the chameleon effect
In one study, participants who worked alongside someone who rubbed his face or shook his foot were observed to produce the same behaviors. This mimicry illustrates:
the chameleon effect.
Sherelle is with three of her friends at a restaurant. One of her friends yawns, then another friend, and then Sherelle. She has just experienced:
the chameleon effect.
While on a date with his girlfriend, Juan discovered that she was depressed about a low exam grade. He found that he began to feel dejected, and they both talked very little and ended the date early. Juan's change in mood BEST illustrates:
the chameleon effect.
