Social Psychology- Dr Schnall- 2nd half

Outgroup

"Them" - a group that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their ingroup

ingroup

"Us" - a group of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity

Groupthink

"the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action." -Irving Janis (1971)

Racism

(1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given race, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race.

Sexism

(1) An individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex.

Anti"seed"ents of Groupthink

1)Cohesive 2)Isolation 3)Directive Leader 4)High Stress 5)Absence of Methodical Decision-making procedures These are not groupthink, but these are the characteristics of a groupthink situation.

Ostracism Threatens

1)Need to belong, people want to feel belonged and they don't feel that 2)Control- People want to feel they have control in their lives, ostracism removes that 3)Self-esteem- Humans need to value and respect themselves, ostracism makes them feel that they stink 4)Meaningful Existence- People want meaning. Ostracism takes away that meaning and shows what life would be like if you didn't exist

Vietnam

58,000 American lives were lost. 1 million Vietnamese lives were lost. The US shouldn't have escalated the war, not needed. How could they have been so stupid? This question Erving Jenis tried to answer why leaders make bad decisions.

Sanhedrin

70 people meeting and making decisions. Should have been at risk of groupthink, but they took measures to avoid groupthink. The people must be old, not very old, family man, white beards, not very diverse group. Easily at risk of isolation. High stress from Roman threats. What they did right: 1)was they had a lot of discussion, there was wide latitude of spreading the power and a lot of controversy in giving over Semicha and choosing the Nasi to ensure that people don't have the same views. 2) Emphasis impartial leadership. Junior members spoke before Senior Leaders (avoids directive leader). 3)If a Rabbi sided with someone based on credibility and not intuition, they were chayi doriath. 4)Anyone who thought that the court made a bad decision was obligated to go to Yerushalayim and make their case. 5)There must be someone who plays devils advocate to avoid mindguarding. 6)Whenever a decision was made, they had a second chance meeting the next day to make sure that it was a good choice. 7)Also, whenever the Sanhedrin unanimously decided to condemn someone, they exempt the guy. It seems counter intuitive, how could they let the guy if it was unanimous? If all 70 members vote the same, maybe it was because of conformity pressure so it is scrapped.

stereotype

A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Stereotypes are sometimes overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information (and sometimes accurate).

stereotype threat

A disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. Unlike self-fulfilling prophecies that hammer one's reputation into one's self-concept, stereotype threat situations have immediate effects.

Stereotype

A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people

Directive Leader

A leader who signals which decision he favors and does not allow an open floor

Physiological Aspects of Ostracism

A lot of psychological pain is often the same as physiological Kiplin and three others played a game where every day, one guy would be ignored by the other people. The simulated ostracism disrupted work, ruined energy, caused disfunction, and a lot of anxiety on the person. When a person is excluded, sometimes he'll go to violence.

Self Confidence

A minority that conveys self-confidence is more likely to raise doubts in the majority, especially when it's a matter of an opinion.

Defection

A minority who has gone away from the majority, is more attractable Ex: The best speakers are someone who came from a different background and found his new way. He is a defector. Like Rabbi Sinclair who was a movie creator had everything and now he's a Rabbi because he believes religion is more important.

Altruism

A motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's self-interests

Reactance

A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. Reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action.

High Stress

A situation with high stress from external threats. Ex: Japs are on our borders.

terror management

According to "terror management theory," people's self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with reminders of their mortality.

Social-Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those needing their help

Reciprocity Norm

An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

Prejudice

An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. It generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. In early 1900s, prejudice was very high, today it is much more down

Cheering Experiment

By Bibb Latane- Had participants wear headphones and told to shout as loud as they could. Cheered less when with thought they were part of a group. When alone, cheered the loudest.

Jigsaw Classroom

Created by Elliot Aronson as a means to combat Ostracism. Austin Texas school had been desegregated by order of the court for the first time. Violent fighting breaks out. They called it Dr. Aronson to help. He came up with Jigsaw classroom. All students has to learn their own segment but the group needs each person to complete the project. Ex: Like coming up with foods from different countries and each student gets a different country. Having kids cooperate with one another instead of being competitive. One guy Carlos in the class wrote a letter to Aronson, originally did not think he was very smart and didn't have many friends and now because of the jigsaw method, he made friends and realized he wasn't stupid. He ended up going to Harvard Law School.

Exceptions to Social Loafing

Does social loafing always occur? Exception, the sport rowing. Here, every person matters so much so they know they can't slack off. If you get the person to be proud to be part of the group, there won't be social loafing. Like on Kibbutz. The Kibbutz farms in the 1960s out produced the non-kibbutz farms and they recognized their role in the group and were proud to be in a communal setting. Individualistic vs collectivist societies. Collectivist societies like in Asia exhibit less social loafing than in individualistic societies (not none though)

Cyber Ostracism

Exclusion in a virtual environment such as the internet

Accentuation Phenomenon

Extremes become more extreme in whichever direction based on setting, i.e. the similarities of an individual to the group are accentuated (more noticeable) Ex: Took two colleges, one known for intellectual know bent and one known for partying, trying to see how intellectual students are. Students at intellectual school are more intellectual in year one. Over years, the intellectual become more and the party one's go down, diverge more. It accentuates the differences. Ex: High school guys going to Yeshiva, before Yeshiva, can't really tell which Yeshiva they belong to, after Yeshiva, accentuation becomes more clear.

Yerkes-Dodson Effect

For every task there's an ideal level of arousal. If you're not aroused, then you won't do as well. If you are aroused, you'll do better. If too aroused then you'll do worse and worse. That could be why perfect games are more likely because more hype and people. 19 perfect games from 1960 on and only 4 before. One of the 4 perfect games pre 1960 was in the world series when the stakes were high and arousal was higher since more attention.

None zero sum game

Games in which outcomes need not sum to zero. With cooperation, both can win; with competition, both can lose. (Also called mixed-motive situations)

James Stoner

Gave political questions on whether young, aspiring candidate Peter should run Concluded that people tend to be risky. After group discussion, the average group members score tended to be even more risky than the average score from before. People became more risky.

Conformity Pressure

Group members rebuffed those who raised doubts about the group's assumptions and plans, at times not by argument but by personal sarcasm. EX: Once when President Johnson's Assistant Billy Moyers arrive at a meeting, the President derided with him with "Well here comes Mr.-Stop-the-Bombing." Faced with such ridicule, most people fall into line.

Reasons for Group Polarization

Group polarization might be related to normal vs informative influence. We want to compare our views to those of others because we want to be accepted by everyone else. People also don't think that other people are like them. Guy might think that Peter should be a 4 out of 10 risky, but everyone else would be 6 or 7 out of 10. Suddenly, guy is no longer the outlier in his head. There might be people the same or less than him. No longer any constraints, he can voice his opinion even more without people caring that he wants to be riskier. People want to be one of the group or one up.

group polarization

Group-produced enhancement of members' preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group

Max Ringelmann Rope Experiment

Had guy pull a rope and he's blindfolded and he's pulling a rope. He was trying hard. When he thinks he has three people behind him pulling too, the guy used 82% as much as effort.

Bay of Pigs

Height of Cold war between America and Russia. CIA had a plan where they took Cubans who were exiled by Castro and they snuck them back in so they can take over the country. They ended up getting killed and it failed and it really pissed off Russia. JFK himself wondered how they could have been so stupid.

Beating Pluralistic Ignorance

How to deal with it? Someone has to break the ice. Like emperor's nude clothes, no one wants to say anything, until one guys says he's nude, then everyone is agreeing.

Tragedy Commons

If 100 farmers bring in 1 cow, the field can provide for everyone. If one farmer brings in one more cow, then he'll get 100% more profit and no big deal. But then everyone else brought in 1 cow and then it became a muddy wasteland.

Consistency

If a minority sticks to its position over one that wavers, people are more likely to agree with the consistent ones He would show different color slides and he found that if the majority said blue and minority said green, when the minority wavered, they often gave in to the majority. But when they were consistent, they won over some people of the majority.

Communist Russia Farms

In communist farm in Russia, Peasants would work in one farm one day and another farm another. They never got to keep the produce and get same salary regardless. After work, these farmers went back to their own farm. This 1% of the land that was individually owned produced 27% of the country's produce.

Mindguards

Is a member of the group who, in an attempt to preserve the central group idea, omits any information which may cause doubts to arise within the group.

Challenge on Risky Shift

Is this always true? When researchers gave questions where people are less risky situations, like where the person has a lot to lose, for example a married man, Roger going into stocks with a lot to lose over a guy investing with less to lose, then when discussed in a group, the group decides a more cautious response.

Pearl Harbor

Japanese caught US by "surprise." Not really, there were lots of rumors and signs that an attack was imminent. If afraid of bombing from air, good to spread out, if afraid of invasion, want to put all in one area. The most basic precaution from Japanese would have been bombings and to spread out the planes. Why were they so stupid and did not think to prepare for that? 2,400 American lives were lost.

Symptoms

Jenis looked at historical records to find the symptoms of groupthink. Frequently the symptoms are pressures towards uniformity. 1)Conformity Pressure 2)Self-censorship 3)Illusion of Unanimity 4)Mindguards

Second Chance Meetings

Jenis proposed that groups should meet one more time a different day to make sure that they still have the same views.

Ostracism

Kipling Williams- ostracism researcher- the act of ignoring and excluding individuals (silent treatment)

Not every administration listens to groupthink.

Like Kennedy with Cuban Missile Crisis. Jensen also looked at what makes successful group decisions.

Absence of Methodical Decision

Making procedures- When a group doesn't go through the process of everyone stating their opinion and discussing and voting.

How/why is a minority influential?

Moscovici- 1)Consistency 2) Self Confidence 3) Defection

Group Polarization

Moscovici- the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members.

Ilan Ramon

On the Columbia was a religious Israeli who was a colonel in the Israeli army. He kept Kosher. He had a sketch of the moon from a Holocaust Victim. He had a sefer Torah that was read in Bergen Belsen. Supposed to be carried from depths of despair to the heights. But the Columbia broke before the landing. NASA had not learned there lesson. They removed 5 experts who had safety concerns (isolation, squelch the criticism). There were already many successful missions they thought.

Exception to Conformity

People feel uncomfortable when they appear exactly the same as everyone else (at least in independent cultures). Ex: If polled to answer questions and told that was exactly the same as everyone else, not special. You were trying to answer uniquely, but you ended up being the same. People don't like this. If someone agrees with you, you might not like it.

Risky Shift

People tend to become riskier after group discussion. Ex: Young drivers aren't allowed to have a certain number of passengers, maybe has to do with that teenage death rates seem to be higher with more passengers. Maybe they encourage together riskier shifts.

Donations

People will donate more when they are recognized as an individual. People will tip less when it's a tip jar because who will know that you tipped. More than likely, the waitresses won't work as hard either because they know it'll be divided up anyways so not worth trying as hard.

outgroup homogeneity effect

Perception of outgroup members as more similar to one another than are ingroup members. Thus "they are alike; we are diverse."

Conclusion

Sanhedrin could have been susceptible to groupthink, but they took many measures to avoid this. We can learn from them how to avoid groupthink when making group decisions.

Pluralistic Ignorance

Situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it Ex: In calculus classroom, guy doesn't know what's going on, but no one else is raising their hand so assume that everyone else does know what's going on and thinks he is the outlier, so doesn't raise his hand. But actually, most people don't understand so no one says anything because they think that everyone else understands.

Self-censorship

Sometimes no ridicule is needed, sometimes group members censor themselves when disagreements are uncomftorbale, members will overlook their view. Ex: Arthur Schlesinger explained why he was silent during Bay of Pigs, Schlessinger actually wrote saying it's not a good idea. So why didn't he speak up, why just a letter? He himself said that an objection would have accomplished little and only gotten himself to ridicule. So he censored himself.

What about minority influence?

Sometimes there is a minority that could be influential. Ex: Terrorists part of a group might never do anything as an individual, but put him with other people, he might do what the group does and do terrorism. Gangs are much more out of control when together.

Challenger tragedy

Spaceship killed a lot of people during takeoff. Engineer wrote before the flight that there could be a major catastrophe. Why did the Challenger get lost?

Groupthink

Tendency for people to suppress disagreement in an effort to maintain group harmony.

social identity

The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships

Bystander Effect

The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders

Irving Jenis

The idea of Groupthink hit me during the Bay of Pigs. How could bright people fall under the pressure of a stupid plan? I observed other US tragedies and realized that many of the problems stemmed from Groupthink. This is how smart people make dumb decisions.

Social Loafing

The phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when he or she works in a group than when working alone. When you are alone, you are afraid people are judging you. When you are part of a group, you think that you don't need to try as hard. When alone, you know if you don't do it, no one will. In a large group, if you don't do anything, it doesn't matter as much.

Challenger

The team worked for years (cohesive). The two managers were on the same page (direct leader/isolation). The manager said what do you want me to wait until next April? (Conformity pressure of joining the group) Obviously with the risks it was worth it. Managers took a poll from everyone except the engineers (isolation.) There were mindguards, the top NASA official with the decision to launch was never in told about the concerns of the engineer.

Social-Exchange Theory

The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs

Boomerang Effect

The unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead. Ex: If you stop people on the street and you tell them that the president forbids students to sign petitions, you'll more likely sign the petition.

Titanic

There were many warnings of watch out for iceberg's, Captain Smith kept his ship sailing into the night. (conformity pressure). There was conformity, the crew teased the lookout for keeping watch. The telegram didn't even give Captain Smith the most vital detail of the big iceberg (mindguard).

Columbine School Shooting- in Denver

Two ostracized students murdered 12 other students and teachers and wounding 23 others before commiting suicide.

Informational Social Influence

When a bunch of people come together to talk about something they know about. People offer different reasons why guy should be risky. Even though people agreed to be risky, they disagreed on the rational.

Reactance

When people feel their freedom is threatened, they often rebel. It boomerangs. This is an exception to obedience. Ex: To your kids, you don't say now put on your pajamas, but you give them choices, do you want to wear blue or red pajamas

Isolation

When the group is isolated from other opinions and is only one view.

Illusion of Unanimity

When the group looks like everyone is on the same page so the seeming unanimity makes it look like a good idea and people won't argue because it looks like everyone is on the same page so they'll self-censor themselves. (Like pluralistic ignorance)

Conformity Pressure

When the group pressures individuals to conform to their view. Ex: President's Johnson's assistant came and was talking about Vietnam and President Johnson says "here comes mister stop the bombing," giving him pressure to conform to his view.

Cohesive

When you have a friendly cohesive group people don't want to ruin the harmony of the group just to state their opinion

Popularity of Groupthink term

Within a few years of Jenis making up groupthink it was already in many dictionaries due its catchiness and simplicity. Groupthink caught the attention of not only psychologists but political science people, historians, management, and media. Others apply Jenis's method to other events even after his passing, like the Iran situation.

Conflict

a perceived incompatibility of actions or goals

authoritarian personality

a personality that is disposed to favor obedience to authority and intolerance of outgroups and those lower in status

prejudice

a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members

Social Trap

a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior. Ex: Prisoner's Dilemma and Tragedy of the Commons

In group polarization

a) You hear arguments of other people and they convince you b) When you try and convince someone of something, you convince yourself too. -Sometimes thinking through the ramifications of what guy said influences you. Also going up against someone in a debate might motivate you to strengthen your opinion in order to ensure that you could win the debate.

subgrouping

accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by forming a new stereotype about this subset of the group

subtyping

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

Ethnocentric

believing in the superiority of one's own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups

social comparison

evaluating one's opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others

Transformational Leadership

leadership that, enabled by a leader's vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence

Groupthink

occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome

Free Riders

people who benefit from the group but give little in return

prosocial behavior

positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior

illusion of unanimity

self-censorship and pressure not to puncture the consensus create an illusion of unanimity

Mindguards

some members protect the group from information that would call into question the effectiveness or morality of its decisions

Leadership

the process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group

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

own-race bias

the tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race. (Also called the cross-race effect or other-race effect)

just-world phenomenon

the tendency of people to believe that the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get

ingroup bias

the tendency to favor one's own group

realistic group conflict theory

the theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources

Self-Censorship

to avoid uncomfortable disagreements, members withheld or discounted their misgivings. Ex: In the months following the Bay of Pigs invasion, Arthur Schlesinger reproached himself "for having kept so silent during those crucial discussions in the Cabinet Room, though my feelings of guilt were tempered by the knowledge that a course of objection would have accomplished little save to gain me a name as a nuisance."

Discrimination

unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members