Understanding ourselves

1
Understanding ourselves

• What factors influence the ways that we (and, by
  extension, others) behave in various situations?

2
Beliefs

• Are beliefs a purely individual thing?
• Do they depend on the beliefs of people around
  us?
• Milgrams interesting window
• Aschs line length judgments.
• We seem to believe in a shared reality.

3
Cognitive dissonance

• What happens when your actions are inconsistent
  with your beliefs?
• Doomsday cults
• Festingers boring tasks

4
Factors that influence social behaviors

• Reciprocity We feel a need to repay that which
  we are given
• Foot in the door
• Free stuff from charities and companies

5
Factors, cont.

• Altruism Do we really help others simply out of
  the goodness of our hearts? Does anyone?
• Self-interest as motivation
• Internal vs. external rewards

6
More factors

• Obedience People succumb to the desires of a
  perceived authority figure
• The Milgram experiment
• The Stanford Prison Experiment
• Conformity We want to be like other people

7
Social Impact Theory

• We must constantly sort out competing social
  influences
• Social facilitation
• Social loafing
• Deindividuation