Social Influence

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Social Influence
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Term Test 4

• Thursday March 9
• in class, 1200 - 150
• 40 multiple choice questions
• 10 of course grade
• Topics covered
• class material Feb 7 - Mar 2
• assigned readings see lectures web page
• Language and Nonverbal Communication (Ch. 11, end
  of Ch. 10, FQ37-40)
• Cognitive Development (Ch. 11)
• Social Development (Ch. 12)
• Social Perception (Ch. 13)
• Social Influence (Ch. 14)

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Three Minute Review

• Perception of self
• Self-fulfilling prophecy (Pygmalion effect)
• Perception of others
• Attribution
• Situation vs. Personality?
• Fundamental Attribution Error (person bias)
• people overemphasize the person over the
  situation
• Actor-observer bias
• the person bias is much stronger for others
  behavior than for your own
• Prior information
• priming leads people to confirm their
  expectations (like the confirmation bias but for
  attributions)
• Attractiveness bias

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• Attitudes
• beliefs tinged with emotion
• cognitive dissonance
• behavior ? attitude ? discomfort
• change behavior or change attitude so they are
  consistent
• insufficient justification
• The reward wasnt enough I mustve done it
  because I wanted to.
• belief in a just world
• What did I do to deserve this?
• blaming the victim

5

• Prejudice
• discrimination vs. prejudice
• social categorization
• in-group
• out-group
• in-group bias -- Were better than they are.
• out-group homogeneity bias -- Theyre all the
  same.
• evolutionary factors?
• stereotypes
• public
• private
• implicit
• implicit association test
• prejudice can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
• job interviews
• stereotype threat

6

• SOCIAL INFLUENCE OBEDIENCE
• Why do people obey to an extreme degree?
• Milgrams Obedience Experiments
• The majority of people will follow orders to an
  extreme degree
• Results surprised many people, esp. psychologists
• What factors affect obedience?
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Ordinary people get caught up in roles
• Psychology of Genocide

7

• Banality of evil (Hannah Arendt)
• Perhaps Adolf Eichmann was no different than the
  rest of us
• Psychology of genocide
• difficult living conditions, fierce competition
  for resources
• strong in- vs. out-groups
• violence, blaming the victim
• violence justifies itself
• cant stop because of cognitive dissonance

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• be mindful of your biases
• children who were shown pictures of handicapped
  individuals and asked to think carefully about
  them (e.g., to think how they would drive a car)
  were more willing to play with disabled children
  than those who did only a superficial task
  (Langer et al., 1985)

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• Robbers Cave Experiment
• (Sherif et al., 1961)
• 22 5th grade boys in summer camp in 1954
• grouped into two groups, Eagles and Rattlers
• boys only interacted with their own group for one
  week
• groups began to interact in competitive
  situations (e.g., football, tug-of-war)
• rivalry became violent
• group flags burned, cabins ransacked, food fights

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How can we reduce prejudice?

• Propaganda No
• positive propaganda about one group directed to
  the other by the experimenters did not help
• Contact No
• doing non-competitive activities together (e.g.,
  watching movies) did not help
• Cooperative action Yes
• experimenters arranged for camp truck to break
  down
• both groups needed to pull it uphill
• intergroup friendships began to develop
• cooperative approached is being used in US
  classrooms
• give assignment where students from different
  racial groups can only succeed by working
  together in a jigsaw approach

11
Its hard to hate your friends

• friendships with outgroup members (as friends,
  neighbors, co-workers) leads to reliably lower
  levels of prejudice

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Social Influence

• How do others affect our behavior?
• How do others change our beliefs?
• How do others get us to do what they want?
• follow societal rules and expectations
• commit atrocities

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Conformity

• The adoption of attitudes and behaviors shared by
  a particular group of people.

The only thing a non-conformist hates more than
a conformist is another non-conformist who wont
conform to the rules of non-conformity.
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Conformity is not always bad

• there would be anarchy without conformity
• social acceptance often depends on conformity

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Aschs Line Judgment Experiment

• Solomon Asch, 1955
• replicated by others in 1990

Which comparison line is the same length as the
standard?
3
3
3
3
???
3
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Aschs Line Judgment Experiment

• On average, subjects conformed on 40 of trials
  
• 26 of subjects never conformed
• 28 conformed on more than half the trials
• Conformity dropped to ¼ of its peak if one other
  person dissented (even when the dissenter made an
  inaccurate judgment)
• Conformity dropped dramatically when subjects
  recorded their responses privately (so actually
  it was compliance -- yielding to public pressure
  without changing private views)

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Group Decisions

• How does this tendency to conform affect group
  decisions?

http//www.despair.com
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Group Polarization
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Groupthink
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Groupthink

• Psychologist Irving Janis coined the term
  Groupthink to describe the tendency to avoid
  dissent and reach a consensus during group
  decisions
• Janis argued that groupthink was responsible for
  many stupid policy decisions
• e.g., JFK Bay of Pigs invasion
• GWB co. and Iraq invasion
• Causes of Groupthink
• powerful group of people who think alike
• absence of objective and impartial leadership
• high levels of stress regarding decision

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Déjà vu?
Space Shuttle Challenger January 28, 1986
Space Shuttle Columbia February 1, 2003
It seems to me that with that much carnage in
the wheel well, something could get screwed up
enough to prevent deployment and then you are in
a world of hurt. Robert Daugherty, engineer, Jan
30, 2003 Milt Heflin, chief flight director at
Johnson said the members of the systems team
concluded "that there wasn't anything else they
needed to do or be concerned about. They agreed
with the analysis by other engineers that the
blow from the insulation probably hadn't done any
serious damage, Heflin said. From
www.usatoday.com Why are we talking about this
on the day before landing, and not the day after
launch? William Anderson, engineer, Jan 30, 2003

• NASA under strong pressure to launch shuttle
• first civilian in space
• many delays had occurred
• engineers were opposed to the launch because of
  concerns that cold temperatures might make rubber
  seals too brittle
• NASA executives made the decision to launch
  without input from engineers
• final NASA decision-maker was never told of
  engineers concerns

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Preventing Groupthink

• Be impartial and objective
• Leader should encourage dissent
• Assign at least one devils advocate
• Occasionally break group into subgroups
• Seek opinions of external experts
• Towards end of decision, have a second chance
  meeting to review lingering doubts

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Social Loafing

• as the number of people increases, the effort
  exerted by each individual declines
• examples that are probably all-too-familiar to
  you
• group projects
• roommates and housework
• less common in collectivist cultures (e.g.,
  China) than individualistic cultures (e.g., USA)

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Preventing Social Loafing

• Make each person accountable
• Record who did what
• Make the task challenging, appealing and
  involving
• Keep the group small
• If possible, put people of the same intelligence
  competence together