Behavior in Social and Cultural Context

1
Behavior in Social and Cultural Context
chapter 10
2
Overview
chapter 10

• Roles and rules
• Social influences on beliefs
• Individuals in groups
• Us vs. Them Group identity
• Group conflict and prejudice

3
Definitions
chapter 10

• Norms
• Rules that regulate human life, including social
  conventions, explicit laws, and implicit cultural
  standards
• Role
• A given social position that is governed by a set
  of norms for proper behavior
• Culture
• A program of shared rules that govern the
  behavior of members of a community or society,
  and a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes
  shared by most members of that community

4
Your turn
chapter 10

• As part of an experiment on learning, you are
  told to administer an electric shock to another
  participant every time that participant
  misremembers a series of words. As the
  experiment proceeds, the amount of electricity
  you are administering rises. You started at 15
  volts, but the switchboard goes up to 300. How
  far would you go before you refused to continue?
• 1. 50 volts
• 2. 100 volts
• 3. 200 volts
• 4. 300 volts

5
The obedience study
chapter 10

• Stanley Milgram and coworkers investigated
  whether people would follow orders, even when the
  order violated their ethical standards.
• Most people were far more obedient than anyone
  expected.
• Every single participant complied with at least
  some orders to shock another person.
• Two-thirds shocked the learner to the full
  extent.
• Results are controversial and have generated
  further research on violence and obedience.

6
Factors leading to disobedience
chapter 10

• When the experimenter left the room
• When the learner was in the same room
• When the experimenter issued conflicting orders
• When the person ordering them to continue was an
  ordinary man
• When the subject worked with peers who refused to
  go on

7
The prison study
chapter 10

• Subjects were physically and mentally healthy
  young men who volunteered to participate for
  money.
• They were randomly assigned to be prisoners or
  guards.
• Those assigned the role of prisoner became
  distressed, helpless, and panicky.
• Those assigned the role of guards became either
  nice, tough but fair, or tyrannical.
• Study had to be ended after six days.

8
Factors in obedience
chapter 10

• Allocating responsibility to the authority
• Routinizing the task
• Wanting to be polite
• Becoming entrapped
• Entrapment a gradual process in which
  individuals escalate their commitment to a course
  of action to justify their investment of time,
  money, or effort

9
Social cognition
chapter 10

• An area in social psychology concerned with
  social influences on thought, memory, perception,
  and other cognitive processes.
• Researchers are interested in how peoples
  perceptions of themselves and others affect. . .
• Relationships
• Thoughts
• Beliefs
• Values

10
Attributions
chapter 10

• Attribution theory
• Theory that people are motivated to explain own
  and others behavior by attributing causes of
  behavior to situation or disposition
• Fundamental attribution error
• Tendency to overestimate personality factors and
  underestimate situational influence

11
Attributions
chapter 10

• Self-serving bias
• Tendency to take credit for ones good actions
  but to rationalize ones mistakes
• Just-world hypothesis
• Many people need to believe that the world is
  fair and that justice is served.
• Bad people are punished and good people rewarded.

12
Your turn
chapter 10

• Your roommate studies hard for the psychology
  test, but does not do very well. After receiving
  the results, she says It really wasnt a fair
  test. What sort of bias is reflected in this
  attribution?
• 1. Fundamental attribution error
• 2. Self-serving bias
• 3. Just world hypothesis

13
Your turn
chapter 10

• Your roommate studies hard for the psychology
  test, but does not do very well. After receiving
  the results, she says It really wasnt a fair
  test. What sort of bias is reflected in this
  attribution?
• 1. Fundamental attribution error
• 2. Self-serving bias
• 3. Just world hypothesis

14
Attitudes
chapter 10

• A relatively stable opinion containing beliefs
  and emotional feelings about a topic.
• Explicit we are aware of them, they shape
  conscious decisions
• Implicit we are unaware of them, they influence
  our behavior in ways we do not recognize

15
Factors influencing attitude change
chapter 10

• Change in social environment
• Change in behaviors
• Need for consistency
• Cognitive dissonance a state of tension that
  develops when a person simultaneously holds two
  contradictory cognitions or when a persons
  belief is incongruent with his/her behavior

16
Influencing attitudes
chapter 10
17
Coercive persuasion
chapter 10

• Person is under physical or emotional duress.
• Persons problems are reduced to one simple
  explanation, repeated often.
• Leader offers unconditional love, acceptance, and
  attention.
• New identity based on group is created.
• Person is entrapped.
• Persons access to information is controlled.

18
Conformity
chapter 10

• Subjects in group asked to match line lengths.
• Confederates picked wrong line.
• Subjects went with wrong answer in 37 of trials.
• Conformity has decreased since 1950, possibly due
  to changing norms.
• Individualistic vs. collectivist cultures

19
Groupthink
chapter 10

• In close-knit groups, the tendency for all
  members to think alike and suppress disagreement
  for the sake of harmony.
• Symptoms
• Illusion of invincibility
• Self-censorship
• Pressure on dissenters to conform
• Illusion of unanimity
• Counteracted by
• Creating conditions that reward dissent
• Basing decision on majority rule

20
The anonymous crowd
chapter 10

• Diffusion of responsibility
• The tendency of group members to avoid taking
  responsibility for actions or decisions because
  they assume others will do so.
• Bystander apathy
• People fail to call for help when others are
  near.
• Social loafing
• When people work less in the presence of others,
  forcing others to work harder

21
Deindividuation
chapter 10

• In groups or crowds, the loss of awareness of
  ones own individuality.
• Factors
• Size of city, group
• Uniforms or masks
• Can influence either unlawful or prosocial
  behaviors
• Depends on norms of specific situation

22
Disobedience and dissent
chapter 10

• Situational factors in nonconformity
• You perceive the need for intervention or help.
• Situation makes it more likely you will take
  responsibility.
• Cost-benefit ration supports decision to get
  involved.
• You have an ally.
• You become entrapped.

23
Ethnocentrism
chapter 10

• The belief that ones own ethnic group, nation,
  or religion is superior to all others.
• Aids survival by making people feel attached to
  their own group and willing to work on groups
  behalf.

24
Group identity
chapter 10

• Social identity
• The part of a persons self-concept based on
  identification with a nation, culture, or group,
  or with gender or other social roles
• Us vs. them social identities strengthened when
  groups compete.
• Robbers cave studies

25
Robbers cave
chapter 10

• Boys randomly separated into two groups
• Rattlers and Eagles
• Competitions fostered hostility between groups.
• Experimenters contrived situations requiring
  cooperation for success.
• Result cross-group friendships increased.

26
Stereotypes
chapter 10

• Cognitive schemas of a group, in which a person
  believes that all members of a group share common
  traits
• Traits may be positive, negative, or neutral.
• Allow us to process quickly new information and
  retrieve memories
• Distort reality
• Exaggerate differences between groups
• Produce selective perception
• Underestimate differences within groups

27
Origins of prejudice
chapter 10

• Psychological functions
• People inflate own self-worth by disliking groups
  they see as inferior
• Social and cultural functions
• By disliking others we feel closer to others who
  are like us.
• Economic functions
• Legitimizes unequal economic treatment

28
Measuring prejudice
chapter 10

• Not all people are prejudiced in the same way.
• People know they shouldnt be prejudiced so
  measures of prejudice have declined.
• Explicit vs. implicit prejudice

29
Measures of explicit prejudice
chapter 10
30
Defining and measuring prejudice
chapter 10

• Measuring implicit prejudice
• Measures of symbolic racism
• Measures of behaviors rather than attitudes
• Measures of unconscious associations with a
  target group

31
Reducing prejudice
chapter 10

• Groups must have equal legal status, economic
  opportunities, and power.
• Authorities and institutions must endorse
  egalitarian norms and provide moral support for
  all groups.
• Groups must have opportunities to work and
  socialize together, both formally and informally.
• Groups must work together for common goal.