Quiz 4 Materials Social Psychology PDF

Monday 10/21/2024 - Conformity - Social Influence o Collection of ways that people affect one another through changing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, or behavior resulting from the real or imagined presence of others o Obedience ▪ Do as others comm...

Monday 10/21/2024 - Conformity - Social Influence o Collection of ways that people affect one another through changing attitudes, beliefs, feelings, or behavior resulting from the real or imagined presence of others o Obedience ▪ Do as others command o Compliance ▪ Do as others ask o Conformity ▪ Do as others do - Automatic Mimicry o Unconsciously imitating the behavior of others ▪ Yawning or laughing when others do o People high in empathy or need to affiliate with others are more likely to automatically mimic others - Mimicry Experiment o Participant asked to describe photgraps alongide another participant o The second participant was actually a confederate o Confederate made motions like rubbing their face or eyes o The real participant copied them o Reasons ▪ Ideomotor action Thinking about a behavior makes performing it more likely You see someone acting, you think about it, and you’re more likely to do it ▪ Facilitate smooth interactions People tend to like those similar to them, this includes mimicry People are more prosocial towards those who mimic them  ▪ Helps to form bonds - Information Social Influence o Using other's comments or actions as information about what is correct, proper, or effective - Normative Social Influence o Using other's behavior as guides for how to fit in and avoid disapproval or social ridicule - Autokinetic Illusion Experiment o Participants saw a stationary light in the dark in multiple trials o Estimated how much the light moved o Participants then put in a room together and called out estimates o Participants estimates converged into a group norm o They used other people’s answers to find out what they thought was the correct answer to a hard question - Why informational social influence? o We want to be right o We’re unsure about our own knowledge - Informational social influence is likely to occur when o The situation is difficult or ambiguous o IN other words when we feel low in knowledge or competence about a task or topic, so we need help - Normative Social Influence o Conformity based on the desire to be liked or socially accepted when the situation is clear/ambiguous but one's own beliefs - Social Repercussions o What if I get laughed at or shunned? o Uncertainty o Dispersal of risk - Conformity Factors o Group size ▪ Conformity increases as group size increases but with a ceiling effect at a group size of three or four others o Group unanimity o Anonymity o Internalization  o Expertise and Status o Culture o Tight vs Loose Cultures ▪ Strong norms about behavior vs weak norms, more tolerance for deviation vs less tolerance o Gender ▪ Women will conform more in things like bbq, and fixing cars ▪ Men will conform more in things like cooking meals - Majority vs Minority o There are cases in which the minority can cause a change in the majority opinion ▪ Minorities must rely on informational influence ▪ The majority cannot be swayed by normative social influence ▪ However, they may start to wonder why a minority keeps stating divergent opinions. ▪ The majority starts to think: “Does he/she know something that we don’t?” - Compliance o Reason/Cognitive: Appeal to the head, change the way they think ▪ Not necessarily logical, just making you change the way you think o Emotion/Affective: Appeal to the heart, change the way they feel o Norms: Appeal to expectations and social standards o Reason-Based Compliance ▪ Norm of Reciprocity: You help others who help you o Exists across cultures and species o Painting/Coke Study ▪ Participant rates paintings alongside confederate ▪ Confederate brings participant coke or does not ▪ Confederate asks participant to buy  raffle tickets ▪ Reciprocal Concessions/Door-In-the-Face Technique People feel compelled to respond to a concessions by making a concession themselves Person A asks for a big favor and when Person B declines, Person A asks for a small favor instead which Person B is more likely to grant Juvenile Zoo study o Participants asked to: o Condition 1: Chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a zoo day trip o Condition 2: Counsel juvenile delinquents 2 hours/week for 2 years. Followed by Chaperone a group of juvenile delinquents on a zoo day trip o Condition 1 compliance = 17%, Condition 2 compliance = 50% ▪ Foot-In-The-Door Making an initial small request to which people comply and following up with a larger request o The initial compliance changes the person’s self-image into someone who helps Drive Carefully Study o Homeowners asked to put up large “Drive Carefully” billboard (17% agree) o Other homeowners asked to put up small sign “Be a safe Driver” in window o Two weeks later, homeowners who put up small sign asked to put up  the billboard (76% agree) o Emotion-Based Compliance ▪ Positive Mood – People who are feeling positive are more likely to comply to request ▪ Phone Call Study One group of participants was given a free sample of stationary, the other (control) is not Participants receive a call saying they dialed the wrong number and please dial a specific number and relay the message Participants who did not receive a gift complied much less (10%) than participants who did (80+%) ▪ Why does positive mood aid compliance? If you’re happy and you feel good, you assume other people’s intentions are good, and you’re more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt (Carlson et al., 1998; Forgas, 1998a,1998b) ▪ Mood maintenance: It feels good to feel good and we want to keep feeling good. Helping others feels good Cookie study o Participants asked to serve as confederate o Participants receive a cookie o Participants asked to either help the “true” participant with their task or hinder them o Compliance increased for the helping condition but not the hindering ▪ Negative Mood – Some types of bad moods can also increase compliance If people feel guilty, they’re more likely to comply Catholic confession study o Catholics asked to donate to charity either right before going to  confessional or directly after o Catholics right before confessional donated more Negative state relief hypothesis – People jump at the chance to relieve negative emotions and feel better about themselves o Lab rat shock study (Regan, 1971) ▪ Some participants watch lab rat getting “accidentally” shocked ▪ Participants who’d seen the poor lab rat donated more money to charity than those who hadn’t ▪ ONLY works for guilt, sadness, pity, and select other negative emotions o Not all negative states are beneficial, in general anger is not conducive to compliance ▪ Israel lunch parole study (Danzinger et al 2011) If judges have just finished a meal, prisoners have a 2/3 chance of parole If judges are hungry and waiting for lunch, prisoners have 0 chance of parole o Norm-Based Compliance ▪ Using conformity to get people to comply The power of social norm ▪ Homeowner energy study (Schultz et al. 2007) Homeowners told (through a hang-tag on their doors) how much energy they used and how much energy their neighbors used on average Homeowners who used more than average decreased energy use  BUT homeowners who used less than average increased energy use BUT when a signal of approval/disapproval (smiley face/frowny face) was added, homeowners who used less than average kept energy use constant, while homeowners who used more than average decreased energy use ▪ Telling people about social norms is most effective when people are surprised by the norm Pluralistic ignorance Binge-drinking study (Neighbors et al. 2004) o Students answered anonymously how much they drank and how much they thought other drank o Answers were aggregated and shown on screen o Students’ belief of how much the average student drank was much higher than how much they actually drank o Follow-up surveys showed students drank less than control group ▪ Descriptive Norms: Behavior exhibited by most people in a given context What is Most people believe in global warming ▪ Prescriptive Norms: Way a person is supposed to behave in a given context What ought to be People should recycle How do you use these two together to enforce compliance? ▪ Descriptive norms should match prescriptive norms o Tell people that what is and what should be are the same o Do NOT tell people that what is and  what should be are different “Isn’t it a shame that so few people vote? Go out and vote in our next election!” o Is this a good strategy? Why or why not? Petrified Forest National Park Theft Rate Study (Cialdini et al. 2006) o Signs placed saying “Many past visitors have removed petrified wood from park, changing the state of Petrified Forest” o Sign replaced with one saying “The vast majority of past visitors have left the petrified wood in the park, preserving the natural state of the Petrified Forest” o Theft was four times lower with second sign than first - Obedience to Authority o Milgram Experiment: ▪ Shock level began at 15 volts and increased to a maximum of 450 V; for each incorrect response, shock level went up 15 V ▪ During the experiment, the confederate begins to scream in pain, says his heart hurts, and demands to be let out ▪ Toward the end, the confederate stops making any noises ▪ Whenever the participant wants to stop, the experimenter says vague phrases like ▪ “The experiment requires you to continue” ▪ “There is no permanent tissue damage. Please continue.” ▪ What factors caused these results? How do we increase or decrease obedience? o Forces compelling obedience: ▪ Fair play ▪ Positive goal  ▪ Avoiding conflict ▪ Normative social influence ▪ Authority ▪ Focusing on the presence of authority made participants more pressured to obey o Focusing on the presence of authority made participants more pressured to obey o Forces compelling termination ▪ Suffering ▪ Culpability ▪ Retaliation o Focusing on what they were doing to the learner made participants less willing to obey o Milgram Variations ▪ Removing culpability Make participants feel less responsible for the suffering ▪ Teacher Variation Instead of pressing the shock button, participants read out the questions and a confederate pressed the button instead 92.5% of participants continued until the end o Tuning in the learner ▪ Made the learner more salient, increased awareness of suffering and culpability; increased forces compelling termination (except for remote variation, which decreased it) ▪ Proximity variations: Remote: Learner was in different room, only rarely heard o 66% continued until the end Original: Learner was in different room, heard through speaker o 62.5% continued until the end Proximity: Learner was in the same room o 40% continued until the end Touch-proximity: Participant forced the  learner’s hand on the shock plate o 30% continued until the end o Tuning out the experimenter ▪ Made the authority figure less salient, decreased authority and normative social influence; decreased forces compelling obedience ▪ Experimenter Variations Experimenter-absent: The experimenter gave instructions over a telephone o 20% continued until the end Reduced authority: Instead of the experimenter, another participant gave orders o 20% continued until the end Conflict: Two experimenters gave orders; one told the other to stop midway through o 0% continued until the end Without an authority, you allow people to be themselves. They have nothing to be afraid of therefore they do as they feel o Making suffering more salient or authority less salient both decrease obedience o Making it easier to disobey is more effective than increasing desire to disobey o The details of the situation create obedience to authority ▪ In experimenter-conflict variation, 0% obeyed to the end ▪ In question variation, 92.5% obeyed to the end - Reasons for Obedience o Participants tried but failed to quit ▪ They stated they were uncomfortable ▪ They got out of the chair ▪ Pleaded with experimenters ▪ Stated they were quitting …but most kept going regardless o Participants were released from responsibility ▪ An authority figure assured them they were not  responsible fo the results ▪ We trust authority figures - Milgram Today o Todays IRB o Burger (2009) replicated at 165 volts ▪ A critical threshold In previous Milgram experiments 4/5 participants continue to the end past the threshold ▪ Asked a battery of mental health questions ▪ 70% complies today vs 82% in 1960 Monday 10/28/2024 - Relationships and Attraction - Issues with studying relationships o Establishing causation ▪ Random Assignment ▪ Control Groups ▪ Manipulation of independent variable o What do we do? ▪ Longitudinal studies ▪ Statistical corrections o Generalizing to other groups ▪ Culture, Gender, Sexuality - Importance of Relationships o Social, evolutionary, and biological need ▪ Help us grow and learn ▪ Help us survive o Universal need ▪ True across species ▪ Extent differs by culture o Effects on humans ▪ Higher mortality rates for divorced/unmarried/widowed ▪ Higher suicide rates for single/divorced ▪ Higher crime rates for single/divorced ▪ Higher well-being in general for married o Support from others helps physical and psychological health - Types of Relationships o Communal Relationship ▪ Individuals feel a special responsibility for one another and give and receive according to need Small towns Friends and family East Asian and Latin America o Exchange Relationship ▪ Individuals feel little responsibility toward one another; giving and receiving are governed by concerns about equity and reciprocity ▪ Typically, short-term Dense, urban environments Workers and service Europe and North America o Social Exchange Theory – People seek out relationships that have more rewards than costs ▪ Reward principle – we want rewards from our interactions o How do we evaluate rewards and costs? ▪ Comparison level – People’s expectations about what they deserve/expect from a relationship ▪ Comparison level for alternatives – People’s expectations about what they can get out of available other relationships o Equity Theory ▪ People are motivated to pursue fairness/equity in their relationships You do not want to give more than you get But you also do not want to get too much more than you give ▪ Culture and Equity Equity is less important in collectivist cultures o Attachment Theory ▪ Our early attachments with parents and caregivers shape relationships for a person’s whole life ▪ Human infants must develop reciprocal  attachments to at least one caregiver in order to survive, which creates schema for relationships Called an internal working model ▪ Attachment dimensions Anxiety dimension of attachment – Amount of fear a person feels about rejection and abandonment Avoidance dimension of attachment – Amount of discomfort regarding intimacy and dependence ▪ Attachment styles Secure – Comfortable with relationships Avoidant – Difficulty trusting people in relationships Anxious-ambivalent – Worries about scaring people away ▪ The Strange Situation Study (Ainsworth 1978) Infants left in room with toys with their caregiver Stranger enters room and caregiver leaves Caregiver return after three minutes ▪ Secure style – Infants comfortable with caregiver, comfortable playing with toys. Caregivers comforted infant when they returned. ▪ Anxious style – Infants uncomfortable even when caregiver was present. Caregivers unpredictable with infants. ▪ Avoidant style – Infants avoided caregiver. Caregiver rejected/ignored infant - Stability of Attachment Styles o Established early in life and stay fairly constant o Longitudinal Attachment Study (Klohnen and Bera 1998) ▪ Forty-year long study on attachment styles and home-caregiver attitudes and behavior ▪ Attachment styles stayed relatively similar decades later  o Attachment styles and outcomes study ▪ Over a four-year period, secure participants were less likely to experience breakup (25.6%) than avoidant (52.2%) or anxious (43.6%) participants o Attachment style stability is stable, but not unchangeable o People have multiple working models of attachment styles - Attraction o How do you know you like someone? ▪ Dilating pupils ▪ Heart pounding ▪ Knees weak, Arms heavy ▪ You just do o Do you know why you like someone? ▪ Proximity ▪ Similarity ▪ Physical attractiveness ▪ Etc. o Proximity ▪ Most relationships – platonic and romantic – are with people you meet often ▪ Proximity promotes friendship because it brings people together (literally) ▪ You naturally learn more about the person, interact more, get to see their good sides ▪ Westgate West Study (Festinger et al., 1950): Researchers asked students who lived in student housing to list their closest friends Only 5% of students lived in the same building. However, 2/3 of those listed as friends lived in the same building as the participants ▪ Physical proximity – Being closer (literally) to people leads to becoming closer (figurately) with people ▪ Functional distance – how the layout encourages or inhibits contact between people ▪ Proximity effect in forming friendships is strongest for heterogeneous groups Different races, social classes, ages Why? ▪ Mere Exposure Effect – repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to greater liking of a stimulus People Animals Entertainment Concepts Words ▪ Turkish Word Experiment Participants showsn Turkish words kardiga, afworbu, and lokanta 0,1,2,5,10 or 25 times Participants then indicated whether they thought the word meant something good or bad Words they saw more often were rated as more positive ▪ Albino rat study Rats exposed to either Mozart or Schoenberg Rats placed in cage in which standing on one side turn on new Mozart music, standing on other side would turn on new Schoenberg Rats who’d been raised with Mozart turned on Mozart, and the same was true for Schoenberg-raised rats ▪ Reasons for mere exposure effect Increased fluency Associate stimulus with the absence of negatives o Comfort, safety, routine ▪ Mere exposure exceptions Does not work with stimuli you initially  dislike Does not work with brief auditory stimuli - Similarity o Like attracts like ▪ Political beliefs ▪ Social class ▪ Education level ▪ Religion ▪ Physical characteristics ▪ Personality o Burgess and Wallin studied this with actual and randomly generated couples ▪ Actual couples were more similar on 66/88 characteristics and roughly equal to generated couples on the other 22. o Complementarity – the idea that opposites attract ▪ Only if other similarities exist and traits naturally go together ▪ Possibly true in social status o Status exchange hypothesis – romantic attraction increases when two individuals complement each other by offering both increased status in different domains ▪ Rich but less accomplished with poor but more accomplished - Physical Attractiveness o People like those who are physically attractive – but also find people they like more physically attractive o Friendly outgoing behaviors increase perceived attractiveness o More likely to be asked on dates o Rated as more popular, likable, and successful by peers. Also assumed to be more skilled, smart, and wealthy o Make more money for the same jobs o Attractive women are more likely to receive help from a man if  injured (West & Brown, 1995) o Less likely to be convicted of crimes & given lighter sentences if convicted – up to 87% longer sentences for “unattractive” people (Sigall & Ostrove, 1957) o Halo Effect – the belief that attractive people have other positive qualities ▪ Attractive people are assumed to embody the best qualities of their culture o Telephone study ▪ Independent raters rated participants on attractiveness ▪ Participants had 5-minute telephone conversations with other participants of opposite sex ▪ Participants rated likability of other participants based on conversations ▪ More attractive participants rated as more likable o Phone study with photo ▪ Male participants had phone conversation with woman who they believed was attractive or unattractive based on a fake photo ▪ Independent raters who only heard the woman’s portion of the conversation rated “attractive” women as warmer and more sociable o Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? ▪ Yes – but not completely ▪ Universals Symmetry Within-culture similarities Reproductive fitness ▪ Reproductive fitness – capacity to pass one’s genes Physical characteristics indicate strong or weak reproductive fitness Average and symmetrical = better ▪ Large differences in cultures Changes over time  Differences between places ▪ Differences in personal preference Someone, somewhere, somewhen finds you attractive - Romantic Preferences o Gender Differences ▪ Men and women care about similar facets but what they care most about differs ▪ Evolutionary Perspective: Biological differences create different needs in mates ▪ Social Perspective: Different roles create different preferences in mates ▪ Both can explain differences in priorities o Gender Differences ▪ Men care more about physical attractiveness than women ▪ Women care more about financial prospects than men ▪ Men prefer women younger than them ▪ Women prefer men older than them o Gender Similarities ▪ Value kindness and intelligence more than money or looks ▪ The more egalitarian the society, the less difference in priorities o Biological factors (not important but fun to know) ▪ Women close to ovulation could smell facial symmetry of men based on their T-shirts ▪ Men who smell T-shirts of women close to ovulation had higher testosterone levels ▪ Women tend to prefer slightly feminine male faces, except during ovulation - Romantic Relationships o What is Love? (baby don’t hurt me) ▪ Everybody’s got a different idea Undergraduates came up with 216 different kinds of love (Fehr & Russel 1991) ▪ Types of love Romantic love ▪ Romantic love tends to be powerful and all-  encompassing Feelings of unique desire/chemistry in interactions are often reciprocated; we can tell if someone’s interest is targeted or promiscuous (Eastwick et al 2007) o Shared self-concept study ▪ Married couple rated 90 trait adjectives on how accurately thy described themselves and spouse ▪ Then did a distracting task ▪ Came back, rated on a computer how much they were like me or not like me o Investment Model of Commitment ▪ Three determinants make romantic partners more committed – Relationship satisfaction, alternative partners, and investments Satisfaction – Evaluation of rewards and costs Alternative partners – Fewer outside options people have, more committed they are Investments – People commit more if they’ve put more (effort, time, shared experiences) into the relationship ▪ Commitment encourages behaviors beneficial to the relationship - Relationship Dissatisfaction o Predictors of Relationship dissatisfaction ▪ Neurotic people less likely to have happy romance ▪ Low self-esteem and sensitivity to rejection predicts difficulties ▪ Lower SES correlates with higher divorce rates ▪ People who marry younger more likely to divorce o Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Study (Gottman & Levenson 1999) ▪ Followed 79 married couples in longitudinal study ▪ Identified four behaviors that predicted divorce: o The Four Behaviors: ▪ Criticism: Continuously finding fault with the other ▪ Defensiveness: Refusing to consider they’re at fault  ▪ Contempt: Putting the other down ▪ Stonewalling: Disengaging from the interaction o Attributions: ▪ Happy couples attribute positives to stable global causes and negatives to unstable local causes ▪ Unhappy couples attribute positives to unstable local causes and negatives to stable global causes - Strengthening Romance o Capitalize on the Good ▪ Share positives with your partner ▪ Engage with your partner’s discussion o Be Playful ▪ Have fun! ▪ Don’t be afraid to be silly o Look on the Bright Side ▪ See your partner as better than they do ▪ Some level of idealization ▪ Virtues > Flaws - Relationship Across Cultures o Love ≠ Marriage ▪ Arranged Marriage avoids some pitfalls Equal SES Different Expectations ▪ Transactional o Does not mean love is not important o Also does not mean the relationship is less satisfying o