Social PsychologyScientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1985)1. Conformitya. Def: The tendency to do what others do simply because others are doing it. i. Are Americans rugged individualist?A. Informational social influencea. Informational: Conforming due to the need to be accuratei. Best sellers lists on websitesii. Leads to private acceptance – you actually believe the new informationB. Normative social influencea. Normative: conforming due to the need to be likedi. Leads to public compliance – but you don’t actually believe itb. Informational vs normative: would you conform if you were certain the was wrong?1. Line-segment studya. Six confederates; one participantb. Estimating line lengthsc. The importance of unanimityi. When even one confederate “disagrees” with the majority, participants were less likely to conformd. Normative influence as a force for goodi. 75% of our guests use their towels more than once” guests will then reuse their towels2. Social RolesDefinition: Shared expectations about how certain group members should behavei. Ex. Traditional marital rolesA. Benefitsa. Efficiencyi. Social roles facilitate interpersonal coordination ii. Division of laborb. A clear identity can be comfortingi. Too much choice can be disconcerting B. Costsa. Loss of freedom and individuality b. People may behave in accord with their role rather thantheir valuesC. The Stanford prison experimenta. People began to be in real life what they were in the experiment.3. Obedience- * Tendency to do what powerful people tell us to do- Will people do terrible things just because someone tells them to?A. WW2 Eichmann Triala. Only followed orders from higher up peopleB. Could it be that Eichmann, and his million accomplices in theHolocaust were just following orders? Coul we call them all accomplices?a. Quote by Stanley MilgramC. Stanley Milgram’s Shock Experimenta. Will everyday people obey, even if it means severely hurting someone?b. Psychiatrist poredicted that only .1% of the people would go all the wayc. Reality 65% went all the wayd. Good people sometimes do bad thingse. This doesn’t absolve anybody of personal responsibility!IV. DissonanceA. Cognitive Dissonancea. An unpleasant stat that arises when a person recognizes the inconsistency of his or her actions attitudes, or beliefsB. The boring Task studya. After completing a boring task, all Ps were asked to lie and tell next person task was funb. ½ paid $1 to lie; ½ paid $20 to liec. How much did you like task? Those paid $1 changed attitude more than those who were paid $20!i. Insufficient justification: if individuals do something for no reason (no external attribution to make), they will make up an internal attitudeC. Hazing Studya. Why does hazing breed loyalty? Why do we like somethingmore when we have hat to work hard for it?i. Liking it resolves the dissonanceb. Women applied to join a discussion on “the psychology of sex”i. Control group: immediately joined the groupii. Experimental group: had to read uncomfortable pornographic passages to a strange man firstiii. The discussion was actually very boring, but women in the experimental group thought it was more interesting than women in the control group. V. Stereotyping and PrejudiceA. Stereotypes: A process by which we draw inferences about others based on knowledgea. Stereotypes can be useful: why do we ask gas station attendants for directions?b. But they can also be terribly inaccurate, which is why we typically encourage people not to rely on them. i. The illusory correlation: a false impression that two variables correlate.1. The joint occurrence of two distinctive events (minority member & distinctive event – negative behavior) probably attracted more attention and caused faulty impressions ii. White americans over estimate the arrest rate of African Americans1. African americans = minority (12.6% of the US population)2. Arrest rate = Distinctive eventiii. When both occur, it provokes and “ah-ha” reaction, and we are more likely to notice it c. Self-fulfilling prophencies tendency to cause what you expect to seei. Expectations action toward another person other person’s response confirms original expectationii. Act towards certain people because of the way we think about them B. Prejudice – a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their group membershipa. People have a strong tendency to like their own groups and dislike other groups, even when the groups are invented on the spot!i. How many dots do you think were on the screen1. Over estimators or underestimatesii. How much will participants help in-group vs out-group members. iii. Results for these minimal group tasks:1. People identify more with their own “estimation” group than members of the other group2. People report liking members of their own group more3. People help members of their own group more4. People give more money to members of their own groupb. Lasting conflict between grops can breed prejudice, butit isn’t necessary to create prejudice.i. I’m on of us, not one of
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