Fall PSYC 2000 Sec 001 003 FINAL EXAM Study Outline Chapter 12 Social Psychology Know the three primary areas of social psychology as well as relevant related concepts that fall under each see below o Social Influence The ways in which a person s thoughts feelings and behavior can be affected by others In other words how we are influenced by others Conformity voluntarily yielding to social norms Define and distinguish from compliance and obedience Be able to correctly label an example What was Asch s classic study Asch conducted his first of his classic studies on conformity by having seven participants gather in a room they were told they were participating in a visual judgment experiment They were shown a white card with one line on it then showed another card with three lines of varying lengths the task was to determine which line on the second card was most similar to the line on the first card In reality only the next to last person was the real participant all the rest were confederates who were instructed to pick the same incorrect line The point was to see if the real participant would conform to the others wrong answers and he she often did Asch found that the number of confederates mattered conformity increased with each new confederate until there was four In a later experiment Asch found that conformity greatly decreased when there was only one confederate Name conditions that increase the likelihood of conformity Group size Group is unanimous lack of Dissension Group observes one s behavior Culture can encourage respect for social standard Collectivist cultures tend to show more conformity than individualistic cultures Feelings of incompetence insecurity and low self esteem Compliance when people change their behavior as a result of another person or group asking or directing them to change Define and distinguish from conformity and obedience What are 4 techniques used to get people to comply with a request Be able to correctly label an example of each if given a scenario Foot in the door smaller request secured asks larger request example let s say that a neighbor asks you to keep an eye on his house while he s away on vacation You agree thinking that it s a rather small request Later that day or in the conversation the neighbor asks if you can water his plants while he s gone This is a little more involved and requires more time and energy but you comply This is because you have already complied with the first request one wants to stay consistent with their previous behavior Door in the face large request usually refused second smaller reasonable request example is that the neighbor might ask you to keep his dog and cat at your house which is a rather large request which you refuse the neighbor then will ask you a smaller request like watering his flowers in which you comply because it is a smaller request Lowball once commitment is made at lower then true value cost increases an example is a professor agrees to write a textbook for a publishing company Once committed to that process the professor discovers that the task involves not only writing but traveling to meet with editors working nights and weekends to meet deadlines and making the commitment to take time off her teaching job to finish the text on time That s not all persuading person makes offer and throws in extra before decision for example the phrase but wait that s not all If you act now we ll send you this 15 piece set of genuine faux carving knives as bonus By doing this the persuader is giving the person something they didn t ask for and the consumer should respond by giving in to the persuader s request to buy the product Obedience when one changes his her behavior at the command of an authority Define and distinguish from compliance and conformity What is Milgram s classic study Being aware of Asch s studies of conformity and wondered how much impact social influence could have on a behavior that was more meaningful than judging the length of lines on cards He designed what has become one of the most famous even notorious experiment the history of psychology Through ads in the newspaper Milgram recruited people who were told that they would be participating in an experiment to test the effects of punishment on learning behavior Although there were several different forms of this experiment with different participants the basic premise was the same The participants believed that they had randomly been assigned to either the teacher role or the learner role when in fact the leaner was an actor already aware of the situation The teacher was given a sample 45 volt shock from the chair in which the learner was strapped during the experiment The task for the learner was a simple memory test for paired words The teacher would be seated in front of a machine through which the shocks would be administered and the level of the shocks changed With each mistake made by the learner the teacher was instructed to increase the level of shock by 15 volts The learner who was not actually being shocked would follow a carefully arranged script showing discomfort asking for the experiment to end screaming and even falling silent as if unconscious or dead As the teacher would become reluctant to continue administering the shocks the experimenter in his authoritative white lab coat said for example the experiment requires you to continue or you must continue and reminded the teacher that the experimenter would take full responsibility for the safety of the learner Milgram surveyed psychiatrists college students and other adults prior to this asking how far they think the participants would go all said they would stop after the protest at 150 volts They were wrong in the first set of experiments 65 of the teachers went all the way through to the final 450 volts even though they were obviously uncomfortable and begged to be allowed to stop Of the teachers who did protest and stop not one stopped before 300 volts No one was more shocked than Milgram himself he did not believe that his experiments would show such a huge effect of obedience to authority These results do not appear to be some random fluke resulting from a large population of sadistic people residing in the area These experiments have been repeated at various times in the United States and in other countries and the percentage of participants who went all the way consistently remained between 61 and 66 percent Name factors that increase the likelihood of
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