Ch 7 QUIZ 3 Know results of Asch Milgram studies Asch s 1995 conformity studies People were shown line lengths and had to say which was the shortest actor purposely said wrong answer to see if people would go along with it In original study people conformed on 37 of the trials and 75 of people conformed at least once Variants of the basic study can trigger different levels of conformity Normative just going along or informational actually believing the influence Whether people come to believe their conformist responses depends on the ambiguity of the judgments and line lengths are not very ambiguous Milgram s obedience studies in 1963 People were recruited for a learning study The real participant was always the teacher and the confederate of the experimenter was the learner Learner had to learn word pairs If he made mistakes he was punished with shocks of increasing intensity The point of the experiment was to see if the teacher would continue to shock the man obedience In the original study 65 of participants administered all of the shocks Variants of the study were proximity of the experimenter proximity of the learner etc Conformity and obedience are not always bad Cultural gender differences in conformity Collectivist cultures value conformity to a much greater degree than individualistic cultures which tend to give the squeaky wheel the proverbial grease Collectivistic cultures strive to maintain group harmony and agreeing with others is often seen as a sign of sensitivity cooperation and respect rather than conformity On average women are more easily influenced than men Gender differences in conformity are most pronounced in studies that measure public acceptance as with the Asch experiment Women seem to conform more than men when they provide their answers in public This shows that women are socialized to be more supportive and agreeable while men In private gender differences disappear are socialized to be independent and assertive The Stanford Prison Experiment remember study reviewed in class on who might have volunteered for it A classic example of the situationist social influence approach to aggression violence and evil Inmates became prison guards Conclusion is that some situations are dangerous because they will lead some people to be aggressive Who would volunteer for this experiment People who were higher in aggressiveness authoritarianism Machiavellianism narcissism and social dominance What is the Foot in the door effect and the Door in the Face effect Foot in the door technique involves getting people to comply with a large request by preceding it with a much smaller one that they will find difficult to refuse kids playing vs making cards for sick children Works because taking simple easy steps to assist others can subtly change people s beliefs about themselves making them feel more helpful or cooperative Cults use this method to recruit new members get people who might be ambivalent about the cult to do some small seemingly innocuous favors donate money the cult can manipulate people s perceptions of their own attitudes toward the cult Way to sidestep resistance to a large request Door in the face technique involves first making a large request that people will almost surely refuse followed by a smaller request that they will then feel obligated to honor Works because once a person has said no to one request the norm reciprocity compels them to respond more favorably to the concession of a much smaller request Ch 8 Brainstorming what are the drawbacks of this method for generating ideas Brainstorming method for generating ideas that involves bringing up as many new ideas as possible not criticizing others ideas and combining and improving on the ideas that have been generated Group brainstorming produces fewer ideas than the groups of individuals and the ideas they come up with are no higher in quality than the ideas generated by nominal groups Drawbacks of this method Free riding social loafing individuals who generate ideas as part of a group may put less effort into it than if they were by themselves because they feel less responsibility for the outcome Evaluation apprehension people not wanting to look foolish in front of others Production blocking talking over each other members are prevented from voicing as many ideas as they could come up with if they were working alone Review Groupthink most likely to occur when Group is pressured to make quick decisions Group is isolated helps maintain an illusion of invulnerability Group is led by someone who discourages critical thinking and promotes own opinions Self censorship leads to the illusion of unanimity Group members desire respect from others in group Group has no formal procedures for making decisions Understand group polarization Group Polarization the tendency of group attitudes beliefs and decisions to become more extreme after discussion Persuasive Argument Explanation informational influences if a group is leaning in a particular direction then discussion will inevitably involve hearing more justifications for leaning in that direction Social Comparison Explanation normative influences people in a group want to present themselves in a favorable light and that often means conforming to what they think other group members will feel Ways when group performance can be disappointing when looking for correct answer don t need a group effort when generating ideas better alone when making decisions better alone Social loafing people who work on collective tasks often do not exert as much effort as they do when they work on individual tasks Latan Williams and Harkin study Participants assigned a straightforward task yell as loud as they can when they shouted together with other people the average sound produced per person was less loud than when they shouted individually Conclusion if people are to work hard on a group activity they must care about the outcome and believe they can affect it thus it is not enough that people think that what they are working on matters they must feel that their efforts will not be wasted Review studies on social loafing Read about the importance of the distinction between shared vs unshared information Shared information refers to knowledge that all or most group members possess Unshared information unique to individual members Researchers find that shared information has been discussed at greater length than unshared information and is perceived by group members as being