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Social Psychology
Asch and ConformityExperiment (Asch,
1951)
•When answered alone, 99% correct•When in groups, 37% of the responses were conforming
Asch ExperimentAsch and Conformity
Studies of attitude
Crutchfield (1955)
Conformity
– 58% agreed under pressure of group influence
“Free speech being a privilege rather than a right, it is proper for a society to suspend free speech when it feels threatened”
– 19% agreed with statement in private
Obedience to Authority
Milgram’s experiment (1963)• 2 males asked come to
psych exp. at Yale.• apparently about learning
and memory
• Stern experimenter (in lab coat) explains cover story: pioneering study on the effect of punishment on learning. The experiment requires one of them to teach a list of word pairs to the other and to punish errors by delivering shocks of increasing intensity.
• To assign the roles, they (apparently) draw slips out of a hat (but fixed so confederate is “learner”)
Milgram’s experiment
• Confederate strapped into chair with electrodes
• Teacher & experimenter go to room with shock generator…
• Shocks range: 15 volts (slight shock) - 450 volts (Danger/severe shock/XXX)
• Every time learner gets one wrong, “teacher” is to increase the shock
Obedience to Authority
Milgram’s experiment
How far would YOU go?
Described expt. to 110 psychiatrist, college students & middle class adults.=> All groups guessed they would disobey at 135 volts.
Do you really know?
Obedience to Authority
Out of 40 men, 25 (63%) went all the way to 450 volts. Obedience to Authority
1. Emotional distance of the victim
More obedience when learners not seen
2. Closeness of authorityMore obedience if authority figure physically close
Less obedience when authority was just a clerk
3. Legitimacy of authority
Less obedience at lower status institution
4. Institutional Authority
Obedience to Authority
Stanford Prison Experiment
• Participants– 24 healthy, stable, intelligent 19-20
year old male college students
*Stanford prison video
Stanford Prison Experiment
• Pathology of Prisoner Syndrome– Loss of personal
identity– Passiveness &
dependence– Adoption of
“prisoner” profile– Uncontrollable
anxiety
Stanford Prison Experiment
• Similarities to Iraqi prisoner abuse?– diffusion of
responsibility– anonymity, secrecy– dehumanization– peers who model
harmful behavior– bystanders who did not
intervene– stress, boredom
Situational Influence
• Group size in crisis situations– Kitty Genovese’s story
Situational Influence
•Bystander effect–Perceived number of bystanders predicts likelihood of helping behavior
–Why? Diffusion of responsibility
Bystander effect
• Darley study– College student ushered
into room, listened to headset, would speak in mic when his/her turn came
– Participants thought they were speaking with 1, 2, or 4 other students
Bystander effect
• Darley study (cont.)– During the experiment, the subject
heard another "participant" have a seizure, with the victim saying: "give me a little help here...;I'm gonna die-er-er-I'm ... gonna die-er-help...“
– "victim" had an 85% chance of receiving help within two minutes when there was a single bystander
– only a 31% chance when there were two or more bystanders
Situational Influence
• Social Facilitation– improved performance of
tasks in the presence of others
– occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered
Situational Influence
Home Advantage in Major Team Sports
Home TeamGames Winning
Sport Studied Percentage
Baseball 23,034 53.3%
Football 2,592 57.3
Ice hockey 4,322 61.1
Basketball 13,596 64.4
Soccer 37,202 69.0
Situational Influence
• Deindividuation– loss of self-awareness and self-
restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity
Situational Influence
•Deindividuation–Light and dark room study
–Self-awareness study
Situational Influence
• Group Polarization– the enhancement
of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group
Situational Influence
High
Prejudice
Low
+4
+3
+2
+1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4Before discussion After discussion
Low-prejudicegroups
High-prejudicegroups
• If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions
Social Relations
• Prejudice – an unjustifiable (and
usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members
• Stereotype– a generalized (sometimes
accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people
Social Relations
• Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Year
1936 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
Would you vote fora woman president?
Do whites have a rightto keep minorities out of
their neighborhoods?
Percentageanswering
yes
Social Relations
•Why stereotypes?–Benefits of categorization
–Grain of truth– Ingroup/outgroup dynamic
Social Relations
• Sherif study (1961)– Phase One: boys with no previous
contact randomly split into two groups and brought to Robbers Cave campsite.
– Phase Two: competition set up between the two groups of boys in which only one group can win.
– Phase Three: attempts to reduce the conflict between the two groups.
• Increasing contact – made worse• Working together to reach common
goals – diffused prejudice, tensions
Social Relations
• Why prejudice?– Benefits of categorization– Grain of truth– Ingroup/outgroup dynamic– Self-esteem maintenance
Prejudice & Self-esteem
• Fein & Spencer (1997)– Comparisons to less
competent others boosts self-esteem
– We apply negative stereotypes when we are motivated to reaffirm our self-worth
Prejudice & Self-esteem
• Fein (cont.)– Participants receive positive or
negative feedback on an IQ test (self-esteem threat)
– Evaluate job applicant in an “unrelated” experiment
– Applicant portrayed as Jewish or Non-Jewish
Prejudice & Self-esteem
• Fein (cont.)– Positive feedback did not affect
ratings of candidate– Negative feedback resulted in
Jewish applicant being viewed more negatively
– Self-esteem only increased for participants who saw a Jewish applicant after receiving negative feedback
Social Relations
• Why prejudice?–Self-protection
•When students received a high grade, male and female instructors rated the same
•When students received a low grade, female instructors rated more negatively than their male counterparts
Social Relations - Attraction
• Psychology of attraction–Proximity
•Mere exposure effect– Physical Attractiveness
•Youthfulness•Neotany
– Similarity
Social Relations - Attraction
• Dutton bridge study– Participants approached
confederate on high, unstable suspension bridge (arousing situation)
OR– spoke to confederate on
stable, low bridge (non threatening situation)
– Findings – confederate in arousing situation rated more attractive
‘I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work…’
Social Relations - Attraction
Social Relations – Attraction
• Psychology of attractiveness– Men and women shown
pictures of opposite sex of varying attractiveness
– Then told they had chance to win $15-35 tomorrow or $50-75 at variable point in the future
– Findings?
How Does It Feel to See a Perfect 10?
Social Relations – Attraction
• What is beautiful is good– Kurtzberg (1968)
study on plastic surgery for prisoners
– Stewart (1980) follow-up study on crime and punishment
Social Relations – Attraction
• What is beautiful is good– Essay by attractive author
judged better than that by unattractive author
– Attractive children judged as having greater intelligence/ academic potential than unattractive children
We internalize commitments made
Once you behave in a particular way without any obvious external justification, you are likely to internalize the commitment.
Does changing behavior change attitudes?
•Publicly•Voluntarily•Repeatedly
1.Subjects perform dull task2.Experimenter explains how expectations
affect performance & we need next subject to believe it will be interesting. Assistant is away.
3.Next “subject” (confederate) says they have heard it is boring
4. Subjects paid $1 or $20
5. Someone else studying reactions to psychology experiments asks how much you enjoyed the task……
Experiment: Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
Who reported higher enjoyment of knob turning?
Paid $1 MORE ENJOYMENT Paid $20 LESS ENJOYMENT
WHY?
=> easiest way to reduce discomfort is to change our beliefs to match our already accomplished behavior
Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger
“cognitive dissonance”: discrepancy between behavior & beliefs makes us uncomfortable
Foot in the door technique
Experiment
Group 1 Group 2
---2 weeks pass---
76% say YES 17% say YES
1. Could you put Left in peaceup a small “drivesafely” sign in your window?
2. Could we put up large, unsightly “Drive Safely” billboard in you front yard?
Unification church recruitment
By making the members behave as cult members, the best way for the new recruits to make sense of their own behavior is bring their attitudes and beliefs in line with their behavior and identify with the cults.
3rd At retreat encourage attendees to join in songs, activities and discussions
2nd Invite them for a weekend retreat
1st Invite people to dinner
5th more arduous tasks (e.g., solicit contributions, recruit others)
4th sign up for longer retreats
Jim Jones--Peoples’ Temple Cult
1st monetary offerings voluntary…then 10% income contribution…then 25%…finally, turn over everything!
Cult member, Grace Stone:, “nothing was ever done drastically. That’s how Jim Jones got away with so much. You slowly gave up things and slowly had to put up with more but it was always done very gradually. It was amazing because you would sit up sometimes and say ‘wow, I have really given up a lot. I am really putting up with a lot’ but he did it so slowly, that you figured ‘I have made it so far, what the hell is the difference’”.
Also, workloads became progressively demanding
In 1978 in Guyana, Jim Jones’ request REALLY escalated
Jones urged his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with tranquilizers, pain killers and a lethal dose of cyanide
