IB Psychology Mr. Detjen

Student Responses to SLoA Learning Outcomes

I. General Learning Outcomes

LO1: Outline principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis

Hannah The sociocultural level of analysis focuses on how social and cultural factors influence an individual’s

behavior. The authors of our psychology textbook, IB Diploma Programme: Psychology Course Companion, ascribe four principles to the sociocultural level of analysis (SLoA). First, human beings are social animals and we have a basic need to “belong.” Second, culture influences behavior. Third, because humans are social animals, they have a social self. Lastly, people’s views of the world are resistant to change.

The human need to belong motivates individuals to pursue and develop relationships with other people in order to create or strengthen a social connection. When an individual belongs to a group, they have the ability to influence other group members are well as be influenced by those group members; this relationship is then classified as bidirectional. The second principle, culture influences behavior, speaks to cultural norms established by a group. In order to fit into these cultural norms, an individual may have to change their behavior so they are able to relate and fit in with the other group members. Thirdly, humans develop social selves from being included in a group. People who are part of a group consider themselves the “in-group” and everyone else would be part of an “out-group.” Being part of the in-group reflects the individual’s membership in such a group. This distinction may eventually lead to biases, stereotyping, and discrimination. Finally, worldviews are very resistant to change. An individual’s beliefs of how the world is supposed to work exhibits how hard a change in ideas may be. If an individual thinks the world functions one way, then another way is proposed, that person’s entire system is then disrupted and unbelievable.

Hunter The first principle that defines the sociocultural level of analysis is: Human beings are social animals and we have a basic need to belong. Humans are naturally motivated to have important relations with other humans. Relationships between humans can be seen as "bidirectional". One person can be affected by a group and that one person can also effect the group (Crane-Hannibal, 101). The second principle of the SLoA is culture influencing behavior. Culture provides general norms among groups of people. Culture actually is a set of norms that define a society or large group of people. The third principle states that human beings have social selves/social identities. Social identities define who people are and once again, behaviors can be defined by being in a certain group. Which leads to in groups and out groups. An in group is a group in which you belong, the "cool kids". An out group may be a group of people or person that you feel does not belong or fit in with what you feel is the norm. Lastly, the fourth principle says: world views are very resistant to change. World views are easily effected by culture. A cultural group instills their values in its people and they are passed down from generation to generation (Crane-Hannibal, 102). DIfferent groups of people may view the world in different ways and believe different things about how the world works.

Charles There are four principles that define the SLoA. The first principle is that human beings are social animals and we all have a basic need to belong. As humans, we are all motivated to form bidirectional relationships with others. These relations give rise to social identities. The second principle of the SLoA is that culture influences behavior. This means that our culture influences us to act within said cultures norms. The third principle of SLoA is that humans have a social self. Social selves arise in a human when they become a part of a group or “family”. Social interaction gives rise to social selves. The fourth and finally principle is that people’s views of

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the world are resistant to change. A worldview is an idea of how the world should work or be. These views are shaped by our cultures. And as culture if hard to change, so are worldviews.

MeganThere are four principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis: Human beings are social animals with a basic need to belong; Culture influences behavior; Humans are social animals and therefore have a “social self”; People’s views of the world are resistant to change. The first principle explains that the cognitive and biological systems are two parts of an even larger system of interrelationships with other people. The relationship between the individual and group is bidirectional, meaning the individual and the group both effect each other. The second principle focuses on culture and its influence. Culture is defined here as the norms and values that define a society. Because societies are becoming vastly multicultural, there is a pressing issue to study the effect of culture on behavior because understanding how culture effects behavior can help us to understand and appreciate cultural differences.

The third principle examines the idea of a “social self”. This principle claims that each individual has an individual identity, but they also have a collective or group identity. For example, my social self would be a thespian because I am heavily involved in theatre. The final principle is that people’s views of the world are resistant to change. The reason for this hypothesis is that people develop their “selves” within social and cultural contexts, so once a self has been developed in those contexts, people are going to be resistant to changing social contexts because they developed themselves within certain contexts, and having to redefine their person is not something people do willingly.

Taylor The four principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis are: human beings are social animals

and we have a basic need to belong to a surrounding group or environment; culture influences behavior; human beings have (i.e. construct) social selves or social identities; world views are greatly resistant to change.

The first principle of the SLoa is that humans feel they must be a part of a social group. In simplistic terms this means that people are motivated to have relations with one another. This occurs as a bidirectional process—this process is when a group influences an individual and an individual influences a group. The second principle states that culture influences behavior. Because of this, psychologist must study culture to understand behavior. It is also important to distinguish a culture’s norms because it is an essential part of understanding their society and values. Thirdly, humans have social selves or social identities. Construct identity reflect group membership. A person can either be a part of an in-group or out0group. These groupings may change upon situations. Social identities are considered in-groups and those who do not qualify or are considered a part of the in-group are members of the out-group. However, there is the possibility of bias due to stereotypes and discrimination that could occur over time. The fourth and final principle states that world views are resistant to change. Our world views are affected by culture. Values and views differ amongst in-groups and out-groups.

Psychology over time has evolved the idea that psychology has three core components. These psychologists proposed that there is a biological level to psychology at the core of its field, followed by a cognitive level, and then a sociocultural level. During this time, World War II had a great impact on the sociocultural field of psychology.

Emily The socio-cultural level of analysis has four defining principles: human beings are social animals and we have a basic need to belong; culture influences behavior; human beings have social selves or social identities; and world views are very resistant to change. Smith and Mackey studied the pervasiveness of social influences and concluded that social and cultural environments influence individual human behavior.

The first principle, human beings are social animals and we have a basic need to belong, states that we are motivated to have relationships with others. Individuals and groups are bidirectional meaning that they

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influence each other. The second principle, we have a basic need to belong, states that there is a set of norms and values that define a society or a group within a society. We create and shape culture but we are also influenced by it. The third principle, culture influences behavior, states that our social self reflects group memberships (in-group). Group memberships compared with other groups are known as out-groups. We have a social process that helps to define our social self. There are some biases of stereotyping and discriminating in defining in-groups and out-groups. The fourth principle, world views are very resistant to change, states that our establishments of world views are created within our social selves. How it works, why it works the way it does, and how it’s used in the social world are all effected by culture. These world views can be formal and informal, temporary and persistent, and direct and indirect. When others exert influence on us it is either directly or indirectly. Our personalities are set aside by the influences of others.

There are several research methods used in the socio-cultural level of analysis. These methods include experiments, correlational studies, and case studies. The experiments are scientific with causal hypotheses that use the experimental method. When conducted in a lab there is a higher level of internal validity but artificiality is compromised. Field experiments use the same hypothesis but are more real than a lab experiment. Correlational studies use large scale surveys and are difficult to replicate. They use complex math models and individuality is crushed. Case studies use either interviews or archival research and are hard to generalize findings. With these research methods for the socio-cultural level of analysis there are some ethics issues. There is a certain degree of deception used in these research methods but it must be an initial component of the study. The level of deception depends on one’s morals system. There is also a great deal of stereotyping which can evoke a stereotype threat and compliance.

Princess There are five principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis. One is that human beings are social animals and have a basic need to belong. This is basically that we as humans are motivated to have special relationships with other people. The basic relation is bidirectional, meaning that both influence each other. The next principle is that cultural influences behavior. There is a set of norms and values that define a society or a group within a society. People mold culture and are in return, influenced by them.  The third principle is that human beings have social selves, or identities. Individuality is what defines a person's social self. Group memberships produce "in groups" and "out groups." These groups lead to both bias and judgement. Lastly, world views are very resistant to change. This principle basically states that world views encompass  how social the social world operates. It is about what values are accepted for example. It is an important part of our identity and is influenced by culture. Our sense if self is dependent upon which groups we identify with.

JolieThe sociocultural level of analysis proposes that human beings are social animals with the basic need to belong. The relationship between an individual and society is bidirectional in that the individual can affect society and society can also affect the individual. Once an individual satisfies his need to belong, he often develops a social identity of himself, an identity that reflects his membership. A social identity is often formed when an individual in an in-group (people with whom he shares a common identity) compares himself to those in an out-group (people who do not belong in his in-group). Another principle suggests that culture influences behavior. Culture, or a set of norms and values that define a society or a group within society, can have an effect on one’s behavior. The level of conformity in a person, for example, varies depending on whether that person is living in an individualistic or collective culture. Individualism allows the members of such society to have more freedom in individual choices whereas collectivism promotes cohesiveness in its society. Individualistic society, therefore, leads its members to have low level of conformity and collectivism results in high level of conformity. Culture also helps shape an individual’s view of the world and its values. According to the principles of the sociocultural level of analysis, this view is rather stable and resistant to change.

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Jarren The sociocultural level of analysis looks at how personality, attitudes, behavior, etc. of an individual influence and are influenced by society (bidirectional interaction). Within this level of analysis, there are four primary principles. The first is the idea that human beings are social animals that have a basic need to belong. Secondly, culture influences behavior. The norms and values that define society lead to expectations and many times, people yearn to be accepted; therefore, they react by meeting such expectations built by society. Thirdly, because humans are inherently social, they have a social self. This means on a personal level, each individual has an identity created by themselves; however, each individual also has a collective/social identity as well which is influenced by the groups one belongs to. It is determined through the membership of groups such as family, community, nationality, etc. Finally, the fourth principal states that people’s views of the world are resistant to change. This is largely due to society and culture in that ideas are generally passed down from generation to generation and therefore are in a way stuck and unlikely to change overnight.

KarlThe sociocultural level of analysis has four main principles associated with it. One principle that defines the sociocultural level of analysis is that human beings are social animals and have the basic need to belong. Conformity is the yield to group pressure and pressure of social norms and expectations. This can also relate to complying, identification and internalizing. The relationship between the individual and the group is bidirectional, the person can be affected by being in the group and can also effect behavior in the group.

The second principle is that culture can influence behavior. Culture is known as the norms and values that define a society. This is in direct relation with the social learning theory by Albert Bandura who proposes that social learning can be achieved by observing and imitating role models. Bandura also carried out an experiment on Bobo Dolls in order to demonstrate that learning can occur through observation of role models. The children in the study were divided into group based on aggression levels of parents and were then observed, the children showed signs of observational learning.

The third major principle that defines the sociocultural level of analysis is that humans are social animals and have social selves. The social identity theory by Henry Tajfel supports this principle by stating that social categorization, identity, comparison and positive distinctiveness all impact social actions. The theory was tested by assigning 48 boys to 2 groups based on preference, it showed that there seemed to be a preference of the in-group over the out-group. Social identities are very important to define who we are, and many behaviors are determined by memberships of certain groups.

The final principle important to the sociocultural level of analysis is that world views are resistant to change. This can be seen greatly through attributions. Situational attributions is attributing to situational or external factors and dispositional attributions is attributing to person of internal factors. The one fundamental attribution error is when the role of disposition is overestimated and the affect of the situation is underestimated. This was tested in the Lee et al. Audience and Game show experiment. Participants were split into three groups of audiences, hosts, and contestants. Hosts designed their own questions and the audience was asked to rank the intelligence of the people. They rated the hosts smarter and they failed to attribute the role to the person’s situation, instead to the person performance factors.

KaliiceSociocultural psychology according to psychologist Gordon Allport, is defined as the “discipline that uses scientific methods to help understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced, by the actual, imagined or presence of the other human beings.” In order to understand this form of psychology you must know the four main principles that define it. The first principle is that humans are social animals and have a basic need to belong.This principle follows the concept that we are all social animals and as such we are motivated to have relations with other people. A relationship between an individual and a group is bidirectional. Bidirectional relationships are when the individual is affected by being part of a group or the individual affects the group.

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Another principle is that culture influences behavior. In order to understand this principle the word culture must first be defined. Culture is the set of norms and values that define a society or a group within a society. This principle states that the people shape the culture and are influenced by that culture. The third principle is that humans have social selves or social identities. This principle is based off of “group membership” which is individuality. Individuality is defined as an individual’s social self. Within defining a social self you have the in-group and out-group. This is the concept of us and them and is the bases for levels of judgment and bias. The sense of self depends on the groups that identify with and there are two types of identities, social and personal. The final principle is that people’s world views are very resistant to change. This is the way that the world is understood and is influenced by one’s culture.

Colin Social relationships between ourselves and others are bidirectional, meaning that they affect one another. There are four major principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis. The first is that humans should be considered social animals that have a basic need to belong. A second principle of sociocultural psychology is that culture influences our behavior. The idea that humans form social identities is the third principle. And the final principle is that the way we understand the world is resistant to change. If humans are considered social animals it should be noted we are ones with a sense of self-identity. Our sense of selves depends on what groups we consider ourselves part of. In-groups refers to ones that we associate with. Out-groups are groups that we do not consider ourselves part of. The groups we associate with depend on whether we agree with them or if they share our culture. The traits members of the these groups have are often similar to ours. Sometimes our self identity clashes with our group identity. In High School the clique one belongs to would be considered an example of an in-group.Our need to belong is what urges us to form social relationships in the first place. Throughout our life basic habits and lifelong goals are influenced by the culture we develop in. This culture, passed down for generations, shapes the way we view the world. The reason our world views are so stable is because its what we've been believing much of our life. How are social relationships fit into this world is as much a part of our self-identity as who we percieve ourselves to be.

DominiqueThe Socio-cultural level of analysis is a method by which, psychologist evaluate human behavior in the

context of a social environment; it is defined by a number of different principles. This level of analysis attempts to make the case that behavior is caused by or correlated to social stimulations. The principles that define the socio-cultural level of analysis are that human have a need to belong, that cultures influences behavior, that humans have a social-self, and that peoples view of the world are resistant to change.

The need for belonging is a natural human reaction to the biological and cognitive systems working systematically which causes the embedding of a person into a group. Humans belong to groups of people whom all share interrelationships and each individual can be affected by the groups overall behavior; just as the groups behavior can affect an individual. Thus, the principle of belonging is attributed to the stimulation affects that humans have on group;, along with how a groups behavior acts as a stimulus to a person who belongs to a group. Groups that people can belong to are defined in numerous ways like: race, ethnicity, age, wealth, and or culture.

Another principle of the socio-cultural level of analysis is that culture has an affect on how human beings behave; in other words variations in behavior among a group of people could be correlated to these people belonging to separate cultures. The defining reason that makes this a possibility is the fact that cultures varies across the world and as a result people from different part of the world tend to have contrasting cultures. Culture by definition are the norms and values held by a society so, insight on how it affects behavior can give insight to the socio-cultural level of analysis.

A third principle is the concept of the human “social self”; the ideal that humans can not only have a individual identity but, a social one as well. Celebrity is a form of social self in that celebrities and their behavior negative or positive in nature can have a correlating effect on other people who “belong” to the group

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that idolizes them. The principle of belonging, humans clump in toward figures of high social standing thus becoming apart of a group of fandom, admirers, or idolizers. For example, when a socially relevant celebrity like Michael Jackson dies the people that belong to the group that acts are his fans, admirers, or idolizers reacted in a mournful and sorrowful way as a result.

Alyssa The principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis are that human beings are social animals

with a basic need to “belong”, culture influences behavior, humans have a social self, and that people’s view of the world are resistant to change.

Humans being social animals form relationships between themselves and groups. The relationships between groups and the individual are bidirectional, meaning that the individual is affected by being part of a group and the group’s behavior is affected by the individual. When people observe someone else’s behavior they are more likely to attribute it to dispositional factors that deal with internal factors. The Social Learning theory supports this idea. The theory states that that humans learn behavior though observational learning (watching models and imitating their behavior). Within this theory there are four factors of social learning which are attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation

Humans have a social self because they have an individual and social identity. Our social identities are important to the definition of who we are and behaviors are determined by relationships of groups including family, community, or nationality. Our sense of self is developed within social and cultural contexts.

Culture defined as the norms and values that define society. Culture may help us better understand and appreciate cultural differences. Culture also helps shape our world view. People’s view of the world is resistant to change. A world view is defined as the way the world is understood. This includes how the world is supposed to work, why it does, and what values are essential in the world. Vocabulary:

Attention- Person must pay attention to model Retention- The observer must be able to remember the behavior that has been observed. Motor Reproduction- Observer has to be able to replicate the action. Motivation- Learners must want to demonstrate what they have learned

ImaniThere are four major principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis. These four are that human beings are social animals and have a basic need to belong, that culture influences behavior that human beings have social selves or social ideates and that world views are very resistant to change. The first principle says that human beings are social animals and have a basic need to belong basically speaks to the fact that people are motivated to have important relationships with other people. These social relationships are bidirectional, which means that the society and group influences the individual but the individual also influences the group or society. The second principle states that culture influences behavior; so in turn understanding culture can help the understanding of a behavior. Even though a clear cut definition of culture is hard to define it has been accepted that culture is a set of norms and values that define a society or a group within a society. Therefore if something is of norm in a culture then it could be expected to have certain behaviors associated with it. The third principle is that human beings have social selves or social identities. The social selves reflect in group membership and give rise to what one may personally see ones self as. These social identities lead to bias and judgment, discrimination and also what is "us/in" or "them/out". Examples of the social identities (us/in) could be families, communities, sports, women, students, teachers, etc, or whatever a person views herself apart of. The last principle says that world views are very resistant to change, dragging in the view that once we establish social identities and we belong to certain cultures we create world views and that these views are extremely hard to change. These world views are based off the values of a person, what that person sees as essential, why something works, how something works, etc; all this is affected and caused by the culture that a person is in.

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LO2: Explain how principles that define the sociocultural level of analysis may be demonstrated in research.

LO3: Discuss how and why particular research methods are used at the sociocultural level of analysis

LO4: Discuss ethical considerations related to research studies at the sociocultural level of analysis.

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II. Sociocultural cognition

LO5: Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior.

Hunter Situational factors are factors that have to do with things happening on the outside, external factors. These factors have to do with rewards and punishments. These factors are also usually used when someone is talking about their own behaviors. Saying it's not their fault, whatever's happened has to do with some outside force. For example: I failed the class because my teacher couldn't teach. Basically, situational factors are mainly used when one is not owning up to his or her mistakes or misfortunes. Dispositional factors are factors that are internal. These internal factors may have to do with one's personality and their behaviors.Cross situational consistency is the belief that people act the same way (consistently) in a variety of different situations. This consistency would have to do with traits. For example, if a person is really shy, he or she is expected to be shy in almost every situation they are in. Not all people should be expected to act the same in all situations, for example if there was a funeral of course a person would be shy and quiet and not extremely talkative like they usually might be. Sometimes there are errors in attribution. One error in attribution is the fundamental attribution error. This is when individuals seem to think greater about the told of dispositional factors over situational factors. This means that they blame the situation on internally controlled factors as opposed to what cannot be controlled and what is totally out of theirs hands. This error was studied by Ross in 1977. This study used college students to determine whether they would make the error when they knew actors were acting on a game show. After being asked to rank people (the audience, contestants, or the host) in intelligence, the students still picked the host, even though the host was just an actor and had written questions himself.

AlyssaAttribution is defined as the process of how people interpret and explain behavior. There are two factors of

attribution, situational and dispositional. Situational attributions occur when a behavior is attributed to a situation or other external factors such as weather. Dispositional attributions occur when a behavior is attributed to personal or internal factors such as emotions.In the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1973 Zimbardo aimed to prove that situational factors can affect behavior. In this experiment 22 males were randomly assigned to roles, either as a warden or as a prisoner. The prisoners signed a consent document that some of their human rights will be suspended for the experiment. The prisoners stayed in the prison for 24 hours a day, followed a work schedule, rest and meal. The wardens worked 8 hours a day in the prison. They were asked by the experimenters to keep a reasonable extent of order and were banned to use physical violence.

The 14 day experiment ended in only 6 days because of it affected the participants. Experiment was terminated in 6 days, instead of the intended 14 days due to abnormal reactions shown by both prisoners and wardens. The wardens displayed enjoyment of abusing their power which led to abusive towards the prisoners. The prisoners were inactive and showed signs of depression, crying, rage, severe anxiety. The experimenters believed that these behaviors were results of the loss of personal identity, dependency and learned helplessness.

The results of the experiment showed that the prison (situation) affected all of the participant’s behavior.

Taylor When describing behavior there are either situational or dispositional attributions that influence or result in that

behavior. An attribution is the method in which people interpret or explain the relationships of the social world. The attribution theory can be traced to the 1958 writing of Fritz Heider in The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Behavioral attributions depend on whether the behavior being performed is performed by themselves or if the behavior being performed is not being carried out by themselves but instead is being observed. This is called the actor-observer effect.

A dispositional cause is a caused that is based on an individual’s internal beliefs, attitude, or personality—known as a dispositional attribution/ factor. A situational cause is based on external experiences; this is known as a situational attribution/ factor. In 1968 Mischel stated that behavior is dependant on the situation that occurs and that behavior is not constant across studies. There is also a tendency to behave in a certain way when faced with a similar situation—this is a dispositional trait.

Behaviors that may cause someone to create situational attributions could be like those of a date running late for dinner; the date who is present and awaiting the date to arrive could make excuses as to why he or she is running late. In

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the same case scenario, dispositional attributions would be those like “he does not have a heart” or “he has no sense of time”.

KarlSituational and dispositional factors are the factors of attribution when it comes to explaining behavior. Attribution is the process of interpreting and explaining behavior and also explains why people do not passively observe their own and other’s actions. The actor-observer effect also plays a major role which is when people attribute behavior whether they perform it themselves or observe others doing it. The two main factors of attributions are situational which is attributing to situational or external factors while dispositional is attributing to personal or internal factors.

The Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo worked to prove that situational factors can affect behavior. 22 males were selected and randomly assigned to take either the roles of the prisoners or the wardens. The prisoners were arrested by real police and stayed in a fake prison, the wardens put on costumes, worked 8 hour days and were asked to keep order. Many prisoners faced passivity and dependence, experimenters proposed that this was due to the loss of personal identity, dependency and learned helplessness. The wardens enjoyed the power at their disposal many times leading to aggression, but not in all cases.

Another study done on explaining behavior was Asch’s Paradigm Experiment on conformity. The aim was to investigate the existence of conformity. Subjects were selected and placed into a room with 6 confederates and the experimenter. The subjects were deceived that the confederates were other participants and then asked questions, answering second to last out of the group. Confederates were instructed to answer correctly on some questions and incorrectly on others. The study found that 75% conformed to atleast one wrong answer, 32% conformed to more than half of the wrong answers and 24% did not conform at all.

Emily Dispositional factors are internal factors such as beliefs, attitudes, and personalities. Situational factors on the other hand are external factors such as an accident or an event. Situational factors are typically used when describing one’s own behavior. Cross-situational is when one’s personality is often defined as traits (disposition to behave a certain way in a number of situations). One can’t predict the specific behavior (trait) in a specific situation but it can be generalized. The fundamental attribution error is when people rely more on the role of dispositional factors rather than the situational factors. The self-serving bias is when people take credit for their successes and attribute them to dispositional factors and then attribute their failures to situational factors.

In 1980, Lau and Russel studied the self-serving bias with a football team. The findings of the study were that football players and coaches tend to attribute their wins to dispositional (internal) factors such as a lot of practice or natural abilities. They tend to attribute their losses to situational (external) factors such as the weather or injuries.

Greenberg et al. argued in 1982 that we use the self-serving bias in order to protect our pride and self esteem. By attributing our successes to dispositional factors we boost our self esteem and attributing our failures to situational factors, or things that we can’t control, we are protecting our self-esteem.

MeganIn behavior, situational and dispositional factors have different roles. A situational factor is the attribution of certain behaviors to factors that related to a certain situation or environment. Basically, when people act a certain way, they blame it on the circumstances. Situational factors are influenced by external factors, not caused by an individual. Conversely, dispositional factors are based on internal factors like personality.

The fundamental attribution error is an error in attribution where the individual overestimates the role of dispositional over situational factors. In 1977, Ross et al studied this phenomenon. Their aim was to determine if student participants would make the fundamental attribution error even when they knew all the actors were acting. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a game show host, contestants, or audience members. After enacting the scenario, audience members were asked to rank the most intelligent, and they consistently ranked the host as the most intelligent despite the fact they knew the person had been randomly assigned and wrote the questions themselves. The fundamental attribution error occurred because the audience members failed to attribute the hosts’ “intelligence” to the situation.

There are some limitations to the study however. The participant sample was a bit biased in the sense that they used college students who spend the majority of their time listening to professors who are seen as authority figures. The host is similar to their professors so it cannot be determined whether or not the audience ranked the host as more intelligent because of the fundamental attribution error or because it was a learned response to an authority figure who

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asks questions. Plus, the sample size is not representative of the general population therefore, the results are hard to apply on a larger scale.

KaliiceAttributions are how we infer causes of behavior and events. Two types of attribution are situational and dispositional and the roles of these on behavior differ. Situational attributions are the cause that we view as external factors that are beyond one’s control. An example of this is when you blame the fact that you failed a test on the weather. Dispositional attributions however are those that are viewed as internal factors. This is when personal factors impact actions and behavior.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, participants, who were all male, were asked to act as guards or as prisoners. The study was cut short because of the extremes of different situations that happened. Many say that this study was unethical, the participants who were guards abused the ones that were prisoners. There was extreme stress on both the prisoners and the guards. However the researchers themselves claimed that it was ethical. They said that the participants were informed of all the potential conditions, that the participants could have dropped out anytime, and that the debriefing processes were very detailed. This study deals with both situational and dispositional attributions.

Another factor of these attributions are the five-factor theory. This was presented by McCrae and Costa in 1999. This theory suggests that there are five main factors that determine one’s personality. The factors are neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness. Critics of this theory either believe that there are not enough traits or that there are too many.

JarrenFritz Heider defined the term attribution in his Attribution Theory as how people interpret and explain causal relationships within the social world. Meaning, it is how we gather information and combine it to form judgements. Within this theory, there are internal and external attributions. Internal attributions (dispositional - beliefs, attitudes, personality) are used when we attempt to explain the behavior of others, whereas external attributions (situational) are used when we attempt to explain our own behavior. There are two main errors in attributions, the fundamental attribution error and self serving bias.

The fundamental attribution error occurs when one overestimates the roles of dispositional factors and underestimate the roles of situational factors in relation to an individual's behavior. This often leads to illogical conclusions. We look at ourselves in a better light as if we can easily adapt in situations; therefore, we often look at people in other situations and assume we would’ve done things differently. Because of this, the fundamental attribution theory is so common.

Self serving bias (SSB) occurs when people take credit for their successes, attributing them to dispositional factors, but dissociate selves from their failures, attributing them to situational factors. In more basic terms, when we succeed, we succeed due to personal achievements, but when we fail, we fail due to external factors out of our control. In 1982, Greenberg et al. found that SSB is commonly used to protect ones own self esteem; however, years earlier in 1975, Miller and Ross found that SSB existed because we as individuals often expect to succeed.

PrincessThis response will describe the role of situational and disposition factors in explaining behavior.

Dispositional attribution is the cause of behavior to an internal factor. This is behavioral. The situational attribution is the cause of behavior to an external factor. This is social. Cross-situational consistency, behavior stability and traits are key components as well. The traits are basically the causes of a person's disposition to behave in one particular way over the others. The five-factor theory of personality is used to help explain behavior as well. The five factors it lists are: neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experiences.

One behavioral experiment was from 1971. It is the Stanford Prison Experiment which took place in the psychology lab at Stanford college. A mock prison was created and half the participants, college students, acted as guards and half as prisoners. There was no control group with the same pre/post assessments. Some ethical concerns were raised. It caused severe suffering; the guards were under much stress. The consent form contains no information about a surprise arrest.

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However, the participants were informed that their civil rights would be infrared. There was also extensive debriefing. It was completely open for outsiders to suspect, therefore the participants' parents were more than welcome to observe.

LO6: Discuss two errors in attributions

HannahWhen discussing errors in attribution, one has to first understand what attribution is. Heider and Simmel (1944) were some of the first individuals to work with the theory of attribution in psychology. They found that individuals strive to have an understanding of the way the world works. In order to harness this knowledge, people try to explain why people act the way they do and why situations turn out the way they do (attribution). Two factors that people use when engaged in the process of attribution are situational and dispositional factors. Situational factors are aspects that cannot be controlled by an individual and are also referred to sometimes as external factors. Dispositional factors, or internal factors, are the parts of each individual that make them who they are by how they act. There are two main errors in attribution: fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias.

The fundamental attribution error (FEA) can be described as an individual’s tendency to overestimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when attempting to explain another individual’s behavior. As humans, we tend to blame behaviors on dispositional factors more often than situational factors. For example, imagine you are driving down the street and someone cuts you off; are you more likely to think they are bad drivers (dispositional) or probably just had a bad day at work (situational)? In addition, depending on our mood at any given time, the way in which we attribute situational or dispositional factors may vary.

Jones and Harris (1967) conducted a study in which participants were asked to read an essay on the topic of Fidel Castro. There were two conditions; one group had the choice on writing for or against Castro and the other group was assigned which side to take. After reading the essays, participants were asked to guess the attitude of the writer on Castro. The participants opted to dispositional explanations in both conditions saying that what the individuals wrote on is what they truly believed. The participants did not take into account the situational factor that one condition had no choice about what they wrote.

Strengths of the fundamental attribution error include the following. The FEA promotes some insight and understanding of how common world errors are made when explaining behaviors. Also, the FEA theory is supported by numerous research studies. Conversely, the FEA theory is culturally biased in that too much focus in on individualistic societies and not collectivist societies. Also, most studies on the FEA are conducted in laboratory settings and therefore ecological validity has to be called into question.

The other main error in attribution is self-serving bias (SSB). SSB is a self-enhancing strategy in which individuals take dispositional credit for success, but blame failure on situational factors. The SSB is commonly exhibited because when performed, it increases the individual’s self-esteem. Lou and Russell (1980) observed commentary of sports teams which supported the SSB. When the team won, they attributed their win to dispositional factors such as hard work and perseverance; and when they lost, they attributed the loss to situational factors such as the clock running out of time or bad calls made. Duval and Sylvia (2002) found that if individuals believe they can improve in the future, they may attribute their failure to dispositional factors.

Two sub-sets of self-serving bias are self-handicapping and modesty bias. Self-handicapping occurs when people make attributions about a situation before it happens. For example, a student going into a test may say they are going to fail for sure because they are hung-over. Modesty bias is most commonly seen when collectivist societies are modest and attribute failures to dispositional factors and attribute success based on the actions of their entire group.

Attributions may be exhibited by individuals in an unconscious manner. These attributions may be spot on but there is a likelihood that one of the two main errors has been committed. Although both errors in attribution have numerous studies to support their theory, limitations come with each.

ChuckThere are two errors in attribution. The first is the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) and the second if the Self-Serving Bias (SSB). The FAE is when people overestimate the role of dispositional factors in an individual’s behavior. This is very common because a lot of people think that they are very eclectic and vast, when they are really not. A lot of the things that happens to them is situational. SSB is when a person tales credit for his or her success and blames his or her

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failure on someone or something else, situational factors. SSB was studied by Lau and Russel when interviewing football players and coaches. Many of the players said that a good game or victory was because they did well. However, loses and mistakes were due to uncontrollable factors like the weather.

JolieThe attribution theory proposes that people are more likely to attribute – how people interpret and explain causal relationships in the social world- another person’s behavior to dispositional factors. For example, if you see a person spills the food he was carrying, you would more likely to explain that he spills the food because he is clumpy (dispositional factor) rather than because he trips over a wire (situational factor). Culture plays an important role in attribution; collectivist cultures tend to emphasize attribution to the family of an individual, whereas in individualist countries, behaviors are often attributed to the individual. The attribution theory leads to the fundamental attribution error, which takes place when people overestimate the role of dispositional factors in an individual’s behavior and underestimate the situational factors. The fundamental attribution error might be explained by the notion that people do not often have enough information about others so they attribute others’ behaviors to dispositional factors. On the other hand, they attribute their own behaviors toward situational factors because they tend to believe that they act differently under different circumstances. Another attribution error is self-serving bias, when people credit their successes to dispositional factors and their failures to situational factors in order to protect our self-esteem. A study by Lau and Russel in 1982 provides support for self-serving bias when the football coaches attribute their wins to internal factors and their losses to external factors. Miller and Ross provided another explanation for the self-serving bias in their study in 1975. They proposed that expectations to succeed at a task lead us to attribute failures to externals factors we could not control. Culture also affects self-serving bias; collective countries tend to have less self-serving bias than individualistic ones. Kashima and Triandis (1986) found that cultural differences also lead to modesty bias, in which western students often attribute their successes to their ability whereas eastern students attribute their failures to their ability.

ImaniAn attribution is the way we assign a cause to a behavior; these attributions can be either situational or dispositional. Dispositional attributions are internal factors/causes: behaviors based off mood, personality, beliefs, attitude, etc. While situational attributions are external factors/causes: behaviors that happened because of rewards or punishments, social norms, rules, legal constricts, or something similar.

Heider and Simmel's 1944 study used the movement of geometric shapes to describe their theory of attributions: that humans are rational and analytical beings who seek to understand behavior to form a more coherent view of the world and to gain control of their environment. The study showed a moving picture film of three geometric figures and a stationary figure: a sphere, a large triangle, a small triangle and a rectangle with a door and asked participants to describe what they saw. The results were that only one participant described the movement of the shapes as geometric objects while the rest of the participants made up some type of story to describe the movement of the shapes: calling the shapes animals or people, saying the shapes went to the store, opened the door, or the like. This study shows human intention and motivation in seeking to explain behavior of others, themselves and everyday happenings (the basic definition of attributions).

There are two main attribution errors: the fundamental attribution error (FAE) and the self-serving bias (SSB). The FAE is the tendency to over estimate dispositional attributions and underestimate situational attributions when explaining the behavior of others. The SSB is the self enhancing strategy and refers to peoples' tendency to evaluate themselves positively (dispositional attributions) and blame failure on situational attributions. The SSB view is seen as to uphold self-esteem, especially since no one wants to see themselves as failures.

One study that tried to support the FAE view is the Ross et al study of 1977. The Ross et al 1977 study just tried to support the fact that people rely heavily on dispositional attributions rather than taking into consideration the situational attributions. The aim of the study was to investigate how knowledge of social roles would affect the judgment of peoples' expertise in a quiz let game. The study took a group of participants and set them into 18 pairs; chose randomly one person from the pair who became the "questioner" and the other the "contestant". The questioner was to chose ten questions they knew the answers to, they would ask the contestant the question, give thirty seconds to answer and then if no answer was given or the wrong answer the questioner would give the right answer. The spectators, the questioners and the contestants were asked to rate the general knowledge of the questioners and the contestants. The results showed that even though all

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three groups knew the procedures and that the questioners made up the questions based off their own knowledge, the questioners were ranked at a higher general knowledge level than the contestants. So even though there were strong situational factors people based it off of dispositional factors.

A few studies that tried to support the SSB view was the Lau and Russell 1980 study, the Bernstein 1979 study and the Johnson 1964 study. The Lau and Russell 1980 study was a simple study that aimed to support the SSB view. It showed professional athletes and coaches research that 80% of the time said that their success was due to their own personal strength, ambition, training, etc, while on the other hand losses were due to the refs, the lighting, unusual surroundings, or things of the like that point to situational attributions instead of blaming themselves. The Bernstein 1979 study dealt with children success or failure in school. Studies showed that the students said that good grades were because of their own intelligence, hard work, dedication (dispositional factors) and those usually bad grades were because of bad teaching, bad test days and other situational attributions. The last study was the Johnson 1964; using undergraduate psychology students and small children; the students were to try to teach the children how to multiply through phases and intercom teaching instead of face to face. The students would teach the pupils and then have them do worksheets. Pupil A had multiplication worksheets that was set up to help them out, Pupil B first work sheet was set up so they did poorly while the second worksheet helped them to show improvement. The results were that the students teaching Pupil B always blamed the child's failure on their lack to learn and so the pupil did poorly while when the child showed improvement they said it was due to their good teaching skills.

Colin Two errors that occur in attribution are the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias. In a 1994 study, Heider and Simmel, concluded that people are driven by two needs. One is to understand the world around oneself and the other is to control it. Attribution involves applying qualities to dispositional or situational factors.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for us to overestimate dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when describing others. A study used to support this error is Jones and Harris (1967). Participants were asked to read essays on Fidel Castro that either supported or critiqued him. The participants were told one group of writers got to choose whether to support or critique, and the second group of writers was assigned a choice. Participants were asked to distinguish which were sincere or not and all participants believed they were all sincere.

A second attribution error would be the self-serving bias. This is the idea that we apply positive attributes to dispositional factors and negative attributes to situational factors. In a study in 1980 by Lau and Russell students attributed test success to dispositional factors. In a study by Johnson in 1969, students blamed failure on tests on teachers while teachers blame kids for failing tests. Both studies support the idea that we blame negative things that happen to us on others.

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LO7: Evaluate social identity theory, making reference to relevant studies.

HannahThe Social Identity Theory (SIT) may be described as ways in which individuals categorize and perceive themselves in terms of society. SIT can be broken down into four main concepts. These four parts include: social identity, social categorization, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Social identity is separate from personal identity in that we refer to ourselves in terms of a team and the way in which we associate with different groups. Social categorization is the aspect of an in-group (us) as opposed to an out-group (them). Some statements that capture social categorizations are “we are similar to one another”, “they are all the same”, and “we are different from them”. Social comparison plays a part because individuals strive for a positive identity. We may compare our in-groups with relative out-groups. Positive distinctiveness can be described as our motivation to show that our in-group is different from the out-group, making us unique. Sometimes positive distinctiveness leads groups to believe that they are better than one another. Also, a subtopic of Social Identity Theory is ethnocentrism. In ethnocentrism, in-group’s positive actions are stated as being dispositional, whereas negative actions are the result of situational factors. Out-group’s positive achievements, conversely, said as results of situation and negative actions are dispositional.

Henri Tajfel et al. (1971) formulated the Minimum Group Paradigm which aimed to explain the behaviors of individuals within a group. In the experiment, British school boys were separated into two groups. The individuals were assigned to each group at random, but the boys did not know this fact. They thought they were placed in a group based on the preference for Klee or Kandsinsky art. The boys, in the experiment, were instructed to distribute points among their group and the other group. The results showed that the boys gave their own group as many points possible in order to give the other groups as little amount of points possible. These results showed an in-group favoritism correlation. As a side note, the effect of Tajfel’s theory showed to be stronger when positive awards were given, such as money and points; but weaker when punishment had to be distributed.

Strengths of the Social Identity Theory include the following: SIT is highly supported by numerous studies, it helps accentuate the distinction between personal and social selves, and it helps to provide much insight when attempting to explain behaviors. A weakness that the Social Identity Theory has is that it reduces the impact and significance of the self-esteem hypothesis.

JarrenTajfel’s social identity theory shows that a person has not just one “personal self,” but several selves assumes that everyone strives to improve their own self-image by attempting to enhance their self-esteem, based either on their personal identity or various social identities. Within this, there are a number of terms/ideas one must know and understand to fully grasp this theory, including social categorization, social identity, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Social categorization and social identity go hand in hand in that social identity is how we identify ourselves in relation to others and social categorization is the actual classification of people into groups based on their common attributes. Both ideas help lead to the formation of in and out groups. It is the issue of one group feeling more superior than a lesser, inferior group. An understandable example would be the typical Hollywood relationship between “jocks” and “nerds.” In this example, jocks feel quite exceptional compared to lowly nerds because of their social comparison (how we evaluate our thoughts and actions by comparing them to those of others). Social comparison offers the benefits of belonging to an ingroup versus an outgroup. Within this social comparison, there is a strive for a positive self-concept, as demonstrated by Turner and Tajfel in 1986. Meaning, individuals seek to achieve positive self-esteem by positively differentiating their ingroup (the jocks) from an outgroup (the nerds). This leads to the conclusion that people’s sense of who they are is often times defined in terms of ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. In 1976, Cialdini et al. showed the concept of social comparison and postive distinctiveness in his study of college football fans. He found that after successful games, fans were more likely to be seen wearing their team’s clothing. Like wise, after a lost, fans were less likely to be seen wearing their team’s clothing. This proves that our need for a positive self-concept often results in a bias towards anything your group, the “ingroup,” represents.

PrincessThe social identity theory was developed by a psychologist named Tajfel. It relates to inter-group behaviors. There are three components to this theory including: social categorization, social identity and social comparison and positive distinctiveness.

The social categorization refers to in-groups, which are the "us" and "we," and the out-groups, which are the "them." It

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can serve two purposes. One, it reduces a perceived difference in the "in" and "out" groups. Basically that we are all the same. Second, it increases the perceived difference. This is to say that "they" are different, therefore not "us." Next, the social identity component is rather simple. It relates to inter-groups.

The last component of the SIT is social comparison and positive distinctiveness. This shows that our particular in-group is superior to another. It contains an in-group serving bias. The situational factors can be one of two things, either negative behaviors in the in-group or positive behaviors with the out-group.

The Tajfel study of 1971 resulted in the minimum group paradigm. Within the study, some number of British school boys were divided into two separate groups. Tajfel found that the boys showed favor of members of their group rather than the out-group. In 1973, Billing and Tajfel kind of "recreated" the original study with different participants. Their results were very similar to those of the 1971 study. They found in-group favoritism, a dislike of the out-group and a positive distinctiveness.

There are strengths and limitations to the social identity theory. One of the strengths are that it supported many other studies. It also drew a distinction between personality and social identity. A couple of limitations were that self-esteem was neglected to be evaluated in this theory; also, there were social identity differences.

Kaliice The social identity theory was presented by psychologist Henry Tajfel. In order to understand this theory, you must first understand its main points. Social identity is the way of identifying yourself with a certain group based on their norms. This has to do with culture expectations and belongingness.

Social categorization is the relationship between the in-group and the out- group, which is also know as the us and them. This relationship reduces a preserved difference in the in-group and also the out-group. This means that it justifies that everyone in the group is just the same and everyone in the other group are just the same. It also increases the perceived difference. This point justifies that there are nothing like us because we are completely different.

Social comparison and positive distinctiveness are also other points to the social identity theory. Social comparison is the comparison of the in-group with members of the out-group, while looking for benefits to be in the in-group that helps boost their self esteem. Positive distinctiveness is using cues to make your social group more valued and creating a more positive meaning for your group.

Henry Tajfel’s experiment in 1971 showed the formation and the features of the social identity theory. He assigned 48 British school boy into two groups based on their preference between Klee or Kandinsky’s art work. He then asked to rate in-group and out-group based on their like-ability. He found that the out-group was rated less likeable but was never disliked. Tajfel notices that there seemed to be a preference of the in-group over the out-group. It was discovered that social identity does not account for intergroup conflict. The social identity theory was presented by psychologist Henry Tajfel. In order to understand this theory, you must first understand its main points. Social identity is the way of identifying yourself with a certain group based on their norms. This has to do with culture expectations and belongingness.

Social categorization is the relationship between the in-group and the out- group, which is also know as the us and them. This relationship reduces a preserved difference in the in-group and also the out-group. This means that it justifies that everyone in the group is just the same and everyone in the other group are just the same. It also increases the perceived difference. This point justifies that there are nothing like us because we are completely different.

Social comparison and positive distinctiveness are also other points to the social identity theory. Social comparison is the comparison of the in-group with members of the out-group, while looking for benefits to be in the in-group that helps boost their self esteem. Positive distinctiveness is using cues to make your social group more valued and creating a more positive meaning for your group.

Henry Tajfel’s experiment in 1971 showed the formation and the features of the social identity theory. He assigned 48 British school boy into two groups based on their preference between Klee or Kandinsky’s art work. He then asked to rate in-group and out-group based on their like-ability. He found that the out-group was rated less likeable but was never disliked. Tajfel notices that there seemed to be a preference of the in-group over the out-group. It was discovered that social identity does not account for intergroup conflict.

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CharlesSocial Identity Theory (SIT) was theorized by Henry Tajfel. SIT proposes that people want to improve their personal self-image, and they do this by increasing self-esteem, and that is done by building a personal and social identity. Building a social identity means being associated with “in-groups” and feeling as if you belong somewhere. However, when a person becomes part of an in-group, they begin to feel superior to others, the out-groups. By socially comparing themselves to the others, the person will tend to discriminate against the out-groups. This theory was tested by Henry Tajfel in 1971. Tajfel divided boys based on their perceived preference between Kandinsky and Klee, two artists. When the boys were separated, they were asked to evaluate the likability of their group and the other group. Results showed that the boys rated their group as more likeable and the other group as less likable. On the plus side, SIT is a comprehensive way of understanding human behavior. However, it does not predict human behavior. Also, it does not take into account cultural expectations, the effect of the “self”.

Taylor The social identity theory presupposes that individuals attempt to make themselves look better by enhancing their self-esteem based on social or personal identities. The bases of the social identity theory (SIT) is byway of a cognitive process called social categorization. Social categorization distinguishes groups between the in-group and out-group. The in-group defines the “us”, whereas, the out-group defines the “them”. The significance of social categorization reduces the variability of in-group, reduces the variability of out-group, and it also perceives the differences of the in-group from the out-group and vice versa.

It is believe that individuals strive for positive social identities as a result of compassion. Positive distinctiveness is the result of compassion. This is where the in-group is more relevant and presumed as more positive than the out group. Social comparison is the critical analysis of the benefits of being in an in-group versus an out-group. A potential limitation of positive distinctiveness and social comparison is in-group serving bias. In-group serving bias is when an in-group views the effects of a negative situation as being affected by situational factor and positive situations as being affected by dispositional factors. Whereas, in an out-group the negative effects are due to dispositional factors and positive effects are a result of situational factors.

Henri Tajfel conducted a study in 1971 in which British males were separated into two groups randomly and were asked to complete a task. The name of the study was The Minimum Group Paradigm. Participants had to distribute points to both members of an in-group and an out-group. Tajfel found that as a result four major behaviors were displayed: there was identification within a group; group favoritism; out group discrimination; and positive distinctiveness. There are many strengths and limitation to the social identity theory (SIT). Some strengths of SIT are that it is well supported due to its ability to be replicated and its validity, and that it draws a distinction between personality and social identities. A couple limitations are that self-esteem is no longer essential to the social identity theory, and that individual differences affect social identity differences.

ColinThe social identity theory by Henri Tajfel is the idea that a person tries to improve their self-image by associating themselves with different groups. Social categorization is when an individual associates themselves with an ingroup (us) or doesn’t associate themselves with an outgroup (them). A social identity is involves how an individual reflects certain aspects of the in-group they consider themselves a part of. An individual constantly compares and contrasts the groups they consider themselves a part of.

An aspect of the social identity theory is positive distinctness where an individual favors members of their group. In Tajfel’s (1973) minimal group paradigm experiment a group of boys were assigned to groups based on whether they prefered the art of Kandinsky or Klein. The kids then graded members within their group and members that weren’t. The kids gave higher grades to members within their group showing a preference for them. This is because they believed themselves to be similar in attitude and behavior.

An individuals self-esteem is maintained by social comparison, which compares the benefits of belonging to the ingroup versus the outgroup. The outcome of these comparisons alters our self esteem. In an observational study Cialdini et al (1976) noticed that college football supporters were more likely to wear college insignia when they won then when they lost. We want to have a positive concept of ourselves.

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LO8: Explain the formation of stereotypes and their effect on behavior.

DominiqueThere are many different theories of how stereotypes form; such as the two this essay will address. Social cognitive theories and the concept of a social identity are two theories psychologists who study the socio-cultural level of analysis have found in the behavior of humans. In reference to the development of stereotypes, social cognitive theories state that they are -creation of mind to better process the information and stimuli that the vast world has to offer. Humans according to the theory can only take in a certain amount of information; to much would cause an overload in the brain so, it automatically create general definition or stereotypes for stimuli based on very general information about it. Social Identity theory then also states that humans form stereotypes based on the generalized stimuli created by groups of people. The stereotype is created off of very little information that may or may not apply to the whole of a group of people. For example, artists are stereotypically eccentric and flamboyant which is the exception for people like Wolfgang Mozart or Lady Gaga but, this doesn’t apply to artist like Antonio Salieri and Frank Sinatra.

JolieStereotypes are generalizations about a group and all members of the group. Stereotype can be automatically activated and resistant to change. It can also affect behavior as shown by Cohen (1971). In the study, two groups of participants are shown a video of a woman eating dinner. The researchers inforned one group that the woman was a waitress and the other group she was a librarian. When the participants were asked to recall the video, the waitress group said the woman was drinking beer, whereas the library group thought she was wearing glasses. The study, thus, demonstrates that stereotypes can influence memory.According to Campbell (1967), stereotypes are formed from personal experiences with individual and groups and from gatekeepers- the media, parents, and other members of one’s culture. Hamilton and Gifford (1976), however, argue that stereotypes are caused by illusory correlation, when people see a relationship between two variables even though they are not relation. This lead to false associations between memberships of a social group and specific behaviors. Augustino (2006) proposed that stereotypes are formed to simplifying information process, to increase efficiency of the process, and to avoid information overload. Jost (1994), on the other hand, suggests that stereotypes are used to justify the power and social relations in society.Whether they are formed for cognitive or social purposes, stereotypes can affect individuals through what is known as stereotype threat, which occurs when an individual is in a situation where there is a threat of being judged or treated stereotypically or a fear of doing something that would confirm the stereotype. Steele and Aronson (1995) demonstrated this idea through a study in which they told a group of participants a test of verbal abilities and another group a test of problem solving skils though both tests are the same. The results showed that in the first group, African American participants scored lower than European American participants and in the second group, both the African and European American participants scored similarly. This thus shows that stereotype threat can affect an individual’s performance.

Emily The social identity theory consists of four parts: social categorization, social identity, social comparison, and positive distinctiveness. Social categorization divides the environment into in-groups (us and we) and out-groups (them). Social categorization reduces perceived variability within the in-group and increases perceived variability within the out-group. Social identity is the perception of inter-group behaviors. Social comparison is continuously comparing in and out groups. It is fueled by positive distinctiveness, in order to show an in-group positively compared to an out-group. Stereotypical thinking is when in-groupers and out-groupers act according to stereotypes. Ethnocentricism is an in-group serving bias, saying things like “they won because they got lucky” rather than skill. In-group favoritism is when the in-group is favored over the out-group. The minimum group defines groups on an arbitrary activity such as tossing a coin, however, the members never meet.

Tajfel’s study in 1971 divided a number of British school boys randomly. They believed that they were divided based on opinion of activities. The boys in the group favored members of their in-groups. The boys had a strategy that resulted in positive distinctiveness.

Billing and Tajfel’s study of 1973 was similar to the one in 1971 although the participants were told explicitly that they were randomly assigned. The four resulting behaviors were identification within the in-group, in-group favoritism, out-group discrimination, and positive distinctiveness. The criticism of Hogg and Tajfel in 2008 was that participants might be responding to demand characteristics; however, it appeared

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The strengths of the SIT are that it has been supported by hundreds of studies. It improved the social role of social categorization. It has helped to define distinctions between personality and social identity. The SIT has contributed to a long list of explanations of social psychological phenomenons. The SIT also explains intergroup conflict. Weaknesses of the SIT are that the self-esteem hypothesis is not related and individual differences do affect social identity unlike prior thinking.

AlyssaA stereotype is a cognitive process where people categorize others on mental picture that represents them based

on looks, age, sex, and race. Mental pictures of others can be generalized, prejudiced, or unfair judgments, which can be either positive or negative. Behaviors of socio-cultural groups and/or individuals are where stereotypes are held, which determine a certain image of particular group. Researchers now explain stereotyping as a result of schema processing.

Campbell (1967) argues that there are two main sources to stereotypes. These sources are personal experiences with others and gatekeepers. Campbell’s gain of truth hypothesis argues that individual experience with another person from a group will then be generalized to the group. This hypothesis backs up the idea that stereotypes have basis in some reality.

Hamilton and Gifford (1976) argue that stereotypes are the result of illusory correlation. The illusory correlation causes people to over-estimate the connection between two variables. Then people tend to remember information that is relevant to the relationship they see between two variables. This is an example of conformation bias because the person overlooks information that challenges what they believe, thus making stereotypes resistant to change. Stereotypes can also be formed by conforming to an in-group’s social representation of an out-group. When a person conforms to an in-group they adopt the social expectations that are dominant in that group.

Gatekeepers: the media, parents, and other members of our culture Illusory correlation: people see a relationship between two variables even when there is none.

MeganStereotypes are widely held evaluating generalizations about a group of people. It assigns characteristics to all members of the group, despite individual characteristics. It is very similar to a schema, but it is slightly different in that it is based on obvious characteristics. It is a form of social categorization that affects the behavior of those who hold the stereotype and those who are labeled by a stereotype.

There are a few theories to how stereotypes are formed. Campbell (1967) contends that there are two main sources of stereotypes: personal interaction with people, and gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are things like the media, parents and family, and other people of our culture. His grain of truth hypothesis states that an experience with an individual from a group will then be generalized to the group because he argues that stereotypes have some basis in reality. His theory has been criticized because attribution errors are commonly made.

Conversely, Hamilton and Gifford (1976) state that stereotypes are the result an illusory correlation. And illusory correlation is when people see a relationship between two variables when there isn’t one, like when people make an assumption about women’s inferior ability to do things like math and science. Synder and Swann conducted a study in 1978 in which they told female college students that they would meet a person who was either intro or extroverted. They were asked to form questions, and the questions they asked confirmed their perceptions. The researchers concluded that the questions that were formed confirmed the participant’s stereotypes of the type of people they met.

KarlThroughout the field of psychology there are several theories that explain the formation of stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalized images of a social group that are in most cases oversimplified and based on assumptions. The Grain of truth hypothesis says that stereotypes must originate from some kind of truth in order to create the assumption. They may also be overlooking factors that might disprove one’s belief and over exaggerating factors of another point of view. Social categorization also plays a role which is when you categorize yourself to an in-group and identify the out-group.

Stereotypes assign similar characteristics to all members of a group, despite the fact that group members may vary widely from one another. Stereotypes are in a way extremely similar to schemas. According to Augoustinos et al. (2006) a stereotype is a schema, with all the properties of schemas.

Hamilton and Gifford 1976 did a study on illusory correlation which is what they believe to form stereotypes. Illusory correlation is when we see the relationship one expects between two variables even though it does not exist. The

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experiment carried out by Hamilton and Gifford tested the illusory correlation theory by asking participants to read desirable and undesirable trait adjective about the members of one majority group and one minority group. They found that this does demonstrate illusory correlation because there was no association between the traits and the group memberships.

There is also the idea of stereotype threat which is when the performance of an individual is affected if they are being discriminated against due to stereotyping. Spencer et al. (1999) demonstrated the effect of stereotype threat by giving women a math test and included the stereotype that women are less capable in math. The results were indeed that the women significantly underperformed compared to men with the same abilities.

HunterA stereotype is a defined social perception of an individual in terms of group membership and physical attributes (Crane, 108). Throughout psychology's existence there have been several theories of stereotypes and how they are, in fact, formed. In 1967, Campbell said that there were two key sources of stereotypes. The first key was that stereotypes are formed due to a personal experience. An example of this would be how a particular person is portrayed on the television or how a person talks about another. The second key is a personal experience with an individual or a group of people. These theories are often criticized because there are several chances for attribution error to occur. Another couple of theorists, Hamilton and Gifford in 1976, said that stereotypes are the result of illusionary correlation. This means that people often make up relationships between two things. This is like associating a group of people with specific behaviors. This is a perfect example of cognitive bias (errors in judgment based on cognitive factors). Another easy stereotypes can appear is when classifying in groups and out groups. In 1962, Rogers and Frantz did an experiment which found that white immigrants to Rhodesia, Zimbabwe developed more stereotypes against local people the longer they were there.

III. Social norms19

LO9: Explain social learning theory, making reference to two relevant studies.

JolieThe social learning theory proposes that humans learn behavior through observation learning, which is learning through observing models and imitating their behavior. Most of the time, models affect behavior indirectly becausey they are not trying to influence behavior but sometimes models can also affect behavior directly. In order to successfully learn through observation, four cognitive factors are in required: motivation (the desire to demonstrate what they have learned), attention (paying attention to the model), retention (behavior of the model must be properly coded and stored), and ability (learner has to be able to replicate the action). Unlike the other three components, motivation can be influeced by other factors including: social efficacy (people’s own belief in their ability to perform a task; the higher the social efficacy, the more motivation there is), consistency (if the behavior is consistently repeated across situations, the learners would be more motivated to imitate), identification with the model (people tend to learn from those that are more similiar to themselves), vicarious rewards/punishments (people can learn from observing the consequences of an action instead of experiencing those consequences themselves; vicarious rewards increase the probability for people to imitate a task), and liking the model (the more approachable the model is, the better the chances that model will be imitated).In a study by Bandura in 1961, the researchers showed a group of children a video of an adult acting aggressively toward a Bobo doll under three different conditions. In the first condition, the adult was rewarded by another doll for his/her agressive act. In the second condition, the adult was punished by another for his/her violence. In the third condition, which was the control, the adult experienced no consequences. After watching the videos, the students were brought into a room with a Bobo doll. The results showed that the children in the first condition were more likely to be violent toward the doll as opposed to those in the second and third conditions. This study speaks to the idea of observational learning and that vicaricous rewards and punishment can influence the probability to imitate an action. Another study by Gergely in 2002 divided a group of infants into two different groups, each watched a different video. In the first group, the infant saw an adult putting his/her hands on a table and turn on a light switch with his/her head. In the second group, the adult was holding a blanket with his/her hands and uses his/her head to turn on the light switch. Afterwards, both groups were placed into a room with a light switch as seen in the video. About two thirds of the infants from the first group uses their head to turn on the light switch while about one fifth of those from the second group uses their head. In the first model, the adult’s hands were free but he/she chose to use his/her head instead; the infants thus assumed that that is how it should be done. In constrast, the adult’s hands in the second video were occupied, thus he/she had to turn on the light with his/her head.The social learning theory provides a reasonable explaination as to how and why behaviors are passed down in a family or within a culture and why children can perform a task successfully without going through trial and error. However, it is diffcult to establish a definite cause-and-effect relationship between observing and learning because there is a gap between when one observes the model and when one demonstrates the model.

ColinThe social learning theory was invented by Albert Bandura. According to the theory social learning can occur vicariously. However one must pay attention, be able to remember the observation, be able to replicate the behavior, and be motivated to do so. Bandura et al (1961) was an experiment that included 3 children, 3 adults, and a Bobo doll. In the first group the child watched the adult perform aggressive actions toward the doll. The second adult assembled toys for 10 minutes while the third did nothing. The children were then left with the doll and the child from the first experiment beat up the doll. This shows that the child learned through observation rather than personal experience.

In an experiment by Gergely et al (2002) 14 year old infants observed an adult turning off a light switch with their head. One adult had their hands hidden from view while the other had their hands in view. 69% of infants in which hands were covered used their heads to turn off the light. While 21% of infants used their head while the hands were visible. The babies used their hands because they were accessible.

Princess

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The social learning theory (SLT) is a perspective that states that people learn within a social context. It includes concepts such as modeling and observational learning.People, especially children, learn from the environment and seek acceptance from society by learning through influential models. Social learning theory is a perspective that states that social behavior is learned mainly by observing and imitating the actions of others. Two studies in particular can be used to explain this theory. The studies are Albert Bandura's BoBo Doll Experiment from 1965 and Gergely et. al from 2002.

The social learning theorist, Albert Bandura concluded that learning occurs by observing and imitating role models. He states that there are four principles necessary: attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Learning by observing and imitating role models. the learner must pay attention to the model. The learner must also retain the behavior of the model that was observed. Its essential that the learner is able to replicate the behavior of the learning model. Lastly, learners must want to display what they have learned from the learning model.

Bandura's BoBo Doll Experiment of 1965 aimed to demonstrate that learning can occur through observation of role models. The participants, 36 boys and 36 girls from age 3 to 6, were divided into groups according to their aggression evaluation provided by both their parents and teachers. Group 1 was exposed to adult models of both genders who showed aggression by beating up a Bobo Doll. Models were of both genders. Group 2 observed an adult models., of both genders, who displayed no aggression toward the doll. Group 3 was a controlled group who did not see any model.The children were then placed into the room with a Bobo doll after 10 minutes of watching the model.

The results showed that children who observed the aggressive model showed significantly more aggression both physically and verbally. However, the boys were more likely to imitate physical aggression, while girls were more likely to imitate verbal aggression. The social learning theory was demonstrated in the study because the children showed signs of observational learning.

Another study which helps explain/support the social learning theory is Gergely et. al from 2002. In this study, the subjects were 14 month old toddlers. There were two conditions, hands free and hands occupied. The hands free condition, the babies observed an adult place their hands on a table and use their heads to activate a light switch located on a box. After this, the babies were place near the light box and 69% of the babies used their heads to turn on the light. In the hands occupied condition, the adults occupied their hands by holding a blanket up. While holding the blanket, they used their heads to illuminate the light. The results show that 21% of the babies in this condition used their hands to illuminate the box.

CharlesThe social learning theory (SLT) was developed by Albert Bandura. It theorizes that humans learn behavior from observing. SLT has four factors: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation. Attention is required because the person must pay attention in order to know what to do. Retention is required for the person to remember what was done. Motor reproduction abilities allow the person to be able to physically do what is being replicated. Finally, motivation is needed because the person must want to do the task. Albert Bandura tested SLT in 1961. He had 72 girls and boys observe an adult either aggressively or non-aggressively playing with a Bobo doll. When the children were placed in the same room with the Bobo doll and were left alone, they imitated the behavior they saw their adult perform on the doll. For example, children who witnessed an adult aggressively playing with the doll, were more likely to reproduce that same behavior. These children were able to pay attention to, retain, reproduce, and were motivated to imitate the adult they saw. Huesmann and Eron also studied the SLT in 1986. Their study focused on the amount of violence a child watched on television during their elementary years and how that affected them in their teenage years. This was a 15 year longitudinal study. After the teenage behavior was studied fifteen years later, it was shown that the children who had seen the highest levels of violence on television while growing up were more likely to be arrested for criminal act as adults.

TaylorThe social learning theory is a theory that proposes that humans learn behaviors through a process called observational learning. Observational learning is when people learn by watching and then imitating the behavior displayed. During the observational learning process individuals observe models and are observant and evaluate the consequences of the behavior, in the environment. Albert Bandura suggested that social learning requires four factors: attention, retention, motivation, and motor reproduction. An individual must pay attention to the modeled behavior, remember the behavior, replicate the behavior, and then must be willing to demonstrate the learned behavior.

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However the motivation to learn or imitate a behavior has factors as well. These factors include consistency, identification with the model, rewards or punishment, and the liking of the model. The consistency factor is when a model behaves in the exact same way to similar situations. When there is an imitation of a behavior displayed by someone of the same age or gender, for example, an identification with the model occurs. In regards to rewards and punishments, people can learn whether or not to imitate a behavior based on the consequences observed—these individuals do not have to experience the consequence themselves. Having a positive relationship with the model you are imitating plays a role in whether or not a behavior is imitated—liking of the model.

In 1965 Albert Bandura conducted a study whose aim was to investigate if a child would imitate aggression modeled by an adult. Throughout the experiment there was a control group and two other conditions (the model and model punishment groups). The control group watched a film of an adult showing aggression to a blow up doll. The model group watched the same film and were given rewards for showing similar acts of aggression. The model punished group watched the same film as the control and model group, however were spanked for showing acts of aggression. As a result, Bandura found that the social learning theory is supported and that aggression is learned. He also found that girls were more likely to imitate the verbal aggression observed, whereas, the boys were more likely to imitate the physical aggression observed. A major criticism of Bandura’s 1965 study is to what extent was the aggression real in terms of a general standpoint or was the aggression shown specific to the situation? Another relevant study would be Gergely et al. of 2002. This study’s participants were fourteen month old infants. There were two conditions: a hands-free condition and hands-occupied condition. In the hands-free condition the infants used their head to illuminate the box after observing an adult illuminate the box the exact same way. Infants in the hands-occupied condition used their hands to illuminate the box. A finding of this study was that the model may have demonstrated the behavior but the infant made the decision whether or not to imitate the behavior.

It can be inferred that, due to the observational learning process, that stereotypes may be based on model in which individuals imitate. Although Bandura’s study supports the social learning theory, all aggression is not learned.

LO10: Discuss the use of compliance techniques

HannahCompliance is a form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another. In other words, compliance involves an individual’s agreement to perform a task when asked by another individual. There are numerous methods used in order to obtain someone’s consent to carry out an assignment. Two popular methods used today are the “foot-in-the-door” technique and “lowballing.”

The foot-in-the-door technique requires an individual to be asked to do something small and then something larger. In order for this technique to work, the initial request must not be too large that it would be easily refused. Also, a delay – or period of time – must be present between the two requests. In addition, the person who asks for the small task must not be the same person who asks for the large task in order to increase the chance of an individual’s compliance. Robert Cialdini strictly emphasized the importance or two concepts in compliance: consistency and commitment. The reason an individual is compliant is because once the say that they will do something (commitment), they don’t want a negative presence and therefore consistently commit to the task.

Freedman and Fraser (1966) conducted an experiment in which a political figure asked a group a people if he could place a large sign in their front lawn. This sign was not very appealing to the eye and many would consider it ugly. Only 17% of people asked agreed to have the sign placed in their lawn. A separate group of people were asked if a small sign could be place in their lawn, a large percentage agreed and thus the sign was mounted. Some amount of time later, the same individuals in the second group were asked if the larger sign (the one from the previous group) could be placed in their lawn. Surprisingly, 76% of the group agreed to the placement of the sign. This study shows how effectively the foot-in-the-door technique can be used.

Another compliance method used is known as lowballing. This method can be seen popularly in retail sales and deals in general. Lowballing includes changing an offer to make it less attractive after the individual has already agreed to the deal offered originally. One study that clearly demonstrates this method was conducted by Berger and Cornelius.

Berger and Cornelius (2003) had numerous individuals called and in the conversation that followed the participants were asked to donate five dollars to help underprivileged students. There were three experimental conditions

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in this experiment: the lowballing group, the interrupted group, and the control group. In the lowballing group the participants were told that if the donated the five dollars then they would be awarded a coupon for their donations. At some later point, the participants were informed that the supply of coupons had run out and there were none left. Data collected found that 76% of people still donated the money even though they knew that were would receive no coupon. The second experimental group, the interrupted group, received the call asking for the donation in exchange for the coupon. However, before the caller could agree or reject the offer the participants were interrupted and told there were no more coupons. The collected data revealed that on 16% of the participants agreed to the donation. In the final group, the control group, the donation offer was extended and there was no mention or offer of a coupon; 42% of the participants donated the money.

JarrenCompliance techniques are ways in which individuals are influenced to comply with demands and desires of others. Reasons why individuals are likely to comply with some rather than others includes authority (compliance occurs more often with those in a position of power), commitment (compliance more likely after having committed once already), likeability (compliance more likely if it involves someone they like), reciprocity (compliance more likely if there is a need to return a favor), scarcity (compliance more likely if the opportunity seems one in a million), and social proof (compliance more likely if others are also doing it). Two major compliance techniques include the foot-in-the-door technique and lowballing.

The first, increases the compliance of one if a large request is asked after one or more small requests. This helps one inch their way in. In 1966, Freedman and Fraser demonstrated this compliance technique through a study in which they asked home owners to display signs in their yards. They asked a number of participants to display a large sign and another group to display smaller signs. What they found is that by asking homeowners to display smaller signs, they were more likely to later display the much larger sign. On the other hand, more than eighty percent of those participants asked to display a large sign from the get-go opted out of doing so.

The second compliance technique, lowballing, occurs when an initial request is accepted, but then changed to a less appealing request. This is used in hopes that the request less likely to be accepted is actually accepted. Berger and Cornelius looked into such technique and found that the driving force behind it is that people feel a need to be committed despite change. They showed this through their 2003 study in which people were asked to donate five dollars in return for a free smoothie. After people agreed to donate, they were then told that they had just run out of free smoothie vouchers and asked whether they were still willing to donate. A large majority were in fact still willing to donate five dollars despite not being given something in return.

KarlAccording to Robert Cialdini who is a leading researching in the psychology of persuasion says there are six major compliance techniques. These factors influence the likelihood that people will comply with a certain request. One major technique under the category of commitment is the foot-in-the-door technique. This is when a requester persuades a target to agree to a small request, then follows it up with a second larger request which is the actual request. The Sherman (1980) study was done to support this theory and technique. Sherman called residents in Indiana and hypothetically asked them if they would volunteer for 3 hours. Then three days later, a second experimenter called the same people and actually requested help for volunteering. They found that 31% agreed to help which was much higher than the 4% that agreed when approached directly.

A second compliance technique is called low-balling. This is a two step technique in which the persuader secures agreement with request but then reveals a hidden cost. One study done by Cialdini (1978) asked student whether they would participate in a psychology experiment that started at 7 a.m., and most refused. Then he asked another group participants whether they would participate in an experiment without giving a time. Later Cialdini told them that it started at 7 a.m. and that they could drop out if they wanted to. The day of the experiment 95% showed up as promised.

An impressive study by Palak et al (1980) shows how low-balling can used in important real life settings. He did a study on how homeowners can be affected by lowballing. The investigators first asked householders to conserve energy by promoting it and giving them tips, this led to no savings. The second time, the investigators told the homeowners that if they were to utilize the energy conservation tactics that they would then have their names publicized. After doing this there was an average saving of 12% on natural gas seen in the homeowners who were influenced by low-balling.

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KaliiceCompliance is a form of social influence involving direct request from one person to another. Two of its techniques are the foot-in-the-door technique and lowballing. Although both of these techniques are used to get people to comply they have complete different methods.

The foot-in-the-door technique is a method that aims at increasing compliance at a larger request by first asking for a smaller request. Freediman and Fraser did a study on this technique in 1966. The aim of this study was to see if by using the foot-in-the- door technique could they get people to comply with there request. They had confederates act as volunteers in California. These “volunteers” went to people’s houses an asked them if they could put a giant sign in their lawns. Only 17% of the residents agreed to have the sign put up. A week later a different group of “volunteers” asked the same group of people if they could put a smaller sign in their lawns and nearly all the residents agreed. Two weeks after that another group of “volunteers” asked the same group of people if they could put the same giant signed that was first asked about in their lawns and 71% agreed.

The explanations for these results could be due to the desire of people to be consistent with their actions and beliefs. As shown in this study, there are many things that must be done in order for the foot-in-the-door technique to work. One requirement is that the first request should not be too large that the person says no. Also there should be time between the asking of the second request and there should be different people who ask for this request. Another thing to keep in mind is that people with high consistency are more likely to comply.

The lowballing technique is done by changing an offer to make it less appealing after the person as already agreed. Burger and Cornelius did a study on this technique in 1995. In this study participants were called and asked if they would donate to the school. This study had three different conditions; lowballing, interruption, and control. In the lowballing conditions, participants were asked if they would donate and told that if they did that they would receive a coupon the local juice shop. After the participant agreed however they were told that they have ran out of coupons. They were then asked if the still wanted to donate and 71% of them agreed. In the second condition the participants were told the same information, but were interrupted before they could answer and told that there were not anymore coupons and 17% of them agreed to donate. In the last condition participants were just simply asked if the would donate and 41% of them agreed.

ImaniCompliance is a form of social influence involving direct request from one person to another. There is the foot-in-the-door technique and the lowballing technique.

The foot-in-the-door technique is an idea that aims to increase compliance with a larger request by first asking of a smaller request. There are four key points that needs to happen so that the foot-in-the-door technique actually works. First the first request has to be something small so that the person cannot refuse, the second is that there has to be a delay in the request, thirdly it would work better if different people ask between the first and second request, and lastly if the person that is being requested of something feels they have a higher commitment then there will be a consistency in agreeing with the second and larger request. The Freedman and Fraser 1966 study there were two main experiments. The first experiment a confederate was used to work as a volunteer political worker and go to different homes to ask if people would post this huge, ugly sign in their front lawns for drivers to drive, only 17% of the homeowners said yes. In the second condition of this experiment the "volunteer political worker" went to different homeowners and asked them to place a much smaller "drive careful "sign in their lawns; nearly all homeowners agreed to the request. Two weeks later the volunteer worker went to the same homeowners and asked them to place the big huge ugly sign in their lawns in the place of the smaller sign, this time 76% said yes to the sign. This shows the effects of the technique and how when the homeowners were first asked for the smaller sign then the larger sign that a larger percentage said yes because they felt they had already made a commitment; the smaller sign had laid a "foundation" for the larger sign. In the second related study by Freedman and Fraser they first had a confederate go to homeowners and ask them to sign a petition to keep California beautiful and then two weeks later asked for the same homeowners to put the “drive careful” sign in their yards, this time 50% agreed to the sign. Even though these topics have absolutely nothing to do with each other, it still shows the technique because the homeowners now viewed themselves as good citizens and agreeing to put the sign up; supporting their commitment of being a good citizen and showing that a small request helps agreement of a larger request sometimes.

The second technique is the lowballing technique. The lowballing technique is changing an offer to make it less attractive after a person had already agreed to the previous offer. A basic example of this would be a car dealership were the car salesman promises you a price that sounds decent and reasonable and you agree, but then after some type of

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"unfortunate circumstance" the car salesman comes back to say that the car has to be sold at a much higher price, and this technique says that most people end up agreeing even if the new price is not favorable. The Berger and Cornelius 2003 study tried to support this technique. There were three conditions that involved people being asked would they donate five dollars to college funds of underprivileged student’s scholarships. The lowball condition the “representative” asked the person to donate five dollars and get a coupon for a free smoothie, the person agreed, then the person was put on hold, the representative came back and told the participant they were out of coupons and asked would they still like to participate and 76% still said yes. The second condition, the interrupt condition, asked would they donate, the person said yes and in the middle of them agreeing the representative interrupted telling the person there were no more coupons for a free smoothie, only 16% now said yes. The last condition, the control group, the person was asked to donate five dollars and not told of the coupons, 42% donated. This technique is based off of the fact the a person that is being asked of the request feels obliged to now say yes because they had already committed.

MeganCompliance is defined as a form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another. There are many different compliance techniques, two of which are the foot-in-the-door technique and low-balling. The foor-in-the-door technique is this idea that aims at increasing compliance with smaller requests before asking for the larger task. Low-balling is changing an offer to make it less attractive after the person has already agreed. Masters of this include car salesmen.

A study that tested the Foot-in-the-door technique was in 1980, psychologist Sherman called residents in Indiana and asked them if, hypothetically, they would volunteer to spend 3 hours collecting for the American Cancer Society. Three days later, a second experimenter called the same people and actually requested help for this organization. Of those responding to the earlier request, 31% agreed to help. This is much higher than the 4% of a similar group of people who volunteered to help when approached directly. This supported the idea that of people are prompted first with a smaller request, then they are likely to agree to larger requests afterwards.

One study that focused on low-balling was the Berger and Cornelius study of 2003. These researchers were testing the effect on college students. They called a number of students and asked the students to donate $5 to a scholarship fund. There were three conditions: Low-ball, interrupt, and control. In the low-ball condition, the students were asked and told they would receive a coupon, but then told later that the agency had “run out of coupons”. 77% still agreed, despite the lack of coupon receiving. In the interrupt, the procedure was the same, except within the phone call, the instructor was interrupted and told the student that they had “just run out of coupons”. Only 17% still said yes. Finally, the control group was just asked without any indication of a coupon at all. 44% said yes. These just prove there are techniques in compliance implemented to achieve commitment.

HunterCompliance is a form of social influence involving a direct request from one person to another. In the case of compliance, conformity occurs when the pressure to follow majority is perceived by an individual. It is the result of direct pressure to respond to a request (Crane, 116). There are several ways in which people are influenced to comply with what was asked of them and these are called compliance techniques. The six factors, by Robert Cialdini, that influence compliance amongst individuals are: authority, commitment, liking, reciprocity, scarcity, and social proof. Authority is when a person feels like they should comply because a person has authority. In commitment, one is more likely to comply with a similar request if they've already committed to something. Liking is when people are more likely to comply, simply because they like someone. Reciprocity is when individuals feel the need to return favors. Scarcity is the belief that they only have one opportunity or a last chance to do something. Social proof is the belief that their behavior is right if they see others doing it. Other things that fall under these compliance techniques are the door-in-the-face technique and the foot-in-the-door. The door-in-the-face falls under the category of reciprocity. This technique is when someone asks for something that will definitely not be given to them and then asking a second time for something less. This technique works because people will feel like they should go with the second request because the person asking has already lowered their request so as to accommodate them. A study to go with this is the Cialdini in 1975. Upon asking a group of students on a university campus to take a group of juvenile delinquents to the zoo, 83% said no. The next time they asked if they'd volunteer and all of them said no. After that refusal, they followed up with asking the students to take the kids to the zoo and 50% said yes. The foot-in-the-door technique falls under commitment. This technique goes about asking for something small first in hopes that one will be able to persuade someone to agree to something bigger. 

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LO11: Evaluate research on conformity to group norms.

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Conformity is defined as the tendency to adjust one’s thoughts, feelings, or behavior in ways that are in agreement with those of a particular individual or group, or with accepted standards about how a person should behave in specific situations. Factors that influence conformity include group size, unanimity, confidence, and self-esteem.

In Asch’s 1955 study on conformity it was found that group size influenced conformity. Asch found that with only one confederate 3% of participants conformed, with two confederates 14% of participants conformed, and with three confederates 32% of participants conformed. In larger groups the rate of conformity did not increase while in a very large group the rate of conformity decreased.

Asch also found that conformity was most likely to occur when all the confederates agreed. In fact he found that even the presence of just one confederate that goes against the majority choice can reduce conformity as much as 80%.Perrin and Spencer (1988) found that confidence influences conformity after replicating Asch’s. They came to the conclusion that when individuals feel that they are more competent to make decisions with regard to a field of expertise, they are less likely to conform. Stang (1973) found that participants with high self-esteem were less likely to conform to incorrect responses. Group size, unanimity, confidence, and self-esteem all influence conformity because people want to conform for many reasons including wanting to be accepted, fearing rejection, and wanting to behave in the social norm.

LO12: Discuss factors influencing conformity

HannahConformity can be defined as a behavior produced in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. When you have your own beliefs but you change them to fit what someone else does or might force you to do, which is conformity. Five types of conformity influencing factors include: social influence process, dispositional and situational explanation, risky shift, group polarization, and groupthink. These five factors aim to explain why people may conform to the standards of another.

Social influence processes explain why people may conform in four terms. The first term, informational influence, says that we may conform because we accept the views of other as valid evidence. Secondly, normative influence states that we conform because we want to be liked, or at least not bluntly rejected. The dual process model, the third term, combines the ideals of informational influence and normative influence by saying that we conform because we want to be right as well as liked. Fourthly, referent informational influence explains that we adhere to in-group norms in order to fulfill a sense of belonging.

The next factor shifts focus to situational and dispositional factors. According to Hogg and Vaughn (2008), a few specific dispositional characteristics, if found in an individual, will cause a person to be more susceptible to conform. Such dispositional characteristics include: low self-esteem, high need for social approval, high anxiety, and feelings of low status in a group. As pointed out in Asch’s 1955 study, some situational factors that may lead to conformity include: group size and amount of social support.

Risky shift refers to the tendency for individuals in a group to make riskier decisions than individuals working without the opinions of other. Wallach (1962) found that chess players were more likely to make more risks in a game when a group was consulted. When the player was working on his own individual agenda, the decisions made did not hold as much risk.

Group polarization is similar to risky shift in that it looks at group decisions. However, in group polarization the focus changes to the type of people in such a group. It is said that the personality or viewpoint of an individual or multiple individuals in a group can persuade the group to side with the ideas expressed that revolve around this polar side. Two subsets of group polarization include social comparison theory and social identity theory. Social comparison theory states that some people shift their personal beliefs to fit in with a group when that groups discussions are made public and illustrate that group’s norms. Social identity theory argues that polarization is a regular phenomenon in which in-groups and out-groups are clearly defined and separate. For example, in-groups frequently polarize away from out groups and cause the parties involved to further conform to group standards.

Lastly, Janus the main researcher on the subject of groupthink in 1972 defined it as: “A deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressure.” In basic terms, the efficiency of

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accurate and well thought out decisions made can be compromised by the consumption of an individual with trivial matter regard the group. If a person is too caught up in the group itself, then how can they make appropriate and efficient decisions?

Karl When it comes to factors influencing conformity there are many including social influence processes, risky shift, group polarization and finally groupthink. Informational social influence is based on the psychological need to be right. In case of uncertainty or pressed for time, we look to other for answers, by conforming with others we act more efficient and accurate. The study done by Sherif (1935) supports this theory, by finding that people usually tend to conform rather than make individual judgement calls. Also, the idea of normative influence is that one conforms in order to be accepted or liked by a certain group. Asch (1951) supported this theory by proving that people did indeed conform most of the time.

Another factor that has a major impact when it comes to influencing conformity is called risky shift. This is the thought that people have the confidence to do things that involve more risk when they are part of a group. Wallach (1962) proposed that greater risks are chosen because of a diffusion of responsibility when in a group. Group polarization is the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the tendency of the individual group members. This has a direct relation to the social comparison theory that explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others in order to reduce uncertainty. Another theory, the social identity theory predicts how people people interact in different group environments and how well someone can move from group to group.

One last factor that influences conformity is called groupthink. This is a form of conformity where to maintain cooperation, the individuals in a group work together. In groupthink there is too much power under one person who will influence the others. Groupthink is characterized by group members having a unanimous opinion on an issue and they do not seek out alternative opinions.

TaylorConformity is a type of social influence where individuals change attitudes or behaviors to adhere to social norms; although individuals adhere to social norms the individual does not necessarily mean the individual privately accepts the norm. There are five factors that influence conformity. They are: social influence processes, dispositional and situational explanations, risky shift, group polarization, and groupthink.

Social influence processes is a factor with three subdivisions. These subdivisions include informational influences, normative influences, and referent informational influences. Informational influences are when individuals accept other individuals views and use them as evidence. Normative influences are when an individual conforms to the expectations of others. Referent informational influences are when individuals conform according to in-group norms. Individuals conform to others social norms or expectations in order to feel accepted; wanting to be accepted by others is a human characteristic.

Hogg and Vaughn in 2008 found that dispositional and situational factors increase conformity. They found that this could be due to low self-esteem, low status, or the need to be accepted. Asch’s study in 1951 he tested to what extent a person would conform to an incorrect answer on a test. this study referred to the Asch Paradigm suggesting that four factors influence the likelihood of an individual to conform to a group. These four factors are: group size, unanimity, confidence, and self-esteem.

Wallach in 1962 introduced a new concept to psychology known as risky shift. The question this concept introduces is, do individuals working in a group take the same risk in comparison to if the individual was working alone. Wallach found that group decisions are more likely to make more risky decisions than if an individual was to work alone. Risky shift is the tendency for groups decisions to be riskier than individual decisions.

Group polarization is when a riskier group decision depends on the members of the group. In these cases decisions are either risky or cautious. Two subunits to group polarization are the social comparison theory and the social identity theory. Social comparison theory, in respect to conformity, is when groups make public their norms including if the group favors risky or cautious decisions. The social identity theory relates to conformity when relevant group norms are constructed by in-group members—norms will be polarized. Factors that may contribute to group polarization are the need for consensus, preferences within a group for the same side of an argument, and an in-groups identity that is defined by an out-group.

Groupthink is a thinking style in which the desire to reach a consensus is strong to the extent that the desire may override the decision making process. In 1992 Janis found that is was common for high group cohesiveness, urgency under pressure, and the need to reach a consensus. The outcome of Janis’ study suggested that there is a strong tendency

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to maintain cohesiveness and force to conform; the exaggeration of prospects of success and avoidance of negative outcomes; and the ideal of superiority and invulnerability.

There are five broad factors that attribute to how and why individuals conform. These five factors have subdivisions of there own. Although conformity is a type of social influence that results in the adherence to a social norm, there are many factors as to why an individual does.

DominiqueHumans have the tendency to conform to the behaviors of social groups whether they be defined by age, race, and or cultures; these behaviors are called norms. Conformity is common for all humans and can occur but, is not limited to occurring in small groups because it can also, happen across a society. It has been found that norms can result unconsciously as well as from group pressuring. However, this not to say that this cannot occur while a person is alone in fact upon dividing into groups humans begin to display the norms of said group fairly quickly.

A researcher who has studied conformity is Solomon Asch in the 1950s; he found that a individual’s own opinions and in some cases behavior; are influenced by the norms of a larger group of people. In his first study in 1951 Asch used male college students as the subjects although, all but one of them were actors. He was attempting to test the one true subjects reaction to the rest of the groups behavior so, he put the participant in a room with seven of the actors who were aware of the aim of the experiment. The study was divided into three trial in which, the subject were asked to determine which line on one card; on which there were three matched the line on another. In the first and second trials the actors were prompted to give the correct answer which resulted in the one true subject being at ease. However, in the third trial all of the actors were prompted to give the wrong answer which resulted in the subject being presented with a dilemma. The subject reacted in the same way as the majority of the group and answered with the incorrect answer which proved Asch’s theory of human conformity to social norms.

JarrenConformity is behaving in such a way that is in accordance with a group and what is socially accepted by them. Conformity can be influenced in a number of ways including situational factors, dispositional factors, risky shift, group polarization, and group think.

Dispositional factors are factors having to do with internal factors such as an action or event that may have affected you greatly. Situational factors are factors outside of ones immediate control such as the environment, the actions of someone that is unknown, etc. Asch’s 1956 standard line / comparison line experiment demonstrated the use of situational factors on conformity through the use of confederates and their influence over each subject’s answer despite said answer being completely wrong.

Group polarization deals with the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial. The fact that group polarization leads to more extreme decision making creates the term risky shift. Wallach et al. (1962) explained that in risky shift, greater risks are chosen because of a diffusion of responsibility. It is in this phenomenon, group polarization, that a group’s attitude towards a situation or issue may change because the individuals’ initial attitudes have strengthened and intensified after group discussion.

To further explain group polarization, two theories have been introduced: the social comparison theory and the social identity theory. The social comparison theory states that group polarization occurs as a result of an individual’s desire to gain acceptance and be seen favorably within a group. In order to gain this acceptance, they take a position similar to everyone else, but a bit more extreme. It’s almost like a domino affect. The social identity theory, on the other hand, explains that group polarization occurs because individuals identify with a particular group and conform to a group position that is more extreme than the group mean.

In 1972, Irving Janis coined the term groupthink. Groupthink occurs because groups are blinded by optimism and come to doubt any reservations brought about. It is characterized by group members having a unanimous opinion on an issue so much that they don’t seek out alternatives and/or dissenting opinions. This often leads to groups making poor decisions.

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LO13: Define the terms culture and cultural norms.

KaliiceThe word culture is not a word that is easily defined, mainly because there is no general definition. Even though there is no general definition, many psychologists have come up with their own interpretation of the word.

Matsumoto defined culture as a system of rules established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors. While Shireav and Levy defined culture as a set of attitudes, symbols, and behaviors that are shaped by a group of people and passed down through generations.

In understanding these definitions key terms in them must be identified such as, attitudes, behaviors, and symbols. Attitudes are beliefs, values, superstitions and stereotypes of a group. Behaviors are the norms and customs of a group. Symbols are words, pictures, and other visual gestures that are only known by that culture.

Triands in 2002 divided culture into two different types; objective culture and subjective culture. Objective culture is the physical parts, while subjective culture is the beliefs and norms. From these interpretations, culture norms are defined as the norms in a social/culture group that are passed throughout generations that dictate behavior.

ColinOfficially there is no generally accepted defintion for culture. 3 studies attempted to define culture: Shiraev and Cevy (2009), Matsumoto and Wong (2008), and Triandis (2002). The most general possible definition is that culture is something that regulates behavior, is shared by a large group, and passed down for generations

Shiraev and Cevy defined culture as a set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols shared by a group passed down for generations. Attitudes include religion, beliefs, and personal views. Behaviors refer to routine and appearance (clothes, hairstyle, etc). Words, gestures, images that members can all recognize can be considered symbols of their culture.

Matsumoto and Wong agreed that culture was shared by a large group passed down for generations. However, they viewed it as a system of exchanging information for the sake of happiness, survival, and discover meaning in life. Sharing culture forces us to interact with people so we may find food, procreate, and build dependable relationships.

Triandis seperated culture into two categories: objective and subjective culture. Objective culture refers to things we identify ourselves with. This includes aspects such as fashion and cuisine. Subjective culture refers refers to things outside people observe in us, such as ettiquette or mannerisms. Triandis defined cultural norms as the norms of an established group regarding what is acceptable. It is passed down for generations who maintain these behaviors.

PrincessCulture is a dynamic system of rules, implicit or explicit, that is established by a social group. Cultural norms include behavior that is typical to a specific cultural group. In a their 2004 study, Shiraev and Levy defined culture as a set of attitudes, behaviors and symbols that are shared by a large group if people, and usually communicated through one generation to the next. Matsumoto and Juang defined culture as being a unique and meaningful information system that is shared by a group of people. Triandis concluded in 2002, that objective culture is the visual characteristics, while subjective represents beliefs and values that are to be passed on to the next generations.

ChuckThe word culture cannot be defined with just one statement. There are many different variations or ideas as to how it should be defined. Matsumoto defined culture in 2004, saying that it is a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors. This means that Matsumoto thinks that culture changes over time and that the “rules” can be both written and just common sense. Those “rules” are called cultural norms. Cultural norms are behavior patterns that are typical of specific groups. These norms are passed down from generation to generation. These norms guide everyday life decisions, like who to marry, when to pray, if at all, or how to raise your children.

LO14: Examine the role of two cultural dimensions on behavior

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