survey of modern psychology social psychology part 1

Survey of Modern Psychology

Social Psychology Part 1

Definition

• Social Psychology is the study of individual behavior in groups– This is in contrast to sociology, which studies

group behavior

Group Behavior Trends

Social Norms

Group Behavior Trends

• Bystander Effect• Diffusion of Responsibility• Situational Influences– Pluralistic Ignorance

Situational Influences

• The bystander effect: the presence of others inhibits helping

• Diffusion of responsibility: the belief that others will or should take responsibility for providing help

Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

Participants were told that they would be in a study about personal problems that students often face. Each person would be in a separate room and communicate via intercom because of the sensitive nature of the conversation.

There would be groups of 2-6 people.One “participant” briefly mentioned that he or

she had a seizure disorder that was often triggered by stressful situations.

Bystander Effect and Diffusion of Responsibility

(Latane and Darley, 1970)

The actual participant heard the confederate feign a seizure over the intercom.

If the participant believed that he or she was in a pair and therefore the only one who knew about the emergency, the participant tried to get help.

When the participant thought that he or she was part of a larger group, the participant was less likely to seek help.

Situational Influences

• Pluralistic ignorance – each individual believes that his or her own thoughts and feelings are different from those of other people, even though everyone’s behavior is the same.

When we are unsure of whether there is an emergency, we look to others for how to act. We may then assume that, if no one else is panicking, we should not panic either.

Pluralistic IgnoranceLatane and Darley, 1968

Participants were put in rooms alone or with two other people to complete questionnaires.

A few minutes after starting, smoke began seeping into the room through a vent.


When participants were alone:• 50% took action within 4 minutes• 75% took action within 6 minutes (the

maximum time experimenters allowed the study to continue)


When participants were in groups:• Only one person took action within 4

minutes• Three took action before the end of the

6 minutes – By this time, the smoke was so thick that

participants had to fan it away to see the questionnaires


Participants assumed that if there was a real emergency, one of the other participants would take action. Because they did not, they interpreted the situation as being safe.

Evaluating Others

• Fundamental Attribution Error• Choice • Expectedness• Consequences

Attribution Theory

Fritz Heider (1958)

How we judge other people.

A set of theories that describe how people explain causes of behavior

Attribution Theory

• Personal attribution– Attribution to internal characteristics of an actor,

such as ability, personality, mood, or effort

• Situational attribution– Attribution to factors external to an actor, such as

the task, other people, or luck

Attribution Theory

• We make judgments about behavior based on:– The person’s degree of choice– Expectedness of the behavior– Intended effects or consequences

Choice

We assume that it says more about a person when they purposefully made a choice than if they were forced into a choice.

Choice

Participants read a speech that was supposedly written by another college student.

The speech either favored or opposed Fidel Castro.

Some participants were told that the author had chosen their position, others were told that the author was assigned that position.

Choice

When participants believed that the author had a choice in what to write, they assumed that the author’s essay correctly corresponded to their attitudes.

Graph p. 103

Expectedness

We assume that we can infer more about a person if their behavior is atypical.

Intended Effects

What did the person want to happen?• Acts that give multiple desirable outcomes give

us less information about motives

For example, if a person lives in a large apartment in a good neighborhood with low rent, it is unclear exactly what made them choose that apartment. However, if it’s a small apartment with high rent, we can assume that the person lives there because of the good neighborhood.

Decision Making Biases

• Availability• False Consensus• Base Rate Fallacy• Counterfactual Thinking

Decision Making Biases

Availability: we overestimate how frequently an event occurs based on how easily it comes to mind.

• Participants were asked which is more common, words that start with the letter “R” or have “R” as their third letter

Availability

• Participants tended to report that more words start with “R,” though it’s actually more common as a third letter.

• It’s easier to think of words that start with a letter.

This is especially true if…

Attribution Biases

False consensus We over estimate the percentage of people who agree with us

Attribution Biases

Base-rate fallacyWe are more influenced by a small number of dramatic instances than actual occurrences.

For example, people may over-estimate the risk of dying in a hot air balloon accident because of the unique and dramatic nature of the event.

Attribution Biases

Counterfactual thinking – the tendency to imagine alternative outcomes that might have occurred but did not. This is influenced by how easy it is to imagine the other outcome.

Counterfactual Thinking

• We are more upset by, and fixate more on, what might have occurred after taking an action than inaction

• One would feel worse after selling a stock before it went up (“I could have made $500 if I had not sold”) vs. not selling a stock before it drops (“I would have saved $500 if I had sold”)

Counterfactual Thinking

It is easier to think of the alternative if you are on the verge of a cutoff point.

• For Olympic athletes, it may be more disappointing to win silver than win bronze.– Silver medalists focus on having not won the gold

and what they did wrong– Bronze medalists focus on having beaten the

competitor in 4th place

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situation on other people’s behavior.


Imagine you did poorly on a test; you might say that conditions were not ideal (room was cold, the guy next to you was playing a banjo, etc.) but you are a smart person who actually knew the material.


If someone else did poorly on that same test, you’re more likely to assume that the person did not know the material and therefore their poor performance was their own fault.

Activity

Festinger’s Study (1959)

Participants were told that the experimenter was studying various measures of performance.

The participants were then instructed to perform boring and repetitive tasks for an hour.

Steps in Dissonance

Dissonance happens when:1. Negative consequences2. Feeling of personal responsibility– Freedom of choice– Foreseeable consequences to actions

3. Discomfort4. Attribute discomfort to one’s own behavior

… Kool Aid Study

Kool Aid StudyHarmon-Jones et. al., 1996

Later on, participants were asked how much they actually liked the beverage.

Ways to reduce dissonance

1. Change your attitude2. Change your perception of the behavior3. Add consonant cognitions4. Minimize the importance of the conflict5. Reduce perceived choice

Ways to Reduce Dissonance

Example: You want to save money, but just went on a shopping spree

1. Change your attitude“I don’t need to save money that badly”



2. Change your perception of the behavior“I didn’t spend that much”



3. Add consonant cognitions“I used coupons, so I actually saved money”



4. Minimize the importance of the conflict“It’s ok, I had fun!”



5. Reduce perceived choice“I had no choice; I was encouraged to help the economy by spending”

Stanford Prison Study (Philip Zimbardo)

Undergraduate students were selected to be in a study about the psychological effects of prison life

• 24 males were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards– Participants were determined to be healthy, drug free, and

mentally stable• Participants agreed to be in a 2 week long study

– Half would be prison guards, other half would live in a “prison” for the 2 week period

• Zimbardo played the role of prison superintendent


• “Guards” dressed in uniforms, and “prisoners” were dressed in prison jumpers with ankle chains

• Prisoners were to be referred to only by their number


• Guards had no formal training, but were told to expect that the prisoners could be dangerous. Guards were responsible for keeping order and encouraged to demand respect

• Prisoners were told to expect some level of harassment and/or humiliation, and lack of privacy

• Guards were allowed to subject the prisoners to some physical punishment


• On the second day, the prisoners rebelled and tried to reassert their individuality

• Guards quickly responded by removing cots from the prison cells, stripped the prisoners, put some in solitary confinement (a closet) and harassed the prisoners


• Guards started a “privilege” cell, where they placed the three prisoners least involved in the rebellion– These prisoners received privileges in front of the other

prisoners in order to stir resentment and break down solidarity among prisoners

• Shortly after, guards put the “privileged” prisoners back in the regular cells and gave “bad” prisoners the privilege cell

• This gave the impression that some prisoners were informants for the guards and further destroyed the bond among prisoners by causing them to mistrust each other


• Solidarity among guards increased after the rebellion because they felt that the prisoners had given reason to mistrust them and seemed potentially dangerous

• Treatment of the prisoners became increasingly worse• Prisoners and guards grew to identify with their assigned

roles


• Prisoners were given a parole hearing• Zimbardo offered the prisoners the chance for parole if

they would forfeit the money they’d earned so far• Most participants were agreeable, even though they

technically could have opted out of the experiment* – Prisoners were so absorbed in their role that they essentially

forgot that they were not really prisoners


The experiment finally ended after an outside observer pointed out the horrible conditions

• Most of the guards were disappointed that the study ended early

• Prisoners were initially traumatized by the experience, but reportedly they later found it educational and there were no long term negative effects


Zimbardo concluded that the participants’ behavior showed the power of the situation and how setting and assigned roles of authority made people behave in ways that they normally would not.


Some objections to the Prison Study: • Zimbardo himself was actively involved rather than just an

observer• Participants self-selected to be in the study• It is unclear whether participants actually identified with

their roles, or if they were playing out how they believed a prisoner or prison guard would act

• No control group!


• There did not seem to be any initial measure of attitudes about authority or the prison system – Were the participants actually more sadistic or authoritarian

than the average person? If so, their behavior cannot be so strongly attributed to the power of the situation

For more information: http://www.prisonexp.org/

Notable Research in Social Psychology

Notable research“Shaky bridge study” Aron and dutton, 1974

The study used two locations: a shaky suspension bridge and a non-shaky bridge in Canada


• A male or female interviewer was stationed on either bridge

• The interviewer introduced him/herself to men walking alone as a psychology student doing a survey. After the man completed the survey the interviewer gave him a phone number so that he could call for the results

• The primary question for researchers is what the participants would do with the phone number…


• A larger percentage men asked were willing to complete the survey for the female interviewer than the male

• There was more sexual imagery in answers for the female interviewer than the male interviewer, and significantly more for participants crossing the shaky bridge than the stable bridge

• More participants took the phone number from the female than the male interviewer


These results pertain to the female interviewers:•Participants who crossed the shaky bridge were significantly more likely to call for the results of the survey•Participants who crossed the shaky bridge were significantly more likely to ask the interviewer on a date than the ones who crossed the stable bridge


Interviewer # Filling in Questionnaire

# Accepting Phone #

# Phoning Sexual Imagery Score

Female

Control Bridge 22/33 16/22 2/16 1.41

Experimental Bridge

23/33 18/23 9/18 2.47

Male

ControlBridge

22/42 6/22 1/6 .61

Experimental Bridge

23/51 7/23 2/7 .80


Explanations:•Aron and Dutton theorized that crossing the shaky bridge caused physiological arousal and the men attributed the cause to the woman and therefore believed that they were attracted to her•Another possibility is that the men who crossed the shaky bridge were actually more willing to take risks and were therefore more likely to pursue the woman

Notable research“closing time study” Pennebaker et.al., 1979

• Researchers obtained participants at local bars near their university

• Participants were asked once at either 9:00 pm, 10:30 pm, or 12:00 am to rate the attractiveness of same-sex and opposite-sex customers in the bar– (all bars used closed at 12:30)– The researcher asked the participant to rate the

customers as a whole rather than on an individual basis


When it got later, participants reported opposite-sex customers in the bar as being significantly more attractive


Explanations:•When we are under time constraints and pressured to make a choice, we need to make the option that we chose more attractive to explain why we chose it•The people who were in the bars at the end of the night who wanted to leave with someone therefore made the options that they had left seem more appealing

survey of modern psychology social psychology part 1

Documents

causes of behavior slide

studies group behavior

pluralistic ignorance

study of individual

everyones behavior

actual participant

larger group

definition social psychology