Social Psychology Psychology 40S

Focuses in Social Psychology “We cannot live for ourselves alone.” Herman Melville Social psychology studies how we behave, think and feel in social situations. Social Psychology explained video clip

Our attitudes affect our actions! Attitudes & Actions Attitudes are mixtures of belief and emotion that predisposes us to respond to other people, objects, or institutions in positive or negative ways. If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner. Our attitudes affect our actions! Preview Question 2: Does what we think predict what we do, or does what we do affect what we think?

Actions Can Affect Attitudes Not only do people stand for what they believe in (attitude), they start believing in what they stand for. D. MacDonald/ PhotoEdit Cooperative actions can lead to mutual liking (beliefs).

Situations Matter Video: Situation Matters What is this video saying?

Social Psychology Experiment #1 Philip Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment Social Psychologist Philip Zimbardo designed an experiment to observe the behaviour of people in a mock prison.

Role Playing Affects Attitudes Zimbardo (1971) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes. The experiment was to last for 2 weeks and had to be shut down after 6 days. Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.

Philip Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment This is one of the most famous and controversial studies ever conducted in the field of social science. Philip Zimbardo’s study is a classic example of the power of the situation and how easily an individual can slip into a role and have it become real.

Deindividuation The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. Normally we carry our sense of identity around with us and we are aware of how we are relating to other people. We can lose ourselves when becoming a part of a large group. 3 important factors for deindividuation: Anonymity, so I can not be found out Diffused responsibility, so I am not responsible for my actions Group size, as a larger group increases the above factors.

Social Psychology Experiment #2 Solomon Asch’s Experiment In 1951 social psychologist Solomon Asch devised an experiment to examine the extent to which pressure from other people could affect one's perceptions. In total, about one third of the subjects who were placed in this situation went along with majority’s wrong opinion. CONFORMITY Asch showed bars like those in the Figure to college students in groups of 8 to 10. He told them he was studying visual perception and that their task was to decide which of the bars on the right was the same length as the one on the left. As you can see, the task is simple, and the correct answer is obvious. Asch asked the students to give their answers aloud. He repeated the procedure with 18 sets of bars. Only one student in each group was a real subject. All the others were confederates who had been instructed to give incorrect answers on 12 of the 18 trials. Asch arranged for the real subject to be the next-to-the-last person in each group to announce his answer so that he would hear most of the confederates incorrect responses before giving his own. Would he go along with the crowd? To Asch's surprise, 37 of the 50 subjects conformed to the majority at least once, and 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the 12 trials. When faced with a unanimous wrong answer by the other group members, the mean subject conformed on 4 of the 12 trials. Asch was disturbed by these results: "The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black. This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct." Why did the subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought "peculiar." A few of them said that they really did believe the group's answers were correct. Asch conducted a revised version of his experiment to find out whether the subjects truly did not believe their incorrect answers. When they were permitted to write down their answers after hearing the answers of others, their level of conformity declined to about one third what it had been in the original experiment. Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to be liked by the group and because they believe the group is better informed than they are. Suppose you go to a fancy dinner party and notice to your dismay that there are four forks beside your plate. When the first course arrives, you are not sure which fork to use. If you are like most people, you look around and use the fork everyone else is using. You do this because you want to be accepted by the group and because you assume the others know more about table etiquette than you do. www.age-of-the-sage.org/.../asch_conformity.html

Group Pressure & Conformity Conformity: An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality. William Vandivert/ Scientific American

Watch Asch’s Experiment (and Conformity in the Elevator) Asch Experiment Video Asch and the elevator experiment Read more on page 732 in the orange textbook

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity The person feels insecure. The group has at least 3 people. The group is unanimous. The person admires the groups’ status. Others in the group are observing the person’s behaviour. Fake Professor

Cults and Conformity A Real Example Watch Jonestown Massacre A cult is a group of people with an unhealthy devotion to a single person, thing or cause.

Social Psychology Experiment #3 Stanley Milgram’s Experiment Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a social psychology experiment that focused on the effects of authority on obedience. Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)

Milgram (1961) came up with a famous and controversial experiment. He tested whether people would shock a person simply because an authority figure told them to do it. Two-thirds of Milgram's participants delivered shocks as they heard cries of pain, signs of heart trouble.

Milgram Experiment ABC news

Milgram’s Study Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales

Conditions that Strengthen Obedience The person giving the orders is perceived as an authority figure is close at hand. The victim is depersonalized or at a distance from the person obeying There were no role models for defiance (no one else is disobeying)

Foot in the Door Phenomenon The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. How does this relate to the Milgram Experiment?

Journal Entry Topic: Social Psychology Reflect on the 3 Social Psychology Experiments discussed in class. How can they all relate to real life situations? Choose on of the experiments and give an example of your own. (e.g. How you act differently in different roles, a time when you conformed or when you have obeyed a person in authority and why.)