SOCIAL INFLUENCE: HOW DO GROUPS INFLUENCE AN INDIVIDUAL’S BEHAVIOR? AP Psychology Chapter 18

Quick Write:  If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?”  David Dodd – 5 years worth of experiments  developed 4 categories to classify responses  Prosocial (behavior intended to help others)  Antisocial (intended to injure or deprive others of rights)  Nonnormative (violates social norms, but doesn’t specifically help or harm others)  Neutral (doesn’t fall into the above)

Social Influence = The process where the words or actions of other people influence a person’s behavior  Norms – learned, socially based rules that prescribe what people should or should not do in a situation  Norms are not universal – vary by culture

Deindividuation  A psychological state in which a person becomes submerged in the group and loses a sense of individuality  Become a part of a “herd” – may perform acts they would not normally do otherwise

The Impact of the Presence of Others…  Social facilitation – the presence of other people improves a person’s individual performance  Social impairment – the presence of others impairs performance  Social loafing – people exert less effort in group situations, than when performing alone  “hide in the crowd”  “get away” loafing  Group polarization – opinions are strengthened after listening to an extreme position that favors that opinion  Groupthink – members of a group stress unity over a potential conflict

Conformity & Compliance  Conformity – Changing behavior or beliefs to match those of others – result of group pressure  Compliance – People adjust their behavior because of a request  Asch Experiment – examined how people would respond when they were faced with a norm that existed, but was obviously wrong – 75% of his test subjects agreed with majority’s wrong answer in his experiment Asch Experiment

Inducing Compliance  Foot-in-the-door – getting people to agree to a small request and then gradually presenting larger ones  Door-in-the-face – begins with a large request that will likely be denied – person making request substitutes it with a lesser alternative  That’s-not-all – offering an additional product to someone before presenting them with the actual product, thus enticing them by adding more options  Low-ball approach – obtaining oral commitment from someone to do something…once commitment is made, the cost of fulfilling is increased and the person feels obligated to comply

Obedience  Change in behavior in response to a demand from an authority figure  Stanley Milgram – studies on obedience – “shocking” experiments Stanley Milgram  3 main factors that affect obedience: 1. Status or prestige of the person giving the order 2. Behavior of others in the same situation 3. Personal characteristics of the individual

The Stanford Prison Experiment  

Helping Behaviors  Altruism – unselfish concern with another person’s welfare  Cost-reward model – People feel badly when they see someone suffering. C-R model = weighing several options in order to reduce the unpleasant feeling associated with witnessing distress  Reciprocal altruism – assisting another person with the expectation that the person will repay the deed

Non-Helping Behavior  Bystander effect – the more people there are who witness an emergency, the less likely it is that any one of them will help – you think someone else will help the victim  Kitty Genovese Kitty Genovese  Diffusion of responsibility – not intervening in the presence of others because the person thinks that others are going to intervene in the situation

Why is all this important?  Deindividuation = loss of restraint when part of a group  Groups = tendency to see in black and white  Individual = can see “gray areas”  What would you do?

Homework: Violate a Social Norm  Choose a behavior that you believe will violate a common social norm.  Carry out that behavior.  Write up:  Why did you select this behavior?  How did other people react?  How did you feel while violating the norm?  Example Violations:  Face backward in an elevator  Go into a restaurant, be seated, examine the menu, leave w/o ordering  Wear a big winter coat on a hot day  Sing in a quiet room or a public place where that doesn’t normally happen  Have a conversation with an imaginary friend in the presence of others  Sustain eye contact with someone’s foot during an entire conversation