1. How Do Others Affect the Individual?
Social Psychology

2. Conformity
Changes in attitudes or behaviors to be consistent with those of others
May lead to positive or negative behaviors
Video

3. Conformity
Which of the lines below is the same as the one to the left?
What if 6 other people answered line 1 before it was your turn to answer?
Some participants conformed and gave the wrong answer!

4. Findings….
Conformity increases when the following factors are applied:
Feel insecure or do not know what you are doing
The group is made up of 3 or more people
Rest of the group is unanimous in their opinion
You are impressed by the status of the group
Feel other people in the group are watching and judging you

5. Social Influence Informational Social Influence
influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

6. Social Influence
Normative social influence causes a person to conform, or change a behavior for the purpose to either gain approval or avoid disapproval from a group
When someone refers to being part of the norm or the crowd, it is implied as doing some behavior or sharing some thought that everyone else is displaying or thinking.

7. Obedience
Obedience is the tendency to follow a person’s orders or requests because he or she is seen as an authority figure

8. Stanley Milgram
Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist who studied the effects of obedience on a person’s behavior
Specifically he wanted to know if a person would deliver shocks to another person because they were told by an authority figure to do so.

9. Milgram’s Study The experiment involved the:
The Experimenter- person who worked with Milgram and played the part of the authority figure by dressing in a lab white coat and looking intelligent
The experiment also involved two subjects: one was The Learner who knew the purpose of the study and was given instructions from Milgram on what to do.
The teacher, who was the subject being studied and was unaware of the intentions of the experiment

10. Milgram’s Study
Teacher delivers increasing shocks to the learner (or so the teacher thought)
Learner protested
Experimenter ordered the teacher to continue
Would the teacher continue?

11. Milgram’s Study
75% of the “teachers” gave the highest shock 450 volts and no one stopped before administering the 300 volt level.

12. Possible explanations…
The teacher was told by the experimenter, who was the authority figure, to administer the shocks resulting in the teacher justifying the shocks given to the learner- he or she was told to do it
The teacher believed and trusted that the experimenter, who was the expert and authority figure, would not allow any harm to happen to the learner.
The teacher could not see the learner receive the shocks, which could have made it easier to give the shocks.
This effect was evaluated in subsequent studies

13. Social Influence
Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment

14. Obedience to Authority
Factors that Facilitate/Inhibit Obedience
Presence of someone who refuses to obey
Background authority increases obedience
Culture does NOT have much of an effect on obedience

15. Ethics Ethical concerns of Milgram’s Study Video Deception
Potential for psychological harm to participants
Video

16. What are the effects of Identifying with a group?
Social Psychology

17. Group Performance Social Facilitation
Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others
Occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered

18. Group Performance Social Loafing
Worsened performance when part of a group
Due to decreased effort and motivation
More likely when individual performance is difficult to identify
Less likely when
The task is rewarding
The group is cohesive
Individuals are identified

19. Facilitation vs. Loafing
Presence of others
Individual efforts evaluated
Evaluation apprehension
Social Facilitation
Individual efforts NOT evaluated
No evaluation apprehension
Social Loafing

20. Group Decision Making
Often results in poorer decisions than those made by individuals
Due to Groupthink
mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives

21. Group Decision Making
Sometimes groups make more extreme decisions than individuals would make
Group Polarization
enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group
Choice Shift
A choice shift occurs when, after a group’s interaction on an issue, the mean attitude of group members differs from the members’ mean initial attitude.

22. Social Influence
If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions

23. Group Performance Deindivuduation Video
loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity
Helps explain behavior of mobs
Loss of self awareness
Leads to behavior we typically would not do
Stanford Prison Experiment
Video

24. Extra Credit???
Ready to apply these concepts? Ready to earn some extra points??!!
Let’s do some Norm Violations!
Working with a partner (does not have to be in this class) violate a norm and document the reactions that occur.
Applying the concepts of social psychology (attribution theory, actor/observer, conformity, etc.) write a 1-2 page report of your findings