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Full Course Notes for Introduction to Psychology (PSYC1000)
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PSYC 1000 EXAM NOTESUnit 9:
Chapter 13, Social Psychology
Module 13.1 : The Power of the Situation: Social Influences on Behaviour
Situational Influence on Behaviour: Mimicry, Norms, and Roles
humans are fundamentally social creatures; perhaps the biggest part of the “E” is the
social environment. Even the biggest introverts among us are remarkably sensitive to
what is socially acceptable or unacceptable.
Neuroscientists and psychologists have observed that humans often become
synchronized, in a sense.
Synchrony : occurs when two individuals engage in social interactions, and their speech,
language, and even physiological activity become more alike
mimicry : taking on for ourselves the behaviours, emotional displays, and facial
expressions of others. Perhaps you have caught yourself inadvertently copying another’s
behaviour. But most of the time it is a completely unconscious activity
chameleon effect : describes how people mimic others non-consciously, automatically
copying others’ behaviours even without realizing it.
helps people feel reassured and validated by each other, sending the unconsciously
processed message to others that you are kind of like them, and more so, that you are
paying attention to them in that moment
intentionally mimic people’s behaviour : in order to manipulate them. Consciously trying
to “steer” this process could lead you into trouble, just like focusing too much on a well-
practised movement can cause you to mess it up. Indeed, if someone notices that a
person is mimicking them, they like that person less as a result
Social norms : are the (usually unwritten) guidelines for how to behave in social contexts.
Some of the more readily observable norms are those associated with age, gender, and
socio-economic class, and you can see them influence everything from our manners. are
mostly implicit and emerge naturally in social interactions, although there are plenty of
examples to the contrary
social approval: Individuals who don’t appear “normal” (meaning some aspect of their
behaviour challenges the norm) are often subject to all kinds of unpleasantness, ranging
from insults to legal trouble.
Ostracism : being ignored or excluded from social contact, is another powerful form of
social pressure. The most noticeable observations across dozens of studies include anger
and sadness; these effects have held up across many variations in the ball-toss procedure.
Other typical responses include temporarily lowered self-esteem, self-confidence, and
even a reduced sense of a meaningful existence.
individuals who experience a high need to belong: a type of personality trait—have a
strong response to ostracism. In one study on morals, for example, high need-tobelong
participants responded to ostracism by (1) increasing how much they identified with their
in-group’s beliefs (such as a political group, church, social organization, etc.) and (2)
increasing how morally important those beliefs are
Social roles : are guidelines that apply to specific positions within the group. Because roles
are so specific, we often have labels for them such as professor, student, coach, parent,
and even prison guard.
, alcohol abuse among university students : is an increasing problem in Canada and the
United States, and psychologists have found that perceived norms are likely to be a
factor. Students who perceive norms to be high tend to overestimate rates of drinking on
campus and are much more likely to be binge drinkers and heavy drinkers themselves
In the Stanford Prison Study: student participants were randomly assigned to be either
prisoners or guards. Despite their inherent similarities to the prisoners, the guards either
became brutal and callous or simply stood by while others did the dirty work. At the same
time, most prisoners acquiesced and passively accepted the brutal treatment. Many also
exhibited stress-related symptoms including screaming, crying, and stress-related
illnesses. The experiment took place in the basement of the psychology building. At the
same time, most prisoners acquiesced and passively accepted the brutal treatment. This
indicates that randomly placing individuals in a powerful social role can have a dramatic
effect on their behaviour.
Many people have drawn a direct connection between the Stanford Prison experiment and the
prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. American soldiers were put in a prison and told to guard the
prisoners. Without the appropriate supervision and instructions, even mild-mannered, good-
natured people can do cruel and terrible things to others.
Group Dynamics
Mimicry, roles, and social norms highlight the fact that much of our lives are spent in
groups, whether it’s hanging out with friends, collaborating on school projects, or
navigating a crowded sidewalk
social loafing: which occurs when an individual puts less effort into working on a task with
others. There are various phrases for describing this—coasting, slacking, free-riding. Social
loafing can occur in all sorts of tasks, including physical activities (e.g., swimming, rope-
pulling), cognitive activities (e.g., problem solving, perceptual tests), and creativity (e.g.,
song writing), and across all types of groups, regardless of age, gender, or nationality
Low efficacy beliefs: This occurs if tasks are too difficult or complex, so people don’t know
where to start. Structure tasks so people know exactly what to do, provide clear
deadlines, and give people feedback so they know how well they are doing and how they
can improve.
Believing that an individual’s contributions are not important to the group: This occurs if
people can’t see how their own input matters to the group. Overcome this by helping
people understand how group members rely on and affect each other, and assigning tasks
to people that they feel are significant or they’ve had some say in choosing (if possible).
Not caring about the group’s outcome: This occurs when a person is not personally
identified with the group, perhaps feeling socially rejected from the group or perceiving
the group as unsuccessful or unimportant. Overcome this by making the group’s goals and
values clear and explicit, encouraging friendships to form and group activities to be fun
and socially rewarding.
Feeling like others are not trying very hard: As discussed earlier, people loaf if they feel
others are loafing. Overcome this by providing feedback about the progress of group
members on their individual tasks; strong groups often have regular meetings where
people’s progress is discussed and, ideally, celebrated!
social facilitation: occurs when one’s performance is affected by the presence of others.
The presence of others is (emotionally) arousing, and arousal tends to strengthen our
, dominant responses. Similarly, the presence of others occupies our attention, reducing
our ability to consciously direct out behaviour
Conformity
conformity can be found in mimicry, and it can be a very useful skill at times.
Conformity : refers to a change in behaviour to fit in with a group, whether it is intentional
or not.
In Asch’s experiments: many people conformed to the confederates and gave the wrong
answer. Asch conducted experiments by having confederates (ppl who were in on the
experiment) and participants that looked at three lines comparing the height to one line.
All the confederates said the incorrect answer 75% of the time because of conformity
normative influence : is the result of social pressure to adopt a group’s perspective in
order to be accepted, rather than rejected, by the group. This is sometimes referred to as
public compliance because the individual modifies what they say or do without
internalizing their conformity—it is a public rather than private type of conformity. This
generally means that the person sacrifices a little honesty about their own beliefs in order
to avoid criticism or rejection from the group
informational influence: occurs when people feel the group is giving them useful
information. This can be referred to as private acceptance, when people actually change
their internalized beliefs and opinions as well as their public behaviour. In this situation,
the conforming individual is likely to see other group members as being better informed,
having more skill, or perhaps better taste; thus they are a good source of information.
If there are more than free confederates than conformity skyrockets
If one confederate gave the right answer it would reduce conformity to a quarter of the
original level - groups are most powerful when unanimous
Groupthink
Groupthink: a decision-making problem in which group members avoid arguments and
strive for agreement. At first, this might sound like a good thing. Conflicts can be
unpleasant for some people and they can certainly get in the way of group decision
making. But groupthink does not always promote good decision making
o refers to this stifling of diversity that occurs when individuals are not able to
express their true perspectives, instead having to focus on agreeing with
others and maintaining harmony in the group
It reduces groups effectiveness
Ignore problems and risks in their ideas
Apply social pressure to people not agreeing leading to sub optimal decisions
Overconfident group with bad conclusions and decisions and not learning from mistakes
Groupthink occurs in families when one person makes all the decisions in the household
It occurs in a broader, cultural level with government decisions like launching the
challenger space shuttle or going into Iraq. Leaders make decisions without considering
other perspectives
Some groups are more prone to groupthink especially ones with a leader who suppresses
other opinions
Obedience to Authority
The Milgram obedience experiments (1963, 1974): have thoroughly shaken our
confidence in that belief. In his now-famous studies, Stanley Milgram showed the world
just how powerful authority could be, and how easily otherwise good, normal people
could be made to act inhumanely.
, Participants were told the study is about the effects of punishment on memory. They, and
the other supposed participant (who is actually a confederate), a friendly middle-aged
man, drew slips of paper in order to determine who would be the “teacher” and who
would be the “learner.” The draw was secretly rigged so that the participants were always
the teacher.
The teacher’s job was to read a series of word pairs to the learner, and then to test him on
his memory of the word pairs. The learner was in a separate room hooked up to an
electric shock machine. Each time the learner got an answer wrong, the teacher had to
administer a shock by flipping a switch on a panel in front of him, and increasing the
voltage after each wrong answer. The switches went up by 15 volts until reaching a
maximum of 450 volts, which was labelled “xxx.” This process was watched by “the
experimenter,” a man wearing a lab coat.
As the experiment progressed, the learner started to make sounds of discomfort in the
other room, grunting audibly as he was shocked. By
150 volts he was protesting loudly and saying that he no longer wanted to continue in the
study. If the subjects continued reading the
word pairs and increasing the shock level, the learner got to the point of screaming in
pain, demanding and pleading, over and over again, to be let out, pleading that he
couldn’t take it anymore, even that his heart condition is bothering him, and his heart is
acting up. And then, at 330 volts, the learner fell silent and gave no further responses
At this point, subjects were informed by the experimenter that a nonresponse is to be
considered “wrong,” and the punishing shock was to be administered
If, at any point, subjects expressed concern for the learner, or said that they didn’t want to
continue, the experimenter simply said a few stock responses, such as “Please continue”
or “The experiment requires that you continue.”
There is no compelling reason for people to continue, except a man in a lab coat was
telling them to do so
subjects were not sadists, gleefully shocking their partners. Many were deeply distressed
themselves, telling the experimenter they didn’t want to continue, arguing with him, and
so on
One experiment looked at whether it is easier for a group to resist the experimenter,
pitting the power of the group against the power of authority. In this experiment, there
were three teachers making decisions collectively. Two of the teachers were confederates,
pretending to be real subjects; the other teacher was the actual subject. When the two
confederate teachers made the decision to not continue with the experiment, 90% of
subjects also refused.
Milgram himself believed that these studies provided insight into the horrors of the
Holocaust, particularly how so many millions of people could be “evil” enough to willingly
participate in the Nazi death machine, or to stand passively by while such a brutal
genocide took place.
Before the original experiments, a group of experts—psychiatrists and psychologists—
estimated that only a small percentage of the population would obey the psychologist's
instructions to continue with the experiment and administer the shocks. Despite this
prediction, almost everyone in Milgram's study—more than 75% of the participants—
continued administering the shocks past the points where the participant screamed and
begged to leave the study. Sixty-five percent continued to increase the shocks until they
reached 450 volts—the highest amount possible.
The Bystander Effect: Situational Influences on Helping Behaviour
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