Social Psych - Test 2

Three types of Social Influence?

Conformity

Compliance

Obedience

Based on the perceived ability to give positive consequences or remove negative ones

The perceived ability to punish those who don't conform with your ideas or demands

Organizational Authority. Based on the perception that someone has the right to prescribe behavior due to election or appointment to a position of authority

Power gained through association with those who possess power

Power based on having distinctive knowledge, expertness, ability, or skills

Power based on controlling the information needed by others in order to reach an important goal

A compliance technique in which one makes an initial small request to which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behavior of interest

Asking someone for a very large favor that he or she will certainly refuse and then following that request with a more modest favor (which tends to be seen as a concession that the target will feel compelled to honor)

a strategy to gain compliance by making a very attractive initial offer to get a person to agree to an action and then making the terms less favorable. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.

When offering or conceding something to somebody, rather than give it to them as a final item, give it in incremental pieces. Do not allow them to respond to each piece you give them -- keep on offering more.Thus, for example, you can:Offer a discount in several stages.Add extra 'gifts' to a product offering.Start with a high price and reduce it.Tell them all the things you are going to do, one at a time.The increments can be in different amounts, but each should surprise and delight the person. It can also help if the final increment is particularly desirable

a phenomenon of human visual perception in which a stationary, small point of light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. Because the phenomenon is labile, it has been used to show the effects of social influence or suggestion on judgments. For example, if an observer who would otherwise say the light is moving one foot overhears another observer say the light is moving one yard then the first observer will report that the light moved one yard

The influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective.

The influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval, harsh judgements, and other social sanctions (for example, barbs, ostracism)

asked groups of students to participate in a "vision test." In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining students would react to the confederates' behavior.

In the basic paradigm, the participants — the real subjects and the confederates — were all seated in a classroom. They were asked a variety of questions about the lines such as how long is A, compare the length of A to an everyday object, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc. The group was told to announce their answers to each question out loud. The confederates always provided their answers before the study participant, and always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.In a control group, with no pressure to conform to an erroneous view, only one subject out of 35 ever gave an incorrect answer. hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (32%). Seventy-five percent of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.

Variations of the basic paradigm tested how many confederates were necessary to induce conformity, examining the influence of just 1 confederate and as many as 15 confederates. Results indicate that 1 confederate has virtually no influence and 2 confederates have only a small influence. When 3 or more confederates are present, the tendency to conform is relatively stable.The unanimity of the confederates has also been varied. When the confederates are not unanimous in their judgment, even if only 1 confederate voices a different opinion, participants are much more likely to resist the urge to conform than when the confederates all agree. This finding illuminates the power that even a small dissenting minority can have. Interestingly, this finding holds whether or not the dissenting confederate gives the correct answer. As long as the dissenting confederate gives an answer that is different from the majority, participants are more likely to give the correct answer.One difference between the conformity experiments and the Milgram experiment as carried out by Stanley Milgram (also famous insocial psychology) is that the subjects of these studies attributed their performance to their own misjudgment and "poor eyesight", while those in the Milgram experiment blamed the experimenter in explaining their behavior. Conformity may be much less salient than authority pressure

Some situations can exert powerful influences over individuals, causing them to behave in ways they could not predict in advance

Situational power is most prominent in novel settings in which the participants cannot call on previous guidelines for their new behavior

Role Playing - even when known to be artificial and temporary can still have a profoundly realistic impact on the players

Good people can be induced to behave in evil ways by immersion in "total situations"

Selection procedures for special tasks, such as being prison guards might benefit from engaging the participants in simulated role-play

Researchers should become advocates for social change if their data warrant

Mood state that increases compliance through influencing how the request is interpreted

emphasizes that human behaviors are governed not only by personal attitudes, but also by social pressures and a sense of control. For example, individuals are more likely to execute rather than neglect their intentions, such as a plan to refrain from alcohol, if they express these plans on more than one occasion

The idea that people reassert their prerogatives in response to the unpleasant state of arousal they experience when they believe their freedoms are threatend

Assigning causality to something about the person (Heider)

Assigning causality to something about the situation (Heider)

Similar to internal attribution (Heider), assigning causality to something about the person --covariation theory---

Similar to external attribution (Heider), assigning causality to something about the situation --covariation theory---

Three Kinds of Evidence examined in Covariation Theory

Does it happen all the time (Covariation Theory)

Does it happen to everybody (Covariation Theory)

Does it happen in other situations (Covariation Theory)

The tendency to perceive your failures as due to your situation and your successes as due to yourself

The tendency to see one's own behavior as due to the situation, and other people's behavior as dispositional (due to themselves)

General tendency to attribute causes to people more readily than to situations

Silver medal winners - downward thoughts - should have won 1st

bronze medal winners - upward thoughts - at least I won

There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values and habits are 'normal' and that others also think the same way that they do. cognitive bias tends to lead to the perception of a consensus that does not exist

A person's habitual way of explaining events - assessed on three dimensions; internal/external, stable/unstable, and global/specific