Social Psychology Public

Deutsch and Gerrard (1955) suggest people can conform for informational or normative reasons. Reasons for conformity Informational conformity - happens when a person lacks knowledge and looks to the group for information and direction Normative conformity -  conformity that occurs because of the desire to be liked and accepted Conformity - Asch (1953) - Most compelling force is perceptual information - Majority influence - 2/3 showed a lack of conformity Moscovici  - suggested Minority influence is longer lasting influence Reece and Wallace (2014) - suggest that minority support can counteract the effect of the majority. Zimbardo's (2006-2007) Stanford Prison Experiment Students were randomly assigned to be guards or prisoners (had to be cut short because of the level of abuse that guards directed at prisoners) Role theory  - argued that we can justify our behaviour in terms of the role we have to fulfil. If we feel anonymous we may experience deindividuation, thus experience a reduced sense of personal accountability. Reicher and Haslam (2011) - associate social identity theory on group identity and role identity Russel (2011)  - reduced strain mechanisms provide participants with a rationale for inflicting pain on others, more obedience    

Milgram conducted a series of experiments designed to understand Obedience.  In the experiments. obedience was operationalised as delivering the highest voltage level on a scale rising from 15v to 450v in 15v increments. Milgram found that approximately 63% of participants (in his baseline condition) shocked to the limit that is continued obeying the experimenter until they were asked by the experimenter to discontinue Milgram explained his results in terms of a shift to the 'agentic state'  Agentic state is a state where participants no longer feel responsible for the consequences of their actions in the presence of an authority figure. Reicher and Haslam (2011) considered the importance of intergroup factors Russel (2011) examined strain reducing mechanisms such as the idea that 'it is for the good of science' Gibson (2012) considered the role rhetoric played Rhetoric (Gibson, 2012) When the teacher appeared reluctant to continue, the ‘experimenter’ (another confederate) issued orders that the teacher continue. Such conditions produced obedience rates of between 47.5 per cent and 65 per cent (Milgram, 1974).   Ethical Issues: Deception- Participants were misled regarding the purpose of the research, and were mislead during the research Distress- The experiment was emotionally distressing Consent - Participants could not easily withdraw from the experiment   Criticisms: Participants were Yale undergraduates and about 60% of them were fully obedient, results were dismissed as having no relevance to "ordinary people" “The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.”   Agentic Shift The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. Morality does not disappear -- it acquires a radically different focus: the subordinate person feels shame or pride depending on how adequately he has performed the actions called for by authority. Subjects in the experiment frequently said, "If it were up to me, I would not have administered shocks to the learner."   Social Identity Approach - Reicher and Haslam (2011) If the experimenter's voice s the only one the participant hears, there is 100% obedience As soon as the slightest voice of protest is heard from the learner, obedience falls to 65%  As the victim gets closer and can be heard, seen, and then felt, obedience falls to 62.5%, then 40%, and then 30% “When the experimenter and participant are in a room together and separate from the learner, the participant is far more likely to categorize himself together with the experimenter than when all three share the same room.” (Reicher and Haslam, 2011: 167).    

Attribution and Explanation is about how we explain things. Is it down to the person, or the situation? Heider Try to locate which factor or factors are present when the outcome is present and absent when the outcome is absent. We are balanced when we agree with those whom we like and disagree with those whom we dislike.   Kelley's Covariation model (1967) On the 15th April 1989 at Hillsborough football stadium a crush occurred that resulted in 96 deaths. Was this due to something about the fans – being drunk, aggressive, out of control - or was it something about the situation – stadium design, policing? Is the cause within the person whose behaviour/experience we are trying to explain, or the situation in which they find themselves? Covariation model consists of: Person, Situation, Action/Outcome Consensus - Do other people, in a similar situation, behave like this? Have others acted the same way to me?  Distinctiveness - Does the person, whose behaviour we are trying to explain, always behave like this? Is it unusual behaviour for this person, or is it frequently occurring?  Consistency - Does the person always behave like this, in this specific situation? Example:  Others criticise your presentation – High consensus. This person only criticises your presentation – High distinctiveness. This specific thing reoccurs – High consistency. Jones and Davis (1965) - How we seek to infer features of the person: 'now what does this tell me about them? Criticism of Attribution theory - Rational thinking > bias -Do we think through as carefully as the models imply? - Internal/External attribution: is it meaningful and useful?   Attribution bias Hedonic Revelance and Personalism: Does the behaviour affect us? Is the behaviour aimed at us?  Dispositional bias- especially if negative Fundamental Attribution Error - Menson et al (1999) attribute to what is perceived to be stable - but what is perceived to be stable varies culturally Actor Observer Difference - we blame/make attributions to what we see. What the actor sees vs. what the observer sees.  - empathetic bias   Internal/External Distinction - Internal - personal theoretical framework for forming attributions - External - situational attribution   Account Giving Weiner (1987) communicated accounts often systematically differ from non-communicated reasons Certain types of account are preferred by those to whom the account is given   External, Uncontrollable and Unintentional Criticisms: Hareli (2005) - the apparent truth and reasonableness of the account may be more important than whether it is uncontrollable and external. The context of the account is important and varies between accounts.   Discursive Psychology - focuses on psychological themes in talk, text, and images. - Edwards and Potter (1992) note that in everyday interaction people have a stake in the interaction at hand. People are doing interaction (agreeing, disputing, exonerating, accounting, blaming, excusing, inviting, refusing, noticing) in and through their attribution talk. Furthermore, in everyday contexts the attribution talk occurs in a real sequence of talk. Conversation Analysis - Antaki (1994) explanation slots set up by others or ourselves - The attributions we make fit into a sequence - What attributions do orientates to the activities underway in the sequence where they are positioned    

Stereotypes A type of role schema that is relatively ridged. Once a person being perceived has a stereotype applied to them, then, however accurate of inaccurate it may be, our perception is likely to be significantly affected by the content of that stereotype Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members The positive or negative beliefs that people hold about the characteristics of social groups (e.g. Italians/French are romantic, College professors are nerds) Stereotype content  The Princeton Studies - Katz and Braly (1933); Gilbert (1951); Karlins, Coffman, and Walters (1969) - All measured ethnic and national stereotypes of Princeton students - Required students to select 5 of 84 adjectives that best describe 10 different ethnic groups - Common stereotypes were Japanese being intelligent, industrious; Jews were described as Shrewd, mercenary, intelligent -Findings about stereotype content was revealed   Fiske et al. (2002) Stereotype model - Cognition = stereotypes - Affect = prejudice - behaviour = discrimination   Prejudice  Any instance in which judgements about another are made in advance of adequate scrutiny of the relevant facts. While many researchers would see stereotypes as being the cause of prejudice, the term "prejudice" does not make a presumption about the importance of various types of cognitive activity Unfavorable attitude towards a social group and its members The holding of derogatory social attitudes or cognitive beliefs, the expression of negative affect, or the display of hostile or discriminatory behaviour towards members of a group on account of their membership of that grou   Realistic Conflict Theory Campbell (1967); Sherif et al. (1953, 1955, 1961, 1966) - Intergroup relations refer to relations between two or more groups and their respective members. Whenever individuals belonging to one group interact, collectively or individually, with another group or its members in terms of their group identification we have an instance of intergroup behaviour (Sherif, 1962) - Stereotypes applied to outgroups: content dependso n actual or perceived relations between the groups, usually negative especially when there is competition - Prejudice stems from direct competition over resources - ingroup losses lead to increasingly negative labels - Competition for resources = Intergroup conflict - Shared goal = Intergroup cooperation Tajfel on minimal group research Is there an ingroup bias? YES Is that bias present even in ‘meaningless’ or minimal groups? YES Would group members be prepared to sacrifice their own gain to maintain intergroup differentiation? YES – even in real life intergroup decisions (Brown, 1978) Critical race theory - The identification and examination of racist practice and ideology as a systematic force within societies, not only in isolated cases of bigotry, but also as embedded in institutions, academic disciplines (such as psychology), professional practice and everyday life. - 4 types of threat that may play a role in causing prejudice (Oskamp, 2000): realistic threats - perceived threat to a group's wellbeing, existence symbolic threats - perceived threats to morals, values, attitudes of group intergroup anxiety - feeling personally threatened in intergroup interactions because of concern about negative outcomes for the self, such as being embarrassed, rejected, or ridiculed. negative stereotypes - negative stereotypes create the fear of negative consequences. CROUCHER, NGUYEN & RAHMANI (2020) -  Men score higher on intergroup anxiety and women higher on symbolic and realistic threat.   Integrated threat theory - predicts that negative pre-set judgments about another group can lead to prejudice.   Schema A cognitive structure that represents knowledge (information or misinformation) about a concept or type of stimulus, including attributes and the relations among those attributes.  Types of schemas Person schemas are focused on specific individuals. For example, your schema for your friend might include information about her appearance, her behaviors, her personality, and her preferences. Social schemas include general knowledge about how people behave in certain social situations. Self-schemas are focused on your knowledge about yourself. This can include both what you know about your current self as well as ideas about your idealized or future self. Event schemas are focused on patterns of behavior that should be followed for certain events. This acts much like a script informing you of what you should do, how you should act, and what you should say in a particular situation. How schemas change Assimilation - new information is incorporated into pre-existing schemas Accomodation - existing schemas might be altered or new schemas might be formed as a person learns new information and has new experiences Categorization and Prototypes Social categorisation entails the allocation of people to different categories based on - for example - ethnicity, sex, occupation, etc. Categories are collections of instances that have a family resemblance (defining property of category membership). They are cognitive representations of the classes or groups of events, things, or people that help us structure our knowledge, fuzzy sets organised around prototypes. Prototypes are cognitive representations of the category - a standard of comparison against which family resemblance is assessed. In other words, they are the cognitive representation of the typical/ideal defining features of a category Categorisation creates stereotypes as they produce perceptual distortions via the accentuation principle Perceptual accentuation - the process by which your cognitive biases affect how you perceive events, and in turn maintains those biases.  Social encoding     Salience  

  Perspectives on aggression 1. Within the person Evolutionary Approaches ​​​​​​​- suggest that aggression serves as an important function in terms of both individual survival as well as reproductive potential - competition arises when resources are limited and animals must compete in order to survive and reproduce - Aggression can be either adaptive or functional - Species dispersal - Potential problems: Context is lost – when and where and between whom the aggression takes places becomes less important​​​​​​​ Neuropsychology and aggression - Plizka (2017) brain imaging emotional processing regions are different AHHD children with significant displays of aggressive behaviour and ADHD children without aggressive behaviour. - Those children with aggression were found to have significantly less grey matter volume within the insula and caudate extending to the orbifrontal cortex – thus the emotional processing regions and the basal ganglia were effected.   2. ​​​​​​​Within the situation Excitation transfer - Heightened state of excitation can lead to aggression - Aggression triggered by: External stimuli, causing a physiological reaction (excitation), then cognitive processing of the situation Environmental conditions ​​​​​​​-Frustration causes aggresion, aggression causes frustration -Temperatures are associated with violence (cold water resulted in more aggressive behaviour) Mass media - Bandura, watching adult aggression to a bobo doll produced higher level of aggressive acts in children aged 4 to 5 3. General Aggression model​​​​​​​ 4. The role of identity Loss of identity - Anonymity, Zimbardo's deindividuation theory; causes lower self awareness or monitoring - isolated from the crowd, 'a cultivated individual'; in the crowd, 'a creature acting on instinct' - acting on increased salience of a group identity Social identity - Drury & Reicher (2000) - Crowd action does not only reflect identities it can also create new identities - Participants are changed through their participation in crowd events     5. Critical questions  

Self  How is Self understood? Self = witness/awareness/connection with ultimate truth self = a separate individual Our perception of self Perception - is different to our 'real' self - even our perception of our 'actual' self is different to our 'actual' self (if there is such a thing). We are dealing with perceived selves Optimistic self bias - Sharot (2011) 80% of the population have an optimistic self bias - “ … we overestimate the likelihood of positive events, and underestimate the likelihood of negative events." - Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias (Campbell and Sedikides, 1999)  -Self-serving and self-protecting attribution bias - attributing the suffering of others, to their own fault - The optimistic bias can mediate the effect of health communications on self-protective behaviour   Schemas and Self - “Self-schemas are cognitive-affective structures that represent ones experience in a given domain.” (1991: 182).” - We are "self-schematic"  - Being self-schematic on a given trait means we notice it in others e.g. weight schematic friend is more conscious of others' weight. (Fiske and Taylor, 1991)   Memory - We remember schema relevant information - We can produce many instances of our schematic traits   Inferences  - Predictions of our future behaviour are usually consistent with our self-schemas (Markus, 1977) - We have a pool of self-representations; some of these are made salient by the context at any given moment.    'Ideal' Self  Higgins (1987) Self DIscrepancy Theory Actual: Ought Discrepancy --> Social anxiety Actual: Ideal discrepancy --> Depression   Stigma and Self  - "The experience of felt stigma ... refers to an individual's fear of failing to enact a normal appearing round of life, and reflects the essential precariousness of maintaining a normal identity in the face of possible failure of interaction." Grey 2002: 737, cited in Scott, 2015: 161)   Total Institutions - In the psychiatric hospital he studied, Goffman said that patients underwent a 'humiliating' process that he called a 'mortification of the self' - Their previous identities were stripped away as they were removed from their personal possessions and were imposed of a standardised hospital uniform, hospital bed, and routine.    Social Identity theory - We can think of ourselves in personal identity or social identity - We seek positive intergroup differentiation -  We show an ingroup bias – with both meaningful and meaningless groups l Tajfel (1970) l Brown (1978, 2000)   Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell (1987) - Self Categorisation Theory - How an individual can switch their self-assigned categorisation according to what is made salient - Categorisation switches at group (intermediate), superordinate (human), and subordinate (personal) levels - Levine et al. (2005) - individual more likely to help an injured person wearing those team colours rather than those of a rival team - The more important an individual’s group or social identity to an individual the more their attitudes and behavioural intentions reflect intergroup hostility. (Livingstone and Haslam, 2008) Ethnic ideal self-discrepancies -Debrosse et al (2020) - “To illustrate what ethnic/ideal self-discrepancies capture, picture an adolescent who dreams of being a professional hockey player but feels that the characteristics of his ideal hockey player self, such as being a fast ice skater, being passionate about hockey, and being aggressive, are not typical of the Caribbean community to which his ethnic roots are tied (whether these perceptions are founded or not).” (2020). - Mangum and Block (2018) - all five dimensions of American identity lead to opposition to legal immigration and a preference for spending increases to combat illegal immigration Kellezi et al (2018)  -Social identities – served as ‘Social Cures’ = “guided exchange of support, aided meaning-making, and mitigated distrust”  - Social identities – served as ‘Social Curses” = “sources of burden, ostracism, and distress" -  “Inability to maintain existing identities or create new ones fuelled feelings of isolation. Participants also reported rejection/avoidance of social identities to maximise their benefits.”                

Expressing attitudes and emotions Mehrabian's studies of single words Your words = 7%  Your tone of voice = 38% Your body language = 55% Non-verbal channels 'found' to be more powerful than verbal Study 1: Participants' assessment of speakers liking was determiend by Tone of voice Study 2: Neutral word was uttered, but participants' judgement of speaker's liking varied with the photograph of the speaker's facial expression that was presented Criticisms: Ecological validity - very different to everyday life Argyle's study of utterances Hostile, friendly, and neutral messages delivered in a hostile, friendly, and neutral style Participants were exposed to all nine message-style combinations and asked to judge how hostile, friendly, or neutral the message was for each of these nine presentations Participants made their judgements based on a seven point scale with seven being the most friendly and 1 the least. In all cases where the nonverbal style contradicted the verbal content, it was the non verbal style that seemed to have greatest impact on participants’ judgments of speaker attitude – it’s as if participant’s felt that; ‘it’s not what you say, but the way that you say it.’   Nonverbal communication - found to be a separate system of language better suited to the communication of interpersonal attitudes and emotions than verbal communication Nonverbal communication is up to 12.5x powerful in the communication of interpersonal attitudes than verbal communication Criticisms: participants watched the same person delivering nin message-delivery style combinations, unlike everyday life Participants may have responded as they did because they have worked out the rationale of the study not because that is how they would in a non-experimental situation.# Study 2: Eye gaze can be used to regulate the intensity of our relationships Mutual gaze - averted gaze Regardless of the sex of participant or confederate, the participants spent less time gazing at the confederate's eye region when they were seated close together and more time when they were seated further apart (Equilibrium hypothesis) Criticisms of study 2: the confederate gazed continuously, not applicable to real life; judging direction of eye gaze as people are further apart, not very accurate representation.   Conveying Information Gestures convey information rather than just express emotions or regulate relationships Iconic hand gestures - include various enactments of the meaning being conveyed in the speech People’s understanding of what the gesture is communicating is largely derived from what they hear in the accompanying words rather than what they see in the gesture. (Krauss et al., 1991) Study: Participants were to watch a cartoon and describe it to another person; those who were exposed to gesture and speech answered more questions correctly.  Important information was often present in the gesture that was not present in the talk on its own Beattie (2003) - gesture is particularly important in conveyin physical attributes, location (particularly relative position), movement of objects and actions that were seen in the stimulus cartoon - even independent of speech Doing Interaction - Talk may seem to convey emotions or liking or even information –but the context in which our talk is done is crucial   Kaakinen et al (2020) - Communication bubbles - Social media allows individuals to search for social interactions with others who share and validate their identities (Keipi et al., 2017). - This identity-driven online use can lead to identity bubbles. - The social selectivity and social media platforms’ filtering technologies can lead to formation of psychosocial bubbles that limit the diversity of social contacts and information exposure online. - identification with online social networks (social identification) - a tendency to interact with like-minded others (homophily) - and reliance on like-minded information on social media (information bias)                                

Propinquity - the theory of propinquity states that individuals affiliate with one another because of spatial or geographical proximity.  - more exposure increases liking (Bornstein, 1988) - Criticisms: Is there increased liking for the person or just increased probability for the relationship to develop?  Evolutionary Approaches (Buss, 1989) - Females more invested in reproduction. -This should result in females selecting male mates who “have the ability and willingness to provide resources related to parental investment such as food, shelter, territory, and protection.” (1989: 2). Buss suggests that “Among humans, resources typically translate into earning capacity..” (1989:2). - Criticisms: According to evolutionary theory then a heterosexual woman may be attracted to a wealthy male – not because of the lifestyle opportunities that this affords, but rather because his wealth means that any offspring they might have will have a better chance of survival and themselves having the opportunity to produce offspring Attribution of Arousal - Female experimenter approached male participants  - Meston and Frohlich (2003) 'love at first fright' - attributed arousal to fast heart rate after a roller coaster ride; romantically involved couples rated strangers more attractive after the ride, and their romantic partners were rated less attractive after the ride - Cohen et al. (1989) - observed couples leaving different sorts of films; found more holding hands and touching after suspense thriller -Excitation transfer theory - was it real attraction or just a misconception of attraction caused by high excitation?   Exchange and Equity - What are the costs of the relationship, what are the rewards, can I get a better deal elsewhere? - Problems with exchange theory:  > Perhaps only unhappy relationships such calculations become prominent > Is fairness important or does exchange theory only benefit one person in the relationship? - Thibaut and Kelley (1955) - people stay in a relationship only if the profit or payoff is greater than what they believe they can obtain elsewhere Equity - Equity introduces the idea that profit need not be equivalent - Needs to be justifiable in terms of perceieved investment - If not, then anger, guilt, change in components, perception, or relationship occur - Equity theory - people want rewards that are equal to their inputs - Contentedness and happiness is highest when: equitable treated - Anger is highest when: under-benefited - Guilt is highest when: over-benefited (for women only) Stafford (2020) - Modification of Equity theory - Explored communal strength and partner-specific exchange orientiation, as well as equity, as predictors of relational maintenance - Criticism: Are perceived equity and relationship satisfaction separable cognitive factors? Constructions of Relationships Ideological Constructions - "boys will be boys" - Milnes (2010) - argues sexuality constructions: males are active and uncontrollable; females are passive and reactive - serve to enable a sexual 'double standard' legitimising or excusing male - but not female - promiscuity.  Boonzaier (2008) - Interviewed couples in which there had been some history of abuse of the female by her current male partner. - One of her findings was that male perpetrators would often position themselves as in some sense the victims Rutherford (2018)  - Even apparently 'empowering' discourses be entrapping 'girl power', 'goddess'. - Girl power: presented as a feel-good pro-girl position that was non-threatening to the status quo and emphasised individualism and personal responsibility over collective actio, but over the 1990s, Girl Power became an effective 'marketing ploy' that deployed the empowerment rhetoric to sell products   Thorne, Hegart, and Hepper (2019) - theories, methods, and research on romantic relationships were shaped by a heteronormative culturlal context. - Heteronormativity - an ideology that implicitly holds that heterosexuality is, and should be, the only, dominant, or taken-for-granted sexuality for all. - Researchers have:  a. Defined love and relationships as heterosexual b. presumed heterosexual patterns of love generalised to all c. located differences in same-gender couples rather than between same-gender and opposite-gender couples.                                  

Why do we engage in prosocial behaviour? Mood Positive Mood - McMillan et al (1977) - Those receiving positive feedback on an earlier task were quicker to show signs of noticing white noise that the experimenters gradually introduced than those in a bad mood (those who were given negative feedback) - 2nd study: those receiving positive feedback noticed and helped a female with shopping; those in a bad mood typically only helped the confederate when she made a noise to attract their attention. - Regan, Williams & Sparling (1972) a confederate asked strangers if they would take a photograph of him using his camera. - Camera breaks - Half of the participants were reassured by the confederate that it was not their fault; Half were made to feel that it actually was their fault. - In a bad mood, we may look for opportunities to manage our mood. Prosocial behaviour may facilitate that ; negative state relief Criticisms: Mood cannot be measured, helping can only be measured to an extent, Dovidio et al (2006), these studies rely on an undifferentiated, positive or negative mood -- but guilt and anger may operate differently.    Evolutionary social psychology Kin Selection Theory - we are more likely to help those genetically related to us especially if there is a chance that they might produce more offspring - Participants in both the US and Japan reported that they would be most likely to help close relatives, then more distant relatives, and finally non-relatives in life or death situations. - Relatives who were beyond the age when they are likely to have children were found less likely to be helped in life or death situations than younger relatives - The ability to empathise, both in animals and humans, mediates prosocial behaviour when sensitivity to other's distress is paired with a drive towards their welfare When do we engage in prosocial behaviour? Diffusion of responsibility Darley and Latane (1968) - Note that media explanations at the time for what became known as 'bystander apathy', included 'moral decay', 'dehumanisation', caused by the urban environment, 'alienation' and 'existential despair'. - Experiment: The first person to speak mentions that they were prone to seizures, then perfoms a seizure in front of the other participants.  - Results: If the participant (observer) was alone, 85% of the time they rushed to help. If there was one other participant present, 62% of the time they went to help, and if 4 others were present, only 31% helped.  - non-responding participants "were still in a state of indecision and conflict concerning whether to respond or not".  - All participants had to weigh the costs of reporting versus not reporting the 'seizure'. Attributional approaches - Greitmeyer and Rudolph (2003) - Is the perceived cause of the victim's situation seen as controllable by the victim or not? - If we think someone 'brought it on themselves' versus if we feel 'they could not have done anything to prevent this from happening to them' decides whether we should help them or not. - Critical reflection: Do the attributions come before or after the decisions to help or not to help? When and why Arousal cost-reward model - Developed by Piliavin et al (1981).  - When we observe a situation where someon is in distress, we first have a 'pure' physiological arousal response, we then think abouut, or label, this state of arousal and finally we evaluate the costs and rewards of intervening. - "I am feeling distress because they are suffering" - then will motivate to help or at least carefully consider helping. It is this that will prompt us to the crucial decision making stage in which we weigh the rewards and costs of helping. - Criticism: It raises issues about whether the rational basis for intervening or not is best thought as a device drawn upon to justify what we did (or did not do) rather than as a cognitive basis for action. - Almost none of the studies have used observable individual prosocial behaviour in a real-life setting.