Psychological Dimension of vision

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Psychology, Chapter 8

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Lecture Notes

Welcome to Lesson 8, the final lesson in your course! You’ve reached an important milestone in your progress toward a degree. Although you’re still in the early stages of your program, you’ve demonstrated a critical trait that will bring you success: perseverance and dedication to a goal. As you begin this lesson, you’re very close to completing the first step in pursuit of this goal. Congratulations!

I can’t help but reflect on the contents of this lesson every day when I open my daily newspaper. A gang of young teenagers throws a match on a homeless man, causing serious burns. A respected religious leader is found guilty of molesting minors. A crowd of people risk their lives to free a horse stranded during a flood. You can apply the elements of social psychology as you struggle to make sense of how and why these behaviors occur across the world every day.

In this final lesson note, let’s explore the principles of groups and how they affect the behavior and decisions of individuals in different circumstances. The word we use for this concept is groupthink. A leader in this work was Irving L. Janis. In 1982, he identified four typical features of a group that is vulnerable to groupthink:

The group has a strong, directive leader.
The members feel like part of a tightly connected team.
The members are isolated from the viewpoints of others outside the group.
The members feel under pressure from outside forces.

Social psychologists might apply these features, for example, to a legislative body. These public officials represent the citizens of their country. They’re tightly connected in their daily work, rubbing elbows, making plans, discussing ideas, eating together, and spending long hours in each other’s company. Often, this group is pressured to make decisions. Those who dissent from the wishes of the leader are bombarded with pressure from their peers. Their logic is ridiculed. They’re subjected to repetitive messages telling them why they should give the leader authority to take action in this or that matter. Almost without exception, the leader is decisive and communicates strong, explicit directives about what he or she wants. As you can see, the foregoing description of political and governmental reality includes most of the elements of groupthink.

In Chapter 8, you’ll also learn that repetition of an idea increases the perception of its validity. Just think of how often a member of a legislative body is exposed to the same messages during debate speeches, dinner parties, luncheons, and telephone conversations. Endorsement by an admired person is another influence on attitudinal formation and change. For example, if you’re serving on a committee, and an admired colleague decides to change his or her vote, that decision will influence your stance on the issue. At the very least, it will make you reevaluate your reasons for supporting the other side of the issue. In addition, people conform to a group for other reasons including identification, popularity, self-preservation, and the idea that somehow the group has more knowledge than they do individually. A problem with groupthink and persuasion of attitude is that they don’t lend themselves to wise decision making.

Dig into news reports every day. Daily events will expose you to many of the theories proposed by social psychologists. Being alert to these issues will also help you understand your own experiences and situations that arise within your place of work or with your friends or family.

Enjoy this lesson and take pride in the cultural diversity we share as human beings. Perhaps understanding the differences between your social norms and those of the people who intersect your life on a daily basis will make it easier to find peaceful solutions when conflicts arise.

You’ve already traveled far in your journey in psychology. Take a moment to think about what you’ve learned and how much you can apply to your own life. I look forward to continuing our shared journey when we meet again in Introduction to Psychology II.

PowerPoint Lecture Notes

Use the lecture notes available in PowerPoint as you study this chapter by CLICKING THE LINK BELOW. These notes will help you identify main concepts and ideas presented in this chapter.

If you do not have PowerPoint on your computer, you can download a free viewer from Microsoft by clicking here.

Chapter 8

V12/PowerPoints/S01M PP Chapter 8.pptx

Social Forces

8.1

8 BEHAVIOR IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Social Influences on Beliefs and Behavior

8.2

Individuals in Groups

8.3

Us Versus Them: Group Identity

8.4

PSYCHOLOGY, Twelfth Edition | Carole Wade • Carol Tavris

Group Conflict and Prejudice

8.5

8.1

Social Forces

8.1

Module Learning Objectives

8.1.A

Compare social norms and social roles, and note how each contributes to the social rules that govern a culture.

8.1.B

Outline the basic procedures and findings of the Milgram obedience experiments, and discuss five conditions that make disobedience to authority more likely.

8.1.C

Outline the basic procedures and findings of the Zimbardo prison study.

8.1.D

Explain how feelings of entrapment contribute to destructive obedience.

Roles and Rules

Social position that is governed by a set of norms for proper behavior

Program of shared rules that governs the behavior of people in a community or society, and a set of values, beliefs, and customs shared by most members of that community

Rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit cultural conventions

Norms

(Social)

Role

Culture

Examples:

Norms: Conducting courtships, raising children, making decisions, etc.

Roles: Gender roles, occupational roles, family roles

Culture: Conversational distance

The Obedience Study

METHOD:

Subjects told to give increasing levels of shock to another subject every time an error was made

RESULTS:

All: Shocked other subject at least once

2/3: Gave all levels of shock, even though many were upset by being asked to do so

CONCLUSIONS:

Obedience is a function of the situation, not of personalities

Nature of the relationship to authority influences obedience

Would people obey an authority figure, even when the orders violated their ethical standards?

Subjects thought they were in an experiment about the effect of punishment on learning, and were instructed to give increasing levels of shock to another subject every time an error was made.

No one received shocks, but the subjects did not know this.

Every subject administered at least one shock to the learner; two-thirds obeyed the experimenter and gave all the levels of shock, even though they thought the victim was in pain.

Many subjects were visibly upset by being asked to administer shocks, but continued anyway.

Most people were far more obedient than anyone expected.

Results are controversial and have generated further research on violence and obedience.

Figure 8.1: The Milgram Obedience Experiment

Figure 8.1 The Milgram Obedience Experiment

(a) Milgram’s original shock machine; in 1963, it looked pretty ominous. (b) The “learner” is being strapped into his chair by the experimenter and the “teacher.” (c) In Milgram’s study, when the “teacher” had to

administer shock directly to the learner, most subjects refused, but this one continued to obey.

The person ordering them to continue was an ordinary man

The participant worked with peers who refused to go further

The experimenter left the room

The victim was right there in the room

Two experimenters issued conflicting demands

The Obedience Study

Participants were more likely to disobey orders to give shocks when:

The original study could never be repeated in the United States today because of these ethical concerns

However, a “softer” version of the experiment has been done, in which “teachers” who had not heard of the original Milgram study were asked to administer shocks only up to 150 volts, when they first heard the learner protest.

That amount of shock had been a critical choice point in Milgram’s study, and in the replication, nearly 80 percent of those who went past 150 ended up going all the way to the end (Packer, 2008).

Overall obedience rates were only slightly lower than Milgram’s, and once again, gender, education, age, and ethnicity had no effect on the likelihood of obeying (Burger, 2009).

In another, rather eerie cyberversion replication of Milgram’s study, participants had to shock a virtual woman on a computer screen. Even though they knew she wasn’t real, their heart rates increased and they reported feeling bad about delivering the “shocks.” Yet they kept doing it (Slater et al., 2006).

The Prison Study

PROCEDURE:

Subjects randomly assigned role of guard or prisoner

RESULTS:

Prisoners became:

Distressed

Helpless

Apathetic

Rebellious

Guards became one of the following:

Nice

“Tough but fair”

Tyrannical

Study stopped after six days

Generations of students and the general public have seen emotionally charged clips from videos of the study made at the time.

To Zimbardo, the results demonstrated how roles affect behavior: The guards’ aggression was entirely a result of wearing a guard’s uniform and having the power conferred by a guard’s authority.

Despite flaws with the study, the Stanford prison study remains a useful cautionary tale.

Why People Obey

To avoid punishment

Out of respect for authority

Because of entrapment: A gradual process in which individuals escalate their commitment to a course of action to justify their investment of time, money, or effort

The first stages of entrapment may pose no difficult choices, but as people take another step, or make a decision to continue, they will justify that action, which allows them to feel that it is the right one.

Before long, the person has become committed to a course of action that is increasingly self-defeating, cruel, or foolhardy.

8.2

Social Influences on Beliefs and Behavior

8.2

Module Learning Objectives

8.2.A

Contrast situational and dispositional attributions, explain how and why the fundamental attribution error takes place, and describe three biases that people hold about themselves and others.

8.2.B

Outline the process of cognitive dissonance, and explain how the validity effect and the familiarity effect shape our attitudes.

8.2.C

Summarize four elements that contribute to indoctrination.

Situational

Dispositional

Attribution theory

People are motivated to explain their own and others’ behavior by attributing causes of that behavior to a disposition or a situation.

“He probably got caught in some bad traffic, and then he was late for a meeting.”

“He's such a careless driver. He never watches out for other cars.”

Attributions

Situational attributions: Identify the cause of an action as something in the situation or environment.

Dispositional attributions: Identify the cause of an action as something in the person.

Attributions

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency, in explaining other people’s behavior, to overestimate personality factors and underestimate the influence of the situation

The fundamental attribution error is especially prevalent in Western nations, where middle-class people tend to believe that individuals are responsible for their own actions and dislike the idea that the situation has much influence over them.

Self-Serving Biases

The bias to choose the most flattering and forgiving attributions of our own lapses

The bias to believe that the world is fair (Just-world hypothesis)

The bias that we are better, smarter, and kinder than others

Self-serving biases: Habits of thinking that make us feel good about ourselves, even (perhaps especially) when we shouldn’t.

Just-world hypothesis: The notion that many people need to believe that the world is fair and that justice is served, that bad people are punished and good people are rewarded.

Reviewing the Attribution Process

Attitudes

Beliefs about people, groups, ideas, or activities

Explicit

Implicit

“She is such a nice person.”

Some attitudes are explicit: We are aware of them, they shape our conscious decisions and actions, and they can be measured on self-report questionnaires.

Others are implicit: We are unaware of them, they may influence our behavior in ways we do not recognize, and they are measured in indirect ways (Stanley, Phelps, & Banaji, 2008).

Cognitive Dissonance

A state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behavior

“I am a good, loyal friend.”

“I repeated gossip about my friend Chris.”

Figure 8.2: The Slippery Slope of Self-Justification

Figure 8.2 The Slippery Slope of Self-Justification

(a) Imagine two people with the same neutral attitude toward cheating. (b) Given an opportunity, one cheats and the other doesn’t. (c) Because of the need to reduce cognitive dissonance, each will then justify the action they took so that their opinion about cheating is consonant with their behavior. Over time, they both will have moved a long way from their original attitude.

Shifting Opinions and Bedrock Beliefs

Familiarity effect:

The tendency of people to feel more positive toward a person, item, product, or other stimulus the more familiar they are with it

Validity effect:

The tendency of people to believe that a statement is true or valid simply because it has been repeated many times

Ice cream is good for you.

Ideological belief systems may have evolved to be organized along a left-right dimension, consisting of two core sets of attitudes:

Whether a person advocates social change or supports the system as it is

Whether a person thinks inequality is a result of human policies and can be overcome, or is inevitable and should be accepted as part of the natural order

BIOLOGY AND beliefs

Belief Systems and Genetics

Figure 8.3 The Genetics of Belief

A study of thousands of identical and fraternal twins identified the approximate genetic contribution to the variation in attitudes about diverse topics. Heritability was greatest for school prayer and property tax, and lowest for divorce, modern art, and abortion. But notice that in almost all cases, a person’s unique life experiences (the “nonshared environment”) were far more influential than genes, especially on attitudes toward topics as unrelated as the draft, censorship, and segregation (Alford, Funk, & Hibbing, 2005).

Persuasion or “Brainwashing”? The Case of Suicide Bombers

The person is subjected to entrapment

The person’s problems are explained by one simple attribution: “It is all the fault of those bad people; we have to eliminate them.”

The person is offered a new identity and is promised salvation

The person’s access to disconfirming (dissonant) information is severely controlled

Methods of indoctrination:

Persuasion or “Brainwashing”? The Case of Suicide Bombers

More than 900 members of the People’s Temple committed mass suicide at the instigation of their leader, Jim Jones.

8.3

Individuals in Groups

8.3

Module Learning Objectives

8.3.A

Outline the basic procedures and findings of the Asch line-judging study.

8.3.B

List four symptoms of groupthink.

8.3.C

Explain how diffusion of responsibility and deindividuation contribute to the madness of crowds.

8.3.D

Discuss four situational factors that increase one’s likelihood to offer help to others.

Conformity

Asch study:

Subjects in group asked to match line lengths

Confederates picked wrong line

Only 20% of students remained independent

Conformity permits the smooth running of society and allows people to feel in harmony with others like them. But as the Asch experiment showed, most people will conform to the judgments of others even when the others are obviously wrong.

Conformity

Basic motives for conformity:

Need for social acceptance

Need for information

Groupthink

The tendency for all members of a group to think alike for the sake of harmony and to suppress disagreement

Examples:

Bay of Pigs

Challenger explosion

2003 invasion of Iraq

Occurs when the need for total agreement overwhelms the need for the wisest decision.

Symptoms

Illusion of invulnerability

Self-censorship

Pressure on dissenters to conform

Illusion of unanimity

Counteracted by:

Creating conditions that reward dissent, protect and encourage minority views, and encourage problem-solving

Strong identification with collective enterprise – wouldn’t support decision that would harm group goals

The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds

Diffusion of responsibility

In groups, the tendency of members to avoid taking action because they assume the others will

Bystander effect

Bystander effect: Individuals often fail to take action or call for help when they see someone in trouble because they assume that someone else will do so.

Deindividuation

In groups or crowds, the loss of awareness of one’s own individuality

The most extreme instances of the diffusion of responsibility occur in large, anonymous mobs or crowds. The crowds may consist of cheerful sports spectators or angry rioters.

Either way, people often lose awareness of their individuality and seem to hand themselves over to the mood and actions of the crowd, a state called deindividuation (Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952).

Deindividuation

People in crowds, feeling anonymous, may do destructive things they would never do on their own.

The Presence of Others Affects Our Behavior

Altruism and Dissent

Factors that can overcome bystander apathy and increase likelihood of helping others or behaving courageously:

You perceive the need for intervention or help.

Cultural norms encourage you to take action.

You have an ally.

You become entrapped.

Altruism: The willingness to take selfless or dangerous action on behalf of others.

Could You Be a Hero?

8.4

Us Versus Them: Group Identity

8.4

Module Learning Objectives

8.4.A

Contrast social identity, ethnic identity, and acculturation, and offer examples of each concept.

8.4.B

Define ethnocentrism, and describe how it contributes to us–them dichotomies.

8.4.C

Define what a stereotype is, and discuss three ways in which stereotypes distort reality.

Ethnic Identity

Social Identities

Ethnic Identity

Acculturation

Personal identity: A sense of self that is based on our particular traits and unique life history.

Social identity: The part of a person’s self-concept that is based on his or her identification with a nation, religious or political group, occupation, or other social affiliation.

Ethnic identity: A person’s identification with a racial or ethnic group.

Acculturation: The process by which members of minority groups come to identify with and feel part of the mainstream culture.

Many immigrants arrive in their host country with every intention of becoming part of the mainstream culture. If they encounter discrimination or other setbacks, however, they may realize that acculturation is harder than they anticipated and that their original ethnic identity offers greater solace

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own ethnic group, nation, or religion is superior to all others

THEM

“Us-them” thinking

Aids survival by making people feel attached to their own group and willing to work on group’s behalf

Ethnocentrism rests on a fundamental social identity: us. As soon as people have created a category called “us,” however, they invariably perceive everybody else as “not-us.”

Figure 8.4: The Experiment at Robbers Cave

Figure 8.4 The Experiment at Robbers Cave

In this study, competitive games fostered hostility between the Rattlers and the Eagles. Few boys had a best friend from the other group (left). But after the teams had to cooperate to solve various problems, the percentage that made friends across “enemy lines” shot up (right) (Sherif et al., 1961).

Stereotypes

Stereotypes:

Aren’t necessarily bad and are sometimes accurate

Can distort reality by:

Exaggerating differences between groups

Producing selective perception

Underestimating differences within the stereotyped group

Stereotype: A summary impression of a group, in which a person believes that all members of the group share a common trait or traits (positive, negative, or neutral).

Stereotypes aren’t necessarily bad and they are sometimes accurate (Lee, McCauley, & Jussim, 2013).

They are, as some psychologists have called them, useful tools in the mental toolbox—energy-saving devices that allow us to make efficient decisions (Macrae & Bodenhausen, 2000).

They help us quickly process new information and retrieve memories. They allow us to organize experience, make sense of differences among individuals and groups, and predict how people will behave.

In fact, the brain automatically registers and encodes the basic categories of gender, ethnicity, and age, suggesting that there is a neurological basis for the cognitive efficiency of stereotyping (Ito & Urland, 2003).

8.5

Group Conflict and Prejudice

8.5

Module Learning Objectives

8.5.A

Describe four sources of prejudice.

8.5.B

Describe five ways of measuring prejudicial attitudes.

8.5.C

Describe four situations that can help reduce prejudice and intergroup conflict.

8.5.D

Explain the phrase “the banality of evil,” and discuss how it contributes to otherwise-good people behaving badly.

The Origins of Prejudice

Psychological causes

Social causes

Economic causes

Cultural and national causes

Psychological causes: Prejudice often serves to ward off feelings of doubt, fear, and insecurity.

Social causes: Some prejudices are acquired through pressure to conform to the views of friends, relatives, or associates.

Economic causes: Prejudice makes official forms of discrimination seem legitimate, by justifying the majority group’s dominance, status, or greater wealth.

Cultural and national causes: Prejudice bonds people to their own ethnic or national group and its ways; by disliking “them,” we feel closer to our own group.

Measures of social distance and “microaggressions”

Measures of what people do when they are stressed or angry

Measures of brain activity

Measures of implicit attitudes

Five ways of measuring prejudice:

Defining and Measuring Prejudice

Measures of unequal treatment

Psychologists disagree on whether racism and other prejudices are declining or have merely taken new forms.

To understand prejudice, we must distinguish explicit attitudes from unconscious ones, active hostility from simple discomfort, what people say from what they feel, and what people feel from how they actually behave.

Implicit Association Test: Prejudice

Reducing Conflict and Prejudice

Four situations that can help reduce prejudice and intergroup conflict

Both sides must have equal legal status, economic opportunities, and power

Authorities and community institutions must provide moral, legal, and economic support for both sides

Both sides must have many opportunities to work and socialize together, formally and informally

Both sides must cooperate, working together for a common goal

Figure 8.5: The Impact of Cross-Ethnic Friendships on Minority Students’ Well-Being

Figure 8.5 The Impact of Cross-Ethnic Friendships on Minority Students’ Well-Being

Cross-ethnic friendships benefit both parties. In a longitudinal study of minority black students at a predominantly white university, many black students at first felt left out of school life and thus dissatisfied with their educational experience. But the more white friends they made, the higher their sense of belonging (orange bar) and satisfaction with the university (blue bar). This finding was particularly significant for minority students who initially had been the most sensitive to rejection and who had felt the most anxious and insecure about being in a largely white school. The study was later replicated with minority Latino students (Mendoza-Denton & Page-Gould, 2008).

The Question of Human Nature

From the standpoint of social and cultural psychology, all human beings, like all cultures, contain the potential for both good and evil.

Virtually no nation has bloodless hands.

It’s easy to conclude that outbreaks of violence are a result of inner aggressive drives, the sheer villainy of the perpetrators, or age-old tribal hatreds.

But in the social-psychological view, they result from the all-too-normal processes we have discussed in this chapter, including mindless obedience to authority, conformity, groupthink, deindividuation, stereotyping, ethnocentrism, and prejudice.

Taking Psychology with You

Dealing with Cultural Differences

Sociocultural research helps us appreciate the cultural rules that govern behavior, values, attitudes, and ways of doing business.

Understanding these rules can help people avoid jumping to conclusions about group differences.

End of Chapter

Interactive Figures

Interactive figure

Implicit Association Test: Prejudice

Click here to watch the interactive feature.

Acknowledgments

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