Psychology Essay 6

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Psychology Twelfth Edition

Chapter 8 Behavior in Social and

Cultural Context

Social Forces

• LO 8.1.A Compare social norms and social roles, and note

how each contributes to the social rules that govern a

culture.

• LO 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.

• LO 8.1.C Outline the basic procedures and findings of the

Zimbardo prison study.

• LO 8.1.D Explain how feelings of entrapment contribute to

destructive obedience.

Roles and Rules (1 of 3)

• Social norms are rules about how we are

supposed to act.

• They are enforced by:

– threats of punishment if we violate them, and

– promises of reward if we follow them

• Norms are the conventions of everyday life that

make interactions with other people predictable

and orderly.

Roles and Rules (2 of 3)

• In every society, people also fill a variety of social

roles.

– gender, occupation, family roles

• Social psychologists study how individuals are

influenced by:

– social roles

– attitudes

– relationships

– groups

Roles and Rules (3 of 3)

• Cultural psychologists study the influence of

culture on human behavior.

• Many cultural rules are unspoken but nonetheless

powerful.

– such as those governing correct conversational

distance

• People bring their own personalities and interests

to the roles they play.

– Nonetheless, the requirements of a social role are

strong.

The Obedience Study (1 of 3)

• Stanley Milgram wanted to know how many

people would obey an authority figure when

directly ordered to violate their ethical standards.

• Milgram’s study illustrates the power of norms and

roles to affect individual actions.

• Most people in the role of “teacher” inflicted what

they thought was extreme shock on another

person because of the authority of the

experimenter.

The Obedience Study (2 of 3)

• Milgram concluded that obedience was more a

function of the situation than of the personalities of

the participants.

• Some psychologists have questioned Milgram’s

conclusion regarding personality traits.

• They note that certain traits increase obedience

and a willingness to inflict pain on others.

– hostility

– narcissism

– rigidity

The Obedience Study (3 of 3)

Figure 8.1

The Milgram Obedience Experiment

Media Sales.

The Prison Study (1 of 2)

• In Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study, college

students tended to behave in accordance with the

role they had been assigned.

– “prisoner”

– “guard”

• Within a short time, most of the prisoners became

distressed and helpless.

• The guards, however, began to enjoy their new

power.

The Prison Study (2 of 2)

• The social situation exerted a powerful influence

on individuals’ behavior, often prompting them to

behave in uncharacteristic ways.

• Zimbardo ended this study after only 6 days.

• He had not expected such a speedy and alarming

transformation of ordinary students.

• Despite flaws in this study, it remains a powerful

and useful cautionary tale.

Why People Obey (1 of 3)

• Obedience to authority contributes to the smooth

running of society.

• But obedience can also lead to actions that are:

– deadly

– foolish

– illegal

• Throughout history, the plea “I was only following

orders” has been offered to excuse such actions.

Why People Obey (2 of 3)

• People obey orders because:

– they can be punished if they do not

– out of respect for authority, and

– to gain advantages

• Even when they would rather not obey, they may

do so because they have been entrapped.

Why People Obey (3 of 3)

• Entrapment involves:

– justifying each step and decision they make, and

– handing over responsibility for any harmful actions they

commit to the authority

• For many, the demands of the role and the social

pressures of the situation defeat the inner voice of

conscience.

Social Influences on Beliefs and

Behavior

• LO 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.

• LO 8.2.B Outline the process of cognitive

dissonance, and explain how the validity effect and

the familiarity effect shape our attitudes.

• LO 8.2.C Summarize four elements that contribute

to indoctrination.

Attributions (1 of 3)

• According to attribution theory, people are

motivated to search for causes to which they can

attribute their own and other people’s behavior.

• Situational attribution:

– “Joe stole the money because his family is starving.”

• Dispositional attribution:

– “Joe stole the money because he is a born thief.”

Attributions (2 of 3)

• The fundamental attribution error occurs when:

– people overestimate personality traits as a cause of

behavior, and

– underestimate the influence of the situation

• It 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

Attributions (3 of 3)

• Attributions are further influenced by three self-

serving biases:

– the bias to choose the most flattering and forgiving

explanations of our own behavior

– the bias that we are better, smarter, and kinder than

others, and

– the bias that the world is fair (the just-world hypothesis)

• These biases can distort communication, impede

the resolution of conflicts, and lead to serious

misunderstandings.

Attitudes (1 of 3)

• People hold many attitudes about people, things,

and ideas.

• Attitudes may be explicit (conscious) or implicit

(unconscious).

• Attitudes may change through:

– experience

– conscious decision, or

– as an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance

Attitudes (2 of 3)

• One powerful way to influence attitudes is by

taking advantage of two effects:

– familiarity effect

– validity effect

• Simply exposing people repeatedly to a name or

product makes them like it more.

• Repeating a statement over and over again

makes it seem more believable.

Attitudes (3 of 3)

Figure 8.2

The Slippery Slope of Self-Justification

Persuasion or “Brainwashing”? The

Case of Suicide Bombers (1 of 2)

• Suicide bombers and terrorists have not been

“brainwashed.”

• “Brainwashing” implies that a person has had a

sudden change of mind without being aware of

what is happening.

• It sounds mysterious and strange.

• The methods used to create a terrorist suicide

bomber are neither mysterious nor unusual.

Persuasion or “Brainwashing”? The

Case of Suicide Bombers (2 of 2)

• Most are not psychopaths or mentally ill.

• Many are well-educated and affluent.

• They have been:

– entrapped into taking increasingly violent actions

against real and perceived enemies

– encouraged to attribute all problems to that one enemy

– offered a new identity and salvation

– cut off from access to dissonant information

• Methods are similar to religious and other sects.

Individuals in Groups

• LO 8.3.A Outline the basic procedures and findings

of the Asch line-judging study.

• LO 8.3.B List four symptoms of groupthink.

• LO 8.3.C Explain how diffusion of responsibility

and deindividuation contribute to the madness of

crowds.

• LO 8.3.D Discuss four situational factors that

increase one’s likelihood to offer help to others.

Conformity (1 of 2)

• In groups, individuals often behave differently than

they would on their own.

• Conformity:

– permits the smooth running of society, and

– allows people to feel in harmony with others like them

• Two basic, beneficial motives for conformity are:

– the need for social acceptance

– the need for information

Conformity (2 of 2)

• But like obedience, conformity has negative

consequences, notably its power to suppress

critical thinking and creativity.

• The Asch experiment showed that most people

will conform to the judgments of others even when

the others are obviously wrong.

• In a group, many people will deny their private

beliefs, agree with silly notions, and even

repudiate their own values—just to be accepted.

Groupthink (1 of 2)

• Close-knit groups are vulnerable to groupthink,

the tendency of group members to:

– think alike

– censor themselves

– actively suppress disagreement, and

– feel that their decisions are invulnerable

• Throughout history, groupthink has led to

disastrous decisions in military and civilian life.

Groupthink (2 of 2)

• Groupthink often produces faulty decisions

because group members fail to seek disconfirming

evidence for their ideas.

• Groupthink can be minimized if the leader:

– rewards the expression of doubt and dissent

– protects and encourages minority views

– asks group members to generate as many alternative

solutions to a problem as they can think of, and

– has everyone try to think of the risks and

disadvantages of the preferred decision

The Wisdom and Madness of

Crowds (1 of 4)

• Sometimes a group’s collective judgment is better

than that of its individual members—the “wisdom

of crowds.”

• But crowds can also spread:

– gossip

– panic

– rumor

– misinformation

• They can also turn from joyful and peaceful to

violent and destructive in a flash.

The Wisdom and Madness of

Crowds (2 of 4)

• In groups, responsibility for an outcome is

diffused, or spread, among many people, reducing

each individual’s personal sense of accountability.

• This diffusion of responsibility in a group can lead

to inaction on the part of individuals, as in

bystander apathy.

• 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.

The Wisdom and Madness of

Crowds (3 of 4)

• Diffusion of responsibility is likely to occur under

conditions that promote deindividuation, the loss

of awareness of one’s individuality.

• Deindividuation has long been considered a prime

reason for mob violence.

• Individuals become disinhibited, just as if they

were intoxicated on alcohol.

• They are more likely to conform to the norms of

the specific situation (antisocial or prosocial).

The Wisdom and Madness of

Crowds (4 of 4)

• In some situations, crowd norms lead

deindividuated people to behave aggressively, but

in others, crowd norms foster helpfulness.

• In truly dangerous, unambiguous emergencies

people are more likely to help.

• In fact, they are often spurred to do so by the

presence of others.

Altruism and Dissent (1 of 2)

• The costs of nonconformity, dissent, courage, and

honesty are often high.

• Whistle-blowers are punished for their bravery.

• But personal convictions and conscience can

generate the willingness to:

– speak up for an unpopular opinion

– blow the whistle on illegal practices

– help a stranger in trouble

– perform other acts of altruism

Altruism and Dissent (2 of 2)

• But several situational factors are also important:

– The person perceives that help is needed.

– Cultural norms support taking action.

– The person has an ally.

– The person becomes entrapped in a commitment to

help or dissent.

• Certain social and cultural factors make altruism,

disobedience, and dissent more likely to occur,

just as other external factors suppress them.

Us Versus Them: Group Identity

• LO 8.4.A Contrast social identity, ethnic identity,

and acculturation, and offer examples of each

concept.

• LO 8.4.B Define ethnocentrism, and describe how

it contributes to us–them dichotomies.

• LO 8.4.C Define what a stereotype is, and discuss

three ways in which stereotypes distort reality.

Ethnic Identity (1 of 3)

• People develop social identities based on their:

– ethnicity (including nationality)

– religion

– occupation

– other social memberships

• In multicultural societies such as the United States

and Canada, different social identities sometimes

collide.

Ethnic Identity (2 of 3)

• People often face the dilemma between:

– ethnic identity

 a close identification with a religious or ethnic group

– acculturation

 identification with the dominant culture

• The hallmarks of having an ethnic identity:

– identify with the group

– feel proud to be a member

– feel emotionally attached to the group

– conform to the group’s rules, values, and norms

Ethnic Identity (3 of 3)

• Many Americans today do not want to be

pigeonholed into one ethnic or racial category.

• Some have created combination identities:

– Blaxican (African American and Mexican)

– Negripino (African American and Filipino)

– Chino-Latino (Chinese and Hispanic)

• Most minorities remain identified with their

ethnicity of origin, while picking and choosing

among the values, foods, and customs of the

mainstream culture.

Ethnocentrism (1 of 3)

• Ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s own ethnic

group or religion is superior to all others, promotes

“us–them” thinking.

• Ethnocentrism rests on a fundamental social

identity: us.

• As soon as people have created a category called

“us,” they invariably perceive everybody else as

“not-us.”

Ethnocentrism (2 of 3)

• One effective strategy for reducing us–them

thinking and hostility between groups is

interdependence, having both sides work together

to reach a common goal.

– Robbers Cave experiment

• Cooperation causes people to think of themselves

as members of one big group instead of two

opposed groups, us and them.

Ethnocentrism (3 of 3)

Figure 8.4

The Experiment at Robbers Cave

(Sherif et al., 1961)

Stereotypes (1 of 2)

• A stereotype is a summary impression of a group

of people in which all members of the group are

viewed as sharing a common trait or traits.

• Stereotypes help people:

– rapidly process new information

– organize experience, and

– predict how others will behave

• Stereotypes aren’t necessarily bad and they are

sometimes accurate.

Stereotypes (2 of 2)

• But they distort reality by:

– exaggerating differences between groups

– underestimating the differences within groups

– producing selective perception

• Cultural values affect:

– how people evaluate the actions of another group

– whether a stereotype becomes positive or negative

Group Conflict and Prejudice

• LO 8.5.A Describe four sources of prejudice.

• LO 8.5.B Describe five ways of measuring

prejudicial attitudes.

• LO 8.5.C Describe four situations that can help

reduce prejudice and intergroup conflict.

• LO 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 (1 of 4)

• A prejudice is an unreasonable negative feeling

toward a category of people.

• It provides the fuel for ethnocentrism.

• Prejudice persists everywhere in some form

because it has so many sources and functions:

– psychological

– social

– economic

– cultural

The Origins of Prejudice (2 of 4)

• Psychologically, prejudice wards off feelings of

anxiety and doubt and bolsters self-esteem when

a person feels threatened (by providing a

scapegoat).

• Prejudice also has social causes: pressure to

conform to views of friends, relatives, associates.

• Some prejudices are passed mindlessly from one

generation to another, through parental lessons.

– “We don’t associate with people like that.”

The Origins of Prejudice (3 of 4)

• Prejudice also serves to justify a majority group’s

economic interests and dominance.

• Prejudice rises and falls with changing economic

conditions:

– when two groups are in direct competition for jobs

– when people are worried about their incomes

• The oldest prejudice in the world may be sexism.

• It, too, serves to legitimize existing sex roles and

inequities in power.

The Origins of Prejudice (4 of 4)

• Finally, prejudice serves the cultural and national

purpose of bonding people to their social groups

and nations.

– By disliking “them,” we feel closer to our own group.

– We justify whatever we do to “them” to preserve our

customs and national policies.

• Many people assume that prejudice causes war,

but the reverse is far more often the case: War

causes prejudice.

– enemies described as vermin, heathens, monsters

Defining and Measuring Prejudice (1 of 3)

• Psychologists disagree on whether racism and

other prejudices are declining or have merely

taken new forms.

– There is evidence that explicit, conscious prejudices

have declined.

– It is no longer fashionable to admit one’s prejudices.

– But some have used various measures to see whether

implicit, unconscious negative feelings between groups

have also diminished.

Defining and Measuring Prejudice (2 of 3)

• Measurements of implicit prejudicial feelings:

– social distance and instances of “microaggressions”

– unequal treatment by the police or other institutions

– seeing whether people are more likely to behave

aggressively toward a target when they are stressed or

angry

– observing changes in the brain

– assessing unconscious positive or negative

associations with a group, as with the Implicit

Association Test (IAT)

Defining and Measuring Prejudice (3 of 3)

• However, the IAT has many critics who claim it is

not capturing true prejudice.

– Example: Experimenters got an IAT effect by matching

target faces with nonsense words and neutral words

that had no evaluative connotations at all.

• To truly understand prejudice, we must

distinguish:

– explicit attitudes from unconscious ones

– active hostility from simple discomfort

– what people say from what they feel

– what people feel from how they actually behave

Reducing Conflict and Prejudice (1 of 3)

• Efforts to reduce prejudice by appealing to moral

or intellectual arguments are not enough.

• They need to target both the explicit and implicit

attitudes that people have.

• They must also touch people’s:

– deeper insecurities

– fears

– negative associations with a group

Reducing Conflict and Prejudice (2 of 3)

• Four conditions help to reduce two groups’ mutual

prejudices and conflicts:

– Both sides must have equal legal status, economic

standing, and power.

– Both sides must have the legal, moral, and economic

support of authorities and cultural institutions.

– Both sides must have opportunities to work and

socialize together informally and formally (the contact

hypothesis).

– Both sides must work together for a common goal.

Reducing Conflict and Prejudice (3 of 3)

Figure 8.5

The Impact of Cross-Ethnic Friendships on Minority

Students’ Well-Being

(Mendoza-Denton & Page-Gould, 2008)

The Question of Human Nature (1 of 2)

• Many people believe that only bad people do bad

deeds.

• But the principles of social and cultural psychology

show that under certain conditions, good people

often can be induced to do bad things, too.

• Everyone is influenced to one degree or another

by all-too-normal social processes.

– mindless obedience to authority, conformity,

groupthink, deindividuation, stereotyping,

ethnocentrism, and prejudice

The Question of Human Nature (2 of 2)

• Human nature contains the potential for:

– unspeakable acts of cruelty

– inspiring acts of goodness

• By identifying the conditions that create the

“banality of evil,” perhaps we can create other

conditions that foster the “banality of virtue”:

– kindness

– selflessness

– generosity