Behavior in Social and Cultural Context

1. Behavior in Social and Cultural Context Chapter 8

2. Defining Roles and Rules _____________ Rules that regulate human life, including social conventions, explicit laws, and implicit cultural standards. ____________ A given social position that is governed by a set of norms for proper behavior. __________ A program of shared rules that govern the behavior of members of a community or society, and A set of values, beliefs and attitudes shared by most members of that community.

3. The Obedience Study Stanley Milgram Yale University social psychologist

4. Milgram’s Obedience Study Stanley Milgram and coworkers investigated whether people would follow orders, even when the order violated their ethical standards. Most people were far more obedient than anyone expected. Every single participant complied with at least some orders to shock another person. 2/3 shocked the learner to the full extent. Results are controversial and have generated much research on violence and obedience.

5. Factors Leading to Disobedience in Milgram’s study When the experimenter left the room. When the victim was in the same room. When the experimenter issued conflicting demands. When the person ordering them to continue was an ordinary man. When the subject worked with peers who refused to go on.

6. Zimbardo’s Prison Study Subjects were physically and mentally healthy young men who volunteered to participate for money. They were randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. Those assigned the role of prisoner became distressed, helpless, and panicky. Those assigned the roles of guards became either nice, “tough but fair,” or tyrannical. Study had to be ended after 6 days.

7. The Power of Roles Factors causing people to obey: Allocating responsibility to the authority. Routinizing the task. Wanting to be polite. Becoming entrapped. ______________: A gradual process in which individuals escalate their commitment to a course of action to justify their investment of time, money, or effort.

8. Social Influences on Beliefs Defining social cognition Attributions Attitudes

9. Social Cognition An area in social psychology concerned with social influences on thought, memory, perception, and other cognitive processes. Researcher are interested in how people’s perceptions of themselves and others affect: Their relationships, thoughts, beliefs and values.

10. Attributions Attribution Theory The theory that people are motivated to explain their own and other peoples’ behavior by attributing causes of that behavior to a situation or a disposition. ____________: behavior is due to internal factors, such as traits or motives ____________: behavior is due to external factors, such as other people

11. Attributions Fundamental Attribution Error Tendency in explaining others’ behaviors to overestimate personality factors and underestimate situational influence.

12. Other Attributions ___________ bias Tendency, in explaining own behavior, to take credit for one’s good actions and rationalize one’s mistakes. Just-world hypothesis The notion that many people need to believe that the world is fair and that justice is served Bad people are punished and good people rewarded.

13. Attitudes A relatively stable opinion containing beliefs and emotional feelings about a topic. _________ We are aware of them, they shape conscious decisions __________ We are unaware of them, they may influence our behavior in ways we do not recognize.

14. Factors Influencing Attitude Change Change in social environment Change in behaviors. Due to a need for consistency. 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.

15. Influencing Attitudes _________ Effect Tendency to believe something is true just because it has been repeated many times _________ Effect Tendency to feel more positively towards something as we become more familiar with it Classical Conditioning Association of the message with a good feeling

16. Methods of indoctrination The person is subjected to ______________. The person’s problems, personal and political, are explained by one simple attribution. The person is offered a new identity and is promised salvation. The person’s access to disconfirming (dissonant) information is severely controlled.

17. Conformity Asch Subjects in a group were asked to match line lengths. Confederates in the group picked wrong line. Subjects went along with wrong answer 37% of trials.

18. Conformity Behavior or attitudes that come from group pressure Why do people conform? How do you conform? What is the danger of conformity?

19. Groupthink In close-knit groups, the tendency for all members to think alike and suppress disagreement for the sake of harmony. Symptoms of groupthink include Illusion of invincibility. Self-censorship. Pressure on dissenters to conform. Illusion of unanimity. Groupthink can be counteracted by: Creating conditions rewarding dissent Basing decision on majority rule.

20. The Wisdom and Madness of Crowds ______________________________ In organized or anonymous groups, the tendency of members to avoid taking responsibility for actions or decisions because they assume that others will do so. Bystander apathy People mistakenly perceive this, when diffusion of responsibility is a better explanation Social loafing When people work less in the presence of others, allowing others to work harder.

21. Deindividuation In groups or crowds, the loss of awareness of one’s own individuality. Result may be aggressive or antisocial behavior Factors influencing deindividuation. Size of city, group. Uniforms or masks. Deindividuation can influence friendly behaviors as well . Depends on norms of the specific situation.

22. Altruism and Dissent Altruism – helping others From conscience and situational influences Situational factors contributing to dissent and altruism: You perceive the need for intervention or help. Situation makes it more likely that you will take responsibility. You have an ally. You become entrapped.

23. Ethnic Identity 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 ____________ The belief that one’s own ethnic group, nation, or religion is superior to all others Aids survival by making people feel attached to their own group and willing to work on group’s behalf

24. Group Identity: Us versus Them Social Identity The part of a person’s self-concept that is based on identification with a nation, culture, or group or with gender or other roles in society. Us versus Them social identities are strengthened when groups compete with one another. Robber’s Cave studies

25. Stereotypes Cognitive schemas or a summary impressions of a group, in which a person believes that all members of the group share a common trait or traits (positive, negative, or neutral). Allow us to quickly process new information and retrieve memories. Distort reality in 3 ways. Exaggerate differences between groups. Produce selective perception. Underestimate differences within groups.

26. Origins of prejudice ____________ causes People inflate own self-worth by disliking groups they see as inferior. Social causes By disliking others we feel closer to others who are like us. Economic causes Legitimizes unequal economic treatment Cultural and national causes Bonds people to their own ethnic or national group and its ways

27. Measuring prejudice Social distance What people do when they are stressed or angry Brain activity Implicit attitudes

28. Measures of implicit (unconscious) prejudice

29. Measures of Explicit Prejudice

30. Defining and Measuring Prejudice Measuring implicit prejudice. Measures of symbolic racism. Measures of behaviors rather than attitudes. Measures of unconscious associations with a target group. IAT link on Kuehn’s web

31. Reducing Prejudice and Conflict Groups must have equal legal status, economic opportunities, and power. Authorities and community institutions must endorse egalitarian norms and provide moral support and legitimacy for both sides. Both sides must have opportunities to work and socialize together, formally and informally. Both sides must cooperate, working together for a common goal.

32. Human nature Human nature contains the potential for unspeakable acts of cruelty and inspiring acts of goodness. Most people believe that some cultures and individuals are inherently evil and therefore not fully human; if we can just get rid of them, everything will be fine. From the standpoint of social and cultural psychology, all human beings, like all cultures, contain the potential for both good and evil.