Answer in Your Notes

If you could do If you could do anything humanly anything humanly

possible with complete possible with complete assurance that you assurance that you

would not be detected would not be detected or held responsible, or held responsible, what would you do? what would you do?

Social InfluenceSocial InfluenceChapter 16, Lecture 2Chapter 16, Lecture 2

“Fish swim in schools. Birds fly in flocks. And humans, too, tend to go with their group,to think what it thinks and do what it does.”

- David Myers

Social InfluenceThe greatest contribution of social psychology is its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and actions and the way they are molded by social

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The Seattle Windshield Pitting EpidemicOn March 23, 1954, Seattle newspapers

reported damage to automobile windshields in a city 80 miles to the north. In the following days and weeks, damage was reported closer to Seattle. On April 14, reports of damage to windshields came from a small town only 65 miles away and then from a naval station just 45 miles from Seattle city limits. Before night fell on April 15, 242 persons phoned the Seattle Police Department to report damage to more than 3000 automobiles.

The Seattle Windshield Pitting EpidemicTypically, the damage was described as pitting

marks that grew into bubbles the size of a thumbnail. Some residents covered their windshields with floor mats or newspapers, others kept their cars in their garages. The mayor of Seattle finally made emergency appeals to the governor and to President Eisenhower.

The Seattle Windshield Pitting EpidemicAlthough different explanations were offered

for the pitting – from cosmic rays to sandflea eggs hatching in the glass – most of the discussion centered on possible radioactive fallout from H-bomb testing earlier in the year. A few newspaper reporters wrote of the possibility of mass hysteria: Given the situation, people were perhaps for the first time looking at rather than through their windshields. On April 16, reports to the police dropped to fewer than 50; by the 18th, no more calls were received. Shortly thereafter, the governor asked the University of Washington Environmental Research Laboratory to investigate the pitting. Their report? No evidence of pitting that could not be explained by ordinary road damage.

The Seattle Windshield Pitting EpidemicWhat caused the mass hysteria as well as its

quick demise? Nahum Medalia and Otto Larsen suggest that the windshield pitting epidemic may ironically have relieved the anxiety associated with the H-bomb explosions. How? First, it focused the anxiety on a narrower area of experience – windshields. Second, the doom and disaster that many experts had predicted was now over. Third, the responses to the threat – calling the police, covering the windshields, appealing to the president – gave people the feeling they were doing something about the danger that threatened.

Conformity & Obedience

Behavior is contagious, modeled by one followed by another. We follow behavior

of others to conform.

Other behaviors may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority.

Conformity Obedience

The Chameleon EffectConformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or

thinking to coincide with a group standard (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).

Group Pressure & Conformity

Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity, adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard.

Group Pressure & Conformity

An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions

about reality.

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Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

1. One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.

2. The group has at least three people.3. The group is unanimous.4. One admires the group’s status and

attractiveness.5. One has no prior commitment to a response.6. The group observes one’s behavior.7. One’s culture strongly encourages respect

for a social standard

Reasons for Conforming

Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain

approval or avoid rejection. A person may respect normative behavior because there

may be a severe price to pay if not respected.

Informational Social Influence: The group may provide valuable information, but stubborn people will never listen to

others.

Obedience

People comply to social pressures. How would they respond to

outright command?

Stanley Milgram designed a study that

investigates the effects of authority on

obedience. Stanley Milgram

(1933-1984)

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Milgram’s Study

Milgram’s Study: Results

Individual Resistance

A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion.

An unarmed individual single-handedlychallenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen

Square.

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Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies

In both Asch's and Milgram's studies, participants were pressured to choose between following their

standards and being responsive to others.

In Milgram’s study, participants were torn between hearing the victims pleas

and the experimenter’s orders.

Group Influence

How do groups affect our behavior? Social psychologists study various groups:

1. One person affecting another

2. Families3. Teams4. Committees

Individual Behavior in the Presence of Others

Social facilitation: Refers to improved

performance on tasks in the presence of

others. Triplett (1898) noticed cyclists’ race

times were faster when they competed against others than

when they just raced against the clock.

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Social Loafing

The tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort toward

attaining a common goal than when tested individually (Latané, 1981).

Answer in Your Notes

If you could do If you could do anything humanly anything humanly

possible with complete possible with complete assurance that you assurance that you

would not be detected would not be detected or held responsible, or held responsible, what would you do? what would you do?

Deindividuation

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and

anonymity.

Mob behavior

So does deindividuation always bring out hostility and aggression? Not necessarily. Imagine yourself as a participant in a study by Kenneth Gergen and his associates.The researcher ushers you into a chamber that is either fully lighted or totally dark, except for a tiny red light over the door so that you can find your way out if you want to leave the experiment. He says, “You will be left in the room for no more than an hour with some other people, and there are no rules as to what you should do together. At the end you will leave the room alone and will never meet the other participants.” Then you and seven strangers of both sexes spend the next 60 minutes together. What will happen?

So does deindividuation always bring out hostility and aggression? Not necessarily. Imagine yourself as a participant in a study by Kenneth Gergen and his associates.In the original experiment participants who spent an hour in a lighted room sat around making light conversation. In contrast, the people in the dark talked less, but about more important things. Ninety percent intentionally touched someone and half hugged another. Very few disliked the experience; in fact, most volunteered to return without pay. Anonymity had released intimacy.

Gergen, K.J., Gergen, M.M., & Barton, W.H. (1979, October). Deviance in the dark. Psychology Today, 129-130.

Effects of Group Interaction

Group Polarization enhances a group’s prevailing attitudes

through a discussion. If a group is like-

minded, discussion strengthens its

prevailing opinions and attitudes.

Groupthink

A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides the realistic appraisal of

alternatives.

Attack on Pearl HarborKennedy and the Cuban Missile CrisisWatergate Cover-upChernobyl Reactor Accident

Power of Individuals

The power of social influence is enormous, but so is the power of

the individual.

Non-violent fasts and appeals by Gandhi led to the independence

of India from the British.

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“So it happens when people succumb,gradually, to evil. In any society, great evilssometimes grow out of people’s compliancewith lesser evils.”

- David Myers

HomeworkRead p.691-697