Topic 4.3 Notes – Psychology of Social Situations

How Social Situations Shape Behavior

Social psychology studies how behavior and mental processes shift in the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. The same person may act one way alone and a totally different way in a group, under authority, or in a crowd.

Two ideas set up the whole topic:

• Social norms are expectations for behavior, attitudes, and beliefs.
  • Some are unwritten, like not standing too close in line.
  • Some are formal, like school rules or laws.
• Social roles are expectations tied to positions, like parent, teacher, employee, or juror.
  • A role can change behavior because you act the way that position is supposed to act.

Culture also shapes what behavior means, so the same action can look respectful in one setting and rude in another.

Cultural patterns

• Individualism values personal goals, independence, and self-expression.
• Collectivism values group harmony, interdependence, and obligations.
• Multiculturalism means recognizing and valuing multiple cultural perspectives in one society or organization.

Why people follow others

• Normative social influence means you go along to gain approval or avoid rejection.
• Informational social influence means you go along because others seem right or better informed.

You can see both at once. A student may copy everyone else’s answer because they do not want to stand out and because they think the group knows something they do not.

Persuasion, Conformity, and Obedience

These are three different pressures:

• Persuasion changes attitudes or behavior through messages or techniques.
• Conformity means matching the group without a direct order.
• Obedience means following a direct command from authority.

Routes to persuasion

The elaboration likelihood model describes two routes to persuasion.

• Central route involves careful thinking about evidence. This creates more lasting attitude change.
• Peripheral route relies on surface cues like attractiveness, fame, emotion, slogans, or confidence.

The halo effect fits the peripheral route. If someone seems likable or attractive, people may assume they are also smart or trustworthy.

Sequential request techniques

• Foot-in-the-door means small request first, then a bigger related one.
• Door-in-the-face means huge request first, then a smaller one.

A classic mix-up is reversing them, so tie each one to the order.

Conformity in Asch’s line study

In Asch’s task, people compared one standard line with three choices and then answered after hearing the group’s responses.

Asch line-judgment task

Asch showed that people sometimes agreed with an obviously wrong group answer about line lengths.

Conformity gets stronger with:

• unanimity
• public responding
• group cohesion
• uncertainty
• admired or high-status groups

It drops when:

• one dissenter breaks unanimity
• responses are private

Obedience in Milgram’s study

Milgram obedience study

Milgram had participants act as “teachers” giving shocks to a “learner.” No real shocks happened, but participants believed they did. Many obeyed to very high levels, even while upset.

Obedience gets stronger when:

• authority seems legitimate and nearby
• responsibility feels shifted to authority
• commands increase gradually
• peers do not resist

It gets weaker when:

• authority is remote
• learner is closer
• the setting seems less prestigious
• peers defy authority

How Groups Change Thinking and Performance

Groups can change judgment, effort, and self-control.

• Group polarization means discussion pushes the group further in its original direction.
• Groupthink means the desire for harmony shuts down critical thinking.
• False consensus effect means overestimating how much others agree with you.
• Diffusion of responsibility means each person feels less responsible because others are present.
• Social loafing means people put in less effort when individual work is hard to identify.
• Deindividuation means anonymity in a group lowers self-awareness and restraint.

Performance around others

Social facilitation means the presence of others raises arousal.

• Simple or well-learned tasks usually improve.
• Hard or new tasks usually get worse.

Workplace applications

Industrial-organizational psychology studies work behavior, leadership, teamwork, training, motivation, and satisfaction.

Burnout includes:

• exhaustion
• cynicism or detachment
• reduced effectiveness

Conflict, Cooperation, and Helping

Between-group conflict and cooperation

A superordinate goal is a shared goal that requires cooperation. Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment showed that competition created conflict, but shared problems reduced hostility.

A social trap happens when short-term self-interest harms the whole group over time.

Prosocial behavior and altruism

• Prosocial behavior includes helping, sharing, comforting, and protecting.
• Altruism means selfless helping, though motives can still include approval, guilt reduction, or future return.
• Social debt is the feeling that you owe someone after receiving help.
• Social reciprocity norm means help those who helped you.
• Social responsibility norm means help people who need it, even if they cannot repay you.

The bystander effect

Helping becomes less likely when more bystanders are present. Darley and Latané showed this in the seizure intercom study.

One useful way to organize the helping process is the five-step bystander intervention sequence shown here.

Five steps of bystander intervention

The steps to helping are:

1. Notice the event
2. Interpret it as an emergency
3. Accept responsibility
4. Know how to help
5. Act

Blockers include:

• pluralistic ignorance when people look calm so everyone assumes no emergency exists
• diffusion of responsibility
• distraction or time pressure

Darley and Batson’s Good Samaritan study found that people in a hurry were less likely to help.