PSYCH 1X03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Groupthink, Group Cohesiveness
24 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Our thoughts and behaviours are influenced by the people around us. Social psychology is not as intuitive as it seems. Behaviours performed in a group are different from behaviours performed individually. Presence of others increases arousal to improve performance on well practiced tasks. Presence of others decreases performance on complex tasks. Co-actor - another individual performing the same task. Audience - a group of people watching an individual perform a task. Social facilitation - the increased performance that occurs in the presence of co-actors or an audience. The presence of others can sometimes hinder, rather than help, a performance. Zanjonc"s research offered a solution to the problem of social facilitation. Group presence hinders complex task performance, but facilitates well-practiced ones. Social learning theory - we learn appropriate behaviours by modeling and imitating the behaviour of others. Social learning theory was best demonstrated with the bobo doll experiment. The children acquired behaviours through observation; without reinforcement.
