PSYC104 Chapter Notes - Chapter 13: Robin Dunbar, Roy Baumeister, Social Comparison Theory
13 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Week Eight Readings – Social Psychology
Chapter Thirteen
21 February 2005 - Mass hysteria - people in an airport kept feeling sick and many were
taken to hospital, it was thought to be some environmental toxin, but everything was clear.
Public fears.
Gravitating to each other - to a point
-Robin Dunbar famous for predicting from research that humans have a maximum of 150
people that know them reasonably well.
The need to belong
• We need to belong theory - Mark Leary and Roy Baumeister - biological need for
interpersonal communications. We seek out social bonds when we can. We suffer
psychological consequences when we cannot.
• 'Cyberball' - Playing a computer ball tossing game where the participant thinks they
are playing actual opponents but it's just the computer. When they stop passing to the
real participant, he starts to feel meaningless from ostracism, and damages his self-
esteem - activates the same pain region that also becomes active during physical pain.
How we came to be this way
-Evolution.
-Social influences, conformity, obedience etc.
Social Comparison Theory:
Theory that we seek to evaluate our beliefs, attitudes and abilities by comparing our reactions
with those of others.
Mass Hysteria
Outbreak of irrational behaviour that is spread by social contagion.
Urban Legends
Simplest demonstrations of the power of social influence to form and disseminate incorrect
beliefs.
Social Facilitation
-Enhancement of performance brought about by the presence of others.
-Robert Zajonc.
-Cycle racers went at faster speeds when racing alongside others.
-Cockroaches running a maze with spectators figured it out faster than lone cockroaches.
Attribution
• Lesson of social psychology.
• Process of assigning causes to behaviour.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences on other people's behaviour.
Evidence for fundamental attribution error
• Edward Jones and Victor Harris.
• Castra experiment with debaters, it was random assignment, but they believed them.
Conformity - Ash Paradigm
• Tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure.
• Lines test - 1 standard line and then shown 3 different lines of different lengths, one is
the same as the standard line - picked someone to make a false decision, everyone else
followed even though they knew it was wrong.
Social Influences on Conformity
Uniformity of agreement
• if all confederates gave the wrong answer, the participant was more likely to conform.
Nevertheless, if one confederate gave the correct response, the level of conformity
plummeted by three-quarters.
Difference in the wrong answer
• knowing that someone else in the group differed from the majority - even if that
person held a different view from that participant - made the participant less likely to
conform.
Size
• the size of the majority made a difference, but only up to about 5 or 6. People were no
more likely to conform in a group of 10 more than in group of 5.
Imaging studies
• Brain-imaging technology raises the possibility that social pressure can influence
perception.
• Conformity can come with negative emotions, particularly anxiety.
Conformity - individual, cultural and gender differences
• Peoples responses are different with these factors.
• People with low self-esteem are especially prone to conformity.
• Asians are more likely to conform than Westerners, they are more collectivist than
many Western cultures.
• Individualistic cultures like Australia, NZ and the US, like to stand out more.
Deindividuation
• Tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behaviour when they are stripped of
their usual identities.
• Stanford Prison Experiment - Philip Zimbardo. First day was fine, but then guards
began to treat the prisoners cruelly. Humiliating line ups. Using numbers instead of
names. Study ended early to the relief of the prisoners, but the disappointment of
some guards.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
21 february 2005 - mass hysteria - people in an airport kept feeling sick and many were taken to hospital, it was thought to be some environmental toxin, but everything was clear. Gravitating to each other - to a point. Robin dunbar famous for predicting from research that humans have a maximum of 150 people that know them reasonably well. The need to belong: we need to belong theory - mark leary and roy baumeister - biological need for interpersonal communications. We seek out social bonds when we can. "cyberball" - playing a computer ball tossing game where the participant thinks they are playing actual opponents but it"s just the computer. When they stop passing to the real participant, he starts to feel meaningless from ostracism, and damages his self- esteem - activates the same pain region that also becomes active during physical pain.
