The Person & the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology

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→ Review of classic studies of social influences and situational control:

- social pressures and other situational factors exert effects on behavior that are more potent than we generally recognize

- to understand the impact of a given social situation, we often need to attend to its subtle details.

- Social influence and group processes

→ Laboratory demonstrations of group influence and conformity → Solomon Asch → demonstrate the opposite → he wanted to clear up what he believed to be a misconception fostered by Muzafer Sherif → “Autokinetic Effect” Paradigm

- illustrate the development and perpetuation of group norms

- how far the light had moved? → single subjects = variables and unstable // pairs or groups = estimates began to converge, and a group norm quickly developed → the conclusions of the groups were different but all of the members of each one agree with their conclusion.

- In one study, he introduced a confederate → conclusion → social norms did not have to evolve from the converging views of well-meaning but uncertain truth seekers, instead they could be imposed by a individual who had no coercive power and no special claim to expertise or legitimacy, only a willingness to be consistent and unwavering in the face of others’ uncertainty.

- Autokinetic norms could be readily transmitted from one generation of subjects to the next.

- Our most basic perceptions and judgments about the world are socially conditioned and dictated.

→ The Asch Paradigm:

- Visual perception experiment.

- Each person answered in turn --> they make their own judgment independently.

- 2 discovers:

- the size of the unanimous majority in his paradigm did not have to be particularly large.

- The erroneous majority did have to unanimous

- he concluded that basic perceptions or physical reality can be socially dictated

→ when conformity had occurred in the face of social influence, it was not because the subjects’ perceptions had been altered.

→ Main conclusion → the willingness of so many individuals to deny even the unambiguous of their senses rather than stand alone against the group.

→ Main findings → high degree of conformity to the erroneous majority

- Why is social influence so powerful?

→ Informational aspects of social influences → the average of the opinions of any 2 people is more likely to be correct than the opinion of either individual.

- We are not in the habit of ignoring the opinions of our fellows for the very good reason that they have proven in the past to be a helpful way of learning about the world.

- State of disagreement = discomfort that we resolve it by moving to their position, moving them towards ours, or deciding that they are not useful.

- It is not just majority opinions that should be influential, but the powerful their views are likely to have an influence on group opinions.

- Minority views are sometimes recognized → marketplace.

→ Normative basis of social influences → degree of unanimity about understanding of the situation → the opinion of the majority carries normative or moral force .

→ Social influence and tension systems → group should be thought of as being in a constant state of tension produced by requirements of uniformity and by forces operating on individual group members that cause them to stray from the group standard.

- Individuals may also be thought of as tension systems in regard to their conflicts with the group standard.

- How to resolve the state of tension?

- influencing the group towards one’s view

- opening oneself to influence so as to move one’s view inline with that of the group

- rejecting the group as a standard for one’s own opinions.

- Channels factors

→ Channels factors → they release or redirect the energy in delicately balanced systems where there is tension between one or more motive states.

- Stimulus or a response pathway that serves to elicit or sustain behavioral intentions with particular intensity or stability → they can facilitate or inhibit the links between general attitudes or vague intentions and consequential social actions

- on selling war bonds

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Autokinetic effect

→ Experiment → dark room, no firmer of reference, told light will move – must tell, enter confederate.

→ Take away:

- people tend to conform to group norms

- perceptions and judgments are socially conditioned.

→ Broad implications of inheritance:

- social judgments can survive during generations

Asch Experiment:

→ Description → experiment to see how long/when subject answers is conform to others answers even though is wrong.