PSYC
321 notes Dr. Laugel
Ch
12: Groups and Individuals
Group: define:
perceived bond with others.
Awareness of group as a coherent entity: entiativity.
in groups with entiativity, members interact, group
seen as important, share goals among members, view similarity among members
Aspects
of groups:
Roles eg Zimbardo's prison study
have status hierchies; status confers resource
access
norms
cohesiveness; role of cognitive dissonance
Groups: benefits to members. Status of group is important if the group's members are
motivated by self-enhancement; might involve self-transcendence if the group is
not of high status
Groups: costs to members: restrict freedom by norms, etc; require
time, resources eg dues; necessity to go along if you
may not agree (or, alternatively, leave the group or start a new one if
disagreement is strong)
Presence
of others (ie, the presence of a group) can affect
behavior, beyond just following norms:
two examples are :
performing, and lost in a crowd
performing: social
facilitation (Zajonc)
drive theory (role of dominant response, well-learned etc). Social facilitation can enhance or reduce the
goodness of performance
(how much error is made)
even cockroaches!
two competing theories of social
facilitation: drive and
distraction. distraction
(cognitive) may influence drive (arousal), which causes the effect
Lost in a crowd: social loafing and deindividuation
Social loafing; hand clapping etc not in collectivist cultures.
overcoming it: be observed;
increase commitments; increase task value; view my contribution as unique
deindividuation:
lowered self-awareness, heightened social identity as part of the group;
group norms override personal ideas.
Mirror studies;
may be involved with higher levels of aggression, including real-life evidence
Coordination
in groups: cooperation or conflict ?
cooperation: social dilemmas (eg prisoner's) :
mixed motives: mine and the grp's
cooperation affected by :
1)reciprocity (even non-humans, "reciprocal altruism"; territorial birds sharing carrion)
2) personal factors (people can be cooperative, individualistic,
competitive)
3) communication (more communication --> more cooperation)
Conflict: due to incompatible interests among group
members; incompatible interest sometimes leads to conflict but not always
When does
conflict erupt? --role of attributions
(I believe he thwarted me); -- faulty
communication (feeling insulted by destructive criticism); -- view myself as more logical than
others; -- personality traits, eg Type A, more conflict-prone (aggressive under pressure,
etc)
conflict resolution techniques:
bargaining (involved concessions and offers); several strategies are
geared toward convincing another person to lower his or her goals (eg, make you think
I will suffer if I do this just for you, but I
will do it anyhow ....)
how to approach bargaining: there
are several perspectives: for example,
view the bargaining as win/lose (only one of us can benefit), or win/win (maybe we can works something out so we may both come out ahead).
another conflict resolution strategy uses superordinate
goals
Perception
of group fairness, associated with three types of justice in groups: distributive justice (perceive equity in
distributions of rewards, they should be contribution-based to be perceived as just);
procedural justice: focuses on
the procedures for redressing greivances,
distribution of rewards etc.; “how things are done”
transactional
justice: exposure to logic behind distribution of rewards, are bad outcomes
explained well, do I feel well-treated, is communication effectively carried
out, etc
Affect
(how I feel about outcomes) can affect how much I attend to those three types
of justice. feel
good about an outcome, more likely to perceive fairness and to disregard the
three types of justice
rely on mood more when info about the three types of justice isn't available
aware of my status, leads me to consider procedural justice in the group
how to react to unfairness: calibrate (measure; decrease) output to the
group; type of unfairness perceived can influence how we react; even equity
theory in close interpersonal relationships, so these principles can apply even to marriages,
friendships, etc.
perceive problems in procedural or transactional justice, reactions
might be covert: theft from company etc
Group decision making: members contribute inputs for an
outcome
sometimes decisions are difficult:
hung juries etc
decision schemas: majority
wins, truth-wins, first-shift rule, unanimity required
Groupthink "group can't be wrong", failure
to consider alternatives
Famous
groupthink examples incl Vietnam escalation; Iraq
two important factors:
cohesiveness, in which emergent
norms may be perceived as inarguable; also, rejection of external inputs to
decision-making, ignoring possible important sources of information
first shift rule; and, outrageous suggestions become less outrageous
(mere exposure?)
Biased processing:
selective use of info. concept
of "intuitive lawyers" instead of "intuitive
scientists" (seek info to support/push
agenda/decision instead of the reverse)
How to
make better decisions: encourage
dissent: devil's advocate; authentic
dissent (have heterogeneous grps); "sleep on
it" (delay decisions)
Addendum: Social
psychology applications in everyday life, Appendix A: Legal System and Health Psychology
Legal system: Justice isn't really blind; is
influenced by the people in it (defendants, juries, etc).
Pitfalls
in police interrogations: are police
info seekers, or are
they adversaries with a preset agenda?
Biases: if suspects are confused, stressed, might
affect accuracy of suspects’ memory
If
videotape interrogations, should show both the interrogator and the person
being interrogated; if suspect alone is shown, the suspect's behavior is seen
as more "voluntary"; persuasion might be hidden from the viewer
several sources of inaccurate info from suspects or witnesses: 1) uncertainty of memory, 2)
an expectation that they know an answer, and 3) trust in the questioner: these three can lead to inaccurate memories
even if the person being interrogated is sincere
Compliance
techniques by interrogators:
ingratiation; "I can help you if you cooperate"
research evidence that people can eventually come to believe an
incorrect confession
Media
coverage effects: internal
attributions by viewers (associate actor with act); primacy effect, defendants
seen in handcuffs etc; a “guilt
schema”; pretrial, more publicity, more
assumption of guilt by viewers; desirable to prohibit pretrial publicity or
during trial publicity?
Eyewitnesses
influenced by leading questions; mistaken identity (memory made less accurate
by emotions, eg by victims of violence etc)
memory construction, uses general aspects of situations to remember more than what actually
occurred
Asked to
imagine events, people gradually believe they actually happened (eg childhood memories) false memories can be induced
traumatic event memory: not
reliable.
Increase
accuracy in legal system: view lineups
as social psychological experiments:
with
--
Experimenter (officer conducting)
-- witnesses are participants in the study
-- suspect is stimulus; an identification of a suspect is
à
-- response data;
-- other factors (other suspects, etc) are the research
design.
In this view, police test hypotheses, and
results are viewed probabilistically
-- control grp: have witness view a fake lineup first; and, "blind" experimenters
Trials: in US not fact-finding; is adversarial
system. Jury selection is biased by
pre-selection interviews with lawyers
use of leading questions on X-exam;
"just disregard" testimony (when a jury is told to “disregard what you have just
heard”, not psychologically possible;
there are uncontrollable sleeper effects, emotional material stays on,
and these factors can influence
subsequent cognitive processing eg info about a crime
c/w suspect
Defendant
characteristics: Afro-Americans more
convictions; role of physical attractiveness, being female, high $$ status
females more likely than males to convict in cases of rape, child
abuse
biases in jurors:
confirmation biases (info consistent with original view is processed
more deeply, in juror's mind)
personality characteristics:
authoritarianism for example
Social Psychology and health:
link between behavior (lifestyle) and health
similarity in biochemistry in immune, nervous systems (immune structures have receptors for glucocorticoids, etc) therefore CNS and immune systems
interact (stress).
More
stress, less effective immune function; chronic stress reduces lymphocytes (wbc in immune system)
Genetics: African heritage, larger stress reaction?
coping w/stress: 1)
replace negative emotions (ok for acute
stress); 2) change the situation (the stressor) also known as problem-focused
coping;
3) role of social support.
Have a pet; bad social effects of lack of support system; benefits of
being supportive
Gender
differences in coping with stress:
males, more avoidance/withdrawal; females, more variety of coping strategies, more
verbalizing, more seeking of support
these differences might be related to gender roles, with females being more
involved in social and support systems; and, women view stress as more severe
than men do
Aspects
of the person that
affect coping with stress:
Anger (Type A) and hostility -- heart disease
perfectionism, especially the type that is
self-critical, excessively concerned with other's criticisms; have worse
health; not seek support
socioeconomic status also
has a role; more $$ better health, not sure why, maybe more health-related info
available (beyond just "ability to pay")
Healthy
lifestyles are c/w behavior (actually, they are made of behavior), but genetics
also has a role
positive view of aging, decreases mortality; Asian view of growing old
Suggestions: Avoid harmful things like alcohol and tobacco
65%
obesity in US adults; why?
genetics,
sizes of food portions is increasing,
people don't walk much,
high-calorie foods are widely promoted,
social norms view overweight as normal
healthy
behaviors in this regard: eat only when
hungry (not out of habit or
because everyone else is), eat low-cal, more exercise, drink water when
eating not junk colas, stay unstressed, stay away from fad dieting
--end