Social psychology

• What are the major branches of social psychology?

  Social influence and social cognition or social thinking
• what is social influence?

  how the presence of others influences our behaviours
• what is social cognition?

  how we perceive or view another person
• What is obedience?


  How much people obey and the factors which influence obedience levels
• who is Zimbardo?


  His work served to confirm aspects of Milgram‘s work (in terms of why people obey specifically the role if particular types of power)
• what did Zimbardo and Milgram do?

  showed how environmental factors can influence the degree to which we obey authority figures
• What is compliance?

  • Shallowest form of social influence
  • change in public behaviour whilst private beliefs stay the same
  • behavioural change is motivated by desire for approval/rewards or avoidance of disapproval/punishment
  • agent of influence: people/groups who have power to reward/punish
• Identification

  • The process by which an individual adopts behaviours, beliefs, attitudes of a person or group they admire or wish to be associated with
  • involves a deeper connection to the influencing agent compared to compliance
  • this social influence stops when the relationship ceases to exist
  • agent of influence: role models, someone admired by the subject of social influence
• Internalisation

  • Deepest form of social influence
  • changes in private beliefs and public behaviours
  • adopted behaviours are integrated into the individuals value system/become a part of their self concept. They are seen as true/right
  • agent of influence: people who have credibility (eg) are trustworthy or have experience
• Key features of obedience

  • Authority figures have power to punish or reward or are viewed as legitimate experts
  • orders are clear and direct
  • authority figures don’t typically change their behaviour
• What is normative influence?


  Changing public behaviour but not beliefs
• what is informational influence?


  changing public behaviours and private beliefs to conform with others because we believe that they have accurate information
• What is the difference between conformity and obedience?

  • obedience: there is a direct request to change behaviour. E.g. the teacher tells everyone to be quite
  • conformity: your behaviour is influenced by the others. E.g. everyone goes silent because they want to
  • obedience: the person influencing us is of a higher status e.g. A lecturer gives us a task like reading a book
  • conformity: a class mate or someone of the same status influences our actions. E.g. There is a book that a group is reading, so you want to read it to.
• What is deindividuation?


  The loss of self/individual identity, leading to disinhibited behaviour
• What are disinhibited behaviours?

  • “…Lack of restraint manifested in disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment…”
  • generally negative/undesirable behaviours, but can also be positive or desirable
  • deindividuation heightens conformity to the group
• Factors leading to deindividuation

  Anonymity: your identity is hidden away, reduced fear of any repercussions from your actions

  factors that promote anonymity: group size, clothing, masks, electronic interactions
• what factors lead to deindividuation

  shift in attention: decline in attention to personal standards eg. values, beliefs, conscience, social norms etc. attention shifts to immediate environments and group dynamics, increase influence of situational cues.

  factors that promote shift in attention: arousing activities, uniformity in appearance or behaviour (promoting group behaviour and reducing awareness of individual identity)
• What’s social loafing?

  • The tendency to reduce effort when working in a group compared to by
  • types of social loafing: free rider effect and d sucker effect
  • Sucker effect
  • free rider effect
• what is the sucker effect

  • individuals try to avoid being the ‘sucker’ in the group
  • group members reduce the amount of work they complete after realising that others are already putting minimal effort into the task
  • when group members behaviour reflects the sucker effect, they are conforming to the group norm
• what is the free rider effect?

  • individuals reduce their effort as they believe others can complete the task without their input