Transcript Behavior in Social and Cultural Context

Behaviour in Social and Cultural
Context
Chapter 8
Behaviour in Social and Cultural
Context
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Roles and rules
Social influences on beliefs
Individuals in groups
Group conflict and prejudice
Roles and Rules
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Defining norms and roles
The obedience study
The prison study
The power of roles
Defining Roles and Rules
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Norms
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Role
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Rules that regulate human life, including social
conventions, explicit laws, and implicit cultural
standards.
A given social position that is governed by a set of
norms for proper behaviour.
Culture
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A program of shared rules that govern the behaviour
of members of a community or society, and
A set of values, beliefs and attitudes shared by most
members of that community.
The Obedience Study
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Stanley Milgram and coworkers investigated
whether people would follow orders, even when
the order violated their ethical standards.
Most people were far more obedient than anyone
expected.
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Every single participant complied with at least some
orders to shock another person.
2/3 shocked the learner to the full extent.
Results are controversial and have generated
much research on violence and obedience.
Factors Leading to Disobedience in
Milgram’s study
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When the experimenter left the room.
When the victim was in the same room.
When the experimenter issued conflicting
demands.
When the person ordering them to continue
was an ordinary man.
When the subject worked with peers who
refused to go on.
The Prison Study
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Subjects were physically and mentally healthy
young men who volunteered to participate for
money.
They were randomly assigned to be prisoners or
guards.
Those assigned the role of prisoner became
distressed, helpless, and panicky.
Those assigned the roles of guards became either
nice, “tough but fair,” or tyrannical.
Study had to be ended after 6 days.
The Power of Roles
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Factors that cause people to obey:
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Allocating responsibility to the authority.
Routinizing the task.
Wanting to be polite.
Becoming entrapped.
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Entrapment: A gradual process in which
individuals escalate their commitment to a course
of action to justify their investment of time,
money, or effort.
Social Influences on Beliefs
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Defining social cognition
Attributions
Attitudes
Social Cognition
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An area in social psychology concerned
with social influences on thought, memory,
perception, and other cognitive processes.
Researchers are interested in how people’s
perceptions of themselves and others
affect:
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Their relationships, thoughts, beliefs and
values.
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Attribution Theory
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The theory that people are
motivated to explain their own
and other peoples’ behaviour
by attributing causes of that
behaviour to a situation or a
disposition.
Fundamental Attribution
Error
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Tendency in explaining
others’ behaviours to
overestimate personality
factors and underestimate
situational influence.
Attributions
Attributions
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Self-serving bias
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Tendency, in explaining own behaviour, to
take credit for one’s good actions and
rationalize one’s mistakes.
Just-world hypothesis
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The notion that many people need to believe
that the world is fair and that justice is served
Bad people are punished and good people
rewarded.
Attitudes
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A relatively stable opinion containing beliefs and
emotional feelings about a topic.
 Explicit
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We are aware of them, they shape conscious
decisions
Implicit
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We are unaware of them, they may influence our
behaviour in ways we do not recognize.
Factors Influencing Attitude Change
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Change in social environment
Change in behaviours
Due to a need for consistency
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Cognitive Dissonance
A state of tension that occurs when a person
simultaneously holds two cognitions that are
psychologically inconsistent, or
 when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or
her behaviour.
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Influencing Attitudes
Effective ways to
influence attitudes
Repetition of an
idea or assertion
(validity effect)
Endorsement by
an attractive or
admired person
Association of
message with a
good feeling
Coercive Persuasion
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Person is in physical or emotional distress.
Person’s problems are reduced to one simple
explanation, repeated often.
Leader offers unconditional love, acceptance, and
attention.
New identity based on group is created.
Person is subjected to entrapment.
Person’s access to information is controlled.
Individuals in Groups
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Conformity
Groupthink
The anonymous crowd
Disobedience and dissent
Conformity
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Subjects in a group were asked to match line
lengths.
Confederates in the group picked wrong line.
Subjects went along with wrong answer 37%
of trials.
Meta-analyses demonstrates that conformity
has decreased in US since 1950. May be due
to social norms.
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Individualistic v.s. Collectivist cultures.
Test line
A B C
Groupthink
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In close-knit groups, the tendency for all members
to think alike and suppress disagreement for the
sake of harmony.
Symptoms of groupthink include
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Illusion of invulnerability
Self-censorship
Pressure on dissenters to conform
Illusion of unanimity
Groupthink can be counteracted by:
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Creating conditions rewarding dissent
Basing decision on majority rule
The Anonymous Crowd
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Diffusion of Responsibility
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In organized or anonymous groups, the
tendency of members to avoid taking
responsibility for actions or decisions because
they assume that others will do so.
Bystander apathy
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People fail to call for help when others are near.
Social loafing
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When people work less in the presence of others,
allowing others to work harder.
Deindividuation
In groups or crowds, the loss of awareness
of one’s own individuality.
 Factors influencing deindividuation.
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Size of city, group.
 Uniforms or masks.
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Deindividuation can influence unlawful as
well as friendly behaviours.
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Depends on norms of the specific situation.
Disobedience and Dissent
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Situational factors contributing to
nonconformity:
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You perceive the need for intervention or help.
Situation makes it more likely that you will take
responsibility.
Cost-benefit ratio supports your decision to get
involved.
You have an ally.
You become entrapped.
Helping by Culture
Group Conflict and Prejudice
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Defining ethnocentrism
Group Identity: Us versus them
Stereotypes
Prejudice
Ethnocentrism
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The belief that one’s own ethnic group,
nation, or religion is superior to all others.
Aids survival by making people feel
attached to their own group and willing to
work on their group’s behalf.
Group Identity: Us versus Them
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Social Identity
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The part of a person’s self-concept that is
based on identification with a nation, culture,
or group or with gender or other roles in
society.
Us versus them social identities are
strengthened when groups compete with
one another.
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Robber’s Cave studies
Robbers’ Cave Experiment
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Boys were randomly
separated into two groups
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“Rattlers” and “Eagles”
Competitions fostered
hostility between the
groups.
Experimenters contrived
situations requiring
cooperation for success.
Cross-group friendships
increased.
Stereotypes
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Cognitive schemas or a summary impressions of a
group, in which a person believes that all
members of the group share a common trait or
traits (positive, negative, or neutral).
Allow us to quickly process new information and
retrieve memories.
Distort reality in 3 ways.
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Exaggerate differences between groups.
Produce selective perception.
Underestimate differences between groups.
Prejudice
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The origins of prejudice
Defining and measuring prejudice
Reducing prejudice and conflict
Origins of Prejudice
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Psychological functions
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Social and cultural functions
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People inflate own self worth by disliking
groups they see as inferior.
By disliking others we feel closer to others
who are like us.
Economic functions
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Legitimizes unequal economic treatment.
Defining and Measuring Prejudice
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Not all people are prejudiced in the same way.
People know they shouldn’t be prejudiced so
measures of prejudice have declined.
Distinguishing between explicit and implicit
prejudice.
Measuring implicit prejudice.
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Measures of symbolic racism.
Measures of behaviours rather than attitudes.
Measures of unconscious associations with a target
group.
Measures of unconscious associations
with the target group.
Experiencing Prejudice
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Research at McGill studied women or
members of minority ethnic groups
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participants blamed themselves for failing a test
unless they believed that the person grading the
test had a history of discriminating against
members of their group at a rate of 100 percent
the tendency to blame themselves, rather, than
others, may explain why members of minority
groups report instances of group discrimination
but not instances of individual discrimination
e.g., “People in Canada discriminate against
women, but I, myself, have never been a victim.”
Reducing Prejudice and Conflict
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Groups must have equal legal status, economic
opportunities, and power.
Authorities and community institutions must
endorse egalitarian norms and provide moral
support and legitimacy for both sides.
Both sides must have opportunities to work
and socialize together, formally and informally.
Both sides must cooperate, working together
for a common goal.