Deck 11: Section 1: Social Psychology

Question 1

What aspects of the experimental situation in Milgram's obedience experiment increased the likelihood of destructive obedience?

Answer 1

The answer should include the following information: The experimental situation in Milgram's obedience experiment increased the likelihood of destructive obedience in a number of ways. First, the participants had a previously well-established mental framework to obey. They had volunteered to participate in a psychology experiment and probably arrived at the lab with the mental expectation to do what the experimenter asked of them. The situation and context (a scientific investigation to advance understanding of learning and memory) predisposed the participants to trust and respect the experimenter's authority. In this context, the participants might have been afraid that they would appear uncooperative or disrespectful if they defied the experimenter's orders. The task involved a gradual, repetitive escalation of the shocks. It was probably easy for the participants to justify the low-level shocks at first, and these were only escalated gradually, which made it easier to comply. When participants asked the experimenter what might happen to the learner, they were reassured that they were not responsible for the consequences of their actions (only the experimenter was responsible). They could tell themselves that their behavior must be appropriate if the experimenter approved of it. The participants who were inflicting pain, and the learners who were receiving it were physically and psychologically separated. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that at least some of the participants in Milgram's study suspected that the learner was not receiving shocks. More recent analyses of Milgram's work suggest that participants were more likely to "disobey" if they believed that the learner was actually receiving shocks.

Question 2

Describe the findings of Solomon Asch's research on conformity.

Answer 2

The answer should include the following information: Solomon Asch's research addressed the question of how far people will go to adjust their perceptions and opinions so that they are in sync with the majority opinion. He asked if people would still conform to the group if the group opinion were clearly wrong. To this end, Asch asked a group of people to sit at a table and look at a series of cards. On one side of the card was a standard line, and on the other side were three comparison lines. The participant's task was to publicly indicate which comparison line was the same length as the standard line. The catch is that only one of the people at the table was an actual study participant -the others were all Asch's accomplices. Cards were examined and answers were publicly announced by each accomplice and then the participant. On 12 of the 18 trials in the experiment, the real participant was faced with the uncomfortable situation of disagreeing with a unanimous majority. There was no direct pressure to conform, just the implicit pressure of answering differently from the rest of the group. Of the over 100 participants in the experiment, the majority (76 percent) conformed to group judgment on at least one of the critical trials. The participants followed the majority and gave the wrong answer on 37 percent of the critical trials. Asch's experiment also included a control group of participants who responded alone instead of in a group. In contrast to the participants in the conformity scenario, the control participants responded accurately 99 percent of the time.

Question 3

Name and describe seven common attributional biases and explanatory patterns.

Answer 3

The answer should include the following information: The seven common attributional biases and explanatory patterns include the fundamental attribution error, the actor-observer bias, blaming the victim, hindsight bias, the just-world hypothesis, the self-serving bias, and the self-effacing bias. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics, while ignoring or underestimating the effects of external, situational factors. This sort of bias is common in individualistic cultures. The actor-observer bias is the tendency to attribute our own behavior to external, situational characteristics, while ignoring or underestimating the effects of internal, personal factors. Blaming the victim is the tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for having somehow caused the problem or for not having taken steps to avoid or prevent it. Hindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate one's ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event. The just-world hypothesis is the assumption that the world is fair and that therefore people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The self-serving bias is the tendency to take credit for our successes by attributing them to internal, personal causes, along with a tendency to distance ourselves from our failures by attributing them to external, situational causes. The self-serving bias is more common in individualistic cultures. Finally, the self-effacing bias is our tendency to blame ourselves for our failures, attributing them to internal, personal causes, while downplaying our successes by attributing them to external, situational causes. The self-effacing bias is more common in collectivist cultures.

Question 4

Describe the four principles that guide person perception, and give a "real world" example of each.

Question 5

Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the social categorization process.

Question 6

Describe how implicit attitudes differ from explicit attitudes, and explain how implicit attitudes are measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT).

Question 7

What was the Robbers Cave Experiment? How did psychologist Muzafer Sherif create and then reduce tensions between two groups of boys at a summer camp?

Question 8

Give two examples of the fundamental attribution error, and explain how it can influence our explanations for the behavior of other people.

Question 9

What is a stereotype, and what is stereotype threat? What scientific evidence exists to support the notion of stereotype threat?

Question 10

Describe research findings on how our perception of other people is influenced by their degree of physical attractiveness.

Question 11

What is person perception, and what is social categorization? Describe the role that explicit and implicit cognition play in these processes.

Question 12

What is cognitive dissonance, and how is cognitive dissonance illustrated in the Grasshopper Experiment example described in your textbook?

Question 13

What is conformity? How is it influenced by normative and informational social influence, and culture?

Question 14

What was the basic experimental setup in Stanley Milgram's original obedience experiment?

Question 15

Explain how the fundamental attribution error, the hindsight bias, and the just-world hypothesis contribute to people's tendency to "blame the victim" of misfortune.

Question 16

Do attitudes always guide behavior? Describe the conditions under which a person is most likely to behave in a way that is consistent with his or her attitudes.

Question 17

How did people predict that the participants in Milgram's experiment would react, and how did that prediction compare to the participants' actual behavior?

Question 18

What is implicit cognition, and what is an implicit personality theory? Why do these reactions occur, and how can they potentially lead to faulty perceptions of other people?

Question 19

Describe research findings on the use of fMRI scans of people's brains while they looked at photos of physically attractive people, and identify the brain areas that were activated. Also, identify brain areas that are responsive to the reward value of attractive faces.

Question 20

Describe the physical, interpersonal, situational, and cultural factors that influence attraction and liking.

Question 21

Using the tips listed in Table 11.5 of your textbook describe how to resist an authority's unacceptable orders.

Question 22

Under what conditions are bystanders most likely to help a stranger? Least likely to help a stranger?

Question 23

Describe the Stanford Prison Experiment, and explain how the results of that study help explain the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Question 24

Describe the case of Kitty Genovese. What role did the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility play in her case?

Question 25

Define the rules of reciprocity and commitment, provide an example of each, and indicate how persuasion tactics can be resisted.

Question 26

Describe how in-group and out-group thinking, negative stereotypes, dehumanization, prejudice, and cognitive dissonance contributed to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.