Deck 13: B: Social Psychology

Question 1

What is obedience? Describe how Milgram tested obedience to an authority figure and the results of his original study.

Answer 1

Answers will vary but should contain a general description of the following information for full credit.
--Obedience-We take our marching orders from people who are above us in the hierarchy of authority,such as a teacher,parent,or boss.
--The Milgram paradigm.In the early 1960s,Milgram began to tinker with a laboratory paradigm (a model experiment)that could provide a window into the causes of obedience.Milgram was interested in obedience because he believed that unquestioning acceptance of authority figures is the crucial ingredient in explaining unjustified violence against innocent individuals.
--The setup: You spot an advertisement in a local New Haven,Connecticut,newspaper,asking for volunteers for a study of memory.The ad notes that participants will be paid $4.50,which in the 1960s was a hefty chunk of change.You arrive at the laboratory at Yale University,where a tall and imposing man in a white lab coat,Mr.Williams,greets you.You also meet another friendly,middle-aged subject,Mr.Wallace,who unbeknownst to you is actually a confederate.The cover story is that you and Mr.Wallace will be participating in a study of the effects of "punishment on learning," with one of you being the teacher and the other the learner.You draw lots to see who'll play which role,and get the piece of paper that says "teacher" (the lots are rigged).From here on in,Mr.Williams refers to you as the "teacher" and to Mr.Wallace as the "learner." As the teacher,Mr.Williams explains,you'll present Mr.Wallace with what psychologists call a paired-associate task.In this task,you'll read a long list of word pairs,like strong-arm and black-curtain.Then you'll present the learner with the first word in each pair (such as strong)and ask him to select the second word (arm)from a list of four alternative words.Now here's the surprise: To evaluate the effects of punishment on learning,you'll be delivering a series of painful electric shocks to the learner.With each wrong answer,you'll move up one step on a shock generator.The shocks range from 15 volts up to 450 volts and are accompanied by labels ranging from "Slight Shock" and "Moderate Shock," to "Danger: Severe Shock" and finally,and most ominously,"XXX."
--The study: You watch as Mr.Williams brings the learner into a room and straps his arm to a shock plate.The learner,Mr.Williams explains,will push a button corresponding to his answer to the first word in each pair.His answer will light up in an adjoining room where you sit.For a correct answer,you do nothing.But for an incorrect answer,you'll give the learner an electric shock,with the intensity increasing with each mistake.At this point,the learner mentions to Mr.Williams that he has "a slight heart condition" and asks anxiously how powerful the shocks will be.Mr.Williams responds curtly that although the shocks will be painful,they "will cause no permanent tissue damage." You're led into the adjoining room and seated in front of the shock generator.Following Milgram's plan,the learner makes a few correct responses,but soon begins to make errors.If,at any time,you turn to Mr.Williams to ask if you should continue,he responds with a set of prearranged sentences that urge you to go on ("Please go on" "The experiment requires that you continue," "You have no other choice;you must go on").Milgram standardised the verbal statements of the learner,which also unbeknownst to you,have been pre-recorded on audiotape (Milgram,1974).At 75 volts,the learner grunts "Ugh!" and by 330 volts,he frantically yells "Let me out of here!" repeatedly and complains of chest pain.From 345 volts onward,there's nothing-only silence.The learner stops responding to your items,and Mr.Williams instructs you to treat these non-responses as incorrect answers and to keep administering increasingly intense shocks.
--The results: When Milgram first designed this study,he asked 40 psychiatrists at Yale University to forecast the outcome.Their predictions? According to them,most subjects would break off at 150 volts and only .1 percent (that's 1 in 1000),representing a "pathological fringe" (Milgram,1974),would go all the way to 450 volts.Before reading on,you may want to ask yourself what you would have done had you been a subject in Milgram's study.Would you have delivered any shocks? If so,how far would you have gone? Would you have gone all the way to 450 volts? In fact,in the original Milgram study,all subjects administered at least some shocks.Most went up to at least 150 volts,and a remarkable 62 percent of subjects displayed complete compliance,going all the way up 450 volts.This means that the Yale psychiatrists were off by a factor of several hundred.these results were,well,shocking.Milgram himself was startled by them.Before Milgram's study,most psychologists assumed that the overwhelming majority of normal subjects would disobey what were obviously cruel and outrageous orders.But like the Yale psychiatrists,they committed the fundamental attribution error: They underestimated the impact of the situation on subjects' behaviours.There were other surprises.Many subjects showed uncontrollable tics and fits of nervous laughter.Yet few appeared to be sadistic.Even those who complied to the bitter end seemed reluctant to deliver shocks,asking or even begging the experimenter to allow them to stop.Yet most subjects still followed Mr.Williams's orders despite these pleas,often assuming no responsibility for their actions.One subject's responses were illustrative: After the study was over he claimed,"I stopped,but he [the experimenter] made me go on" (Milgram,1974).

Question 2

Explain conformity and discuss the social factors that influence the level of conformity.

Answer 2

Answers may vary but should contain the ideas listed below to earn full credit.
--Conformity is the tendency of people to change their behaviour as a consequence of group behaviour.Sometimes,when you belong to an organisation or group like a club,school committee,fraternity,or sorority,you may just go along with one of the group's ideas even though you know that it is bad,perhaps even unethical.Almost everyone conforms to social pressure from time to time.
--There are several social factors that influence the level of conformity.The first is unanimity.If all confederates give the wrong answer,the subject is more likely to conform.However,if one confederate gives the correct response,the level of conformity drops by three-fourths.Another factor is difference in the wrong answer.Knowing that someone else in the group differs from the majority,even if that person holds a different view from us,can make us less likely to conform.A third factor is size.The size of the majority makes a difference,but only up to about five or six subjects.People are no more likely to conform in a group of fifteen subjects than in a group of five subjects.

Question 3

Discuss the three main types of persuasive techniques that can be used on people and provide an example of each.

Answer 3

Answers will vary but should contain the following information for full credit.
--Foot-in-the-door technique: Following on the heels of cognitive dissonance theory,the foot-in-the-door technique suggests that we start with a small request before making a bigger one.If we want to get our classmate to volunteer five hours a week for the "Helping a Starving Psychologist" charity organization,we can first ask her to volunteer one hour a week.Once we've gotten her to agree to that request,we have our "foot in the door," because from the perspective of cognitive dissonance theory she'll feel a need to justify her initial commitment.As a consequence,she'll probably end up with a positive attitude toward the organization,boosting the odds that she'll volunteer even more of her time
--Door-in-the-face technique: Alternatively,we can start with a large request,like asking for a $100 donation to our charity,before asking for a small one,like a $10 donation.One reason this door-in-the-face technique works may be that the initial large request often induces guilt in recipients.But if the initial request is so outrageous that it appears insincere or unreasonable,this method can backfire.Research suggests that the foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face techniques work about equally well.
--Lowball technique: In the lowball technique,the seller of a product starts by quoting a price well below the actual sales price.Once the buyer agrees to purchase the product,the seller mentions all of the desirable or needed "add-ons" that come along with the product.By the time the deal is done,the buyer may end up paying twice as much as he'd initially agreed to pay.We can even use this technique to obtain favours from friends.In one study,a confederate asked strangers to look after his dog while he visited a friend in the hospital.In some cases,he first got the stranger to agree to the request,and only then told him he'd be gone for half an hour;in other cases,he told the stranger up front he'd be gone for half an hour.The first tactic worked better.

Question 4

What is the fundamental attribution error? Discuss the cultural influences on the fundamental attribution error.

Question 5

Discuss bystander nonintervention and what factors influence intervention.

Question 6

Discuss groupthink.Give several examples and explain the treatments for groupthink.

Question 7

Discuss the difference between stereotypes,prejudice,and discrimination,and describe the three main theoretical causes of people's prejudice.

Question 8

What is altruism? Discuss the situational,individual,and gender differences on helping behaviour.

Question 9

Describe the social influences on cult behaviour,including what the common misconceptions about cults are and how people can resist cult influences.

Question 10

Identify and describe any four of the seven situational influences on human aggression.Provide one example of each.