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Obedience to Authority
Milgram: 65% continued to max shock when ordered by authority
Obedience to Authority
Most people obey authority even against their own ethics
Participants believed they administered 450V shocks to a learner. 65% went to maximum when instructed by an authority figure. Proximity to the victim reduced obedience.
Fundamental Attribution Error
FAE: blame the person, ignore the situation — Fundamental Attribution Error
Fundamental Attribution Error
We overestimate personality, underestimate situation when judging others
Someone cuts you off → 'they're a jerk' (not: 'they're rushing to hospital'). We do the opposite for ourselves — actor-observer bias. The most robust finding in social psychology.
Bystander Effect
Bystander effect: more witnesses = less help — diffusion of responsibility
Bystander Effect
The more people present in an emergency, the less likely anyone helps
Two mechanisms: diffusion of responsibility (someone else will help) and pluralistic ignorance (everyone looks calm so must be fine). Intervene by naming someone: 'You in the red jacket, call 911.'
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance: holding conflicting beliefs causes discomfort — and we resolve it
Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger: mental conflict between beliefs motivates attitude change
When behavior conflicts with beliefs, we feel psychological discomfort. We reduce it by changing our attitude (not behavior) to match what we did. Smokers who know smoking is harmful often rationalize rather than quit.
Social Facilitation
Social facilitation: perform better on easy tasks with others watching. Worse on hard tasks.
Social Facilitation
The presence of others affects performance — in opposite directions
Zajonc: presence of others increases arousal → improves dominant (well-learned) responses, impairs non-dominant (difficult/new) responses. Simple tasks: audience helps. Complex/novel tasks: audience hurts. Explains why athletes perform better in front of crowds on practiced skills but choke under pressure.
Groupthink
Groupthink: desire for harmony overrides critical thinking. Symptoms: illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship.
Groupthink
When group cohesion leads to disastrously poor decisions
Janis: cohesive groups suppress dissent to maintain harmony. Symptoms: illusion of invulnerability (overconfidence), collective rationalization, stereotyped view of out-groups, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity. Historical examples: Bay of Pigs, Challenger disaster. Prevention: assign devil's advocate, seek outside opinions.
Stereotype Threat
Stereotype threat: fear of confirming a negative stereotype impairs performance on relevant tasks
Stereotype Threat
How awareness of stereotypes can harm the people they target
Steele and Aronson: when members of a stereotyped group are reminded of the stereotype before a test, performance suffers — even among high-achieving individuals. The threat consumes cognitive resources. Reduced by: affirming other identities, emphasizing that intelligence is expandable, reducing salience of group membership.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Persuasion routes: central route (logical arguments) vs peripheral route (cues, attractiveness, popularity)
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Two routes to attitude change — deep vs shallow processing
Central route: person carefully considers arguments → attitude change is lasting and resistant to counter-persuasion. Requires motivation and ability to process. Peripheral route: relies on heuristics — attractive spokesperson, celebrity endorsement, popularity. Less lasting. High-involvement decisions: central. Low-involvement: peripheral.
In-Group/Out-Group Bias
In-group vs out-group bias: favor your own group. Minimal group paradigm: even arbitrary groups trigger bias.
In-Group/Out-Group Bias
We automatically favor our own group — even when groups are arbitrary
Tajfel's minimal group studies: people randomly assigned to groups based on trivial criteria (coin flip, art preference) immediately favored their own group in resource allocation. Social identity theory: self-esteem tied to group membership → motivated to see in-group positively. Foundation of prejudice and discrimination.
Deindividuation
Deindividuation: loss of self-awareness in groups → reduced inhibition → more extreme behavior
Deindividuation
Why people in crowds behave differently than they would alone
Anonymity + group membership → reduced self-awareness → weakened internal restraints → behavior more extreme (positive or negative depending on group norms). Explains crowd violence, online trolling, mob behavior. Zimbardo's prison study: uniforms and anonymity contributed to guard brutality.
Self-Serving Bias
Self-serving bias: attribute successes to internal factors (ability), failures to external (bad luck)
Self-Serving Bias
How we protect our self-esteem through biased explanations
When we succeed: internal attribution (I worked hard, I'm smart). When we fail: external attribution (the test was unfair, bad luck). Opposite of how we judge others (FAE). Protects self-esteem. Depression: often shows reversed pattern — internal attribution for failures, external for successes.
Attribution Theory
FAE = Fundamental Attribution Error — blame person, ignore situation
The systematic bias in how we explain others' behavior vs. our own
The fundamental attribution error is the most replicated finding in social psychology
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): when explaining others' behavior, we overweight internal (dispositional) factors and underweight external (situational) factors. Actor-observer bias: we attribute our OWN behavior to situations but others' to their character. Self-serving bias: attribute successes to self (internal) and failures to situation (external) — protects self-esteem. Cultural note: FAE is stronger in individualistic (Western) cultures; collectivist cultures give more weight to situational factors.
FAE
Overestimate personality, underestimate situation for others
Actor-observer
My behavior = situation; your behavior = personality
Three types of social influence and the classic studies that demonstrated each
Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo showed how powerfully social situations override individual values
Conformity (Asch): 75% conformed to clearly wrong group answer at least once — normative influence (fit in) + informational influence (maybe they're right). Obedience (Milgram): 65% administered what they thought were lethal shocks when ordered by an authority — situational factors overwhelm character. Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo): normal students became brutal guards or helpless prisoners within days — situation shapes behavior profoundly.
Normative
Conform to fit in and be liked — even when you know it's wrong
Informational
Conform because others might know better — ambiguous situations
Milgram
65% went to 450V — authority, proximity, legitimacy mattered
Group Dynamics
GIST — Groupthink, In-group bias, Social loafing, Tipping points
Four key phenomena that emerge when people operate in groups
Groups are not simply the sum of their members — they produce unique and often dysfunctional dynamics
Groupthink (Janis): pressure for consensus overrides critical thinking — illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity. Symptoms: highly cohesive group, insular leadership, external threat. In-group bias: favor members of our own group. Out-group homogeneity: they all look the same to us. Social loafing: people work less hard in groups than alone. Social facilitation: well-learned tasks improve with an audience; difficult tasks worsen. Deindividuation: loss of self-awareness in crowds → disinhibition.
Groupthink
Cohesive group suppresses dissent — Bay of Pigs, Challenger
Social loafing
Ringelmann effect — effort declines as group grows
Deindividuation
Anonymity in crowds leads to reduced inhibition
Attitude Change
ELM — Elaboration Likelihood Model: Central vs. Peripheral route
Two routes to persuasion — engagement determines which route is taken
High motivation + ability → central route; Low motivation → peripheral route to attitude change
Central route (ELM): high elaboration — person carefully evaluates the argument. Strong arguments produce lasting attitude change. Peripheral route: low elaboration — person uses mental shortcuts (heuristics). Attractive source, celebrity endorsement, number of arguments (not quality). Central route change is more durable and resistant to counter-persuasion. Cognitive dissonance (Festinger): tension when behavior conflicts with attitude → change attitude to match behavior (post-decision dissonance). Foot-in-the-door: small request first → bigger request later.
Q: Describe Milgram's obedience study and what it revealed about human behavior.
A: Milgram (1963) recruited participants told they were in a learning study — actually testing obedience. A 'learner' (confederate) was strapped to a chair; participants administered electric shocks up to 450V labeled 'Danger: Severe Shock' whenever the learner answered incorrectly. The experimenter (authority figure) instructed continuation despite screams. Results: 65% of participants administered the maximum shock. Key situational factors that increased obedience: proximity and legitimacy of authority, distance from victim, incremental commitment (foot-in-the-door), group effects. Conclusions: ordinary people can commit harmful acts when ordered by legitimate authority — 'just following orders' is a real psychological phenomenon. Challenged the dispositional explanation that only cruel or psychopathic people commit atrocities.
Q: Explain cognitive dissonance theory and give examples of its operation.
A: Festinger's cognitive dissonance (1957): when a person holds two inconsistent cognitions or acts contrary to their attitude, they experience psychological tension (dissonance) — motivated to reduce it. Three ways to reduce dissonance: (1) Change behavior to match attitude. (2) Change attitude to match behavior (most common — easier than changing behavior). (3) Add a new cognition to rationalize the inconsistency. Classic study: participants paid $1 or $20 to say boring task was interesting. $1 group rated task as more interesting — larger dissonance ($20 justifies the lie), so $1 group changed their attitude. Post-decision dissonance: after a difficult choice, people bolster their chosen option and denigrate the unchosen one. Applications: hazing creates loyalty (suffering justifies joining), therapy techniques, health behavior change.
Q: What is the bystander effect and what psychological mechanisms explain it?
A: Bystander effect (Latané and Darley, 1968): as the number of bystanders increases, the probability that any individual will help decreases. Kitty Genovese case was the inspiration (though the original account was exaggerated). Two mechanisms: (1) Diffusion of responsibility — each person assumes someone else will or has helped — responsibility is shared across the group. (2) Pluralistic ignorance — in ambiguous situations, each bystander looks to others for cues; when others appear calm, each individual concludes there is no emergency. Intervention increases with: unambiguous emergency, knowing the victim, being alone (no diffusion), having relevant skills. Personal costs and benefits are weighed rapidly in helping decisions (arousal-cost-reward model).
Q: What is the contact hypothesis and when does intergroup contact reduce prejudice?
A: Allport's contact hypothesis (1954): direct intergroup contact reduces prejudice, but only under certain conditions. Required conditions: (1) Equal status between groups in the contact situation. (2) Common goals that require cooperation (not competition). (3) Intergroup cooperation — working together toward shared goals. (4) Institutional support — authority figures endorse the contact. Classic demonstration: Robbers Cave experiment (Sherif) — artificially created intergroup hostility was reduced through superordinate goals requiring cooperation. Jigsaw classroom (Aronson): each student has unique information needed by the group — interdependence reduces prejudice in school settings. Meta-analyses show contact works across different out-groups and cultures.
Q: Explain social identity theory and its role in prejudice and discrimination.
A: Tajfel and Turner's Social Identity Theory: a significant part of our self-concept derives from membership in social groups. People are motivated to maintain positive social identity. Key processes: (1) Social categorization — dividing people into in-group (us) and out-group (them). (2) Social identification — adopting the identity of the group we belong to. (3) Social comparison — comparing our group favorably to out-groups to boost self-esteem. Results in: in-group favoritism even for trivial groups (minimal group paradigm — Tajfel assigned people to groups based on meaningless criteria and they immediately showed in-group bias), out-group homogeneity effect (they all look the same), stereotype threat (Steele — awareness of negative stereotype about one's group impairs performance on related tasks).