20 Oct Pick either social facilitation or social loafing.? Describe how you could use your understanding of either of these phenomena to improve your chances of success at an activity you norma
Pick either social facilitation or social loafing. Describe how you could use your understanding of either of these phenomena to improve your chances of success at an activity you normally engage in (it could be a sport, game, artistic performance, etc.). (Chapter 14 groups)
In the PowerPoint for Attraction & Exclusion, it mentions the "social allergy effect", what is this defined as? Can you think of an example of you experiencing this effect in your own life? (Chapter 11)
Chapter 14
Groups
Today’s Outline
Groups
Deindividuation
Social facilitation
Social loafing
The accuracy of group decisions & thinking
Wisdom of crowds
Groupthink
Risky/Stingy Shifts
Leaders and leadership
Toxic and dangerous leaders
Leadership styles and power
What groups are and do
We divide ourselves into many different groups
Sometimes even just two people, a dyad, can count as group
Ideally, people want to have enough in common with a group to feel close to them, but also stand apart in some ways, called optimal distinctiveness
Groups, roles, & selves
Being in groups is double-edged sword
They help us to feel like we belong
Even when the group is complete nonsense (e.g. you were seated at table 1 with other people due to a coin flip), called the minimal group effect from Ch. 13 on prejudice
When our group does well we tend to ‘bask in the reflective glory’ and feel like we have done well also
E.g. when your favorite team wins an important game
Groups, roles, & selves continued
But groups can also have major downsides
We tend to assume there’s less variability within groups than between groups, but it’s the opposite
Deindividuation is a huge problem with groups!
A loss of self-awareness and individual accountability
when in groups (E.g. mob violence)
– Said another way, being anonymous. Often results
in aggression, we’ll come back to this in Ch. 10
Group action – Social Facilitation
If you play or played sports, did you like it when your parents or friends came to watch your games?
Personally I disliked it, felt like it made me play worse, I told them not to come lol
But research shows observers can indeed affect us
Recall back in chapter 1, Triplett’s original social psychology study that found bikers biked faster against people than against the clock
Social facilitation
Since Triplett’s studies, much
more research has been conducted!
One finding showed that if you replaced other bikers with just observers, people still biked harder than with no observers
Thus people called that evaluation apprehension
Concern about how others perceive you and your performance, we want it to be favorable
This can lead to more effort and better performance
But, the presence of others can make people perform worse too and ‘choke’ under pressure
Social facilitation
How do we resolve that discrepancy then?
Do people watching make us perform better or worse?
Zajonc (1965) proposed his social facilitation theory
Based on animal behavior, how the presence of animals of the same species increases an animals arousal and its most common response/behavior
Zajonc’s Social Facilitation Theory
Presence of other people leads
to arousal
Arousal leads to an increase in the
dominant response
Aka most common/typical
response
If that response is correct, you
perform better (social facilitation)
If it’s incorrect, you perform worse,
(social inhibition)
**Put more simply, if you’re
great at something and people
watch you, you’ll do better. If you
suck, you’ll do even worse
Social facilitation continued
Understood another way, if a task is new to you, observers will be harmful
Also if a task is complex, observers will be more likely to be harmful, but if it’s simple, observers will likely be helpful
You may recall our discussion of narcissists from before
Narcissists generally perform better when being observed because they’re ‘glory hounds’
They relish the chance to prove themselves superior
This can elicit resentment from teammates, who know they’re in it for individual instead of team glory
Evaluation apprehension
Evaluation apprehension can crop in other places too
Binge eating and purging can be a problem among younger women
Strangely though it went from an unheard of problem to relatively common…
One study found that sorority members who binge ate were more popular or highly regarded than ones who didn’t binge eat
We observe similar others and are tempted to engage in similar behavior, which spreads the problem
Social Loafing
As we touched on earlier, farmers noticed that increasing farmhands didn’t result in more output
Social loafing: people reduce effort when working in a group compared to working alone
Research on this asked participants to make as much noise as they can (as measured in decibels)
6 people didn’t really make any more noise than 3 people
Social loafing continued
Generally, people aren’t aware they’re socially loafing
If asked, participants will say they’re working their hardest
A similar, but distinct pattern, is ‘the free rider problem’
Where people deliberately don’t contribute
Free rider references the subway system in Europe where people were supposed to pay but didn’t
Have you ever done a group project with a free rider? Are you glad we don’t have any group projects? 😉
Social loafing continued
Explanations – why does social loafing occur
Research has shown that if people are not anonymous and their individual contribution to the effort is known, social loafing is greatly reduced
This gets back to the idea of deindividuation being bad
Accountability is good
Once group members suspect or find out someone else is loafing, they don’t want to be a sucker and do all the work, so then they loaf too!
Called the bad apple effect
Social Loafing continued
How do people react to social loafers?
Psychologists have studied this using game paradigms
Surprisingly, if a player finds out another player is socially loafing, that person will undermine their own chances of winning the game to punish the loafer
These findings surprised economists who assume people will act in their own best interest
The idea of altruistic punishment arose from this, that ultimately it’s in society’s best interest to punish social loafers
Tragedy of the commons
Regarding deindividuation and social loafing,
have you noticed how public rooms or public
areas usually get messy and/or damaged?
The ‘commons dilemma’ explains this
A tendency for jointly owned spaces, things, or resources, to be squandered
Explains, in part, why communism doesn’t work
Selfish impulses, like “should I just litter here or walk way over there to the trash can” often win out
How groups think
Are two heads really better than one?
Brainstorming
E.g. your boss calls a meeting and asks everyone to brainstorm some ideas about how to resolve a problem
People rate brainstorming as effective and rate it as enjoyable; boosts morale
But the output is actually worse than that of individuals
If done right though, it can have the desired effect
Participants must brainstorm individually and independently, then come together, and pool all of the ideas
‘The wisdom of crowds’
Sir Francis Galton started many lines of research later continued by psychologists
In general he thought people were pretty dumb and groups of people even dumber
He attended a county fair and asked everyone to guess (write on a sheet of paper) the weight of a cow
Well, specifically how much the cow would weigh after it had been slaughtered and chopped into piles of meat
The answer was 1,198 pounds
He tallied results from 800 tickets
The average estimate was 1,197 pounds. Incredibly close!
‘The wisdom of crowds’ continued
Sir Galton was forced to admit, the crowd did indeed have astounding wisdom
Similar results have been replicated in many settings
E.g. the final betting line in sports is always more accurate than any one expert
E.g. and the stock market predicts winning stocks better than any individual stock broker
Note that the conditions for all these studies meet the criteria of ‘independence’
This prevents conformity and allows for a diversity of opinions
Groupthink
Irving Janis came applied the term groupthink to social psychology
It explains the tendency of group members to think alike
Specifically, the group clings to some mistaken belief, which ends up resulting in bad decisions
There are many potential applications of groupthink in the real world
E.g. juries, business meetings, political committees, etc.
The root of groupthink is people’s desire to get along with one another
Groupthink continued
Several factors contribute to making groupthink more likely to occur:
Group members are similar to each other
A strong leader that people don’t want to contradict
The group is isolated from the opinions of others
The group has high self-esteem/feels elite/morally superior
There’s a pressure to conform
The decision/s appear to be unanimous
Some group members may be censoring themselves if they privately disagree
Illusion of invulnerability (“There won’t be consequences!”)
The group underestimates opponents
Foolish Committees
Stasser and Titus (1985) were able to demonstrate that committees mostly spend time discussing what they agree on, for the sake of getting along, instead of points of contention
Their methodology
The committee consisted of 7 members
They were deciding whether to hire Anderson or Baker
Each group member received a card with information for him/her
Each member received a card with the same 4 reason to hire Baker, and 1 reason to hire Anderson
But each card had a different reason for why to hire Anderson, so 7 in total
But the groups never caught on that there was a total of 3 more reason to hire Anderson than Baker because everyone was too busy agreeing with each other
Those findings bode poorly for committees, as the whole point is to pool the individual knowledge each member has
The Risky Shift
The tendency for groups to take greater risks than any individual member of the group would have taken
The group discussions lead the group to a more extreme point of view over time
But there was also a ‘stingy shift’ that occurred in studies, toward more conservative decisions
How do we reconcile these two findings?
It turns out that which ever direction a committee was initially leaning, will result in a shift in that direction
This is called group polarization
It is extremely similar to the coherence shifts we covered last class (where people had an initial leaning and then their opinions of the case polarized) but this time it’s on a group level
Leaders and Leadership
A good CEO or leader often adds 14% of the company’s value or 25 million in revenue
Compared to average CEOs
In a case study of 11 successful CEOs, some common traits emerged
Modest & humble
Fierce resolve
Decisive
Competent
Integrity
Vision
Leaders and Leadership
Good leaders succeed at two realms of leaderships
1. Task oriented: sets goals, plans, coordinates, etc.
2. Relationship oriented: takes care of members, resolves conflicts, boosts morale
Unfortunately, narcissists often become leaders (or toxic leaders)
In a study that arranged participants into groups of 4, people who scored highly on the trait of narcissism often emerged as leaders
Leaders and Leadership
Narcissists like to seek attention, have the confidence to speak up, and are assertive
Good leaders have just the right amount of assertiveness though, and not too much
Too much can stifle group morale
Patterns that make for toxic leaders:
1. The leader lacks ability to do the job, may have been promoted without the requisite knowledge
2. Builds a shoddy team due to bad hiring choices
3. Has poor interpersonal skills & is arrogant
E.g. “Do it because I said so!”
Dangerous national leaders
Mayer (1993) reviewed data from past national leaders and found the while most have sound cognitive abilities, their emotional lives are potentially the most important
He identified 3 main criteria that constitute a dangerous leader, with classic examples being Napoleon and Hitler
1. Indifference toward people’s suffering
2. Disregard for criticism
3. Grandiose sense of national entitlement
Leaders and Leadership
Can you think of any leaders of a nation who meet those 3 criteria?
A British nobleman named Lord Acton once said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
Some researchers have attempted to test that assertion!
Leaders and leadership
Research by Kipnis (1976):
He made participants managers and gave them either low-power (just worked with the staff, no real difference) or high-power (power to fire, promote, withhold money, etc.)
The staff and their actions were the same/controlled
He found that the managers used completely different strategies
Low-power managers praised workers, gave advice, etc.
High-power managers made threats, ‘threw their weight around’, etc.
Leaders and leadership styles
In general, authoritarian leaders (‘do as I say’) are less successful than autoritative leaders (‘come with me’)
Same goes for authoritarian vs authoritative parenting styles
Explaining to a kid why he must do something is more effective than saying “Because I told you to.”
Authoritarian leaders are the type to throw their power around instead of inspiring their workers
The effects of power
In some situations power can lead to good, in others it can lead to bad
But one thing it almost always leads to is more action being taken
Opposite of that, people in positions of less power have a wait and see mentality
In one study (Galinsky et al, 2003) participants were assigned to be either manager or a worker
Following that activity, they played some blackjack
Managers were more likely to hit (ask for another card), whereas workers were more likely to hold (keep what they had)
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Chapter 11
Attraction & Exclusion
Today’s Outline
Attraction
Belongingness
Similarity
Physical attractiveness
Reciprocity
Rejection
Causes of rejection
Effects of rejection
Loneliness
Attraction & Exclusion
As social animals, humans are, at their core, truly concerned with attraction and exclusion
Indeed the point of social psychology may be to understand why some are accepted and loved, while others are rejected
Take a moment to consider times in your life where you might have been afraid of romantic rejection or perhaps were seeking social acceptance with a new group of peers
Attraction & Exclusion
The need to belong is defined as the desire to form and maintain close, lasting relationships with some other individuals
Needing to belong is considered a fundamental drive or basic need of the human psyche
Warren Jones, “In two decades of studying loneliness, I have met many people who said they had no friends. I have never met any one who didn’t want to have any friends.”
Need to belong
From an evolutionary psychology perspective:
Attraction and acceptance are necessary for reproduction
Additionally, humans likely developed a herd mentality to increase our odds of survival
Consider all the ways we know our behavior changes in groups
Monkeys can recognize that any two monkeys may have an alliance, be forming one, or might be likely to fight
One theory is that the human brain developed more to keep track of a highly complex social world
Two components to belongingness
1. Regular, positive social interactions
Regular is key here, many of us have formed friendships but moved on to new situations in our life and lost regular contact with old friends
Positive is also key, hanging out with that person you always argue with doesn’t fill that social need
2. Stable relationship/friendship in which people share mutual concern for each other
Typically research has shown people want about 1-5 close friends
People are less concerned with casual friends/acquaintances
How bad for you is not belonging?
Belonging is called a need, not a want, perhaps for these reasons
Death rates from various diseases increase among people with no social connections (Lynch, 1979)
People who are alone have more mental and physical problems (Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996)
Loneliness reduces the ability of the immune system to heal the body (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2005)
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Which old saying turns out to be true, “Birds of a feather flock together” or “Opposites attract”
The research has pointed to birds of a feather being the clear winner
In any relationship ranging from acquaintance to lover, opposites are unlikely to stay connected in the long run
Typically, but not always, our friends are similar in age, race, education level, political leaning, economic status, etc.
Note this is kind of a bad thing too, as it can lead us to assume everyone shares the opinions of your social group
How often do you see people unfriend others on Facebook over political disagreements?
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Similarity
We tend to like friends who do the same activities that we do
Some researchers have even suggested that when a romantic couple gets into a relationship, if their levels of physical attractiveness aren’t quite similar, they will be more likely to break up
Have couples who are in different physical leagues stuck out to you as unusual?
Attraction – Similarity, complementarity, & opposites
Indeed, matching
hypothesis has been
supported, couples
are more likely to break
up if there’s a difference
in physical attractiveness
(even serious couples)
Attractiveness & Attraction
Speaking of physical attractiveness, most of us would say ‘we know it when we see it,’ but how do researchers define and measure it?
For starters, which of these 3 faces is the most attractive?
Attractiveness & Attraction
I chose the middle one. According to research findings, most people would choose either the middle or the right photo
The left photo is the original
Attractiveness & Attraction
Facial symmetry
Symmetrical faces are almost always rated as more attractive
The more symmetrical, the better
The implication is that facial symmetry implies genetic fitness. Asymmetry is a sign of genetic imperfections
To demonstrate that genetics are the explanation behind this, researchers (Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999) took the t-shirts that men slept in and asked women to smell and rate their scent
Some of the men had clear genetic asymmetry, length of pinky fingers or ear lobes
Women preferred the smell of men with genetic symmetry
They especially preferred the symmetric men’s scent when
at the point in their period when reproduction was ideal
Attractiveness & Attraction
Facial symmetry continued
More research has used computer software to merge/combine faces
For example, people rate the attractiveness of two faces, and then the faces are combined, and they rate the composite of the previous two faces
People mostly like composite faces better
In fact, the more faces that one combines, the more people liked it
E.g. a 16-face facial composite is preferred over a 4-face composite
Symmetrical, or ‘averaged,’ faces are preferred
Consider how saying someone looks inbred is the opposite
Lack of genetic diversity causes issues and is unappealing
Attractiveness & Attraction
Alright, we’ve covered faces, what about bodies?
Attractiveness & Attraction
Studies by Singh (1993) measured male ratings of silhouettes of woman’s bodies
He manipulated the size of the waist (belly fat) and the size of the hips
He find found that a low waist to hip ration, like .7, was preferred. This matches the standard hourglass shape people talk about
A small effect was found for women preferring men with a .9 waist to hip ratio
Subsequent research found the male shoulder to waist ratio was much more important, e.g. a V-shape
Attractiveness & Attraction
Alright, but how does physical attractiveness stack up to other aspects of attractiveness (having things in common, warmth, career success, etc.)
It can be summed up by one of my favorite quotes from your textbook authors:
“The fancy theories about matchmaking and similarity and reciprocity couldn’t shine through the overwhelming preference for the best-looking partners”
Attractiveness & Attraction
Attractiveness predicts date satisfaction more than any other dimension
Relates back to the Halo Effect, which can also be called ‘what is beautiful is good effect’
People (presumably) have other good traits if they’re attractive
Attractiveness & Attraction
Hortacsu and Ariely (2006) found that women stated a preference for taller men
But that preference could be offset if the man made enough money
E.g. for a 5 foot 8 inch guy, he could get as many dates as a taller guy if he made roughly 150k more
E.g. a 5 foot 2 guy could keep up with taller guys if he made 277k more than them
However, other research has shown that while women state a preference for taller guys, they don’t find them more attractive once having met them (Sheppard & Strathman, 1989)
Similarly, short men don’t report having less dates than tall men
Attractiveness & Attraction
Beyond considering romantic or sexual partners, being good looking confers other benefit
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