Social influence
Social psychology studies how thoughts, feelings and behaviour are shaped by other people, real or imagined. Many classic findings show that the situation often matters more than we expect.
Attribution
We explain behaviour by pointing to the person (dispositional causes) or the situation (situational causes). The fundamental attribution error is our tendency to overweight personality and underweight circumstances when judging others. If a stranger cuts you off, you assume he is rude, not late for a hospital visit. For ourselves, the self-serving bias leads us to credit successes to our skill and blame failures on bad luck.
Conformity and obedience
- Conformity: changing behaviour to match a group. In Solomon Asch's line-judgement studies, many participants gave an obviously wrong answer after hearing others do so. Conformity drops when even one other person disagrees.
- Obedience: following orders from an authority. In Stanley Milgram's studies, a majority of participants continued to deliver what they believed were strong electric shocks when a researcher in a lab coat told them to. Ethical rules now restrict such research.
Helping and the bystander effect
The bystander effect is that people are less likely to help when others are present, partly because of diffusion of responsibility: each person assumes someone else will act. If you need help, point to one specific person and ask directly.
Attitudes and dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of holding conflicting beliefs or acting against your beliefs. People often reduce it by changing their attitude. The foot-in-the-door technique works because agreeing to a small request makes people more likely to agree to a larger one later.
Prejudice and discrimination
Prejudice is an attitude (usually negative) toward a group; discrimination is behaviour toward its members. Stereotypes are the beliefs that link them. Contact under equal status and shared goals can reduce prejudice.
Groups
- Social facilitation: performing a well-practised task better in front of others.
- Social loafing: putting in less effort when individual contributions are not identifiable.
- Groupthink: a group prioritising harmony over realistic appraisal, often leading to poor decisions.
Worked example
A charity volunteer asks passers-by to sign a petition (small request). Two weeks later, the same people are asked to donate $20.
- Principle: foot-in-the-door. People who signed see themselves as supporters.
- Dissonance: refusing to give would clash with that self-image.
- Prediction: the donation rate is higher among petition signers than among people who were never asked to sign.
If a team of five is told only the group's total score will be graded, expect some social loafing: effort per person tends to fall.