Download Ap social psych part 1

Social Psychology
• The scientific study of how people think
about, influence, and relate to one
another.
• In other words, how does being in a group
change how we behave?
Key Question
• If an authority figure
ordered you to hurt
another person,
would you do it?
• Can you think of an
authority figure in
history who ordered
people to hurt others?
Today, you will read an article
about this experiment and
watch a clip of ordinary people
asked to cause pain to others
by an authority figure…
Would an ordinary person hurt
others if an authority figure said to
do so?
• Stanley Milgram wanted to find out.
• In 1961 he carried out the famous Milgram
experiment.
• The results were truly shocking.
Wrap-up Question
• Describe a situation, not discussed in
class today, in which someone might defy
his/her moral beliefs because an authority
figure told them to do so.
Warm-Up
• Describe a time that you were part of a
loud, possibly rowdy crowd.
• How did this crowd seem affect your
behavior?
•
• Social Facilitation: Improved
performance of tasks
because of the presence of
others.
• Most common example, Can
you guess it?
• SPORTS!
• Track runners run faster
when competing against
others, for example.
Another Example?
• Traffic Lights!
Cars Take off Faster from a
Traffic Light when there are
other cars present
• Social Loafing: The tendency for people to
exert less effort toward completing a task
when they are apart of a group than when
they are performing a task alone.
• The famous experiment that dealt with
social loafing was the tug-of-war
experiment.
University of Massachusetts students
put forth 82% as much effort when they
were blindfolded and believed three
others were pulling behind them.
What would you do if you knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt
that you would never get
caught?
• We lose moral inhibitions when we feel
anonymous
(hey, nobody focusing on
me as an individual) and excited.
• This phenomenon is called
deindividuation.
• We deindividuate when in a large crowd.
This is also known as mob mentality and
explains riots.
Other examples of
deindividuation are
• Road Rage, because we feel excited and
anonymous when we are angered while
driving.
• It is the car that
makes us feel
anonymous. That is
also why people in
the car do this…
A final example of
Deindivuduation:
• Wearing War Paint to
feel anonymous
during war.
• Obviously the battle
adds the excitement.
• Group Polarization: The strengthening of
a group’s shared attitudes over time.
•
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Examples:
Fraternities and Sororities
Political groups
Religious groups
• Group Think: The mode of thinking that
occurs when the desire for harmony in a
decision-making group overrides a realistic
appraisal of alternatives.
• Groupthink tends to happen in new groups
such as new Presidential administrations.
• People jump on the bandwagon of a bad
idea because they think that everyone else
likes the idea and don’t want to rock the
boat. In reality nobody likes this idea.
• In fact it is a terrible idea.
• Nobody is asked to list pros and cons
• No outside experts are called in to give an
objective opinion.
• A bad decision gets made.
• Historical examples:
– Bay of Pigs
– Watergate
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: act in a way that
unintentionally makes a belief come true.
• Ex. A teacher is told her students are all
geniuses. She challenges them more and
the are very successful that year.
• Ex. I think Jane is mad at me (she’s not).
I give Jane the cold shoulder. Jane is mad
at me.
•
Thought Question
• Do you believe that believing you are
going to have a great day in the morning is
likely to make that happen?
• Normative social influence: Influence
resulting from a person’s desire to gain
approval or avoid disapproval.
• Informational social influence: Influence
resulting from one’s willingness to accept
others’ opinions about reality.
Ex. Believing a statistic without researching
it
Ex. Believing what others say about a
person that you have never met.
Wrap-up Question
•Explain how at least 3
of the terms covered
today might apply to a
high school football
game.