Social Psychology

1
Social Psychology

• Group Influence

2
Plan for Today

• What is a group?
• Crowding
• Deindividuation
• Bystander Intervention
• Leadership

3
Groups

• Who am I?
• Categorize self-descriptions into group and
  non-group identifications
• What is a group?
• Is this class a group

4
What is a group?

• Two or more people who, for longer than a few
  moments, interact with and influence one another
  and perceive one another as us
• People on a plane?
• Five people waiting at the same corner for a bus.
• People attending a worship service.
• The Brittany Spears Fan Club.
• The students in a seminar class.

5
Why do we form groups?

• Schutzs (1958) Fundamental Interpersonal
  Relations Orientation
• Psychological needs for group formation
• Inclusion
• Control
• Affection

6
Are groups good or bad?

• Conformity, obedience, diffusion of
  reponsibility, deindividuation, panic, the risky
  shift, groupthink, anonymity, social loafing
• Social, moral, and language development, sense of
  membership and identity, charity, emotional
  comfort, support, social facilitation,
  cooperation, survival

7
Crowding

• Calhouns Behavioral Sink (1962)
• A rat colony lives in a quarter acre pen
• Population stabilizes at about 150
• He then divided the pen into 4 sections, the 2
  largest males each claimed one section along with
  a small harem of females, the rest of the colony
  lived in terribly overcrowded conditions
• Breakdown in mating and nest building, eating of
  the young, random an inappropriate aggression,
  others passive and withdrawn
• Infant mortality 80, adults showed marked signs
  of stress related illness and premature death

8
Human Territoriality

• Primary territories occupant has exclusive
  control
• Secondary territories shared with others but
  there is still exclusionary control
• Public territories uncontrolled areas used by
  whoever is first to arrive
• Sense of security, predictability and control,
  sense of importance, self identity and
  uniqueness, protection from those who are feared
  or disliked
• In own territory we are more assertive and
  dominant

9
Collective Behavior

• Deindividuation loss of self awareness and
  evaluation apprehension when the situation allows
  one to feel anonymous
• When combined with high states of arousal and a
  diffusion of responsibility it can create a mob
  mentality, disinhibiting violent and unacceptable
  behavior

10
Riots

• Convergence only certain types of people would
  bait a person to jump or commit an act of
  violence, however, their actions spread
  throughout a crowd by means of contagion.
• This can create a norm of callousness or cynicism
  the seems to fit the situation. It creates the
  illusion of consensus for violence and extreme
  acts.

11
Convergence

• Deindividuation alone cannot explain all these
  phenomena
• Riots, lynchings, mobs, wartime attrocities,
  police beatings, road rage, escape panics
• Cheering at sporting events, spring break
  behavior, Mardi Gras, fads, pop icons

12
Deindividuation

• If you could do anything humanly possible with
  complete assurance that you would not be detected
  or held in any way responsible, what would you
  do?
• Common findings 36 antisocial, 19
  non-normative, 36 neutral, and 9 prosocial
• Robbing a bank is the most often reported

13
Effective Decision Making

• Survey a wide range of objectives to be reached,
  always taking into account the multiplicity of
  values involved
• Consider a wide range of possible courses of
  action.
• Intensively search for new information relevant
  to evaluating the alternatives.
• Correctly consider an assimilate new information
  and expert judgments, even when they do not
  support the initially preferred course of action.
• Reconsider both the positive and negative
  consequences of alternatives originally regarded
  as unacceptable, before making a final decision.
• Carefully weigh the negative as well as positive
  consequences that could result from the preferred
  alternative.
• Prepare detailed provisions for implementing and
  monitoring the chosen course of action, with
  particular attention to contingency plans that
  might be required if known risks were to
  materialize.