Intr的oduction to psychology ch17.ppt

Use with Atkinson Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar ISBN 9781844807284 ? 2009 Cengage Learning  Chapter 17 Social Influence The Presence of Others Social psychology Scientific study of ways people’s behavior mental processes shaped by real/imagined presence of others Fundamental attribution error – tendency to explain other’s actions by overestimating personality influence underestimating situational influence Social facilitation social inhibition Social facilitation – presence of others improves performance on simple tasks Social inhibition – presence of others impairs performance on complex tasks The Presence of Others ...Social facilitation social inhibition Why do these occur? High levels of drive/arousal energises dominant response – for simple task this likely to be correct (so facilitation) but for complex task this likely to be wrong (so inhibition) Second explanation focuses on attention factors – presence of others distracting which leads to narrowed focus of attention – simple tasks require few cues (so facilitation), complex ones require wide range of cues (so inhibition) The Presence of Others ...Social facilitation social inhibition Performance on stroop tests supports attention view but two limitations to social facilitation – mere presence of another not enough competition social comparison with co-actors critical The Presence of Others Deindividuation Certain group situations minimize people’s personal identities sense of accountability leading to aggressive/unusual behavior with anonymity group size contributing factors By enhancing group identity, promotes conformity to situation-specific social norms The Presence of Others Bystander effects Refers to findings that people are less likely to help if others are present Defining the situation Pluralistic ignorance – where everybody in group misleads everybody else by defining situation as non-emergency Diffusio