Alright so it's been a whole semester of social psychology and now it's time to announce my favorite theories and theorists.
So here they are, the top five sexiest theories:
1.Cognitive Dissonance- Hands down! Who thought that the reason for why we make up excuses or change our minds about something would have such a cool name.
2.Social Comparison- This is one of my favorite theories because I enjoy people watching and through this I get to see who my “similar others” are and who other people compare themselves with.
3.Psychological Reactance- The explanation for teenage rebellion. Let’s just tell them to go out and do whatever they want! Maybe that way they’ll behave!
4.Self-Fulfilling prophecy- The best way to make students smarter! Just believe that they will be.
5.Self-verification- This concept is one of the sexiest in social psych. Who would’ve thought that we were attracted to people that told us the truth even if it’s ugly.
Top five sexiest social psychologists:
1.Leon Festinger- His two theories are on my top five sexiest theories; of course he’s number one!
2.David G. Myers- “The science of happiness” was one of my favorite articles this semester. Also, he had three of his books presented at our project showcase!
3.Bill Swann- He came up with self-verification theory, did research in a mall and a ranch, and his methods in his manuscript included a side note that the results a few participants were excluded because they did not match on the number of children they had. That kept my attention for the rest of the article.
4.John Gottman- He can tell whether or not a couple will last just by hearing the story of how they met. That’s pretty sexy!
5.Norman Triplett- The founder of social psychology. The reason all the rest of this exists!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Conflict Escalation
The concept that I could relate to most out of the group processes chapter in the book was the conflict spirals (Brett et al., 1998; Rubin et al., 1994). These spirals can be defined by frequent retaliation from parties when a disagreement is started. My conflict escalation story begins senior year of high school. It was very close to the end of senior year, my friends and I were very excited about prom and were trying to plan it all out. We would randomly call each other and talk things over. On the day of the conflict spiral my friend Elizabeth (yes, the same one from the last entry) and I were planning out prom. The conflict begun because half of us in the group had dates and the other half did not, we had previously said that we would all have dates for prom so that’s what really sparked the argument. My boyfriend is actually a year younger so I could have gotten away with not bringing him; however everything was already set for him to come. The conflict escalated because we started blaming each other for the inequality of our group and what apparently ‘ruined’ prom. The conversation went from “OMG prom is going to be so fun” to “Ugh! Prom is ruined” in a twenty minute phone conversation. Of course, once we hung up on each other Elizabeth called our other friends and told her what I supposedly said. I got a phone call from one of our other friends telling me to fix everything because Elizabeth was mad. This surprised me because to me it seemed much easier for them to either get a date for prom or to get over the fact that some of us had dates and some of them didn’t. Well, I was wrong, and getting our friends involved made the conflict escalate even more.
What also made the situation worse is that we also experienced group polarization between the ‘date’ and ‘no date’ groups. Group polarization is where the group’s initial opinion becomes exaggerated (Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969). The “no date” group’s opinion became so exaggerated that it became “we don’t think that your boyfriend is good enough for you and y’all should break up!” after we had been dating for over a year and a half! They became quite demanding and biased towards everything that had happened since we started dating and blamed all our problems on him; when in reality it was everyone’s lack of communication that created the problem. I wish I could tell you a happy ending of how we ended up getting over the whole thing and how we had a great time at prom. However, we still don’t really talk very much, and that last month of senior year conflict ruined four years of awesome memories.
This is the 'date' group and we still had a GREAT time at prom!
References:
Brett, J.M., Shapiro, D.L., & Lytle, A.L. (1998). Breaking the bonds of reciprocity
in negotiations. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 410-424.
Moscovici, S. & Zanalloni, M. (1969). The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 125-135.
Rubin, J.Z., Pruitt, D.G., & Kim, S.H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill.
What also made the situation worse is that we also experienced group polarization between the ‘date’ and ‘no date’ groups. Group polarization is where the group’s initial opinion becomes exaggerated (Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969). The “no date” group’s opinion became so exaggerated that it became “we don’t think that your boyfriend is good enough for you and y’all should break up!” after we had been dating for over a year and a half! They became quite demanding and biased towards everything that had happened since we started dating and blamed all our problems on him; when in reality it was everyone’s lack of communication that created the problem. I wish I could tell you a happy ending of how we ended up getting over the whole thing and how we had a great time at prom. However, we still don’t really talk very much, and that last month of senior year conflict ruined four years of awesome memories.
This is the 'date' group and we still had a GREAT time at prom!
References:
Brett, J.M., Shapiro, D.L., & Lytle, A.L. (1998). Breaking the bonds of reciprocity
in negotiations. Academy of Management Journal, 41, 410-424.
Moscovici, S. & Zanalloni, M. (1969). The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 125-135.
Rubin, J.Z., Pruitt, D.G., & Kim, S.H. (1994). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Demonstrate-a-concept: Conformity
Have you ever wondered why we swing sitting down? Why not standing up? It’s more fun because you feel like you’re higher and when it’s time to jump off the swing you’re already standing up! It’s rather convenient. Being a psychology major, I have gotten pretty good at analyzing other’s behavior and finding a better answer than: “Well that’s just how things are.” I have learned that people conform to norms very often; which answers my swinging dilemma. When people go to the park they act like others around them do, this is part of conformity (Milgram & Sabini, 1978).
People conform for two different reasons. The first is because they want to be right, this is called informational influence. Research on this phenomenon includes having participants identify pictures. Results show that participants are more likely to agree with the others in the room, if they are unsure of the details (Gabbert et al., 2003). The second reason is because they want to fit in and are scared of the consequences of not fitting in, this is called normative influence. Research on this area includes putting the participant in a room of confederates that chose the wrong answer in an easy task. Forty one percent of the participants conformed to the answer that the confederates picked. In this specific study it was also interesting to see that brain imaging techniques showed changes in perception of the task (Berns et al., 2005).
These two reasons for conforming are also important in understanding what type of conformity one engages in. The first type of conformity is called private conformity. This type of conformity is also known as conversion because it involves completely changing one’s behavior to fit in with the group. The second type of conformity is public conformity, this conformity is not as strong, and the individual only changes to respond to the normative pressures of others (Baron et al., 1996).
In the following video conformity is illustrated by the two boys hanging out in the park. Before I begin analyzing, please let me introduce you to the participants of this video, the boy in the blue shirt is C.J. and the boy in the white shirt is Robert. The very first example of conformity that we see is that they both go toward the swings. They are conforming to the social norm of going to the park and playing on the playground instead of doing something radical, such as breaking into the pool next to the park. The second example is of normative influence, Robert falls prey to this type of influence by swinging sitting down just like C.J. Although, C.J. also falls to this normative influence because he jumps off the swing after Robert; both of these boys are under public conformity because they are responding to each other’s and the society’s normative pressures.
http://www.youtube.com/user/lopezfua#p/a/u/0/UgVWf-r-EKg
References:
Baron, R.S., Vandello, J.A., & Brunsman, B. (1996). The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 915-927.
Berns, G.S., Chappelow, J., Zink, C.F., Pagnoni, G., Martin-Skurski, M.E., & Richards, J. (2005). Neurobiological correlates of social conformity and independence during mental rotation. Biological Psychiatry, 58, 245-253.
Gabbert, F., Memon, A. & Allan, K. (2003). Memory conformity: Can eyewitnesses influence each other’s memories for an event? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 533-543.
Milgram, S. & Sabini, J. (1978). On maintaining urban norms: A field experiment in the subway. Advances in Environmental Psychology (1).
People conform for two different reasons. The first is because they want to be right, this is called informational influence. Research on this phenomenon includes having participants identify pictures. Results show that participants are more likely to agree with the others in the room, if they are unsure of the details (Gabbert et al., 2003). The second reason is because they want to fit in and are scared of the consequences of not fitting in, this is called normative influence. Research on this area includes putting the participant in a room of confederates that chose the wrong answer in an easy task. Forty one percent of the participants conformed to the answer that the confederates picked. In this specific study it was also interesting to see that brain imaging techniques showed changes in perception of the task (Berns et al., 2005).
These two reasons for conforming are also important in understanding what type of conformity one engages in. The first type of conformity is called private conformity. This type of conformity is also known as conversion because it involves completely changing one’s behavior to fit in with the group. The second type of conformity is public conformity, this conformity is not as strong, and the individual only changes to respond to the normative pressures of others (Baron et al., 1996).
In the following video conformity is illustrated by the two boys hanging out in the park. Before I begin analyzing, please let me introduce you to the participants of this video, the boy in the blue shirt is C.J. and the boy in the white shirt is Robert. The very first example of conformity that we see is that they both go toward the swings. They are conforming to the social norm of going to the park and playing on the playground instead of doing something radical, such as breaking into the pool next to the park. The second example is of normative influence, Robert falls prey to this type of influence by swinging sitting down just like C.J. Although, C.J. also falls to this normative influence because he jumps off the swing after Robert; both of these boys are under public conformity because they are responding to each other’s and the society’s normative pressures.
http://www.youtube.com/user/lopezfua#p/a/u/0/UgVWf-r-EKg
References:
Baron, R.S., Vandello, J.A., & Brunsman, B. (1996). The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 915-927.
Berns, G.S., Chappelow, J., Zink, C.F., Pagnoni, G., Martin-Skurski, M.E., & Richards, J. (2005). Neurobiological correlates of social conformity and independence during mental rotation. Biological Psychiatry, 58, 245-253.
Gabbert, F., Memon, A. & Allan, K. (2003). Memory conformity: Can eyewitnesses influence each other’s memories for an event? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 533-543.
Milgram, S. & Sabini, J. (1978). On maintaining urban norms: A field experiment in the subway. Advances in Environmental Psychology (1).
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Mother may I?
When I was in high school, I got away with many things. It was interesting how I could get away with so many bad things, just because I made my parents realize that it could be worse. Here’s what a typical conversation would look like when I asked my parents for permission for my weekend plans. First, let me give you some background information, Elizabeth was my best friend and Kyle was our good friend that moved four hours away.
Me: Can I go with Elizabeth to go visit Kyle for the weekend?
Parents: (laugh) You’re driving to Tyler?
Me: Yea! It’s going be a really fun road trip!
Parents: No! That’s too far away and y’all shouldn’t travel alone.
Me: UGH! You never let me do anything fun! (As I walk away to my room)
Then I proceed to call Elizabeth and tell her the news. Then we plan our second idea; tell our parents we’re spending the night at each other’s house, but in reality drive to Tyler. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: Since we’re not driving to Tyler anymore, we’re having a slumber party at Elizabeth’s. Can I go to that?
Parents: Yes! Have a good time!
Me: Thank you! (Wow! That was incredibly easy!)
When I was younger, I was not worried about why this technique was so effective. I was just glad it worked! I now have learned that this is a technique of compliance and that it is scientifically proven to be effective. Cialdini & Ascani (1976) have named it the “Door-in-the-face technique” it consists of asking for a very big request and once that one is rejected, asking for a smaller request. From other studies, compliance rates have increased more than double if the smaller request is preceded by the large outrageous effect.
There are two reasons why this technique works. The first one is called perceptual contrast (Cialdini et al., 1975). Perceptual contrast just says that the door-in-the-face technique works because the second request is smaller and more achievable than the first large request. In my own personal example, the fact that I was only going to be less than twenty minutes away instead of four hours made my parents more likely to comply with my simple request. The second reason why door-in-the-face technique works is because it involves the notion of reciprocal concessions. This concept infers that the person that turns down the first request feels guilty about it and therefore complies with the smaller request (O’Keefe & Figge, 1997). In the example illustrated above, my parents felt guilty about the fact that they “never let me do anything fun!” as I said to them, that they decided to comply with my smaller request.
This technique is a lesson to all. If you are the one asking for something, make sure that your first request is not too ridiculous otherwise it is not going to work. Also, make sure that you ask the same person; in my example it would not have worked if I had asked my dad the bigger request and then asked my mom for the smaller request. If you are the one being asked, think of it as a trick, that way you will not feel pressured to comply or guilty for not complying.
References:
Cialdini, R.B. & Ascani, K. (1976). Test of a concession procedure for inducing verbal, behavioral and further compliance with a request to give blood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 295-300.
Cialdini, R.B., Vincent, J.E., Lewis, S.K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D. & Darby, B.L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206-215.
O’Keefe, D.J. & Figge, M. (1997). A guilt-based explanation of the door-in-the-face influence strategy. Human Communication Research, 42, 64-81.
Me: Can I go with Elizabeth to go visit Kyle for the weekend?
Parents: (laugh) You’re driving to Tyler?
Me: Yea! It’s going be a really fun road trip!
Parents: No! That’s too far away and y’all shouldn’t travel alone.
Me: UGH! You never let me do anything fun! (As I walk away to my room)
Then I proceed to call Elizabeth and tell her the news. Then we plan our second idea; tell our parents we’re spending the night at each other’s house, but in reality drive to Tyler. The conversation goes something like this:
Me: Since we’re not driving to Tyler anymore, we’re having a slumber party at Elizabeth’s. Can I go to that?
Parents: Yes! Have a good time!
Me: Thank you! (Wow! That was incredibly easy!)
When I was younger, I was not worried about why this technique was so effective. I was just glad it worked! I now have learned that this is a technique of compliance and that it is scientifically proven to be effective. Cialdini & Ascani (1976) have named it the “Door-in-the-face technique” it consists of asking for a very big request and once that one is rejected, asking for a smaller request. From other studies, compliance rates have increased more than double if the smaller request is preceded by the large outrageous effect.
There are two reasons why this technique works. The first one is called perceptual contrast (Cialdini et al., 1975). Perceptual contrast just says that the door-in-the-face technique works because the second request is smaller and more achievable than the first large request. In my own personal example, the fact that I was only going to be less than twenty minutes away instead of four hours made my parents more likely to comply with my simple request. The second reason why door-in-the-face technique works is because it involves the notion of reciprocal concessions. This concept infers that the person that turns down the first request feels guilty about it and therefore complies with the smaller request (O’Keefe & Figge, 1997). In the example illustrated above, my parents felt guilty about the fact that they “never let me do anything fun!” as I said to them, that they decided to comply with my smaller request.
This technique is a lesson to all. If you are the one asking for something, make sure that your first request is not too ridiculous otherwise it is not going to work. Also, make sure that you ask the same person; in my example it would not have worked if I had asked my dad the bigger request and then asked my mom for the smaller request. If you are the one being asked, think of it as a trick, that way you will not feel pressured to comply or guilty for not complying.
References:
Cialdini, R.B. & Ascani, K. (1976). Test of a concession procedure for inducing verbal, behavioral and further compliance with a request to give blood. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 295-300.
Cialdini, R.B., Vincent, J.E., Lewis, S.K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D. & Darby, B.L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206-215.
O’Keefe, D.J. & Figge, M. (1997). A guilt-based explanation of the door-in-the-face influence strategy. Human Communication Research, 42, 64-81.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Why won't you quit!!!
“These stupid things never work!” “I’m never coming back!”
Those are some of the words that you may hear from my dad every time we try to get him to quit smoking either through some at home method or through conferences; believe me we’ve tried it all!
After reading the methods of persuasion in the textbook I learned that getting a message through to somebody is harder than just telling them to do something. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1984) two-track distinction of how messages are perceived has helped me understand the reasons behind my dad’s awful habit. These two routes are the central route and the peripheral route and they are both composed of the message itself, the source of the message and the audience of the message.
In my dad’s case he is the audience. I believe that one of the reasons he has not been able to quit smoking is because he has been forewarned about it. Freedman and Sears (1965) have discovered that those who had the most time to think about the argument they were going to hear were less likely to agree with the argument. Even though I’d like to take my dad to an anti-smoking conference without telling him what we’re doing I don’t believe the argument will be persuasive at all; especially because he has now been inoculated to this argument. According to the inoculation hypothesis (McGuire, 1964), when people are exposed to weak versions of an argument they develop a larger resistance to it. So in reality I may have made my dad’s addiction to smoking worse by introducing ineffective ways of quitting to him. However, I don’t blame myself entirely for this; my dad does have a very strong attachment to this habit and actually enjoys it, therefore very reluctant to quit despite my best efforts.
References:
Freedman, J.L. and Sears, D.O. (1965). Warning, distraction, and resistance to influence. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1, 262-266.
McGuire, W.J. (1964). Inducing resistance to persuasion. Advances in experimental social psychology, 1, 192-229.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and Peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46, 69-81.
Those are some of the words that you may hear from my dad every time we try to get him to quit smoking either through some at home method or through conferences; believe me we’ve tried it all!
After reading the methods of persuasion in the textbook I learned that getting a message through to somebody is harder than just telling them to do something. Petty and Cacioppo’s (1984) two-track distinction of how messages are perceived has helped me understand the reasons behind my dad’s awful habit. These two routes are the central route and the peripheral route and they are both composed of the message itself, the source of the message and the audience of the message.
In my dad’s case he is the audience. I believe that one of the reasons he has not been able to quit smoking is because he has been forewarned about it. Freedman and Sears (1965) have discovered that those who had the most time to think about the argument they were going to hear were less likely to agree with the argument. Even though I’d like to take my dad to an anti-smoking conference without telling him what we’re doing I don’t believe the argument will be persuasive at all; especially because he has now been inoculated to this argument. According to the inoculation hypothesis (McGuire, 1964), when people are exposed to weak versions of an argument they develop a larger resistance to it. So in reality I may have made my dad’s addiction to smoking worse by introducing ineffective ways of quitting to him. However, I don’t blame myself entirely for this; my dad does have a very strong attachment to this habit and actually enjoys it, therefore very reluctant to quit despite my best efforts.
References:
Freedman, J.L. and Sears, D.O. (1965). Warning, distraction, and resistance to influence. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1, 262-266.
McGuire, W.J. (1964). Inducing resistance to persuasion. Advances in experimental social psychology, 1, 192-229.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and Peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 46, 69-81.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Participant Observer Blog
Social psychologists have developed many tools to be able to research how people make inferences about others. The Implicit Associates Test (IAT) is one of these tools; this test is taken on-line. The website allows you to choose what type of preference you’d like to make; for example age, gender or weight. For this blog I decided to take the age preference test and the weight preference test. The results show that I have no automatic preference between old and young people; but I do have a slight automatic preference for thin people. These results surprised me a little bit because I actually thought I would have a slight preference for young people since I am around them more often. I believe that I obtained the result of no preference between young and old people because my perception of young and old people is different than the one on the test. Even though my mom is not old I categorize her under the old people category, the test does not account for this difference. I believe that I obtained the result of a slight automatic preference towards thin people because I am a schematic about my weight and notice it in other people as well. I believe that the IAT shows both our “true” attitude and cultural associations we may have. I believe that it shows our “true” attitude because we are conscious of the choices we make both during the test and in everyday life; however culture puts many of those choices out there. Completing the IAT did make me think of stereotypes differently. I will try to be more aware of how I perceive people that are overweight because I may have a negative perception of them without even noticing it.
I attempted to go to the IAT website and change the results of my weight preference. However I was not very successful. I still got a slight preference for thin people. I wish I could have the numerical score because I am sure that I was probably able to lower that score, just not enough. When I retook the IAT I focused mainly on the part when fat and good are paired and making sure I did not make any mistakes when either of those categories popped up. I believe I did reduce my number of mistakes.
References:
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 79,1022-1038.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1464-1480.
Fazio, R. H., & Olson, M. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297-327.
I attempted to go to the IAT website and change the results of my weight preference. However I was not very successful. I still got a slight preference for thin people. I wish I could have the numerical score because I am sure that I was probably able to lower that score, just not enough. When I retook the IAT I focused mainly on the part when fat and good are paired and making sure I did not make any mistakes when either of those categories popped up. I believe I did reduce my number of mistakes.
References:
Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 79,1022-1038.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1464-1480.
Fazio, R. H., & Olson, M. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297-327.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Ice cream and stereotypes
When doing the reading for the week, I became very aware of my own stereotypes. I realize that, like most of us, I have these categorizations of people that belong to a certain group. These categorizations include my perception of Indian people like spicy food, African Americans to be very proud of their race and Asians in general to be very smart.
On Sunday, when the weather was beautiful, I was having ice cream outside. As I was enjoying my ice cream I was also people watching all of the other ice cream eaters. There were many people out there including lots of families with children. One of the families drew my attention because I happened to hear the dad talk about his one year old daughter. I noticed them because the father was talking about college and the method he was going to use to pay for it and that he was going to encourage her to apply for scholarships.
My stereotype of Asians was confirmed by this short conversation the father was having with his friend. At first, I thought his concerns were slightly farfetched because he still had at least seventeen years to worry about that. However, I realized that this stereotype was positive and that it was good for this gentleman to be concerned about his daughter’s future.
After discussing stereotypes in class today, I remembered my encounter from this Sunday. I realized that this positive stereotype was harmful because maybe the father was stressed about living up to the expectation that people of his same group. He wants to make sure that his daughter also fulfills the expectation that Asian people are very smart. This stereotype is also harmful to the poor one year old because she already has her future planned out for her and may not be able to obtain her individuality. I’m glad that I realize the harm of these quick stereotypes, even if they are positive, and I will try to keep people’s individuality in mind.
References:
Dr. G’s 3.1.10 social psychology notes.
On Sunday, when the weather was beautiful, I was having ice cream outside. As I was enjoying my ice cream I was also people watching all of the other ice cream eaters. There were many people out there including lots of families with children. One of the families drew my attention because I happened to hear the dad talk about his one year old daughter. I noticed them because the father was talking about college and the method he was going to use to pay for it and that he was going to encourage her to apply for scholarships.
My stereotype of Asians was confirmed by this short conversation the father was having with his friend. At first, I thought his concerns were slightly farfetched because he still had at least seventeen years to worry about that. However, I realized that this stereotype was positive and that it was good for this gentleman to be concerned about his daughter’s future.
After discussing stereotypes in class today, I remembered my encounter from this Sunday. I realized that this positive stereotype was harmful because maybe the father was stressed about living up to the expectation that people of his same group. He wants to make sure that his daughter also fulfills the expectation that Asian people are very smart. This stereotype is also harmful to the poor one year old because she already has her future planned out for her and may not be able to obtain her individuality. I’m glad that I realize the harm of these quick stereotypes, even if they are positive, and I will try to keep people’s individuality in mind.
References:
Dr. G’s 3.1.10 social psychology notes.
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