Social & Organizational Psychology

This is Unit Eleven of Psychology, Part One: attribution, influence, and groups. Social psychology studies how other people change what a person thinks and does — and it opens with a choice about explanation. Behavior can be explained by the situation somebody is in, or by what they are like. Both are available for every case. And people choose between them badly, in four specific and predictable ways. Each of the four puts the cause in the wrong place, and they do it in different directions depending on whose behavior is being explained and whether it went well. This part contains the two most famous studies in psychology, and the course handles both carefully. One is presented with its criticisms attached and a statement of how it is now read. The other has its own error entry — because the conclusion people draw from it is the opposite of what it showed. And the part ends on groups: two ways a group decides worse than its members would, and three effects the presence of other people has on an individual. By the end you will be able to do five things. One: name the four attribution errors and what each mislocates. Two: say how the prison study is now read. Three: name the two motives for conformity. Four: say what Milgram found and what it does not show. Five: tell the three group performance effects apart.

Seven entries. Two ways of explaining any behavior, and then four errors in choosing between them — and the four are not random. They form a pattern: the situation gets credited when it excuses you, and the person gets blamed when it is somebody else.

The field.

Psych 1181 Social Psychology

How the presence, behavior and expectations of others influence a person's thoughts and actions. Presence is listed first — being watched is enough.

The first explanation.

Psych 1183 Situationism

Explaining behavior primarily through features of the immediate environment rather than through enduring traits. The situation, doing the work.

The second.

Psych 1184 Dispositionism

Explaining behavior primarily through a person's enduring internal characteristics. Unit Ten's traits, offered as a causal account.

The first error.

Psych 1185 The Fundamental Attribution Error

Overestimating personal causes and underestimating situational ones when explaining other people's behavior. It is the default reading, and it is wrong more often than it is right.

The second.

Psych 1187 The Actor-Observer Bias

Explaining one's own behavior situationally and other people's dispositionally. The same act, explained two ways depending on who did it.

The third.

Psych 1189 The Self-Serving Bias

Attributing one's own successes to internal causes and one's failures to external ones. The previous bias, applied to outcomes rather than to persons.

And the fourth.

Psych 1191 The Just-World Hypothesis

The belief that people generally get what they deserve — which leads to blaming victims of misfortune. It preserves a comfortable view of the world at the cost of the person it lands on.

Five entries, and one of them is the most contested study in psychology. The course presents it with its criticisms in the same entry and then states how it is currently read — which is a different and more useful thing than presenting it and correcting it later.

The role.

Psych 1193 Social Role

A set of behaviors expected of a person occupying a particular position in a group. Attached to the position, not the person.

How fast it acts.

Psych 1194 Roles Act Faster Than Personality

An assigned role can change behavior within hours — faster than any change in personality could account for. Which settles the situation-versus-disposition argument for this case by timing alone.

The study.

Psych 1196 The Stanford Prison Experiment and Its Criticisms

A prison simulation halted early after assigned guards behaved abusively — and later evidence showed participants were coached toward that behavior. Both facts, in the same entry.

And how it is read now.

Psych 1197 How the Prison Study Is Now Read

It is now taught as a demonstration of demand characteristics as much as of the power of assigned roles. The study still teaches something — a different something than it was thought to.

The broader thing.

Psych 1199 Social Norm

A group's shared expectation about how its members should behave. Broader than a role, because it attaches to everybody rather than to a position.

Three entries. The discomfort of holding inconsistent beliefs, and three routes out of it — and the third route is the interesting one, because it changes neither the belief nor the behavior.

The discomfort.

Psych 1201 Cognitive Dissonance

The discomfort produced by holding inconsistent beliefs, or by acting against a held belief. Actual discomfort — which is what makes it motivating.

Three ways out.

Psych 1202 Reducing Dissonance

Changing the belief, changing the behavior, or adding a justification that reconciles them. The third is the cheapest and it is the one most often taken.

What an attitude is.

Psych 1204 Attitude

An evaluation of a person, object or idea, with affective, behavioral and cognitive components. Three components — and they can disagree with each other.

Three entries. Two routes into an attitude, and the difference matters because one requires the audience to be paying attention and the other works better when they are not.

The first route.

Psych 1206 The Central Route to Persuasion

Working through the quality of the argument, and requiring the audience to attend carefully. Effective and expensive — it needs something from the listener.

The second.

Psych 1207 The Peripheral Route to Persuasion

Working through cues outside the argument — source attractiveness, repetition, apparent consensus. None of those is evidence about the claim, and all of them move attitudes.

One technique.

Psych 1209 The Foot-in-the-Door Technique

Obtaining agreement to a large request by first obtaining agreement to a small related one. The first agreement is what makes the second one consistent.

Four entries. Matching a group, a study that measured how far people will go, and then two entirely different reasons for the same behavior — one about being accepted, and one about being right.

The behavior.

Psych 1211 Conformity

A change in behavior or belief to match a group's. Behavior or belief — the two can move separately, and often do.

The study.

Psych 1213 The Asch Studies

Most participants gave an obviously incorrect answer at least once when a unanimous group gave it first. Obviously incorrect — the task was not ambiguous, which is what makes the result striking.

The first motive.

Psych 1215 Normative Social Influence

Conformity motivated by the desire for acceptance and the avoidance of disapproval. The person knows the group is wrong and goes along anyway.

The second.

Psych 1216 Informational Social Influence

Conformity motivated by the belief that the group has better information. Which is often reasonable — and is a completely different mental event from the previous entry.

Five entries, and the middle three are the most misread study in the discipline. It is remembered as showing that people are capable of cruelty. The error entry says that is not what it showed — and the entry after it shows why, because the rates moved enormously with the arrangement.

A request.

Psych 1218 Compliance

Agreeing to a direct request from somebody with no authority to require it. Nothing compels it, and people agree at high rates.

An order.

Psych 1220 Obedience

Following a direct order from a person perceived to hold authority. Perceived is the operative word — the authority does not have to be real.

The study.

Psych 1221 The Milgram Studies

A majority of participants continued delivering what they believed were dangerous shocks when instructed by an experimenter. Believed — the belief is what makes it a finding.

The error.

Psych 1222 The "Obedience Requires Cruel People" Error

Concluding that the obedient participants were unusually cruel or unusually compliant individuals. They were not selected for anything, which is the entire point — and the dispositional reading is the fundamental attribution error, applied to a study about situations.

And what moved the rates.

Psych 1224 What Changed Milgram's Rates

Obedience fell sharply when the authority was physically distant, the victim was close, or another participant refused first. Situational features, each of them, moving the outcome a great deal.

Two entries on decisions getting worse. A group can reach a conclusion none of its members would have reached alone — and the two mechanisms here are different, though both are produced by the discussion itself.

The first.

Psych 1226 Groupthink

Deterioration of decision quality in a cohesive group that prioritises agreement over accurate appraisal. Cohesion is the risk factor — the better a group gets along, the more exposed it is.

The second.

Psych 1228 Group Polarization

A group's initial average position strengthening after members discuss it among themselves. Discussion moves the group further out rather than toward the middle.

Three entries on what other people do to an individual's performance. One improves it, one reduces it, and one removes the sense of being an individual at all — and the conditions separating them are specific.

Improved.

Psych 1230 Social Facilitation

Improvement in performance on well-learned tasks when others are present. Well-learned is the condition — the effect reverses on tasks that are not.

Reduced.

Psych 1232 Social Loafing

Reduction of individual effort when working in a group where contributions are not identifiable. Not identifiable is the condition — and it is the one that can be changed.

And dissolved.

Psych 1234 Deindividuation

Reduction of self-awareness and personal accountability in large or anonymous groups. Not reduced effort — reduced sense of being a person who acts.

Five things you can now do, and Part Two takes up prejudice and the workplace. You can name the four attribution errors — overweighting personal causes in others, explaining yourself situationally and others dispositionally, crediting your successes and blaming your failures outward, and believing people get what they deserve. You can say how the prison study is now read: as a demonstration of demand characteristics as much as of the power of assigned roles. You can name the two motives for conformity — wanting acceptance, and believing the group knows better — and say they are different mental events. You can say what Milgram found and what it does not show: not that the participants were unusual people, and the rates fell sharply with distance, closeness, and one other person refusing. And you can tell the three group effects apart by their conditions — well-learned tasks, unidentifiable contributions, and anonymity.