Behavioral Phenomena in a Group - AP Psychology

Even though many participants felt that they were causing a great deal of pain to the person that they were shocking, they continued to use higher voltage simply because the test administrater told them to. This experiment demonstrated the power that presumed authority has over people's actions and decisions.

The bystander effect suggests that the more people who witness someone in distress, the less likely someone is to intervene. Diffusion of responsibility refers to the phenomenon such that when there are multiple people present, each individual feels less of a responsibility for the situation. Social influence refers to the effect that seeing other people not acting causes you to be less likely to act.

Group polarization occurs when a group makes a more extreme decision than its individual members would have made if acting on their own.

Because joining a cult often requires a dramatic shift in one's behavior and philosophies, people who are reluctant to disrupt their own status quo are less likely to join a cult, no matter how enticing their recruiters' promises may be.

Each factor listed introduces the possibility of harm to a potential actor, be it a minor inconvenience or a greater physical threat, making them more reluctant to aid someone else.

Instrumental aggression is an act of aggression that is designed to meet a particular goal. This act could be made at the individual or societal level. A good example would be particular wars in which countries fought over food, water, or other resources needed or wanted to maintain their society. This is different from hostile aggression, which could be random with no specific cause or end goal.

Solomon Asch is most well-known for his social psychology studies on conformity. Individuals are most likely to conform when they are in a group. Social normative refers to the influence other people have on an individual that leads to conformity, driven by a desire to fit in. If an individual has not yet voiced their opinions, they are also more likely to conform to a group's view. Outside influences such as these have a major impact on conformity.

Social loafing is a phenomenon whereby some people exert less effort when working in groups as opposed to when they are working individually. Obviously, the option describing Johnny doing exactly that is the best answer.

Deindividuation is the process whereby individuals show a loss of restraint and individuality due to their being in a group. Having personal ties to a victimized party would decrease deindividuation, while all of the other answer choices facilitate "losing" oneself to a larger group identity.

Asch told participants that they would be participating in a study on visual perception. Little did the participants know, two of their peers were not fellow participants but confederates. The group was asked to determine which line on a card best matched the line on another card. On the first question, the confederates stated the correct answer, but on the second, they both stated an answer that was clearly incorrect. In this experiment, more than two-thirds of participants conformed to the wrong answer stated by the confederates. Social loafing refers to the tendency for people to put in less effort when working together with a group. Stereotypes are negative, positive, or neutral judgments about others based on their membership to a certain social group.

In this example, Javier lies about his opinion on ranch flavored sunflower seeds so that he can avoid being belittled and teased by his teammates for his differing tastes in dugout snacks. This is a prime example of normative social influence—Javier wants to continue to be well-liked by his teammates, so he lies about his opinion on ranch flavored sunflower seeds to avoid their potential disapproval.

When there are many people present there is a "diffusion of responsibility," that is, each individual person feels like they have less responsibility to help with the situation. This leads to the bystander effect, whereby people are less likely to help when there are many other individuals present. The most famous example of the bystander effect is the murder of Kitty Genovese.

The answer is "deindividuation." Deindividuation is when people lose their individuality, often because that person is in a group or the situation calls for it. On the other hand, "altruisim" is helpful behavior to others for the sake of helping, while the "bystander effect" is when someone doesn't help a distressed person due to thinking that the others present will help. "Social loafing" is when a member of a group doesn't carry his burden, while "reciprocity" is where if someone asks a person a question, then they are more willing to listen to details about something else (i.e. because they initiated a request for information).

Social loafing is the tendency for people to put in less effort when working on a task as a group, compared to when working alone. On the other hand, social facilitation is the opposite of social loafing, and occurs when people do better on tasks when others are present. Risky shift is the idea that groups tend to make riskier decisions than individuals. Groupthink occurs when a group suspends its critical thinking abilities and prefers to reach a consensus among members. The bystander effect is the phenomenon that people are less likely to intervene in emergency situations when multiple people are present. This occurs due to diffusion of responsibility.

Ingroup bias, also known as ingroup favoritism, refers to a pattern of favoring members of one's ingroup over outgroup members. In the example above, Jaymes belongs to the baseball playing ingroup; therefore, he values the opinions of baseball players (i.e. the ingroup) versus other athletes (i.e. the outgroup).

The bystander effect reviews to the negative correlation between number of individuals witnessing a negative event and likelihood of any of these individuals to help the struggling person. That is, the more people that witness a crime, the less likely any one individual is to offer help to the victim. This is thought to be due to diffusion of responsibility—a social phenomenon in which people feel less responsibility for the action (or inaction) of a group when the group itself is larger (e.g. a student feeling less guilt when she joins in on mocking the teacher when the whole class is doing it, versus when she initiates the mocking and is the only one doing it).

When we feel a personal connection to a stranger in trouble or danger, we are displaying empathy. This makes us more likely to help them. Additionally, feeling this personal connection makes us think of scenarios in which we are the ones in danger and in need of someone's assistance. These thoughts can prompt us to assist someone in need.

Groupthink is the result of a group's desire to reach harmony and consensus that often results in poor decision-making in group settings. While group cohesiveness (i.e. the bond between members of a given group) plays a role in groupthink, it is not necessary for groupthink to occur.

The bystander effect refers to the phenomenon that people are less likely to intervene in emergency situations when a group of people are present. This finding is attributed to diffusion of responsibility, where people feel less responsible in groups than when they are alone. Cognitive dissonance refers to a person's attempt to resolve the discomfort experienced by holding contradictory beliefs. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to make internal attributions for other people's behaviors rather than look at the situation. Social loafing occurs when people put in less effort when working in groups rather than when working alone. They often feel that their minimal contributions will not be noticed. On the other hand, social facilitation refers to the tendency of people to perform better when in the presence of others.