Automatic Mimicry

1. Automatic Mimicry • Chameleon effect (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999): students worked alongside another person (actually a confederate); students matched their face-rubbing & foot-shaking to the confederate. • Other studies have found people synchronizing their grammar to match material they are reading or people they are hearing. (Ireland & Pennebaker, 2010). • Obesity, sleep loss, drug use, loneliness and happiness spread through the social network. (Christakis & Fowler, 2009). • Automatic mimicry helps us empathize--to feel what others are feeling. • Mood linkage: sharing up and down moods also occurs. (Totterdell et al., 1998)

2. Conformity & Social Norms • Conformity: adjusting our behaviours or thinking to coincide with group standards. • Normative social influence results from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. • Informational social influence results from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality. • Fig. 44.1 (Asch 1955) (m581 c 561 14.2)In a five-person(confederate) group setting, with a clear-cut answer to a problem, every person gives the wrong answer except you. • More than 1/3 of the time, intelligent and well-meaning college students were 'willing to call white black' in order to win the approval of the group. • What are the factors that will determine this? (Asch 2955)

3. Normative Social Influence • are made to feel incompetent or insecure • are in a group with at least three people • are in a group in which everyone else agrees. • admire the group's status and attractiveness • have not made a prior commitment to any response • know that others in the group will observe their behaviour • are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards. • Proof from today: Hand-raised answers to controversial questions are less diverse than anonymous electronic clicker responses. (Stowell et al., 2010).

4. Obedience • Fig. 44.2 Milgram's (1963, 1974) (m 583 c 563 14.3)obedience experiments. • When Milgram conducted the experiment with men aged 20 to 50, more than 60% complied fully--right up to the last switch. • Even when Milgram ran a new study with 40 new teachers and a learner who complained of a 'slight heart condition', 65% of the new teachers obeyed every one of the experimenter's commands, right up to the 450 volts. • On a French reality TV show replication, 80% of the people, egged on by cheering audience, obeyed and tortured a screaming victim. (de Moraes, 2010). • Gender bias? No. In later studies, women obeyed at rates similar to men's. (Blass, 1999) • Principle: a reduction of cognitive dissonance.

5. Obedience Cont'd • The person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure. • The authority figure was supported by a prestigious institution. • The victim was depersonalized or at a distances, even in another room. Refusals to comply are rare among soldiers who were operating long-distance artillery or aircraft weapons. (Padgett, 1989) • There were no role models for defiance. • Can good come of this? Yes. The Birkenhead drill. • Or even better, '300' the Spartans versus the Persians at Thermopylae. If Xerxes had won, we wouldn't be having a science of psychology class right now.

6. Conformity & Obedience • This research, like all psychology experiments, aims not at re-creating the literal behaviours of everyday life but to capture and explore the underlying processes that shape those behaviours. • Milgram exploited the 'foot-in-the-door' effect. After the first acts of compliance, attitudes begin to follow and justify behaviour. • When Milgram asked the 40 men to administer the learning test while someone else did the shocking, 93% complied. • Ordinary students may follow orders to haze inititates. • Ordinary employees may follow orders to produce and market harmful products. • Ordinary soldiers may follow orders to punish and then torture prisoners. (Lankford, 2009).

7. Group Behaviour • Social Facilitation: stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others. • The presence of others sometimes helps or hinders performance. (Guerin, 1986). Others observer us, arousing a response. • It strengthens the most likely response--the correct one on an easy task, the incorrect one on a difficult task. • Home advantage: Home teams win about 6 in 10 games. Table 44.1 (Jamieson, 2010) (m 587 c 567 14.1). • The same holds true for musical performances. A thrash band in full mosh pit mode (or whatever Miley Cyrus is trying to copy this week) has highly repetitive and well-learned music, as compared to a jazz saxophone solo in a quiet night club.

8. Group Behaviour Cont'd • Social Loafing: the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable. • Blindfolded people seated in a group clapping or shouting loudly (Latane, 1981). When they thought they were part of a group effort, the participants produced about 1/3 less noise than when they were clapping or shouting 'alone'. • People acting as part of a group may feel less accountable. • Group members may view their individual contributions as dispensable. (Harkins & Szymanski, 1989)

9. Deindividuation • The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. • (Zimbardo, 1970) NYU women dressed in depersonalizing KKK-style hoods. Compared with identifiable women in a control group, the hooded women delivered twice as much electric shock to a victim. • Tribal warriors (both ancient and modern) depersonalize themselves with face paints or masks; they are more likely than those with exposed faces to kill, torture, or mutilate captured enemies. (Watson, 1973). • Why? We have newly-evolved brains, the last parts of which of reason and short-term memory. These parts of our cerebrum take a lot of effort (glucose) to maintain. We are happy to shut them off.

10. Group Polarization • The enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group. • When people find themselves in groups of like-minded people, they are especially likely to move to extremes. • Fig. 44.3. (m 589 c 569 14.4)When high-prejudice students discussed racial issues, they became more prejudiced. (Myers & Bishop, 1970). • This also feeds suicide terrorism. Views grow more and more extreme, polarizing people. (Moghaddam, 2005). • Trolls and blogs: Fig. 44.4. Like minds network in the blogosphere (m590 c570 14.5).

11. Groupthink • The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. • Best modern example: the 'let's get on with it' attitude of the 1986 Challenger launch. The administration had allowed sub-standard 'O' rings (gaskets that separate booster rocket segments) to be installed (under-the-desk good-old-boy deal). The chief engineer send a detailed memorandum with his concerns and speculations about 'O' ring failure. The morning of the launch, Florida experienced freezing temperatures, exactly the situation in which the 'O' rings would fail. And they did. (Esser & Lindoerfer, 1989) • Countered by minority influence. This tactic won't make you popular, but it will make you influential. (Moscovici, 1985).