4.3 Psychology of Social Situations

Explain how the social situation affects behavior and mental processes.

• Social norms define expectations and roles a society may have for its members in individual and social situations.
• Social influence theory proposes that social pressure to behave or think in certain ways can be normative or informational.
• Persuasion refers to the techniques applied to convince the self or others of particular ideas, actions, or beliefs.
  • i. Persuasion can depend on the route to persuasion. The elaboration likelihood model outlines two main routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. The halo effect is an example of a peripheral route to persuasion.
  • ii. Persuasion can depend on how information is presented, as demonstrated by the foot-in-the-door and the door-in-the-face techniques.
• Research on conformity clarifies the conditions that strengthen the likelihood of people adhering to unspoken rules, norms, or expectations.
• Research on obedience clarifies the conditions that strengthen the likelihood of people complying with the directives of an authority figure.

Explain how being in a group can affect an individual’s behavior and mental processes.

• Cultural phenomena such as individualism, collectivism, and multiculturalism can influence how one perceives and behaves towards oneself and others.
• Being a member of a group can influence how one behaves or experiences mental processes via group polarization, groupthink, diffusion of responsibility, social loafing, and deindividuation.
• Performing a mental or physical behavior in front of a group can lead to social facilitation.
• People often overestimate the levels to which others agree with them, known as the false consensus effect.
• Superordinate goals serve to unite disparate groups under a common goal and help reduce negative affect and stereotyping among groups. Social traps occur when individuals do not unite and act in their own self-interest to the detriment of the group.
• Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychologists study how people perform in the workplace. I/O psychologists study best practices in management of work, relationships among people working together or for a common company or program, and how people feel about work (burnout).

Explain how prosocial behavior affects behavior and mental processes.

• Altruism refers to selfless behavior, but some researchers suggest that people act in prosocial ways due to incurring social debt. The social reciprocity norm and the social responsibility norm explain this type of behavior.
• The bystander effect demonstrates that situational and attentional variables predict whether someone is likely to help another person.