4.3 Psychology of Social Situations

Social norms are a group's unwritten expectations about how members should act, such as facing the front in an elevator. Social influence theory says pressure from others comes in two kinds. Normative social influence is going along to be accepted or avoid rejection. Informational social influence is going along because you think others know something you don't, like following the crowd toward an exit in an unfamiliar building.

Persuasion is any attempt to change beliefs or actions. The elaboration likelihood model says there are two routes. The central route works when people are motivated and able to think carefully, so strong arguments and evidence change minds, and the change tends to last. The peripheral route works when people aren't thinking hard, so surface cues like a speaker's looks, fame or catchy music do the work. The halo effect, assuming that a person with one good trait (such as attractiveness) has other good traits, is a peripheral cue.

Two techniques depend on the order of requests. Foot-in-the-door: get agreement to a small request first, and people become more likely to agree to a bigger one. Door-in-the-face: start with a huge request that will be refused, then make the smaller request you actually wanted, which now seems reasonable.

Conformity is changing your behavior or beliefs to match a group. In Solomon Asch's line-judgment studies, participants answered aloud after several confederates (people secretly working with the researcher) gave an obviously wrong answer. Many participants went along at least once. Conformity is stronger when the group is unanimous, when there are at least three others, when the group is attractive or high-status, when you must answer publicly, and when you feel unsure. A single ally who breaks from the group sharply reduces conformity.

Obedience is following the direct orders of an authority figure. In Stanley Milgram's 1960s studies, participants were told to give increasingly strong 'shocks' to a learner (the shocks weren't real). In the best-known version, 65 percent continued to the maximum level. Obedience dropped when the experimenter gave orders by phone instead of in person, when the learner was in the same room, when the setting seemed less legitimate, and when participants saw other 'teachers' refuse. The studies also raised serious ethical concerns about deception and distress.

• Social facilitation: the presence of others improves performance on simple or well-practiced tasks but can hurt performance on hard or new ones.
• Social loafing: people put in less effort on group tasks when individual contributions aren't tracked.
• Diffusion of responsibility: in a group, each person feels less personally responsible to act.
• Deindividuation: losing self-awareness and restraint in groups that make people feel anonymous, like a masked crowd.
• Group polarization: discussion among like-minded people pushes the group's average view to a more extreme position.
• Groupthink: a group's desire for harmony overrides realistic thinking, so doubts go unspoken and poor decisions follow.
• False consensus effect: overestimating how many people share your opinions and habits.

Individualist cultures emphasize personal goals and independence; collectivist cultures emphasize group goals, family and harmony. Multiculturalism means valuing and keeping several cultural identities within a society. Culture shapes how you see yourself, for example as an independent person or as a member of a family.

Superordinate goals are shared goals that require groups to cooperate. In Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave study, hostility between two boys' camp groups eased when they had to work together, such as pulling a stuck truck. A social trap is a situation where each person acting in their own short-term interest harms everyone, like overfishing a shared lake.

Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychologists study people at work: hiring, management, teamwork and job satisfaction. One concern is burnout, a state of exhaustion, cynicism and reduced effectiveness from long-term job stress.

Altruism is unselfish concern for others' welfare. Some researchers argue that much helping reflects social norms. The reciprocity norm is the expectation that you help people who have helped you. The social responsibility norm is the expectation that you help people who depend on you, like young children.

The bystander effect is that a person is less likely to help in an emergency when other people are present. To help, a bystander must notice the event, interpret it as an emergency and take responsibility, and other people interfere at each step: everyone looks calm, and responsibility is spread across the group.