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Big Ideas in Social Psychology
from: Social Psychology - David G. Myers
“We know that obesity can be socially contagious, but now we know that social networks play a significant role in weight loss as well, particularly team-based weight loss competitions,” said lead author Tricia Leahey, Ph.D., of The Miriam Hospital and Alpert Medical School. “In our study, weight loss clearly clustered within teams, which suggests that teammates influenced each other, perhaps by providing accountability, setting expectations of weight loss, and providing encouragement and support.”
Study Finds Weight Loss Can Be Contagious
Obedience to Authority: The Milgram Experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable experiments in social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.
I highly recommend reading the book, such an interesting read. One of my favorite experiments ever.
The Power of Conformity in Groups: The Asch Experiment
In the basic Asch paradigm, the participants — the real subjects and the confederates — were all seated in a classroom. They were asked a variety of questions about the lines such as how long is A, compare the length of A to an everyday object, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc. The group was told to announce their answers to each question out loud. The confederates always provided their answers before the study participant, and always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.
In a control group, with no pressure to conform to an erroneous view, only one subject out of 35 ever gave an incorrect answer. Solomon Asch hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (32%). Seventy-five percent of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.
Les Amours Imaginaires (2010)
Really interesting movie from a psychological aspect as well. Love how it approaches the subject of the appeal of impossible love. I especially liked those documentary-like snippets.
by Solomon E. Asch
Exactly what is the effect of the opinions of others on our own?
In other words, how strong is the urge toward social conformity?
The question is approached by means of some unusual experiments
The biopsychosocial approach to development
from David G. Myers: Psychology
Emotion can spread rapidly through large crowds, as the massive social proof leads us into extreme states. This explains much of crowd behavior, where ‘normal’ people act in ways they may later deeply regret.
Social contagion effects can also occur when people believe they have been infected by a disease. As more people show the (psychosomatic) symptoms, this is taken as proof that ‘I am bound to get it’. Source
Social influence occurs when an individual’s thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing. In 1958, Harvard psychologist, Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence.
Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard described two psychological needs that lead humans to conform to the expectations of others:
Our need to be right: Informational social influence (or social proof) is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Informational influence comes into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because there is social disagreement. In terms of Kelman’s typology, normative influence leads to public compliance.
Our need to be liked: Normative social influence is an influence to conform to the positive expectations of others. In terms of Kelman’s typology, informational influence leads to private acceptance.
A psychologist at a girl’s college asked the members of his class to compliment any girl wearing red. Within a week the cafeteria was a blaze of red. None of the girls were aware of being influenced, although they did notice that the atmosphere was more friendly. A class at the University of Minnesota is reported to have conditioned their psychology professor a week after he told them about learning without awareness. Every time he moved toward the right side of the room, they paid more attention and laughed more uproariously at his jokes, until apparently they were able to condition him right out the door.
– W. Lambert Gardiner, Psychology: A Story of a Search, 1970
