Interpersonal and Group Processes

Reciprocity

• Unwritten rule that obliges us to repay others for what we have received from them, even if we didn't ask for it or want it
• E.g. buying a product after receiving a free sample
• Door-in-the-face technique: used in sales, start with an unreasonably large request, wait to be rejected, then lower the request
• People feel obliged to accept the lower offer
• Cialdini - nearly three times more people complied when door-in-the-face technique was used compared to a control condition

Liking

• Physical attractiveness
• Similarity between yourself and the person making the request
• Familiarity - recognise them
• E.g. celebrity product endorsement

Consistency

• Foot-in-the-door technique - used in sales, start with a small request, wait to be accepted, then ask for an additional larger request
• E.g. free samples
• Freenman & Fraser - 76% complied to displaying the same small and large sign compared to 17% who complied to displaying the large sign

Commitment

• Pressure to follow through - related to consistency 
• Low-balling technique - have people commit to a course of action, then increase the request
• E.g. agreeing to study, then finding out what time it starts

Authority

• Compliance = more likely when requested by someone with perceived authority
• E.g. police, teachers

• Change in behaviour to match the response or actions of others
  

Why People Conform?

• Informational influence - believe that others understand the situation better than we do, e.g. which fork to use first in a fancy restaurant
• Normative influence - conformity in order to be liked and accepted by others, e.g. smoking because peers do
• Referent informational influence - identify as a group member by following the norms of the group, e.g. becoming a vegetarian because you are against the treatment of farm animals

Norms

• Investigated by Sherif 
• Found that norms were created and later used as a basis for decision making - frame of reference
• Asch's line study

Social Faciliation & Social Inhibition

• Facilitation = improved task performance in presence of others; inhibition = decreased task performance
• Whether people perform better alone or in a group
• Zajonc cockroach study - found having an audience for a simple task improved performance, but worsened performance for a complex task
• Presence of others increases arousal, strengthening dominant responses, which enhances easy behaviour but impairs difficult behaviour
• Also influenced by others as a distraction and evaluation apprehension

Social Loafing

• Loss of motivation when in a group; work less than they would do individually
  
• Latane, Williams and Harkins headphone study - found that Ps made less nois when they thought others were making noise

Sherif 

• Studied groups of boys at a summer camp randomly split into cabins
• Series of competitions - resulted in intergroup conflict
• Experimenters then manipulated events that affected both groups, e.g. delivery truck breaks down
• Required mutual effort - resulted in intergroup cooperation
• Mutually exclusive goals = increase in intergroup conflict
• Mutually inclusive goals = decrease in intergroup conflict

• Sense of who you are based on group membership/the groups you belong to
• Key factor of intergroup hostility = existence of social groups
• Tajfel minimal group paradigm - Ps gave more money to their own group than the other group
• Ingroup favouritism / outgroup derogration

Groups don't always lead to discrimination, but they do when:

• People feel a sense of belonging to the group
• The sense of belonging and identification is enhanced when people feel uncertain about themselves and the social context

• Cognitively represent groups in terms of protoypes - distinguishing groups from each other; ingroup similarities that make ingroups different to outgroups, which creates boundaries
• Cognitive representations of differences between groups are more exaggerated than reality as they are sharper

For Intergroup Members:

• Sense of belonging, loyalty and favouritism
• Favour conformity to group standards and normative behaviours

The Desire for a Positive Evaluation:

• People want a positive evaluation of their ingroup - struggle for dominance/status
• Positive ingroup evaluations formed to enhance self-esteem

Perception of Outgroup Members:

• 'Lumped together' / homogenised
• Seen sterotypically
• Derogration

Linguistic Intergroup Bias

• Prejudice is not always obvious
• Linguistic intergroup bias - how we describe the behaviours of our group compared to outgroups
• Use specific language to describe positive outgroup and negative ingroup characteristics
• Use more general/abstract terms to describe negative outgroup and positive ingroup characteristics

Cognitive Processes

• Illusory correlations - believe that two things are related when they are not - elements do not exist or are exaggerated
• Illusion of outgroup homogenity - perceive members of the outgroup as more similar to each other than members of the ingroup, e.g. difficulty identifying those of a different race to us

Reducing Prejudice

• Contact hypothesis - increased contact between members of different groups can help but often don't seek out contradictory evidence, or believe it
• Can lead to decategorisation and recategorisation (focus on common membership) when it does work

Bystander is less likely to help in an emergency if other bystanders are present, e.g. case of Kitty Genovese

Latane & Darley

• Ps believed they were discussing a topic with either one, two or five others (confeds)
• One of the confeds faked an epilectic seizure
• Time taken for Ps to help depended on how many other people (confeds) they were with
• 50 secs = one confed compared to 150 secs = four other confeds

Principles that can Prevent Helping

• Pluralistic ignorance - majority privately reject a belief but incorrectly assume that most others will accept it, so go along with it, e.g. not asking a question in class as you believe you are the only one who doesn't understand
• Diffusion of responsibility - each person dilutes personal responsibility by spreading it among other group members, e.g. not calling the police because you assume someone else has