Social Psychology Constellation

Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms.

Social Psychology Notes

• Every fundamentalism perpetuates itself by repetition and group reinforcement
• Primates have been shown to copy an action if they see others doing it
• Chimps have been shown to copy the methods of alpha group members for opening a puzzle box even after discovering a better method
• Humans and other primates have been shown to conform to a norm even if it is detrimental
• Conformity is a deeply ingrained and automatic instinct in humans
• Social identity theory
• Conformity has as much to do with safety as it does with avoiding punishment
• People have been shown to change their answer to a question if the group disagrees
• Brain scans show that those who defy the groups opinion will try to revise their memories while the brain tries to convince them otherwise
• Brain scans show that those who defy authority opinion struggle to change opinion
• Dr Solomon Asch has shown that many people will choose the wrong answer to a question if the rest of the group picked that answer
• Stanley Milgram had shown that people would continue to shock someone who missed an answer to a question to deadly levels if ordered to by authority
• Philip Zimbardo showed in Stanford Prison Experiment that those designated position as guard would comply to commands to commit cruelties toward prisoners
• Zimbardo and Milgram concluded from their studies on obedience that most people would comply to commit atrocities if given the right environment
• Gina Perry had criticized Milgram’s experiments for fudged results and hiding that many participants had realized the subject was an actor
• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment has been criticized for him being too involved
• Subjects within the Stanford Prison Experiment may have been particularly high in aggressiveness, authoritarianism, and social dominance and lower for empathy and altruism
• A replication study of the Stanford Prison experiment by the BBC, prisoners revolted and established power-sharing commune, for it to be later turned into a draconian regime
• Zimbardo criticized the BBC replication study of the SPE for its structure, random selection of guards and prisoners, and for filming it
• Despite the controversies surrounding the Milgram and SPE experiments, it is indisputable that a high percentage of normal people will conform to committing atrocities under pressure
• Humanities greatest thinkers are those who defied groupthink and authority bias and followed their own judgement
• Self-reliance
• Authority bias
• Conformity
• To be innovative, we must embrace our uniqueness
• Children and babies act independently without caring what others will think
• To be self-reliant and innovative requires not conforming to social norms
• You should follow your own morality even if it means the disapproval of society
• In-group and out-group
• Identifying with a group obscures your true character and makes you predictable
• A self-reliant person should not be afraid to contradict themselves
• Our seemingly contradictory actions justify themselves when viewed from a distance
• People commonly revered by society were those with complete trust in themselves
• Whether people conform to authority is influenced by prestige, proximity, legitimacy, and stability
• People are more likely to conform to an in-group than an out-group
• Conformity is influenced by amount of contradictors
• Incremental justifications can have an influence on the degree of our conformity and obedience
• The feeling of responsibility can influence the degree conformity and obedience
• Anonymity in groups can make people and more likely to conform or obey by diffusing responsibility
• Compliance can be influence to the degree that the victim is abstract
• Compliance can be influenced by how the victim is defined
• Hierarchically subordinate animals have higher resting levels of glucocorticoids and an ineffecient stress-response
• Stress is only increased in the low ranking members of a hierarchy for those that experience harrasment
• Hierarchical stress is harder to track in humans due the the fact that they can excel in at least one hierarchy they’re apart of
• The impact that a hierarchical rank can have on someone can change depending on their goals
• Stress-related disease among the poor usually has more to do with feeling poor than actually being poor
• Income inequality is a strong predictor of poor health because it is about being made to feel poor
• Income inequality does not predict poor health as much in more egalitarian countries
• One’s immediate community has a bigger impact on feeling poor than society as a whole
• Urbanization, mobility, and the media can make us feel poor by people outside our immediate community
• If you adjust for absolute income, income inequality still predicts poor health
• There is a steep rise in health from very poor to lower middle class, but it flattens out in the upper SES range
• Societies with more income equality, both the poor and the wealthy are healthier than their counterparts in a less equal society with the same average income
• The low social capital that comes with income inequality can lead to more stress and poor health
• Dramatic income inequality gets rid of the possibility for there to be lots of social capital in a society, leading to more stress and poor health
• More social capital in a society can improve the health of the society
• To really address the poor health of the poor, we would have to uproot the stressors involved in low rank rather than give people more money
• Unlike monkey’s, humans who rank low in the hierarchy almost always have a disproportionate share of disease
• Xenophobia
• People will make out-group distinctions based on very minimal and arbitrary criteria
• We feel more positively towards people who share minimal traits with us
• Arbitrary out-group traits are attributed to that groups values and beliefs
• UsThem-ing can be seen in toddlers and infants
• In-groups tend to inflate their own value when comparing to out-groups
• In-groups our more benevolent to their own members than with out-groups
• Those who make transgressions against their in-group sometimes make amends just by being antisocial towards out-groups
• People have an enhanced capacity for empathy towards in-group members
• People are for forgiving to in-group members for violating a norm
• Psychiatric categories provide in-groups with behavioral scripts from which behavioral uniformity may be imposed
• Normative influence
• Informational influence

Relationships

• Interpersonal relationships should arise and pass spontaneously in accordance with mutual interest

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