Research Activity

External validity and the Milgram experiment

If you’re having a hard time understanding external validity, consider completing this activity. In this activity you will learn about external validity by applying it to Milgram’s classic study on obedience. As an added bonus, you will receive practise on writing effective discussions.

Click on the link below to get started:

www.psychlotron.org.uk/resources/social/as_aqa_socinf_obexternalvalid.pdf

Reference

Sammons, A. (n.d.). Obedience research: External validity. Retrieved from:

www.psychlotron.org.uk/resources/social/as_aqa_socinf_obexternalvalid.pdf

Research Activity

The importance of replication

Imagine you have a theory that people in middle-class neighborhoods do not approve of rubbish being thrown out into the street. Ask five of your neighbors to answer a short questionnaire about their attitudes towards throwing rubbish onto the street. Ask three friends from class to do the same 1 week, 1 month, and 2 months later (consecutively) in their own neighborhoods. Compare your results to see if they all support your theory.

This exercise demonstrates the importance of the replication of research findings across various populations, times, and settings (SP pp. 44–45).

Research Activity

Ethical values

Imagine you are a community member of an Institutional Review Board. A researcher submits a research plan aimed at studying the effect of violent TV on aggression in young children. In the research, he plans to re-create a “normal” home environment, and have children aged 5–12 watch violent TV shows for 4 hours a day over a span of two weeks. The researcher plans to measure aggression by examining the attitudes of the children, as well as their physical behavior, after the study. He states that the children will only be slightly deceived: they will be told that they will be watching TV for 4 hours a day over two weeks, but the exact purpose of the study (effects on aggression) will not be made clear to them. He will, however, debrief them thoroughly after the study is completed.

What would you suggest to the researcher about this plan? Would the end justify the means? Would you accept the plan, or ask for some changes before it was accepted?

This exercise demonstrates the importance of considering ethical values in evaluating research that you read about, especially the importance of treating participants as fairly as possible (SP pp. 48–51).

Research Activity

Detection of deception

Ask people in your environment what they look for when trying to detect truth from deception.

This exercise demonstrates that most people look for evidence of deception in a liar’s face or words (SP p. 61).

Research Activity

I imagined you differently: Limiting the self-fulfilling prophecy

Self-fulfilling prophecies start with an expectation held by a perceiver. That expectation (whether it’s that someone is funny, moody, cruel, or kind), then sets in motion a sequence of events in which the expectation influences the perceiver’s own behavior, which influences the target person to behave in-line with the perceiver’s expectation, which then confirms the perceiver’s original expectancy. Given that perceivers are often completely unaware of the impact of their expectations, can anything be done to derail the self-fulfilling prophecy?

The answer is yes! The next time you are around a friend whom you think is introverted try to think of them as the most extroverted and outgoing person you’ve ever met. Let that expectation guide the topic of conversation and what you decide to do with that person. At the end of your interaction, reassess your original impression of your friend. Has it changed at all?

If you can’t find any introverted friends, this little experiment could also work with friends that have virtually any personality trait. Just expect the opposite and see what happens.

Research Activity

Integrating inconsistencies

Try to form an impression of the following people:

• a person being social and lonely;
• a person being stupid and brilliant;
• a person being hostile and dependent;
• a person being sentimental and a betrayer.

This exercise demonstrates that people can be very creative in integrating apparently inconsistent traits (SP p. 89).

Research Activity

I’ve got the funnies

Research on the facial feedback hypothesis by Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) showed that people who shape their faces into an expression of a smile actually feel happier than participants who purse their faces into a scowl. How on earth did they test this hypothesis? Well, it was pretty clever, and you can do it too!

As described in your text, Strack et al. (1988) had their participants make ratings of cartoons while holding a pen between their teeth or between their lips. Try it yourself and you will see that placing a pen in between your teeth makes you look like you’re smiling, whereas a pen between your lips makes you appear to be scowling. The researchers found that the participants who held the pen between their teeth rated the cartoons as funnier than the participants that held the pen between their lips.

First, find a set of ~10 cartoons to use as stimuli. You can collect them from a newspaper, or find them online (e.g., https://www.facebook.com/Bestfunnycartoons). Second, gather a group of friends and ask them, just for fun, to make ratings of cartoons while holding a pen in their mouth in one of the two ways mentioned above (you can assign one group of friends to be in the “teeth” condition and the other group to be in the “lips” condition––but don’t tell them about their facial expression or about your hypothesis). Warn your friends that they may look a little silly writing with a pen in their mouth, but you are their friend so you won’t judge. In terms of the ratings, ask your friends to rate each cartoon on a 1 (not at all funny) to 7 (very funny) scale. After the cartoons have been rated, find the average score for your friends in the “teeth” condition and your friends in the “lips” condition. Did you find support for the facial feedback hypothesis? Wouldn’t that be funny if you did?

Reference

• Strack, F., Martin, L. L., & Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibiting and facilitating conditions of the human smile: A nonobtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 768–777.

Research Activity

Let it go

Research by Pennebaker (1997) shows that students who write down their thoughts and feelings about stressful events in a journal experience an increased physiological response in the short run, but better health in the long run.

The next time you’re going through something stressful, try writing down your thoughts and feelings and see if it helps you to feel better. In addition to feeling better, the processes of writing things down may also have given you greater clarity and closure regarding the issue.

For more information on the power of journaling, see the following sources:

http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/000721

Reference

• Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8, 162–166.

Research Activity

Attribution of success and failure

Make a list of success and failure experiences of the last couple of months. Then write down the cause of every single success and failure. After doing this, rate the causes as internal (i.e., you are the main cause) or external (i.e., the situation is the main cause). How many success events did you recall, and how many failures? Can you see differences in attribution of success and failure?

This exercise demonstrates the self-serving bias that most people have a better memory for success than for failure, and that they attribute success to themselves (internal causes) and failure to other reasons (external causes) (SP pp. 130–131).

Research Activity

Stereotypes

Think of a stereotype that comes directly to your mind. Is this stereotype positive or negative? Now think of another stereotype with the opposite valence. Investigate via the internet if you can find information that either confirms or disconfirms the stereotype.

This exercise demonstrates that stereotypes can be either negative or positive, and accurate or inaccurate (SP pp. 146–149).

Research Activity

Illusory correlation

Read the following:

• Peter, a member of group A, gives his mother flowers.
• Jack, a member of group B, leaves a nice note behind for his girlfriend when going to work.
• Bill, a member of group A, nods in a friendly way to the woman behind the cash-desk.
• Susie, a member of group B, helps an old lady cross the street.
• Mary, a member of group A, gives money to charity.
• Walter, a member of group A, whispered “bitch” when a woman accidentally bumped against him.
• David, a member of group B, kicks his dog.
• Robert, a member of group A, takes a candy bar without paying for it.
• Jennifer, a member of group A, helps animals in need.

What is your impression of group A?

1. = very positive
2. = moderately positive
3. = slightly positive
4. = neutral
5. = slightly negative
6. = moderately negative
7. = very negative

What is your impression of group B?

1. = very positive
2. = moderately positive
3. = slightly positive
4. = neutral
5. = slightly negative
6. = moderately negative
7. = very negative

This activity demonstrates the illusory correlation: people tend to overestimate the incidence of negative behaviors among the smaller group (SP p. 151).

Research Activity

Perceptions of the homeless

Now, take about 10–15 minutes to complete the interactive demonstration found at the following website:

http://playspent.org/

Finally, answer the above four questions again. Have your responses/views changed at all? Many people endorse just world beliefs, such as those expressed in the questions above, because they like to think that things like homelessness could never happen to them. If we attribute homelessness to something about the person, something that they did wrong, then we feel that homelessness could never happen to us because we would never make the same decisions. Unfortunately, belief in a just world ignores the powerful role that one’s environment can play in a person’s situation. It is hoped that the interactive demonstration on homelessness sheds some light on what a struggle it can be to get by in society when you’ve lost everything.

If you’re interested in learning more about belief in a just world, please read the following article:

www.bedlammag.com/a-just-world-we-get-what-we-deserve/

Reference

• Rubin, Z., & Peplau, L. A. (1975). Who believes in a just world? Journal of Social Issues, 31, 65–89.

Research Activity

What does the IAT really measure?

Research described in the text shows that people’s scores on the implicit association test (IAT) can be influenced by their environment. Let’s put that idea to the test!

First, take the Race IAT and take note of your score. The Race IAT may be found here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Wait for one day and then, before taking the IAT again, watch the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs

Now, take the IAT again and see whether your implicit attitudes have become a little more favourable toward Blacks. To learn more about the study that inspired this activity, read the article by Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001), and see how your results compare!

Reference

• Dasgupta, N., & Greenwald, A. G. (2001). On the malleability of automatic attitudes: Combating automatic prejudice with images of admired and disliked individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 800–814.

Research Activity

Linguistic bias

Imagine your best friend is walking towards the supermarket. An old lady passes by with her groceries, but her bag breaks. All her groceries drop onto the street. Luckily your friend is not in a hurry, and bends down to pick up the old lady’s groceries, putting them in her other bag.

Describe this action of your friend in one sentence.

This exercise demonstrates the linguistic bias.

Research Activity

Out-group homogeneity effect

Describe which characteristics two of your best friends have in common, and which they do not have in common. Do the same for two people who are each other’s best friends, but who you do not perceive as belonging to your group.

This exercise demonstrates the out-group homogeneity effect (SP p. 201).

Research Activity

How does it feel to be stigmatized?

Do you feel bad for those who have experienced the negativity that goes with being a member of a stigmatized group? If you have never experienced anything like that, and you want to take a turn in someone else’s proverbial shoes, consider the following activity.

Buy a large adhesive bandage and place it on your neck or your face so that it is readily visible (a medical eye patch over one eye will also work). Next, go out in public for at least an hour and take note of your personal reactions and the reactions of others. Do you feel self-conscious? Do you feel like everyone is looking at you? If you speak with anyone, do you feel like they’re trying not to stare? Does anyone mention the bandage or do they all try to ignore it?

Consider completing this activity just to get the smallest glimpse of what stigmatized individuals experience every day of their lives.

Research Activity

Systematic processing

Find six people who share the same opinion about a certain attitude object. Then ask three of these people to mention three good arguments to support their opinions. Ask the other three people to come up with 10 good arguments to support their opinions. After everyone has finished this task, ask how certain everyone is about their opinion.

This exercise demonstrates that when you can easily come up with (three) arguments, you are (or stay) sure about your opinion, but when you have struggled to come up with (10) arguments, you are not so sure about it any more.

Research Activity

Analysis of Public Health Posters

Use what you’ve been learning in class to analyze public health posters.

First, go to the following website and find a few posters to analyze:

www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/visualculture/index.html

Second, answer the following questions about each poster:

• What is the topic of the poster?
• Are any heuristics being used?
• Who is the intended audience of this poster?
• What are the characteristics of the source?
• Are they an expert? Are they likeable? Are they attractive?
• What are the characteristics of the message?
• Is it long or short?
• Is the perceiver required to take the central route, or the peripheral route?
• Is a fear appeal being used?
• If yes, do you think the fear appeal will be successful?
• Other noteworthy aspects of the poster?
• Compare and contrast two posters. Are similar/different tactics being used? If yes, why might that be?

Don’t stop now! Now that you’ve analyzed these posters, move on to other persuasive appeals such as magazine advertisements, television commercials, etc. Do you notice any difference in the tactics used?

Research Activity

Persuasive appeals

Organize a discussion with six people about a certain subject. Before the discussion, measure these people’s attitudes toward the subject, and also ask how certain they are about their attitude. After the discussion, measure their attitudes again. Is there a difference in their attitude (certainty)?

This exercise demonstrates that people’s attitudes can become stronger when they have to resist an attempt at persuasion.

Research Activity

The cognitive dissonance effect

Imagine you want to raise the environmental awareness of your classmates. Most of the students probably say they believe in recycling, but you notice that their behaviors aren’t exactly in line with these attitudes: they often simply throw their paper in with the normal trash instead of walking over to the recycling bin. In order to address this issue, ask half of them to design a campaign about recycling for the other classes in the school. A couple of days later ask them about their own recycling behavior. You will probably see that the students you have asked to firmly support recycling will start behaving differently; they will recycle more. Why is this? What theory can be used to explain this change in behavior?

This exercise demonstrates the cognitive dissonance effect, and how behavior can lead to attitude change. The participants will experience dissonance because their own behavior (not recycling paper) is not in line with an attitude they strongly endorse (being environmentally friendly, and recycling) (SP pp. 281–284).

Research Activity

How do cults draw you in?

The study of cognitive dissonance began when Leon Festinger and some of his colleagues went undercover and joined a cult called the Seekers in the 1950s. The members of this cult believed that a UFO was going to pick them up to save them before the rest of the nonbelievers were wiped out in a great flood. The leader of the cult predicted that the UFO would descend on a particular date, so many of the believers quit their jobs and sold their belongings in preparation of the UFO’s arrival. Festinger and his colleagues joined with the knowledge that the end of the world was probably not on the horizon and that they could instead use the opportunity to study how the cult members would justify their beliefs and actions when neither the UFO nor the great flood appeared. Festinger’s classic examination of how dissonance processes shape later attitudes and behaviors became a landmark theory in social psychology. In addition, it turns out that the same dissonance processes that the Seekers used to justify their continued presence in the cult (after multiple end-of-the-world dates came and went), are also the same processes used to lure people into cults in the first place.

The History Channel aired a documentary on cults in 2006 that explored how cults form, and why even seemingly normal and psychologically healthy people join cults. Watch the documentary below (or even read Festinger et al.’s classic book) and see if you can point out the number of ways that dissonance is used to draw people in. Can you find examples of effort justification, insufficient justification, and how dissonance might be aroused and then reduced? If you were in a similar position, would you behave in the same way?

Watch the documentary here:

Reference

• Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails: A social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Research Activity

How attitudes can change behavior

Imagine you have decided you want to get into shape because you want to be healthier. You take a few minutes to think about how you can best go about this, and you plan out your intentions to use a weekly running schedule. Finally, you start following this schedule to reach the intended goal. As you go along, you monitor your weight loss and whether you are indeed physically healthier. What is this an example of?

This exercise demonstrates how attitudes can deliberately trigger behavior, through a process of forming specific intentions, activating behavioral information, planning, and finally carrying out the intended behavior. This also demonstrates the importance of motivation to engage in deliberate thinking before attitudes can change behavior (SP pp. 294–296).

Research Activity

Replicating Milgram’s other study

Most famous for his research on obedience, one of Milgram’s other studies is also a quite clever (although perhaps less shocking) demonstration of conformity. In 1969, Milgram, Bickman and Berkowitz observed what happened when one or more people stopped on the sidewalk and gazed up at the sky. The researchers simply counted the numbers of passersby who looked up as well and used that as a clever measure of conformity. Read more about the study at the link below, gather some friends, and see if you can replicate their results. This is guaranteed to be a foolproof––and fun––demonstration of conformity.

www.laymanpsychology.com/social-proofing/

Refererence

• Milgram, S., Bickman, L., & Berkowitz, L. (1969). Note on the drawing power of crowds of different size. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 79-82.

Mastery and connectedness

Think of a situation in which you accepted the group’s norm while privately disagreeing. Why did you conform? Think whether your reason fits the need for mastery, the need for connectedness, or both.

Research Activity

Minority influence in the courtroom on film

12 Angry Men, the 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda, portrays a classic example of jury deliberations. Watch the movie (try the link below, or rent the video) and see how dissenting jurors are treated. Does the majority or the minority win the day in this movie? What tactics do both groups use to bring other jurors to their side, and do these tactics accurately reflect the discussion of minority influence from the text? Finally, see if you can guess the order in which the jurors will change sides.

So, gather around the movie screen, pop some popcorn, and have fun applying social psychological principles to movies!

Reference

• Lumet, S. (Director). (1957). 12 angry men. United States: United Artists. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RelOJfFIyp8

Research Activity

Turning the tables: Using the norm of reciprocity with customer service professionals

The next time you are dealing with a customer service agent over the phone, consider following the advice of Noah Goldstein (see the link to his article below) and unleashing the power of the norm of reciprocity. Before getting to the primary reason for your call, compliment the customer service agent on their friendliness, understanding (or whatever seems appropriate) and tell them that you would like their name and the name of their supervisor so that you can write a letter to the company thanking them for their help, after you hang up. Then, ask them to assist you with the original reason for your call. Because you have just offered to do them a favor, the customer service agent should feel compelled to help you with your request. As mentioned in Goldstein’s (2008) article, as long as you follow through with your offer to write a letter or provide some other form of positive feedback on behalf of the customer service agent, then this is a completely ethical tactic to use.

See if you can use the norm of reciprocity for good in other situations as well.

Reference

• Goldstein, N. (2008, August 15). Trouble with Customer Service Agents? How to get what you want—nicely. Psychology Today. Retrieved from: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/yes/200808

Research Activity

The low-ball technique

(a) Ask five people separately to help you to find a good article about the Milgram study on the internet. Additionally, make a second request to these same five people, asking them whether this could be done within an hour.

(b) Now ask five different people to help you to find a good article about the Milgram study within one hour, all in one request.

Compare how many people complied with the second request of procedure (a) as against the one request of procedure (b).

This exercise demonstrates the low-ball technique (SP p. 369).

Research Activity

Task interdependence

For your next two group assignments, try to find out what form of task interdependence is at play (additive, disjunctive, etc.). Think of the consequences each member’s input can have, and see how this turned out once you’ve completed the assignment.

This exercise demonstrates different forms of task interdependence, and their effects (SP pp. 411–412).

Research Activity

Where did you get your friends?

A good deal of research shows that physical proximity is a strong predictor of who we like. Specifically, we often end up liking those that we are physically close to. To put this idea to the test, think about the friends that you’ve made since being in college. How many of your friends were:

• the people that you lived with (or close to) in the dorms?
• the people you sat by in class?
• the people you saw at practice or rehearsal?
• the people you were in clubs or other activities with?
• the people you worked with?

If you formed friendship with any of the people listed above, then you have experienced the power of proximity. Next, poll your friends and be amazed at the wide reach of this effect.

Research Activity

Playing hard to get

To what extent would the advice to “play hard to get” be good advice for a woman who wants to be liked by a man?

When answering this question, think of terms like reciprocity, intimacy, and self-disclosure, and think of the effects of interactions.

Research Activity

Israelis and Palestinians - Working together to end the conflict

Explore the Israeli-Palestine Center for Research and Information website provided below and learn about the way both the Israelis and Arabs are working together to decrease conflict (click on the “Projects” tab at the top of the page). Can you find evidence of:

• working toward superordinate goals?
• looking beyond group memberships?
• working together to find solutions?
• other strategies designed to decrease the conflict?

Even in the midst of war, turmoil, and strife there are amazing people and organizations dedicated to decreasing conflict among groups.

Learn more at the following website: www.ipcri.org/

Research Activity

How conflicts can be resolved

Try to remember conflict you experienced yourself recently. Write the situation down, and explain how you resolved the conflict. After reading this chapter, do you think you could have resolved your conflict better? How?

This exercise demonstrates how conflicts can be resolved (SP Pp. 516–517).

Research Activity

Imitation and helping

Set up a situation in which you interact with a person. Just talk with this person about a topic, but try not to imitate him or her. Then, drop some pencils and register the other person’s reaction. Does he or she help you? And how fast? If he or she helped you, how many pencils did he or she pick up?

Now repeat this interaction situation with another person, but this time try to imitate him or her. Again, drop some pencils and register the reaction of your interaction partner.

Answer the same questions as you did for the other person. Do you see any differences in the amount of help that was given by your interaction partners? Did imitating your interaction partner promote helping behavior?

This exercise demonstrates that mimicry leads to increased helping (SP p. 480).

Research Activity

An analysis of helping behavior

In the text you have learned about a number of factors that influence whether or not people behave in prosocial and even heroic ways. Click on the link below and read about four or five heroes at the Heroic Stories Website. What makes these people heroes? Did similar factors motivate these individuals to behave in prosocial ways? If you were in that situation, would you have behaved in a similar way? Why or why not?

http://heroicstories.org/

Research Activity

Do a random act of kindness for someone else

What happens when you do a random act of kindness for someone else? Use the website below as an inspiration for ways you can brighten other people’s day. After each random act of kindness, answer the following questions:

• How did the recipient respond to your random act of kindness?
• How did showing someone a random act of kindness make you feel?
• After engaging in this behavior, do you feel inclined to continue acting prosocially?

Visit the Random Acts of Kindness website for a list of wonderful ideas:

www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-ideas