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Social Psychology

"Vicarious"

Reactance theory

Developed by Jack Brehm in 1966. When people feel their freedom or autonomy is threatened, they react by doing the opposite of what's being pushed on them. "Don't tell me what to do" response. Restrict a choice and that option becomes more attractive.

  • Forbidden fruit effect
  • Backfire effect (also called the boomerang effect).
  • Pathological Demand Avoidance

Propinquity

Piaget

Gaming

It's shifted from "cheating" to "optimisation" in the minds of many players. The culture has accepted it as normal

Moral disengagement theory (Bandura)

once people justify unethical behaviour in one domain ("everyone does it", "the system is broken anyway"), those justifications transfer to other contexts. Gaming cheating fits this model well.

Normalisation of deviance (Diane Vaughan)

originally about NASA and organisational failures, but the concept applies: when rule-breaking becomes routine and consequence-free, it stops feeling like rule-breaking at all.

Online disinhibition transfer (MOD)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563220302867

In groups and outgroups

Replication crisis

TODO: move: Shared Fantasy as Co-Idealising

This concept, rooted in psychoanalytic theory, refers to a psychological dynamic where two individuals, often in a close relationship, mutually project idealized qualities onto each other. This "shared fantasy" helps them maintain an illusion of perfection or superiority, reinforcing each other's self-image and avoiding the anxiety of confronting flaws or insecurities.

Hawthorne effect

Studies conducted at the Hawthorne Works factory in Chicago in the 1920s–1930s, to observe worker behaviour. Lead by Elton Mayo.

People change their behavior simply because they know they are being observed. Employees work harder if they know the manager is watching, for example. The study also revealed lighting influenced the performance of workers.

Mayo, E. (1933) The human problems of an industrial civilization. New York: Macmillan.

Social desirability Bias

A phenomena in research where people tend to respond to questions or behave in ways that they think will be viewed favorably by others, rather than providing completely truthful or accurate answers. For example overstating how much you exercise, underreport something people would frown upon

Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) frames all social interaction as performance. Empathic displays serve to maintain one's identity as a caring person regardless of internal states.

Fisher, R. J. (1993) "Social desirability bias and the validity of indirect questioning", Journal of Consumer Research, 20(2), pp. 303–315. doi: 10.1086/209351.

Folkways

A term introduced by William Graham Sumner in 1906.

Similar to Social Desirability Bias, but these are social norms or expectations on how people are expected to behave day to day, in order to maintain social order and predictability. More recently, this can be seen to include the obligation on social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat to reply to stories in an expected way. For example replying to a birthday story with a "Happy Birthday" comment. You may not have said or had the chance to say "Happy Birthday" prior to the internet (unless a close friend or family), nor when working in the same co-location/office together. Is this then conformity in order to avoid being ostricized, or adhering to a social norm?

Sumner, W. G. (1906) Folkways: A study of the sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores, and morals. Boston: Ginn & Co.

TODO move emotional labour

Hochschild, A. R. (1983) The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

TODO move: Affective Realism

A psychological phenomenon where a person's emotions influence their perception of reality. This means that how you feel emotionally can affect what you see and interpret in the world around you, often leading to a subjective experience of reality.

Intersubjectivity Self-Reporting

Intersubjectivity refers to the shared understanding between individuals during communication or interaction. In psychology, intersubjectivity self-reporting involves individuals describing their internal experiences, feelings, or thoughts as they perceive them, often within a context of mutual understanding or shared experiences with others.

TODO move: Withholding from Paranoia

Can be as punishment or aversive - "the experience is unpleasant and I have an aversion". Avoidance, Absence, Causes Deprivation is a reinforcer, a conditioner e.g. to please. Not always deliberate.

Abience

A psychological urge to withdraw from a situation or object.

Adience

A psychological urge to accept or approach a situation or object.

Asch Conformity Experiments

Experiments run by Solomon Asch in the 1950s.

6-8 confederates, 1 typically undergraduate (unaware participant). They were asked to compare line lenghs on cards, with the Confederates giving obviously wrong answers. But 75% of the participants conformed by saying the wrong answers.

Asch, S.E. (1951) "Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments", in H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press, pp. 177–190.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
  • https://grokipedia.com/page/Asch_conformity_experiments

Milgrim experiment

Conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale University from 1961 to 1962.

Participants were the "teacher" with confederates the learners. The teacher was instructed to deliver electric shocks to the learner for every incorrect answer they were asked. This included the electric shock ranging from 15-450 volts (but fake). The confederate was acting, but the participant believed it was real.

65% of participants delivered the 450v shock, with obedience higher when the instructor was near or the learner wasn't visible.

However it's been shown more recently in a review of the experiment, that the participants were often pushed to administer the shock, and the findings to be less clear cut.

Milgram, S. (1963) ""Behavioral study of obedience", Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), pp. 371–378. doi: 10.1037/h0040525.

  • https://grokipedia.com/page/Milgram_experiment

Stanford prison experiment

Conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University.

24 male college students were randomly assigned to roles of prisoners or guards, in a mock prison for 2 weeks. Guards quickly adopted abusive and authoritarian behaviors, prisoners showed emotional distress, depression, and submissive behaviors.

Criticisms include the students guessing the purpose of the study, and behaving how they believed was expected of them, and replication has been poor.

Zimbardo, P.G. (1973) "On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment", Cognition, 2(2), pp. 243–256. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(72)90014-5.

  • https://grokipedia.com/page/Stanford_prison_experiment

Williams Model of Ostracism

The "Temporal Need-Threat Model". Being ignored or excluded unfold over three sequential stages:

  1. Reflexive: acute emotional pain - sadness, anger
  2. Reflective: what happened and why, coping via pro-social e.g. trying to reconnect or anti-social.
  3. Resignation: if the ostracism persists or repeated exclusion, the person gives up efforts leading to alienation, helplessness, depression.

Williams, K. D. (2009) "Ostracism: A temporal need-threat model", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 41, pp. 275–314. doi: 10.1016/S0065-2601(08)00406-1.

Basking in Reflected Glory

A social-psychological phenomenon in which people associate themselves with the success, achievements, or positive qualities of others to boost their own self-esteem, when they personally had no part in the outcome (e.g. a football team).

Cialdini, R. B., Borden, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976) "Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(3), pp. 366–375. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.34.3.366

Diffusion of Responsibility

A social psychological phenomenon where individuals feel less personal responsibility to act in a situation when others are present, e.g. lots of people are present for someone being attacked or injured then people feel less obliged to act. So accountability is diluated.

Darley, J.M. and Latané, B. (1968) "Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), pp. 377–383. doi: 10.1037/h0025589.

Reciprocal Determinism

Proposed by Albert Bandura in Social Cognitive Theory, it states a person's behavior, personal factors (cognitive/biological), and environment all influence each other bi-directionally. In Buddhism this is roughly equivalent to "dependent co arising".

In psychotherapy, an approximate equivalent is Systems Theory (family therapy).