Social Facilitation Theory Of Brainstorming

b.) Brainstorming is useful but is not much effective. In a face to face groups vs. individuals who work alone, people in the co-working group usually create more cliché, since they have a bias towards not to stick out by keeping conformity. Also, when one person is talking, others do not have a chance to speak out their opinions. This kind of response blocking will slow the process.

c.) In the word-association experiment as a simple task, Allport found that with the presence of others, participants performed better by writing more words as a response to the stimulus word than those who worked alone.

d.) Allport explained this difference by social facilitation theory that the presence of others enhanced people’s arousal and make them tend

to perform better on simple tasks than work alone.

e.) The result suggests brainstorming may be effective for people to come up with more ideas with the presence of other, if the task or topic is not difficult.

2.
a.) Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) did a laboratory experiment, asking participants to do a series of dull tasks, such as packing and spilling spools on trays for half an hour. Participants were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell the “next subject” that the task was fun. The result was that participants who were paid $1 rated the task as more fun than those who were paid $20. When they were interviewed by the Psych Dept, the $1 group found the task to be more interesting than did the $20 group.

b.) The difference is the desire for cognitive consistency. The original theory held that “when people had in mind two or more psychologically inconsistent ideas, they fell into an aversive drive state, the state of dissonance arousal”. In order to again relief from this aversive state, people alter one or more of the inconsistent cognitions. The current theory held that people tend to seek out information consistent with their views and avoid those inconsistent to keep a balance.

c.) Yes. This result suggests those who were paid only $1 forced and convinced themselves to rationalize their judgment that the tasks were fun; thus, they form a belief that the boring task was actually fun in order to resolve this dissonance between action and belief is to change their belief. Those who were paid $20 would regard the money as the reason for carrying out the boring task. When they were interviewed by the Psych Dept, the $1 group found the task to be more interesting than did the $20 group, indicating they came to believe their lies.

3.
a.) Freedman and Fraser (1966) did an experiment by having the experimenters (who identified themselves as a representative of a California group promoting safe driving) to visit some subjects.

Subjects were asked to put a small sign that had “Be a Safe Driver” in their front yard and most of the subjects agreed. Two weeks later when the subjects who agreed before were asked with the same request to put a larger sign again, 76% of them agreed.

b.) No. The inconsistency is between self-perception and behavior but not between attitude and behavior. Self-perception theory can explain this foot in the door technique.

This technique works by altering subject’s self-perception, that in getting them to agree a small request, they begin to have a self-perception of the belief “I’m the sort of person who….” Then, they become much more likely to say yes to the second request to keep their behaviors consistent with their self-perception.

c.) During the experiment, participants had a stressful time choosing between to stop and to continue shocking, and they were experiencing a great cognitive dissonance as they tried to reconcile their conflicting values. Once they began to choose to continue shocking, they began to change their attitude to be consistent with their behavior; thus they tended to went it all the

way.

d.) One explanation is slippery slops, that the small change of shock (15 volt) produces a slippery slope that made the individuals move further up the scale, since there are no clear decision points. Each shock is like a reason to give the next shock.
Another explanation is the objectivity of the experimenter that the experimenter acts as if he is presenting the social moral world to the subjects, giving no choice for the subjects and they choose to obedience.

4.
a.) General attitude may predict general behavior but not specific behavior. In Lapiere’s study (1934), when he traveled around America with a Chinese couple, most hotels and restaurant they visited treated them politely. Later, when he wrote a letter asking those hotels and restaurant whether they would like to accept Chinese guests, 91% replied no. The study suggested that the attitude of disliking Asian guests did not predict their specific behavior of serving them, suggesting an attitude and behavior inconsistency.
Fishbein and Ajzen argued that the general attitudes do not predict specific behaviors that a high correlation between attitudes and behaviors would be found if the attitude and behavioral measures are at the same level of generality. In this case, her general attitude of protecting the environment does not predict her specific behavior of taking the short cut.
In addition, if all people there are taking the short cut and no one choose to stay on the sidewalk, she may feel uncomfortable for staying on the sidewalk that would makes her looks stupid or special. In that case, she may behave in a way that is different from her attitude.

b.) If her inconsistency between attitude and behavior is due to the different level of generality, I may ask her: “Do you feel a strong sense of preserving the nature?” If she answered yes, I would then ask “such as planting trees in your community or always staying on the sidewalk even thought there may be a short cut?” Perhaps then she can find an inconsistency between her attitude and behavior, and to keep the balance by changing her behavior more specific.

5.)
Both the prisoners in Lifton’s study and the Moonies in Barker’s study live in groups which formed cohesion, although the prisoners lived in isolated group cells and the Moonies lived as members of a whole group. Every day the prisoners share a similarity of living under a regular routine of life and treatment from interrogator; they share a biological survival goal of getting out of the prison that serves as one source of cohesion. For Moonies, the cohesion was formed by a feeling of unity of a whole group; they joined the group because they found they liked the people there and those people also liked them, serving also as a similarity and the power of preference.
A small group formed by prisoners can has enormous power because of the group dynamic model. First, the theory suggests the more groups individual belongs to, the less power of a group has on the individual. In the case of prisoners, the prison is the whole world for them, creating a strong norm and great power of group influence on each individual. Second, there is an information control. Besides the daily routine, whatever newspapers or other books they read is controlled and selected. Thus, the political becomes personal, and they are forced to see and recognize their own behavior by the abstract message. Third, the social comparison theory suggests that by comparing oneself to other group members, the person has a tendency of not stick out by shaping an opinion similar to the majority. Therefore, they comply and even internalize the opinion. The success of thought reform in prison is followed by specific steps, and Lifton summarized 12 steps from “the assault upon identity” to “release: transition and limbo”.
Individuals are encouraged to confess their past sins. A commitment dissonance is created between their action of confess and belief of their guilty. The consistency principle then makes the person to believe what he had done is bad in order to be consistent with his confession, especially when the statement is made publicly by providing more pressure to confess. Then, a slippery slope may be followed that each slow commitment becomes a step to the next. Lifton also suggested that “the sharing of confession enthusiasm can create a sense of oneness, of the most intense intimacy with fellow confessors and of the dissolution of self into the flow of the movement.” In that case, a trust in the group and a bond with other members is strengthened, making them more easily to confess.
Different from the group dynamic model in the prison, the Moonies, on the other hand, created a huge power of persuasion by using the technique of love bond and unfreezing.

They persuade others by making personal connections to create a love bond. In addition, the social movement theory suggests for the joiners of the group, they were seeking for a “fit” between their special need and the special answer of the group has, similar to the relationship between lock and key. Cognitively they are seekers by joining the group if they get the idea what they are looking for. In this pace, the love bond based on personal connections then put people in the door. According to Galanter’s research on a survey of 104 people who went to the workshop who stayed for two days, the leavers felt much closer to others outside the workshop than joiners, who felt less connected to the outside people. This indicates a persuasion principle called unfreezing: in a situation of personal connection is weakened or lost, people develop and refreeze their new connections if they go in to another city with now people and ideas. They become reconnected with others, and even when others go away, they still keep the idea and look for people who share the same view with them. This principle can be explained by biographical availability, that people who do not have close connections are looking for new connections by joining the group as a contrary to leavers who feel a stronger connection outside the

workshop.
Although the group mechanism is more powerful than individual mechanism in Lifton’s case, the interaction between prisoners and interrogators is still important in explaining thought reform. The interrogator has punishment power, reward power (by making a contrast in an environment that is all about punishment), legitimate power (by representing the Government and State), moral power (by self-sacrifice) and a weak expert power. The compliance has a great power under an environment with punishment; however, things changed when the interrogator begin to do some rewards, and a reciprocity may be created. On the contrary, in the case of unification church, thought reform has some effect on everyone but people show individual differences on the degree of influence. For instance, 30% of the joiners went to the 7-day after 2-day workshop, 18% went to the 21-day after 7-day workshop, and only 8% join as full-time members.