AP Psychology · Lesson 2

Group influence and personality

Know Know it

Conformity is adjusting behavior or thinking to match a group. Normative social influence is going along to be liked or accepted. Informational social influence is going along because we think the group is right. Conformity rises when the group is unanimous, the task is hard or unclear, and answers are given in public. Obedience is following direct orders from an authority. Classic experiments found that many ordinary people will obey an authority figure even against their own conscience, especially when the authority is present and seems legitimate.

Groups change how we perform. In social facilitation, the presence of others improves performance on simple or well-practiced tasks but can hurt it on hard or new ones. Social loafing is putting in less effort when everyone's work is pooled and no one's share is tracked. Deindividuation is a loss of self-awareness and restraint in groups that offer anonymity and arousal. Group polarization is a group's shared leaning growing stronger after discussion, and groupthink is when the wish for harmony overrides a realistic look at the options. In the bystander effect, a person is less likely to help when other people are present, partly because of diffusion of responsibility. Superordinate goals, shared goals that need both groups, can reduce conflict between groups.

Personality is a person's typical pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. Psychodynamic theories stress unconscious conflict among the id, ego and superego, and defense mechanisms that protect us from anxiety, such as repression, projection, displacement, reaction formation and rationalization. Humanistic theories stress growth toward self-actualization and the value of unconditional positive regard. Social-cognitive theories stress reciprocal determinism, the two-way influence among behavior, thoughts and environment, and self-efficacy, a belief in one's ability to succeed at a task.

Trait theories describe stable dimensions of personality. The Big Five are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, also called emotional stability at its low end. Personality inventories are self-report questionnaires scored the same way for everyone. Projective tests ask people to interpret ambiguous images, and they tend to be weaker in reliability and validity.

Trap An audience does not always help

Social facilitation predicts better performance with others watching only on easy or well-practiced tasks. On hard or new tasks, an audience tends to make performance worse. Before predicting an effect, check how practiced the person is.

Worked example Easy

On a personality inventory, Hana scores very high on being organized, careful and dependable. Which Big Five trait does that score describe?

  1. Agreeableness
  2. Openness to experience
  3. Extraversion
  4. ConscientiousnessAnswer

How to solve it

  1. List what the score describes: organized, careful, dependable.
  2. Those qualities define conscientiousness among the Big Five.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Agreeableness is about being warm, kind and cooperative with others, not about being organized.
  • B. Incorrect. Openness to experience is about curiosity and interest in new ideas, not about being careful and dependable.
  • C. Incorrect. Extraversion is about being outgoing and seeking company, which the description of Hana does not mention.
  • D. Correct. Being organized, careful and dependable is the core of conscientiousness.

Explain Explain it

Task verbs: identify, explain, compare

To tell the two kinds of conformity apart, ask why the person went along. If it was to fit in or avoid standing out, it is normative influence. If it was because the group seemed to know better, it is informational influence. Then point to the detail in the scenario that shows the reason.

Worked example Medium

At a science fair, Omar is unsure how to wire a small circuit. He watches three classmates wire theirs the same way and copies them because he thinks they understand it better than he does. Which concept explains Omar's choice?

  1. Normative social influence from his peers
  2. Informational social influenceAnswer
  3. Social loafing
  4. Obedience to authority

How to solve it

  1. Ask why Omar went along: he thought the others knew better.
  2. Following a group because it seems correct is informational social influence.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Normative influence is going along to be accepted, but Omar copied because he thought the classmates were right, not to fit in.
  • B. Correct. Omar was unsure and followed the group because he believed they had better information, which is informational social influence.
  • C. Incorrect. Social loafing is reduced effort on a pooled group task, and Omar is working on his own circuit.
  • D. Incorrect. Obedience requires a direct order from an authority, and Omar's classmates gave him no orders.

Explain Your turn

In a group project graded only as a whole, Kiara does far less work than she would on a solo project. Explain how social loafing accounts for her behavior, and describe one change to the project that would likely reduce it.

Write it, then compare. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Compare with a model answer

A full answer does this

  • Ties social loafing to the single group grade
  • Gives a change that makes each member's effort identifiable

Model answer

Kiara shows social loafing: because the project gets one grade for the whole group, her own share of the work is pooled and not tracked, so she puts in less effort. Grading each member's part separately would make her own effort visible and identifiable, which would likely reduce her loafing.

Apply Apply it

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