Chapter Concept Check Answers

Concept Check 1

• The main difference between normative social influence and informational social influence concerns the need for information. When normative social influence is operating, information is not necessary for the judgment task. The correct answer or action is clear. People are conforming to gain the approval of others in the group and avoid their disapproval. When informational social influence is operating, however, people conform because they need information as to what the correct answer or action is. Conformity in this case is due to the need for information, which we use to guide our behavior.
• In the door-in-the-face technique, the other person accepts your refusal to the first request, so you reciprocate by agreeing to her second smaller request, the one she wanted you to comply with. In the that’s-not-all technique, you think that the other person has done you a favor by giving you an even better deal with the second request, so you reciprocate and do her a favor and agree to the second request.
• If you predicted that the result was the same (zero percent maximum obedience), you are wrong. The result was the same as in Milgram’s baseline condition, 65 percent maximum obedience. An explanation involves how we view persons of authority who lose their authority (being demoted). In a sense, by agreeing to serve as the learner, the experimenter gave up his authority, and the teachers no longer viewed him as an authority figure. He had been demoted.
• According to the bystander effect, you would be more likely to receive help on the little-traveled country road, because any passing bystander would feel the responsibility for helping you. She would realize that there was no one else available to help you, so she would do so. On a busy interstate highway, however, the responsibility for stopping to help is diffused across hundreds of people passing by, each thinking that someone else would help you.

Concept Check 2

• The actor-observer bias qualifies the fundamental attribution error because it says that the type of attribution we tend to make depends upon whether we are actors making attributions about our own behavior or observers making attributions about others’ behavior. The actor-observer bias leads us as actors to make situational attributions; the fundamental attribution error leads us, as observers, to make dispositional attributions. The actor-observer bias is qualified, however, by the self-serving bias, which says that the type of attribution we make for our own actions depends upon whether the outcome is positive or negative. If positive, we tend to make dispositional attributions; if negative, we tend to make situational attributions.
• The false consensus effect pertains to situations in which we tend to overestimate the commonality of our opinions and unsuccessful behaviors. The false uniqueness effect pertains to situations in which we tend to underestimate the commonality of our abilities and successful behaviors. According to these effects, we think others share our opinions and unsuccessful behaviors but do not share our abilities and successful behaviors. These effects both stem from the self-serving bias, which helps to protect our self-esteem.
• Cognitive dissonance theory seems to be the better explanation for situations in which our attitudes are well-defined. With well-defined attitudes, our contradictory behavior creates dissonance; therefore, we tend to change our attitude to make it fit with our behavior. Self-perception theory seems to be the better explanation for situations in which our attitudes are weakly defined. We make self-attributions using our behavior to infer our attitudes.