SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY

ALAINA QUILES, MEAGAN GREEN, & REAGAN GARBETT

Controversial Topic

Social Media and Childhood Socialization:

Social influence such as, social media and parental/family beliefs, shifts people's decision making processes. It alters the way people think and feel and makes people believe they should fit into a certain category in terms of political affiliation and not deviate from the beliefs of that affiliation. 

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL FACILITATION:

THE PRESENCE OF OTHERS CAN FACILITATE CERTAIN BEHAVIOR.

GORDON ALLPORT- 1920

"THE FATHER OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY"

PERSON-SITUATION VARIABLES.

BEHAVIOR= F(PERSON, SOCIAL SITUATION)

KURT LEWIN- 1939

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: WHEN WE HOLD BELIEFS, ATTITUDES, OR COGNITIONS THAT ARE DIFFERENT, WE EXPERIENCE DISSONANCE 

LEON FESTINGER- 1950

TIMELINE

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

"BOBO DOLL" EXPERIMENT

BANDURA- 1963

SHOCK EXPERIMENT

OBEDIENCE

STANLEY- MILGRAM- 1963

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

TAJFEL- 1971

TIMELINE

SOCIAL INFLUENCE:

PRISON STUDY

ZIMBARDO- 1973

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

WEINER- 1986

POLITICAL AFFILIATION

Of, involved in, or relating to government policy-making as distinguished from administration or law. Political affiliation is simply a when a person associates themselves with and takes the ideas and morals of a certain political group. Examples include Democrat, Republican, or Independent. 

SOCIAL IDENTITY CONTRIBUTES TO POLITICAL BEHAVIOR AND DECISION-MAKING.

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ARGUMENTATIVE THESIS

A Pro Study

Social Influence and Political Mobilization: Further Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in the 2012 U.S Presidential Election

Purpose:

Many observational network studies suggests offline behaviors spread in networks via social influence however, causal inference in this data is hard because social influence, friendship selection and other effects all generate similar patterns in network data.

Hypothesis:

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It is especially important to replicate scientific studies based on “big data” from online platforms, and in particular, it is important to understand the specific mechanisms of these platforms that drive the behavior.

Design:

2x2 between subject. 

Treatment group: Shown an "Get out and vote" banner on Facebook with nearby polls and a share button.

Control: No banner.

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Sample:

15,060,897 random U.S Facebook users over 18 years old.

Banner treatment: N=14,458,236

Control group: N=150,139 

Findings:

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-There was a 24% increase in voters who received the banner treatment and for every person "motivated" to vote, 2 friends were indirectly motivated to vote as well. 

-The experiment directly increased voting turnout by 90,000 people and found that voting spread by friends was more important than the direct message itself. 

Strengths:

-Demonstrates the influence social media and opinion sharing has on others indirectly. 

-Uses the largest and most diverse social media platform in the world. 

Limitations:

-The multiple election news on Facebook (Statuses, ads, etc..)

-Limited to Facebook users

-Further research suggest the difference between banner and news feed effects should be more understood.

A PRO-STUDY

Are There Differences in Responses to Social Identity Questions in Face-to-Face versus Telephone Interviews? Results of an Experiment on a Longitudinal Survey

Purpose:

To evaluate how important specific mechanisms are (political beliefs) to self identity and how likely one is to discuss these sensitive topics face-to-face

Hypothesis:

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The physical presence or absence of an interviewer is likely to be most relevant to the nature of the response when more sensitive questions are being asked.

Sample:

1418 People living in a UK household

Face-to-face: N=. 564

Telephone: N=854

Design:

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-A 13 question identity questionnaire covering: Occupation, race, religion, political beliefs, nationality, family, relationship status, gender, age, education, and sexual orientation. 

-Each person randomly assigned to answer in a face-to-face interview or over the telephone 

Findings

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-In telephone mode, respondents were more likely to perceive their political beliefs as ‘important’ to their identity, with a difference of around eight percentage points.

-Political beliefs and behaviour are susceptible to social desirability bias, and political identity may be more sensitive to expression in the physical presence of others, leading telephone interviews to be a better platform of more open and honest response. This was not expected. 

Strengths:

- Results show the relationship between Identity and political beliefs and the sensitivity of sharing these beliefs in the physical presence of others.

-Variety of demographics in terms of age, occupation, income, relationship status, ect..

Limitations:

-Possibility significance was due by chance and future replicated studies should be done to support. 

-Sample was limited to individuals living in UK households.

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A PRO-STUDY

Engaging Adolescents in Politics: The Longitudinal Effect of Political Socialization Agents

Two parts – 1: experiencing more traditional gender roles in childhood will lead boys to hold a more conservative viewpoint as an adult with respect to gender roles. 2: males will be more likely to identify as Republicans if they experience a family environment with traditional gender roles given that traditional gender-role attitudes are more positively correlated with political conservatism.

PURPOSE

Determine how childhood experiences affect the formation of political preferences

HYPOTHESIS

METHOD/SAMPLE

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For the first set of analyses that follow the four waves were conducted in 1965, 1973, 1982, and 1997. In the first wave, most subjects were between 17 and 19 years old. By 1997, most of the respondents were about 50 years old.They studied the effect of having sisters on people’s preferences on gender roles and their partisanship.

The experiment supports previous findings that early life experiences play a role in the development of political identity. There has been extensive research about how attitudes are transferred from parent to child but we now see that siblings can also influence each other.

RESULTS

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In terms of gender-role attitudes and partisanship the studies proved that having sisters makes males more politically conservative. 

SUMMARY

Parents, peers, school, media and voluntary association influence political participation among children.

PURPOSE

Explore the effect of parents, peers, school media, and voluntary associations on political participation during adolescence and early adulthood.

HYPOTHESIS

A PRO-STUDY

Childhood Socialization and Political Attitudes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

METHOD/SAMPLE

Belgian Political Panel Survey 2006-2011. A three-wave panel study among 16-, 18-, and 21-year-olds that is ideally placed to explore the effects of different agents of political socialization on political participation. In 2006 6,330 16 year old’s participated in survey. In 2008 4,235 of the original surveyed were surveyed again. In 2011 only 3,025 of the original participated in study.

Family was found to be especially successful in increasing political participation while peers are even more influential. Voluntary associations and the media (online – not TV) have positive effects at inhabiting participation in politics. Schools are the least effective due to the lack of focus on civic education.

SUMMARY

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Almost all of the agents show a positive influence on political participation. The biggest effects are seen among peers and voluntary engagement. Parental political socialization has much less effect and schools have the least effect.

Strengths and limitations: Limitation: decreasing survey size 

RESULTS

CON-STUDY: Do Online Voting Patterns Reflect Evolved Features of Human Cognition? An Exploratory Empirical Investigation

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PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

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Online votes or ratings can assist internet users in evaluating the prominence and credibility of information. Decisions over what to make more prominent or less prominent may be evolved features of human cognition.

Internet users should be more likely to up-vote content that others have also up-voted (social influence).

HYPOTHESIS

Survey:           

Motivations for voting            Demographics            Influences on voting behavior on Reddit

489 Redditors: 

236 females           

248 males           

5 gendered as “other”

Mean age: 26 years

Range of age: 18 to 64

SAMPLE

METHOD

RESULTS

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Social Influence was reported to be relatively unimportant compared to other factors unlike previous experiments that have shown that artificially introducing positive up-votes increased the chance of subsequent positive ratings.

STRENGTHS

• Demonstrates the relationship of the patterns of content voting and people’s interactions with information.
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• Online votes provide clearly delineated forms of action.

LIMITATIONS

• Self-report measures may not be a valid representation of true motivations behind voting behavior.
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• Recruitment was strictly through Reddit, so may not be representative of all internet users.

SUMMARY

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All of the research presented strengthens the idea that political affiliation stems from the way a person is socialized through childhood and adolescence and as they get older and are able to think and make decisions on their own we see that each person is influenced by other external factors in life as well  (social media, people in which you interact with, etc.). It also highlights how much politics and the political affiliation of which a person associates themselves with has become strongly about moral beliefs and emotions and less about the constitution and what democracy is all about in the first place. People are easily influenced (especially in younger ages) and it is largely based off of social groups. 

REFERENCES 

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Healy, A. & Malhotra, N. (2013). Childhood Socialization and Political

                   Attitudes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. The Journal

                   of Politics. 75(4), 1023-1037.

Jones, J. J., Bond, R. M., Bakshy, E., Eckles, D., & Fowler, J. H. (2017).  

                 Social influence and political mobilization: Further evidence        

                 from a randomized experiment in the 2012 US Presidential  

                 election. PloS ONE, 12(4),

Nandi, A., & Platt, L. (2017). Are there differences in responses to

                 social identity questions in face-to-face versus telephone

                 interview? Results of an experiment on a longitudinal survey.

                 International Journal Of Social Research Methodology, 20(2),

                 151-166. doi:10.1080/13645579.2016.1165495  

Priestly, M. & Mesoudi, A. (2015). Do Online Voting Patterns Reflect

                 Evolved Features of Human Cognition? An Exploratory          

                 Empirical Investigation. PLoS ONE, 10(6), 1-15. 

Quentelier, E. (2015). Engaging Adolescents in Politics: The

                 Longitudinal Effect of Political Socialization Agents. Youth &

                Society, 47(1), 51-69. 

Do you believe your political affiliation is attributed to your childhood socialization (parents/family, friends, school, etc.?

DISCUSSION 

Do you believe social media, or the opinion of friends, has had an impact on your political beliefs and decisions? Why or why not?

ICEO | Director Derek R. Szymanski

Discussion

DO YOU THINK EMOTIONS AND MORAL VALUES PLAY A ROLE IN POLITICAL BEHAVIOR? EXPLAIN.