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Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY. Chapter 18 Social Psychology. Social Thinking. Social Psychology scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another Attribution Theory
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Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 18 Social Psychology
Social Thinking • Social Psychology • scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another • Attribution Theory • tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition
Social Thinking • Fundamental Attribution Error • tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition • Attitude • belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people and events
Tolerant reaction (proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide berth) Situational attribution “Maybe that driver is ill.” Negative behavior Unfavorable reaction (speed up and race past the other driver, give a dirty look) Dispositional attribution “Crazy driver!” Social Thinking • How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it
Internal attitudes External influences Behavior Social Thinking • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences
Social Thinking • Attitudes follow behavior • Cooperative actions feed mutual liking
Social Thinking • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon • tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request • Role • set of expectations about a social position • defines how those in the position ought to behave
Social Thinking • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent • example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes
Social Thinking • Cognitive dissonance
End Day 1 • Homework – Question at end of objectives on pg. 730
Social Influence • Social influence can be seen in our conformity, our compliance, and our group behavior • Some things come in clusters such as suicides, bomb threats, hijackings, and UFO sightings • We act according to social norms, dissenters become rebels – all determined by pulls on the “social strings.”
Social Influence • Behavior is contagious • Chameleon effect – we are natural mimics • We feel happy when we are around happy people and sad around depressed people
Conformity Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard • Asch test • 1 person arrives to study in time to sit at table where 5 people already are • Everyone is asked which of 3 lines is identical to standard line • Repeated • 3rd time, the first person that answers gives an incorrect answer; everyone else follows with the same wrong answer • You now get tense and question what to do. Everyone gave the wrong answer. What to do?
Social Influence • Asch’s conformity experiments
Strengthening Conformity • Conformity increases when: • One is made to feel incompetent or insecure • A group has at least 3 people • The group in unanimous • One admires the group’s status or attractiveness • One has made no commitments to any response • Others in the group observe one’s behavior • One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
Why Conform? • Why do we do what others do? • Normative Social Influence! • influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval • We are sensitive to social norms because price we pay to be different may be severe
Informational Social Influence • When we accept others’ opinions about reality • Assume others are right and follow their lead • Baron, et. al. demonstrated our openness to informational influence on tough, important judgments
End Day 2 • Conformity assignment! • Do something non-conformist! • Don’t break any rules or laws • Write a summary of what you did, how people reacted, and how you felt • Examples – stand backward in an elevator, wear different colored shoes, etc.
Obedience • We comply with social pressure • But do we comply when we are ordered to do something? • What if they are commands? • Milgram set out to test it (1963, 1974) • One of the most famous and controversial studies in psychology
Milgram • You are told the study is about the effect of punishment on learning • Draw from a hat to see who will be the “teacher” and who will be the “learner” • Your slip says you will be the teacher • Lerner placed in another room and attached to electric shock machine • You sit in from of machine that has different voltages labeled. • What are you thinking???
Milgram Continued • You teach and then test the “learner” on word pairs • You are to punish the learner for wrong answers by delivering electric shocks • Start with 15 volts which is labeled “slight shock” • After each incorrect answer you are to move up to the next voltage • After 3rd, 4th, and 5th the learner grunts • After 8th the learner shouts about the pain • After 10th the learner cries to get him out of there and demands to be let out • You are prodded to go on • Thoughts???
Even More Milgram • If you refuse, the experimenter insists that MUST go on • If you obey, the learner’s protests escalate to shrieks of agony • After 330 volts the learner refuses to answer and goes silent • You are ordered to go on, to the 450 volt switch, if no answer you are to shock the “learner”
How Far??? • How far would you go when “ordered” to shock the learner for wrong answers? • Most people say they would have stopped at the first sign of pain and certainly before the shriek • Men age 20-5063% complied to the end • Later studies concluded that women’s compliance rates were similar. • Ugh
Social Influence • Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment
Reliability? Validity? Ethics? • Did “teachers” figure out it was a hoax? • Did they know no shock was being delivered? • Did they think learners were faking it? • No! Teachers typically displayed genuine distress • Was it ethical? • When participants were told truth they felt no regret • No emotional aftereffects • Does that make it okay? • He wondered if they continued because the “learners” were not convincing, repeated and changed variables (“slight heart condition”)no change!
Compliance • He repeated it later and changed variables (subtle details) • Determined that obedience is highest when: • Person giving orders was close and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure • Authority figure is supported by a prestigious institution • The victim was depersonalized or at a distance • There were no role models for defiance (no one else was seen disobeying the experimenter)
Social Influence • Some individual resist social coercion
Lessons from Milgram and Asch • Strong social influences can make people conform • Great evils will make us succumb to lesser evils • Evil only requires ordinary people in evil situations
Group Influence • How do groups influence us? • Study individuals in groups • How are we influenced by the mere presence of others?
Social Influence • Social Facilitation • improved performance of tasks in the presence of others • occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered • Social Loafing • tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable
Social Influence • Deindividuation • Being in a group can lead to uninhibited behavior • Abandon normal restraints to the power of the group • i.e. yelling at refs/officials during a game • Often occurs when participation in the group makes people feel aroused and anonymous
Social Influence • Interacting with others can similarly have good and bad effects • Group Polarization • enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group • Over time differences b/w groups tends to grow • Groupthink • mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives
End Day 3 • Using the definitions given in notes, with help from examples in text (pages 738-741), describe a situation that is an example of each (you can make it up): • Social facilitation • Social loafing • Deindividuation • Group polarization • Groupthink
Culture and Behavior • Culture is the behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values and traditions shared by a group and transmitted from one generation to the next • Not nationalities or ethnic groups but rather shared experiences • Humans differ but we all have a shared capacity for culture • This accounts for striking group differences • Human nature manifests human diversity
Variations Across Cultures • Each cultural group evolves their own norms • Rules for accepted/expected behavior • When cultures collide differing norms often befuddle • i.e. personal space - North Americans, British and Scandinavians have more personal space demands than Latin Americans, French or Arabs • Cultures also vary in expressiveness and pace of life • Cultures evolve and change over time, Americans of 1700 would clash with Americans of today
Power of Individual • Social control (power of situation) and personal control (power of individual) interact • When we sway from the majority we can make social history • Minority influence: power of 1 or 2 individuals to sway majorities esp. when consistent (do not sway in their opinion) • When minority opinion is not visible it still may be forcing others to change the way they think – giving it power.
Social Relations • We have looked at how we thing and how we influence one another • Now we will look at how we relate to one another • Prejudice, aggression, attraction, altruism and peacemaking
Prejudice - Defined • Prejudgment • Unjustifiable and usually negative • Prejudice is a mixture of beliefs that cause stereotypes, emotions mixed with predisposition to action lead to action (discrimination) • To believe that obese people are gluttonous, to feel dislike for an obese person, to be hesitant to hire/date an obese person is to be prejudiced • Prejudice is a negative attitude; discrimination is a negative behavior
How People Are Prejudiced • Dramatic difference in the last half century in America • Overt prejudice waned, overt prejudice remains • Might say we are okay with interracial marriage, but would admit to feeling uncomfortable in an intimate setting with someone of a different race • Sometimes overt prejudice still surfaces
Overt Prejudice • After 9/11 and the Iraq war 4 in 10 Americans acknowledged some prejudice against Muslims • Also see it with homosexuals and also some gender prejudice/discrimination continues • In 2003, when asked if they could have only one child what gender would they prefer • 2/3rds still said male • Not all bad news • People feel more positively, in general, about women compared to men
Roots of Prejudice • Social inequities • “Haves” develop attitudes to justify things as they are • tereotypes rationalize inequities • Women have been perceived as unassertive but sensitive and therefore suited for caretaking roles • Ingroup v. Outgroup • We are a group-minded species • Safety in solidarity – divide world into “us” and “them” • Causes communal solidarity but also racism and war • Most intense dislike for other groups like us • Ingroup bias – we favor our group
Emotions and Prejudice • Prejudice can also be increased by passions of the heart • Can also express as anger • Scapegoat theory – finding someone to blame when things go wrong • Target for one’s anger • Post 9/11 and elimination of Hussein
Cognitive Roots of Stereotypes • Prejudice comes from the mind’s natural workings too • We cognitively simplify the world • Categorization: We naturally categorize things, including people which creates biases because we oversimplify similarities • Other-race effect = own-race bias • Vivid cases: we judge by the frequency that things come to mind
Vivid Cases • Vivid cases (9/11 terrorists) feed stereotypes
Cognitive Roots Continued • Just World: Justify prejudice by blaming its victims • “People get what they deserve” • Good is rewarded and evil is punished • Short leap to the idea that those who succeed must be good and those who suffer must be bad • German civilian remarked after visiting a concentration camp, “what terrible criminals these prisoners must have been to receive such treatment • Hindsight bias also at work here • Blame the victim, did something to deserve it
Aggression • Most destructive force in social relations • Any physical or verbal behavior INTENDED to hurt or destroy, whether done reactively or proactively • Research shows it emerges from a combo of biology and experience
Biology of Aggression • Considered to be an unlearned instinct • Genetic influences • Natural influences • Neural system that when stimulated to inhibit or produce aggressive behavior • No one spot in the brain controls aggression • Neural system will facilitate aggression with provocation • Biochemical influences • Hormones, alcohol and other substances in the blood can influence neural systems that control aggression
More on Biochemical… • Testosterone is indicated with higher aggression levels • It heightens dominance and aggressiveness • But dominating behavior also boosts testosterone – so it is a 2-way street • Alcohol • Aggressive people are more likely to drink • Aggressive people are more likely to become violent when drinking • Humans are less sensitive to hormonal changes than other animals
Psychology of Aggression • What are the biological factors that pull the trigger on aggression? • Aversive effects: suffering, those made miserable make others miserable • Frustration-aggression principle: frustration creates anger which can generate aggression • Physical pain, personal insults, rejection/ostracism, foul odors, hot temperatures, violent crime, abuse (esp. in presence of aggressive trigger) can generate aggression (fight or flight)
