Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology Chapter 16

2. Social Psychology • Social Psychology– the scientific study of how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the real, imagined, or implied presence of others.

3. Social Thinking • Attribution Theory- tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition • Situational cause- cause of behavior attributed to external factors, such as delays, the action of others, or some other aspect of the situation. • Dispositional cause - cause of behavior attributed to internal factors such as personality or character. • Name to know: Fritz Heider • A teacher may wonder whether a child’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution).

4. 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 • We see Joe as quiet, shy, and introverted most of the time, but with friends he is very talkative, loud, and extroverted. • Self Serving Bias - if our behavior is irritating to others, it’s the situation not our personal disposition

5. Effects of Attribution • How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it.

6. Attribution • Self Handicapping - a person offers a preliminary “excuse” that they can fall back on if they fail • Just World - helps explain the misfortunes of others by being a result of some behavior of theirs; we are careful to avoid these behaviors • Illusion of Control – people overestimate their ability to control events

7. Attitude • Attitude - a tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain person, object, idea, or situation. • affective (emotional) component • the behavioral component • the cognitive component • If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner.

8. Formation of Attitudes • Direct contact with the person, situation, object, or idea. • Direct instruction from parents or others. • Interacting with other people who hold a certain attitude. • Watching the actions and reactions of others to ideas, people, objects, and situations.

9. Attitude • Central Route Persuasion: when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. • Occurs most for naturally analytical people or those involved in the issue. • Peripheral Route Persuasion: Occurs when issues do not engage systematic thinking, but rather when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as celebrity endorsements; attractiveness • More snap judgments such as the well dressed, popular celebrity promoting a political candidate.

10. Actions Can Affect Attitudes • Not only do people stand for what they believe in (attitude), they start believing in what they stand for. • Attitudes follow behavior • Cooperative actions feed mutual liking • Sports teams

11. Actions Can Affect Attitudes • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon- tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request • Door-in-the-face technique – asking for a large commitment and being refused, and then asking for a smaller commitment- “settling” • Norm of reciprocity - assumption that if someone does something for a person, that person should do something for the other in return. • Role- set of expectations about a social position • defines how those in the position ought to behave

12. Stanford Prison Experiment • In what has become known as the Stanford Prison experiment, Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes • Stanford Prison Experiment • Abu Ghraib Prison- discussion p.678

13. Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Cognitive Dissonance Theory- we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent (Leon Festinger) • example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes You don’t like the teacher so in that class it is OK. You have a belief that cheating on tests is bad. But you cheat on a test!!!

15. Social Influence • Social influence - the process through which the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of an individual. • Conformity- changing one’s behavior to match that of other people • Obedience - changing one’s behavior as a result of other people directing or asking for the change. • Compliance – a person changes behavior upon request but there is a level of agreement

16. Social Influence • The Chameleon Effect - Humans are natural mimics. Unconsciously mimicking others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones helps us feel what they are feeling. • Mood Linkage- sharing up and down moods • Solomon Asch- Group Conformity • Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity, adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard. • About 1/3 of the participants conformed. • 70% conformed at least once • Asch Study

17. Reasons for Conforming • Normative Social Influence- Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection. • A person may respect normative behavior because there may be a severe price to pay if not respected. • Informational Social Influence- The group may provide valuable information, but stubborn people will never listen to others.

18. Stanley Milgram’s Study of Obedience • People comply to social pressures and the situation. How would they respond to outright command? • Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience. • Effect of punishment on learning; word pairs • “teacher” administered what they thought were real shocks to a “learner” • Voltage goes up for every wrong answer

19. Stanley Milgram’s Study of Obedience • Ordinary people can do shocking things. • 63% complied • Ethical issues…. • Would not have received approval from today’s IRB (Internal Review Board) • A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion.

20. Group Influence • Social facilitation - the tendency for the presence of other people to have a positive impact on the performance of an easy task. • What you do well, you are likely to do better with an audience; what you find difficult may seem impossible with an audience • Social Inhibition – presence will hinder performance on difficult tasks • Social loafing - the tendency for people to put less effort into a simple task when working with others on that task. • Individual is not held fully accountable

21. Group Influence • De-individuation – a lack of individual responsibility that comes from being in a crowd • Feel anonymous and aroused; Explains rioting behaviors. • Group polarization – the strengthening of shared beliefs. • People who discuss shared views will come to believe in them more strongly – this can be positive or negative • Internet

22. Group Influence • Group think - kind of thinking that occurs when people place more importance on maintaining group cohesiveness than on assessing the facts of the problem with which the group is concerned. • Abu Ghraib Prison- discussion p.678 • Why did the guards take those actions? • Conditions that strengthen conformity

24. Social Relations • Prejudice - negative attitude held by a person about the members of a particular social group. • Prejudice is often directed towards different cultural, ethnic, or gender groups. • Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Study- 3rd graders in a Iowa classroom in the 1960’s Components of Prejudice • Beliefs (stereotypes)- overgeneralized • Emotions (hostility, envy, fear) • Predisposition to act – negative behavior (to discriminate)

26. Social Roots of Prejudice • Social Inequalities • Social Divisions • Emotional Scapegoating

27. Social Roots of Prejudice • In-groups - social groups with whom a person identifies; same; “us or we” • In-group Bias: The tendency to favor one’s own group • Out-groups - social groups with whom a person does not identify; different; “them or they” • Out-group homogeneity Bias - people are judged as more similar because of a lack of knowledge • Ethnocentrism- tendency to think that your nation or culture is superior to others • Realistic conflict theory - conflict between groups increases prejudice and discrimination.

28. Emotional Roots of Prejudice • Scapegoating - tendency to direct prejudice and discrimination at out-group members who have little social power or influence. • Finding someone to blame

29. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice • We categorize people into groups by stereotyping them • Blue eyes/ Brown Eyes Study- Jane Elliot • Other-race effect - which emerges during infancy, is the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races.

30. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice • Implicit personality theory - sets of assumptions about how different types of people, personality traits, and actions are related to each other. • Schemas - mental patterns that represent what a person believes about certain types of people. Schemas can become stereotypes.

31. Stopping Prejudice • Social cognitive theory – views prejudice as an attitude acquired through direct instruction, modeling, and other social influences. • Social identity theory – theory in which the formation of a person’s identity within a particular social group is explained by social categorization, social identity, and social comparison. • Social identity - the part of the self-concept including one’s view of self as a member of a particular social category. • Social comparison – the comparison of oneself to others in ways that raise one’s self-esteem.

32. Stopping Prejudice • Stereotype vulnerability - the effect that people’s awareness of the stereotypes associated with their social group has on their behavior. • Contact Theory- Contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if they are made to work towards a superordinate goal.

33. Aggression • Aggression – physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy another person. • Biological influences on aggression may include genetics, the amygdala and limbic system, and testosterone and serotonin levels. • Alcohol releases aggressive responses to frustration

34. Four psychological factors that influence aggressive behavior are: • Dealing with aversive events • Studies in which animals and humans experience unpleasant events reveal that those made miserable often make others miserable. • Frustration- Aggression Principle- the blocking of an attempt to achieve a desired goal creates anger, which can generate aggression.

35. Four psychological factors that influence aggressive behavior are: 2. Learning aggression is rewarding • When aggression leads to desired outcomes, one learns to be aggressive. This is shown in both animals and humans. 3. Observing models of aggression • Albert Bandura Study- Modeling • Sexually coercive men are promiscuous and hostile in their relationships with women. This coerciveness has increased due to television viewing of R- and X-rated movies.

36. Four psychological factors that influence aggressive behavior are: 4. Acquiring social scripts. • Social role - the pattern of behavior that is expected of a person who is in a particular social position. • Violent TV, movies, and videos are related to aggression.

37. Summary

38. Attraction • Interpersonal attraction - liking or having the desire for a relationship with another person • 4 Factors of Attraction: • Proximity: Geographic nearness is a powerful predictor of friendship. • Mere Exposure Effect- Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases their attraction

39. 4 Factors of Attraction 2. Physical Attractiveness: Once proximity affords contact, the next most important thing in attraction is physical appearance 3. Similarity: Similar views among individuals causes the bond of attraction to strengthen 4. Reciprocal Liking- tendency of people to like other people who like them in return.

40. Love • Love - a strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests. • Robert Sternberg states that the three components of love are intimacy, passion, and commitment. • Passionate Love- aroused state of intense positive absorption in another • Beginning of a relationship- physical arousal and cognitive appraisal

41. Forms of Love • Romantic love - type of love consisting of intimacy and passion. • Companionate love - type of love consisting of intimacy and commitment. • Deep and affectionate attachment • Empty love - has commitment • Infatuation – has passion

42. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

43. Other conditions of love • Equity – people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it • Self-disclosure - revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

44. Altruism • Prosocial behavior - socially desirable behavior that benefits others. • Altruism - prosocial behavior that is done with no expectation of reward and may involve the risk of harm to oneself. • Unselfish regard for the welfare of others

45. Bystander Effect • Kitty Genovese death • Bystander effect - referring to the effect that the presence of other people has on the decision to help or not help, with help becoming less likely as the number of bystanders increases.

46. Bystander Effect • Diffusion of responsibility - occurring when a person fails to take responsibility for actions or for inaction because of the presence of other people who are seen to share the responsibility. • Someone else will do it! • Pluralistic Ignorance – after a period of time without intervention, people believe nothing needs to be done • Researchers Latané and Darley found that people who were alone were more likely to help in an emergency than people who were with others. • One bystander cannot diffuse responsibility.

47. 5 Steps in making a decision to help

48. Norms of Helping • Social Exchange Theory – if the rewards you anticipate from helping exceed the costs, you will help • Reciprocity Norm – we should return help, not harm, to those who have helped us • Social-Responsibility Norm – we should help those who need help, even if the costs outweigh the benefits

49. Conflict • Conflict - is perceived as an incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas. • People become deeply involved in potentially destructive social processes that have undesirable effects. • Social Traps - conflicting parties are caught in mutually destructive behavior • Tragedy of the Commons- multiple individuals, acting independently, will ultimately deplete a limited resource, leading to the detriment of all

50. Conflict • Mirror-Image Perceptions - People in conflict form diabolical images of one another. Saddam Hussein “Wicked Pharaoh” George Bush “Evil”