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Social Psychology
• Basic premise: Who we are is
determined by our social interactions
– --Past: our social development
– --Present: social influence
We’ll start with an area of overlap between
cognition and social influence; attitudes,
including their formation and change
Attitudes & Attitude Change
• Definition of an attitude (vs. belief) ABC
– Affective-- evaluation (+/-),
– Behavioral tendencies policy
– Cognitive (belief)
• Central feature: consistency
• Propaganda and other attitude change
mechanisms
Strong Generalization About
Attitudes
We like to maintain consistancy of
attitudes:
1. selective exposure
2. selective interpretation
3. selective memory
Propaganda or Attitude Change
1. Characteristics of the source of a message
--Credibility, expertise, knowledge, prestige
plus sleeper effect
2. Characteristics of the message
--One-sided vs. two-sided
--Fear + way out
--Moderate discrepancy
3. Characteristics of the recipient
--intelligence
Attitudes
• Explicit attitude
• Implicit attitude
– Involuntary, uncontrollable, often
unconscious
– IAT (lab)
– But implicit cognitions aren’t all-controlling
Attitudes toward groups
• Prejudice
– Affective component
– Hostile or negative attitude toward people just
because they are a group member
• Stereotypes
– Cognitive component
– Generalization in which identical characteristics
are assigned to all members
• Discrimination
– Behavioral component
– Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a
group member because of their membership
Prejudice in the classroom
• Jane Elliott
– Prejudice can be taught
– Told students blue-eyed people were better than brown-eyed
people
– Brown-eyed children had to wear collars and sit in the back
of class
– Over the course of one day: brown eyed children became
self-conscious, depressed, and demoralized
– Next day: Elliott switched the stereotypes about eye-color
(brown=good)
– Brown-eyed kids exacted their revenge
Why are stereotypes maintained?
• Illusory correlation
– See correlations where they don’t exist
– Remember confirmatory examples more
– Example: Cheerleaders are outgoing
• Out-group homogeneity effect
– Us vs. them
– “All ______ are alike”
– See others as exemplars of their group
• In-group bias
– Positive feelings for people who are part of our in-group
– Alumni, state residency, affinity varies with distance!
Fundamental Attribution Error
• Interpret behavior as a characteristic of the individual
rather than the situation
• Do not take into account the situation
– Person unemployed must be a bad worker, if I lose job, bad boss
• Maintain stereotypes:
– Attribute confirmatory examples to the individual
– Ignore/attribute to the situation examples which don’t fit or
stereotype
Stronger Theories of Attitude
Consistency
• Balance Theory (Heider)
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
• Self Perception Theory (Bem)
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Leon Festinger: Two cognitions that are
in conflict or dissonant (one implies the
opposite of the other) result in pressure
to change one or both to bring them into
consonance
• In practice, the two are an attitude and a
behavior and the attitude changes
Three types of Dissonance Situations
or Experiments
• Justification of effort (Aronson & Mills)
• Inadequate external justification
--when prophecy fails (Ms. Keech)
--counterattitudinal advocacy (Yale)
• Consequences of a decision (Brehm)
Knox & Inkster betting study
(consequences of making a decision)
Self Perception Theory- Bem
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The theory and its relation to cog. diss.
Experimental evidence (Bem, Valins)
Can we know ourselves given all this?
(Back to Missouri!)
Bystander Apathy &
Intervention
• Surprising work of Darley & Latane on
the effect of the no. of bystanders
Mechanisms That Produce
Bystander Apathy Effects
1. moral diffusion
2. lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of action.
airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped,
and they were people more familiar with the
surround.
3. costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised
bythe presence of others (surveillance)
4. rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know
what to do/day, keep your mouth shut etc.
5) mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90
%
Mechanisms That Produce
Bystander Apathy Effects
1. moral diffusion
2. lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of action.
airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped, and they
were people more familiar with the surround.
3. costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised bythe
presence of others (surveillance)
4. rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know what to
do/day, keep your mouth shut etc.
5) mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90 %
Solomon Asch: Conformity
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Conformity: Good or bad?
Major findings: 1/3 & 2/3 conform!
What it takes to resist!
Conclusion
Stanley Milgram: Obedience
• Description of Experiment
• Basic findings 2/3
• Field theory explanation (exper. vs.
victim force fields)
Underlying Explanation
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•
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Foot in the door
Other is responsible (diffusion of resp.)
Aloneness- lack of social support
Ambiguity about situation/what to do!!!
Other directedness (Reisman)
Schein’s POW Work
• Level of compliance and how it was
obtained
• The power of social isolation
• Who resisted?
• Solution: inner codes vs. external or
situational control
• Conclusion: balance?……