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Social Psychology
Chapter 16
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.
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).
Social Thinking
• Fundamental Attribution Errortendency 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
Effects of Attribution
• How we explain someone’s behavior
affects how we react to it.
Attribution
• Self Handicapping - a person
offers a preliminary “excuse”
that they can fall back on if
they fail
• Just World Phenomenon 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
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.
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.
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
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory – we
strive to keep our behaviors, cognitions and
attitudes consistent with one another
 We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel
when our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent with
actions by changing our behavior or modifying our
thought (Leon Festinger)
 Example:
You have a belief that
cheating on tests is bad.
But you cheat on a test!!!
You don’t like the teacher so in
that class it is OK.
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.
– Compliance – a person changes behavior upon
request but there is a level of agreement
– 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
•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.
Compliance
 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
Conformity- Stanford Prison Experiment
• Philip Zimbardo (1972)
assigned the roles of
guards and prisoners to
random students and
found that guards and
prisoners developed roleappropriate attitudes
– Designed to last two weeks;
less than one
– Stanford Prison Experiment
• Abu Ghraib Prison- discussion p.678
Conformity
• 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.
• Ceiling of 6-7 increased conformity
• Unanimity of the group!
• Asch Study
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.
• 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
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
• Video
Stanley Milgram’s Study of Obedience
• Ordinary people can do
shocking things.
– 63% complied or 2/3
• Ethical issues….
– Right to discontinue?
• Would not have received
approval from today’s IRB
(Internal Review Board)
• Power of the situation!
• Rates would change with
authority figure not
present
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
• Social Inhibition – presence will hinder performance on
difficult tasks
– What you find difficult may seem impossible with an
audience
• 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
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 extreme
strengthening of shared beliefs.
– People who discuss shared views
will come to believe in them more
strongly – this can be positive or
negative
– Internet
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
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
1.
2.
3.
Beliefs (stereotypes)- overgeneralized
Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
Predisposition to act – negative behavior (to
discriminate)
Social Roots of Prejudice
1. Social Inequalities
2. Social Divisions
3. Emotional Scapegoating
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 of the
outgroup are judged as more similar because of a lack
of knowledge
• Ethnocentrism- tendency to think that your nation
or culture is superior to others
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
• Scapegoating - tendency
to direct prejudice and
discrimination at outgroup members who
have little social power
or influence.
– Finding someone to
blame
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
• Social cognitive theory – views prejudice as an
attitude acquired through direct instruction,
modeling, and other social influences.
– 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.
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.
• Halo Effect - physically attractive people are
smarter, nicer and more talented
Prejudice
• 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 categorization – how a person perceives collections
of people as a group
– 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.
• Stereotype vulnerability - the effect (usually
negative) that people’s awareness of the stereotypes
associated with their social group has on their
behavior.
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
Four psychological factors that
influence aggressive behavior are:
1. 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.
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.
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.
Summary
Attraction
• Interpersonal attraction - liking or
having the desire for a relationship
with another person
• 4 Factors of Attraction:
1. Proximity: Geographic nearness is a
powerful predictor of friendship.
–
Mere Exposure Effect- Repeated exposure
to novel stimuli increases their attraction
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.
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.
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
•Passion - desire to be with
the other person
•Intimacy - emotional
closeness
•Commitment - maintain the
relationship
Forms of Love
• Consummate Love- aroused
state of intense positive
absorption in another
• Passion, Intimacy,
Commitment
• 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 - commitment
• Infatuation – passion
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
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
Bystander Effect
• Kitty Genovese stabbing
death in NYC (1960’s)
• 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.
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.
5 Steps in making a decision to help
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
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; short term over long term
–Tragedy of the Commons- multiple
individuals, acting independently, will
ultimately deplete a limited resource,
leading to the detriment of all
Conflict
• Prisoners’ Dilemma
Looking out for themselves can hurt themselves, and everyone else.
Conflict
• Mirror-Image Perceptions - People in conflict
form diabolical images of one another.
Saddam Hussein
“Wicked Pharaoh”
George Bush
“Evil”
Cooperation- Contact Theory
•Superordinate Goals are shared goals that
override differences among people and require
their cooperation.
Syracuse Newspapers/ The Image Works
•Communication and understanding developed
through talking to one another. Sometimes it is
mediated by a third party.
GRIT
• Graduated & Reciprocated Initiatives in
Tension-Reduction (GRIT): This is a strategy
designed to decrease international
tensions. One side recognizes mutual
interests and initiates a small conciliatory
act that opens the door for reciprocation
by the other party.