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Scientific study of how people’s
thoughts, feelings, and actions are
affected by others
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Attitudes
◦ Evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief,
or concept
◦ Factors by which attitudes can be changed
 Message source
 Attitude communicator
 Characteristics of the message
 Characteristics of the target
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Routes to persuasion
◦ Central route processing
◦ Peripheral route processing
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Link between attitudes and behavior
Cognitive dissonance
◦ When a person holds two contradictory attitudes or
thoughts
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Social cognition
◦ Way people understand and make sense of others
and themselves
◦ Schemas
 Sets of cognitions about people and social experiences
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Impression formation
◦ Central traits
◦ “Thin slices of behavior”
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Attribution theory
◦ Seeks to explain how
we decide, on the
basis of samples of
an individual’s
behavior, what the
specific causes of
that person’s
behavior are
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Situational causes
◦ A cause of behavior that is brought about by
something in the environment
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Dispositional causes
◦ A cause of behavior that is prompted by the
person’s disposition (his or her internal traits or
personality characteristics)
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Fundamental attribution error
◦ Tendency to over-attribute others’ behavior to
dispositional causes, and the corresponding failure
to recognize the importance of situational causes
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Halo effect
◦ Phenomenon in which an initial understanding that
a person has positive traits is used to infer other
uniformly positive characteristics
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Assumed-similarity bias
◦ Tendency to think of people as being similar to
oneself, even when meeting them for the first time
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Self-serving bias
◦ Tendency to attribute personal success to personal
factors (skill, ability, or effort) and to attribute
failure to factors outside oneself
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Collectivist orientation
◦ Worldview that promotes the notion of
interdependence
 See themselves a parts of a larger, interconnected
social network and as responsible to others
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Individualist orientation
◦ Emphasizes personal identity and the uniqueness of
the individual
 Focus more on what sets them apart from others and
what makes them special
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Social influence
◦ Process by which the
actions of an individual or
group affect the behavior
of others
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Conformity
◦ Change in behavior or
attitudes brought about
by a desire to follow the
beliefs or standards of
other people
◦ Solomon Asch study,
1951
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Characteristics of the group
Situation in which the individual is
responding
Kind of task
Unanimity of the group
◦ Social supporter
 Person who shares an unpopular point of view along
with another group member, thereby reducing
nonconformity
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Type of thinking in which group members
share such a strong motivation to achieve
consensus that they lose the ability to
critically evaluate alternative points of view
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Foot-in-the-door technique
◦ Small request followed by a larger request
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Door-in-the-face technique
◦ Large request followed by a smaller request
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That’s-not-all technique
◦ Offered a deal at an inflated price
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Not-so-free sample
◦ Norm of reciprocity
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Change in behavior in response to the
commands of others
Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment
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Stereotypes
◦ Generalized beliefs and expectations about social
groups and their members
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Prejudice
◦ The negative (or positive) evaluations of groups
and their members
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Discrimination
◦ Negative behavior toward members of a
particular group
◦ Self-fulfilling prophecy
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Claude Steele
◦ Many African Americans suffer from stereotype
threat, in which members of the group fear that
their behavior will confirm stereotypes about
themselves
◦ Many may come to accept society’s stereotypes and
believe that they are prone to fail
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Social learning approaches
◦ People’s feelings about members of various groups
are shaped by the behavior of parents, other adults,
and peers
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Social identity theory
◦ We use group membership as a source of pride and
self-worth
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Increasing contact between the target of
stereotyping and the holder of the stereotype
Make values and norms against prejudice
more conspicuous
Providing information about the objects of
stereotyping
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Positive feelings for others; liking and loving
Liking
◦ Proximity
◦ Mere exposure
◦ Similarity
 Reciprocity-of-liking effect
◦ Physical attractiveness
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Passionate (or romantic) love
◦ Represents a state of intense absorption in
someone that includes intense physiological
arousal, psychological interest, and caring for the
needs of another
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Companionate love
◦ Strong affection that we have for those with whom
our lives are deeply involved
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Decision/commitment component
Intimacy component
Passion component
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Aggression
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◦ Intentional injury or
harm to another
person
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◦ Frustration
Instinct approaches
◦ Catharsis
 Process of
discharging built up
aggressive energy
Frustrationaggression
approaches
 The thwarting or
blocking of some
ongoing, goal-directed
behavior
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Observational
learning
approaches
◦ Effects of modeling
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Prosocial behavior
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Altruism
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Helping behavior
Helping behavior that
is beneficial to others but
clearly requires selfsacrifice
Diffusion of
responsibility
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Tendency for people to
feel that responsibility for
acting is shared, or
diffused, among those
present