Download Introduction to Psychology

Social
Psychology
Social Psychology is a
broad field devoted to
studying:
how people relate to each other
 the development and expression
of attitudes
 people’s attributions about their
own behavior and that of others
 the reasons why people engage in
both prosocial and antisocial
behavior
 how the presence and actions of
others influences the way people
behave

 An
attitude is a set of beliefs and
feelings
 One
reason that attitudes are difficult to
change is due to the Cognitive
Dissonance Theory.
 People
are motivated to have consistent
attitudes and behaviors, and when they
do not, they experience unpleasant
mental tension (dissonance).
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
Social Thinking

Fundamental Attribution Error
–when explaining another’s
behavior, we tend to
underestimate the impact of
the situation and to
overestimate the impact of
personal disposition
Social Thinking

How we explain someone’s behavior affects
how we react to it
Tolerant reaction
Situational attribution
(proceed cautiously, allow
driver a wide berth)
Dispositional attribution
“Crazy driver!”
Unfavorable reaction
“Maybe that driver is ill.”
Negative behavior
(Speed up and race past the
other driver, craning to give
them a dirty look)
Attribution

Interestingly, people do
more the opposite when
attributing successes or
failures to themselves (we
blame the situation more
than ourselves).
Social Thinking

Our behavior is affected by our inner
attitudes as well as by external social
influences
Internal
attitudes
External
influences
Behavior
Jesse tells you that he got a
perfect score on his
psychology test ……






Because Jesse is very good at psychology
Because the psychology test was easy
Jesse has always been good at
psychology
Jesse just studied a lot for this particular
psychology test
Mr. Baker is an easy psychology teacher
Mr. Baker is a tough psychology teacher
who just happened to give one easy test
Social Thinking –
Some Concepts
– Our Attitudes often direct
our behavior but
sometimes behavior shapes
our attitudes

Foot-in-the-Door
Phenomenon
– “Doing Becomes – tendency for people who
Believing”
have first agreed to a small
request to comply later
with a larger request
Group Pressure

Social Influence..
Social Influence
 Normative
Social Influence
–influence resulting from a
person’s desire to gain approval
or avoid disapproval

Leads to……Conformity
–adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group
standard
Social Influence - concepts
 Informational
Social Influence
–influence resulting from one’s
willingness to accept others’ opinions
about reality
 …Leads
To Norms
–an understood rule for accepted and
expected behavior
–prescribes “proper” behavior
Social Influence
Asch Conformity Experiment
click above for a clip!
1
Standard lines
3
2
Comparison lines
Social Influence
Percentage of 50
conformity
to confederates’ 40
wrong answers
Difficult judgments
30
20
10
Easy judgments
0
High
Low
Importance
Slide 1
Slide 2
 Participants
judged which
person in
Slide 2 was
the same as
the person in
Slide 1
Obedience
 Stanley Milgram:
People conform, but
will they simply obey
others?
65% of Milgram’s
“teachers” did!
A “Shocking
Experiment”
 Over 400 volts!!
Social Influence

Milgram’s experiment
That’s Almost 70%!
Percentage 100
of subjects 90
who obeyed 80
experimenter 70
60
50
40
The majority of
subjects continued
to obey to the end
30
20
10
0
Slight Moderate Strong
(15-60) (75-120) (135-180)
Very
Intense
Extreme
Danger
XXX
strong
(255-300) intensity
severe (435-450)
(195-240)
(315-360) (375-420)
Shock levels in volts
Obedience is higher
when…
Person giving the orders is
perceived as a legit Authority
figure. (prof., cop, etc)
 “orderer” supported by a
prestigious institute (Yale, Government, etc)
 Victim is “depersonalized” or
distant (no name, in another room, etc)
 No role models for defiance

DO NOT WRITE YOUR
NAME ON THIS SHEET –
ANSWER COMPLETELY
ANONOMOUSLY!
If you could be totally invisible for 24
hours and were completely assured
that you would not be detected or
held responsible for your actions, what
would you do?

Group Interaction
Social Influence:somebody’s watching
me…
– Social
Impairment
– People tend to
perform
WORSE on
difficult or
new tasks in
the presence
of others

Social Facilitation
– People tend to
perform
simple/well-learned
tasks BETTER in the
presence of others
Social Facilitation
Home Advantage in Major Team Sports
Sport
Games
Studied
Home Team
Winning
Percentage
Baseball
23,034
53.5%
Football
2,592
57.3
Ice hockey
4,322
61.1
Basketball
13,596
64.4
Soccer
37,202
69.0
Social Influence:somebody’s
helping me…

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
Deindividuation
–The loss of
self
awareness
and self
restrain
occurring in
group
situations
that foster
arousal and
anonymity
Social Relations
100

90
Percentage 90
attempting
80
to help 80
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
00
1
1
2
2
3
3
Number of others
presumed available to help
4
4
Bystander Effect
– tendency for any
given bystander
to be less likely
to give aid if
other bystanders
are present
Social Influence
Group Polarization
enhancement of a
group’s prevailing
attitudes through
discussion within
the group (like AA
or KKK) – Yeah!
I Agree!
Social Influence
High +4

+3
+2
High-prejudice
groups
+1
Prejudice 0
Low-prejudice
groups
-1
-2
-3
Low -4
Before discussion
After discussion
If a group is
like-minded,
discussion
strengthens its
prevailing
opinions

Groupthink
– the desire for harmony in a decisionmaking group overrides realistic appraisal
of alternatives (like shuttle disaster or
bay of pigs) – Who am I to “rock the
boat”? I just want to get out of this
meeting…
 The
tendency for people
to overestimate the
number of people who
agree with them is called
the false consensus
effect. I thought everyone was
against the death penalty…

IE. If Brianna hates Psychology,
she assumes that most people
also find it boring, tedious, and
utterly useless as well. If
Shavanna likes pizza, she assumes
that because it’s so good that
everyone must like it too. She’s
shocked to find people who don’t
like it as much as she does.
Social Influence
Percentage agreeing
“The activities of married women
are best confined to home and family”
Percentage 70

60
– a set of
expected
behaviors for
males and for
females
Men
50
40
30
20
10
0
1967 ‘71
Women
‘75
‘79
‘83
Year
Gender Role
‘87
‘91
‘95
Social Relations – why do
we treat each other
differently?
 Prejudice

– an unjustifiable (and usually negative)
attitude toward a group and its members
– involves stereotyped beliefs, negative
feelings, and a predisposition to
discriminatory action
Stereotype
– a generalized (often overgeneralized) belief
about a group of people
Social Influences

Culture
– enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and
traditions shared by a large group of
people
– transmitted from one generation to the
next

Personal Space
– buffer zone we like to
maintain around our bodies
Social Relations – why
prejudice & social bias?

In-group Bias
– tendency to favor one’s own group and
dislike or blame things on another “outgroup”

Scapegoat Theory
– Taking responsibility often causes
people too much “dissonance”
– Better to blame others (maybe even an
“out-group”)
– prejudice
provides an
outlet for anger
by providing
someone to
blame

Just-World Phenomenon
– tendency of people to believe the world is
“just”
– people get what they deserve and
deserve what they get
Social Relations

Americans today express much less racial
and gender prejudice
90
80
70
Percentage 60
answering yes 50
40
Would you vote for
a woman president?
30
20
10
0
1936 1945 1950
Do whites have a right
to keep minorities out of
their neighborhoods?
1955
1960
1965
1970
Year
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
Preconceived
ideas can affect
the way someone acts towards
another person.
Our
expectations of
behavior can be
influenced as well.
This is called the
self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Social
Relations

Aggression
– any physical or verbal behavior intended
to hurt or destroy

Frustration-Aggression Principle
– principle that frustration – the blocking of
an attempt to achieve some goal –
creates anger, which can generate
aggression
Why are we aggressive?



Genetics – Some people are born to
be aggressive
Neural and Biological – Your neural
system facilitates aggression –
chemicals in your blood stream can
change aggression..
What happens if the frontal lobes get
damaged?
Social Relations

Is there a CORRELATION BETWEEN
WEATHER AND AGGRESSION?
8.0
Murders
and rapes
per day in
Houston,
Texas
7.5
7.0
6.5
6.0
40-68
69-78
79-85
86-91
Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit
92-99
Social Relations

Conflict
– perceived incompatibility
of actions, goals, or ideas
Social Trap
– a situation in which a group
of people act to obtain shortterm individual gains, which
in the long run leads to a
loss for the group as a
whole.
–(overfishing, near destruction of
the buffalo, rainforest logging)
Social Relations –
conflict reduction

Social Exchange Theory
– the theory that our social behavior
is an exchange process, the aim of
which is to maximize benefits and
minimize costs

Superordinate Goals
– shared goals that override
differences among people and
require their cooperation
Social Relations – conflict
reduction among nations

Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives
in Tension-reduction (GRIT)
– a strategy designed to decrease
international tensions
 one side announces recognition of mutual
interests and initiates a small conciliatory
act
 opens door for reciprocation by other
party
Social Relations- What
attracts us to others?



Proximity
– mere exposure effect- repeated exposure
to novel stimuli increases liking of them
Physical Attractiveness
– youthfulness may be associated with health
and fertility
Similarity
– friends share common attitudes, beliefs,
interests
Attractiveness
 Worldwide,
men prefer
youth and health, women
prefer resources and
social status
Social Relations

Passionate Love
– an aroused state of intense positive
absorption in another
– usually present at the beginning of a
love relationship

Companionate Love
– deep affectionate attachment we feel
for those with whom our lives are
intertwined
The key to lasting and
satisfying
relationships

Equity
– a condition in which people receive from a
relationship in proportion to what they give to
it

Self-disclosure
– revealing intimate aspects of oneself to
others

Altruism
– unselfish regard for the welfare of others