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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
Topics in Sociology
How do we get people to
do things for us?
Compliance
Strategies are
methods of getting
others to comply with
one’s wishes.
Foot-In-The-Door
Phenomenon.
It
suggests that if
you can get people
to agree to a small
request first, they
are more likely to
agree to a follow-up
request that is
larger.
Can I go over to Suzy's house for an
hour?" followed by "Can I stay the
night?"
 "Can I borrow the car to go to the
store?" followed by "Can I borrow the
car for the weekend?"
 "Would you sign this petition for our
cause?" followed by "Would you
donate to our cause?"
 "May I turn in the paper a few hours
late?" followed by "May I turn it in next
week?"
"
 Door-In-The-Face Phenomenon
Strategy marked by first making an
extremely large request that the
respondent will obviously turn down.
The respondent is then more likely to
agree to a second, more reasonable
request.
 Will
you donate $1000 to our
organization?
Oh. Well could you donate
$10?''
 Can you help me do all this
work?
Well can you help me with this
bit?''
Another
common
strategy is known as the
Norms of Reciprocity.
People tend to think that
when someone does
something nice for them,
they ought to do
something nice in return.
IE.
You feel compelled to
send money to the charity
organization that sent you
the free address labels in
the mail, or to vote for the
candidate that handed out
the delicious chocolate chip
cookies.
How do we explain
the behaviors that
we observe?
You’re
in a college library,
observing two workers
attempting to move a rather
large filing cabinet. In unison,
the two workers lift up the
cabinet. All four doors fly open
and the files spill out. What’s
your first thought?
Attribution
Theory tries
to explain
how people
determine
the cause of
what they
observe.
Dispositional Attribution
 We when observe other
people’s behaviors, we believe
that their success or failure is
due to their long history of
personal success or failure.
The individual is given the
credit or blame for the
outcome.

The files fell out because
the workers are dimwits.
The files fell out because
the workers weren’t
strong enough. The files
fell out because the
workers were unable to
balance the cabinet. The
workers were
inexperienced in this type
of work.
Situational Attribution
 If you believe that a person’s
success or failure is due to a
consistently easy or difficult
surrounding situation or
environment. Something outside
of the individual’s control has led
to their success or failure.

The files fell out because the locks on the
cabinets broke. The files fell out because
a student bumped into one of the workers
and caused it to tip. The bright light from
an overhead bulb blinded a worker and
disoriented him. The floor must have been
recently waxed and was slippery.
What might bias
our observations of
behaviors?
 You
go to a party and start up a
conversation with someone you
haven’t met before. They don’t talk
much, gaze around the room rather
than look directly at you, and excuse
themselves abruptly. You first thought
about them is….
 Most
of you probably said,
“What a jerk”, right?
 Did you consider that maybe
they were just really shy, or
that they just broke up with
their significant other, or that
maybe they were distracted by
a minor car accident they had
on the way to the party?
 When
looking at the behaviors
of others, people tend to
overestimate the importance of
personal factors, and
underestimate the role of the
environment. This is called the
fundamental attribution error.
The
tendency for people
to overestimate the
number of people who
agree with them is called
the false consensus
effect.
 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.
Self-serving
bias is
the tendency to take
more credit for good
outcomes than for
bad ones, and viseversa.
 IE.
A star athlete will
acknowledge that his fourth
quarter touchdown won the game.
The same athlete will point out
that a tough loss was a team loss,
and that everyone must step up
their game the next time. He
won’t admit that his dropped pass
in the endzone lost the game.
 When
attributing
successes or failures,
people tend to believe
that bad things will
happen to bad people,
and that good things
will happen to good
people. This is called
the just-world belief.
 One
problem with the just-world belief
is that we often tend to blame the
victims of crimes for their plight. The
guy shouldn’t have been walking
down that dark alley when he was
robbed…the girl shouldn’t have been
wearing that revealing outfit when she
was attacked.
 The
larger the number of people
who witness a problem, the less
likely any one is going to
intervene. This is called the
bystander effect. The larger the
group of people, the less
responsibility any one individual
feels to help. People tend to
assume that someone else will
take action so they don’t have to.
Kitty Genovese Case
 The Bystander Effect – In The News
 Latane and Darley Study

Stereotypes, Prejudice,
and Discrimmination
 We
all have different ideas
about what members of
different groups are like, and
these expectations may
influence the way we interact
with members of these groups.
These ideas are called
stereotypes.
 IE.
New Yorkers are pushy,
unfriendly and rude.
Californians are laid back and
relaxed. Midwesterners are
simple and rural. Blondes are
unintelligent. White men can’t
jump.
A Prejudice
is an
undeserved, usually
negative, attitude toward a
group of people.
Discrimination involves an
action against a particular
person or group.
People
have a tendency to
see members of their own
group (in-group) as being
more diverse than the
members of other groups
(out-group, or out-group
homogeneity).
 IE.
All blacks are this, and all
Indians are that. But when talking
about whites, there is a vast
amount of differences. We
generalize about groups that we
are not a part of, and distinguish
between members of groups that
we are a part of.
In
addition, the belief
that people think of
themselves and the
members of their own
group are good people
is called in-group bias.
IE.
Our fellow Americans
and Christians are good and
righteous, while those
Middle-Easterners and
Muslims are bad.
Why is it difficult for
people to change their
attitudes?
 An
attitude is a set of beliefs and
feelings
 One reason that attitudes are difficult
to change is due to the Cognitive
Dissonance Theory. The theory is
based on the idea that people are
motivated to have consistent attitudes
and behaviors, and when they do not,
they experience unpleasant mental
tension (dissonance).
Attraction
What factors increase the chance
that people will like one another?

Living in the Cyber Age

if they are similar to us (similarity)
 we have frequent contact with them
(proximity)
 those that return our positive feelings
(reciprocal liking)
 those we share intimate and
personal information with (selfdisclosure)
Group Dynamics
All
groups have norms, or
rules about how group
members should act. Within
groups is often a set of
specific roles, a function or
part performed by each
individual in the group.
 Conformity
is the tendency of
people to go along with the views
or actions of your peers, of people
of the same status. Obedience
studies emphasize a person’s
willingness to do what another
asks if the person asking is in a
position of authority or expertise.

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
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The Milgram Experiment – Original Footage
BBC Replicating Milgram
The Heist – Replicating Milgram
Asch and Conformity
Asch and Conformity II
Stanford Prison Experiment – Long Version
Stanford Prison Experiment – Short Version
 Researchers
have found that
simple task performance
improves in the presence of
others. This is called social
facilitation, though if the task is
difficult or not well-rehearsed,
performance is actually hurt by
the presence of others. This is
called social impairment.
Social
loafing is the
phenomenon when
individuals do not put in as
much effort when acting as
part of a group as they do
when they are acting alone.
Group
polarization is the
tendency of a group to make
more extreme decisions than
the group members would
make individually.
 The
loss of an
individual’s selfrestraint occurs
when they feel
anonymous.
This is called
deindividualization.
You’re prone to do
more extreme things
if you’re an
anonymous part of
the crowd.
 Groupthink
occurs when group
members suppress their
reservations about ideas
supported by the group. As a
result, there is a false sense of
unity, and the flaws of the
group’s decision are
overlooked.
ABC Series “What Would You Do?”