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Thinking About Psychology:
The Science of Mind and
Behavior 2e
Charles T. Blair-Broeker
Randal M. Ernst
Variations in Individual and
Group Behavior Domain
Social Psychology Chapter
Module 34
Social Thinking and
Social Influence
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Introduction
Social Psychology
• The scientific study of how people think
about, influence, and relate to one another
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Thinking
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Thinking:
Attributing Behavior
to Personal
Disposition or the
Situation
Attribution Theory
• Theory that we tend to explain the
behavior of others as an aspect of either
an internal disposition (an inner trait) or
the situation
Situational Disposition
• Attributing someone’s actions to the
various factors in the situation
Dispositional Attribution
• Attributing someone’s actions to the
person’s disposition, i.e. their thoughts,
feelings, personality characteristics, etc.
Situational Attribution
Situational Attribution
Situational Attribution
Dispositional Attribution
Dispositional Attribution
Dispositional Attribution
Attribution
Fundamental Attribution Error
• Tendency to attribute the behavior of others
to internal disposition rather than to situations
• People tend to blame or credit the person
more than the situation
– When we explain our own behavior, we tend to
include the situation as part of our assessment.
When we explain other peoples’ behavior, we
tend to attribute it to permanent, personal
qualities.
– Would Jack Black or Dave Chappelle be
believable if cast in a serious movie role?
Culture & Attribution Error
• Culture affects attribution. Several banks and
investment firms lost millions in the 1990s when
employees make unauthorized transactions.
– In the US, this was blamed on unethical individuals, a
dispositional attribution.
– In Japan, newspapers blamed a lack of organizational
controls – a situational attribution.
– Research shows that people raised in Western
countries (like the US and Canada) tend to make
attributions based on dispositions far more often than
those from East Asian cultures.
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Thinking:
Attitudes and Actions
Attitude
• Belief and feeling that predisposes
someone to respond in a particular way
to objects, people, and events
– Attitudes have a powerful effect on
behavior.
Attitudes Affecting Actions
• Many studies suggest a person’s attitudes do not
match their actions
– Someone who says he is against cheating, but then does
it…
• Attitudes can predict behavior if:
– Outside influences are minimal
– People are aware of their attitudes
– Attitude is relevant to behavior (if you say you
believe exercise is essential for good health, but
you dislike getting sweaty, you may avoid it.
Your attitude toward exercise will guide your
decision to exercise, or not).
Attitudes Affecting Actions
Actions Affecting Attitudes
• Under some circumstances one’s actions
can influence attitudes. They include:
– Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
– Role playing
– Cognitive dissonance
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
• Tendency for people who have first
agreed to a small request to comply later
with a larger request
– The fundraiser example: principal agreeing
to small concessions first, then bigger
ones.
– Start small with your requests if you want
someone to agree to something big!
Role Playing
• Playing a role can influence or change
one’s attitude
• Zimbardo’s Prison Study
– College students played the role of
guard or prisoner in a simulated
prison.
– The study was ended when the guards
became too aggressive and cruel.
Zimbardo’s Prison Study
College students played the
role of guard or prisoner
in a simulated prison.
• The study was ended
when the guards became
too aggressive and cruel.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Theory that we act to reduce the
discomfort (dissonance) we feel when
two of our thoughts (cognitions) are
inconsistent
• When our attitudes are inconsistent with
our actions, we change our attitudes to
reduce the dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
So…Use it to your advantage
• If you have an attitude you’d like to
change, such as negative feelings towards
people from different social groups, then
start by changing your BEHAVIOR
towards those individuals.
• Therapists use when working with patients
with depression; they encourage them to
start talking and acting positively.
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Influence
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Influence:
Conformity and
Obedience
Conformity
• Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to
coincide with a group standard
Solomon Asch (1907-1996)
• Social psychologist who researched the
circumstances under which people
conform
Asch’s Conformity Study
Factors Increasing Conformity
•
•
•
•
The person feels incompetent or insecure.
The group has three or more people.
The rest of the group is unanimous.
The person is impressed by the status of
the group.
• No prior commitments were made.
• The group is observing the person respond.
• One’s culture encourages conformity.
Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)
• Social psychologist
who researched
obedience to authority
Obedience
• Tendency to comply with orders,
implied or real, from someone perceived
as an authority
Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
(Data from Milgram, 1974)
Milgram’s Obedience to Authority
Gretchen Brandt
• Some participants in Milgram’s obedience study confronted
authority. Gretchen Brandt was a young medical technician and
recent German immigrant. Several times she inquired of the
experimenter whether she should continue, and was told yes each
time. As she prepared to deliver a 210-volt shock, she announced
firmly, “Well, I’m sorry, I don’t think we should continue.” Brandt
never appeared tense or nervous; she simply stated that she “did
not want to be responsible for any harm to the learner.” Milgram
notes that her straightforward, courteous demeanor seemed to
make disobedience a simple and rational deed. Brandt behaved
differently because she grew up in Nazi Germany and was exposed
to Hitler’s propaganda for the greater part of her youth. When asked
about the influence of her background, she simply remarked,
“Perhaps we have seen too much pain.”
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Influence:
Group Influence
Invisible Dogs Youtube
Social Facilitation
• Improved performance of tasks in the
presence of others
• Occurs with simple or well learned tasks
but not with tasks that are difficult or
not yet learned
– Ex: athletes tend to perform much better
when competing, and especially in front of
fans.
Social Facilitation
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
• People may be less accountable in a
group, or they may think their efforts
aren’t needed.
• TUG OF WAR
Examples
• Students tend to exert less effort when
they are doing a group thing with peers
(when all members will receive the same
grade).
• Blindfolded students asked to pull a rope
as hard as they could. When they
believed three others were pulling behind
them, they their efforts dropped by almost
20%.
Deindividuation
• Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint
occurring in group situations that foster
arousal and anonymity
• People lose their sense of responsibility
when in a group.
– Soccer fans
– Looting
• 11 content categories: aggression, charity,
academic dishonesty, crime, escapism, political
activities, sexual behavior, social disruption,
interpersonal spying and eavesdropping, travel
and “catch-all”
• Prosocial, antisocial, nonnormative (violating
social norms but without specifically helping or
hurting others) and neurtral .
• Most frequent responses: 26% criminal acts,
sexual acts 11%, spying behaviors 11%. Most
common response was “rob a bank (15%), 36%
were antisocial, 19% nonnormative, 36%
neutral, 9% prosocial
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Influence:
Group Interaction
Effects
Group Polarization
• Enhancement of a
group’s already
existing attitudes
through discussion
within the group
Examples
• Terrorism – doesn’t suddenly erupt. The
mentality builds as people with the
grievances gather and become more
extreme in their views. In the absence of
moderate influences, terrorism reaches
the point of kidnapping, murder and
suicide bombing.
Groupthink
• Mode of thinking that occurs when the
desire for harmony in a decisionmaking group overrides a realistic
appraisal of the alternatives
• It’s worse than group polorization
because it tends to paralyze us.
Group Think
• Group makes faulty decisions because of
group pressure leads to reality testing and
moral judgment.
• Ignores alternatives and dehumanizes
other groups, as a consequence.
• If the group members have the same
background, are insulated from outside
opinions, there is no devil’s advocate and
no rules.
8 Symptoms
1.
2.
Illusion of invulnerability (optimism that encourages risk-taking).
Collective rationalism (group discounts warnings & don’t consider
their assumptions).
3. Belief in inherit morality (group believes in the rightness of their
cause)
4. Stereotyped views of “outgroup” (negative view of “the enemy”)
5. Direct pressure on dissenters (members under pressure not to
suggest something that is counter to the group’s opinion).
6. Self-censorship (members who may not agree feel pressured not
to share that doubt).
7. Illusion of unanimity (members think (often mistakenly) that all they
all feel the same way
8. Self-appointed “mindguards” (someone in the group protects the
group and the leader from other info that might challenge their
belief).
NOW, IN YOUR GROUP, GENERATE A LIST OF EXAMPLES WHEN
YOU FEEL THIS HAS HAPPENED OR IS HAPPENING
Review the following consequences of groupthink and
consider how many of them apply to the Bush
administration’s handling of the ‘war on terrorism’ and the
issues related to Iraq and Saddam Hussein:
•
•
a) incomplete survey of alternatives
•
b) incomplete survey of objectives
•
c) failure to examine risks of preferred choice
•
d) failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives
•
e) poor information search
•
f) selective bias in processing information at hand
•
g) failure to work out contingency plans
•
h) low probability of successful outcome
• (Janis)
Module 34: Social Thinking and Social Influence
Social Influence:
Our Power as
Individuals
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• When we believe something to be true
about others (or ourselves) and we act in
ways that cause this belief to come true
– Example study that told some men that
certain women found them attractive
(when they hadn’t); as a result, the men
were more kind and charming the women,
in turn, DID find them more charming.
Minority Influence
• Minority groups
can influence the
majority
• Minority groups
must be firm in
their conviction
Rosa Parks
The End