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Social Psychology
Crime Psychology
Social Psychology
Attitudes
Cognitive Dissonance
Group Processes
Deindividuation
Attitudes
Attribution theory
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Dispositional explanation vs Situational
explanation
Kelley (1967)
 Consensus
 Consistency
 Distinctiveness
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Jones and Harris study (1967) ‘essay study’
Actor-observer difference Jones and Nisbett
(1971)
Jones and Harris (1967)
subjects read either a pro- or an antiCastro speech that was allegedly
written under either free-choice
conditions or at the experimenter's
request.
The subjects' task in the experiment
was to infer the true attitude of the
author of the speech.
Jones and Harris (1967)
Not surprisingly, the results showed that
subjects inferred a pro-Castro attitude
from a pro-Castro speech and an antiCastro attitude from an anti-Castro
speech when the speeches were said to
have been written under conditions of
free choice.
Jones and Harris (1967)
However, contradicting Jones and Harris'
hypothesis, when the subjects were
specifically told that the speech makers gave
either a pro- or an anti-Castro speech solely
as the result of a coin flip (random), the
subjects still rated the people who gave the
pro-Castro speeches as having, on average, a
more positive attitude towards Castro than
those giving anti-Castro speeches.
Actor-observer difference Jones and
Nisbett (1971)
Cognitive Dissonance
Festinger (1957) Dissonance = confusion,
uncertainty which once resolved leads us to
reinforce our decision and stop us considering
alternative courses of action.
Bem’s Self-perception theory, if we behave in
certain ways, we will restructure our attitudes
to fit. (Unless forced).
Bem’s Self-perception theory
Bem is perhaps best known for his theory of
"self-perception" as the most oft-cited
competitor to Leon Festinger's cognitive
dissonance theory.
According to the self-perception account,
people infer their attitudes from their own
behavior much as an outside behavior might,
so a person asked to give a pro-Fidel Castro
speech would subsequently view themselves
as being more in favor of Castro.
Group Processes
Conformity
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Asch
Sheriff
Non-conformity = rejection
Asch
Asch
Asch showed bars like those in the Figure to
college students in groups of 8 to 10.
He told them he was studying visual
perception and that their task was to decide
which of the bars on the right was the same
length as the one on the left.
Asch asked the students to give their answers
aloud.
He repeated the procedure with 18 sets of
bars.
Asch
Only one student in each group was a real
subject. All the others were confederates who
had been instructed to give incorrect answers
on 12 of the 18 trials.
Asch arranged for the real subject to be the
next-to-the-last person in each group to
announce his answer so that he would hear
most of the confederates incorrect responses
before giving his own.
Would he go along with the crowd?
Asch
To Asch's surprise, 37 of the 50 subjects
conformed to the majority at least once,
and 14 of them conformed on more
than 6 of the 12 trials. When faced with
a unanimous wrong answer by the
other group members, the mean
subject conformed on 4 of the 12 trials.
Asch
Sherif
Sherif's experiment involved the
so-called autokinetic effect
whereby a point of light in an
otherwise totally dark environment
will appear to move randomly.
Subjects were invited to estimate
the amount of 'movement' they
observed.
Sherif
They made their estimates in
groups where each member could
hear the others' estimates.
Ultimately, the group members'
estimates converged on a middleof-the-road 'group estimate'.
Non-conformity
Think about those who were not
obedient in Milgram
And the few prisoners who did not
conform in Zimbardo’s prison
experiment
De-individuation
Zimbardo 1969
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In one study, participants were rendered
anonymous by clothing them in oversized
lab coats and hoods, compared with normal
clothes and name tags in the control
condition.
The participants' task was to shock a
confederate in a situation similar to the
classic Milgram studies on obedience.
De-individuation
Zimbardo 1969
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Using groups of female students,
Zimbardo demonstrated that
anonymous participants shocked
longer (and therefore more painfully)
than identifiable participants, in
confirmation of his theory.
De-individuation
Zimbardo 1973
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Stanford University Prison Experiment
Key evaluation points
These social processes see the criminal as
acting a social role within society and his
behaviour being determined by situations,
peer pressure and then attitude change
leading to criminal behaviour.
If this is the explanation of criminal
behaviour, why do the majority not end up
criminal? It does explain why they stay
criminal while in the same social groups.
Key evaluation points
Methodological evaluation: Most of the
research is experimental therefore lacks
ecological validity, has high demand
characteristics, may show experimenter bias
by the choice of activity for participants and
the participants can only show a limited range
of behaviour.
Can show cause and effect, is well controlled,
careful sampling though usually university
students and mostly male (but so are
criminals).