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Social Psychology
Chapter 16
Social Psychology
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The scientific study of the ways in which
the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of
one individual are influenced by the real,
imagined, or inferred behavior or
characteristics of other people
Impression Formation
What do we think of others’ behavior?
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Primacy effect: early information is a
greater determinant of attitudes
– Early information about someone makes a
greater impact than later information in
forming impressions
– “Cognitive Misers”
 Humans don’t like to spend too much time figuring
people out
 Go with the initial impression to save time
Self-fulfilling prophecy
 Stereotyping
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Attribution:
How do we explain behavior?
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Theory that addresses the question of how
people make judgments about the causes of
behavior
– e.g. “Why did I fail the test?”
– e.g. “Why did my best friend stop talking to me?”
Personal vs. Situational attribution
 Fundamental Attribution Error
 Self-Serving Bias
 Just-World Hypothesis
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Attitudes
Is a person’s behavior a reflection of his/her attitudes?
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Attitudes are relatively stable beliefs, feelings, and
behaviors directed toward something/someone
Sources of Attitudes: imitation, peers, role models, mass
media
Attitude Change
– Persuasion – Central vs. Peripheral Route
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Roles e.g. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study (1971)
Mere Exposure Effect
Cognitive Dissonance Theory – Leon Festinger
Conformity – unspoken pressure to go along with group e.g.
Asch Experiment
Compliance – spoken request
Obedience – command (e.g. Milgram experiment)
Group Influence
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Social Facilitation: In the presence of others, performance is stronger on
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Altruistic behavior: helping behavior that is not linked to
personal gain
easier tasks
– Bystander effect and Diffusion of Responsibility: Helpfulness decreases
as bystanders increase
– Kitty Genovese Case and the bystander effect
Deindividuation: Loss of personal sense of responsibility in a
group
 Risky Shift: Increased willingness of individual to take risks
when making decisions as a group as opposed to making
decisions as individuals.
 Group Polarization: Shift of the group toward a more extreme
position following group discussion between like-minded
individuals
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Group Decision Making:
Effectiveness of Groups
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The more people in the group…
– The more stable the group is
– The less cohesive/efficient the group may become
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Social loafing
– Tendency to expend less effort when part of a large group
– Decrease in individual accountability
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Groupthink
– Pressure to conform to group makes everyone in the group have
same beliefs and attitudes
– Realistic and logical decision making gives way to the desire to have
consensus amongst group members
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Hawthorne Effect
– Behavior improves when one is being studied by others
– Based on studies of Hawthorne Works Electric Factory (1924-1932)
Prejudice and Discrimination
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Prejudice
– An intolerant, unfavorable, and rigid attitude toward a
group of people; negative stereotypes.
– Ultimate Attribution Error: tendency to use
stereotyped beliefs about a group to make internal
attributions about shortcomings and external
attributions about successes.
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Discrimination
– An act or series of acts that denies opportunities and
social esteem to an entire group of people or
individual members of that group
Sources of Prejudice:
Where does it come from?
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Frustration-aggression theory
– People who are frustrated in their goals may turn their anger away
from the proper target toward another, less powerful target
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Authoritarian personality
– Personality pattern characterized by rigid conventionality, exaggerated
respect for authority, and hostility toward those who defy social norms
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Racism
– Prejudice and discrimination directed at particular racial group based on
the belief that certain groups are innately inferior
– Institutionalized Racism
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Scapegoat Theory
– Blame others for when things go wrong for us
– Tendency is to blame a “weaker” group/group in minority
– e.g. antisemitism during the plague or during the economic depression
of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe
Inducing Prejudice: Jane Elliot
Elementary education teacher Jane Elliot
wanted to teach her class about
discrimination after the assassination of
Martin Luther King.
 She designed an experiment to show how
easily children could be transformed into
prejudiced monsters.
 A Class Divided: video on Elliot’s work
 Update on the Elliot experiment with Phil
Zimbardo
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Reducing Prejudice
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Recategorization
– Assumes prejudice can be linked to categorization, or
how we group - usually based on stereotypes
– Try to expand our schema for a particular group
– What qualities are shared between groups?
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Controlled processing
– Train ourselves to be more mindful of people who differ
from us
– Think about examples that fall outside the stereotypes
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Improving contact between groups
– Group members must have equal status
– Need one-on-one contact with other group
– Relations are improved when groups come together to
cooperate
– Social norms should encourage contact
Leadership
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Great person theory
– Personal qualities qualify one to lead
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Right place-right time theory
– Circumstances are optimal for individual with
particular characteristics
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Fielder’s Contingency Theory
– Depends on the traits of the leader, the
circumstances, and the interaction of the group itself.
– Task-Oriented vs. Relationship Oriented Leaders
– In extreme circumstances – very good or very bad –
best to be task oriented.
– In moderate circumstances, best to be relationship
oriented.