Download Social Psychology

 What is social psychology?
 What is person perception?
 What is a schema?
 What is illusory correlation?
 What’s fundamental attribution error?
 What’s self fulfilling prophesy?
 What’s attribution? Fundamental attribution error?
 Internal vs. external attributions?
 What’s self serving bias?
 Individualist vs collective societies?
 Persuasion techniques?
 Stanley Milgram’s experiment?
 Jane Elliot’s Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment?
 Bystander effect?
 Psychology of attraction?
 What is love?
What is Social Psychology?
Study of how our thoughts, feelings and
behaviors are influenced by others.
Or
How people influence each other.
What is Person perception?
 PP is the process of forming
impressions of others.
 We dress up for job interviews
and maybe dress down for our
friend’s party.
 We might not mention
embarrassing stuff about
ourselves.
Effects of physical appearance
People tend to ascribe desirable
personality characteristics to good
looking people, see them as more
sociable, friendly, poised, warm,
well-adjusted than ugly people.
In reality. . .
Research indicates there is little
correlation between attractiveness and
personality traits.
It sucks to be good looking
Because people tend to downplay our
accomplishments and attribute them to
our good looks.
Interpersonal Attraction
Ladies, which do you prefer?
Although prejudice prevails against women, more people feel
positively toward women than men. Women rated picture b
[feminized] higher (66%) for a matrimonial ad (Perrett & others,
1998).
Professor Dave Perrett, St. Andrews University
Ladies, which do you prefer?
The right one is said to be keener on long
term relationships.
Guys, which do you prefer?
Men think the composite face on the right
is keener on short term sex
Evolutionary Perspective on
attractiveness
Female attractiveness is related to child-bearing
features: big breasts, curvy hips, overall health
and vigor.
Male attractiveness is related to man’s ability to
protect and provide. Women (when ovulating)
like strong shoulders and masculine features.
Otherwise, women like more nurturing qualities.
Facial symmetry is the most consistent factor for
attractiveness.
Social RelationsAttractiveness
 Mere Exposure Effect
 repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases
liking of them
 Conceptions of attractiveness vary by
culture
Proximity
Geographic nearness
Mere exposure
effect:
Repeated exposure
to something breeds
liking.
Reciprocal Liking
You are more likely
to like someone who
likes you.
Why?
Except in
elementary school!!!!
Similarity
Paula Abdul was
wrong- opposites do
NOT attract.
Birds of the same
feather do flock
together.
Similarity breeds
content.
Liking through Association
• Classical
Conditioning can play
a part in attraction.
• I love Theo’s
Wings. If I see the
same waitress every
time I go there, I
may begin to
associate that
waitress with the
good feelings I get
from Theo's.
c
Baby faces
For partners, women prefer baby faced
men, except when they are ovulating.
Women prefer masculine men for affairs.
In terms of competence, we prefer
mature-looking men.
Baby faced men are seen as more
trustworthy, honest, relatively warm,
submissive, helpless and naïve.
Evidence suggests there is no association
between baby-faced features and these
traits.
Masculine men are seen as competent,
strong
Social schemas
Schema – organized clusters of ideas
about something.
In Piaget’s Preoperational stage, children
have schemas about what a dog is. At
first they think a dog is all furry animals
with tails.
Social schema
Organized clusters of ideas about categories of
social events and people.
We act differently at church than we do at a bar.
We categorize people into groups like Emos,
nerds, etc.
We have a schema about how a professor’s office
might look like or how a gangster should dress
or how to write a paper for English.
Stereotypes
Type of schema
A specific characteristic we assume
somebody has because of their social
schema.
Oh, you are from Dallas. You must ride a
horse to work!
Subjectivity in Person
Perception (confirmation
bias?)
We tend to notice behaviors in others that
already fit our preconceived notions. We
notice the Asians who get straight As. We
notice the Emo who cuts themself. We
notice the White guy who can’t dance.
As we learned in the Perception chapter,
we see what we expect to see!
Subjectivity cont. . .
We ignore events that do not fit with our
stereotypes and tell ourselves that that is
a rare exception.
Ex: A redneck with a college degree.
What is Illusory correlation?
Occurs when people think they have
confirmed their stereotypes more than
they actually have.
Ex. Saying you never met an honest lawyer
when in fact you have met a few.
Ex: You think all Black girls are sassy when
in fact you have met many who aren’t.
This is an error because of our confirmation
bias.
Evidence for illusory
correlation.
Subjects watched a video of a woman
listening to classical music, drinking beer,
and watching TV. If the subjects were
told the woman was a librarian, then they
remembered she listened to classical
music. If the subjects were told she was
a waitress, they remember the beer.
Ingroup vs. out-group – just like in a high
school cafeteria, in the wild, animals need
to distinguish friend from foe.
Ingroup bias - Those in our ingroup are
viewed in a positive light, while those in
the outgroup are viewed in terms of
negative stereotypes. (they are inferior,
they are all alike)
Attributions?
Think of the word “attribute”
Attributions are inferences that people
draw about the causes of events, others’
behavior.
How do we explain other people’s
behavior? Our own behavior?
What is Fritz Heider’s Attribution
Theory?
http://www.stedwards.edu
Attribution Theory: Fritz
Heider (1958) suggested
that we have a tendency
to say others’ behavior is
caused by internal and
external attributions.
Fritz Heider
Effects of Attribution
How we explain someone’s behavior affects
how we react to it.
Film
Fundamental Attribution Error
Refers to the observer’s bias in favor of internal
attributions in explaining others’ behavior.
As a teacher, I might assume that a student who
sleeps, doesn’t take notes and doesn’t try is
dumb, lazy and an all around loser. This is
wrong because students have external factors
affecting this reality.
Attributions
We tend to explain our own bad behavior in terms
of external factors. (I am a victim.)
We tend to attribute others’ bad behavior in terms
of internal factors. (They are a stupid loser.)
Ex: We get into a fight. We say it happened to us.
When other people get into a fight, we say those
[insert racial epithet here] were getting aggressive
with each other!
Situational or dispositional
Attributions?
A teen crashes the car. One parent says
it was because of the slippery road.
Another says it’s because he wasn’t
paying attention to driving.
One parent uses dispositional attributes;
the other uses situational attributes.
What is Self Serving Bias?
We attribute our success to
personal/internal factors but attribute our
failures to situational/external factors.
Persuasion Techniques
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people
who have first agreed to a small request to comply later
with a larger request.
Door in the face: ask for something big (a car) then ask
for something small (a cell phone).
Reciprocity: charities give you something like return
address stickers hoping you will donate to their cause.
Stereotypes, Prejudice and
Discrimination
Stereotype:
• Overgeneralized idea
about a group of people.
Prejudice:
• Undeserved (usually
negative) attitude
towards a group of
people. Ethnocentrism
is an example of a
prejudice.
Discrimination:
• An action based on a
prejudice.
Does perception change with race?
Combating Prejudice
Contact Theory
• Contact between hostile groups will reduce
animosity if they are made to work towards a
superordinate goal.
• Mere exposure
Role Playing Affects Attitudes
Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards
and prisoners to random students and found
that guards and prisoners developed roleappropriate attitudes. Self-fulfilling prophesy
Originally published in the New Yorker
Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• People want to have consistent attitudes and
behaviors….when they are not they experience
dissonance (unpleasant tension).
• Usually they will change their attitude.
You have a belief that
cheating on tests is
bad.
But you
cheat on a
test!!!
The teacher
was really bad
so in that
class it is OK.
Cognitive Dissonance
Group Pressure & Conformity
.
Solomon Asch’s conformity
experiment
Which line is equal to the standard line? After
several others said “3” the subject would say
“3”.
William Vandivert/ Scientific American
Asch’s Results
• About 1/3 of the
participants conformed.
• 70% conformed at least
once.
To strengthen conformity:
•
•
•
•
The group is unanimous
The group is at least three
people.
One admires the group’s status
One had made no prior
commitment
Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
The group has at least three people.
The group is unanimous.
One admires the group’s status and attractiveness.
One has no prior commitment to a response.
The group observes one’s behavior.
One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social
standard.
Obedience to authority
Stanley Milgram
designed a study that
investigates the effects of
authority on obedience.
Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
People comply to social
pressures. How would
they respond to outright
command?
Stanley Milgram
(1933-1984)
Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the
film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales
Milgram’s Study
Milgram’s Study: Results
Individual Behavior in the Presence of
Others
Social facilitation: Refers
to improved
performance on tasks in
the presence of others.
We perform better when
we are competing.
Michelle Agnis/ NYT Pictures
Social Facilitation
Social Loafing
The tendency of an individual in a group to
exert less effort toward attaining a common
goal than when tested individually
We pull harder by ourselves!
Prosocial Behavior
• Kitty Genovese case in
Kew Gardens NY.
Bystander Effect:
Conditions in which people are
more or less likely to help one
another. In general…the more
people around…the less chance
of help….because of…
• Diffusion of Responsibility
Pluralistic Ignorance
• People decide what to do by
looking to others.
•
Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in
group situations that foster arousal and
anonymity.
Mob behavior
Bystander Intervention
The decision-making process for bystander
intervention.
Akos Szilvasi/ Stock, oston
Bystander Effect
Tendency of any given
bystander to be less
likely to give aid if other
bystanders are present.
Effects of Group Interaction
Group Polarization
enhances a group’s
prevailing attitudes
through a discussion.
If a group is likeminded, discussion
strengthens its
prevailing opinions
and attitudes.
Groupthink
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for
harmony in a decision-making group overrides the
realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Watergate Cover-up
Chernobyl Reactor Accident
How Prejudiced are People?
Over the duration of time many prejudices
against interracial marriage, gender,
homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.
Racial & Gender Prejudice
Americans today express much less racial and
gender prejudice, but prejudices still exist.
Hindsight Bias
After learning an outcome, the tendency to
believe that we could have predicted it
beforehand may contribute to blaming the
victim and forming a prejudice against them.
“I knew that Asian kid would be
valedictorian!”
Environment
Even environmental temperature can lead to
aggressive acts. Murders and rapes increased
with the temperature in Houston.
Frustration-Aggression Principle
A principle in which frustration (caused by the
blocking of an attempt to achieve a desired goal)
creates anger, which can generate aggression.
Romantic Love
Passionate Love: An aroused state of intense
positive absorption in another, usually present at
the beginning of a love relationship.
Two-factor theory of emotion
1. Physical arousal plus cognitive appraisal
2. Arousal from any source can enhance one
emotion depending upon what we interpret or
label the arousal
Romantic Love
Companionate Love: A deep, affectionate
attachment we feel for those with whom our lives
are intertwined.
Courtship and Matrimony (from the collection of Werner Nekes)