Download Chapter 2: Psychology As a Science

Chapter 14: Social Psychology
Chapter Outline
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Social cognition: Attitudes
Social cognition: Attributions
Social forces
Social relations
Social functioning: What happens in the brain?
Disorders of social functioning: When things go
wrong
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Social Psychology
 Social psychology seeks to understand, explain,
and predict how people’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others
 “It is not so much the kind of person a man is, as
the kind of situation in which he finds himself that
determines how he will act” (Milgram, 2004)
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Social Psychology
 Following the
Vancouver Canucks’
loss to the Boston
Bruins on June 15,
2011, rioters moved
through downtown
Vancouver smashing
windows and looting
stores
 Many Vancouverites
went downtown the
morning after the riot
to help clean up.
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Social Cognition: Attitudes
 Social cognition—how people perceive, interpret,
and categorize their own and others’ social behaviour
 Attitudes—relatively stable and enduring
evaluations of things and people
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Attitudes
 ABC model of attitudes
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The affective component—how we feel toward the object
The behavioural component—how we behave toward the object
The cognitive component—what we believe about the object
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Attitudes
 Attitudes: How we develop
 Beliefs
develop early through socialization by
parents, peers, media, and teachers
 How do attitudes change?
 Attitudes
can change to justify new behaviours
Example: You recycle, so you change your
attitude about global warming to justify why you
recycle
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How Do Attitudes Change?
 Cognitive dissonance—emotional discomfort as a
result of holding contradictory beliefs or holding a
belief that contradicts behaviour
 We change our beliefs to justify (or match) our
actions
 Self-perception theory—when uncertain, we infer
what our attitudes are by observing our own
behaviour
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Cognitive Dissonance
 Subjects who were paid
$1.00 for “talking up” the
tasks reported the tasks to
be more enjoyable than
those who were paid
$20.00. Why?
 What happens when
children are given explicit
financial rewards for doing
homework?
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Do Attitudes Influence Behaviour?
 Can we predict a person’s
behaviour if we know their
attitudes?
 Attitudes people express
are not necessarily related
to how they actually behave
 Attitude specificity—the
more specific an attitude,
the more likely it is to
predict behaviour
 Attitude strength—stronger
attitudes predict behaviour
more accurately than weak
or vague attitudes
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Are People Honest About Their Attitudes?
• Would you tell the truth if
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your doctor asked you how much alcohol you
consume each month?
your mother asked you if you were studying every
day?
your significant other asked if you were ever
attracted to another person?
your professor asked you if you loved the class?
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Implicit Attitude
 Implicit attitude—an attitude of which the person
is unaware
 To change explicit attitudes: guided exposure to
groups toward which prejudiced beliefs are held
work best
 To change implicit attitudes: fear reduction and
emotion-focused interventions are best to reduce
implicit prejudice
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Stereotypes and Prejudice
 Stereotypes—generalized impressions based on
social categories
 May be positive or negative
 Examples: age, race, beliefs
 Prejudice—negative stereotypical attitudes toward
all members of a group
 Examples: racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism
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Prejudice in Canada
 Overt racism and sexism has
decreased in both Canada and
the United States
 These have always been and
continue to be lower in
Canada
 Many Canadians have some
implicit negative attitudes
toward black individuals
 There has been a long history
in Canada of prejudice and
negative attitudes toward the
Aboriginal population
 This has a negative effect
on their overall health
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Contributors to Stereotypes and Prejudice
 Categorize based on similarities
Provides information about who we are (in-group)
 Provides information about who others are (out-group)
 Evolutionary perspective—stereotypes and prejudice may have had
some adaptive value
 Early humans needed to quickly identify other figures as friends
or foes
 Pre-wired to perceive different groups as inferior
 Realistic conflict theory
 Amount of actual conflict between groups determines the amount
of prejudice between groups
 Social identity theory
 Emphasizes social cognitive factors in the onset of prejudice
 Social categorization, social identity, social comparison

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Attitudes and the Power of Persuasion
• Central route to
persuasion—focuses on
content, factual
information, and logic to
change attitudes
•
Example: Factual
information
• Peripheral route—focuses
on superficial
information to change
attitudes

Example: Attractive
spokesperson, catchy jingle
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Persuasion Strategies
 Source
Is knowledgeable and likable
 Is similar to us
 Presents both sides of an issue
 Foot-in-the-door—get them to agree to something small so they will
agree to something larger later
 Someone asks if you will put a campaign sign on your lawn. A week
later, they ask if you would be willing to donate money to the
campaign.
 Door-in-the-face—ask for something very big knowing you will get
turned down, but then ask for the smaller item you really wanted
 Example: “Dad, can I borrow $100? No? Well how about $10?”
 Appeals to fear—ads make it seem like something bad will happen if you
do not comply

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Social Cognition: Attributions
• Attributions—causal explanations of behaviour.
• Dispositional (internal) attribution—the behaviour
was caused because of the person
 Situational (external) attribution—the behaviour
was caused by the situation
 We tend to rely on situational attributions when
explaining our own behaviour
 Fundamental attribution error—the tendency
to use dispositional attributions to explain the
behaviour of other people
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Fundamental Attribution Error
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The Actor-Observer Effect
 We tend to make situational attributions about
our own behaviour and personal attributions
about the behaviour of others.
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Exceptions to the Rule
 When we don’t attribute others’ behaviour to their
disposition:
 When most people would behave in the same way
 When we have details about situational factors
 When we don’t attribute our behaviour to our situation:
 When our behaviour is positive
 Example: I got an A because I studied and learned
the material
 Self-serving bias—tendency to attribute successes to
dispositional causes and failures to situational causes
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Norms and Social Roles
 Norms—social rules about how members of a
society are expected to act
 Provide order and predictability
 Example:
How you ride in an elevator
 Social role—a set of norms ascribed to a person’s
social position
 Positive effect: Society functions smoothly
 Negative effect: People are often limited by their
prescribed social roles
 Example:
In the family, at work, in the community
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Norms
 Descriptive norms—agreed-
on expectations about what
members of a group do
 Injunctive norms—agreedon expectations about what
members of a group ought to
do
 Norms can be explicit
(openly stated) or implicit
(not openly stated)
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The Power of Roles
The Stanford Prison Experiment
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Male students were randomly assigned to play the role of
either prisoners or guards for a two-week experiment
Within hours the “guards” had begun humiliating their
“prisoner” peers
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Physical punishments, denied bathroom privileges and food
Students assigned to the prisoner role typically became
passive, depressed, and disorganized
Zimbardo shut down this experiment after six days
There are many ethical concerns about this experiment
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Roles, Gender, and Social Skills
 Social roles and socialization are used to explain
gender differences
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Females—read non-verbal social cues more accurately than
males, are more expressive with their faces and bodies, feel
more empathy for the emotional experiences of others, and act
friendlier in group discussions
Males tend to focus on the tasks in group activities, to emerge
as leaders, to adopt more authoritarian and less participative
styles
 Gender differences in social skill, empathy,
leadership have decreased
 Group differences do not allow attributions about
individuals in either group
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Conformity
 Conformity—the
tendency to yield to social
pressure
 The Asch studies
 Results show strong effects
of social pressure
 Key factor is group
unanimity
 Size of the group affects
its influence
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Group Size and Conformity
 A key factor in
conformity is
group size.
 Asch found that
the conformity
effect is not strong
when the group’s
size is less than
four members.
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Milgram’s Obedience Study
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Factors that Reduce Obedience
 Obedience—the act of following direct commands,
usually given by an authority figure
 Factors that reduce obedience
 Salience of a victim’s suffering—the suffering is
obvious
 Proximity or closeness to the victim
 Responsibility—placing the “learner’s” hand on a
shock plate to administer the shock
 Modelling a non-obedient person
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Social Relations
 Group—an organized, stable collection of
individuals in which the members are aware of and
influence one another and share a common identity
 Group dynamics—how membership or participation
in a group influences our thoughts and behaviours
Group productivity—optimal group size depends on task
 Social facilitation—improvement in performance
because others are present
 Recent research considers one’s interpretations of and
reactions to others’ presence
 Operates for both physical and mental tasks

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Social Relations
 Group dynamics (continued)
 Social loafing—exert less effort in a group task than
one would in an individual task
 More so in large groups
 Less in highly cohesive groups
 People from Western cultures display more than people
from Eastern cultures and men more than women
 Group polarization—initial attitudes become more
intense with group interaction
 Groupthink—faulty group decision making as a result
of trying too hard to agree
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Social Facilitation
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Helping Behaviour
 Why do we help?
 Altruism—self-sacrificing
behaviour carried out
for the benefit of others
 Bystander effect (apathy)—the more people
present, the less likely any one person will attempt
to help
Diffusion of responsibility—we are less likely to
assist in a large group because responsibility to
help is shared
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Bystander Intervention
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Aggression
 Aggression—broad category of behaviours
intended to harm others, including physical and
verbal attacks
Genetic component
 Associated with high levels of testosterone and low levels
of serotonin
 Gender differences in aggression
 Women—relational aggression
• Snubbing, gossiping, and exclusion from groups
 Men—direct aggression
• Verbal and physical abuse

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Aggression and Time of Year
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Interpersonal Attraction
 Three levels of attraction: cognitive, affective, behavioural
 Five key factors linked to liking (fondness and affection for
another person)
 Similarity
 Proximity
 Self-disclosure
 Situational factors
 Physical attractiveness
 Triangular theory of love—involves intimacy, passion, and
commitment
 Developed by Robert Sternberg
 Eight types of love
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Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
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Stages of Relationships
 Stages of a loving relationship
 Exploration
stage—the partners try out the
possible rewards and costs of a relationship
 Bargaining stage—they implicitly negotiate the
terms of the relationship
 Institutionalization stage—shared expectations
emerge and the relationship is exclusive
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Types of Relationships
 Types of lovers
 Secure
attachment styles—are comfortable, do not
fear becoming too close or being abandoned; 53%
of adults
 Avoidant—uncomfortable, have difficulty trusting
others; 26% of adults
 Anxious-ambivalent—insecure and worry that
their partners do not really love them and will
leave; 20% of adults
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Social Functioning:
What Happens in the Brain?
Brain regions key for social functioning:
 Orbitofrontal cortex—involved in social reasoning, reward
evaluation, reading other people, and eliciting emotional
states
 Ventromedial prefrontal cortex—key in processing of
rewards and punishments, interpreting non-verbal social
information (such as facial expressions), making social and
moral assessments and decisions, and feeling empathy
 Insula—plays a key role in empathy and in reading others
 Amygdala—helps to identify emotional facial expressions of
other people and to pay attention to stimuli that may be
unpredictable, potentially rewarding, or potentially
punishing
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Size of Prefrontal Cortex and Social
Behaviour
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Disorders of Social Functioning
 Social anxiety disorder—extreme and persistent fear
of social situations in which embarrassment may occur; fear
social circumstances
 Avoidant personality disorder—social withdrawal
and hypersensitivity to rejection and criticism; feel
inadequate; fear close social relationships
 Dependent personality disorder—excessive need
to be taken care of and a fear of separation; excessively
obedient under all circumstances
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Autism-Spectrum Disorders
 Autism—a severe disorder marked by extreme
unresponsiveness, poor communication skills, and very
repetitive and rigid behaviours
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Self-stimulatory behaviours
Self- injurious behaviours
Cause—fail to develop a theory of mind; genetic factors; prenatal
difficulties or birth complications; brain abnormalities
Treatments—behavioural therapy, communication training,
parent training, psychotropic drugs
 Asperger’s disorder—a disorder in which people have
major social impairments yet maintain relatively normal
intellectual, adaptive, and language skills
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