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Social Psychology
How humans think about,
relate to, and influence others
Social psychology
• Two major assumptions
– Behavior is driven by context
– Subjective perceptions guide our behavior
Conformity and obedience
• Social norms
– Conclusions:
• Anxiety prevents us from breaking norms
• We need to justify our actions
• Context directs our feelings and behavior
Conformity and obedience
• Would you resist group pressure?
– Most people say “Yes”
– Studies say: Probably not.
• Asch
• Milgram
Asch study
•Demonstrates suggestibility as a form of conformity.
Milgram study
• Subjects believed they were participating in a
study on the effects of punishment on learning
• Milgram found that obedience is highest when:
– Authority figure is ___________ & _______________
– Victim is _____________ & ________________
– Disobedience has not been modeled
Conformity and obedience
Conditions that strengthen conformity:
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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.
Conformity and obedience
• Why do we conform?
– To be ______________
– To be ______________
– To be ______________
Group influence
• Individual behavior is influenced by the
presence of others
– Social facilitation
– Social loafing
– Disindividuation
Group influence
• Individual behavior may also influence
the behavior of the group
Group influence
• Group behavior is influenced by the
interactions within a group
– Group polarization
– Groupthink
Social relations
• How we relate to one another through a
variety of attitudes and actions
– Prejudice
– Attraction
Prejudice
• An unjustifiable, mostly unconscious,
attitude toward a group and its members
• Schema
– Beliefs
– Emotions
– Predisposition to act
• Discrimination = behavior
• How common is prejudice?
– Implicit association test
Social roots of prejudice
• Social inequalities increase prejudice
• Social divisions increase prejudice
• Emotional scapegoating
Cognitive roots of prejudice
• Categorization
• Availability heuristic
• Just-world phenomenon
Attraction
• Influenced by:
– Proximity
– Physical attractiveness
– Similarity
Romantic love
• Passionate love
– Intense attraction, based on arousal
– Temporary
• Companionate love
– Enduring attachment based on
mutual interests, values and
commitment
• Equity
• Intimacy
Social thinking
• Attribution theory - our interpretation about
the cause of someone else’s behavior
– Dispositional attribution
– Situational attribution
• Fundamental attribution error
• Self-serving bias
Attitudes and actions
• Attitudes are influence how we feel and
act
– Attitudes direct our behavior
– Can actions can direct attitudes?
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison
Experiment
• Examined the effects of role playing on
attitudes and behavior
– Assigned volunteers to play the role of
prisoner or prison guard
– Role playing can have a strong effect on
beliefs
Cognitive dissonance
• Tension that results from opposition
between actions and beliefs
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
• Strategy for gaining compliance
– People who agree to a small request will later
agree to a larger request
• Charities
• Alliances
Can attitudes be legislated?
• Can people’s beliefs be changed by
creating laws that enforce specific
behaviors?