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Social Psychology
Social Psychology
Social
Psychology: the study of how
we think about, influence, and
relate to one another
Three
 Social
main focuses:
Influence
 Social Thinking
 Social Relations
Social Influence
Outline



Social Norms
Conformity
Obedience
Social Influence

What would happen if:
 You cut into the middle of a
checkout line at the store?
 You sang loudly on a public
bus?
 You positioned yourself 6
inches from an acquaintance’s
nose during a conversation?
 You laughed during a funeral?

How would you feel? How
would others behave?
Social Influence
Social
norms: Rules that tell us how
we should behave in specific
situations
Most
time
people obey them most of the
Those
who don’t conform are often
subject to social sanctions
Social Influence: Social Norms
 Descriptive norms:
What we think people do

i.e., people litter
 Injunctive
norms:
What people ought to do

i.e., “people should not litter”
 Situational
norms:
What people do in specific
situations

i.e., you lower your voice in the
library
Conformity
 Conformity:
Adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a group standard

Follow behavior of others (sheep)
Conformity
 Chameleon

Effect
(Chartrand & Bargh, 1999)
Unconscious mimicking of others’
behaviors
Conformity
Why
do we conform?

Normative Social Influence: Influence
resulting from a person’s desire to gain
approval or avoid rejection

Informational
Social Influence:
Influence resulting
from a person’s
desire for info
Normative Social Influence
 Why
do we conform?
Because we want to be liked
 To avoid embarrassment or ridicule

 When
do we conform?
Cohesive groups
 Large group size

Hell’s Angels
Informational Social Influence
 Why
do we conform?
 Because
we want to be right
 Because others may know more about the
situation
 When
do we conform?
 Situation
is ambiguous
 Situation is a crisis
 Other people are experts
Conformity
 The
Sherif study (1936)

Autokinetic effect: A stationary point of light appears
to move in a dark room without any external frame of
reference

Participants first asked to estimate how far the light
moved alone

Would judgments become more similar when making
estimates as a group?
Conformity
 The
Sherif study (1936)

Enter the same dark room with 2 others

Tell how far the light is moving

The others give very different answers from yours
but are consistent with each other

Over time, groups formed a new estimate of how far
the light moved despite the fact that the light never
actually moved at all
Conformity: Asch Study
The

Asch study (1951,1955)
Which comparison line matches the standard line?
Conformity
The
Asch study (1951,1955)
 Method:
Perceptual test of line lengths
 1 participant and 6 confederates
 Confederates start out saying the correct line,
then begin saying the wrong line
 Participants gave their answers after a
unanimous group gave the wrong answer

Conformity: Asch Study
 Results:
 76%
of participants conformed at least once
 Overall, participants agreed with the errors
37% of the time
Conformity
When
won’t we conform?
 Maintenance
of individuality
 Maintenance of life control
 Having an “ally”
Social Influence: Summary so far…
Social
norms
Conformity
 Chameleon
Effect
 Social influence
Normative
 Informational

 Asch
Study
COMPLIANCE
21
COMPLIANCE
 Agreeing
to a request from another
person or group
 Why do we comply?
 Foot-in-the-door technique

Ask for compliance to small request 1st,
then larger request
 Door-in-the-face

technique
Ask for compliance to larger request;
denial; then smaller request
22
Obedience
Obedience
 Obedience:
Expression of compliance
toward an authority
Conformity
Obedience
Obedience
 Stanley
Milgram
 Interested
in
unquestioning
obedience to orders
Stanley Milgram
(1933-1984)
Obedience (Milgram, 1963)

Basic study procedure
 Participants
= “Teacher”
 Confederates = “Learner”
“Learner” being
strapped into chair
Obedience (Milgram, 1963)
 “Teacher”
instructed to give
increasingly
stronger shocks for
each “learner”
mistake
Obedience (Milgram, 1963)
 Predictions


Experts thought only 1-3% would keep going
Experts also thought that they themselves would
never obey
 Results
Obedience (Milgram, 1963)
Obedience (Milgram, 1963)
 Predictions


Experts thought only 1-3% would keep going
Experts also thought that they themselves would
never obey
 Results




100% obeyed up to 100 volts
65% obeyed to the end (450 volts)
Women and men obeyed similarly
More or less the same across cultures
Milgrim Video
Obedience
 What
factors affect tendency to obey?
Lack of responsibility
 Social norms: obey the person in charge
 Foot in the door technique: gradual
escalation of requests
 Time pressure

Obedience
Hospital Medication Study
(Hofling et al, 1966)
 Method


Nurses received calls from MD
Asked to give patients doses of 2x maximum
 Findings

95% of nurses went to administer a fatal dose of
the drug
Obedience
Hospital Medication Study 2
(Rank & Jacobson, 1977)

Method
 Repeated earlier study
 Used more common drug (Valium)
 Nurses were able to consult with others about dosage

Findings
 12% of nurses went to administer a fatal dose

Conclusion:
 People more likely to resist authority with knowledge
and social support
Obedience
How can we resist obeying?
Reminders of responsibility
 Disobedient models
 Question expertise of authority
 Knowledge

Social Influence: Summary
 Social
Norms
 Conformity
 Obedience


Milgram’s Study
Factors affecting obedience
Social Influence
Group Influence
Group Influence

Social Loafing: Tendency to
exert less effort when working
toward a common goal

Diffusion of responsibility: Less
personal responsibility for task
when responsibility is spread
across group members

Explanation for bystander
effect
DEINDIVIDUATION

Deindividuation: Loss of
self-awareness and self-restraint
in group situations that foster
arousal and anonymity
Mob behavior
39
GROUP POLARIZATION &
GROUPTHINK
 Group

Polarization
Strengthening of
group’s opinion on a
topic following
discussion of the
topic
 Groupthink



Impairment in
decision-making
Group harmony
emphasized
Illusion of infallibility
40
Social Facilitation

Presence of others exaggerates dominant tendency
 If you are good, you get better


On simple, well learned tasks
If you are bad, you get worse

On complex poorly learned tasks

Social Enhancement
 Tendency to perform better when others are present

Social Interference
 Tendency to perform worse when others are present
Social Facilitation
Social enhancement
Dominant tendency - to do well
Presence
Of others
Exaggeration of
Dominant Tendency
Social interference
Dominant tendency - to do poorly
Social Influence: Summary
 Social
Norms
 Conformity
 Obedience
 Group Influence



Social Loafing
Deindividuation
Social Facilitation


Social enhancement
Social interference
Social Thinking
Outline
Cognitive
Heuristics & Biases
 Self-Serving
Attitudes
Biases
Cognitive Heuristics & Biases
What
is a heuristic?
 Rule
of thumb for
making decisions
Why
do we need
heuristics?
 Allows
quick decisions
 Efficiency of thinking
Cognitive Heuristics & Biases
Self-Serving
Bias: The tendency to
view oneself favorably
Examples:
 False
Consensus
 False Uniqueness
 Fundamental
Attribution Error
False Consensus
The
“everyone-does-it” effect
Tendency to overestimate the
commonality of one’s opinions and
undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors
We justify our actions
through the behavior
and opinions of the group
False Consensus
 “Everybody
says I’m plastic from head to
toe. Can’t stand next to a radiator or I’ll
melt. I had implants, but so has every
single person in L.A.”
- Pamela Anderson
False Consensus Applied
 Racism/Sexism/Ageism/Heterosexism

If you have ist/ism attitudes you tend to think
they are common
 Risky

Behavior
Drunk driving
 Aggression

Road Rage
Compared to all other drivers in the state, I am
___________ average.
A) Better than
B) The same as
C) Worse than
Compared to people in this classroom, I am...
A) Smarter than most
B) As smart as most
C) Less smart than most
False Uniqueness
 The
 The
“I-Am-Special” effect
tendency to underestimate the
commonality of one’s abilities and one’s
desirable/successful behaviors
False Uniqueness Applied
 Charitable contributions
 Just giving makes you special so
you don’t need to give much
 Intelligence & Group work
 The group should follow my advice
because I am smarter
 I should get the promotion not
others
 Attraction
 Everyone wants me because I am
so ridiculously good looking
Fundamental Attribution Error
 The
tendency to overestimate the influence
of personality and underestimate the
influence of the situation on others’ behavior
 Translation
We blame the person
(not the situation)
when it happens to
someone else
 We blame the situation (not the person) when it
happens to us

Fundamental Attribution Error
 Castro

(Jones & Harris, 1967)
Method:




Study
Debaters randomly assigned to argue for or against
Fidel Castro
Participants told that debaters were assigned their
role
Participants rated debaters “actual beliefs”
Findings:

> 40% said debater believed what she/he was saying
Fundamental Attribution Error
 Also,
the tendency to
overestimate the
influence of
personality when we
succeed
 And
overestimate the
influence of situation
when we fail
Fundamental Attribution Error
 Attraction


Study
(Ditto et al., 1997)
Method:
 Female RAs talked to hetero male participants
 RAs were assigned to give positive or negative
feedback to participants
Findings:
 Negative comments viewed as due to the
assignment (situation)
 Positive comments
viewed as due to
attraction (person)
Summary so far…
Cognitive
heuristics & biases
 Self-serving
biases
False consensus
 False uniqueness
 Fundamental attribution error

Attitudes
Attitudes
 Attitudes:
Feelings (often based on our
beliefs) that predispose us to respond in a
particular way to objects, people, and
events
 Attitudes
affect
our actions
Attitudes
 Actions
also affect our attitudes
 Cognitive
Dissonance Theory
People feel discomfort when their actions
conflict with their feelings and beliefs
 They reduce discomfort by aligning their
attitudes with their actions
 Self-Perception Theory
 Infer attitude from behavior

Attitudes – Role Playing
 Actions
such as roles and role-playing also
affect our attitudes
 Our

attitudes will start to align with our role
Ex. Caregiver
 Stanford
Prison Experiment
(Zimbardo, 1971)
Participants divided into “prisoners” or
“guards”
 See what happens…

Stanford Prison Study
(Zimbardo, 1971)
 What
was unethical about this study?
 What
did we learn?
Importance of roles in attitudes and behavior
 Conformance to roles

 Applications
for
prisoner’s of war?
Abu Ghraib
 Gitmo

Abu
Ghraib
Social Thinking: Summary
Cognitive
heuristics & biases
Attitudes
 Cognitive
dissonance theory
 Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
 Role-playing

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Social Relations
Attraction
Attraction: Outline
 Introduction
to attraction
 Factors influencing attraction
Introduction to Attraction
What are the most important characteristics
in a long-term mate?
 Four
most important characteristics in a
partner cross-culturally (Buss et al., 1990)
Mutual attraction and love
 Dependable character
 Emotional stability
 Pleasing disposition

Introduction to Attraction
Why do we select certain mates? Why do we
select certain friends?
Three factors influence liking others
1.
2.
3.
Proximity (geographical)
Physical attractiveness
Similarity
Proximity
 The

Power of Proximity
Physical closeness between two individuals
 Mere


Repeated exposure results in
increasingly positive evaluation
Ex. Zajonc (1968)
 How

Exposure Effect
does proximity work?
Familiar = positive
Proximity
 How


does proximity work?
Increases familiarity which increases positive affect
Ex: Attending class
Proximity
Upon getting home on Friday, you see your annoying
neighbor coming and you decide to take the stairs
Later you are at a nearby party, will you talk to:
A) People you don’t know?
 B) No one (wait for friends to get there)?
 C) The annoying neighbor?

Proximity
Upon getting home on Friday, you see your annoying
neighbor coming and you decide to take the stairs
Later you are at a nearby party, will you talk to:
A) People you don’t know?
 B) No one (wait for friends to get there)?
 C) The annoying neighbor?

Physical Attractiveness
 “What

is beautiful is good”
Positive stereotypes related to
attractiveness across cultures
 Influences

Ex: Healthier, happier,
more sensitive, more successful
 Influences

perceptions
social opportunities
Popularity, good interpersonal skills, high selfesteem
Physical Attractiveness
Do other physical characteristics
influence attraction?
 Physique

Men’s height


Leadership and masculinity
Physical shape

Muscular & thinner seen as higher IQ
 Overt
behavior
Physical Attractiveness
Does facial appearance affect one’s likelihood of
winning an election?
Election Study (Todorov et al.)

Method
800 participants looked at black-andwhite photos of candidates
 Participants viewed faces for <1 sec
 Judged personality characteristics, age,
IQ, attractiveness


Results
Participants correctly identified the
winner in about 70% of the races
 Competency associated with facial
maturity (less “baby-faced”)


Which of the following proverbs is true?
A.
B.
C.
“Birds of a feather flock together”
“Opposites attract”
Both are probably true

Which of the following proverbs is true?
A.
B.
C.
“Birds of a feather flock together”
“Opposites attract”
Both are probably true
Similarity
 “Birds

of a feather, flock together”
Across gender, age, culture, education
 Similar
= positive
(dissimilar = negative)
 Similar
people seen as
intelligent, moral, and better adjusted
Similarity
How does similarity work?

Reward Theory
Like behavior that is rewarding to us
 Principles of reinforcement


We like positive evaluations (even if inaccurate or
insincere)

e.g., eye contact, moving closer
Attraction: Summary
 Introduction
to attraction
 Factors influencing attraction



Proximity
Physical attractiveness
Similarity