Download OL Chapter 14

Social Psychology
Chapter 14
Social Psychology
Social Thinking
 The Fundamental Attribution Error
 Attitudes and Actions
Social Influence
 Conformity and Obedience
 Group Influence
 Lessons From the Social Influence
Studies
Social Psychology
Social Relations
 Prejudice
 Aggression
 Attraction
 Altruism
 Conflict and Peacemaking
Social Psychology
“We cannot live for ourselves alone.”
Herman Melville
Social psychology is the scientific study of how
we think about, influence, and relate to one
another.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
When analyzing
another’s behavior,
there is a tendency
to overestimate the
influence of
personal traits, and
underestimate the
effects of the
situation
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• Experiment: Even when students were informed
that a young woman had been instructed to act
icy or warm, they still attributed her behavior to
her personal traits (Napolitan & Geothals, 1979)
• Cultural differences
– People in East Asian culture tend to be more
sensitive to the power of situations
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• When we explain our behavior, we are sensitive
to situational influence
– Also for people we have seen in many contexts
• We are more likely to commit the F.A.E. when
we disapprove of the stranger’s behavior
• Taking the stranger’s point of view can help
decrease incidence of the F.A.E.
– Reflecting on our past self also switches our
perspective
Political Effects of Attribution
• How to explain poverty or unemployment?
– Political conservatives often blame the
personal traits of the poor and unemployed
– Social scientists are more likely to blame past
and present situations
• Poor education, lack of opportunity, discrimination,
etc.
Our attributions have real consequences
Attitudes and Actions
• Attitudes are feelings, based on our
beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a
particular way to objects, people, and
events
Attitudes affect Actions
• Particularly when external influences are
minimal, and attitude is stable, specific,
and easily recalled
• Experiment: people given vivid information
changing their attitude
– Informed them about tanning, linking it to skin
cancer
– had lighter skin a month later compared to a
group not having their attitude influenced
Or: Actions affect Attitudes
• Cooperative actions
can build an attitude
of team loyalty
• Attitudes follow
behavior
– Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon
– Role-playing
– Cognitive dissonance
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
• In the Korean War, Chinese communists
solicited cooperation from US army prisoners by
asking them to carry out small errands.
• People who have first agreed to a small request
are more likely to comply later with a larger
request
• To get people to agree to something big, start
small and build
Role-Playing Affects Attitudes
• In many life stages, we take on new roles
– sets of behavioral expectations about a
social position
• May feel phony at first, as if “acting” the
role
– “Fake it until you make it”
Role-Playing Affects Attitudes
• Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards
and prisoners to random students. Guards and
prisoners developed role-appropriate attitudes.
• Individual differences – not everyone gave into
the situation
Why do actions affect attitude?
Cognitive dissonance theory: We feel
discomfort when beliefs don’t match with our
actions or other thoughts. To relieve this
tension, we may change our beliefs and
attitudes to fit our choices
– If we have chosen to support a party or president,
we will change our understandings to fit the
policies
– Foot in the door: if I have taken a small action to
help someone, I decide I must have wanted to
help, and then it’s easier to get me to help more
– Fake it till you make it: Make yourself act kindly,
and kind intentions will grow.
Social Psychology
Social Influence
 Conformity and Obedience
 Group Influence
Conformity and Obedience
• Chameleon effect: we take on the emotional
tones of those around us, imitating others’
expressions, postures, and voice tones
• When students worked beside people who
rubbed their own faces or shook a foot, the
students tended to do so too (Chatrand & Bargh,
1999)
• Automatic mimicry helps us empathize, to feel
what others feel
Group Pressure and Conformity
• Conformity:
adjusting our
behavior or thinking
to coincide with a
group standard
Group Pressure and Conformity
• Solomon Asch (1955) asked “which line is the
same length as the standard?”
– Before subject’s turn to answer, confederates say
“Line 3”
– More than 1/3 of subjects conformed to wrong answer
Group Pressure and Conformity
We are more likely to conform when we
– Are made to feel incompetent or insecure
– Are in a group with at least three people
– Are in a group in which everyone else agrees
– Admire the group’s status and attractiveness
– Have not already committed to any response
– Know that others in the group will observe our
behavior
– Are from a culture that strongly encourages
respect for social standards
Why Do We Conform?
• To avoid rejection or gain approval
– Responding to social norms
• Because we are open-minded and were
convinced by new information from the
group
• Whether conformity is perceived as good
or bad depends on our values
• Conformity rates are lower in individualistic
cultures like the U.S.
Obedience
• People give into social
pressures. What about
outright commands?
• Stanley Milgram (1963)
investigated the effects
of authority on
obedience
The Milgram Experiment
• You, as the “teacher”,
must shock the “learner” if
he gives a wrong answer
• With each wrong answer,
increase the voltage
• The “learner” appears in
pain, the experimenter
says you must continue
Milgram Experiment: Results
More Milgram Obedience Results
• In later experiments, Milgram
found that obedience was highest
when
– The person giving orders was
close at hand and perceive to
be a legitimate authority figure
– The authority figure was
supported by a respected, wellknown institution
– The victim was depersonalized
or at a distance
– There were no role models for
defiance (like this protester)
Lessons from the Conformity and
Obedience Studies
• Social influences can make people
conform to falsehoods or give in to cruelty
“I was only following orders.”
– Adolf Eichmann, Director of Nazi deportation of Jews to
concentration camps
• A consistent and persistent minority voice
can still have a powerful influence
Group Influence
• One of the first social psychology experiments
(Triplett, 1898):
– Adolescents would wind a fishing reel faster in the
presence of someone doing the same thing
• Group Influences
– Social Facilitation
– Social Loafing
– Deindividuation
Social Facilitation
• The presence of others raises arousal levels,
intensifies performance and responses (the
‘faster reeling’ study)
• Social facilitation: stronger responses on
simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of
others
• What you do well, you are likely to do even
better in front of an audience
• Comedy routines seem funnier in a densely
packed room
• However, if the task is hard or new: being
observed worsens performance
Home Team Advantage
Social Loafing
• When performing a task as a group,
people tend to exert less effort toward a
common goal
– Especially common in individualistic cultures
Social Loafing
• People acting as part of a group feel less
accountable, worry less about what others
think of them
• Group members may not believe their
individual contributions make a difference
• People who are not highly motivated, who
don’t identify strongly with the group, may
free-ride on others’ efforts
Deindividuation
• Group situations that foster arousal and
anonymity may lead to a loss of selfawareness and self-restraint
• Experiment: People dressed in a KKK
hood delivered twice as much shock to a
victim as uncovered people did
Group Polarization
• Over time, differences
between groups of
college students tend to
grow
• Group polarization:
strengthening of a
group’s preexisting
attitudes through
discussions within the
group
Groupthink
• In a deeply cohesive group, members may try to
reach consensus without critically evaluating
ideas
• Fed by overconfidence, conformity, selfjustification, and group polarization
• Involved in a number of politically dangerous situations
– Bay of Pigs invasion
– Escalation of Vietnam war
– Chernobyl meltdown
– Challenger explosion
– Iraq War
Social Psychology
Social Relations
 Prejudice
 Aggression
 Attraction
 Altruism
 Conflict and Peacemaking
Prejudice
• An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude
toward a group and its members
• A three-part mixture of:
– Beliefs (stereotypes)
– Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
– being likely to act on the beliefs (discrimination)
How Prejudiced Are People?
• Open prejudice has waned
• Subtle prejudice lingers – many people still feel
uncomfortable with other races
Social Roots of Prejudice
• Social Inequalities
– Many people believe that the world is just and
therefore they get what they deserve, and deserve
what they get (the just-world phenomenon)
– Stereotypes may be used to rationalize inequalities
Ingroup and Outgroup
• We have a need to
belong, and have a
group identity, that
goes back to our
stone age ancestors
– We evolved to make
instant judgments
about strangers
• Ingroup bias: we
have a tendency to
favor our own group
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
• When threatened, people cling more
tightly to their prejudices
• Scapegoat theory: prejudice offers an
outlet for anger by providing someone to
blame
– High levels of prejudice among economically
frustrated people
– In experiments, temporary frustration
increases prejudice
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
• Forming categories
– When we categorize people into social or
ethnic groups, we overestimate their
similarities
– The other-race effect: tendency to recall
faces of one’s own race more accurately than
faces of other races
• Emerges during infancy (between 3 and 9 months)
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
• Remembering vivid cases
– Violent cases are readily available to our
memory and feed our stereotypes
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
• Believing the world is just
– People have a tendency to justify their
culture’s social systems.
– We’re inclined to think that the way things are
is the way they ought to be. This makes it
hard for us to visualize a need to change
inequalities.
Aggression
• Aggression: any verbal or physical
behavior intended to hurt or destroy
• As we’ll see on upcoming slides,
aggression emerges when biology
interacts with experience
The Biology of Aggression
• Genetic Influences
• Neural Influences
• Biochemical Influences
The Biology of Aggression
• Genetic Influences
– Animals may be bred for aggressiveness
– Having a “violent temper” can be influenced
by genes
• Neural Influences
– No one spot in the brain controls aggression
– Certain brain stimulations can either inhibit or
produce aggression
– Violent criminals may have diminished frontal
lobe activity
The Biology of Aggression
• Biochemical Influences
– Testosterone circulates in
the blood, and influences
neural control of
aggression
Muscular young males tend
to have higher levels of
testosterone, and be more
aggressive
– Alcohol also unleashes
aggressive responses to
frustration
The Psychology of Aggression
• Psychological factors that trigger
aggression
– Frustration or rejection
– Learning that aggression is rewarding
– Observing models of aggression
The Psychology of Aggression
Frustration-aggression principle:
• Frustration creates anger, which can generate
aggression
• Feelings of being socially excluded can lead
to aggressive responses
• These factors were at work in various school
shootings
The Psychology of Aggression
• Learning that aggression is rewarding
– Children whose aggression successfully
intimidates other children may become more
aggressive
– Animals that have successfully fought to get
food or mates become more ferocious
The Psychology of Aggression
• Observing models of aggression
– We often imitate what a model says and does
– Aggression Replacement
Training (Goldstein)
works with juvenile
offenders and gang
members and their
parents, teaching new
ways to control anger 
Youths became less likely
to offend (commit violent
acts) again
The Psychology of Aggression
• Observing models of aggression
– Repeatedly watching on-screen violence
makes us less sensitive to cruelty, and primes
us to respond aggressively when provoked
• Teaches us social scripts: culturally modeled
guides for how to act in various situations
– X-rated films and women-hating song lyrics
can teach aggressive and misogynistic
sexual scripts
Other Social Psychology Issues
•
•
•
•
Attraction and Romantic Love
Altruism
Bystander Psychology
Conflict and Cooperation
Attraction
• Special sorts of attachments – close
friendships and romantic love – help us
cope with other relationships
• What is the psychological chemistry that
binds us together?
Psychology of Attraction
Ingredients for attraction:
– Proximity
– Physical attractiveness
– Similarity
Proximity
• People are most inclined to like (and
marry) those who are nearby
• Mere exposure effect: repeated exposure
to novel stimuli increases liking of them
– A Taiwanese man wrote 700+ letters to his
girlfriend proposing marriage. She married the
mailman.
– We are more comfortable with a mirror image
of ourselves than a regular photo
Proximity/Familiarity
• People prefer the candidate whose image
had been (secretly) blended with their own
Physical Attractiveness
• Physical appearance
most important factor in
first impressions
• Behavior toward and
attitudes about others
influenced by their
physical attractiveness –
for both men and
women
“I constantly think about my looks”
Men
Women
Canada
18%
20%
USA
17%
27%
Mexico
40%
45%
Venezuela
47%
65%
In the Eye of the Beholder
• Conceptions of beauty vary with culture and time
• Youthful physical features appear to be
universally considered attractive, at least for
females
Similarity
• Lasting friends and couples are likely to
share attitudes, beliefs, and interests,
among other factors
• We also like those who like us
• Reward theory of attraction: We like
those whose behavior is rewarding to us,
and continue relationships that offer more
rewards than costs
Romantic Love
Passionate Love
Aroused state of
positive absorption in
another
Nothing
Companionate Love
Deep affectionate
attachment for those
with whom our lives
are intertwined
Passionate Love
• Two-factor theory of emotion: Many
emotions are an arousal state plus a label
• Studies show: Men getting their heart rate up
by any means, from exercise to erotica, felt
more attracted to a woman they met while
still stirred up, attributing their arousal state to
the attraction
• Passionate love may be physical, as
misattributed, and temporary
Romantic Love
• Transition to companionate love is
adaptive
– Shift focus to family and parenting
• Key ingredients for lasting relationships
– Equity: both partners receive in proportion to
what they give
– Self-disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of
yourself to others
– Romance? Overvaluing this increases divorce
Altruism
• Altruism is the unselfish concern for the
welfare of others
Wesley Autrey jumped
onto subway tracks to
save a fallen stranger
from oncoming train
Bystander Intervention
• In 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and
murdered as 38 neighbors heard but did
nothing
• Was this simply the opposite of Altruism,
or is something more complex going on?
Bystander Intervention:
Deciding whether to Intervene
The Bystander Effect
• Study: participants
heard a crash and yell
in the next room
• Results showed the
Bystander effect:
any given bystander
is less likely to give
aid if other bystanders
are present
• If others ignore the
crash, maybe I’m
supposed to ignore it
Conflict
• Conflict: a perceived incompatibility of
actions, goals, or ideas
• Mirror-image perceptions: mutual views
often held by people in conflict
– Each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful,
and the other side as evil and aggressive
Cooperation
• Superordinate goals: shared goals that
override differences among people and
require their cooperation
• Members of interracial groups who form
teams and work together come to feel
friendly toward one another