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Psyc 102
Social Psychology
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Social Cognition
I. Person Perception
o process of forming impressions of others
o in day to day interaction with others typically attempt to
understand individual, try to figure out what they are like
o while often quite accurate, can be mislead because of
certain biases that exist in how we evaluate individuals
Effects of Physical Appearance
o although often warned against making such
judgements, research suggests that we're quite willing
to make judgements regarding a person characteristics
on the basis of their physical appearance - that is we're
willing to judge a book by its cover
o more likely to ascribe desirable personality
characteristics (friendly, intelligent , kind etc) to
individuals who are assessed to be physically attractive
than to people who are less attractive
o physical attractiveness can however, have negative
impact as evidenced by one study that reported that
colleagues of attractive, successful professional women
were more likely to attribute success to their good looks
rather than their abilities
o also, specific physical attributes are often thought to be
associated with specific characteristics -- e.g., tall men
seen to be better leaders
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Social Psychology
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First Impressions
o some evidence that first impressions are influential in
evaluation of personal characteristics
o early study by Asch (1946)
o group 1 - asked to describe impressions of a
person who is intelligent, industrious, impulsive,
critical, stubborn and envious
o group 2 - asked to do same however, adjective
reversed
o results show that group one described individuals more
favorably
o while evidence for such primacy effects, also
substantial evidence that first impressions can be
changed, especially when they are contrasted against a
wealth of subsequently obtained information
o e.g., many times did not like someone initially, however,
after subsequent exposure etc., (know more of person)
change opinion
o however, research suggests that first impression may
impede re-evaluation, may require considerable body of
evidence to override initial, especially negative, first
impression
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Social Psychology
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Cognitive Schemata
o special type social schemata - which are organized
clusters of ideas applied to categories of social events
and people
o thus our impressions of others are cognitive
constructions based on these schemata that affect the
way in which we perceive others
o these also called implicit theories of personality
o one study had subjects read a list of attributes of
specific person
o two different lists
o person described as either
o introvert or
o extrovert
o on subsequent recognition test subjects falsely
recognized adjectives that had not been on the original
list if they ft with the appropriate label, thus terms such
as spirited and boisterous that had not previously been
used as descriptors were misremembered as being part
of the original list for the extrovert whereas terms like
shy and reserved were falsely remembered for the
introvert
o results like these suggest that the processes involved in
social cognition similar to those of cognition in general
Psyc 102
Social Psychology
Stereotypes
o widely held beliefs that people have certain
characteristics because of their membership in a
specific group
o simply social schemata that are simplified and applied
to all the members of a specific group
o function is to simplify the complex world in which we
live
o one reason why a particular stereotype might be
maintained is due to something known as illusory
correlation - argument is that some of the correlations
we perceive are not real - rather due to selective
perception where certain co-occurences are more
readily noted and remembered than others
o e.g., suppose we expect that English are reserved and
meet two Englishman a Mr Brown while is outgoing,
boisterous and a Mr Smith, who is reserved -- research
suggests that, all other things being equal we're more
likely to remember that Mr. Smith as opposed to Mr
Brown is an Englishman because he fits our schema
o as a result of this we continue to see a correlation
where none actually exists (or if one exists, likely to
overestimate it)
o often these broad, over-generalizations are negative -especially if applied to some identifiable group – this
produces prejudice
o discrimination refers specifically to overt behaviour
that involves treating people unfairly based upon the
group to which they belong
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Psyc 102
Social Psychology
Attributions
 inferences that people draw about the causes of
events, others' behaviour, and their own behaviour
 part of our desire to try to understand our own and
others behaviours, want to know what caused a certain
event
 further, we more likely to want to make attributions in
specific circumstances, namely
1) when event is unusual (e.g., why did stranger give
me money)
2) when event has personal consequences (as above)
3) when people behave in unexpected ways (as above)
4) when others ask for our explanations of events
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Psyc 102
Social Psychology
Internal vs. External Attributions
 one of the first to examine attributional processes was
Fritz Heider (1958) and suggested that the main
distinction that we make in looking for the underlying
cause of behaviour is to decide whether its due to
something within person or due to the situation thus
distinction
 internal attribution describe cause of behaviour to
personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings and
 external attribution attribute cause of behaviour to
situations demands or environmental constraints
 e.g., somebody hits you while playing football may
either be due to nastiness of individual (internal or
dispositional attribution) or to the demands of the
game (external or situational attribution)
 clear that type of attribution made can greatly influence
overall impression of individual, thus of interest to
examine circumstances under which more or less likely
to make situational or dispositional attribution
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Harold Kelley's Attributional Model
 Kelley (1967) has devised theory suggesting when
more or less likely to make particular type of attribution
 suggests that when we try to determine cause of
another's (commonly called an actor) behaviour we
evaluate three different types of information
1) Consistency across time
degree to which actor behaves same way in the situation
over time
2) Distinctiveness across situations
refers whether person's behaviour is unique to specific
entity that is the target of the behaviour
3) Consensus across people
refers to whether others, in the same situation tend to
respond like the
 according to Kelley tend to be more likely to make
certain types of attributions depending upon
combination of these dimensions
 suppose see someone (Larry) mood improving on
M/W/F afternoons when he returns from exercise at
lunchtime and that this behaviour is different from his
typical behaviour
 according to Kelley you’d look at this particular event in
light of past events and rate it on the three dimensions
Psyc 102
Social Psychology
 according to Kelley tend to be more likely to make
certain types of attributions depending upon
combination of these dimensions
o high consistency, high distinctiveness, high
consensus
 attribute cause to situation
o high consistency, low distinctiveness, low
consensus
 attribute cause to person
 Kelley believes that all three of these characteristics, that
is consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus vary along
continua from high to lo so that there are a multitude of
possible combinations
 quite a bit of empirical support for these patterns of
attribution
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Social Psychology
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Attributions for Success & Failure
 there are dimensions other than internal/external that
individuals consider in making attributions
 Weiner and his colleagues have investigated the
dimension of stability as well as internal/external with
regard to attributions for success and failure in "normal"
people
 Weiner suggests that specific attribution one makes for
success or failure a result of combination of stable vs.
unstable factor and situational vs. dispositional factor
 say you’ve just found out that you’ve not gotten a job
that you’ve applied for
o you might attribute cause to internal factors that
are either
 stable –such as you don’t have the
requisite skills for the jobs
 unstable – you put together a bad resume
o or attribute cause to external factors that are
either
 stable – too much competition
 unstable – bad luck
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Social Psychology
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Biases in Attribution Process
 since attributions only guesses not surprising that often
they are wrong, what is more surprising is that we are
biased (inclined) to make certain types of attributions in
specific situations
1. Fundamental Attribution Error
 refers to the tendency for an observer to favour internal
attributions in explaining behaviour of an actor (Ross,
1977)
 thus, this bias represents a tendency to make
dispositional attributions for the behaviours of others
while underrating the role of the specific situation
 one study had subjects, read essays written by
debaters who were chosen randomly to present an
argument that was either in favour of (pro) Fidel Castro
or against (anti) Castro
 subjects, on the basis of solely the written essay had to
decide what the debater's true attitude toward Castro
was
 subjects tended to disregard fact that the debaters were
assigned side and attributed argument to the debaters'
personal characteristics
 assume you’re being followed closely by another car
o quite likely to assume that the driver’s an idiot
(making a dispositional attribution) and might
not realize that situational factors are producing
behaviour (e.g., may be late for work, rushing to
hospital)
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Social Psychology
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2. Actor-Observer Bias
 do not always underrate the importance of situations
when making attributions, and this results in ActorObserver bias
 tendency to attribute other's (actor's) behaviours to
dispositional factors (this is the Fundamental Attribution
Error) whereas tendency to attribute own behaviour to
external factors
 e.g. one study, subjects asked to describe friends in
terms of bipolar adjectives such as lenient vs. firm,
cautious vs. bold
 subjects found this task very easy to do, however when
asked to do this for themselves found that the task was
harder and made non-committal responses such as it
depends of the situation
 two possible explanations
o cognitive
 different information
 greater information regarding personal
behaviour
o perceptual
 different perspectives
 to observer, the most salient things are the
actor and his/her behaviour whereas
situation is not as readily apparent
whereas for the actor, he/she is not looking
at his/her own behaviour, rather is
examining the situation
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Social Psychology
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3. Self-Serving Bias
 tendency to attribute our positive outcomes to personal,
dispositional factors and our failures to external,
situational factors
 studied using false feedback on game, test etc
consistent finding of attributing success to personal
factors like ability and success to external factors like
luck
 two explanations
o cognitive
 people usually expect to succeed and
evidence suggests make internal
attributions for expected outcomes
o motivational
 impression management, want to look
good, trying to delude experimenter,
observer
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Social Psychology
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4. Defensive Attribution
 tendency to blame victims for their misfortune so that
we feel less likely to be victimized in a similar way
 don't want to think that bad things can happen to good
people therefore must blame the person for bad luck
 often, rape victim blamed -skirt too short, she deserved
it
- based on Just-world theory
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Social Psychology
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Influencing Attributions -Impression Management
 seems that we don’t merely behave in social situations
without taking into account the fact that others are
observing our behaviour and making casual attributions
about out behaviour
 thus, often, either consciously or unconsciously in the
position of trying to put ourselves in the best possible
light (e.g., choosing socially desirable responses on
questionnaire)
I. Self-Handicapping (Berglas & Jones, 1978)
 in this theory, we attempt to create one or more
alternative (usually external) attributions for situations
where there is at least the potential for failure
 e.g., consider an exam, haven’t studied enough, think
you might fail, then go out and drink the night before,
so that if you do fail, you, and others can blame
(attribute) failure to the temporary situation (i.e., your
hang-over) rather than some permanent internal factor
(i.e., your ability)
 related to Adlerian defense mechanism of “man with a
wooden leg”
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Social Psychology
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Attitudes
 rather stable mental positions held toward some idea,
or object, or person
 e.g., you can have an attitude toward abortion, right to
die, which is the best party to govern province etc.
 attitudes have specific components including beliefs
(cognitive component), feelings (affective component),
and predispositions (behavioural component)
 e.g., you might have a positive attitude regarding
instituting gun control with this having the following
types of components:
o cognitive component (beliefs, ideas):
 “Gun owners end up shooting themselves
more often then they shoot thieves.”
o affective component (emotional feelings):
 “Guns make me sick.”
o behavioural component (predispositions to act):
 “I vote for gun-control advocates whenever
possible”
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Social Psychology
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Attitudes and Behaviour
 attitudes can be measured in a number of ways with the
most widely used method involving some form of selfreport (e.g., administer an attitude questionnaire where
have subjects respond to statements using Likert type
scale
 one of the more controversial questions in this area of
research has been whether or not attitudes, as
traditionally measured, predict what individuals actually
do
 impetus for research comes from study conducted
during early 1930s during which it was quite common
and socially acceptable to openly discriminate against
Chinese -in this study, a White investigator (LaPiere)
traveled across the US with a Chinese couple and
stopped at over 50 hotels and motels and at nearly 200
restaurants -all but one of the hotels gave them
accommodation and none of the restaurants refused to
serve them -the second part of the study involved
surveying the same establishments (by letter) and
asking whether or not they would house or serve
Chinese persons -with the results being that some 92%
of the replies being "NO" -clearly indicative of little
consistency between the reported attitudes and
observed behaviour
 several possible reasons for discrepancy since involved
actual discrimination versus stating prejudice and in
actual instance the Chinese couple were accompanied
by "white" individual -also, no guarantee that same
people responded to questionnaire as were the ones
that actually had to deal with the people
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 results from this and other studies initially led some
social psychologists to doubt whether the whole
concept of attitudes was useful since, if attitudes do not
predict behaviour then what is the point of studying
them
 while initial research evidence suggested some reason
for pessimistic view regarding the relationship between
behaviour and attitudes other research has shown that
under quite a few circumstances attitudes are useful
predictors of behaviour
 for example one study examining the relationship
between voter's pre-election preference and their voting
behaviour found that 85% of the persons interviewed
reported voting in line with their previously expressed
preference (all kinds of problems here that might limit
generalizability -notably demand characteristics)
 question is then what determines when attitudes will be
predictive of behaviour -and it seems that need to
consider at least the following two factors:
1. situational pressure for example, nearly everybody
stops at red lights regardless of whether they are late or
not, are quiet at funerals regardless of how shy they may
be etc.
 in the case of the study with the Chinese couple, the
couple was two young students who were attractive
and well groomed and who were accompanied by a
white professor -not hard to believe that the situational
pressures probably made refusal to house or feed the
three of them difficult if not embarrassing -hence, the
circumstance may have overridden ethnic prejudice
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Social Psychology
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 thus as Ajzen and Fishbein point out, person's
attitudes interact with situational norms to determine
actual behaviour and
2. how specifically attitude is defined with more
general one's attitude the less likely it is to predict a
particular bit of behaviour (i.e., general beliefs not likely
to influence specific behaviours)
 e.g., one study looked at the relation between general
attitudes toward environmentalism and a particular
act: volunteering for various activities of the Sierra
Club -in this study the investigators found no
relationship between the two of them. However when
looked at attitude toward the Sierra Club specifically,
found those with favourable attitudes toward the Sierra
Club were more likely to volunteer
 e.g., another study assessed the correlation between
attitude toward birth control in general and use of oral
contraceptive
o found low correlation
o contrarily the correlation between specific
attitude regarding oral contraceptives and their
actual use was quite high
 thus it seems that specific attitudes quite good
predictors of specific behaviours
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Social Psychology
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Attitude Change - Persuasion
 while many attitudes are relatively stable and enduring,
their stability is constantly being threatened in today's
society from a variety of sources
 commercials in the various media [print newspapers,
magazines, flyers, posters, billboards: TV: Radio: and
even movies] attempt to influence our attitudes towards
such mundane things as which brand of toilet paper we
used to more important things such as which type of car
we will buy to ultimately more important things such as
who we'll elect to lead us for the next 4 or 5 years
 just given the vast number of attempts to try to change our
attitudes toward various things it's not surprising that
attitudes sometimes do change -otherwise all these
advertisers would be wasting their money
 thus, social psychologists have looked the factors that
contribute to whether or not your attitude toward certain
things will change
Persuasive Communications
 number of investigations have looked at the
characteristics that determine the effectiveness of
persuasive communications which are messages
that are deliberate, open attempts to persuade us -e.g.,
to stop smoking, to choose one brand of toothpaste etc.
 among the factors investigated have been the person
who sends the message, the message itself, and the
receiver or audience for the message
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Social Psychology
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The Message Source
 seems that one important thing that determines whether
or not your attitude toward something will change is the
source of the message and with the source must
consider several aspects including:
a) credibility -several things determine this
 persuasive communication have been shown to be
more effective if they are attributed to someone who is
an acknowledged expert rather than to someone who is
not (e.g., why use "models" of dentist to sell toothpaste,
why race car driver used to sell cars, etc)
 two studies that are related to this issue are
o a recommendation that antihistamines should
be sold as over-the-counter medicine (rather
than as prescription medication) when the
recommendation is attributed to the New
England Journal of Medicine than when it is
attributed to a popular, mass circulation
magazine (e.g., People) and
o another study that showed that a positive review
of a relatively obscure modern poem was more
likely to lead to upward re-evaluations of that
poem if the review was attributed to T.S. Eliot
rather than to another student
 thus expertise can enhance credibility
 while research has shown that expertise influences
individual's assessments of the credibility of the
message source, so does trustworthiness
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Social Psychology
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 this is because most of us a reluctant to entirely believe
a source if we think that the source as something to
gain by persuading us
 thus, a number of studies have shown that
communicators (message sources) are much more
effective in when they argue for a position that appears
to be against their own self-interest
 one study involved showing undergraduates
statements that argued either for or against the
strengthening of law enforcement -these
statements were more persuasive (i.e., resulted in
greater attitude change) when they were (i) for
strengthening and attributed to a criminal or (ii)
against strengthening and attributed to a crown
prosecutor
 thus, arguing against your own best interest can often
lead to increased credibility through increase
assessment of trustworthiness
 while both expertise and trustworthiness influence
credibility other factors relating to the source of the
message have has also been shown to influence the
persuasiveness of a message
 among these is physical attractiveness with one
study showing that physically attractive individuals may
be more effective communicators than less attractive
individuals even though the more physically attractive
individuals were not judged to be more credible
 among the other source characteristics that have been
shown to influence effectiveness include a source's
clothing, grooming, and race
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Social Psychology
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The Message Itself
 perhaps in terms of change attitudes, more important
than the messenger, is the message itself
 seems to be three factors that are influential "message"
factors
1. Content of Message
 one thing examined with regard to content is how
effective fear arousal as a source of attitude change
 early study (1950s) present subjects with a message
that was designed to encourage proper dental care -the
level of fear-arousing content in the message ranged
from low (saying some small cavities may occur) to high
(pictures of advanced gum disease)
 greatest amount of attitude change (as assessed
through behavioural change) was among those
subjects who had been exposed to the lower levels of
fear-arousing materials
 more recent research has contradicted these findings
suggesting that greater attitude change follows high
fear appeals
 two level of fear-arousal (EXAMPLES)
 one resolution to the apparent contradiction between
the earlier and more recent results has been the
proposal that their is a curvilinear relationship, an
inverse "U" specifically, between level of fear and
attitude change with both extremely low levels and
extremely high levels of fear content not being effective
in changing attitudes -this is because 1) very low levels
of fear might be insufficient for even gaining an
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Social Psychology
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audience's attention whereas 2) very high levels of fear
may case defensiveness and avoidance
 thus, based on this perspective, intermediate levels of
fear may be most effective in terms of gaining the
audience's attention
 further, message that invokes fear need to consider the
following in order to be effective:
1) the magnitude of the unpleasantness of the described
event;
2) the perceived effectiveness of recommended
action/solution; and
3) the probability that the event will really occur if the
prescribed action is not undertaken
 for example, an anti-smoking message that warns
against the dangers of lung cancer will be ineffective
for people who think that either a) they are not likely to
get cancer or b) that they're going to die in the near
future anyway
b) another aspect that relates to the content of a
persuasive message is the question of the comparative
effectiveness of one-sided vs. two-sided
communications
 e.g., arguing for proposed changes to gun control
question is whether you're better off stating both sides
of the issue
 again, seems to be no clear quite "best" approach,
rather seems to depend on other factors
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Social Psychology
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 research seems to suggest that if audience if generally
friendly toward your side of the argument and if you
want immediate, albeit temporary attitude change,
then present a one-sided argument
 if on the other hand, audience initially disagrees with
your side, or when it is probable that the audience will
hear the other side of the argument from someone
else, then its better to present two-sided argument this may be that in this instance you are, for a time at
least, arguing against yourself, and this may increase
your perceived credibility
The Recipient
 several early studies examined whether or not people
with different personality characteristics were more
easily persuaded than others
 results from these studies suggested that individuals
with low self-esteem were more easily influenced than
others with high self-esteem with the suggestion being
that people with low self-esteem lack confidence in their
own judgements and hence are more likely to be
swayed by the judgements of others
 subsequent research has refined these results
suggesting that the person's overall level of self-esteem
was less strongly related to her persuasibility that was
her feeling of competence with regard to the specific
issue at hand
 for example, more easy to change a musicians mind
than a physicians about the merits of a new drug
whereas hard to change a musicians mind than a
physicians about the merits of a new symphony
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 another factor regarding the recipient relates to how
involved they are with the specific issue
 one study in the mid 1960s manipulated involvement as
follows: heavy smokers were asked to play the role of
patients told by a physician (actually a confederate of
the researcher) that they had developed lung cancer.
Several dramatic scenes were carried out in the mock
"doctor's office" to insure that the smokers would focus
their attention on the threat of painful illness,
hospitalization and early death -the researchers
suggested that this manipulation increased subjects
involvement in the issue -results showed that
participants sharply reduced their smoking and their
smoking was still at a reduced level when the were
contacted 1 1/2 years later
 increased involvement might be the reason why
rhetorical questions (such as Has the party in power
done anything over the past four years to make your life
better?) have also been shown to be more effective
 another recipient factor that is influential in determining
the effectiveness of persuasive communication is the
recipients’ initial position of the issue with research
showing the persuasion is most effective when there is
a moderate discrepancy between the position
advocated by the message and that held by recipient
 based on social judgement theory that suggests people
are typically willing to consider alternative views on an
issue as long as those views are not that discrepant
from their own views
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 this theory suggests that individuals have a latitude of
acceptance which is a range of potentially acceptable
positions on an issue centred around one's initial
attitude position
 theory suggests that when message contains position
outside of this range then it will likely be ignored
whereas if message falls within range, then persuasive
attempt more likely to be successful
o for example, person who might be against gun
control in general (say the person is a hunter)
my agree to banning of assault rifles
 a final recipient factor that influences the success of
persuasive communication is whether or not the
recipient is forewarned research suggests that more
resistant to persuasive communication when know
somebody attempting to change your mind
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Theories of Attitude Formation and Change
 several different theories proposed to account for both
the formation of attitudes and to some extent their
change
1. Learning Theory
 suggestion that learn different components of our
attitudes through combination of different types of
learning
1) suggest that classical conditioning responsible for the
affective or emotional component of our attitudes
CS (Product) ----> CR
UCS (Celeberity) --------->UCR (pleasant emotion)
2) suggest that operant conditioning (specifically
reinforcement and punishment) play part in cognitive
(belief) component
 specifically if you state your opinion on specific topic
(i.e., an attitude) and somebody agrees with you then
this is reinforcing thereby strengthening your belief,
whereas if person disagrees this is punishment and
may serve to decrease strength of belief
3) cognitive/behavioural component can also be
influenced through processes of social/observational
learning
 e.g., see father agree with political view espoused by
your uncle may be seen to you and therefore
possibility that you can model this attitude (may be
why political voting patterns run in families)
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 can also influence behavioural tendency if see
somebody punished for stating opinion may be less
likely to engage in that behaviour etc.
2. Balance Theory
 essentially the original cognitive consistency theory
proposed initially by Fritz Heider (mid 1940s) which is
based on premise that we want to maintain
consistency/balance in our attitudes
 simplistic theory suggested that a person (P) has
either positive or negative attitudes toward things (X's)
and other people (O's)
 suggestion that specific pattern of attitudes among
these things can either be balanced or imbalanced
and what we want is to achieve or maintain balance
among our attitudes
 thus suggest that imbalance creates tension that we
want to resolve and do this by restoring balance
among the various attitudinal relationships
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3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory
 while Heider's theory has some intuitive appeal, seems
to be very limited
 this theory originally proposed by Leon Festinger in the
late 1950s and is based on simple premise that
inconsistency among our attitudes or, more
interestingly, between our attitudes and behaviour is
unpleasant (dissonant) and this motivates us to change
our attitudes and or behaviour
 study that served as basis for this theory was
undertaken by Festinger and Carlsmith 1959 and
involved the following
 subjects had to perform two dull and boring tasks,
individually, for a period of approximately 30 minutes
each
 in one task subjects were given a large board to which
numerous free-turning pegs were attached and were
asked to rotate each peg 90 degrees left, then 90
degrees right -with experimenter supposedly timing this
task and in the other subjects were given the same
pegboard and were asked to place empty thread spools
on each of the pegs and then, when the board was full,
remove the spools from the pegs -this task was
repeated for the duration of the first phase of the
experiment
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Social Psychology
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 at this point, experimenter explained that he was
interested in the effects of prior expectations on the
performance of the two tasks that the subject had just
completed -the experimenter further explained that in
another condition of the study (one which the subject
had obviously not participated in), potential subjects
were told by a paid confederate that the tasks that they
were about to perform were fun, interesting, and
exciting -further, the experimenter went on to say that
today, his confederate was unable to perform this preexperiment briefing and would the subject, who had just
completed these obviously boring tasks, fill-in -he then
offered the subject either $1.00 or $20.00 to do this
(circa 1959 the $20.00 payment would be about
equivalent to $60.00 US today) -interestingly, all
subjects agreed to do this regardless of payment
 now subject in role as confederate has to lie to next
subject (who was really a confederate of the
experimenter) and say tasks that they are about to
perform are interesting and fun -at this point "new
subject" (i.e., the real confederate) says that she had
heard that it was boring to which the subjects then
replied that no indeed it was fun, interesting (clearly
forcing the subject to tell lie, and repeat it)
 after doing this, the subject acting as the confederate
was asked to perform one last task, that being to
complete a form that asked them to rate the two tasks
 cognitive dissonance theory predicts that, somewhat
counter intuitively, that those subjects who received $20
would rate the task as boring as it was, whereas those
that received little money ($1) would rate the tasks as
enjoyable
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 this is if individuals who received $1 stated task was
boring then there would be little justification for
engaging in boring task that is just wasted an hour
thus, according to the theory these subjects' behaviours
were dissonant from their attitudes, thus they were
motivated to change their attitude (since they had
already engaged in the behaviour) and state that task
was enjoyable
 no such dissonance existed in $20 condition since they
had adequate justification for engaging in boring tasks
 the basic findings from this study have been repeatedly
replicated and perhaps more interestingly, empirical
evidence that such dissonance is related to
physiological measures of tension and arousal
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Other Aspects of Dissonance Theory
1. Post-decison Dissonance in situations where an
individual has to choose between two alternatives (e.g.,
to attend one college vs. another, to buy one car vs.
another) and makes a choice
 if both alternatives were attractive then dissonance
must necessarily arise since whichever alternative is
chosen implies that another, attractive alternative is not
 thus, according to the theory, there will now be a
tendency to reduce dissonance by re-evaluating the two
alternative with the one that was chosen being reevaluted in a positive light whereas not-chosen option
may in fact be more negatively viewed
 one study looked at confidence bettors had in their
choice of horse -found that those individuals who
performed the rating after having made their decision
(i.e., they had purchased their ticket) were more
confident than those who were on there way to making
their bets
2. Justification of Effort people often engage in
considerable effort to achieve their goals (e.g,. getting
degree, climbing mountain)
 according to dissonance theory, goal will be more
positively evaluated if it were harder to reach
 may be why people are so loyal to fraternities etc. after
severe initiation rituals
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Aronson & Mills (1959)
 S's went through either a severe, mild, or no
initiation to become part of a discussion group.
This represents the quality of their behavioral
commitment to the group.
 S's listened to the group which turns out to be
extremely boring.
 S's rate their liking for the group.
 results
 no difference between liking of groups for
people who either went through no initiation or
through a mild one
 both groups found the group to be not very
likeable
 however, group that went through severe
initiation rated the group as much more likeable
 major limitation in dissonance theory is that it not clear
when exactly dissonance will occur -as one author put it
"inconsistency between cognitions lies in the eyes of
the beholder"
 thus continued research and debate as to the factors
that determine whether cognitive dissonance will occur
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II. Cognitive Dissonance and Compliance
A. Four-Walls Technique
 get customer to agree that owning product would be a
good thing
e.g.,
(a) do you believe in education for your children
(b) do you think kids doing homework better
education
(c) do you think good reference books help with
homework
(d) well, you must want to buy these encyclopedia
 after get people answering the first questions in the
affirmative, reluctant to not let salesman come in and
make their pitch
B. Low-Ball Technique
 trick used by car salesmen
 you and salesperson agree on a “good deal” for car which
the person has to now get approved by manager -- who
actually is just figure head
 salesperson comes out and says her/his manager can’t go
with the deal even though the salesperson tried valliantly
 now, salesperson tries to get you to agree to higher price
 in controlled studies, see that this technique quite effective
 seems that once the “good deal” is made, the customer
increases the perceived attributes of the car and now
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values it highly and willing to pay more than originally
wanted to
C. Foot-in-the-Door Technique
 general idea behind this can be found in following
paragraph from the magazine American Salesman
The general idea is to pave the way for full-line
distribution by starting with a small order....Look at it this
way -- when a person has signed an order for your
merchandies, even though the profit is so small it hardly
compensates for the time and effort of making the call, he
is no longer a prospect -- he is a customer
 this phenomenon first appeared in social psychological
literature in 1966 when a pair of researchers (Freedman &
Fraser) published results from following experiment
 study involved three groups of subjects
 in one group a “volunteer” worker had gone door-to-door
in a residential California neighborhood and asked
residents whether they would be willing to put up a large,
poorly lettered sign reading DRIVE CAREFULLY -- with a
picture of such a sign in front of a home being shown to
them
 most residents 83% said no (i.e., only 17% complied)
 however, in another group 76% complied
 with the difference between these two groups being that
2-weeks earlier, a different volunteer had come to their
doors and asked them to accept and display a 3’ square
sighn that read BE A SAFE DRIVER to which most
everyone complied
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 in yet a third group, subjects were approached 2-weeks
earlier and asked to sign a petition in favour of “keeping
California beautiful” to which most everyone complied
 in this group nearly 50% of people agreed to the larger
request two weeks later
 thus, according to Freedman and Fraser
 What may occur is a change in the person’s feelings
aobut getting involved or taking action. Once he has
agreed to a request, his attitude may change, he may
become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this
sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers,
who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes
 thus, this seems to be case of cognitive dissonance at
work
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III. Reciprocity Principle and Compliance
 many social scientists argue that in organized societies
there is some type of underlying principle which suggests
that we are obliged to return favours -- even favours we
don’t necessarily want
 e.g., thus, if a Hare Krishna approaches you and pins a
flower on you, you might, because of this reciprocity norm,
be more willing to donate to the “cause” than if you hadn’t
received the flower
A. Door-in-the-Face Technique
 here start with a large request, followed by smaller, more
reasonable request
 e.g., give me $500 then give me $1 for coffee
 works because
(a) second request seems like a concession which you
might feel compelled to reciprocate
(b) in contrast to the first request, second one sounds
quite reasonable
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Social Influences on Behaviour
 much of the work in looking at the influence of other individuals
on someone else’s behaviour can be examined in relation to
the concept of
field theory (Lewin, 1951)
 based upon his training in Gestalt psychology (contrasting the
whole over the sum of the parts) premise of this approach is
that each individual exists in a field of forces that act
simultaneously to push or pull the person from specific
goals/behaviours
 these forces can be personal or internal (e.g., certain abilities,
desires etc.) or they can be social or external influences (e.g.,
peer pressure, family pressures)
 for example you might have the desire to become a physician
and this desire is based partially on parental pressures
however, there may be some external obstacles to your
obtaining this goal -- for example the low MCAT scores; lack of
financial resources
 a more recent theoretical presentation is based, to some extent
on field theory
social impact theory (Latané, 1981)
 social impact is any detectable effect that occurs in a person as
a result of social force
o impact of social force is a function of strength,
immediacy, and number of sources (where a source is
a person who exerts a social force)
o strength depends upon extent to which the target
respects, admires, needs or fears that source
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o immediacy is related to physical distance of target to
source
 may be made more immediate by becoming more
focal (e.g., being reminded of how your mother
who lives a 1000 miles away might think about you
starting smoking)
o number is the actual physical number or even
perceived number of individuals who are presenting
pressure on you
 this is multiplication of social impact
 increased impact of each additional source
diminishes as the number of sources becomes
larger
 e.g., think about adding lights in a room -- in a
dark room, a single bulb has great impact but in a
brightly illuminated office, that same increase in
illumination might not even be noticed
 thus, if a second individual tell you to do some
thing this might have substantial impact over just
one, whereas makes little difference if twelve or
thirteen people tell you to do the same thing
o impact of a social force on a specific target is inversely
related to the number of targets
o this is diffusion of social impact -- thus, if you’re in a
group of individuals who get warned to be quiet (e.g., in
a crowd of ten thousand at a Blue Jays celebration by
the police) likely less effective if police tell you directly
 to illustrate these principles of social impact Latané looked at
various levels of stage fright under several conditions
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 as this graph shows, anxiety increases as both size and status
of the audience increases
 as this graph shows, anxiety decreases we number of
performers
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Compliance
 considerable research has been conducted as to the conditions
under which one will be more or less likely to comply to a
request by another
 social impact theory suggest most likely to comply when
o person making request is high in status
o person making request is near you (rather than over
phone)
o more than one person making request
o you’re only target for request
 other research to suggest that we’re likely to comply in certain
situations
 Langer’s (1977) study
o Ellen Langer arranged with her university librarian to shut
down all but one of the photocopy machines in a busy wing
of the library.
o This quickly resulted in a long line behind the single
operating photocopy machine
o Over the course of several days, Langer had confederates
approach a person at the front of the line with a request to
"cut" in line. T
o the confederate's request was carefully worded in three
different ways.
o In the first condition, the confederate said, "Excuse me, may
I use the Xerox machine, because I'm late to class?"
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o In the second condition, a confederate asked, "Excuse me,
may I use the Xerox machine?"
o In the third condition, a confederate asked "Excuse me, may
I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make some
copies
o also, Langer varied the magnitude of the request by having
the confederate make either a “small” request (Can I make 5
copies) versus a “large” request (Can I make 20 copies)
o results suggest that when subjects were approached by a
confederate making a small request they complied as much
to the “pseudo” reason as to the “real” reason
o conversely when subjects were asked for a larger
concession seemed to process the request more fully and
complied only at a higher rate for people with the “legitimate”
reason with the “pseudo” reason not increasing compliance
over and above the no reason condition
o argument that Langer makes is that for small requests we
apply a heuristic that we only peripherally process these
whereas for larger requests there’s more central processing
of the request
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Social Facilitation and Inhibition
 many instances where see performance of individuals in
groups being better than individual performing in isolated
environment
 perhaps the first social psychological experiment was
conducted in 1898 where Triplett showed that individual bike
racers had better speeds when competing in a group than
when competing against clock
 this phenomenon has been replicated in a variety of tasks
(from maze learning to math problems) in a variety of contexts
 however, often see reverse effect -- i.e., when mazes are quite
complex the presence of the audience seems to inhibit
responses since subjects take considerably longer to solve this
type of complex problem when they’re in the presence of
others as opposed to solving the problem in isolation
 these apparently discrepant effects of the presence of others
has been explained in a theory by Robert Zajonc
 suggestion is that presence of others leads to a state of
increased drive or arousal and this increased arousal facilitates
highly dominant responses whereas it inhibits less dominant or
automatic responses
 some research evidence supporting this comes from a study of
pool players in a university student building
 when good players were watched by an audience of four others
their accuracy rose from 71% to 80% but when poor players
were observed their accuracy dropped from 35% to 25%
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 suggestion is that increased alertness may be reason why
presence of others increases arousal rather than more social
explanations (trying to look good) since see similar types of
social inhibition and facilitation in non-humans (e.g.,
cockroaches learning a maze)
Conformity
 VIDEO Asch’s study (55 seconds)
 subjects brought in to a room with others and asked, under the
premise of a basic perceptual task, which line on the right was
the same as the comparison line
 subjects responded out loud in order such that the subject was
always last to respond after others (really confederates) had
given wrong choice
 about 75% of subjects conformed to the group position on at
least one trial with an average conformity level of 37% being
seen across all trials
 seemed that most conformed because they wanted to be liked
Factors Influencing Conformity
A. Group Size
 seems that conformity is maximized in groups of about 3
or 4 with additional members of the group having little
affect in producing greater conformity
 seems that in these larger groups individual might feel
some sort of collusion being imposed on them from the
group
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B. Support From Others
 in Asch’s original study, there was unanimity in
confederates who all agreed on wrong line
 seems that when as few as one other individual disagrees
with the groups opinion, see conformity decrease with this
effect being stronger if the disagreement is earlier rather
than later
C. Gender Differences
 while studies in the 50’s seemed to indicate that women
were more susceptible to influence of conformity more
recent studies suggest that, when all things are equal, no
gender differences
Obedience
 perhaps one of the most (in)famous studies in the history of
psychology was one conducted by Stanley Milgram in the
1960s
 Milgram (who had worked earlier with Asch) was interested in
the reports of extreme obedience to Hitler by the citizens of
Germany in WW II
 original study 40 men from community around Yale university
area (Conneticut)
 subject arrived at lab met a likable 47-yr old accountant (who
was actually accomplice of the experimenter)
 study purportedly involved study of punishment and learning
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 one of the “subjects” was “randomly” assigned to be learner
(this was always the accomplice) and the real subject was
“chosen” to be the teacher
 teacher had to deliver shocks each time learner made an error
 VIDEO CLIP 15 minutes
 Results: in original study (whose results have been replicated)
26/40 or 65% delivered the maximum punishment of 450 volts
Factors Influencing Obedience
 proximity of authority figure
o if experimenter left room and delivered instructions by
telephone obedience decreased from 65%to 21%
o further, several of the participants who continued under
these conditions cheated by administering shocks of
lower intensity than they were supposed to
 legitimacy of authority figure
o when experimenter was replaced by an ordinary person
obedience dropped to 20%
 remoteness of victim
o greater obedience when learner was out of sight
o specifically, when learner and teacher were in the same
room obedience dropped to 40% compared to 65%
when the learner and teacher were in different rooms
o in contrast, when the psychological distance was
increased and the learner offered no verbal feedback
from the next room the rate of obedience was 100%
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 role models
o in one of the many variatioins of the Milgram paradigm
two additional confederates were employed
o they were introduced to participants as people who
would play the role of teacher so that there were socalled teachers (with only one of who being a real
subject as opposed to a confederate)
o one confederate, the so-called Teacher 1 would read
the list of word pairs, Teacher 2 (also a confederate)
would tell the learner if his response was right or wrong
and Teacher 3 (the only real subject) whose job it was
to actually administer the shocks
o the confederates complied with the instructions through
to the 150-volt level at which point Teacher 1 (a
confederate) got up from his chair and sat in another
part of the room
o at the 210-volt level Teacher 2 also quit
o the experimenter then turned to the participant and
ordered him to continue
o only 10% of the participants were willing to complete
the task to the 450-volt level
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Ethics
 some question ethics of the study suggesting it involved too
high levels of deception, produced stress in subjects
 Milgram defended his study arguing that Ss were debriefed and
had “reunion” with the learner to see that there was no physical
harm done
 no replication of study been conduced since mid 1970s
suggesting that study somewhat questionable given today’s
ethical standards
Do these effects occur in "real life"?
Hofling et al. (1966)
 Nurses were telephoned by a doctor they didn't know.
 They were ordered to administer a non-prescribed drug in
double the maximum dosage to a patient.
 22 nurses were called.
 Results: 21 out of 22 nurses (95.5%) followed the doctor's
orders.
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Officer Scott
There are dozens of reports of the same individual
playing a number of pranks that involved the victims
obeying an authority figure
 A call to a McDonald's restaurant in Hinesville,
Georgia resulted in a janitor performing a body
cavity search on a 19-year old cashier.[5]
 A 17-year-old customer at a Taco Bell in Phoenix,
Arizona was strip-searched by a manager receiving
this kind of prank call.[6]
 On November 30, 2000, the caller persuaded the
manager at a McDonald's in Leitchfield, Kentucky,
to remove her own clothes in front of a customer
whom the caller said was suspected of sex
offenses. The caller promised that undercover
officers would burst in and arrest the customer the
moment he attempted to molest her, said Detective
Lt. Gary Troutman of the Leitchfield Police
Department.[7]
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 On January 26, 2003, according to a police report
in Davenport, Iowa, an assistant manager at an
Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar conducted a
degrading 90-minute search of a waitress at the
behest of a caller who said he was a regional
manager -- even though the man had called collect,
and despite the fact the assistant manager had
read a company memo warning about hoax calls
just a month earlier. He later told police he'd
forgotten about the memo.
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Norms
 learned, socially based rules that prescribe what people
should (or should not) do in different situations
 learn norms from parents, teachers, peers, and other
cultural agents
 even though not all norms can be articulated they are
nevertheless so powerful that people usually follow them
automatically
 for example, in movie theatres norms tell us to stand in lines
to buy tickets/popcorn and hopefully to be quiet in the
theatre and turn off cellphones
 also, already discussed norm of reciprocity as an
explanation for compliance
Institutional Norms
 implicit or explicit rules for behaviour and beliefs that are
applied to entire institutions or organizations
 arise in places like schools, businesses, hospitals etc.
 often the interaction among individuals within these
settings can become “institutionalized”
 here, behaviour will depend more on the particular role
expectations than on individual characteristics
 sometimes referred to as “the power of the situation” in
terms of explaining why people my behave in ways that
would not be expected based on their personality
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 famous study showing just how powerful institutional
norms can be was conducted by psychologist Philip
Zimbardo in the early 70’s at Stanford University
 the so-called “Stanford Prison Experiment” involved
creating a simulated prison in the basement of the Psyc
department at Stanford University and placing an ad in
local papers for participants wanting to participate in an
experiment for pay
 from those who responded to the ad Zimbardo and his
colleagues selected 24 “mature, motionally stable, normal,
intelligent white male college students from middle-class
homes throughout the United States and Canada”
 none of them had a prison record and they were randomly
assigned to the role of either prison guard or prisoner on
the basis of a coin flip
 VIDEO Clip
 study clearly demonstrates the power of the situation and
the power of institutional norms
 remember that participants were randomly assigned to the
two roles so any personality differences between the two
groups of students should have been minimized
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Bystander Intervention
 the following event that took place in New York in 1964
probably sparked an increased research interest in social
psychology as to when and why individuals will help (or not
help others)
 At approximately 3:20 on the morning of March 13, 1964,
twenty-eight-year-old Ms Catherine (Kitty) Genovese was
returning to her home in a nice middle-class area of Queens,
NY, from her job as a bar manager. She parked her red Fiat in
a nearby parking lot, turned-off the lights and started the walk
to her second floor apartment [marker (2) in illustration] some
35 yards away. She got as far as a streetlight when a man
grabbed her. She screamed. Lights went on in the 10-floor
apartment building nearby. She yelled, “Oh, my God, he
stabbed me! Please help me!” Windows opened in the
apartment building and a man’s voice shouted, “Let that girl
alone.” The attacker looked up, shrugged and walked-off
down the street. Ms Genovese struggled to get to her feet.
Lights went back off in the apartments. The attacker came
back and stabbed her again. She again cried out, “I’m dying!
I’m dying!” And again the lights came on and windows opened
in many of the nearby apartments. The assailant again left
and got into his car and drove away. Ms Genovese staggered
to her feet as a city bus drove by. It was now 3:35 a.m. The
attacker returned once again. He found her in a doorway at
the foot of the stairs [marker (1) in illustration] and he stabbed
her a third time--this time with a fatal consequence. It was
3:50 when the police received the first call. They responded
quickly and within two minutes were at the scene. Ms
Genovese was already dead. The only person to call, a
neighbor of Ms Genovese, revealed that he had phoned only
after much thought and in an earlier phone call to a friend. He
said, “I didn’t want to get involved.”
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 this led to many social psychological experiments that tried to
determine the factors that influence bystander intervention
 several studies were conducted in laboratories and ranged
from one situation where subjects were in room filling out a
questionnaire and heard someone behind a screen apparently
trip and say “ooh my foot” to having smoke appear under the
door
 in this particular study, subjects began to fill out
questionnaires in a room to which the researchers began to
add smoke
 in one condition the subject was alone
 in another three naive subjects were in the room
 in the third condition there was one naive subject and two
confederates who purposely noticed and then ignored the
smoke (even when the room became hazy from all the
smoke).
 75% of alone subjects calmly noticed the smoke and left the
room to report it. But only 10% of the subjects with
confederates reported it. Surprisingly, in the three naive
bystander condition only 38% reported the smoke.
 Most subjects had similar initial reactions. Those that didn't
report it all concluded that the smoke wasn't dangerous or
was part of the experiment.
 No one attributed their inactivity to the presence of others in
the room.
 in general, seems that individuals much more likely to help
when they were alone than when they were in groups of people
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 three possible explanations have been provided for the
apparent inhibiting effects of these others
A. Information Influence of Other’s Inaction
 if others are present, often use their behaviour as a cue to
what the appropriate behaviour should be
 thus, observing others doing nothing may cause you to
redefine the situation as a non-emergency
 theory is supported by studies showing that when the facial
expressions etcetera of others seem to define situation as
emergency, more likely to get help
B. Normative Influence of Other’s Inaction and Evaluation Anxiety
 in presence of others, attention is divided between the
“emergency” situation and how others will evaluate you
 thus, afraid that you might act “inappropriately” and others
will evaluate you in negative way
 research supporting this comes from studies where see less
of an inhibitory effect if you know others with the assumption
being that in these cases one feels less evaluation anxiety
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C. Diffusion of Responsibilty
 if others are present in an “emergency” situation,
responsibility is diffused to everyone whereas if you’re alone,
you are solely responsible for providing help
i) this is similar to Latane’s idea of “diffusion of social
impact”
 studies supporting this view where people report
subjectively, more responsibility when they were alone in
situation as opposed to the group
 other studies show little inhibition of helping behaviour where
individual is clearly in position of responsibility