PSYC 102: Chapter 15 Textbook

Social Psychology

The study of how the immediate social context as well as broader cultural environments influence people’s thoughts, feelings and actions

• examine the features of context that explain the variability in human behavior

Core Motivations of Humans

• fundamental need to belong and form trusting relationships with others

• to perceive ourselves and our groups positively

• to understand the world and feel a sense of control over our actions and outcomes

Meeting these motives allowed individuals to survive and thriveS

Schemas

Mental representations that organize the associate pieces of information we know about a person, like a mental file folder

Dimensions that Capture our Attention about a Person

• how warm or trustworthy the person is

  • allows us to quickly categorize others as friend or foe

• how competent the person is

  • allows us to gauge the person’s status or competence in a social pecking order

• we aspire to be those who are warm and competent

• we fear those who are competent but lack warmth

• we pity those who are warm but incompetent

• our biggest disdain is for people who see us as lacking both warmth and competence

Forming Impressions of People

We form impressions of others easily and automatically, and they are often accurate

The accuracy stems from:

• a reliance on knowledge about what people are like on average plus some adjustments to account for a person’s characteristics

• we are more likely to form accurate impressions of people when we are motivated to pay attention to their individual attributes

It is important to:

1. know who we’re interacting with in the present

   1. rely on simple cues (expressions, gestures, appearance)

   2. rely on verbal expressions and stereotypes

2. know what people will be like in the future

   1. rely on first impressios

   2. also observe others’ behaiors

   3. form and interpret attributions

Heuristics

We don’t usually put a lot of effort into forming impressions of others. Instead, we rely on quick and dirty heuristics to size others up

• involves applying the schemas or mental representations we have of people we already know to understand the new people we meet

• assumption that other people are just like us

Transference

Tendency to assume that a new person we meet has the same traits as someone we already know, perhaps because they resemble that other person

False Consensus Effect

Tendency to use the self as an anchor and overestimate the extent to which other people’s beliefs and attitudes are similar to our own

• we tend to assume that others, especially people we know and like, share our attitudes, beliefs, and opinions, and we are often taken aback when these assumptions turn out to be wrong

Impression Management

A series of strategies that people use to influence the impressions that others form of them

• a reason why the impressions we form of others may be inaccurate

Persona: we present a persona to mask the characteristics we don’t want others to see and advertise the traits and skills we wish to be known for

Self Promotion

To be seen as competent

Ingratiation

To be seen as likeable

Exemplification

To be seen as dedicated

Intimidation

To be seen as dominant

Supplication

To be seen as needy

Attribution

Assignment of a causal explanation for an event, action or outcome

• we are more likely to engage in effortful attributions when another person’s actions are very surprising or negative

• depend on what we belive

• depend on what we attend to (what is accessible to us)

External Cause: behavior is dictated by situation

• “my friend has a lot going on right now”

• don’t expect continuity

Internal Cause: people’s behavior is a direct reflection of who they are

• “my friend is an angry and spiteful person”

• expect continuity

The process by which we make attributions for someone’s actions can occur largely automatically, based on quick intuitions or biases, or based on careful calculations of possibilities

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to assume that people’s actions are more the result of their internal dispositions than of the situational context

• people can override a fundamental attribution error when they stop to consider things external to another person that might be affecting that person’s behavior

  • people must be motivated and have the cognitive resources for spending the time and effort to do this mental work

Collectivistic Culture

Group harmony is valued over individual agency

• tend to be more sensitive to situational constraints (external factors)

• more likely to think about how individuals adjust their behavior to meet the demands of the environment, including other people’s expectations

• a person can override this tendency by trying to consider the other person’s internal traits and dispositions

Self-Serving Attributions

The attributions people make for their own behavior and outcomes

• we tend to make internal attributions for positive events and situational attributions for negative events

• bias to perceive our outcomes and actions in the world in ways that benefit ourselves

Affective Forecasting Errors

People’s inability to accurately predict the emotional reactions they will have to events

• we overestimate the influence of some factors and underestimate the influence of others

• we focus on information that has little relevance in predicting our happiness and have little awareness of our psychological immune system that helps us recover from negative outcomes (forgetting how skilled we are at coping with bad events and maintaining our resilience in the face of stress

• we tend to place too much emphasis on the features of the current choice and not enough emphasis on the things that really bring us joy

Attitude

Orientation toward some target stimulus that has three components:

• an affective feeling ranging from positive to negative

• a cognitive belief about the characteristics of that target

• a behavioral motivation such as a tendency to approach or avoid that target

Link between Attitude and Behavior

There is a weak link between our attitudes and our bejavior

• sometimes our attitudes are about abstract topics (I feel positively towards issues of animal rights), whereas our behaviors are more specific (I wear leather shoes and belts)

• our attitudes toward specific issues can best predict specific behavior

• we show a stronger link between our attitudes and behavior when we are certain of our attitudes and they apply to situations we have directly experienced

Implicit Attitudes

Our automatically activated associations, which are often learned through repeated exposure to a person, place, thing or issue

• evaluation of stimulus ranging from positive to negative

• sometimes we are predisposed to learned these automatic associations because they have been adaptive for survival in our evolutionary past

• harder to change, except with repeated exposure to a new association

Explicit Attitudes

The consciously reported evaluation a person has in response to stimulus

• can be shaped by our values, social norms and other beliefs about the target stimulus

• attitudes that we explicitly report that we feel or believe about a person, place, thing or issue

• like other conscious beliefs, and can be more readily updated by simply learning new information

Persuasion

Refers to the way that explicitly held attitudes are changed by direct appeal

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A theory of persuasion contending that attitudes can change by two different routes:

• central route that focuses on the strength of the argument

• peripheral route that is sensitive to more superficial cues

Central Route

• relies on more thoughtful, reflective processes

• when people process information this way, they change their attitude only when they are faced with strong evidence weighing in favor of one product or belief over another

• more likely to elaborate on, or think deeply about these pieces of evidence

• people form a positive attitude when the evidence is strong and a negative attitude when the evidence is weak

• more effortful and time consuming

• attitudes formed through the central route tend to last longer

Peripheral Route

• attitudes are swayed by surface level features and more automatic associations

• eg. product advertising and humor

Compliance Strategies: Door in the Face Strategy

Eliciting a bit of guilt after people decline an unreasonably large request so that they feel more open to a smaller one

Compliance Strategies: Foot in the Door Approach

People who complied with the initial low-cost request will be more open to a larger request

Compliance Strategies: Social Proof

Point out the long list of others who have participated, and people will feel more at ease knowing the cause or product is one that others endorse

Scarcity Principle

People tend to place higher value on things that are in short supply

Cognitive Dissonance

A sense of conflict between people’s attitudes and actions that motivates efforts to restore cognitive consistency

• when people find themselves behaving in ways that are out of line with their beliefs, values or attitudes, they experience an aversive state

• we are motivated to see ourselves as rational and consistent, thus we seek to align our attitudes, beliefs and behavior

• ideal self and real self are in conflict

Dissonance

• the product of inconsistencies

• a state of psychological discomfort or tension resulting from conflicting emotions, beliefs or behaviors

• can change our attitudes, which happens when people feel that they have behaved in a way that they cannot attribute to the situation alone

• can explain why people sometimes develop very positive attitudes toward activities that seem objectively aversive or require a great deal of effort

Post-Decision Dissonance

Happens when we have to forgo an option that we have a positive attitude toward

• to alleviate the dissonance, we might find ourselves focusing on the negative aspects of the option not chosen, while praising the merits of the selected option

• in this way, dissonance reduction helps us avoid regrets

Effort Justification

Individuals place a higher value on the outcome of an action or goal that they have put a great deal of effort into achieve

• way of resolving cognitive dissonance between the effort exerted and the result achieved

Social Norms

Patterns of behavior, traditions, beliefs and preferences that are accepted and reinforced by others and influence our behavior.

• social norms evolve over time and place through processes that foster the success and growth of a society

• social norms vary between cultures and generations

Conformity

People often implicitly mimic or adopt the behaviors, beliefs, and preferences of those around them through

• allows us to adapt to the broader culture and get along with others

• not initiated by a request

Informational Social Influence

Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs based on a desire to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world

• in the future, people will consistently adhere to the new behavior

Normative Social Influence

Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs in order to gain approval from others or avoid disapproval

• a different opinion (right or wrong) will free us into giving our own opinion

• in the future, people will consistently adhere to the new behavior but only when:

  • they are in public

  • they believe they perceive the norm accurately

Deindividution

In extreme cases of conformity, the presence of others can cause us to lose sight of our own individuality

• common in large crowds

Social Facilitation

An enhancement of the dominant behavioral response when performing a task in the mere presence of others; easy or well-learned tasks are performed better, but difficult or novel tasks are performed worse

Social Loafing

The tendency for individuals to expend less effort on a task when they are doing it with others rather than alone

• being too anonymous as a part of a group can impair performance

To reduce social loafing

• holding both groups and individuals responsible for meeting certain goals

• when it’s clear that everyone must work together to achieve a collective goal, each individual is less likely to socially loaf

• when people work together on challenging, interesting or personally important tasks

Pros of Decision Making in Groups

• can lead to accomplishments that would never be possible by individuals acting alone

Cons of Decision Making Groups

• The strong tendency people have to affiliate with others like themselves and to conform to the actions of others can lead us to form fairly homogenous groups

• homogeneity in a group can mean that everyone gets along very well and with relatively little conflict, but homogeneity can also bias decision making

• the desire to establish and maintain consensus in a group can lead people to discuss only information that all of the participants already possess, a bias that can lead to poorer decisions

• the person who speaks up first will condition the estimates of others

Group Polarization

Tendency for people’s attitudes on an issue to become more extreme after discussing it with like-minded others

• as the conversation unfolds, individuals hear new arguments that support their initial attitudes, leading them to become more confident that their attitude is justified

• a tendency for one-upmanship can lead individuals to hold and express increasingly extreme attitudes as the group defines its norm on one side of the debate

• the newly polarized attitudes might make us feel more solidarity with our group, but they are also likely to bias decision making in an extreme manner

Groupthink

A form of biased group decision making whereby pressure to achieve consensus leads members of the group to avoid voicing unpopular suggestions

• people may feel pressure to maintain allegiance to a group leader or to render a difficult decision under time pressure

• exacerbated by having a dominant and authoritarian leader who voices strong opinions for what the group’s decision should be.

• the pressures for normative social influence win out over any pressures for informational social influence

Ways to avoid Groupthink

• emphasizing the need for making the right decision over the need for making a quick decision

• advising the leader to listen and moderate the discussion rather than preemptively steer the discussion toward an outcome

• assigning someone the role of devil’s advocate, a position of voicing counterarguments

• promoting a norm of critical evaluation rather than consensus or group cohesion

• fostering a spirit of brainstorming where all ideas and opinions are welcome

• forming groups of diverse members who are more likely to bring different attitudes, expertise, and perspectives to the issue

Leader

Many leaders gain influence by demonstrating their skills for the job and thus earning their followers’ respect. Others rise to power by showing their dominance and intimidating others to follow their lead

Aggression

Any behavior directed toward the goal of harming another living being

• the intention is just as important as whether harm is actually done

• includes physical, emotional and psychological harm

• the experience of one negative stimulus makes it more likely that we interpret a triggering event in a more negative light, lashing out in anger

General Aggression Model

A framework for knitting together various factors that, in combination, predict the likelihood that people will act aggressively

• a host of negative situational factors can prompt an act of aggression

• the most potent triggers of angry outbursts are the personal slights and insults that threaten our fundamental need for belonging and acceptance

• people act aggressively when their progress toward a goal is frustrated

  • the closer a person is to the goal, the more frustrating it is to have that goal blocked

• acknowledges that some individuals, because of personality traits or the environments they were raised in, are more prone to react with aggression than are others

Weapons Effect

Simple exposure to a gun or weapon can increase aggressive responses by bringing violent thoughts to mind