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Social Psychology
branch of psychology that studies how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment.
Sense of self
Who you are in relation to others, which is influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences.
Person Perception
refers to the mental processes we used to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics of other people
Four Key components that influence decisions
Your reactions to others are determined by your perceptions of them, not by who they really are.
Your self-perception also influences who you perceive others and how you act on your perceptions
Your goals in a particular situation determine the amount and kinds of information you collect about others
In every situation, you evaluate people partly in terms of how you expect them to act. This comes from Social Norms.
Social Norms
the “rules” or expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular situation
Social categorization
the mental process of categorizing people into groups based on their shared characteristics
Explicit cognition
deliberate, conscious mental processes involved in perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning
implicit cognition
automatic, unconscious mental processes that influence perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning.
Implicit Personality Theory
a network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors
Attribution
the mental process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own
Fritz Heider proposed the Attribution Theory
suggests how we explain someone’s behavior is the result of either the situation or the person’s disposition/internal characteristics.
Situational Attribution
focus blame on the situation (environment, economy, traffic)
Internal attribution (Dispositional attribution)
focus blame on the person or the person’s characteristics or personality
Fundamental attribution error
we overestimate the impact of the personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situation
Attitudes
feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events
Attitudes consist of three components
Emotions
Behaviors
Cognitions
Cognitive Dissonance
unpleasant state of psychological tension (dissonance) resulting from two inconsistent thoughts or perceptions (cognitions)
Cognitive Dissonance is the main reason…
why we rationalize things because we want to reduce the discomfort we feel when our thoughts are inconsistent with out actions.
Social Influence can be seen…
in our conformity, our compliance, and our group behavior
Conformity
adjusting opinions, judgments, and behaviors so that they match those of others or the norms of a social group or situation.
Reasons why we conform
You are strongly attracted to a group and want to be a member of it
Your opinion is not the majority. (Involves at least 4 or 5 who are in agreement)
It is difficult to speak out in front of a group
Normative Social Influence
influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain social acceptance and approval or avoid disapproval
Informational Social Influence
influence resulting from a person’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality because we want to be correct but are uncertain or doubt our own judgment
Solomon Asch
famous research on conformity
His research was designed to answer a straightforward question
Would people still conform to the group if the group opinion was clearly wrong?
Objective task
are simple lines the same size
Results
participants will conform even when the group judgment was clearly incorrect
Milgram’s famous shock experiments
Most complied to the very last shock
People seemed to comply because orders were given by a legitimate authority figure
Some did stop but not only when teachers observed others refusal
More likely to give shocks when teachers and learner were in separate rooms
In Milgram’s obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter:
A previously well-established framework to obey
Gradual, repetitive escalation of the task
Experimenter’s behavior and/or reassurance
Physical and psychological separation
A great deal of conformity and obedience begins with the foot-in-the-door phenomenon:
if you first agreed to a small request, you would later comply with a larger request
Door-in-the-face technique
first persuader makes a large request that you’re certain to refuse. Later makes a much smaller request and you feel obliged or more likely to comply
That’s not all technique
make a request and before they can refuse, lower the request or add an incentive
Low-ball technique
the persuader gets a person to commit to a low-ball offer they have no intention of keeping, then the price is suddenly increased.
Social facilitation
stronger performance on easy or well learned tasks in the presence of others ( as well as poorer performance on difficult tasks.)
Social Loafing
Phenomenon when people in a group exert less effort than they would if working independently
Social Striving
Phenomenon when people tend to work harder when they are in groups than when they are alone
Deindividuation
abandon self-awareness and self-restraint in anonymous groups situations. Key is feeling both aroused and anonymous
Group polarization
groups that share opinions, ideas and attitudes become more extreme over time.
Group think
when desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic discussion of alternatives
Prejudice
means “prejudgment” a negative attitude toward a specific social group
Stereotypes
a generalized belief about a group of people. Often underlie prejudicial emotions. Once formed, stereotypes are very hard to change. They result in stereotyped thinking
Discrimination
unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members. Ultimately, when prejudice is displayed behaviorally.
Ethnocentrism
the belief that one’s culture or ethnic group is superior to others
The cross-race effect (other-race effect, cross-race bias; own-race bias)
the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races
Scape goat theory
a theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame
Blaming the Victim (Victim blaming)
tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for having caused the problem or not avoiding it.
Just-world hypothesis
belief that the world is just, that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, and the world needs to be “fair”. “Victims of the world deserve to suffer.”
Hindsight bias
the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event was obviously going to happen. Ex. telling someone else a bad event was obviously going to happen.
Self-serving bias
the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external/situational causes
Psychologists refer to the tendency to perceive others in terms of two basic social categories
the in-group and the out-group
In-group bias
the tendency to judge the behavior of the in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably
In-group bias may cause one to believe their in-group is Heterogenous
dissimilar or diverse, diverse in character or content
The Psychology of Attraction and Liking (in Western cultures)
proximity: geographic nearness/familiarity.
Mere exposure effect: when we are repeatedly exposed to something or someone (novel stimuli) our liking to them/ it increases
Physical Attractiveness
Similarity (Less important in some Eastern cultures.)
The situations in which we interaction: happy, intoxicated, physically aroused by exercise, more likely to rate others as attractive. ( if we anticipate that they like us, we are more likely attracted to them)
Socio-economic and cultural environment: food in short supply, prefer heavier women, opposite where resources are abundant
Feel good, do good effect
people who feel good, (happy, successful, fortunate, etc.) are more likely to help others.
The following increase the likelihood of bystanders to help:
feeling guilty
seeing others who are willing to help
perceiving the person as deserving help
knowing how to help
a personalized relationship
Reciprocity norm
expectation that we should return help to those who help us. The rule of reciprocity is simply if someone gives you something or does you a favor, you feel obligated to return the favor
Social-responsibility norm
that we should help those who need out help
Altruism
the unselfish regard for the welfare of others
The rule of commitment norm
once you make a public commitment, there is psychological and interpersonal pressure on you to behave consistently with your earlier commitment. Ex: foot-in-the-door.
Bystander effect
when someone is less likely to give aid because others are present. Assume someone else will do it or if no one does anything, you don’t as well.
Diffusion of responsibility
phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress because the obligation to intervene is shared among all the onlookers.
Reasons for the diffusion of responsibility
being in a big city or a very small town
vague or ambiguous situations
when personal costs outweigh the benefits
embarrassed to step up in front of others
afraid to do the wrong things
