ch. 14 Social Psychology

  • Social psychology: focuses on development and expression of attitudes, attributions, how we are influenced and how we influence, and how we interact.

  • Social Loafing: the tendency for any individual of a group to put less effort as a result of being in a large group. 

  • Social roles: A defined pattern of behavior expected of a person in a given setting. 

  • Social Norms: unwritten rules on how we should behave. 

Deindividuation: The loss of individuality, to become submerged in the group. Happens in relationships, to let others boss you around- to the extent of the loss of self. 

  • The Stanford jail experiment. 

    • To see if acquiring power is what makes you brutal, or whether brutality is part of human nature.

Social facilitation

  • When another person helps your performance

Social impairment 

  • When another person worsens your performance

Conformity: When you change upon a group of people; If there are more than 3, you will begin to change. 

The status of the group is a factor. 

  • Doctors - these guys know whats up

  • Factory workers - these guys don't know anything

  • If decisions are made in public you are more likely to conform, especially if it is unanimous, If they are in private, then you are less likely to conform. 

ASCH Conformity experiment. 

  • Solomon and ash experiment 

    • 6 people are taking the experiment, but only one is actually taking, 

    • 37% of the people conformed 

    • With a partner, it goes down to a 5% chance that you will yield to the group 

  • Informational conformity: when the group convinces us they are right 

  • Normative conformity: when you conform in fear of rejection or exclusion from a group

  • If you answer, the conformity reduces further. 

Kitty Genovese

  • She was stabbed several times, the guy who did it, came back 4-5 times, the people who saw did nothing. The more people that are in a group, the less there is a response. 

  • Also if you don't have a relationship with that person, you are more likely to help. 

The Fusion of responsibility 

  • Stereotypes: Are attitudes about what members of different groups are like. 

  • Prejudice is an underserved, negative, attitude toward a group of people. 

    • Causes - could be a defense mechanism 

    • Perception: if you see someone who is different from you, you place them at a social distance. 

  • Discrimination is treating categories of people of race, age, sex, gender, or ability differently. (behavior)

  • Ethnocentrism: The belief that one’s culture is superior to others. 

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors. When someone’s behavior does not match their beliefs, they experience mental tension or ‘dissonance’ 

  • Someone who wants to live a long life will have cognitive dissonance if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness. 

  • Cognitive Misers: Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor; idea that human thinkers are stingy with our mental efforts; Example: we keep our first impressions of despite evidence to the contrary

Attribution Theory: Tries to explain how people determine the cause of what they observe. 

  • Attributions are either dispositional (internal, referring to one’s personality or set of skills, talent innate ability, or IQ) or situational (beyond the person's immediate control).

  • Attributions can also be Stable or Unstable 

    • Example: Robert is a math whiz and always does well in math. This is a personal-stable attribution.

      • Robert simply studied very hard for this test. This is a person-unstable attribution. 

      • Robert’s teacher, Mr. Smith always gives easy math tests. This is a situation-stable attribution. 

      • Mr. Smith, Robert’s teacher, gave one easy test. This is a situation-unstable attribution. 

The kinds of attributions people make are based on three kinds of information. Consistency, Distinctiveness, and Consensus. 

  • Consistency refers to how similarly the individual acts over time (does this person always do this?)

  • Distinctiveness refers to how similar some situation is to other situations in which you’ve seen somebody act (did they act like this before?)

  • Consensus refers to taking into consideration how others in the same situation would have acted (would someone else have done this?).

Fundamental attribution error: When looking at the behavior of others, people tend to overestimate the importance of dispositional (personality) factors and underestimate situational factors. 

  • In addition, people are more likely to view others' behavior as disposition, but in judging their own behavior, they are more likely to say that their behavior depends on the situation.