Chp_12_Social_Psychology_FA24_Student__1_

Chapter 12: Social Psychology

12.1 Stereotypes and Impressions

• Definition of Stereotypes: Widely held beliefs that individuals possess certain characteristics based on their group membership.

  • Cognitive Process: Stereotyping is an automatic cognitive shortcut, saving time and effort, but can lead to inaccuracies.

  • Overgeneralization: Stereotypes ignore diversity within groups and often result in negative perceptions.

  • Illusory Correlation: Misjudgment where individuals believe they encounter more confirmations of an association than they actually do. (Example: Stereotypes about Irish individuals)

12.2 Attribution Processes

• Attributions: Inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others behavior, and their own behavior. Individuals make attributions because they have a strong need to understand their experiences.

  • Types of Attributions:

    • Internal Attributions: Explanatins that ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings.

    • External Attributions: Explanations that ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions,traits, abilities, and feelings.

  • Impact: The type of attribution can significantly affect interpersonal interactions.

12.3 Weiner’s Model of Attributions

• Weiners model of attributions for success and failure focuses on explanations for success and failure based on internal vs external causes and stable vs unstable causes.

  Ex. When people analyze the cuses of poverty, their explanations tend to fit neatly into the cells of weiners model

• Examples of Attribution Types:

  • Internal-Stable: Laziness, lack of thrift; Ability and intelligence

  • Internal-Unstable: Financially draining illness; Effort, mood, fatigue

  • External-Stable: Discrimination, inadequate government programs; Task difficulty

  • External-Unstable: Bad luck, economic recession; Luck chance, oppurtunity

12.4 Fundamental Attribution Error and Self-Serving Bias

• Fundamental Attribution Error: Tendency to attribute others' behaviors to internal characteristics while attributing our own behavior to external circumstances.

• Self-Serving Bias: Dispositional attributions for successes and situational attributions for failures to maintain self-esteem. This is motivated by our desires to maintain positive self-esteem and look good to others.

  Actor: Situational attribution, focuses attention on external factors. Ex: “I don’t even like drinking beer, but its the best way to meet.”

• Observer: Dispositional attribution, focuses on the personality of the actor. Ex: “He seems to always have a beer in his hand ; he must have a drinking problem.”

• Sometimes we misjudge the causes of another persons behavior because we overestimate internal, personal factors( ex. the guy is a drunk) and underestimate external or situational influences (ex. the guy is just trying to look cool and meet women).

12.5 Interpersonal Attraction

• Key Factors of Attraction:

  • Physical Attractiveness: people of equal attractiveness tend to select each other as partners. A major determinant of initial attraction is physical appearance. (Matching Hypothesis).

  • Proximity: Repeated exposure increases liking, unless it is a negative stimulus

  • Similarity: Sharing the same values, beliefs, attitudes, opinions, etc. as another, which is the major cementing factor in maintaining long term relationships.

  • Similarities attract more than….. opposites.

  • People who are close become more similar (attitude alignment)

  • Reciprocity: doing for others at the same level of giving that you receive. Giving back the kindness given to you leads others to appreciate you more and have more positive feelings towards you. Not reciprocating can lead to feelings of resentment and can damage the relationship.

12.6 Attachment and Romantic Relationships

• Attachment Styles: Adult romantic relationships mirror infant attachment patterns (Hazan and Shaver).

• According to Hazan and Shaver (1987), peoples romantic relationships in adulthood are similar in form to their attachment patterns in infancy, which fall into three categories which is secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent.

• Secure: I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.

• Avoidant: I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust them, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. Ia m nervous when anyone gets too close, and often love partners want me to be more intimate than i feel comfortable being.

• Anxious/ambivalent: i find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or wont want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away.

12.7 Sternberg’s Theory of Love

• Comprised of three components:

  • Intimacy: feeling close and connected to someone that develops from sharing and communicating(sharing all the challenges and all the victories).

  • Passion: feeling physically aroused and attracted to someone. Women tend to underestimate men’s sexual interest while men tend to overestimate women’s sexual interest.

  • Commitment: making a pledge to nourish the feelings of love and to actively maintain the relationship(Sticking together despite hardships or mistakes and believing it is worth more to stay committed).

• Strongest relationships have a balance of all three components.

• Couples who have love triangles that are closely matched (having same levels of all three needs) have the strongest relationships.

12.8 Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudice: Preconceived attitudes towards specific groups.

  • Leads to discrimination based on group membership.

  • Factors: In-group vs out-group perceptions.

  • Explicit Attitudes: Attitudes that one holds consciously and can readily describe, Ex. I don’t like algebra/I like kind people.

  • Implicit Attitudes: Covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses over which one has little conscious control. Many people express explicit attitudes that condemn prejudice but unknowingly harbor implicit attitudes that reflect subtle forms of prejudice

  • People’s attitudes are not good predictors of their behavior.

  • A favorable attitude about a product or candidate does not necessarily translate into a purchase or a vote.

  • Ex. An unfavorable attitude towards hiring women for a man’s job doesn’t always result in less women being hired in male dominated positions

12.9 Social Influence: Conformity

• Factors Influencing Conformity:

  • Normative Social Influence: People conform to group pressure out of a need for approval and acceptance. They do not like to go against unanimity(when the group has unanimous agreement).

  • Group Size: Larger groups lead to greater conformity.

  • Reference group: People we conform to because we like and admire them and want to be like them

  • What can decrease Conformity?: When the task is unambiguous, which means the task is not open to more than one interpretation.Ambiguity can create doubt and uncertainty and more conformity./ When the size of the group is smaller than 4 people.

12.10 Social Influence: Obedience

• Definition: Obeying direct commands from an authority figure, even if it causes harm.

12.11 Deindividuation

• Definition: Decreased self-awareness and personal responsibility in group settings.

  • Can lead to positive behavior in celebratory contexts but negative behaviors like riots and crimes.

12.12 Groupthink

• Definition: Poor decision-making in cohesive groups striving for agreement.

  • Historical Examples: Failures such as Pearl Harbor, Challenger and Columbia, and events of September 11 attributed to groupthink.

12.13 Social Facilitation and Social Loafing

• Social Facilitation: Presence of others enhances performance on well-practiced tasks.

• Social Loafing: Reduced effort in larger groups; accountability can mitigate this tendency.

12.14 Helping Behavior and Altruism

• Bystander Effect: Individuals feel inhibited to act in emergencies due to others’ presence.

• Diffusion of Responsibility: Personal responsibility diluted in a group setting.

• Models of Altruism:

  • Evolutionary Perspective: Survival benefit to genes.

  • Egoistic Factors: Motivation for personal gain.

  • Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: Helping driven by empathy for others.

  • Reciprocity Norm: Expectation to reciprocate kindness; balance essential in healthy relationships.