Apply attribution theory to explain motives (e.g., fundamental attribution error, self-serving bias).
Describe the structure and function of different kinds of group behavior (e.g. deindividuation, group polarization).
Explain how individuals respond to expectations of others, including groupthink, conformity, and obedience to authority.
Discuss attitudes and how they change (e.g., central route to persuasion).
Predict the impact of the presence of others on individual behavior (e.g. bystander effect, social facilitation).
Describe processes that contribute to differential treatment of group members (e.g., in-group/out-group dynamics, ethnocentrism, prejudice).
Articulate the impact of social and cultural categories (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) on self-concept and relations with others.
Anticipate the impact of behavior on a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Describe the variables that contribute to altruism, aggression, and attraction.
Discuss attitude formation and change, including persuasion strategies and cognitive dissonance.
Identify important figures in social psychology (e.g., Solomon Asch, Leon Festinger, Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo).
Social Psychology Defined
Social psychology studies the effects of social variables and cognitions on individual behavior and social interaction.
It examines how people’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, motives, and behavior are influenced by other people.
It seeks to understand behavior and mental processes within a social context.
Major Themes of Social Psychology
The power of social situations
Subjective social reality
The promotion of the human condition
Social Standards of Behavior
Social Roles: Patterns of behavior that are expected of persons in a given setting or group.
The roles people assume may be the result of a person’s interests, abilities, and goals.
They may also be imposed on a person by cultural, economic, or biological conditions.
Social Norms
A group’s expectation regarding what is appropriate and acceptable for its members’ attitudes and behaviors in given situations.
Social Pressure
Can create powerful psychological effects such as prejudice, discrimination, blind obedience, violence.
Social roles, rules, how we are dressed, competition, or the mere presence of others can profoundly influence how we behave and think.
Adapt behavior to social situations; in ambiguous situations, take cues from the behavior of others in that setting.
Conformity
Conformity: The tendency for people to adapt their behaviors, attitudes, and opinions to fit the actions of other members of a group.
Normative Social Influence
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
The Asch Effect
The Asch Effect: A form of conformity in which a group majority influences individual judgments.
Asch's Study:
Groups of 7 people; 6 were aware of the test.
Shown cards and asked which lines matched a standard.
In first three trials, all 6 participants answered correctly.
On the 4th trial, the first 6 intentionally answered incorrectly.
75% of those subjected to group pressure conformed to the false judgment of the group one or more times.
25% remained completely independent.
In related studies, up to 80% conformed with the majority’s false estimate at least once, while 33% yielded to the majority on half of the trials or more.
Characteristics That Promote Conformity
Asch identified 3 factors that influence whether a person will yield to group pressure:
The size of the majority
The presence of a partner who dissented from the majority
The size of the discrepancy between the correct answer and the majority’s opinion.
Conformity Increases When…
You feel incompetent or insecure.
You are in a group of 3 or more.
You are impressed by the status of the group.
You have made no prior commitment to a response.
You are being observed by the others in the group.
Your culture strongly encourages respect for social standards.
Informational Social Influence
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
Often results in internalization or private acceptance, where a person genuinely believes that the information is right.
Obedience
Obedience – changing one’s behavior at the command of an authority figure (a person who has the right to demand certain behavior from the people under his/her command or supervision)
Milgram's Obedience Study
The majority of subjects continued to obey to the end.
Non-Conformity
Not everyone conforms to social pressure.
Smith and Bond (1998) discovered cultural differences in conformity between western and eastern countries.
People from western cultures (such as America and the UK) are more likely to be individualistic and don't want to be seen as being the same as everyone else.
They value being independent & self sufficient (the individual is more important that the group), & as such are more likely to participate in non conformity.
In contrast eastern cultures (such as Asian countries) are more likely to value the needs of the family and other social groups before their own.
They are known as collectivist culture & are more likely to conform.
Groupthink
The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic view of the alternatives.
E.g. omission by the Titanic decision group to include enough lifeboats on board.
Factors that promote groupthink:
Isolation of the group
High group cohesiveness
Directive leadership
Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures
Homogeneity of members’ social background
High stress from external threats
Characteristics of Groupthink
Invulnerability: Members feel they cannot fail.
Rationalization: Members explain away warning signs and help each other justify their decision.
Lack of introspection: Members do not examine the ethical implications of their decision because they believe that they cannot make immoral choices.
Stereotyping: Members label their enemies as weak, stupid, or unreasonable.
Pressure: Members push each other not to question the prevailing opinion.
Lack of disagreement: Members do not express opinions that differ from the group consensus.
Self-deception: Members share in the illusion that they all agree with the decision.
Insularity: Members prevent the group from hearing disruptive but potentially useful information from people who are outside the group.
Group Polarization
When members of a group have similar, though not identical, views about a topic and discuss them, their opinions become more extreme and pronounced.
Groups tend to make more extreme decisions than if you thought as an individual
Social Facilitation & Social Impairment
Social Facilitation
Tendency for improved performance of tasks in the presence of others.
This is generally because of a heightened state of awareness.
E.g. Hawthorne Effect (aka Subject Reactivity).
Social Impairment
The exception is new skills. If it is a difficult task or you are not very good at it…you will perform WORSE in front of a group
Social Loafing & Group Deindividuation
Social Loafing: Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts towards a common goal.
Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster action and anonymity.
The 3 most important factors for deindividuation in a group of people are:
Anonymity, so I can not be found out.
Diffused responsibility, so I am not responsible for my actions.
Group size, as a larger group increases the above two factors.
Zimbardo’s Prison Study
Showed how we deindividuate AND become the roles we are given.
Philip Zimbardo has students at Stanford University play the roles of prisoner and prison guards in the basement of psychology building.
They were given uniforms and numbers for each prisoner.
What Makes Up a Group
Generally, groups are characterized by three features:
Roles- an expected set of behaviors for the group members
Norms- rules of conduct
Cohesiveness- force that pulls group members together and forms bonds that last.
All of these are subject to social reality.
Social Reality
An individual’s subjective interpretation of other people and of relationships with them.
Determines who we find: attractive or threatening; who we are drawn to or avoid…
The judgments we make about others depend on their behavior and our interpretations of their action.
Halo Effect
A bias in which an observer's overall impression of a person, company, brand, or product influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that entity's character or properties.
It was named by psychologist Edward Thorndike in reference to a person being perceived as having a halo
Interpersonal Attraction
Reward theory of attraction: The theory that says we like those who give us maximum rewards or benefit at minimum costs.
According to this theory, attraction is a form of social learning.
Psychologists have identified 4 especially strong sources of reward that predict interpersonal attraction.
Social Exchange Theory
People help each other when there is a positive cost-benefit analysis; when the benefits outweigh the costs.
The benefits can be tangible or intangible, physical or psychological.
All that really matters is that the person perceives the benefits to be greater than the costs.
Four Sources of Attraction
Proximity: The idea is that people will work harder to make friends with those to whom they are closest (physically).
Similarity: People usually find it more rewarding to have a relationship with someone who shares the same attitudes, interests, values and experiences as they do.
Self-Disclosure: It takes time to develop the trust necessary to share intimate details about oneself. Generally we want to spend time around those who know us best.
Physical Attractiveness: Yes it is vain, but it is reality. People are generally attracted to those who are more physically attractive.
Average=attractive
Beautiful=unapproachable
Persuasion
Attitudes subject to change with new learning.
Persuasion – the process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, position, or course of action of another through argument, pleading, or explanation.
Central Route of Persuasion- Focuses on facts and the content of the message in order to convince the listener.
Peripheral Route of Persuasion – Relying on peripheral factors like the personality of the speaker, or how the message was delivered.
Cognitive Dissonance
Proposed by Leon Festinger
A highly motivating state in which people have conflicting cognitions (thoughts), especially when their voluntary actions conflict with their attitudes.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
When people’s cognitions and actions are in conflict (a state of dissonance) they often reduce the conflict by changing their thinking to fit their behavior.
“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.”
Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
Love: strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests.
Three Components of Love
Intimacy: feelings of physical or emotional closeness that one has for another person; mostly psychological
Passion: physical aspect relating to emotions and physical arousal
Commitment: decisions one makes about a relationship, short-term or long-term
Forms of Love
Infatuation: which is passion with no intimacy or commitment.
Romantic love/Passionate love: has intimacy and passion but no commitment.
Companionate love: a deep, mature, affectionate attachment between people who love each other, like each other, and respect each other.
Empty love: has commitment but no intimacy or passion.
Consummate love: which is where all three factors are present
Attribution Theory
The idea that we give a casual explanation for someone's behavior.
Has an emotional component-
Positive feeling = Positive view of disposition & negative view of situation
Negative feeling= negative view of disposition & positive view of situation
We credit that behavior either to the situation or the person’s disposition.
Fundamental Attribution Error
We tend to attribute people’s behavior and misfortunes to their personal traits rather than situational forces.
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) is the tendency to overemphasize personal traits while minimizing situational influences.
Assigning the causality to personal characteristics when causality actually lies with the situation.
Attribution At Work
Negative behavior
Situational attribution
"Maybe that driver is ill."
Tolerant reaction (proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide berth)
Dispositional attribution
"Crazy driver!"
Unfavorable reaction (speed up and race past the other driver, craning to give a dirty look)
Self-Serving Bias
An error in the way we look at and interpret ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in.
The tendency for us to judge ourselves by a double standard:
When things go well, the success is a result of our own internal factors like motivation, talent or skill.
When things go poorly it was the result of some uncontrollable external factor.
Compliance Techniques
Compliance: changing one’s behavior as a result of other people directing or asking for the change
Forms of Compliance
Foot in the door (FITD)
Door in the face
Lowballing
Reciprocity
Foot in the Door (FITD)
Proposed by Robert Cialdini
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
FITD: Dickerson et al. (1992)
Field experiment: Asked university students to conserve water in the dormitory showers.
The researchers:
Asked a group of students to sign a poster supporting shorter showers to save water
Asked students to do a survey asking them to think about their own water usage.
Monitored students’ shower time was.
Students who had signed the poster and had done the survey spent an average of 3.5 minutes less in the shower compared to the rest of the students in the dormitory.
Cultural Differences: FITD
Individualist cultures are more likely to comply with the second request than are people in collectivist cultures.
Collectivist cultures are not as concerned with being consistent with previous behavior because they are less focused on their inner motivation unlike people in individualist cultures.
Door in the Face
A large request is made knowing it will probably be refused so that the person will agree to a much smaller request.
The real objective is to get the person to agree to the small request, which is made to seem very reasonable because it is compared to such a large, seemingly unreasonable request.
Lowballing
Strategy to induce a person to agree to something by enticing the individual with a low 'cost' and then add-on to the original product.
Example: buy a car with no options, but when you add-on the options you have paid more money
Reciprocity
The social norm of reciprocity dictates that we treat other people the way they treat us.
People are socialized into returning favors and this powerful rule underpins compliance.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Occurs when one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.
Prejudice and Discrimination
Judgments about people can be both positive and negative, but prejudice is always a negative judgment.
Prejudice is having negative thoughts, emotions, attitudes or feelings towards an individual solely based on his membership in a particular group.
Where prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is a negative action taken against a person because of his membership in a group.
5 Causes of Discrimination
Dissimilarity and Social Distance: The perceived difference between two people-usually culturally based
Economic Competition: When one group wins economic benefits at the expense of another group
Scapegoating: Tendency to direct prejudice and discrimination at out- group members, typically with least power and the newest immigrant
Conformity to Social Norms: An “unthinking tendency” to keep things the way they are, even if they may be wrong
Media Stereotypes: Images, words or ideas used to project groups in a certain, over- generalized way.
Contact Theory or Intergroup Contact Theory
One of the best ways to improve relations among groups that are experiencing conflict.
Contact hypothesis refers to the belief that prejudices can be lessened or eliminated by direct contact between groups.
Ethnocentrism
Is a belief that your society, group, or culture is superior to all others.
Social Relations
Ingroup: “Us”- people with whom one shares a common identity
Outgroup: “Them”- those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup
Just-World Phenomenon: tendency of people to believe the world is just; people get what they deserve and deserve what they get
Can We Change This?
Yes, through education.
Equal status contact:
Contact between groups in which the groups have equal status, with neither group having power over the other.
Reduces prejudice and discrimination and increases cooperation
Superordinate Goals
Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation
Social Relations
Equity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it
Altruism: unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Prosocial Behavior
A behaviour that benefits another person or has positive social consequences (Staub 1978).
Prosocial behaviour is seen as behaviour that is intended to help or benefit another person, a group of persons or even society as a whole.
In other words, prosocial behaviour is often planned with the goal of “making a difference”.
Bystander Effect
Refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present.
The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help
Social Relations
Bystander Effect: tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present
Attractiveness
Mere Exposure Effect: repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction (GRIT)
A conflict de-escalation method developed by Charles Osgood
Designed to decrease international tensions
one side announces recognition of mutual interests and initiates a small conciliatory act; opens door for reciprocation by other party