12.1 What is Social Psychology?

• Social psychology: examines how people affect one another, and it looks at the power of the situation.

  • Social psychologists assert that an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are very much influenced by social situations.

• The field of social psychology studies topics at both the intra- and interpersonal levels.

  • Intrapersonal topics: those that pertain to the individual; include emotions and attitudes, the self, and social cognition.

  • Interpersonal topics: those that pertain to dyads and groups; include helping behavior, aggression, prejudice and discrimination, attraction and close relationships, and group processes and intergroup relationships.

Situational and Dispositional Influences on Behavior

• Behavior is a product of both the situation and of the person.

  • Subfields of psychology tend to focus on one influence or behavior over others.

• Situationism: the view that our behavior and actions are determined by our immediate environment and surroundings.

• Dispositionism: the view that our behavior is determined by internal factors.

  • Internal factor: an attribute of a person and includes personality traits and temperament.

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Fundamental attribution error: when people assume that the behavior of another person is a trait of that person, and to underestimate the power of the situation on the behavior of others.

• People from an individualistic culture have the greatest tendency to commit the fundamental attribution error.

• People from a collectivistic culture are less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error.

Actor-Observer Bias

• Actor-observer bias: the phenomenon of attributing other people’s behavior to internal factors (fundamental attribution error) while attributing our own behavior to situational forces.

• As actors of behavior, we have more information available to explain our own behavior. However as observers, we have less information available; therefore, we tend to default to a dispositionist perspective.

Self-Serving Bias

• Self-serving bias: he tendency of an individual to take credit by making dispositional or internal attributions for positive outcomes but situational or external attributions for negative outcomes.

  • This bias serves to protect self-esteem.

• One model of attribution proposes three main dimensions: locus of control (internal versus external), stability (stable versus unstable), and controllability (controllable versus uncontrollable).

  • Stability: the extent to which the circumstances that result in a given outcome are changeable.

    • The circumstances are considered stable if they are unlikely to change.

  • Controllability: the extent to which the circumstances that are associated with a given outcome can be controlled.

Just-World Hypothesis

• Just-world hypothesis: the belief that people get the outcomes they deserve.

  • In order to maintain the belief that the world is a fair place, people tend to think that good people experience positive outcomes, and bad people experience negative outcomes

  • This allows us to feel that the world is predictable and that we have some control over our life outcomes

12.2 Self-presentation

Social Roles

• Social role: a pattern of behavior that is expected of a person in a given setting or group.

• Each one of us has several social roles.

• Nearly everyone in a given culture knows what behavior is expected of a person in a given role.

• Social roles, and our related behavior, can vary across different settings.

Social Norms

• Social norm: a group’s expectation of what is appropriate and acceptable behavior for its members—how they are supposed to behave and think

• Script: a person’s knowledge about the sequence of events expected in a specific setting

  • Because of social roles, people tend to know what behavior is expected of them in specific, familiar settings.

  • Scripts are important sources of information to guide behavior in given situations.

Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment

• Stanford prison experiment: 24 healthy male college students were randomly assigned to play the role of either a prisoner or a guard in a mock prison. The experiment was scheduled to run for several weeks.

  • The guards came to harass the prisoners in an increasingly sadistic manner, through a complete lack of privacy, lack of basic comforts such as mattresses to sleep on, and through degrading chores and late-night counts.

  • The prisoners began to show signs of severe anxiety and hopelessness—they began tolerating the guards’ abuse. After six days, the experiment had to be ended due to the participants’ deteriorating behavior.

    • It was conducted by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo.

    • It demonstrated the power of social roles, norms, and scripts in affecting human behavior.

      • The guards and prisoners enacted their social roles by engaging in behaviors appropriate to the roles: The guards gave orders and the prisoners followed orders.

      • Social norms require guards to be authoritarian and prisoners to be submissive.

      • The specific acts engaged by the guards and the prisoners derived from scripts.

12.3 Attitudes and Persuasion

• Attitude: our evaluation of a person, an idea, or an object.

• Typically, attitudes are positive or negative and have three components: an affective component (feelings), a behavioral component (the effect of the attitude on behavior), and a cognitive component (belief and knowledge)

• Our attitudes and beliefs are not only influenced by external forces, but also by internal influences that we control.

What is Cognitive Dissonance?

• Cognitive dissonance: psychological discomfort arising from holding two or more inconsistent attitudes, behaviors, or cognitions

• When we experience cognitive dissonance, we are motivated to decrease it because it is psychologically, physically, and mentally uncomfortable.

• We can reduce cognitive dissonance by bringing our cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors in line— This can be done in different ways:

  • Changing our discrepant behavior

  • Changing our cognitions through rationalization or denial

  • Adding a new cognition

Persuasion

• Persuasion: the process of changing our attitude toward something based on some kind of communication.

• Much of the persuasion we experience comes from outside forces.

• Yale attitude change approach: describes the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes.

  • Hovland demonstrated that certain features of the source of a persuasive message, the content of the message, and the characteristics of the audience will influence the persuasiveness of a message

    • Features of the source of the persuasive message include the credibility of the speaker and the physical attractiveness of the speaker.

      • Similarly, more attractive speakers are more persuasive than less attractive speakers. The immediate and long term impact of the persuasion also depends, however, on the credibility of the messenger.

    • Features of the message itself that affect persuasion include subtlety (the quality of being important, but not obvious); sidedness (that is, having more than one side); timing, and whether both sides are presented.

      • Messages that are more subtle are more persuasive than direct messages.

      • Arguments that occur first are more influential if messages are given back-to-back.

      • However, if there is a delay after the first message, and before the audience needs to make a decision, the last message presented will tend to be more persuasive.

    • Features of the audience that affect persuasion are attention, intelligence, self-esteem, and age. In order to be persuaded, audience members must be paying attention.

      • People with lower intelligence are more easily persuaded than people with higher intelligence; whereas people with moderate self-esteem are more easily persuaded than people with higher or lower self-esteem.

      • Younger adults aged 18–25 are more persuadable than older adults.

• The elaboration likelihood model: there are two main routes that play a role in delivering a persuasive message: central and peripheral.

  • Central route: logic driven and uses data and facts to convince people of an argument’s worthiness.

    • Works best when the target of persuasion, or the audience, is analytical and willing to engage in processing of the information.

  • Peripheral route: an indirect route that uses peripheral cues to associate positivity with the message.

    • Relies on association with positive characteristics such as positive emotions and celebrity endorsement.

• Foot-in-the-door technique: the persuader gets a person to agree to bestow a small favor or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a bigger item.

12.4 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience

Conformity

• Solomon Asch conducted several experiments in the 1950s to determine how people are affected by the thoughts and behaviors of other people.

• Conformity: the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if they don’t agree with the group.

• Asch effect: the influence of the group majority on an individual’s judgment.

• The size of the majority, the presence of another dissenter, and the public or relatively private nature of responses are key influences on conformity.

  • The size of the majority: the greater the number of people in the majority, the more likely an individual will conform.

    • There’s an upper limit: a point where adding more members does not increase conformity.

  • The presence of another dissenter: If there’s at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero.

  • The public or private nature of the responses: when responses are made publicly, conformity is more likely; however, when responses are made privately, conformity is less likely.

• Normative social influence: people conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group.

• Informational social influence: people conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous.

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment

• Obedience: the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure. People often comply with the request because they are concerned about a consequence if they do not comply. To demonstrate this phenomenon, we review another classic social psychology experiment.

• Stanley Milgram designed an experiment where volunteer participants were told that they were to teach other students correct answers to a series of test items, and to shock the learners if they gave a wrong answer to a test item.

  • In response to a string of incorrect answers from the learners, the participants obediently and repeatedly shocked them.

    • The learners cried out for help, and when the researcher told the participant-teachers to continue the shock, 65% of the participants continued the shock to the maximum voltage and to the point that the learner became unresponsive

  • Several variations of the original Milgram experiment were conducted to test the boundaries of obedience. When certain features of the situation were changed, participants were less likely to continue to deliver shocks

Groupthink

• Groupthink: the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus.

• In group situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do.

• Groupthink can hinder opposing thoughts.

  • This elimination of diverse opinions contributes to faulty decision by the group.

• Symptoms of groupthink:

  • perceiving the group as invulnerable or invincible—believing it can do no wrong

  • believing the group is morally correct

  • self-censorship by group members, such as withholding information to avoid disrupting the group consensus

  • the squashing of dissenting group members’ opinions

  • the shielding of the group leader from dissenting views

  • perceiving an illusion of unanimity among group members

  • holding stereotypes or negative attitudes toward the out-group or others’ with differing viewpoints

Group Polarization

• Group polarization: the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group.

• Social facilitation: occurs when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone.

• Social loafing: the exertion of less effort by a person working together with a group.

  • Occurs when our individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group.

• Interestingly, the opposite of social loafing occurs when the task is complex and difficult

• In a group setting, such as the student work group, if your individual performance cannot be evaluated, there is less pressure for you to do well, and thus less anxiety. This puts you in a relaxed state in which you can perform your best, if you choose.

• If the task is difficult, many people feel motivated and believe that their group needs their input to do well on a challenging project.

12.5 Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudice: a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group.

• Prejudice is common against people who are members of an unfamiliar cultural group.

• Prejudice often begins in the form of a stereotype

• Stereotype: a specific belief or assumption about individuals based solely on their membership in a group, regardless of their individual characteristics.

• Stereotypes become overgeneralized and applied to all members of a group.

• Whether or not you agree with a stereotype, stereotypes are generally well-known within in a given culture.

• Discrimination: negative action toward an individual as a result of one’s membership in a particular group.

• As a result of holding negative beliefs (stereotypes) and negative attitudes (prejudice) about a particular group, people often treat the target of prejudice poorly.

Types of Prejudice and Discrimination

• Racism: prejudice and discrimination against an individual based solely on one’s membership in a specific racial group.

  • Racism exists for many racial and ethnic groups.

  • One reason modern forms of racism, and prejudice in general, are hard to detect is related to the dual attitudes model.

    • Humans have two forms of attitudes: explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes.

      • Explicit attitudes: conscious and controllable

      • Implicit attitudes: unconscious and uncontrollable.

    • Because holding egalitarian views is socially desirable most people do not show extreme racial bias or other prejudices on measures of their explicit attitudes.

      • However, measures of implicit attitudes often show evidence of mild to strong racial bias or other prejudices.

• Sexism: prejudice and discrimination toward individuals based on their sex.

  • Typically, sexism takes the form of men holding biases against women, but either sex can show sexism toward their own or their opposite sex.

  • Sexism may be subtle and difficult to detect.

  • Common forms of sexism in modern society include gender role expectations

  • Sexism can exist on a societal level

• Ageism: prejudice and discrimination toward individuals based solely on their age.

  • Typically, ageism occurs against older adults, but ageism also can occur toward younger adults.

• Homophobia: prejudice and discrimination of individuals based solely on their sexual orientation.

  • Negative feelings often result in discrimination

Why Do Prejudice and Discrimination Exist?

• Prejudice and discrimination persist in society due to social learning and conformity to social norms.

• Children learn prejudiced attitudes and beliefs from society.

• If certain types of prejudice and discrimination are acceptable in a society, there may be normative pressures to conform and share those prejudiced beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Stereotypes and Fulfilling Prophecy

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true.

  • When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations.

  • This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs.

• Confirmation bias: to seek out information that supports our stereotypes and ignore information that is inconsistent with our stereotypes

In-Groups and Out-Groups

• In-group: a group that we identify with or see ourselves as belonging to.

• Out-group: a group that we view as fundamentally different from us.

• In-group bias: a preference for our own group over other groups.

  • Can result in prejudice and discrimination because the out-group is perceived as different and is less preferred than our in-group.

• Despite the group dynamics that seem only to push groups toward conflict, there are forces that promote reconciliation between groups: the expression of empathy, of acknowledgment of past suffering on both sides, and the halt of destructive behaviors.

• Scapegoating: the act of blaming an out-group when the in-group experiences frustration or is blocked from obtaining a goal.

12.6 Aggression

• Humans engage in aggression when they seek to cause harm or pain to another person.

• Aggression takes two forms depending on one’s motives: hostile or instrumental.

  • Hostile aggression: motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain.

  • Instrumental aggression: motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain.

• From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, human male aggression likely serves to display dominance over other males, both to protect a mate and to perpetuate the male’s genes

• Women typically display instrumental forms of aggression, with their aggression serving as a means to an end

• Frustration aggression theory: when humans are prevented from achieving an important goal, they become frustrated and aggressive.

Bullying

• Bullying: repeated negative treatment of another person, often an adolescent, over time.

• Bullying doesn’t have to be physical or verbal, it can be psychological.

• Bullying involves three parties: the bully, the victim, and witnesses or bystanders.

• The act of bullying involves an imbalance of power with the bully holding more power—physically, emotionally, and/or socially over the victim.

• The experience of bullying can be positive for the bully, who may enjoy a boost to self-esteem.

• Patterns in children who are at a greater risk of being bullied:

  • Children who are emotionally reactive

  • Children who are different from others

  • Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender teens

Cyberbullying

• Cyberbullying: repeated behavior that is intended to cause psychological or emotional harm to another person.

  • It’s typically covert, concealed, done in private, and the bully can remain anonymous.

    • This anonymity gives the bully power, and the victim may feel helpless, unable to escape the harassment and retaliate

• Cyberbullying can take many forms

• In cyberbullying, it is more common for girls to be the bullies and victims because cyberbullying is nonphysical and is a less direct form of bullying

• The effects of cyberbullying are just as harmful as traditional bullying and include the victim feeling lower self-esteem, frustration, anger, sadness, helplessness, powerlessness, and fear.

The Bystander Effect

• Bystander effect: a phenomenon in which a witness or bystander does not volunteer to help a victim or person in distress, and instead just watch what is happening.

• Social psychologists hold that we make these decisions based on the social situation, not our own personality variables.

• Diffusion of responsibility: the tendency for no one in a group to help because the responsibility to help is spread throughout the group

  • In general, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely any one person will help.

12.7 Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial Behavior and Altruism

• Prosocial behavior: voluntary behavior with the intent to help other people

• Altruism: people’s desire to help others even if the costs outweigh the benefits of helping.

  • Some researchers suggest that altruism operates on empathy.

  • Some researchers argue that altruism is a form of selfless helping that is not motivated by benefits or feeling good about oneself.

  • Some researchers argue that helping is always self-serving because our egos are involved, and we receive benefits from helping

Forming Relationships

• The most influential factor in determining with whom you form relationships is proximity.

  • You are more likely to be friends with people you have regular contact with. It’s simply easier to form relationships with people you see often because you have the opportunity to get to know them.

• Similarity is another factor that influences who we form relationships with.

  • We are more likely to form relationships with someone who is similar to us in background, attitudes, and lifestyle.

  • Homophily: the tendency for people to form social networks with others who are similar.

    • Homophily limits our exposure to diversity.

• Once we form relationships with people, we desire reciprocity.

  • Reciprocity: the give and take in relationships.

  • We are more likely to like and engage with people who like us back.

  • Self-disclosure: the sharing of personal information

Attraction

• People differ in what they consider attractive, and attractiveness is culturally influenced.

• Although humans want mates who are physically attractive, this does not mean that we look for the most attractive person possible.

  • Matching hypothesis: asserts that people tend to pick someone they view as their equal in physical attractiveness and social desirability

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

• Triangular theory of love: Robert Sternberg proposed that there are three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. These three components form a triangle that defines multiple types of love

  • Intimacy: the sharing of details and intimate thoughts and emotions.

  • Passion: the physical attraction

  • Commitment: standing by the person

• Sternberg states that a healthy relationship will have all three components of love—intimacy, passion, and commitment—which is described as consummate love.

• Different aspects of love might be more prevalent at different life stages.

• Liking: having intimacy but no passion or commitment.

• Infatuation: the presence of passion without intimacy or commitment.

• Empty love: having commitment without intimacy or passion.

• Companionate love: characteristic of close friendships and family relationships, consists of intimacy and commitment but no passion.

• Romantic love: having passion and intimacy, but no commitment.

• Fatuous love: having passion and commitment, but no intimacy

Social Exchange Theory

• Social exchange theory: we act as naïve economists in keeping a tally of the ratio of costs and benefits of forming and maintaining a relationship with others.

• People are motivated to maximize the benefits of social exchanges, or relationships, and minimize the costs.

  • People prefer to have more benefits than costs, or to have nearly equal costs and benefits, but most people are dissatisfied if their social exchanges create more costs than benefits.