Social Psychology: Study the way people relate to other. “How does our participation in groups affect our behaviors and mental processes?”

Attribution Theory: Explains how people determine the cause of the behavior they observe. either situational attribution or dispositional attribution. either stable attribution or unstable attribution.

Situational Attribution: “external attribution” behavior that is attributed to external factors. This is when a person believes that an event is caused by factors that are outside of themselves. could be situational or environmental features. EX: “I did a good job because the task was easy”

Dispositional Attribution:refers to the tendency to assign responsibility for others' behaviors due to their inherent characteristics, such as their motives, beliefs or personality, rather than the external (situational) influences. EX: “i did a good job on the test because i studied a lot”

Stable Attribution: an attribution in which you believe a cause to be consistent and relatively constant over time. "He attributes his bad grades to his bad teaching and bad school”

Unstable Attribution: an event or attribution that changes over time. “He attributes his bad grade to the fact that he didn’t have much time to study that week”

Fundamental Attribution Error: we tend to overestimate the role of dispositional factors. (individualistic vs collectivistic cultured & false consensus effect & self-serving Bias)

COMPLIANCE STRATEGIES

✰ Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: a persuasive technique that begins with a small request to encourage compliance with a larger request. “Can i go over to Suzy’s house for an hour?” -follow by- “Can i stay the night?” (used by most charities)

✰Door in the face phenomenon: a persuasive strategy that involves making a large, unreasonable request first, followed by a smaller, more acceptable one. “will you donate two years of you time to become a Big Brother/Big Sister?” [response is no] “Oh, well could you donate $10 so we can take the kids to the zoo?”

✰Norms of Reciprocity: our expectation that people will help us if we help them. “If a person receives a gift for their birthday, they are most likely to give a gift back to that person on their birthday”

Attitudes: A set of beliefs and feelings.

Elaboration likelihood model

✰ Central Route- using facts, ideas, evidence to persuade someone to agree with you. (EX: a car company seeking to persuade you to purchase their model will emphasize the car's safety features and fuel economy)

✰Peripheral Route- uses positive associations (beauty, fame, positive emotions) to persuade someone (EX: having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes is a common method used to encourage young adults to purchase the shoes.)

Cognitive Dissonance: A unpleasant state that arises when an individual holds beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors that are at odds with one another. (when there is a disagreement between what we do and what we believe, we change our attitudes to reduce the cognitive dissonance, or tension, that arises from that disagreement.)

Conformity: adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard (EX: if the teacher asks whether the children would rather have extra recess, no homework, or candy, once a few children vote, the rest will comply and go with the majority.)

Asch’s study of Conformity: conducted in the 1950s, explored how group behavior influences individual actions. The study found that 75% of participants conformed to the group's incorrect answer at least once due to perceived pressure.

what does it tell us? people are more likely to conform when they are in groups

Reasons for conforming

✰Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment (EX: many will buy Stanley cups simply become everyone has them and they’re trending)

✰Informational Social Influence: Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality (EX: If you're in a school or university class and the teacher asks a question which you don't know the answer to, you might find yourself listening around to hear others talking about what it is.)

Obedience: compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority (EX: you will follow the speed limit, listen to your teacher & go through you work schedule)

Milgram’s study of Obedience: Milgram studied the concept of obedience to authority and showed that people are willing to obey even when they are given orders to hurt their fellow human beings. Some participants shook, trembled, and were upset during the experiment. The participants might have even experienced trauma afterward.

what does it tell us? people will abide to whatever is told to them

ethical issues? Would not receive approval from today’s IRB (internal Review Board)

Zimbardo’s Prison Study: Philip Zimbardo had volunteers at Stanford University play the role of prisoners and prison guards in the basement of psychology building. Largely illustrated how we become the roles we are given.

what does it tell us? The more realistic the role-play, the more likely we are to become the role. Showed evidence of deindividuation, groupthink, and group polarization.

Social Facilitation Theory: If you are really good at something (or easy task) you will perform better in front of a group. if it is a difficult task (or hard task) you will perform worse in the front of a group (social impairment) ties into Yerkes-Dodson Law (the crowd helps create the arousal from motivation/emotion/stress topic)

Group Dynamics

Deindividuation: People get swept up in a group and lose sense of self. feel anonymous and aroused. explains anti-social behavior.

Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable. (EX: tug of war)

Groupthink: Group members suppress their reservations about the ideas supported by the group. They are more concerned with group harmony. makes the group seem to be unanimous even when they might not be. worse in highly cohesive groups.

Group Polarization: Groups tend to make more extreme decision than the individual. when a group makes a more extreme decision than its individual members would have made if acting on their own. (EX: views tend to demonstrate heightened pro-feminist beliefs following group discussion.)

Social Identity Theory: states that when you’re assigned to a group, you automatically think of that group as an in-group for you

Stereotype: Overgeneralized idea about a group of people

Prejudice: Unresvered (usually negitive) attitude towards a group of people

Discrimination: An action based on a prejudice

prejudice can often lead to a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A prediction that causes itself to be true.

Scapegoat theory: our prejudices dictate who we blame when we are angry, and negative emotions exacerbate prejudice (frustrated)

Combating Prejudice

Contact theory & Communication: contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if they are made to work towards a superordinate goal

Social Dilemma: action/inaction will benefit individual, but harm others in the group, and cause more harm than good to everyone if everyone takes that course.

Bytander Behavior: the more people who witness someone in distress, the less likely someone is to intervene.

-Diffusion of Responsibility

-Pluralistic Ignorance

Psychology of Agression

✰Instrumental Agression: Used as a means of securing some reward or to achieve an external goal such as a victory

✰Hostile Agression: against another person with intent to do physical or mental harm; the goal or reinforcement is to inflict pain or suffering on the victim. always accompained by anger.

Theories of Agression

✰Banduras Modeling: Bandura's Bobo doll experiment involved children viewing adults act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. When left alone with the Bobo doll, the children acted in the same manner toward the doll as they had observed the adults doing.

✰Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: suggests that frustration increases arousal and anger, but this lead to aggression only in the individual has learned to be aggressive in the particular situation.

Social Relations

Equity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.

Self-Disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others

Attraction

✰Proximity: Geographic nearness “mere exposure effect”

✰Reciprocal Liking: You are more likely to like someone who likes you.

✰Similarity: More likely to like each-other if you’re alike. Opposites do NOT attract.

✰Liking through association: Classical conditioning. good feelings from a location may become associated with a person in that location.

✰The “Hotty” Factor: Physical attractiveness predicts dating frequency (they date more) they are perceived as healthier, happier, more honest and successful than less attractive counterparts.

• Beauty standards can depend on culture