Psych 120
General Psychology
Christopher Gade
Office: 1030A
Office hours: MW 4:30-5:30
Email: gadecj@gmail.com
Class MW 1:30-4:30 Room 2240
The world of social psychology
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Social psychologists examine the world from a
number of angles. Their goal is to study the
interaction of people with and within their
environment. This can be done in a number of
different ways.
This class will cover some of the major perspectives
taken by social psychologists in today’s world.
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Forming perceptions of others
Developing opinions and changing these opinions
The influence of others on us (conformity)
Forming perceptions of others
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There are a number of critical questions that
are raised when discussing the formation of
perceptions.
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When are these perceptions formed?
Do we form perceptions of groups in the same
way that we form perceptions of individuals?
Can and how do we change these perceptions?
Are our perceptions of others formed in the same
way as our perceptions of ourselves?
When are our perceptions of
others formed?
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Primacy effect – the first
information learned about
someone influences us more
that later information
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This means that first impressions
are very important.
Why is this the case?
Self-fulfilling prophecies –
expectations that change one’s
own behavior in such a way as
to increase the probability of the
predicted event.
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The beautiful people example
The Pygmalion effect
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11:50-13:50
Stereotypes and Prejudices
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In the same way that we form perceptions of
individuals, we also form perceptions of groups.
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Stereotypes – a generalized belief or expectation about a
group of people.
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Stereotypes can be both bad and good.
Stereotypes are often beneficial and necessary.
Prejudice – an unfavorable attitude toward a group of
people.
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Prejudices can be based on almost anything imaginable and be
learned in a very short period of time.
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5:47-11:48
Discrimination – unequal treatment of different groups.
OR
OR
So how do we form perceptions of
others and ourselves?
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Attributions - the set of
thought processes we use
to assign causes to
behavior.
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Internal attributions –
explaining behaviors based
on the internal
characteristics of the
person in question.
External attributions –
explaining behaviors based
on the situation and
surrounding environment.
Attribution tendencies we have when
describing the behavior of others?
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Fundamental
attribution error –
our tendency to
attribute behaviors
to internal
attributions when
looking at the
behaviors of others.
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Pro/Anti-Castro
essay example
Differences amongst
cultures
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1:50-5:00
Is our attribution tendencies
different for ourselves?
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Actor-observer effect – the tendency to make
internal attributions for others, while making
external attributions for ourselves.
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This actor effect can be found in the descriptions
of familiar others as well.
Self/Family Member/Walter Cronkite example
Self-serving bias – the tendency to attribute
personal failures to the situation, while
attributing personal successes to the
ourselves.
So what have we learned?
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How and when perceptions of others are
formed.
The shortcomings of and ways to reduce
the pervasiveness of these perceptions.
Our attribution tendencies of ourselves
and others.
In the next part of class…
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Attitudes
and
persuasion.
What are we going to focus on now?
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Attitude is a like or dislike that influences our
behavior.
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Persuasion: the changing or formation of an
attitude through information.
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Central route to persuasion – seriously evaluate
the evidence
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Making a decision based on the argument.
Peripheral route to persuasion – evaluate
unimportant factors (i.e. appearance)
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Making a decision based on the amount of clapping.
When are these routes of
persuasion effective?
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When the argument is…
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Intelligent and of interest
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Not presented as an attempt at persuasion
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Critical for central routes, not for peripheral
Forewarning effect: the reduced effectiveness of a
persuasive message due to the awareness and
resistance of the purpose of the message.
The first argument
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Inoculation effect: the reduced effectiveness of a
good argument if it follows a weak one.
What increases the power of persuasion?
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Fear
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Similarity
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Group Endorsement
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Individual Testimonies
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More effective through
authority figures
Specific Strategies for Persuasion
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Foot-in-door technique
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Door-in-the-face technique
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Start with an outrageous request
Bait-and-switch technique
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Start with modest request
Start with a great deal and then make additional demands
That’s-not-all technique
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Make an offer, then improve it before the response
What principle do most of these
persuasion techniques operate on?
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Most of us believe that our attitudes influence our
behaviors, however, that’s not true all of the time.
Cognitive dissonance: A change in behavior alters a
change in attitude. In other words, sometimes what we
do influences what we think.
Festinger’s cog turning task
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Participants performed a boring task for a long period of time
There then asked to promoting that boring task to the next
participant
Their incentive was being paid $1 or $20
Their perception of the task was changed as a result of this
difference in pay.
Conformity
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Why do we conform?
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Forms of conformity
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Conformity surrounding us
Conformity in ambiguous
situations
Conformity in
unambiguous situations
How do we increase
conformity?
Do we conform in our
lack of action?
Why do we conform?
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Conformity – maintaining or changing one’s behavior
to match the behavior or expectations of others
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But why do we conform?
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Uncertainty? – we don’t know what to do in most novel
situations, so we mimic the behavior of others
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Norms – a set of behaviors or rules that define the proper
behavior in a situations.
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Learned responses – conformity can result from the continual
presentation of appropriate responses to situations.
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classroom behavior
“Hi, how’s it going?”
Reflexes? – a lot of our conformity is uncontrollable and
even unrecognized.
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Clapping example
Smiling/laughing example
Other forms of
conformity in our
environment
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Clothing
Notebooks/
computers
“Center of
attention”
Material being
presented
Conformity in ambiguous situations
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A lot of our conformity is a result
of the fact that there is no true
appropriate behavior or
responses in most situations.
When presented with ambiguous
situations, people look to others
in an attempt to perceive what is
best to do… we’ll get back to this
later.
This conformity in ambiguous
situations has also been found to
overlap into ambiguous stimuli as
well.
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Autokinetic effect example
But what about unambiguous situations?
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We conform to ambiguous situations because we often don’t
know what the right answer/response is.
We certainly don’t conform to the group in situations where
there is an obvious correct answer/response… right?
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Solomon Asch’s line study experiments
What influences the likelihood of conformity?
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The number of people in the majority
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The magic #3
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The presence of an “ally”
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The social situation’s requirement to conform
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Need for speed
Need for unanimity
The ambiguity of the situation (sometimes)
The “collectivist”, or “individualist” nature of
the individual being tested
Do we conform in our lack of action?
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Kitty Genovese example
Diffusion of responsibility
– we tend to feel less
responsibility to act when
other people nearby are
equally able to act.
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Communication exercise
example
Pluralistic ignorance –
assumption that
everyone else has a
better idea of how to act
in a situation.
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Smoke example