Notes for Chapter 18
Fundamental Attribution Theory/Error:
Tendency to attribute others’ behaviors to dispositional causes and their own to
situational causes. Therefore he’s a jerk because he’s a jerk, I was a jerk because the
situation made me one. Error occurs particularly when we only see people in one role.
Attitudes: Beliefs and feelings that predispose our reactions to objects, people and
events. Attitudes will guide our actions if:
Social pressure is minimal.
Attitude is specifically relevant to behavior: cheating on taxes, isn’t cheating.
We are keenly aware of attitudes.
Foot in the door phenomenon: tendency to comply with larger request after we have
complied with a smaller one. Gateway drugs. Stealing. Racism. People can be move
away from their attitudes because they begin rationalizing behavior at smaller steps.
Role (cluster or prescribed actions)playing can affect attitudes. At first role will feel
unnatural, but eventually you become the role. Remember the Prison guard experiment,
acting out a certain group/role moves you to act in a way that you believe a person in that
role should act.
Why do actions change attitudes?
We feel motivated to justify our actions. When aware of conflict between attitude and
behavior we feel tension called cognitive dissonance. The more dissonance the more
likely we are to change attitudes.
Social Influences also determine our actions:
Behavior is contagious, what we observe we often do.
Conformity: Asch experiment. 30% of people would answer a wrong answer in a group
who responded incorrectly, only 1% when alone.
Conformity: adjusting one’s behavior to match the group.
This is called social normative influence, or social norms.
Conditions that strengthen it:
Social insecurity.
Group over three.
Group is unanimous
admire the group
no prior commitment
being observed
culture encourages respect for social standards.
Reasons we conform:
To avoid rejection and gain approval we accept social norms.
Group may provide valuable information-informational social influence.
We conform more on difficult tasks that matter.
Obedience: why?
Milgram Experiment: A majority of people will obey when the order-giver has
perceived authority and respect and is close at hand, the victim is depersonalized and
there were no models for defiance. (if you think you wouldn’t, is it self-serving bias?)
In Milgram 63% fully complied. Doing different variations from 0-93% complied.
Compliance was greatest when:
Person giving orders was close and a legitimate authority figure from a prestigious
institution.
When the victim was depersonalized.
There were no role models for defiance. Minority opinion can change attitudes if strong
enough.
Lessons for conformity and obedience studies.
Experiments are not designed to replicate everyday behaviors, but study underlying
causes.
When kindness and obedience clash, obedience wins.
It’s enough to have ordinary people corrupted by an evil situation.
Leadership counts, dissent!!!
Group Influence on our behavior.
Social facilitation: We do easy and well learned acts better in front of a group, difficult
tasks worse.
Social loafing: Given a task in a group without individual accountability, people work at
about 66% capacity. Cross-cultural studies verify these results.
Group influences on behavior:
Deindividuation: the process of abandoning individual restraint to the power of the
group:
Cheering at sporting events.
You’ll shock more if wearing a hood.
Wearing uniforms or being part of a team or clique.
Groupthink: Tendency to not offer contradictory ideas to keep group feeling good.
Group Polarization: the tendency for people who become a part of a group to become
more like the group the longer they are with the group. So, if you are moderately liberal
and join a liberal group, you are apt to become more and more liberal or prejudicial or
whatever the groups attitude is.
Minority opinion if firm and unwavering can alter group opinion, making others reassess
their attitudes
Cultural norms: accepted attitudes, ideas and traditions of a culture. Personal body
space, or body bubbles, for instance.
Gender Roles: expected behavior for what a male or female acts like within a culture.
Prejudice
a mixture of beliefs, often based on stereotypes and emotions that predispose people to
discriminate against cultural, ethnic or gender groups.
Prejudices are schemas that effect how we notice and interpret events.
Discrimination may lead to harming a racial or ethnic group which leads to behaviors
than reinforce the stereotype creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Scapegoating is when you use a racial or ethnic group as a target to blame when things
go wrong.
In-group bias: the belief that our group is good and right, excluding other groups:
groups, self-serving bias. We tend to believe that our group is full of different types of
people and “their group” is all alike.
Cognitive roots of prejudice:
Prejudices often have a germ of truth which is built into schemas and then our tendency
for confirmation bias and belief perseverance sustains the belief. Then our tendency to
use available heuristics sustains the prejudice because we hold to the most vivid example
that we have sought out because of confirmation bias.We then form illusory correlations
in our schemas that further reinforce our belief system. Also our in-group bias leads us to
believe we are correct and others wrong.
People also have a tendency to blame the victim of discrimination because we assume a
just world and they wouldn’t be discriminated against if it weren’t just: Just World
Phenomenon.
Aggression:
Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
Genetic: inherited thresholds in the amygdala.
Neural:Head injuries; testosterone levelsAggression: Psychological roots.
Aversive situations lead to aggression; heat, crowded rooms, stress.
Learned- operantly, classically, socially
Correlation with property rights, gun loving and physical punishments.
Fatherless homes.
Spanking teaches kids to hit, particularly if done excessively or in anger.
Aggression and Television.
Correlation or causation?
Immediately after viewing violence, children demonstrate more aggression, particularly if
the hero is violent. Provides social scripts.
Do aggressive kids, watch aggressive shows or do the shows cause the aggression.
Aggression media and Genders.
Men who view violence against women become more accepting of it, including coercion
(rape).
Most men are not aroused by depictions of rape, unless aroused by another source, but
rapists are.
Most rapes are acquaintance rapes and may be encouraged by literature and film that
suggests women enjoy aggressive sexual encounters. (Gone with the Wind.)
Social Traps: when striving for self-interest, two conflicting parties get caught in a
mutually destructive behavior: /Bidding on ebay.
Mirror image: tendency for conflicting parts to view the “enemy” as evil.
Attraction
Proximity/ Mere-exposure effect: We like novel things the more we’re exposed to
them. This explains why people tend to like mirror images of themselves rather than
photos or videos, they’re use to the reverse image..
Physical attraction/symmetry. Good looking people perceived as smarter, happier,
sensitive, socially skilled, honest and compassionate.
Good looks unrelated to happiness level.
Attraction
Similarity: we are attracted to people with similar tastes, attitudes, interests, race,
education, intelligence, economic status.
Passionate Love v. Companionate Love.
Emotions have two components, cognitive and physical. Arousal from any source can be
attributed to love (lust) and make others seem more attractive.
Love shifts over time from lust to friendship.
Helping Behavior:
Bystander effect: People are more likely to help if alone. If others are there a diffusion
of responsibility occurs and no one helps. The Kitty Genovese story. Think about when
you would use your cell phone to call for help for another, on the beltway or on a lonely
street if someone was broken down? Also if we observe others not helping, we assume
there is no need to help.
We tend to help more when there is some type of benefit: social exchange theory,
whether it be a direct reward or indirect, like a feeling of being a good person.
Cognitive Decision making in a conflicting situation: Approach-approach: choice
between two attractive alternatives: going to the game or to a party. Approachavoidance: choosing between something fun and a punishment: going to the party that
might get busted causing you to get in trouble. Double approach/avoidance: a decision
both of which of good and bad parts. You want to eat that chocolate cake: on the one
hand it tastes good, on the other you’ll get fat. If you don’t eat it, you’ll feel better, but
you’ll be hungry. Avoidance/avoidance: choice between two bad alternatives: going to
the dentist, hurts or teeth rot.