Psychology, 8th Edition – Myers
Chapter 18 – Social Psychology
Social psychology – the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
Social Thinking
Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations
 Attribution theory – suggests how we explain someone’s behavior – by crediting either the situation or the
person’s disposition.
o Fritz Heider
o Ex: A boy acts out aggressively in class. The teacher could think it was because of his personality
(internal attribution) or an abusive parental relationship at home (situational attribution)
 Fundamental attribution error – the tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to
underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition.
o Ex: Juliet is shy in class. Observing this, we naturally think that she is a shy person in all aspects of life –
it is an aspect of her personality. However, we are committing fundamental attribution error by not
considering how the environment impacts her behaviors. Catch her at a party and she might seem like a
completely different person.
o We often attribute our behaviors to external factors, while attributing others’ behaviors to internal
dispositions.
The Effects of Attribution
 Our attempt to attribute others’ behaviors to certain things can have real consequences.
o Jury deciding whether a shooting was malicious or in self-defense.
o Manager evaluating the poor performance of an employee.
 Our attributions can change depending on our emotions AND the context.
o A spouse makes a snippy remark. In an unhappy marriage, the remark could be attributed to that spouses’
personality. In a happy marriage, the remark could be attributed to that spouse having a bad day at work.
 Bottom line: Our attributions – to individuals’ dispositions or to their situations – have real consequences.
Attitudes and Actions
 Attitudes – feelings, often based on our beliefs that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects,
people, and events.
o If we believe someone is mean, we may feel dislike for the person, and then act unfriendly.
Attitudes Can Affect Actions
 We typically think in terms of attitudes affecting actions (common sense view).
 The effect of attitudes on behavior also depend on external situations, such as social pressure.
Behaviors Can Affect Attitudes
 Surprisingly, behaviors can actually affect attitudes.
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
 Foot-in-door-phenomenon – the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later
with a larger request.
 To get people to agree, start small and build.
 Doing becomes believing.
o Brainwashing during the Korean War  captured, imprisoned American soldiers eventually came to
believe in communist beliefs. Communist soldiers might ask prisoners to run errands, then repeat
communist manifestos, and divulge military secrets. At the end of the war, some “brainwashed”
American soldiers chose to stay with the communists.
o Works with charitable donations, blood drives, and even safe driving signs.
o Racial attitudes changed as school became desegregated in the 50s-60s.
 Moral action strengthens moral convictions.
Role-Playing Affects Attitudes
 You adopt a new role (college student, boyfriend/girlfriend, new job title, etc) you strive to follow the social
prescriptions that accompany that role. At first you may feel phony or fake, but soon after, the new role becomes
you.
 Most famous role-playing experiment  Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study
o About 20 average males, half assigned to role-play as guards and half to role-play as prisoners
o Experiment had to be ended after 6 days because of the aggressiveness of the guards and emotional
unstableness of the prisoners.
 Abu Ghraib – average American military officers abused Iraqi prisoners. VERY similar to the Standford Prison
Study
Cognitive Dissonance
 Cognitive-dissonance theory – the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of
our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions
clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.
 When our thoughts and/or actions do not match or are not consistent, we reduce the tension/discomfort
(dissonance) by forming new more comfortable thoughts.
o When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it was under the suspicion of weapons of mass destruction. Many
(80%) of Americans reported believing that the weapons existed, and 38% of Americans said the war
would be justified even if weapons weren’t found. When no weapons were found, many Americans
experienced dissonance, furthered by the war’s high financial cost and the cost of life. To reduce this
dissonance Americans became more interested in liberating an oppressed people and promoting
democracy.
A smoker who believes that smoking is unhealthy may experience cognitive dissonance. They could try to revise their
attitudes by rationalizing their behavior by saying, “Well I exercise so much so the effects are counteracted.”
Social Influence
Conformity and Obedience
 Behavior is contagious.
o People often laugh, yawn, or cough after seeing or hearing another people do it.
o A person passing a cluster of people who are looking up, will also look up.
o Bartenders and street performers “seed” their tip jar to suggest that others have given.
 Chameleon effect – we unconsciously mimic others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones to help us feel what
they are feeling.
 Mood linkage – we unconsciously mimic others’ moods.
 The effects of contagious behavior can be serious.
o After the Columbine high school shooting, every US state (except Vermont) experienced threats of
similar violence.
o Suicide rates often appear in clusters.
Group Pressure and Conformity
 Conformity – adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
 Solomon Asch’s study on conformity (1955)
o Several students sit around a table (all but one of which is an actor). They are shown a series of cards,
each with different size lines on them, and one line that the participants must match to the corresponding
matching line. For several rounds, all the participants agree on which line the questioned line matches.
Then suddenly, the group starts to choose lines that clearly are not the matching lines. The actual
participant is torn between what the group thinks and what he thinks is true. More than 1/3 of the time,
the participant went along with the group, even though they knew the group was wrong.
Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
 One is made to feel incompetent or insecure
 The group has at least 3 people
 The group is unanimous – but the dissent of just one person can disrupt this
 One admires the group’s status or attractiveness
 One has made no prior commitment to any response
 Others in the group observe one’s behavior
 One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
Reasons for Conforming
 Why do we clap when others do? Eat as other eat? Believe what others believe?
 Normative social influence – influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
o Sensitive to social norms because the price for being different can be severe
 Informational social influence – influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about
reality.
o Especially strong when the person is unsure about the correct behavior, they will look to others on how to
behave
o Ex: some entertainers plant actor audience members among real audience members. The actors are cued
to clap and give standing ovations at certain times, therefore influencing the rest of the audience to do the
same.
Obedience
 Obedience
o Complying to social pressures and authority
 Stanley Milgram’s shock experiment – studied how much people would obey an authority figure at the expense of
physically shocking another human being
 63% of participants fully complied to the end of the shocking session – when they believed the “learner” was
shocked unconscious or even dead.
o Even though they complied, they displayed physical signs of distress: perspiring, trembling, nervous
laughter, and biting their lips
 Milgram’s experiment is controversial from an ethics perspective – is it ethical to deceive humans to believe that
they are hurting or even killing another human?
o
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Milgram pointed out that after an intense and thoughtful debriefing session, almost none of the
participants regretted taking part in the study.
The experiment was repeated, this time with the “learner” claiming to have to heart condition. Still 65% of the
participants complied fully.
Milgram found that obedience was highest when:
o The person giving the orders was close at hand
o The person giving the orders was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
o The authority figure was from a prestigious institution
o The victim was depersonalized or perceived at a distance
o There were no role models for defiance, no other participants were seen disobeying the experimenter
Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies
 Milgram exploited foot-in-the-door phenomenon – getting teachers to respond to small requests then escalating
these requests
 These people are not bad, but corrupted by a bad situation.
*** Not in book
 It is also important to remember that people have free will and can break with conformity and deviance.
 Conforming/obeying and nonconformity/disobedience have their time and place. When considering to
conform/not conform or to obey/disobey, consider the context and the consequences.
Group Influence
 How does being a member of a group influence our behaviors?
Individual Behavior in the Presence of Others
Social Facilitation
 How are we influenced by the mere presence of others?
 Social facilitation – stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others
o Ex: When a light turns green, drivers take about 15% less time to travel the first 100 years when another
car is beside them than when they are alone.
o Ex: competing against a clock you might go fast, however you would go faster if competing against
someone else
 When we are around others, we are aroused  increased correct responses on WELL-LEARNED tasks.
 Bottom line – what you do well, you are likely to do even better in front of an audience; what you think is
difficult may seem impossible when you are being watched.
Social Loafing
 What happens when people in a group are asked to perform a task?
 Social loafing – the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining
a common goal than when individually accountable.
o Ex: in a one-on-one tug of war, the individuals must exert 100% effort, however start adding people to
either side, and the percent effort given decreases in each individual.
o Ex: group projects – the thought that someone else will do that
 Especially common among men in individualistic cultures
 People acting a group feel less accountable for their actions. They may feel as if their efforts are dispensable and
ride on the efforts of others.
Deindividution
 Sometimes the presence of others can arouse us and diminish responsibility simultaneously.
 Deindividuation – the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal.
o Ex: tribal paint allows warriors to be more brutal
o Ex: KKK outfits allow members to be anonymous and destructive
o Ex: mob mentality
o Ex: worshiping at a church in which people sing and sway together
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Possible when group members feel aroused (positively/negatively) and anonymous and thus lose selfconsciousness and respond to the group experience.
Effects of Group Interaction
 How can interacting with others have bad and good events?
Group Polarization
 Over time, group differences widen.
o Ex: college students who arrive with specific thoughts, and then join organizations and interact with
people who share those thoughts, will leave college having strengthened in those thoughts and beliefs.
 Group polarization – the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclination through discussion within the group
o Ex: when high prejudiced students discussed racial prejudice with each other, they became more
prejudiced.
o “Preaching to the choir”
 The internet provides a great platform for group polarization – chat rooms, forums, etc – especially for people
who hold obscure beliefs
Groupthink
 How can group interaction distort decision making?
 Groupthink – the mode of thinking that occurs when the desired for harmony in a decision making group
overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
o Ex: WMD in Iraq issue – review board considered few alternatives, selective gathering of information,
pressure to conform within the group or withhold criticism, and collective rationalization
 Groupthink can be prevented when a leader welcomes various opinions, invites experts’ critiques, and assigns
people to identity possible problems.
The Power of Individuals
 People have the ability to think for themselves.
o Ex: 3 officers at Abu Ghraib defied social influence and either abstained from or reported the activities
 Minority influence – the power or one or two individuals to sway majorities.
o Must be consistent in the position to change minds.
Prejudice
 Prejudice – an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members.
o Stereotype – a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of
people.
o Negative emotions (hostility, envy, or fear)
o discriminatory actions – unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.
 Prejudices are beliefs and discrimination is negative actions.
 Prejudices are schemas that influence how we notice and perceive events.
 Prejudices can be expressed overtly by discriminatory actions, or subtly through implicit emotions or thoughts.
Social Roots of Prejudice
Social Inequalities
 Haves vs have-nots  haves develop ideas that justify their position which can form from prejudices
Us and Them: Ingroup and Outgroup
 ingroup - "us" - people with whom one shares a common identity
 outgroup - "them" - those perceived as different or apart from one's ingroup
 ingroup bias - the tendency to favor one's own ingroup
 us-them distinctions can be made arbitrarily (toss of coin, drawing out of a hat)
 The ingroup bias leads to a natural prejudice against strangers
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
 Distinctions among people are heavily and intensely felt after a dangerous or emotion-arousing event (ex: 9/11
and the outpouring of American patriotism
 Prejudice can stem from and express anger  looking for someone to blame
o scapegoat theory - the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.
o Following 9/11 many people began to demonize and discriminate against innocent Arab Americans and
Muslims who were seen as terrorists
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
 Prejudice stems from divisions in a society, which are made cognitively in its members as a way to simplify the
world.
Categorization
 Categorizing things makes it easier to perceive the world.
 By categorizing people into groups, we often stereotype them (remember prototypes and the representativeness
heuristic?) which overestimates the similarities in the groups.
 To those in one ethnic group, members of another often seem more alike in appearance, personality, and attitudes
than they really are. With experience people get better at recognizing individual faces from another group.
Vivid Cases
 Availability heuristic - misjudging the frequency of events by instances that readily come to mind
 Ex: Stereotyping Muslims as being terrorists based on the vivid case of 9/11
The Just-World Phenomenon
 just-world phenomenon - the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what
they deserve and deserve what they get.
 reflects the general teaching that good is rewarded and evil is punished.  short leap to thinking that those who
are rewarded must be good and those who suffer must be bad (can have implications when looking at poverty,
prison conditions, etc)
Aggression
 aggression - any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
 different from our colloquial (everyday) usage of the word aggression. An assertive and persistent salesperson is
not aggressive. A person committing an assault stemming from a hostile outburst is aggressive.
The Biology of Aggression
 Aggression varies too widely from culture to culture and era to era to consider it an unlearned instinct but biology
does influence aggression in everyone.  genetic, neural, and biochemical
Genetic Influences
 Twin studies show that genes can affect aggression.
 Animals can be bred for aggressiveness.
 Researchers are looking for the specific genetics to explain this, however it is commonly known that the Y
chromosome (male sex) is more aggressive.
Neural Influences
 Amygdala is influential in aggression
 *** Not in book - males have (on average) larger amygdalas than women. However, males because they are (on
average) larger than women have larger brains as well.
 The frontal lobe can inhibit aggression.
Biochemical Influences
 Hormones, alcohol, and other substances in the blood can influence aggression.
 Testosterone induces aggressiveness in humans and animals. Castrated or even aging males (humans and animals)
show a decrease in aggression related to a decrease in testosterone.
 Lower level of serotonin
 Testosterone can influence aggressive behaviors, AND aggressive behaviors can boost testosterone. (ex: higher
levels of testosterone in basketball players after a game)
 Alcohol also influences aggression - actually drinking alcohol and just thinking (placebo effect) you've ingested
alcohol can lead to aggression.
 People with alcohol present in their blood commit 4 in 10 violent crimes and 3 in 4 acts of spousal abuse.
The Psychology of Aggression
Aversive Events
 frustration-aggression principle - the principle that frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression.
 Organisms respond to stressful events with a flight or fight response - some choose fight, especially if the
situation is frustrating.
 Social rejection can also induce aggression  school shootings, etc.
Learning that Aggression is Rewarding
 Our reactions to events are more likely to be aggressive in situations where experience taught us that aggression
pays. (ex: bully who sees that aggression makes him/her popular or boosts his/her self-confidence may continue to
be aggressive or escalate his/her aggressive acts)
 Findings on aggression
o There is more aggressive violence in societies in which the gap between the rich and poor is large.
o Correlation between aggression in the children of fathers who are minimally involved in or absent from
the child's life.
o Aggressive behaviors are hard to replace. Parenting programs teach parents reinforce desired behaviors
and frame statements more positively ("When you finish your chores you can play, " as opposed to, "You
can't play until you finish your chores.")
Observing Models of Aggression
 Observing violence can influence the presence of violence.
o Bandura's bobo doll study
o
Violent TV and video games can induce and/or desensitize children to violence
Do Video Games Teach or Release Violence?
 Most children who play violent video games do not become violent criminals, however many violent criminals
(ex: school shooters) played violent video games.
 Studies show that "cathartic" releases of violence, perhaps by playing video games, does not actually lead to less
violent actions. Aggressive acts breed aggressive acts, not reduce them by blowing off steam.
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Biological Factors
genetic influences
biochemical influences, such
as testosterone and alcohol
neural influences, such as
severe head injuries
amygdala
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Aggressive Behaviors
Psychological Factors
dominating behavior  more
testosterone
believe you are drunk
frustration
aggressive role models
rewards for aggressive
behaviors
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Socio-Cultural Factors
deindividuation from being in
a crowd.
challenging environmental
factors, such as crowding,
heat, and direct provocation
parental models of aggression
minimal father involvement
exposure to violent media
Conflict
 conflict - a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas
 What in the human mind causes destructive conflict?
 How might the perceived threats of social diversity be replaced b a spirit of cooperation?
Social Traps
 social trap - a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become
caught in mutually destructive behavior
 Pits our own self-interests against society's well-being.
o ex: not buying an environmentally friendly car because you like the way you look in your SUV that
pollutes the environment
 Social traps challenge us to find ways of reconciling our right to pursue our personal well-being with our
responsibility
Enemy Perceptions
 People in conflict with one another form demonizing images of one another which are similar - mirror-image
perceptions
o Feed a vicious cycle of hostility and lead to self fulfilling prophecies
Attraction
The Psychology of Attraction
 Proximity - geographic nearness
o greater chance to meet
o mere-exposure effect - the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them
o familiarity breeds fondness
o adaptive - what is familiar is safer and approachable.
 Physical attractiveness
o for most people, attractiveness is a key factor that affects first impressions
o Attractive people are more likely to be perceived as healthy, happy, sensitive, successful, and socially
skilled.
o Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - reflect one's place and time.
o Women feel attracted to healthy-looking men who seem mature, dominant, and affluent. Men are
attracted to women with a youthful appearance.
o We like average sized facial features and symmetry.
 Similarity
o Opposites do not attract - friends and couples are more likely to share common interests, attitudes, and
beliefs AND age, religion, education, race, intelligence, smoking behaviors, and economic status.
 Reward theory of attraction - we will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us and we will continue
relationships that offer more rewards than costs.
Romantic Love
 Elaine Hatfield - temporary passionate love vs enduring companionate love
 Passionate love - an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a
love relationship
o the two-factor theory of emotion is useful - arousal paired with a positive passionate appraisal can lead to
passionate love
o To be revved up and to associate some of that arousal with a desirable person is to feel the pull of passion.
 Companionate love - the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom or lives are intertwined
o the thrill of passionate love can fade over time
o adaptive? - passionate love produces children but caring for children requires that infatuation with each
other fades so they can care for and love the child.
o keys to enduring companionate love relationships
 equity - a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion what they give to
it.
 self-disclosure - revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others  breeds liking and liking breeds
self-disclosure
Altruism
 altruism - unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Bystander Intervention
 Darley and Latané's decision making process when deciding to intervene - We will help only if:
o we notice the incident
o interpret it as an emergency
o feel responsibility to help
 At each step, the presence of others turns us away from helping.
 bystander effect - the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are
present.
 The best odds of our helping someone occur when:
o the victim appears to need and deserve help
o the victim is in some way similar to us
o we have just observed someone else being helpful
o we are not in a hurry
o we are in a small town or rural area
o we are feeling guilty
o we are focused on other and not preoccupied
o we are in a good mood
The Norms for Helping
 Why do we help?
 social-exchange theory - the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to
maximize benefits and minimize costs.
o ex: if you are thinking about donating blood you would consider the disadvantages like your time, pain,
and anxiety against the benefits of reduced quilt, social approval, and good feelings.
 reciprocity norm - an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
o learned through socialization
o why we give tips to waiters, etc
 social-responsibility norm - an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them.
o why people give directions to strangers
Peacemaking
 Can cooperation, communication, and conciliation transform the antagonism fed by prejudice and conflicts into
attitudes that promote peace? Research says in some cases, yes.
Cooperation
 Does it help to put conflicting parties into close contact? Sometimes.
 superordinate goals - shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.
o can help solve a shared predicament
o Budget issues bring together Republicans and Democrats force them to work together. Sometimes works,
sometimes doesn't
 Cooperation has especially positive effects when it leads people to define a new, inclusive group that dissolves
their former subgroups.  Senate committees comprised of Reps and Dems with special names
 Working toward shared goals allows diverse peoples to discover their commonalities and shared values.
Communication
 Conflicts can be reduced by negotiation and cooperation through communication
 Third-party mediators can be used to facilitate communication - marriage issues to labor-management disputes
 Mediators help each party to voice its viewpoint and to understand the other's to lead to a win-win solution.
Conciliation
 Cooperation and communication can sometimes be impossible. But in times of intense conflict, is there an
alternative to war or surrender?
 GRIT - "Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction" - a strategy designed to decrease
international tensions.
 Using GRIT, one side first announces its recognition of mutual interests and its intent to reduce tensions. Then it
initiates one or more small, conciliatory acts.  opens the door for reciprocation from the other side.
o has been used in international conflicts, but can also be used in everyday life (a smile, touch, or kind word
during a conflict can ease tensions.)