SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 13
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology: The scientific
study of how people think about,
influence, and relate to one another.
 Social
Cognition
 Social Behavior
 Social Influence
 Intergroup Relations
 Close Relationships
SOCIAL COGNITION
The area of social
psychology that
explores how people
select, interpret,
remember, and use
social information.
Essentially, it is the
way in which
individuals think in
social situations.
SOCIAL COGNITION
 Person Perception


Physical attractiveness
First impressions
 Attribution


Attributional errors
Heuristics in social information processing
 The Self as a Social Object



Self-objectification: The tendency to see oneself primarily
as an object in the eyes of others.
Stereotype threat
Social comparison
 Attitudes



Attitudes can predict behavior
Behavior can predict attitudes
Persuasion
PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
“Beautiful is good” (halo effect)
Averageness
Symmetry
Youthfulness
HALO EFFECT
A cognitive bias in which our overall
impression of a person influences how
we feel and think about their
character.
In the work place: A bias, common in
performance ratings, that occurs
when a rater gives a person the same
rating on all of the items being
evaluated, even though the individual
varies across the dimensions being
assessed.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
When expectations cause individuals
to act in ways that serve to make the
expectations come true.
Shows the power of stereotypes and
other expectations
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore
Jacobsen Pygmalion Effect (1968)
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Quick
Lasting
Primacy effect
ATTRIBUTION
The process by which we come to
understand the causes of others’
behavior and form an impression of
them as individuals.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
The view that people are motivated to
discover the underlying causes of
behavior as part of their effort to
make sense of the behavior.
 Internal
vs. external causes
 Disposition
vs. situation
 Personal vs. environmental
 Stable
vs. unstable causes
 Controllable vs. uncontrollable causes
FUNDAMENTAL
ATTRIBUTION ERROR
Observers' overestimation of the
importance of internal traits and
underestimation of the importance of
external situations when they seek
explanations of an actor's behavior.
Actor
Observer
Individualistic vs. Collectivistic
FALSE CONSENSUS
EFFECT
Observers' overestimation of the
degree to which everybody else thinks
or acts the way they do.
SPOTLIGHT EFFECT
People’s tendency to assume that the
social spotlight (attention) shines
more brightly on them than it actually
does.
Barry Manilow T-shirt Experiment
(2000)
SELF-SERVING BIAS
The tendency to take credit for our
successes and to deny responsibility
for our failures.
Individualistic vs. Collectivistic
STEREOTYPE
A generalization about a group's
characteristics that does not consider
any variations from one individual to
another.
Social schemas
STEREOTYPE THREAT
An individual's fast-acting, selffulfilling fear of being judged based on
a negative stereotype about his or her
group.
Based on stereotypical expectations
Claude Steele and Eliot Aronson
(1995)
SOCIAL COMPARISON
The process by which individuals
evaluate their thoughts, feelings,
behaviors, and abilities in relation to
other people.
Leon Festinger (1954)
ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS
Attitude
Behavior
 Our
 Everything
feelings,
opinions, and
beliefs about
people, objects,
and ideas.
 Internal
people do that
can be directly
observed.
 Actions
 External
WHEN ATTITUDES
INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR
Strong attitudes
Strong awareness of attitudes &
rehearses and practices attitudes
Vested interest
HOW BEHAVIOR
INFLUENCES ATTITUDES
Cognitive Dissonance
Self-perception Theory
 An
 States
individual's
psychological
discomfort
caused by two
inconsistent
thoughts.
 Leon
Festinger
and J. Merrill
Carlsmith (1957)
that
individuals
make inferences
about their
attitudes by
perceiving their
behavior.
 Daryl
Bem (1967)
ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION
Persuasion: Trying to change
someone’s attitude (and behavior).
 The
Source- communicator
 The Medium- method
 The Target- audience
 The Message
ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD
MODEL (PERSUASION)
Central Route
Peripheral Route
 Works
 Involves
by
engaging
someone
thoughtfully with
a sound, logical
argument.
 Facts
 High elaboration
 More durable
change
nonmessage factors
such as the
source’s
credibility,
attractiveness or
emotional
appeals.
 Low elaboration
 Less durable
change
PERSUASION TECHNIQUES
Foot-in-the-door
Door-in-the-face
 Strategy
 Strategy
involves
making a smaller
request at the
beginning, and
then making the
biggest request
last (after the
small request has
been accepted).
involves
making the
biggest request at
the beginning,
and then making
a smaller
“concessionary”
request last (after
the big request
has been
rejected).