Social Psychology
Understanding Ourselves
and Others
Social Psychology
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Study of people’s interpretations of and
reactions to their social world.
Chapter 13: Social Cognition
• The self—our sense of who we are and how we
differ from others.
• Impression and attitude formation
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Chapter 14: Social Interaction
• Impression management
• Influencing others.
• Helping others.
The Self
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Very important concept in social
psychology
• The essence of us, what we are, what makes
us different from others.
• Affects how we perceive others.
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Minimal self: Recognition of our
difference from the environment—many
animals
Objectified self: Seeing self as an
object—non-human primates, dolphins,
humans
Symbolic self: An abstract concept of
self, seems language related—only
humans.
Objectified Self
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More activity in
medial frontal
lobe when looking
in mirror.
4/5 patients did
not recognize self
when right
hemisphere
anesthetized.
Self recognition
seems to be a
right hemisphere
frontal lobe
function.
The Self
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Self-recognition
• Recognition of objectified self in
pictures, mirrors, videos.
• Develops over 1st two years.
• Accompanied by development of
emotions such as guilt and shame.
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Self-awareness
• Leads to comparisons with others and
affects our behaviour—self-discrepancy
theory.
The Self
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Self concept
• All the learned beliefs, attitudes and
opinions that we hold to be true about
our personal existence.
• The image we have of ourselves, good
or bad.
• Directs what we pay attention to and
affects how we interact with others.
Self-Concept
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Self-concept is built through all the
interactions and experiences we have.
We also recognize and make use of the
cultural patterns of our society.
This is how we "know who we are," that
is, each of us acquires a self-concept.
Our self-concept affects how we respond
and interact with others.
The Self
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Self-schema
• Our understanding of our self-concept.
• Everything about yourself that is important to
you,
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e.g., loving your parents, being loyal, being
honest, supporting your friends, being a good
student.
• Affects our processing of information in
relation to ourselves—self-referential
processing.
• Determines our working self-concept, what we
consider makes us distinct (and important) at
any given point in time.
The Self
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Self-complexity
• We define ourselves in different ways, e.g.,
student, child, parent, athlete, teacher, boss,
employee, etc.
• Emphasize different aspects of our self-concept
in each of these roles, and change our
behaviour with each person we interact with.
• The more complex the self, the less damaging
is a threat to one aspect of the self.
The Self
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Self-construal
• A construal is an interpretation.
• Self-construal is how we interpret
ourselves in the context of our culture.
• Two key self-construals:
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Independent self-construal: Western
cultures, which value individuality.
Interdependent self-construal: Collectivist
cultures, which value collectivist views,
stressing that each individual is only a part
of the greater society.
The Self
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Self-esteem
• The value we place on ourselves.
• A judgement that we make about our
worth.
• How much we like ourselves.
• Level relates to the difference between
our ideal self and the ‘real’ self, based
on our self-concept.
The Self
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Self-esteem
• Self-serving bias
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An innate tendency to want to see ourselves
positively.
Tend to ignore negative feedback—”junk
mail metaphor”.
• Both high and low self-esteem
individuals hold positive illusions:
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Overestimate own skills and abilities.
Overestimate level of control over events
Unrealistic predictions of future success.
Maintaining Self-Esteem
Maintaining Self-Esteem
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Self-evaluative Maintenance
• We act to support our self-esteem.
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Social Comparisons
• Compare our performance with others.
• The standard then affects our self-esteem.
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Use Self-serving Bias
• Interpret success and failure in the context of
our self-esteem.
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High self-esteem: Credit self for success and blame
failure on outside circumstances.
Low self-esteem: Credit outside circumstances for
success and blame failure on self.
Attitudes
• Beliefs, feelings and judgments about
situations, ideas and objects.
• Formed over time.
• Based on direct experience, therefore
learned, i.e., conditioned.
• Mere exposure effect.
• Genetic physiological makeup may
create a predisposition to acquire
certain attitudes. These are more
resistant to change.
Attitudes
• Components of attitudes include
emotional evaluation (affect), cognitive
evaluation, and behaviour.
• These components are not necessarily
in agreement.
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Behaviour does not always reflect our
expressed attitudes.
• Attitudes can be explicit or implicit.

Try the Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT)
http://www.wwnorton.com/psychsci/activity
/ch1_activity.htm
Influences on Attitudes
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Shared Perceptions
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Social comparison: Asch’s (1955) research.
• Leads to reevaluation of our beliefs.
• Increases media influence.
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Consistent Information
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Inconsistent information makes us
uncomfortable.
Must be consistent across different
modalities and time.
Tend to be much influenced by first
impressions (primacy effect in social
perception).
• Reinterpret later experience to fit with first
impression.
Attitude Change
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Attempts to influence our attitudes
are very prevalent in our society.
• Policitians
• Governments
• Advertisers
• Sales personnel
• And many more examples.
Social Cognition
Persuasive Communication
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Central Route: We focus on the
message.
• Reasoned, rational arguments are more
effective.
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Peripheral Route: We are distracted
by noise, other thoughts, etc.
• Personality and credibility of messenger,
appeal to emotions are more effective.
Cognitive Dissonance
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State of tension when two or more
cognitions are psychologically
inconsistent.
Competing cognitions.
• Internal conflict between values, attitudes and
beliefs (Festinger, 1957).
• Entirely subjective.
• Makes us uncomfortable.
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Can lead to attitude or behaviour
change.
• Act to relieve the discomfort of the dissonant
cognitions.
Cognitive Dissonance
Example
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High school senior believes use of
illegal drugs is physically harmful and
morally wrong.
Attends party with a group of
students she admires.
These students smoke pot and
persuade her to join them.
She now experiences cognitive
dissonance, a conflict between her
beliefs and her behaviour.
Social Cognition
Types of Cognitive Dissonance
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Post decisional dissonance.
Dissonance from wanting what we can’t
have.
Dissonance from investment of resources.
Dissonance from inconsistencies of
attitude and behaviour.
Dissonance from inadequate justification.
Dissonance from inconsistencies between
commitment and attitude.
Person Perception
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Infer causes for other’s behaviour.
Make attributions to some surface
factor.
Remember the inferred
characteristics, not the situation or
the behaviour.
Person Perception
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Limited information
Surface characteristics
• Appearance is very important in our
judgements.
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Situation specific
• One or two settings
• Behaviour may be different in other
settings
Attribution Theory
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Attributions based on perceived
disposition (personality) and the
situation.
Kelly:
• Consistency: Behaviour occurs
regularly.
• Consensus: Lots of people behave this
way.
• Distinctiveness across situations:
Behaviour tends to only happen in
certain situations.
Attribution Theory
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Fundamental Attribution Error:
Judging others
• It must be their personalities that made
them do it.
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Self-Serving Attributional Bias:
Judging ourselves
• If it’s good, it must be our personalities.
• If it’s bad, it must be the situation that
influenced us.
Social Interaction
Chapter 14
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Affiliation
Reading Nonverbal Behaviour.
Self Presentation (Impression
Management
Influence of Others
Helping or Hurting Others
Liking and Loving Others
Social Interaction
Chapter 14
A different structure:
• Will cover many of the topics in the
chapter under these headings.
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One-on-one interactions
Many-to-one interactions
One-to-many interactions
Many-to-many interactions
One-To-One Interactions
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Compliance principles (Cialdini,
1975): How to influence others:
• Foot-in-the-door techniques—once they
agree to a small request . . .
• Door-in-the-face technique—start big
and back off (reciprocity principle).
• Four walls technique—once they say
“yes” a couple of times . . .
(telemarketing).
• Low ball techniques—once they’re
committed . . . (car sales, bait and
switch).
One-To-One Interactions
Compliance Principles
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Comparison of FID and DIF
techniques (Harrari et al., 1980)
• Study of students making requests of
faculty
• FID group—Small (15 minutes help),
then moderate (2 hours of help).
• DIF—Moderate (2 hours of help), then
small (15 minutes).
• Control group—Moderate (2 hours of
help).
One-To-One Interactions
Compliance Principles
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Comparison of FID and DIF techniques
(Harrari et al., 1980)—all significantly
different:
• FID—33.3% compliance
• DIF—78.0% compliance
• Control—56.8% compliance.
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Among college faculty, starting larger and
reducing request (DIF) works best.
Faculty respond least well to the moderate
request when it’s preceded by a smaller
one. Better to just ask for the larger.
One-To-One Interactions
Obedience and Conformity
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Social conformity
Milgram’s famous experiments (early
1960s)
• “Just following orders.”
• Ethical issues.
• Applications to real world situations
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Hofling, et al. (1966)
Rank & Jacobson (1977)
Many-To-One Interactions
Existing within Social Forces
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We act differently with others than we
would alone.
Kurt Lewin (1st social psychologist)
• Behaviour is the function of the person
interacting with the environment.
• Developed Social Field Theory based on
physics.
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We exist in a field of forces that act to move us in
many different directions.
Internal forces—desires, goals, abilities.
External forces—pressure from others, responsibility,
obligations.
Many-To-One Interactions
Existing within Social Forces
• Bibb Latane
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Social Impact Theory—We can measure the
effect of forces that act on an individual
(pulse, blushing, beliefs, values, attitudes,
cognitions).
The impact is multiplicative and depends on:
• Strength of the force—importance to individual.
• Immediacy of the force—how close, either
physically or psychologically.
• Number of forces, including those at a distance.
Social Impact Theory
• More forces, more
total impact but
each individual
force has less
influence.
• Distance diminishes
influence of source.
Social Impact Theory
Blah,
blah,
blah.
More targets,
less influence on
each one:
diffusion of social
impact.
Many-To-One
Effect on Performance
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Effect of an audience
• Social facilitation—improved
performance of simple tasks or when
highly skilled.
• Social inhibition—impaired performance
of complex tasks or when unskilled .
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Presence of others is arousing
• Yerkes-Dodson: optimal level of arousal
for each individual. Performance peaks
at optimum level of arousal.
Many-To-One
Effect on Behaviour
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Social Loafing
• May work less hard in a group (Latane’s
shouting study).
• Tend not to pull our weight in a group if
individual performance cannot be
identified.
Many-To-One
Effect on Behaviour
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Bystander Apathy
• Bystander Effect: Reluctance to come to
the aid of someone in trouble when
there are others around. Like social
loafing.
• Affected by
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Diffusion of responsibility
Social inhibition
Ambiguity
Pluralistic ignorance
Many-To-One
Effect on Behaviour
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Factors that reduce the bystander
effect
• Bystanders know one another.
• Witnesses have special bond to the
victim.
• Bystanders think that the victim is
especially dependent on them
• Bystanders have considerable training in
emergency intervention.
• Witnesses have knowledge of the
bystander effect.
Many-To-Many
How We Behave in Crowds
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People in crowds do things they
would not do when alone.
Social restraint--conforming to social
norms.
Deindividuation
• Lose self-awareness, individuality
• Zimbardo’s prison study
• Mob mentality
Social Psychology
One-To-Many: Leadership
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Many areas where leadership occurs:
politics, military, business, academia,
sports teams, social clubs, families.
Affected by many things:
• Size and formality of group
• Leader’s authority
• Path of leader’s influence
Social Psychology
One-To-Many: Leadership
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History argues whether the individual or
the circumstances determine the
leadership.
Social psychology tries to study leadership
objectively:
• Surveys of subordinates, peers, and
supervisors on quality and effectiveness of
others—common in Industrial/Organizational
Psychology.
• Small groups given a task to be solved by
discussion. Makes it possible to rate both the
perception of leadership and the actual
performance.
Social Psychology
One-To-Many: Leadership
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Social psychology tries to study
leadership objectively:
• Studies of the personal characteristics of
people perceived as strong leaders.
• Some commonalities. Good leaders are
perceived as:
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More intelligent.
More outgoing.
More dominant.
Social Psychology
One-To-Many: Leadership
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Social psychology tries to study leadership
objectively:
• What does the situation contribute to good
leadership?
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Leader has considerable authority.
Task is clear cut, no ambiguity.
Group is cohesive, get along with each other and the
leader.
• Good leadership in one group may be different
from good leadership in another.