Social Psychology: Attitudes,
Group Influences, Social
Relations, Attraction, and
Altruism
Warm Up
1. How do the fundamental and situational
attribution errors differ?
 2.What was the significance of the Milgram
study?
 3. What types of situations cause ppl to follow
orders the best ?
 4. Describe the Zimbardo study?
 5. What is Deindividuation?
 6. What is dehumanization?

Bump or Jump Illustrates:
Social Trap: a situation in which the
conflicting parties, by each rationally
pursuing their self-interest gets caught in
mutually destructive behavior.
Person 2
oose B
Choose A

Person 1
Choose A
Choose B
Optimal
outcome
Probable
outcome
Do Attitudes Guide Our Actions?
Attitude: beliefs and feelings that
predispose our reaction to objects, people,
and events.
 Our behavior is affected by our inner
attitudes as well as by external social
influences:

Internal
attitudes
External
influences
Behavior
Attitudes are Likely to Affect
Actions When:
Outside influences on what we
say and do are minimal.
2. The attitude is specifically
relevant to the behavior.
3. We are keenly aware of our
attitudes.
1.
Do Our Actions Affect Our
Attitude?
Foot in the Door Phenomenon: tendency
to comply with a larger request after
agreeing to a small one.
Ex: P.O.W.’s in Korean War
Cognitive Dissonance: when our
awareness of our attitudes and our actions
clash, we can reduce the discomfort
(dissonance) by changing our attitudes.
Group Influences

Reasons for Conformity:
 Normative Social Influence:
influence from a person’s desire to
gain approval or avoid disproval.
 Informational Social Influence:
influence resulting from one’s
willingness to accept others
opinions about reality.
Conformity and Informational
Influence
50%
Difficult judgments
40
Percentage of
conformity to
confederates’
wrong answers
Conformity highest
on important
judgments
30
20
10
Easy judgments
0
Low
High
Importance

Conformity
with a group
is a highest
when the
task is
difficult
and
important.
Group Influences

Social Facilitation: improved
performance of tasks in the presence
of others. Occurs with simple or welllearned tasks but not with tasks that
are difficult or not yet mastered.
 Why? When others are around us we
become physiologically aroused.
 Arousal helps with easy tasks but
not with difficult.
EX: Running vs. New Math
Problem
Social Facilitation and Home
Field Advantage
Home Advantage in Major Team Sports
Sport
Games
Studied
Home Team
Winning
Percentage
Baseball
23,034
53.3%
Football
2,592
57.3
Ice hockey
4,322
61.1
Basketball
13,596
64.4
Soccer
37,202
69.0
Group Influences

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.
 Especially
common among men in
individualistic cultures.
 Leads to the “free-rider” problem
Effects of Group Interaction
Group Polarization: the enhancement of a
group’s prevailing attitudes through
discussion within the group.
Ex: non-racist vs. racist students meeting to
discuss issues. Each sides attitudes will be
amplified.
 Groupthink: the mode of thinking that
occurs when the desire for harmony in a
decision making group overrides a realistic
appraisal of alternatives.

Power of Individuals
 Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy: occurs
when one person’s belief about
others leads one to act in ways that
induce the others to appear to
confirm the belief.
 Man who believes woman is
attracted to him; women more
likely to act that way or viceversa.
Social Interactions
Prejudice
 an unjustifiable (and usually negative)
attitude toward a group and its members
 involves stereotyped beliefs, negative
feelings, and a predisposition to
discriminatory action
 Stereotype
 a generalized (often overgeneralized)
belief about a group of people

Us vs. Them
Ingroup: “Us”---people who one
shares a common identity.
 Outgroup: “Them”---those perceived
as different or apart of one’s ingroup.
 Ingroup bias: the tendency to favor
one’s own group.
 Scapegoat theory: the theory that
prejudice an outlet for anger by
providing someone to blame

 Nazis
scapegoat jews for economic
frustration. “If the Jews did not exist, we
should have to invent him.”
Roots of Prejudice
Categorization
 Vivid Cases
 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.
 Example: social
darwinism…p.666

Aggression

Causes of Aggression:
 Genes
 Neural Influences: stimulation to certain
neural regions can increase or decrease
aggression.
 Biochemical Influences: high testosterone
levels correlate with aggressive behavior…2way…testosterone boosts and is boosted by
aggressive behavior.
 Alcohol: 4/10 violent crimes…3/4 spousal
abuse
Causes of Aggression

Frustration-Aggression Principle:
the principle that frustration---the
blocking of an attempt to achieve some
goal---creates anger, which can
generate aggression.
 Aversive stimuli also increases
aggression…ex: more spousal abuse
in hotter years and months.
Murders
and rapes
per day in
Houston, Texas
Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit
Media and Aggression
Average child sees 8000 murders and
100,000 acts of violence before finishing
elementary school on TV…desensitization?
 In the U.S. and Canada, homicide rates
doubled between 1957 and 1974, coinciding
with the introduction of television.
 “Rape Myth”…pornography that portrays
sexual aggression as pleasurable for the
victim increases acceptance of coercion in
sexual relations.

Psychology of Attraction
Importance of Proximity: can’t fall in
love with someone you’ve never met.
 Mere Exposure Effect: the
phenomenon that repeated exposure to
novel stimuli increases the liking of
them…mirror image vs. reverse.
 Similarity also is a strong determinant
of attraction: share common goals,
interests, and attitudes.

Love
 Passionate
Love: an aroused
state of intense positive absorption
in another, usually present at the
beginning of a love relationship.
 Companionate Love: the deep
affectionate attachment we feel
for those whom our lives are
intertwined.
Making Love Last
 Equity:
a condition in which people
receive from a relationship in
proportion to what they give to
it…decision-making, bank accounts,
etc.
 Self Disclosure: revealing
intimate aspects of oneself to
others breeds liking.
Altruism
 Altruism:
unselfish regard for
the welfare of others.
 Bystander Effect: less likely to
give aid if others are
present..diffusion of
Yes
Yes
responsibility.
Yes
Interprets
Notices
Assumes
Attempts
incident?
incident as
emergency?
No
No
help
responsibility?
No
No
help
No
No
help
to help
Increasing Altruism &
Cooperation
Social Exchange Theory: the theory that
our social behavior is an exchange process,
the aim of which is to maximize benefits
and minimize costs. Ex: volunteer at
homeless shelter if believe benefits (good
feelings, etc.) outweigh costs (time, effort,
etc.)
 Superordinate Goals: shared goals that
override differences among people and
require their cooperation. Ex: Remember
the Titans
