Social Psychology
Attitudes
Attraction
Aggression
Group Behavior
Studying the way people relate to others.
Attribution Theory
• Tries to explain how people
determine the cause of
the behavior they observe.
It is either a….
• Situational Attribution
(external factors)
• Dispositional Attribution
(internal or personal
factors)
And
• Stable Attribution
(unchanging factors)
• Unstable Attribution
(temporary factors)
Social Cognition and
Person Perception
The Human Experiment 30
Fundamental Attribution Error
• We tend to overestimate the role of
dispositional factors and underestimate the
impact of the situation.
Individualistic cultures are more prone to this.
False Consensus Effect
Self-Serving Bias
When you start a
romance, you
assume that they
agree with your
world views….
honeymoon
period.
If you win it is
because you are
awesome…if you
lose, it must
have been the
coach or
weather or….
Using Social Psychology Theory
Explain Why?
The Effects of Attribution
• Social Effects
• Political Effects
• Workplace
Effects
Attitudes
• A set of beliefs and
feelings.
• Advertising is ALL
based on attitude
formation.
• Mere Exposure
Effect.
• Central Route to
Persuasion vs.
Peripheral Route to
Persuasion.
How does attitude change occur?
• Persuasion can occur in either of two ways:
• 1. Central route to persuasion.
• 2. Peripheral route to persuasion.
1.) The Central Route to Persuasion
• Involves being persuaded by the
arguments or the content of the
message.
• For example, after hearing a political
debate you may decide to vote for a
candidate because you find the
candidate’s views and arguments very
convincing.
2.) The Peripheral Route to Persuasion
• Involves being persuaded in a manner that is NOT
based on the arguments or the message content
(only superficial things).
• For example, after reading a political debate you
may decide to vote for a candidate because you like
the sound of the person's voice, or the person went
to the same university as you did.
A tale of two routes
• Peripheral route relies on heuristic processing:
mental shortcuts (“rules of thumb”).
• -low cognitive effort (e.g., “experts can be
trusted”)
• We tend to use the central route when:
– We are knowledgeable about the subject.
– Issue is important to us.
Attitude and Behavior
You have a belief
that cheating on
tests is bad.
But you cheat on
a test!!!
• Do attitudes tell us about
someone’s behavior?
• LaPiere’s Chinese Couple /
Hotel Study (1934).
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• People want to have
consistent attitudes and
behaviors….when they are not
consistent with each other
they experience dissonance
The teacher was
(unpleasant tension).
really bad so in
that class it is OK.
• Usually they will change their
attitude.
Actions Can Affect Attitudes
• Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon (small to
larger request).
• Door-in-the-face
phenomenon (large to
smaller request).
• Norms of reciprocity.
The Power of the Situation:
Roles, Conformity and Obedience
Zimbardo’s Prison Study
• Showed how we can often
become the roles we are given.
• Philip Zimbardo has students at
Stanford U. play the roles of
prisoner and prison guards in the
basement of psychology building.
• They were given uniforms and
numbers for each prisoner.
• What do you think happened?
• Do you remember the Abu
Ghraib Prison photos from Iraq?
Abu Ghraib Prison Photos
Conformity Studies
• Adjusting one’s
behavior or thinking
to coincide with a
group standard.
Soloman Asch’s Study of Conformity
Asch’s Results
• About 1/3 of the participants
conformed when in a group.
• When alone they erred less than 1%
of the time.
Conformity strengthens when:
• The group is unanimous.
• The group is at least three people.
• One admires the group’s status.
• One has made no prior commitment.
• One is made to feel incompetent or
insecure.
Reasons for Conforming
• Normative social influence: you want to
gain approval or avoid disapproval.
• Informational social influence: you are
willing to accept other’s opinions.
Milgram’s Study
Of
Obedience
The Human Experiment 34
Results of the Milgram Study
What did we learn from Milgram?
• Ordinary people can do
shocking things!
• Ethical issues…
• Would not have received
approval from today’s IRB
(Internal Review Board).
What did we learn from Milgram?
• People were more obedient when:
• 1. The authority figure was in the
room.
• 2. When they felt the experiment
was part of a prestigious
institution.
• 3. The learner was not in sight.
How do groups affect our behavior?
Social Facilitation Theory
• If you are really good at
something…or it is an easy
task…you will perform
BETTER in front of a
group.
• If it is a difficult task or
you are not very good at
it…you will perform
WORSE in front of a
group (social impairment).
Group Dynamics
Social Loafing
• Tendency for people in a
group to exert less
effort when pooling
efforts toward a
common goal (than if
they were individually
accountable).
Deindividuation
• People get swept up in a group
and lose sense of self.
• Feel anonymous and aroused.
• Explains rioting behaviors.
Group Polarization
• Groups tend to make more
extreme decisions than the
individual. The more you are
around people who think
like you … the stronger
your beliefs get.
Groupthink
• Group members suppress
their reservations about
the ideas supported by
the group.
• They are more concerned
with group harmony.
• Worse in highly cohesive
groups.
The Power of Individuals
• Minority Influence – the
power of one or two
individuals to sway the
majority (like Rosa Parks).
• They are most successful
when they express their
views consistently.
Social Relations
Attraction
Conflict and Prejudice
Altruism and Peacemaking
How do we relate to others?
Aggression
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Stereotype:
• Overgeneralized idea
about a group of people.
• Stereotype Treat
Prejudice:
• Undeserved (usually
negative) attitude
towards a group of
people. Ethnocentrism
is an example of a
prejudice.
Discrimination:
• An action based on a
prejudice (Individual vs.
Institutional).
Color Blind or Color Brave?
Is it just race?
NO!
• Palestinians and Jews
• N. Cal vs. S. Cal
• Men and Women
But women have some things going for them like……
Which person would you want to have a long
term relationship with?
How does prejudice occur?
Just World Phenomenon
•
•
In one popular study female and
male subjects were told two versions
of a story about an interaction
between a woman and a man. Both
variations were exactly the same,
except at the very end the man
raped the woman in one and in the
other he proposed marriage.
In both conditions, both female and
male subjects viewed the woman's
(identical) actions as inevitably
leading to the (very different)
results.
In-Group versus Out-Groups.
• In-Group Bias
Scapegoat Theory
Combating Prejudice
Contact Theory
• Contact between hostile groups will reduce
animosity if they are made to work towards a
superordinate goal (common shared goal).
• Sherif’s camp study
Prejudices can often lead to a….
Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy:
• A prediction that
causes itself to be
true.
• Rosenthal and
Jacobson’s
“Pygmalion Effect” in
the classroom
experiment…
“Pygmalion Effect”
• In this experiment,
Rosenthal predicted that,
when given the information
that certain students had
higher IQ’s than others,
teachers may unconsciously
behave in ways that
facilitate and encourage the
students' success.
Conflict
($1 Auction Activity)
• A perceived
incompatibility of
actions, goals, or
ideas.
• Social Trap: when
people pursue their
own self interests and
it leads to mutually
destructive behaviors.
Aggression
• Any physical or verbal
behavior intended to
hurt or destroy.
• In the U.S. we are
MUCH more likely to
be murdered
compared to most
other developed
nations.
The Biology of Aggression
• Genetics
• Biochemical
• Neural Influences
Psychology of Aggression
Two types of aggression:
1. Instrumental Aggression
2. Hostile Aggression
Theories of Aggression:
Bandura’s Modeling
Frustration-Aggression
Hypothesis
Other Factors and Aggression
Can we learn to be aggressive
or gentle?
They can be learned but….
Once learned they are difficult to
change.
Aggression and TV
Watches
=
• By the time you are 18, you spend more time in front of TV than in school.
•2/3 of all homes have 3 or more sets and an average 51 hours a week of TV.
•By the time a child finishes elementary school they have witnessed 8000
murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on TV.
•Over half of all deaths do NOT show the victim's pain.
•As TV watching has grown exponentially, so has violent behavior - a strong
positive correlation.
•How do you think TV has effected sexual aggression?
Attraction
3 Factors of Attraction:
1.) Proximity
• Geographic nearness
Mere exposure effect:
• Repeated exposure to
something breeds liking.
• Taiwanese Letters.
2.) Similarity
• Paula Abdul was
wrong- opposites do
NOT attract.
• Birds of the same
feather do flock
together.
• Similarity breeds
content.
3.) Physical Attractiveness
The Hotty Factor
• Physical attractiveness
predicts dating frequency
(hotties date more).
• They are perceived as
healthier, happier, more
sensitive and successful.
What is beauty?
• Some people say beauty is facial symmetry.
Beauty and Culture
• Obesity is so revered
among Mauritania's white
Moor Arab population that
the young girls are
sometimes force-fed to
obtain a weight the
government has described
as "life-threatening."
• Of course, here in the
U.S. we prefer hard, thin
bodies.
Are these cultures really that different?
LOVE
• Passionate Love: an
aroused state of
INTENSE positive
absorption of another.
• Companionate Love: the
deep affectionate
attachment we feel for
those with whom our
lives are intertwined.
What makes companionate love work?
• Equity
• Self-disclosure
Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
• Kitty Genovese case in
N.Y. showed none of
this. Why?
Bystander Effect:
• Tendency for any given bystander
to be less likely to give aid if
other bystanders are present. In
general…the more people
around…the less chance of help…
because of a …
• Diffusion of Responsibility:
• They figure that someone else will
do something.
Norms for Helping
• Social Exchange Theory – social behavior is
an exchange process, the aim of which is to
maximize benefits and minimize costs.
• Reciprocity Norm – an expectation that
people will help those who have helped them.
• Social-responsibility norm – expectation
that people will help those dependent upon
them.
Peacemaking
• Give people superordinate (shared) goals that
can only be achieved through cooperation.
• Win-Win situations through mediation.
• GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives
in Tension Reduction) – a strategy designed to
decrease international tensions.