Chapter 14:Social Psychology
Samuel R. Mathews, Ph.D.
The Department of Psychology
The University of West Florida
Social Psychology
•
Study of the impact of the social context:
– Presence of other individuals (real or
imagined)
– Activities and interactions among individuals
– Contexts in which those interactions occur
– Expectations and norms governing behavior
within those contexts
– Resulting behaviors related to social factors
AND
Social Psychology
• Study of the subjective interpretations of
so-called real and objective situations
AND
• The impact of interactions between the
context and interpretations on individual
and group behaviors
Situationism
• Two forces that influence human behavior:
– Individual dispositions (e.g. temperament,
personality)
– Social Context (e.g. people, physical
environment)
• Situationism is the position that the Social
Context is likely the more influential
Social Standards for Behavior
• Consider a study by Maurer & Pleck
(2006) on parenting by fathers
– Investigated how fathers’ parenting behaviors
were related to their subjective interpretations
of:
• Their wives’ stated expectations
• Other fathers’ parenting behaviors
• Other fathers’ comments and reflections on fatherparenting behaviors
Social Standards for Behavior
• Maurer & Pleck (2006)
– They found that fathers’ parenting behaviors
were related to:
• Subjective interpretations of:
–Their wives’ stated expectations
–Other fathers’ comments and reflections
on father-parenting behaviors
– The interpretation of others’ views was the
most important factor in determining fathers’
parenting behavior
Social Standards for Behavior
• Social Roles (e.g. Gender): socially
defined pattern of behaviors expected of
individuals in a given class or group
• Script (e.g. parenting behaviors):
knowledge of the sequence of events and
actions expected of an individual within a
given setting
Social Standards for Behavior
• Social norms (e.g. fathers’ rules for
behavior): a group’s expectations about
what is appropriate for its members’
attitudes and behaviors
Themes in Social Psychology
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Conformity (Ashe’s work)
Obedience to Authority (Milgram’s work)
Bystander Problem
Attributions about Others
Prejudice
Conformity:
The Asch studies
• Which line matches the line on the left?
A
Standard line
1
2
3
Comparison lines
Group Characteristics That Produce
Conformity
• Ashe identifies three factors that influence
whether a person will yield to pressure:
– The size of the majority
– The presence of a partner who dissented from
the majority
– The size of the discrepancy between the
correct answer and the majority position
Conformity: Groupthink
• In “groupthink,” members of the group
attempt to conform their opinions to what
each believes to be the consensus of the
group
Conformity: Conditions Likely to Promote
Groupthink
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Isolation of the group
High group cohesiveness
Directive leadership
Lack of norms requiring methodical
procedures
• Homogeneity of members’ social
background and ideology
• High stress from external threats with low
hope of a better solution than that of the
group leader
Obedience to Authority
• Milgram’s work:
• Research on conforming to authority
– Participants were deceived and thought it was
a study on punishment and memory
– Deliver “painful shocks” to a middle aged man
who had been treated for heart problems
– “Shocks” were delivered when the man gave
an incorrect response
– “Shocks” were increased in intensity as the
trial progressed
Obedience to Authority
• Milgram’s study:
– Middle aged man with heart condition was an
actor;
– Actor received no real shock
– Actor began with a mild pain response,
moved to a scream, then pretended to pass
out
– Participants willingly gave what they thought
were increasingly strong shocks regardless of
actor’s reactions
Ten Steps Toward EvilGetting Good People to Harm Others
• Provide people with an ideology to justify
beliefs for actions
• Make people take a small first step toward a
harmful act with a minor, trivial action and then
gradually increase those small actions
• Make those in charge seem like a “just
authority”
• Slowly transform a once compassionate leader
into a dictatorial figure
• Provide people with vague and ever changing
rules
Ten Steps Toward EvilGetting Good People to Harm Others
• Relabel the situation’s actors and their
actions to legitimize the ideology
• Provide people with social models of
compliance
• Allow verbal dissent but only if people
continue to comply behaviorally with
orders
• Encourage dehumanizing the victim
• Make exiting the situation difficult
The Bystander Problem
• Diffusion of responsibility :–
Dilution or weakening of each group member’s
obligation to act when responsibility is perceived
to be shared with all group members
The Bystander Problem
• Diffusion of Responsibility
– The greater the number of bystanders, the
less likely any individual is to respond
– Conformity to others in the group who do not
respond
The Bystander Problem
• Overcoming Bystander Problem
– Educating on the impact of diffusion of
responsibility
– Victim can ask an individual for help—that
“breaks” groupthink/conformity
– Be specific in request for help
Attributions: Judgments about Others and
Ourselves
• Attributions about Others:
– Fundamental Attribution Error: using some
personal trait or characteristic as an
explanation in lieu of situational constraints
• Attributions about Ourselves:
– Success: Self-serving bias—we are just good
at _____
– Failure: External attributions to protect our
own self-esteem—”the professor was unfair”
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice –
A negative attitude toward an
individual based solely on his or
her membership in a particular
group
• Discrimination –
A negative action taken against an
individual as a result of his or her
group membership
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Causes of Prejudice
– Dissimilarity and social distance
– Economic and resource competition
– Scapegoating
– Conformity to social norms
– Media stereotypes
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Combating Prejudice
– Seeking our and interacting with new role
models of “out-group”
– Seeking contact in an “equal status” context
– Creating opportunities for interdependence
– Legislation providing equal access to equal
opportunities