Social Psychology
What influences us
Social Psychology
O Scientific study of how a person’s behavior,
thoughts and feelings are influenced by the
real, imagined, or implied presence of
others
Social Influence
O The real or implied presence of others can
directly or indirectly influence the thoughts,
feelings, and behavior of an individual
O Can occur even when a person may not want
to go along with the group
O Even in the presence of others
Conformity
O Changing one’s own behavior to match
others
O Asch’s study
O Seven participants in a room
O Told study on visual judgment
O Only one real participant
O Others were told to pick same wrong answer
What happened?
O The person gave the same wrong answer
O An experiment in America now might not get
the same results as in 1950’s
O Other cultures might still conform
O Hong Kong
O Japan
O Online experiment and the cultural different
disappears
Groupthink
O When people of a group find group cohesiveness
more important than considering the facts
O War on Iraq
O Titanic
O Challenger
O Why would group think occur?
O Group can do no wrong
O Stereotyped views of those that disagree
O Exert pressure
Compliance
O Occurs when people change their behavior as a
result of the influence of another person or group
O Consumer Psychology
O How to get people to buy what you are selling
O Techniques
O Foot in the Door
O Door in the Face
O Lowball
O That’s not All
Obedience
O Changing your behavior at the command of an
authority figure
O Police officer
O Teacher
O Work supervisor
O Military officer
O How far would you go to obey?
Milgram’s Experiment
O Placed add in paper to recruit people
O Told they were to test the effects of
punishment on learned behavior
O Participants believed that they had been
randomly assigned to either the
O Teacher, which is where they were all put
O Learner, had a script to follow with each jolt
Milgram’s what happened?
O Many professionals believed the person
would not go over 150
O 65% went all the way to the final 450 volt
shock level
O None quite before reaching 300 volts
O Retesting in US and other countries
concluded the same results
Milgram, Why
O Those that wen to 450 showed no
personality traits to have high levels of
obedience
O Should this type of experiment even be
done?
O Cause self esteem issues with volunteers
O Psychological stress
Group Behavior
O Group polarization
O Members take a more extreme position than they
would as individuals
O Social Facilitation
O Presence of others to have a positive impact on
the performance of an easy task
O Social Impairment
O Negative impact
O Social Loafing
O Person puts in less effort when working with
others
Social Cognition
O The way people think about other people
and how those cognitions influence behavior
toward those other people
O First Impressions
O How we perceive others
O How we explain the behavior of others
ABC’s of Attitudes
O Attitude is a tendency to respond positively or
negatively toward a certain person, object, idea or
situation
O You are not born with attitudes, they are learned in the
environment that you grow up in
O We may make up our minds before even trying
something new
Components of Attitude
O Affective Component
O Affect means emotions feelings
O How you might feel about certain music, movies
O Behavior Component
O Action that you might take in regard to the person,
object, or situation
O Buy certain music, go to movies you like
O Cognitive Component
O way you think about yourself, an object or an event.
Including beliefs and ideas
O You might think the music you like is better than any
other
Attitude Formation
O Learning, we learn our attitudes
O Direct contact with the object, person, or situation
O Direct instruction by a parent or another
individual
O Interaction with others, we may be influenced by
who we spend time with
O Vicarious Conditioning (observational learning) we
may learn our attitudes by watching others in our
lives, in the media, in books, at school
Attitude Change
O The art of persuasion
O What does it take to change your attitude?
Cognitive Dissonance
O When we have a sense of discomfort when our
behavior and beliefs do not match
O When we do something against who we really are
O How to fix it
O Change our behavior
O Change cognition to justify behavior
O Form new cognitions to justify behavior
Social Categorization
O Assignment of a person to a category based
on characteristics the person has in
common with other people you have
experienced in the past
O Stereotypes are when the person is
categorized superficially, when it is believed
all people who look like that must be…
Attribution
O Explaining own behavior and the behavior of
others
O Situational cause, external factors, such as
delays, the actions of others, or some other
aspect of the situation
O Dispositional cause, internal factors, such as
personality or character
Prejudice and Discrimination
O Prejudice is holding an unsupportive and
often negative attitude about member of a
particular social group
O Discrimination is treating people differently
because of the prejudice toward the social
group to which they belong
Brown Eyes vs. Blue Eyes
O Small town in Iowa in 1968 two days after
the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King
O See how the kids had
discrimination/prejudice in them already
O How quick the blue eyed kids fell into their
“role”
O http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG1v6g
7TPX4
Ben Wilson
O Played for Simeon Voc
HS in Chicago
O First Chicago
basketball player to be
named the top high
school basketball
player in the country
O November 20, 1984,
Wilson was shot
O Family sued hospital
for projected earning
$10 Million dollars
How do we learn it?
O Social identity theory
O We view ourselves as part of a certain group
O We categorize others into certain groups
O We compare ourselves to other groups, mostly in a
better way
O Stereotype vulnerability
O Person’s awareness of the stereotypes associated
with their social group
How do we overcome it?
O Education!!!
O Learn about others different than yourself
O Have contact with other cultures, colleges are
a great way to have intergroup contact, no
one is an outsider