Social Psychology
“We cannot live for ourselves alone… our
lives are connected by a thousand invisible
threats”
Questions that Social
Psychology aims to answer:
O What causes a group of people to perform a
genocide?
O What drives terrorists to commit acts of
hatred?
O What factors influence the decision making
of public leaders?
O How do we form our attitudes about people
and situations?
Introduction
O Social Psych studies…
O How we think about one another
O How we influence one another
O How we relate to one another
Do we attribute behavior to
people or situations?
O Is he absent because he is sick or lazy?
O Does her smile signify romantic interest or
does she smile at everyone?
O Is he “snapping” because he is a shorttempered person or because he has had a
stressful week?
Attribution Theory
O Fritz Heider (1958)
O The Theory that we explain someone’s behavior by
crediting either the situation or the person’s
disposition
O Many times our attributions are correct
O Fundamental Attribution Error- At times we
overestimate the influence of personality and
underestimate the influence of situations
O Example?
Fundamental Attribution
Error
O Happens more so in Western Cultures
O We attribute behavior of ourselves and people we know to
situation more than we do with “strangers”
O We are better at understanding the situation when we see the
perspective of the “actor”; We can understand our own
disposition when we see things from the “observer’s”
perspective
Example: Napolitan and
Goethals (1979)
O Experiment: Group of subjects spoke to an
actress
O Actress acted warm and friendly to some
students, critical to the others
O *half were told that her behavior was
situational (i.e. that she was told to act that
way)
O Regardless, the students attributed this
behavior to her disposition, not the situation
Why is this so important?
O Juries have to decide whether behavior was
situational or the product of a person’s
disposition
O Interviews
O Bosses and Managers
O Couples
O Why are you such a negative person? vs. You
must be stressed at work
O Politics: Liberals (situation) vs. Conservatives
(disposition)
Attitudes and Actions
O What we do affects what we do?
Vs.
O What we think affects what we think?
O Attitudes are feelings, often influenced by our
beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a
particular way to objects, people, and events.
O If we believe like someone is malicious, we may
act unfriendly and feel dislike
Attitudes Affect Actions
O Central Route Persuasion
O When interested people focus on the arguments
and respond with favorable thoughts
O Happens when people are naturally analytical or
involved in the issue
O More durable
O Peripheral Route Persuasion
O When people respond to incidental cues, such as
attractiveness or familiarity with a face (celebrity
endorsements)
Actions affect Attitudes
O Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
O A person who complies to perform a small action
will later agree to a larger one
O i.e. do a small favor for someone today and you’re
more likely to do a larger favor for them in the
future
O To get someone to do something for you, “start
small and build”
O Doing a favor for someone you dislike may
actually cause you to feel more positive about
them
Evidence
O 17% of people agreed to put a large,
hideous “drive carefully” sign in their front
yard
O When other homeowners were approached
with a 3-inch sign first, 76% later consented
to the large, ugly sign
Food for Thought
O You are driving on Rt. 17 South towards the
Garden State Plaza to pick up some sweet kicks
to wear this Saturday. The car behind you is
flying at approximately 85 miles per hour. He is
practically kissing your bumper when he
maneuvers around you and swiftly passes you,
only to get off the Ridgewood exit on two wheels
less than a mile down the road. You think to
yourself “what an impatient *&*#*@#”.
O What error are you committing??? What could
be the “situation”?
Role-playing affects attitudes
O When adopting a new role, a person strives
to meet the expectations or social
prescriptions of that role
O Role will feel false until it “becomes” you.
O “Fake it until you make it.”- AA
O Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison
Experiment (1972)
O What we do, we gradually become.
O Stanford Prison Experiment full video
Cognitive Dissonance
O We experience tension our attitudes and
actions do not coincide
O According to the cognitive dissonance
theory, we tend to bring our attitudes into
line with our actions
O Was there ever something that you did that
you weren’t 100% okay with but “convinced”
yourself that it was the right thing or what
you wanted?
O Defense mechanism?
Why does behavior or talk
therapy work???
O Attitude-follows-behavior explains why
therapies that emphasize talking in a more
positive way may change the way people
think and feel about themselves and
situations
Social Influence
O Conformity
O Compliance
O Group Behavior
Social Phenomena
O We are chameleons who seek to blend with
what’s natural around us
O We follow dress codes, yawn together, laugh
O
O
O
O
when others laugh, etc.
Mood linkage- we feel happier around other
happy people
Empathetic people mimic more and are liked
more- prone to unconscious mimicry
Copycat violence
Clusters of bomb threats, suicides, etc.
Group Pressure and
Conformity
O Adjusting our behavior or thinking toward
some group standard
O Asch experiment
O More than 1/3 of the time, college
participants went along with the group
O Individualistic countries have lower
conformity rates during social experiments
Conditions that Strengthen
Conformity
O One is made to feel O One has made no
incompetent or
prior commitment to
insecure
any response
O The group has at
O Others in the group
least three people
observe one’s
behavior
O Group is unanimous
O One’s culture
O One admires the
strongly encourages
group’s status and
respect for social
attractiveness
standards
Why do we conform?
O Normative Social Influence
O Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain
approval or avoid disapproval
O Informational Social Influence
O Influence resulting from one’s willingness to
accept others’ opinions about reality
O “Those who never retract their opinions love
themselves more than they love truth”- Joubert
O Sometimes we need to assume others are right
Baron et al
O When our decisions are important and are
difficult, we are more likely to conform than
if the task is easy
Obedience
O Milgram’s Obedience Experiment
O 63% complied fully to deliver the final voltage
O Even when told that the learned had a heart
condition and displayed more agony, 65% complied
O Obedience highest when:
O Person given orders was close and was legitimate
O The authority figure was supported by a prestigious
institution
O Victim was depersonalized or at a distance (another
room)
O There were no role models for defiance against
experimenter
Group Influence
O Social facilitation
O People swim faster when they compete than when
O
O
O
O
they are alone (time trials)
Drivers will accelerate faster at a green light when
there is someone next to them
Definition: Stronger responses are seen on simple
or well-learned tasks in the presence of others
However, when the task is difficult, people
perform less well when observers or others are
watching
Conclusion: This phenomenon predicts that when
around others, the most likely response will be
facilitated (right on easy task, wrong on difficult)
Group Influence
O Social Loafing
O The tendency for people in a group to exert
less effort when pooling their efforts toward
attaining a common goal than when
individually accountable
O Group case reading quizzes?!?!
O Especially common in individualistic cultures
Social Influence
O Deindividuation
O Abandoning normal restraints and self-
awareness occurring in group situations that
foster arousal and anonymity
O i.e. food fights, senior cut day, flash mob
O People are less self-conscious ad restrained
when in a group situation
Social Influence
O Broken Window Theory
O Broken windows (perceived destruction) open
the door for further graffiti, crime, etc.
O Zero tolerance would produce lower crime
rates?
O Northern Highlands Policies?
Group Interaction
O Group Polarization
O Enhancement of a group’s prevailing
tendencies
O If a group is like-minded, discussion
strengthens pre-existing opinions
O Is this positive or negative?
Group Interaction
O Groupthink
O When the desire for harmony and “good
feelings” trumps realistic dissent among
members of a group
O No one steps in to give the reality check
O i.e. The Perfect Storm
O Fueled by overconfidence, conformity, selfjustification, and group-polarization
Can an individual or minority
shape the majority?
O Although people often follow the majority
publicly, they may privately develop
sympathy for the minority view
O Powers of the committed individual can
sway the majority if the position is held
unswervingly
O Popularity vs. influence
Social Relations
O Prejudice
O ‘Prejudgment”
O An unjustifiable (and usually negative)
attitude toward a group and its members
O Usually involves stereotyped beliefs, negative
feelings, and predisposition to discriminatory
action
O May be blatant or subtle (saying you’re not
racist but being uncomfortable dating
someone of the other race)
Prejudice
O Black motorists are often the majority of those pulled
over, even in states where they are the minority
O 1115 landlords received letters of interest from
would-be tenants (fake)
O Tyrell Jackson- 56%
O Said Al-Rahman- 66%
O Patrick McDougall- 89%
O If you believe your father is more intelligent than your
mother (without evidence), you have a gender
prejudice!!
O More people express wanting male babies, but
“prefer” traits of women
“Automatic Prejudice”
Researchers believe that most of our prejudices are
implicit and automatic
O Implicit racial associations
O Unconscious patronization
O Lower standards
O Race-influence perceptions
O More likely to perceive a wallet as a gun in a simulated
crime scene when person was black
O “Seeing black”
O The more stereotypical the features, the more “criminal”
blacks are
O Reflexive bodily responses in amygdala and facial
muscles when exposed to a black face
Social Roots of Prejudice
O Social inequalities
O Stereotypes rationalize inequalities (i.e.
slavery)
O Blame-the-victim dynamic
O Poverty may increase crime level, which
provides new grounds for prejudice
O Ingroup and Outgroup
O We often reserve intense dislike for outgroup
rivals who are most like us (Portuguese and
Spanish…. Highlands and ?)
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
O Implies “us” and “them”, breeding ingroup bias,
or favoring one’s own group
O Scapegoat Theory
O Finding someone to blame when things go
wrong
O Our society’s scapegoat? History’s
scapegoat?
O Temporary frustration, failure, or insecurities
intensify prejudice (need to boost selfesteem)
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
O Categorization
O We overestimate the similarity of those within other
groups
O Other race-effect, or own-race bias
O We can better recognize our own faces and tend to
think other ethnicities act and look more alike than they
do
O Vivid Cases
O More intense crimes lead us to remember them, so
if we have been exposed to one race committing
more violent crimes we tend to over exaggerate the
number of them in our minds
O Example?
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
O Just-World Phenomenon
O “People get what they deserve”
O The good are rewarded and the bad are
punished?
O Victims should be blamed (i.e. AIDS)
O Aggression
O Genetic
O Neural
O Biochemical
Aggression: Influences
O Genetic
O Identical twins are similar in levels of aggression
O Animals are bred to be aggressive (pitbulls)
O Y chromosome
O Neural
O Amygdala facilitates aggression, frontal lobe inhibits
O Biochemical
O Hormones (i.e. testosterone), alcohol
O Activities can enhance testosterone (handling gun)
O Frustration-aggression principle
O Frustration creates anger, which generates aggression
O Pain, insults, foul odors, hot temperatures, smoke
O Rejection
O Video Games?
Attraction
O We do we befriend or fall in love with some people
but not others?
O Proximity- “familiarity breeds content”
O Mere-Exposure Effect- repeated exposure to novel
stimuli increases liking of them
O We like computer-generated faces that are morphed
with our own
O Physical Attractiveness- rated as happier, healthier,
sensitive, successful, socially skilled (not honest or
compassionate, though)
O Women spend more $ on cometics than education
O “love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind”-
people w/ good qualities become more attractive
Attraction (cont.)
O Similarity
O More likely to marry someone w/ similar
sounding name
O Opposites retract
O “Lovers should love many things together, not
merely each other”
O Reward Theory of Attraction
O We will like those whose behavior is rewarding
to us and less costly (i.e. long distance, etc.)
Romantic Love
O Passionate vs. companionate love
O Passionate
O Aroused state of intense positive absorption
in another, usually present at the beginning
of a love relationship
O Two-factor theory of emotion?
O Adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder
O Companionate
O Deep, affectionate attachment we feel for
those with whom our lives are intertwined
Key to Relationships
O Equity
O Both partners receive in proportion to what
they give
O Self-disclosure
O Revealing intimate details about ourselves
Altruism
O Unselfish regard for the welfare of others
O Bystander Effect
O Diffusion of responsibility
O The more people that are around, the less willing we are to
help
O We are more likely to help if:
O Person appears to need and deserve help
O Person is similar to us
O We have observed someone being helpful
O We aren’t in a hurry
O We are in a small town or rural area
O We are feeling guilty
O We are focused on others and not preoccupied
O We are in a good mood
Norms for Helping
O Social Exchange Theory
O Our social behavior is an exchange process in
which we maximize benefits and minimize costs
O Reciprocity Norm
O We should return help, not harm, to those who
helped us
O Social Responsibility Norm
O We should help those who need our help (elderly,
children, ill)
O Subway incident?
Social Traps: Prisoner’s
Dilemma
O Two men are arrested, but the police do not possess
enough information for a conviction. Following the
separation of the two men, the police offer both a
similar deal—if one testifies against his partner
(defects/betrays), and the other remains silent
(cooperates/assists), the betrayer goes free and the
cooperator receives the full one-year sentence. If
both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one
month in jail for a minor charge. If each 'rats out' the
other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each
prisoner must choose either to betray or remain
silent; the decision of each is kept quiet. What should
they do?
Conflict and Peacemaking
O Conflict
O perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or
ideas
O Social Traps
O Situation in which the conflicting parties
become caught in mutually destructive
behavior
Option 2
Option 1
Option 1
Option 1
$5
$5
$10
Option 2
-$5
$10
$0
-$5
$0
Real life examples of the social
traps?
O i.e. costs more money to “go green” and buy
a fuel efficient car
O Collective cost = everyone suffers from
greenhouse gasses
O Solve these problems with regulations,
communication, and awareness
Enemy Perceptions
O Mirror-image perceptions
O Mutual views held by conflicting people, when
each side sees itself and ethical and peace
and views the other as evil and aggressive
O Examples?
Peace-building
O Contact
O Work closely with other races, sexual orientations, and you
will develop acceptance and reduce prejudice
O Cooperation
O Superordinate goals
O Shared goals that override differences among people and
require their cooperation
O Remember the Titans?
O Communication
O Mediators replace win-lose mentality with win-win
O Conciliation
O GRIT- Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-
Reduction
O Arms race: “I reduce, you reduce”