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Hi folks! Here are the lecture notes for this monday
and wednesday.
I will then see you in class next monday (Dec 4).
Social Psychology
All environments influence our behavior.
The most powerful: the social environment.
Social Psychology = The study of how an individual's thoughts,
feelings, and actions are affected by others.
A major social influence on people is the creation of their attitudes.
Attitudes = Organized and enduring set of beliefs and feelings that
pre-dispose us to behave in a certain way.
Attitudes are deeply ingrained : very difficult to remove.
People show strong need to preserve attitudes: e.g., racism, sexism, etc.
Will reject evidence that contradicts their attitudes.
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This phenomenon is called: minimization of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance = Discomfort generated by lack of consistency.
People try to minimize this discomfort.
Hence try to reject evidence that contradicts their attitude.
How Attitudes Can Change
The strongest influence on attitude is social environment.
For a child, major influence is parental attitudes;
i.e., children are socialized into attitudes.
Socialization = The way people are integrated into society by
exposure to the actions and opinions of others.
Therefore: changes in attitude come about through major changes in social
environment.
Example: 80% of children prefer same political party as parents.
At college, this drops to 55%.
Major change in attitude occurs 18-25, with college, first job, marriage, etc.
Massively works against parental influence.
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Attribution Theory
Attribution theory = Study of how people attribute causes to other people's
behavior.
Any action of other person can have many different causes.
Example: In a single day:
(a) Waitress warmly smiles at us at end of meal.
(b) Man at gas station scowls at us.
Two opposite theories of this pair of events:
Dispositional Theories
Waitress is warm friendly person.
Man at gas station is a hostile angry person.
i.e., behavior was result of dispositions = deep seated consistent personality
traits.
Situational Theories
Waitress, normally bad-tempered, had been told by boss to be nice.
Man at gas station, normally good-tempered, had just had a cut in salary.
i.e., behaviors were due to purely local situations.
Attribution Error
Most people use first kind of theory when explaining behavior of other
people, i.e., waitress's smile, gas attendant's scowl, are attributed to their
permanent personality, i.e., dispositional factors.
People rarely assume situational theory.
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Called Attribution Error.
Attribution Error = Tendency to favor dispositional factors rather than
situational factors
Attribution error seems culturally bound; e.g., Western society makes
persistent attribution error; Hindu society does not.
Damaging effects of Attribution Error
By making attribution error, people can force other people to become
something they were not originally.
Particularly damaging in children.
High-school teachers frequently decide very early in school year who is
smart and who is not. This, in turn, has effect on child's self-perception.
Children who are viewed favorably by teachers, do well.
Children who are not viewed favorably by teacher, do badly: Called selffulfilling prophecy.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy = A prediction that comes true not because
it was right, but simply because it was made
in the first place.
Note its link to Attribution Error;
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Child can be depressed, undergoing bad circumstances, at beginning of
school year. Teacher attributes child's behavior to disposition (personality).
This forces child to become that personality.
This type of error is particularly damaging to society, when made by
authority figures, e.g., police, etc.
Attribution error (attributing to personality rather than situation) is made by
people about other people.
However, opposite error is made by people about themselves.
They tend to persistently excuse their own behavior by blaming
circumstances, when in fact it is their own personality, which was causing
the behavior.
Ways to overcome Attribution Error with respect to others:
(1) Try when you can to attribute people's behavior to situations. This
will reverse tendency to giving dispositional theory.
(2) Be curious.
(3) Always remember that behavior is due to mixture of disposition and
situation.
Conformity and Obedience
Conformity and Obedience = Major factor in society
Solomon Asch Experiment
One real subject: thought he was taking part in a perception experiment.
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Sits at large table with other people (actors), he believes are real subjects
like him.
Shown a card with a single line.
Shown another card with three lines of different sizes.
He is asked which line on second card matches the single line on the first
card.
He is always asked after several other "subjects" at the table.
The other subjects (actors) were instructed (before-hand) to give same
obviously wrong answer.
Results showed: Real subjects gave answers that conformed with the group.
Milgram Experiments: Stanley Milgram (1964)
Situation: Table divided by screen. Box in middle. Person on each side
of the table. Cannot see each other through the screen.
One of the two people is the real subject of the experiment.
The other person is called the learner.
Unknown to the subject, the learner is an actor.
The subject's arm controls the box between them.
The learner's arm is connected to the box by an electric wire.
The subject can administer electric shocks to the learner via the box.
The subject is instructed by the experimenter to administer shocks to the
learner behind screen, if the learner gets answers wrong to questions.
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As the person behind screen (learner) got more and more questions wrong,
the experimenter would tell the subject to increase the voltage and
administer more shocks.
As shocks increased in strength, the learner would start screaming in pain.
Voltage level reached 450 volts – which we all know kills people.
Yet 34 out of 40 subjects continued obeying the instructions of the
experimenter.
Milgram (paperback) 1974: "Obedience to Authority"
When questioned, people in Milgram experiment described themselves as
decent and moral.
Interaction between Social and Clinical Psychology
The Narcissistic Society
The above experiments can be explained by the concept of narcissism,
which is regarded as the major mental disease of the modern era.
Best to understand it using an important idea from Winnicott which we will
study in the next class.