“We cannot live for ourselves alone.
Our lives are connected by a thousand
invisible threads.”
Herman Melville, novelist
Social Psychology
Schemas
• What are they?
– Organized beliefs and knowledge about
people, objects, events, and situations
• Schematic processing
– Searching in memory for the schema that
is most consistent with the oncoming data
Jim
• Jim left the house to get some stationery. He walked out
into the sun-filled street with two of his friends, basking in
the sun as he walked. Jim entered the stationery store,
which was full of people. Jim talked with an acquaintance
while he waited to catch the clerk’s eye. On his way out,
he stopped to chat with a school friend who was just coming
into the school. On his way he met the girl to whom he had been
introduced the night before. They talked for a short while, and then
Jim left for school.
After school Jim left the classroom alone. Leaving the school, he started
on his long walk home. The street was brilliantly filled with sunshine. Jim
walked down the street on the shady side. Coming down the street
toward him, he saw the pretty girl whom he had met on the previous
evening. Jim crossed the street and entered a candy store. The store
was crowded with students, and he noticed a few familiar faces. Jim
waited quietly until he caught the counterman’s eye and then gave his
order. Taking his drink, he sat down at a side table. When he had
finished his drink he went home.
Jim, continued
•
•
•
•
What impression do you have of Jim?
Friendly, outgoing?
Shy, introverted?
Up to the sentence “After school…”, Jim is
portrayed in several situations as fairly friendly
• From then on, a nearly identical set of situations
shows him to be much more of a loner.
Whereas 95% of the people who were shown
only the first part saw Jim as friendly, only 3% of
those shown the second half thought so.
In the combined passage,
Jim’s friendliness dominates.
When combined passage
order is switched, only
18% rated him
friendly.
Primacy effect
• First impression
• When we are first attempting to
form our impressions of a person,
we actively search in memory for the
person schema or schemas that best match
the incoming information.
• It takes a lot to change an existing schema.
• Existing schemas are the foundation for
stereotyping.
Social
Perception
 Social Psychology
 scientific study of how we think about,
influence, and relate to one another
 Attribution Theory
 tendency to give a causal explanation for
someone’s behavior, often by crediting either
the situation or the person’s disposition
Funny
Why is Suzanne acting like a dork?
Situational
“She’s under pressure”
Dispositional
“She’s clueless and
self-involved”
Social
Perception
 Fundamental Attribution Error
 tendency for observers, when analyzing
another’s behavior, to underestimate the
impact of the situation and to overestimate
the impact of personal disposition
 Attitude
 belief and feeling that predisposes one
to respond in a particular way to objects,
people and events
Social
Perception
 How we explain someone’s behavior
affects how we react to it. Tolerant reaction
Situational attribution
“Maybe that driver is ill.”
(proceed cautiously, allow
driver a wide berth)
Dispositional attribution
“Crazy driver!”
Unfavorable reaction
(speed up and race past the
other driver, give a dirty look)
Negative behavior
Social
Perception
 Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes
as well as by external social influences.
Internal
attitudes
External
influences
Behavior
Social
Thinking
 Attitudes
follow
behavior
 Cooperative
actions feed
mutual liking
Social
Perception
 Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
 tendency for people who have
first agreed to a small request
to comply later with a larger request
 Role
 set of expectations about a social
position
 defines how those in the position
ought to behave
Examples:
Gender role
Adult role
Student role
Parent role
Child role
Foot-in-the door
phenomenon
A group of housewives were asked if they would answer
a few questions about the household products they used. Three
days later, they were called again. This time, they were asked if five
or six men could come into the house to go through cupboards and
storage places as part of a 2-hour enumeration of household
products. The investigators found these women were more than
twice as likely to agree to the 2-hour request than a group of
housewives asked only the larger request.[
Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon
Get a person to agree to a rather minor request
prior to asking for a much larger request
“go for a test drive”
“try it on”
“run a few numbers”
Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon
People were asked to either sign a petition or
place a small card in a window in their home
or car about keeping California beautiful or
supporting safe driving. About two weeks later,
the same people were asked by a second person
to put a large sign advocating safe driving in
their front yard. Many people who agreed to
the first request now complied with the second,
far more intrusive request.
Foot-in-the-door
phenomenon
"Can I go over to Suzy's house for an hour?
followed by “Can I stay the night?”
“Can I borrow the car to go to the store?”
followed by “Can I borrow the car for the weekend?
“May I turn in the paper a few hours late
(after school)?”
followed by “May I turn it in next week?”
Social
Thinking
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
 we act to reduce the discomfort
(dissonance) we feel when two of our
thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent
 example- when we become aware that
our attitudes and our actions clash, we
can reduce the resulting dissonance by
changing our attitudes
Social
Thinking
 Cognitive dissonance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b
p39qSdyTc4&safety_mode=true&p
ersist_safety_mode=1&safe=active
Social
Influence
 Conformity
 adjusting one’s
behavior or
thinking to
coincide with a
group standard
 Obedience
 Authority
3
Asch
Milgram
Zimbardo
Social
Influence
 Asch’s conformity experiments
Social
Influence
 This particular participant, leans
forward anxiously to look at the
exhibit in question.
What he found:
• Conformity increases when
–
–
–
–
–
–
One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
Group has at least three people.
The group is unanimous.
One admires the group’s status/attractiveness.
One has made no prior commitment to any response.
One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social
standards.
– Others in the group observe one’s behavior.
Obedience
“acting under orders”
• Nazi Germany
• My Lai – Vietnam
• Stanley Milgram, 1963, 1974
Obedience
In Milgram’s study,
when the “teacher” had
to administer shock
directly to the learner,
most subjects refused –
but this one continued
to obey.
Milgram
So when do we disobey?
• When the experimenter left the room.
• When the victim was right there in the room.
• When 2 experimenters issued conflicting
demands.
• When the person ordering to continue was
an ordinary man.
• When the subject worked with peers who
refused to go further.
Social
Influence
 Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment
Heart condition
Cries of protest
65%
Social Influence –
FBI job opening
The FBI had an opening for an assassin. After all the background checks, interviews
and testing were done, there were 3 finalists, two men and a woman.
For the final test, the FBI agents took one of the men to a large metal door and
handed him a gun "We must know that you will follow your instructions no matter what
the circumstances. Inside the room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill her!!"
Moral:
Women are evil.
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the
Don't
them.
room. All was quiet for
about 5mess
minutes.with
The man
came out with tears in his eyes, "I
The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife.“ The agent said,
"Then you're not the right man for this job. Take your wife and go home."
tried, but I can't kill my wife."
The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."
Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instruction, to kill her
husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one after
another. They heard screaming, crashing and banging on the walls. After a few
minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman, wiping
the sweat from her brow. "The gun is loaded with blanks," she said, "so I had to beat
him to death with the chair."
Zimbardo’s
Prison Study
Why prisons tend to become abusive,
degrading, violent environments?
The participants
were college
students recruited
for a study of
prison life through
a newspaper ad.
(24 )
Guards and Prisoners
(random)
Quiz time
a.
Lines
____Foot-in-the
d.
door
b.
Study on roles of guards and prisoners
____Role
f.
c.
Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to
coincide with a group standard
____Attribution
e.
theory
d.
The tendency for people who have first
agreed to a small request to comply later
with a larger request
e.
Theory that we tend to give a causal
explanation for someone’s behavior, often
by crediting either the situation or the
person’s disposition
____Zimbardo
b.
study
f.
Play-acting until it becomes you
____Asch
a.
study
g.
We act to reduce discomfort when two
of our thoughts are inconsistent
h.
Obedience.
____Cognitive
g.
dissonance
____Conformity
c.
____Milgram
h.
study
Comply or not?
funny
Groups
• Features of groups (2)
• 1. Interdependence
– Everyone with round faces and
freckles make up a category but
they’re not a group,
i.e. athletes, entertainers,
roommates
• 2. Share common goals
– Task element = get the job done
– Social element = emotional support
Social
Influence
 Social Facilitation
 improved performance of tasks in the
presence of others
 occurs with simple or well-learned tasks
but not with tasks that are difficult or not
yet mastered
Yerkes-Dodson study
 Social Loafing
 tendency for individuals in a group to exert
less effort when pooling their efforts toward
attaining a common goal than when
individually accountable
Social
Facilitation
Social
Influence
 Deindividuation
 loss of self-awareness
and self-restraint in group
situations that foster arousal
and anonymity
Social
Influence
 Group Polarization
 enhancement of a group’s prevailing
attitudes through discussion within the
group
 Groupthink
 mode of thinking that occurs when the
desire for harmony in a decision-making
group overrides realistic appraisal of
alternatives – Challenger, Bay of Pigs, Pearl Harbor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV25olNedQ&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mod
e=1&safe=active
Social
Influence
 If a group is
like-minded,
discussion
strengthens its
prevailing
opinions
Social
Relations
 Prejudice
 an unjustifiable (and usually negative)
attitude toward a group and its members
 involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings,
and a predisposition to discriminatory action
 Stereotype
 a generalized (sometimes accurate, but
often overgeneralized) belief about a group
of people
Stereotyping – Are you guilty?
•
Easterners
1. ___________________ are cold and
arrogant.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Southerners
Westerners
Easterners
Midwesterners
Stereotyping – Are you guilty?
Italians
• 2. ___________________
are great lovers.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Canadians
Italians
Eskimos
Nigerians
Stereotyping – Are you guilty?
The Chinese
• 3. ___________________
are industrious
and obedient.
A.
B.
C.
D.
The Chinese
Americans
Australians
The Irish
Stereotyping – Are you guilty?
• 4.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Women
_____________
are moody
Men
Women
Australians
Children
Stereotyping – Are you guilty?
wear glasses
• 5. People who _________________
are
intelligent.
A. Wear glasses
B. Wear jewelry
C. Drive American cars
D. Are tall
Social
Relations
 Does perception change with race?
Skin color and facial features are the visible frosting on the
physiological cake. On average, any two randomly chosen
humans are 99.8 % alike in the alphabetic sequence of their
genetic code. Only 6% of their 0.2 % difference – .012 % in
all - is racial.
Social
Relations
 Americans today express much less racial
and gender prejudice
Social
Relations
 Ingroup
 “Us”- people with whom one shares a
common identity
 Outgroup
 “Them”- those perceived as different or
apart from one’s ingroup
Social
Relations
 Ingroup Bias
 tendency to favor one’s own group
 Scapegoat Theory
 theory that prejudice provides an outlet for
anger by providing someone to blame
 Just-World Phenomenon
 tendency of people to believe the world is just
 people get what they deserve and deserve
what they get
Social
Relations
 Vivid cases (9/11 terrorists) feed stereotypes
Social
Relations
 Aggression
 any physical or verbal behavior
intended to hurt or destroy
 Frustration-Aggression Principle
 principle that frustration – the blocking
of an attempt to achieve some goal –
creates anger, which can generate
aggression
Social
Relations
Social
Relations
 Conflict
 perceived incompatibility of actions,
goals, or ideas
 Social Trap
 a situation in which the conflicting
parties, by each rationally pursuing
their self-interest, become caught
in mutually destructive behavior –
When might this be true?
Quiz time
____prejudice
c
____group
g
think
a. a generalized belief about a group of people
b.“Us”
____social
j
loafing
c. an unjustifiable attitude toward a group and
its members
____deindividuation
f
d. group
____polarization
i
e.“Them”
____in
b
group
____social
h
facilitation
____stereotype
a
f. loss of self-awareness and self-restraint
occurring in group situations
g. thinking that occurs when the desire for
harmony overrides a realistic appraisal of
alternatives
____out
e
group
h. home field advantage
____interdependence,
d
share
common goals
i. enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes
through discussion within the group
j. exerting less effort while in a group vs.
individual activity
Social Relations Attractiveness
 Mere Exposure Effect
 repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases
liking of them
 Conceptions of attractiveness vary by culture
Personal
Relationships
• 1. Parent-Child
– home environment forms basis
for trust relationships later
(Trust vs. Mistrust)
• 2. Love relationships
– Liking – respect and high regard
– Loving – includes the above - plus:
• Great attachment to dependency on the person
• Desire for an exclusive, intimate relationship
Relationships
& Gender
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
Carol Gilligan believes that social
relationships are more important to
females than males.
Males have a stronger individualistic,
self-orientation than women.
Deborah Tannen believes that
communication differs between
men and women.
– Rapport talk is talk that seeks to establish
connections and negotiate relationships.
– Report talk is designed to simply relay
information.
– Women prefer rapport talk, while men prefer
report talk.
Social
Relations
 Passionate Love
 an aroused state of intense positive
absorption in another
 usually present at the beginning of a
love relationship
 Companionate Love
 deep affectionate attachment we feel for
those with whom our lives are
intertwined
Limerence
• an involuntary emotional
state in which a person
feels an intense romantic
desire for another person.
It can be experienced as
intense joy or as extreme
despair, depending on
whether or not the
feelings are reciprocated.
Obsessed with Brian, her work colleague,
but too shy to let him know, Theresa sculpted
a full-scale replica of him in her basement from
stray hairs and skin flakes she collected from the
cracks in his keyboard while he was at lunch.
Social
Relations
 Equity
 a condition in which people receive from
a relationship in proportion to what they
give to it
 Self-Disclosure
 revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others
 Altruism
 unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Volunteering
Why We Do It?
• Values
– Humanitarian concerns
– “walk a mile in their shoes”
• Community concerns
– Feel attached to situation
• Esteem enhancement
– Feel better about yourself or escape other pressures
• Understanding
– Gain a better understanding of other people, cultures, or
places
• Personal development
– Challenge yourself, meet new people and make new friends,
or further your career
Altruism
Friends of Ian
O’Gorman
demonstrated an
unusual degree
of altruism
when eleven of
them shaved
their heads prior
to the
chemotherapy
that would
cause him to
lose his hair.
Altruism… Wet Pants
Come with me to a third grade classroom.....
There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there
is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet.
He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly
imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows
that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls
find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.
The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down
and prays this prayer,
"Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now!
Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."
He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look
in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher is walking toward
him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water.
Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in
the boy's lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to
himself, "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"
Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the
boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs
Helping someone in distress
On August 18, 1999, Kevin Heisinger, a 24year-old, was on his way home to Illinois from
the University of Michigan, in the bathroom of
a bus station, he was attacked and beaten to
death. Several people were within earshot and
heard his cries for help, but none of them went
to his aid and none of them called the police.
One person saw him lying on the floor in a
pool of blood but he did nothing. Another
person saw him struggling to breathe, but he
also walked away. Eventually, a 9 year-old
boy called for help. The police arrived in less
than 20 seconds but it was too late to save
Kevin’s life.
Kitty
Genovese
What factors in the
situation do you think
might have contributed
to the unwillingness of
people to help Kevin
while he was being
beaten and afterward?
Social
Relations
 Bystander Effect
 tendency for
any given
bystander to be
less likely to
give aid if other
bystanders are
present.
Social
Relations
 The decision-making process
for bystander intervention
Diffusion
of Responsibility
– The tendency of the presence of others to lesson
an individual’s feelings of responsibility for his
or her actions or failure to act
i.e. first response
Leadership (Lewin)
•
•
•
•
•
Independent variable?
Democratic
Autocratic
Laissez-faire
They were to
Dependent variable?
Democratic
encourage and
4 groups of 10-year old boys
assist group
Laissez-faire
Observed them with
decision making
each leadership style
Their job was to and planning.
and recorded their
allow complete
performance
during that time
freedom with
little leader
Autocratic
participation.
Leaders were to make
all the decisions and work
assignments but not participate in the group activity.
Leadership styles - Lewin
• Autocratic
– Mixed bag – some positive, some negative
– Got work done but slacked off
when leader wasn’t watching
– High levels of aggression
• Laissez-faire
– Least amount of
work accomplished
• Democratic
– Worked most steadily and
were most efficient
Food for Thought
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made.
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
Six humans trapped by happenstance, in bleak and bitter cold,
Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story’s told.
Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back,
For of the faces ‘round the fire, he noticed one was black.
The next man looking ‘cross the way saw one not of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered clothes, he gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man’s face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death’s still hand was proof of human sin,
They didn’t die from the cold without—they died from the cold within.
The end…