Chapter 16: Social Behavior
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Social Psychology: the study of how
individuals thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are influenced by others
Person perception
Attribution processes
Interpersonal attraction
Attitudes
Conformity and obedience
Behavior in groups
Person Perception:
Forming Impressions of Others
• Effects of physical appearance: good-looking
individuals are seen as more competent, secure
better jobs, and earn higher salaries
– physical variables in person perception indicate
that facial features that are similar to infant
features influence perceptions of honesty (babyfaced people being viewed as more honest).
• Social schemas: structures that guide information
processing (working-class, snob, dumb jocks, wimps)
• Stereotypes: beliefs that people have certain
characteristics because of their membership in
certain groups (sex, age, ethnic/occupational groups)
Figure 16.1 Examples of social schemas
Person Perception:
Forming Impressions of Others
• Prejudice and discrimination: Prejudice is a
negative attitude toward a person because of
group membership, while discrimination is an
action
– create Memory biases that can lead to
confirmation of previously held beliefs
– Transmission of prejudice across
generations occurs in part due to
observational learning and may be
strengthened through operant conditioning
Person Perception:
Forming Impressions of Others
• Subjectivity in person perception: people tend
to see what they expect to see and
overestimate how often they see it… this is
called the Illusory Correlation
– Spotlight effect: people tend to assume
that the social spotlight shines more
brightly on them
– Illusion of asymmetric insight, or the
tendency to think that one’s knowledge of
one’s peers is greater than peer knowledge
of oneself, also supports the subjectivity of
person perception.
Person Perception:
Forming Impressions of Others
• Evolutionary psychologists argue that many
biases in person perception were adaptive in
our ancestral past, for example, automatically
categorizing others may reflect the primitive
need to quickly separate friend from foe
– (Ingroup vs Outgroup)
• Evolutionary perspectives: argue that person
perception swayed by attractiveness b/c it
has been associated with positive
reproductive traits throughout history
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• Attributions: inferences that people draw about the
causes of events, others behavior, and their own
behavior (b/c people have a strong need to
understand their experiences)
– Internal Att.: ascribe the causes of behavior to
personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings
– External Att: ascribe behavior to situational
demands and environmental constraints
• Why did Mr. X lose his job?
• Wrecked car…
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• Harold H. Kelley (1967, 1973) has devised a
theory that identifies some to the important
factors that people consider in making an
internal or external attribution, the covariation
model
– People tend to be biased in the way they
make attributions, research indicates
– Attributions ultimately represent guesswork
about the causes of events, and these
guesses tend to be slanted
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• Biases in attributions
– Fundamental attribution error: an observer favors
internal attributions in explaining other’s behavior
• In general, we are likely to attribute our own
behavior to situational causes and others’
behavior to dispositional causes (actorobserver bias)
– Defensive attribution: blaming victims for their
misfortune, so one feels less likely to be victimized
in a similar way (hindsight bias)
– Self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute one’s
success to personal factors and ones failures to
situational factors
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• Research indicates that there are cultural
influences on attributional tendencies, with
individualistic emphasis in Western cultures
promoting the fundamental attribution error
and the self-serving bias.
• Weiner’s Model of Attributions for Success
and Failure
– Assumes people’s explanations for
success and failure focus on internalexternal causes AND stable-unstable
causes
Figure 16.23 Bias in the attributions used to explain success and failure by men and women
Figure 16.4 An alternative view of the fundamental attribution error
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• A political question?
– Conservatives tend to attribute social blight
(poverty, homelessness, and criminal
behavior) to internal characteristics
– Liberals are more likely to attribute the
same social problems to institutional
failures and unjust social practices
Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior
• Cultural influences:
– Individualism: putting personal goals
ahead of group goals, defining success in
terms of personal attributes instead of
group affiliation
– Collectivism: putting group goals ahead of
personal goals and defining identity in
terms of groups one belongs to (clan, tribe,
social class, caste)
– Chart page 641
Cultural and Attibutional tendencies
• Child rearing parents in collectivist cultures
emphasize obedience, reliability, and proper
behavior
• Parents in individualistic cultures emphasize
the development of independence, selfesteem, and self reliance
• Instead, Japanese subjects exhibit a selfeffacing bias as they tend to downplay their
own ability and attribute success to external
factors; in fact they are more self-critical
Figure 16.22 Relationship between prejudice and discrimination
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
• Key factors in attraction
– Physical attractiveness: the key determinant of
romantic relationships, particularly in the initial
stages of dating
– Matching hypothesis: proposes that males and
females of approximately equal physical
attractiveness are likely to select each other as
partners
– Similarity: “birds of a feather flock together”
Couples tend to be similar in age, race, religion,
social class, personality, education, intelligence,
physical attractiveness, and attitudes
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
• Byrne’s research suggests that similarity
causes attraction, particularly attitude
similarity
• Davis and Rusbult (2001) have shown that
attraction can also foster similarity, with dating
partners experiencing attitude alignment
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
• Key factors in attraction (cont.)
– Reciprocity: people tend to like those that
like them, and we see others as liking us
more the more we like them
• When a partner helps one feel good
about oneself, a phenomenon called
self-enhancement occurs
• Studies suggest that people seek
feedback that matches and supports
their self-concepts, as well, a process
known as self-verification
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
– Romantic Ideals: the more people match
the ideals we set for them, the more
satisfied we tend to be with the relationship
• People tend to focus on their partners
virtues and minimize their partners faults
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
• Perspectives on love
– Hatfield & Berscheid –
• Passionate love: complete absorption in
another that includes tender sexual
feelings and the agony/ecstasy of
intense emotion
• vs. Companionate love: warm, trusting,
tolerant affection for another whose life
is deeply intertwined with one’s own
–These may coexist, but not
necessarily
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
– Sternberg – divides companionate love
further
• Intimacy: refers to warmth, closeness,
and sharing
• Commitment: an intent to maintain a
relationship in spite of the difficulties and
costs
Close Relationships: Liking and Loving
– Hazen & Shaver –
• Love as attachment: looked at the link
between love and attachment
relationships in infancy
–Subdivided it into 3 categories
»Secure Attachment: more
committed, satisfying relationships
(56%)
»Anxious-Ambivalent attachment
(20%)
»Avoidant Attachment (24%)
Figure 16.7 Infant attachment and romantic relationships
Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction
• Mating priorities
– Physical attraction is seen as aspects of
sound health, good genes, and high fertility
(reproductive potential)
• Facial Symmetry is seen as a key element to
attraction in diverse cultures
• Men are more interested in women in finding
a youthful, attractive mate
• Women place more emphasis on ambition,
social status, and financial potential (What
can my baby’s daddy do for my baby?)
Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction
• Both sexes are willing to lie about personality,
income, past relationships, and career skills
to impress a prospective date who was
attractive
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Attitudes: positive or negative evaluations of
objects of thought
– 3 components
• Cognitive: beliefs people hold about the
object of attitude (beliefs, ideas)
• Affective: emotional feelings stimulated
by an object of thought (emotions,
feelings)
• Behavioral: the predispositions to act in
a certain way (actions)
Figure 16.9 The possible components of attitudes
Figure 16.21 The three potential components of prejudice as an attitude
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Attitudes and behavior are not as consistent
as one might assume, in part because
attitude strength varies, and in part because
attitudes only create predispositions to
behave in certain ways.
• Persuasion is undermined when a receiver is
forewarned, when the sender advocates a
position that is incompatible with the
receiver’s existing attitudes, or when strong
attitudes are targeted.
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Factors in changing attitudes
– Source: sends a communication
• Credibility: persuasion successful
message
• expertise: more influential when
arguments are ambiguous
• Trustworthiness: argument accepted
with little scrutiny
• Likeability: increases sources
effectiveness
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)
– Message: information transmitted
• One-sided: no alternate info
• Two-sided arguments: more effective
• Fear Arousal: successful if fear is
aroused, most fail to
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)
– Receiver: person to whom the message is sent
• Forewarning: expectations and prior knowledge
are more influential than personality
• disconfirmation bias: arguments that go against
previous schemas are more scrutinized and
analyzed
• resistance can promote resistance: when you
resist persuasive efforts, you become more
certain of those attitudes
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Although there are some situational limitations, twosided arguments and fear arousal are effective
elements in persuasive messages.
• Repetition is helpful, but adding weak arguments to
one’s case may hurt more than help.
• Research has indicated that there are many factors
at play in attitude change.
– A source of persuasion who is credible, expert,
trustworthy, likable, and physically attractive tends
to be relatively effective in stimulating attitude
change.
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Theories of attitude change
– Learning theory: Attitudes may be shaped
through classical conditioning, operant
conditioning, and observational learning
– Dissonance theory: inconsistent attitudes
cause tension and that people alter their
attitudes to reduce cognitive
dissonance(Festinger)
– Self-perception theory people infer their
attitudes from their behavior. Behavior
affects attitude (Bem)
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Theories of attitude change (cont.)
– Elaboration likelihood model: central routes to
persuasion yield longer-lasting attitude change
than peripheral routes. (Petty and Cacioppo)
• central routes: people carefully ponder the
content and logic of persuasive messages (a
politicians well thought out speech)
• peripheral routes : persuasion that depends on
nonmessage factors such as attractiveness of
the source (a politician who depends on flag
waving and parades).
Figure 16.10 Overview of the persuasion process
Figure 16.12 Design of the Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) study
Figure 16.13 Bem’s self-perception theory
Yielding to Others: Conformity
• Conformity : when people yield to real or
imagined social pressure
– Solomon Asch (1950s): (Classic
experiment) line study
• 37% of men conformed!
• Group size: more people, more likely to
conform
• Group unanimity: one person dissents,
less conformity
Yielding to Others: Obedience
• Obedience – Stanley Milgram (1960s)
– Obedience is a form of compliance that
occurs when people follow direct
commands, usually from someone in a
position of authority
– Milgram, was troubled over the Nazi war
criminal defense “I was just following
orders.” He designed a landmark
experiment to determine how often
ordinary people will obey an authority
figure, even if it means hurting another
person
Yielding to Others: Obedience
• (Milgram)Controversial landmark experiments
– 40 men from the local community recruited
– teacher was seated before an apparatus that had
30 switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts, with
labels of slight shock, danger: severe shock, and
XXX etc.
– Although the apparatus looked and sounded real,
it was fake, 65% of the men administered all 30
levels of the shock
• presence of a dissenter: only 10%
– extremely controversial, as his method involved
considerable deception and emotional distress on
the part of subjects.
Yielding to Others: Obedience
• The Power of Situation: The Stanford Prison
Simulation
• http://www.prisonexp.org/
Behavior in Groups:
The Influence of Other People
• The bystander effect - Darley and Latane (1968)
– People are much less likely to provide help in a
group then by themselves due to the Diffusion of
responsibility
– Reviews of studies on over 6,000 subjects
• subjects who are alone help about 75% of the
time
• subjects in the presence of others help about
53% of the time.
• The only variable shown to significantly
impact the bystander effect is ambiguity of
the need for help.
• Group productivity: Studies also show that
productivity decreases as group size
increases.
– This is believed to be due to 2 factors: loss
of efficiency resulting from a loss of
coordination of effort and social loafing
• social loafing: Social loafing is a reduction in
effort by individuals when they work in groups
as compared to when they work alone.
Figure 16.18 The effect of loss of coordination and social loafing on group productivity
Behavior in Groups:
The Influence of Other People
• Decision making in groups: groups often
arrive at riskier decisions (risky shift) or a
more cautious approach depending on which
way they were leaning to begin with this is
called:
– Polarization: Group polarization occurs
when group discussion strengthens a
group’s dominant point of view and
produces a shift toward a more extreme
decision in that direction.
Behavior in Groups:
The Influence of Other People
• Groupthink: Groupthink occurs when
members of a cohesive group emphasize
concurrence at the expense of critical thinking
in arriving at a decision.
– This is a disease of group decision making
b/c it stifles dissent and increases pressure
to conform
– Some people even shelter information that
would contradict the group’s views (us vs.
them)
– Bay of Pigs
Behavior in Groups:
The Influence of Other People
• Janis’ Theory:
– members of a group suspend critical
thought
– Censor dissent
– Pressure to conform increases
– “mind guards” tend to shelter the group
from info that contradicts the group’s view
Behavior in Groups:
The Influence of Other People
• Group Think (cont.)
– Major causes of Group Think are
• Group cohesiveness: strength of the
liking relationships linking group
members
• Isolation: when group works in…
• Strength of the leader
• High Stress
–Look at chart page 666