Social Psychology
PGS 350
Social Psychology
Scientific study of how people’s
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
are influenced by the real or
imagined presence of others
(Allport)
RELATIONSHIPS
Why do we like some people and
dislike others?
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
What
causes
the
feeling
of love?
Is love found across cultures and
historical periods?
Is love unique to human beings?
Why are
family
bonds so
powerful?
Which sex
pushes for
sexual
intimacy
earlier in
relationships?
Is this sex difference unique to
our culture?
How important is
physical
attractiveness in
relationships?
Are there universal features
that make someone
beautiful or handsome?
Or does it depend completely
on culture?
What causes romantic
relationships to break up?
When clownfish
males grow up,
they turn into
females –>
The reverse happens
to closely related
damselfishes –>
Females later turn
into males.
Does anything like this
apply to humans?
•Is Altruism
part of
human
nature?
•Why do we
sometimes
refuse to
help others
who need
our help?
Prosocial Behavior
Save The Children
Osceola McCarty
Washerwoman for 75
yrs
Saved her meager
earnings
Donated $150,000 to
Univ. of Southern
Mississippi
Why are some people more
altruistic than others?
Osceola after winning
Presidential Citizen’s
Medal: "People tell me
now that I am a hero...I
am nobody special. I am
a plain, common
person...no better than
anybody else...I don't
want to be put up on a
pedestal; I want to stay
right here on the
ground.”
Venus after chiding
Clinton: “What? I’m not
really intimidated by
anyone. Why should I
be?”
What is more important in
determining your social
behavior:
• kind of PERSON you are?
• or your SITUATION?
• or the INTERACTION of
the two?
RACKETEERING INFLUENCEDAND CORRUPT
ORGANIZATIONS (RICO) - MURDER (18
COUNTS), CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER,
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT EXTORTION,
NARCOTICS DISTRIBUTION, CONSPIRACY TO
COMMIT MONEY LAUNDERING; EXTORTION;
MONEYLAUNDERING
U. Mass. President
William Bulger
Former President of
Massachusetts State
Senate
AGGRESSION
• What do these
mass
murderers
have in
common?
• Which sex is
more likely to
kill their own
small children?
Oct. 5, 1789: Thousands of armed women
storm Versailles Palace, behead Marie
Antoinette’s bodyguard
• Is violence part of human
nature?
• Does watching violent TV
and movies make us more
aggressive, or less so?
Social Learning
view:
Your aggressiveness
is a function of
rewards and
punishments from
parents, teachers,
media
• Movies, TV, and
song lyrics give us
information about
the social value of
aggressiveness
• Blame it on
MTV
Evolutionary view:
• Aggression based in
genetic dispositions
that helped our
ancestors survive.
• blame DNA - not
MTV.
Robert
Sapolsky
“I joined the baboon
troop during my
twenty-first year. I
had never
planned to be a
savanna baboon
when I grew
up…”
PREJUDICE
Buford Furrow, 37,
member of Aryan Nation
neo-Nazi group, walked
into a Jewish
Does prejudice
community center
summer camp on Aug. 7,
stem from
1999, shot 3 children, 2
emotional
adults, later killed a
disorder or just
Filipino postal worker.
normal cognitive
processes?
• What can be done to
reduce prejudice?
IMPRESSION FORMATION
How accurate are
we in deciding
what friends or
roommates or
political
candidates are
really like?
SELF-PRESENTATION
Can you predict hairstyles, attitudes or auto
choices from someone’s musical taste?
What tactics do we use to
make impressions on others?
How effective are those tactics?
Cindy Jackson at
high school
graduation, 1973.
Cindy Jackson in
1993,
after 19
operations
Goal - to look like
a living Barbie
doll
Judy Loveless, 49 yr.
old flight
attendant, died
during outpatient
laser surgery to
reduce skin
wrinkles.
Women around world had 10.5 million
cosmetic procedures in 2006 -- about 10
times more than men.
Why the sex difference?
SOCIAL COGNITION
Do your cognitive biases
lead you to a
hopelessly distorted
view of what you are
like?
Can your beliefs about
yourself and about
other people actually
change the social
world you live in?
ATTITUDES
& PERSUASION
• What tricks do
advertisers &
politicians &
salespeople &
phone solicitors
use on us?
ATTITUDES & PERSUASION
Any way to
protect ourselves
from these
propagandists’
tricks?
ATTITUDES & PERSUASION
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
What factors lead us to obey
or disobey authority?
• What factors lead us to go along
with crowd vs act independently?
• Could any
circumstances lead
you to join a cult
like the Branch
Davidians, & then
to sacrifice your
own life, and that
of your child, on
the leader’s
orders?
David Koresh,
Branch
Davidian
leader
GROUP
DYNAMICS
GROUP
DYNAMICS
Ever done
something in
a group
you’d never
do alone?
• Are you likely to do better or
worse work in a group setting?
GROUP DYNAMICS
What makes
some people
good vs. bad
leaders?
ENVIRONMENT & SOC. BEH.
How do
environmental
factors affect:
• Aggression?
• Sexual behavior?
• Depression &
Anxiety?
ENVIRONMENT & SOC. BEH.
1950 - World pop.- 2,555,360,972
Sunday, Aug. 22, 1999
World pop. = 6,016,326,230
• 1st year to break 6 billion
Wed., Aug. 12, 2009
World pop. = 6,777,234,018
(increase in 10 yr. > 761 million)
ENVIRONMENT & SOC. BEH.
U.S. pop.
1900: 76,094,000
1948: 146,631,302
August, 2009: 307,157,477
What influences
people’s
environmentally
relevant
decisions?
50
How is this course different from
watching the evening news?
Experts interviewed on the news
don’t always take a data-driven
scientific approach.
Broad theories will be more
important than trivial details.
You aren’t tested to see if you
learned anything from the news.
How can you learn most from course?
Attend all classes, & take careful notes.
Type up the notes after each class.
Take good notes on the reading.
Join a study group. Keep disciplined.
Pay attention to book’s structure:
1. What are the motives?
2. Person/Situation/Interactions.
Don’t cram. Start studying tonight.
Social Psychology