Social Psychology
Scientific study of how people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced
by the real, imagined, or implied presence of others
Behavior = physical action, cognition,
emotion, etc.
1
Break it down…
• the scientific study of how individuals'
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others.
2
Break it down…
• the scientific study of how individuals'
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others.
3
Break it down…
• the scientific study of how individuals'
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others.
4
Break it down…
• the scientific study of how individuals'
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or
implied presence of others.
5
Small Groups Exercise
In groups of 2-3 students, quietly discuss the
research that I have given you. Do you find it
surprising? Try to think of personal instances
that support the research.
6
Is Social Psychology Simply
Common Sense?
• Hindsight bias:
• The tendency to exaggerate one’s ability to
have foreseen how something turned out.
• AKA:‘I knew it all along’ phenomenon.
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Science Review
Social psychology, like any science,
involves:
• Description  careful and reliable
observation
•Explanation  development of
theories
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Science Review
What are theories good for?
1. connect and organize existing data
2. provide a framework from which
we can generate future research
3. tell a coherent story
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Major Social Psych “Theories”
Sociocultural
Evolutionary
Social Learning
Phenomenological
Social Cognitive
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Sociocultural Perspective
• Influence of larger social groups drives
behavior
• What kinds of groups?
– Cultures, religions, ethnicities, social classes,
teams…
• What kind of influences?
– Social norms, fads, customs, shared values
11
Sociocultural Perspective
Sociocultural theorists often ask:
“What are the differences in social
behavior & norms between groups?”
12
Sociocultural Perspective
• Social Norms 
– rules & expectations for appropriate
social behavior
• Culture 
– beliefs, customs, habits, and language
shared by the people living in a
particular time and place
13
Culture, Choice & Intrinsic
Motivation
•U.S. culture teaches children to
cherish their own individual choice
and independence.
•Asian cultures emphasize more
collective values – viewing the self as
interdependent with family and social
group.
14
Culture, Choice & Intrinsic
Motivation
In one study, researchers asked AngloAmerican and Asian-American children
to solve word puzzles that were either:
•Chosen by the child (Personal Choice)
•Chosen by the experimenter
•Chosen by the child’s mom
15
Iyengar & Lepper, 1999
10
Number of
Word
Puzzles
Completed
5
0
Personal
Choice
Anglo
American
Asian
American
Experimenter
Choice
•Personal choice
enhanced
motivation for
Anglo-American
children
Mom
Choice
•But Asian-American
children were more
motivated when
their mothers had
chosen the task 16
Evolutionary Perspective
• Genetic predispositions that promoted our
ancestors’ survival and reproduction drive
behavior
• What kinds of predispositions?
– Competition for resources and mates,
displays to attract mates, social bonding,
nurturing of young
• What sub-theories explain these?
– Natural selection, sexual selection, inclusive
fitness, behavioral ecology
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Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary theorists often ask:
“What are the similarities in social
behavior among groups?”
Array18

Evolutionary Theories
• Natural selection 
– creatures that are better adapted to the
demands of the environment will survive and
have more surviving offspring
• Sexual selection 
– creatures that attract more mates will have
more offspring
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Age Preferences in Mates
One example of a seemingly universal
feature of social behavior is the
difference between men and women
in the preference for younger versus
older partners.
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DIFFERENCE FROM
TARGET'S AGE
20
10
Young men show no
particular preference
for younger partners,
but older men prefer
partners younger than
themselves
Oldest preferred
Youngest preferred
20
10
0
0
-10
-10
-20
-20
10s
20s
30s
40s
50s
MALE'S AGE
60s
Women of all ages ask
for men around their
own age or older
10s
20s
30s
40s
50s
60s
FEMALE'S AGE
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Kenrick & Keefe, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, (1992)
DIFFERENCE FROM
TARGET'S AGE
PORO - 1913 - 1929
The same pattern was
found on a remote island
in the Philippines
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Phoenix Singles Ads
Oldest preferred
Youngest preferred
10
0
-10
-20
10s 20s
30s 40s >50
MALE'S AGE
10s 20s 30s 40s >50
FEMALE'S AGE
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Social Learning Perspective
• Conditioned preferences drive behavior
• What kinds of conditioning?
– classical, operant, teaching, imitation
• What kinds of preferences?
– Anything we’re rewarded or punished for
– Also anything we see other people rewarded
or punished for
23
Social Learning Perspective
Social Learning theorists often ask:
“What experiences cause changes in
people’s social behavior?”
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What sorts of things might you
become conditioned to fear?
25
Learning Violence from
Video Games
One team of researchers hypothesized that
violent video games may make aggression
rewarding, by allowing a person to win
points for killing and maiming human-like
opponents.
• In an experiment, students first played a violent
video game (Wulfenstein) or a nonviolent game
(Tetrix).
• They then played a competitive game in which
they could retaliate against real opponents by
delivering unpleasantly loud blasts of noise.
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Anderson & Dill, 2000
85
Retaliatory
Aggression
(unpleasant
noise level)
80
Nonviolent
Violent
Type of
Videogame
Students who
played a
violent video
game
demonstrated
significantly
higher levels
of retaliatory
aggression
27
Phenomenological Perspective
• Subjective Interpretation
• What kinds of interpretations?
– Beliefs, opinions, intuitions, evaluations
• What is most important?
– The individual’s ideas and feelings
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Phenomenological Perspective
“How does a particular person
perceive what is going on?”
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Change in Fans SelfPerceptions After Team Losses
Fans watched their school team play a
basketball game, then asked to
evaluate their own performance on a
word scramble.
• Their actual performance was the same
whether their team lost or won
30
Hirt, Zillmann, Erickson, & Kennedy, 1992
+ .5
But fans who
watched their
team lose
made
(incorrect)
lower
estimates of
their own
performance
on the test
Subjective
Estimate of
Their Own
Performance
-.5
Win
Control
Loss
(no game)
Team’s Outcome
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Phenomenological Perspective
Social constructivist view  we do not
discover reality but rather construct it.
32
Social Cognitive Perspective
• Behavior is driven by:
– attention
– interpret and judge social situations
– encoded
– retrieve from memory
33
Social Cognitive Perspective
“What types of information are going
in and out of our brains?”
Judging
Attention
Encoding
Retrieval
Behavior
34
Self-serving appraisals of past
and present selves
Our memory processes are often
biased.
• Students were asked to:
“Describe yourself as you are now, and
as you were several years ago.”
35
Wilson & Ross, 2001
Students
described
their present
selves as
champs, with
more positive
and fewer
negative
features than
the chumps
they used to
be
4
Frequency
of Self- 2
Descriptions
0
Past
Now
Self-Description
(+)
(-)
36
Perspective
What drives social behavior?
Sociocultural
larger social groups
Evolutionary
Genetic predispositions
Social Learning
Conditioned responses
Phenomenological
subjective interpretation
Social Cognitive
information
37
Basic Principles of Social
Behavior
1. goal-oriented.
2. continual interaction between
person and situation.
38
Social Goals
The goals of our social behaviors
function at different levels
Proximate
Ultimate
• day-to-day
• big picture
• current
• long-term
• conscious
• not always conscious
39
Social Goals
At the broadest level (ultimate),
fundamental motives
Social ties
Understand us & others
Status
Defend ourselves and those we value
Attract and retain mates
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Person-Situation Interactions
Person = internal to the individual
Situation = outside the person.
41
Person-Situation Interactions
1. Different persons respond
differently to the same situation
42
Person-Situation Interactions
2. Situations Choose the Person
43
Person-Situation Interactions
3. Persons Choose Their Situations
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Person-Situation Interactions
4. Different Situations Prime
Different Parts of the Same Person
45
Person-Situation Interactions
5. Persons Change the Situation
46
Person-Situation Interactions
6. Situations Change the Person
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