Social Psychology

Psychology 2012 – Fall 2003

Introduction: What Is Social Psychology? The scientific study of how people

think, feel, and behave in social situations. Social cognition – the study of the

mental processes people use to make sense out of their social environment

Social influence – the study of the effect of situational factors and other people on an individual’s behavior

Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Other People On the basis of very limited information, we

quickly draw conclusions about the nature of people who are complete strangers to us

Person perception – refers to the mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of others

Personal perception is an active and subjective process that always occurs in some interpersonal context, which has three key components:

The characteristics of the individual you are attempting to size up

Your own characteristics as the perceiver The specific situation in which the process occurs

Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Other People Person perception follows some basic principles

1. Your reactions to others are determined by your perceptions of them, not by who or what they really are

2. Your goals in a particular situation determine the amount and kind of information you collect about others

3. In every situation, you evaluate people partly in terms of how you expect them to act in the situation Social norms are the rules or expectations, for appropriate

behavior in a particular social situation

4. Your self-perception also influences how your perceive others and how your act on your perceptions

Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Other People Social categorization: using mental

shortcuts in person perception Social categorization – the mental process

of classifying people into groups on the basis of common characteristics

It may be automatic and spontaneous, and it may be unconscious

Using social categories is cognitively efficient but may lead to inaccurate conclusions

Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Other People Implicit personality theories

Implicit personality theory – a network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors

Implicit personality theories, like social categories, can be useful as mental shortcuts in perceiving other people, but they are not always accurate

Attribution: Explaining the Causes of Behavior Attribution – the mental process of inferring the

causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own Also used to refer to the explanation made for a

particular behavior The fundamental attribution error – we tend to

spontaneously attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics

While downplaying or underestimating the effects of external, situational factors

Plays a role in a common explanatory pattern called blaming the victim – an innocent victim is blamed for somehow causing a misfortune

Just world hypothesis – a victim must have done something wrong because the world is fair

Attribution: Explaining the Causes of Behavior The actor-observer discrepancy

When it comes to explaining our own behavior, we are more likely to use an external, situational attribution than an internal, personal attribution

This is called the actor-observer discrepancy because there is a discrepancy between the attributions you make when you are the actor in a given situation

And those you make when you are the observer of other people’s behavior

The self-serving bias – the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes

And unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes Common in many societies, the self-serving bias is far from

universal

The Social Psychology of Attitudes Attitude – a learned tendency to

evaluate some object, person, or issue in a particular way Such evaluations may be positive,

negative, or ambivalent Attitudes can include three components:

A cognitive component An emotional/affective component A behavioral component

The Social Psychology of Attitudes The effect of attitudes on behavior

Research indicates that you’re most likely to behave in accordance with your attitudes when:1. Attitudes are extreme or are frequently expressed2. Attitudes have been formed through direct

experience3. You are very knowledgeable about the subject4. You have a vested interest in the subject5. You anticipate a favorable outcome or response

from others

The Social Psychology of Attitudes The effect of behavior on attitudes

Cognitive dissonance – an unpleasant state of psychological tension (dissonance) that occurs when there’s an inconsistency between two thoughts or perceptions (cognitions)

It typically results from the awareness that attitudes and behavior are in conflict

Cognitive dissonance can change the strength of an attitude so that it is consistent with some behavior we’ve already performed

Cognitive Dissonance

The unpleasant state that occurs when attitudes don't match behaviors

Responses: Change Behavior Explain Away Inconsistency Minimize Inconsistency Change Attitude

Understanding Prejudice Prejudice – a negative attitude toward

people who belong to a specific social group Ultimately based on the exaggerated notion that

members of other social groups are very different from members of our own social group

Keep two well-established points in mind: Racial and ethnic groups are far more alike than they

are different Any differences that may exist between members of

different racial and ethnic groups are far smaller than differences among various members of the same group

Understanding Prejudice From stereotypes to prejudice: in-groups and out-

groups Stereotype – a cluster of characteristics that are attributed

to members of a specific social group or category Are based on the assumption that people have certain

characteristics because of their membership in a certain group

Once formed, stereotypes are hard to change They are not always completely false; sometimes they

have a kernel of truth, making them easy to confirm Especially when you see only what you expect to see

When stereotypes become expectations that are applied to all members of a given group, they can be both misleading and damaging

Understanding Prejudice Another strong tendency in person perception is to

perceive others in terms of the basic social categories of “us” and “them”

The in-group (we) refers to the group to which we belong The out-group (them) refers to the groups of which we are

not a member Two important patterns characterize our views on in-groups

versus out-groups1. When we describe the members of our in-group, we typically

see them as being quite varied, Despite having enough features in common to belong to the same

group

2. The out-group homogeneity effect – we tend to see members of the out-group as much more similar to one another, even in areas that have little to do with the criteria for group membership

Understanding Prejudice In-group bias – our tendency to make

favorable, positive attributions for behaviors by members of our in-group And unfavorable, negative attributions for

behaviors by members of out-groups Ethnocentrism – one form of in-group bias that

focuses on the belief that one’s own culture or ethnic group is superior to others

Understanding Prejudice In combination, stereotypes and

in-group/out-group bias form the cognitive basis for prejudicial attitudes Prejudice also has a strong emotional

component, which is intensely negative Involving hatred, contempt, fear, and loathing

Behaviorally, prejudice can be displayed in the form of discrimination Behaviors ranging from privately sneering at

another group to physically attacking member of the out-group

Understanding Prejudice Overcoming prejudice

Social psychologist Sherif helped clarify the conditions that produce intergroup conflict and harmony

Best known for his “Robbers Cave” experiment The Robbers Cave Experiment

Boys were randomly assigned to two groups – a fierce rivalry quickly developed

To restore harmony, Sherif created a series of situations in which the two groups would need to cooperate to achieve a common goal

After a series of joint efforts, the rivalry diminished and the groups became friends

Sherif demonstrated how hostility between groups could be created and how that hostility could be overcome

However, some researchers questioned the applicability of these results to other intergroup situations, in which intrinsic differences might come into play

Understanding Prejudice The jigsaw classroom: Promoting cooperation Social psychologist Aronson adapted Sherif’s results

to a newly integrated elementary school When mere contact between black and white children did not

dissipate tension and prejudice, Aronson reasoned that the competitive schoolroom atmosphere might be partly at fault

Aronson developed a cooperative technique called the jigsaw classroom technique

Which brought students together in small, ethnically diverse groups to work on a mutual project

As a result, interdependence and cooperation replaced competition

In combination, the Robbers Cave study and the jigsaw classroom experiment illustrated how cooperative efforts can promote intergroup harmony

Understanding Prejudice Sometimes people who are not consciously

prejudiced against particular groups nevertheless react in prejudiced ways

Psychologist Devine argues that prejudice reduction at the individual level is a three-step process

1. Individuals must decide that prejudiced responses are wrong and consciously reject prejudice and stereotyped thinking

2. They must internalize their nonprejudiced beliefs so that they become an integral part of their self-concept

3. Individuals must learn to inhibit automatic prejudicial reactions and deliberately replace them with nonprejudiced responses that are based on their personal standards

Conformity: Following the Crowd Social influence – the psychological study of

how our behavior is influenced by the social environment and other people Conformity – the tendency to adjust one’s

behavior, attitudes, or beliefs to group norms in response to real or imagined group pressure

American social psychologist Asch was best known for his pioneering studies of conformity

Asch’s research, which involved a simple, objective task with an obvious answer (judging the similarity in the lengths of lines), demonstrated:

The degree to which people will conform to a majority view and

The conditions under which conformity is most likely

Conformity

Tendency to follow others in attitudes or behaviors

Generally positive, allows us to live together

Asch’s Study

Used 7-9 people, only one a real subject

Had people judging line lengths

At first confederates told the truth

Then they all began giving the same wrong answer

Conformity by Group Size

Proportion of Conformity

Follow Up Studies

Later, Asch measured the effect of having at least one confederate dissent & give the correct answer

Conformity: Following the Crowd Factors influencing conformity

We sometimes find ourselves conforming to the larger group for two basic reasons:

Normative social influence – refers to behavior that is motivated by the desire to gain social acceptance and approval

Informational social influence – refers to behavior that is motivated by the desire to be correct

Conformity: Following the Crowd Culture and conformity

Meta-analysis indicates that conformity is generally higher in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic ones

Individualistic cultures tend to emphasize independence, self-expression, and standing out from the crowd;

Thus the whole notion of conformity tends to carry a negative connotation

In collectivistic cultures, however, publicly conforming while privately disagreeing tends to be regarded as socially appropriate tact or sensitivity

Conformity Increases

When: People are unsure of a situation

People are of low group status

People lack information

The behavior is public

Obedience: Just Following Orders Social psychologist Milgram is best known

for his experimental investigations of obedience Obedience – the performance of an action in

response to the direct orders of an authority or person of higher status

Milgram’s original obedience experiment Milgram embarked on one of the most systematic and

controversial investigations in the history of psychology;

How and why people obey the destructive dictates of an authority figure

Obedience: Just Following Orders1. Following a “fixed” drawing to determine “teacher”

(always a real subject) and “learner” (always an accomplice in the experiment), the “learner” was strapped into an “electric chair”

2. The teacher tested the learner on a simple word-pair memory task

3. The teacher was given a sample shock of 45 volts No more actual shocks were delivered at any other time in the

experiment

4. At predetermined levels, the learner vocalized his discomfort, then his pain, then agonized screams, and finally dead silence

5. If the teacher protested, the experimenter told him that he must continue

Obedience: Just Following Orders The results of Milgram’s original

experiment Milgram asked psychiatrists, college students,

and middle-class adults to predict how subjects would behave

All three groups predicted that all of Milgram’s subjects would refuse to obey at some point

None of hose surveyed thought that any of Milgram’s subjects would go to the full 450 volts

They were wrong. 2/3 of Milgram’s subjects went to the full 450 volt level Of those who defied the experimenter, not one

stopped before the 300 volt level

Milgram’s Results

Obedience: Just Following Orders Making sense out of Milgram’s findings

Milgram and others identified several aspects of the experimental situation that had a strong impact on the subjects1. A previously well-established framework to obey2. The situation, or context, in which the obedience

occurred3. The gradual, repetitive escalation of the task4. The experimenter’s behavior and reassurances5. The physical and psychological separation from

the learner

Obedience: Just Following Orders Conditions that undermine obedience

In a lengthy series of experiments involving over 1,000 subjects Milgram systematically varied the basic obedience paradigm

Milgram identified several conditions that decrease the likelihood of destructive obedience

Willingness to obey diminishes sharply when the buffers that separate the teacher from the learner are lessened or removed

When teachers were allowed to act as their own authority and freely choose the shock level

95 percent did not venture beyond 150 volts – the first point at which the learner protested

Obedience: Just Following Orders Asch, Milgram, and the real world:

Implications of the classical social influence studies

The scientific study of conformity and obedience had produced some important insights Our behavior is influenced by situational

factors Each of us does have the capacity to resist

group or authority pressure

Helping Behavior: Coming to the Aid of Strangers Helping behavior: coming to the aid of strangers

The chilling story of Kitty Genovese’s murder led researchers to investigate what factors influence our decision to help another person. Social psychologists Latane and Darley wrote the

landmark book, The Unresponsive Bystander: Why Doesn’t He Help? Factors that increase the likelihood of bystanders

helping1. The “feel good, do good” effect2. Feeling guilty3. Seeing others who are willing to help4. Perceiving the other person as deserving help5. Knowing how to help6. A personalized relationship with the victim

Helping Behavior: Coming to the Aid of Strangers Factors that decrease the likelihood of bystanders

helping1. The presence of other people

The bystander effect is the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely each individual is to help someone in distress. This seems to occur for two reasons Diffusion of responsibility – the phenomenon in which the

presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress

Because the obligation to intervene is shared (diffused) among all the onlookers

Our desire to behave in a socially acceptable way (normative social influence) and to appear correct (informational social influence)

2. Being in a big city or a very small town3. Vague or ambiguous situations4. When the personal costs for helping outweigh the benefits

Bystander Effect

(Data from Darley & Latane, 1968)

Bystander Effect

(Data from Darley & Latane, 1968)

Compliance Techniques

Foot in the door

Door in the face

Foot in the Door

Start with a small request

Follow up with a large one% complying

with large request

Door in the Face

Start with a large request.

Follow up with a small one.

% complying with small request

Group Influence

Social Facilitation

Social Loafing

Group Polarization

Groupthink

Social Facilitation

Positive effects on performance due to the presence of an audience or of co-actors

Social Loafing

The tendency to put forth less effort when working on a task with others than when working alone

Group Polarization

Group discussion causes members to shift to more extreme positions

Groupthink

Strikes tightly-knit groups

Results in hesitation to dissent in order to preserve solidarity