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Social Psychology• Scientific study of
how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
The Fundamental Attribution Error
• Attribution theory tries to explain how people make judgements about the causes of other people’s behavior
– Distinctiveness? Consistence? Consensus?
– Dispositional (internal) vs. situational (external)
• Fundamental attribution error– Underestimate impact of situation and
overestimate impact of person
• Self-serving bias– success? = you did it
– failures? = something else caused it
Attitudes Affect Actions• Attitude
• What is it?
• Do they match our actions?
• Do they guide our actions?
– Central route persuasion
– processing content of message
– Peripheral route persuasion–Other aspects of message the more
attractive/famous, the more persuasive
The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
• People tend to agree to something small only to comply with something larger
• “start small and build”
The Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon
• People refuse large request only to agree to something small because it seems reasonable
Do our actions affect our attitudes?
• Role set of expectations about a social position
–Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
–Abu Ghraib
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Relief From Tension– we act to reduce the discomfort
(dissonance) we feel two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent
–“Attitudes follow behavior”
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Conformity: Complying With Social Pressures
• Solomon Asch study
• Why conform?• Normative social influence Avoid rejection
and gain approval
• Informational Social Influence accept others’ opinions about reality
Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
• One is made to feel incompetent or insecure
• Group has at least three people
• Group is unanimous
• One admires the group’s status
• One has made no prior commitment
• Others in group observe one’s behavior
• One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
Obedience: Following Orders
• Stanley Milgram• Teacher, learner, shocks
• Majority of people continue to obey until the end
Obedience: Following Orders• Lesson learned?
• Ordinary people being corrupted by an evil situation
• Ethics
• Follow up studies
Group Influence• Social Facilitation
– perform better in presence of others
• Social Loafing– people in a group
tend to exert less effort when working together to a common goal
Deindividuation
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Group Polarization
Groupthink• Desire for harmony overrides realistic
appraisal of alternatives– Can it be prevented?
Social Control (power of the situation) vs Personal Control (power of the individual)
• Minority influence
Cultural Influences
• Culture within animals? Humans?
• Norms Culture shock? Pace of life?
• Changes over the generations
