Social Psychology

1
Social Psychology

• Time-interval Exercise (p.9 IM)
• example of Social Influence

2
Social Psychology

• How individuals
• Think about one another
• Influence one another
• Relate to one another

3
Social Thinking

• How do you make sense of peoples behavior?
• We make attributions (explaining others
  behavior)
• We use our social intelligence, but we often
  make an error.
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• tendency when analyzing anothers behavior, to
  underestimate the impact of the situation and to
  overestimate the impact of personal traits
• Examples? (e.g., it was a just a few bad apples
  responsible for the Abu Ghraib abuses)

4
Attitudes and Behavior

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we
  feel when our thoughts are inconsistent (or when
  our thoughts and behavior are inconsistent).
• Smoking example (Smoking is unhealthy, but I
  smoke)
• rationalization (e.g., sour grapes)

5
Social Thinking and Social Influence

• Stanford Prison Study by Zimbardo role-playing,
  attitudes and behavior (McGraw-Hill DVD)
• Situational and systemic factors must be taken
  into account
• Norms and roles
• Learned, socially based rules
• Culturally-based

6
Social Influence

• Studies of conformity and obedience
• Videos
• Candid Camera (begin w/ Segment 5)
• Why do people behave in these ways?
• Research Studies (McGraw-Hill DVD next slide)

7
Social Influence

• Studies
• Asch conformity experiments
• Milgram obedience to authority
• Most people do what they are told to do as long
  as they perceive that the command comes from a
  legitimate authority.
• Results The majority of subjects continued to
  obey to the end Danger-Severe-XXX

8
Social Influence

• Question In what specific ways does the presence
  of others influence your behavior?
• Example Do people in a group exert less effort
  compared to when they are individually
  accountable (e.g., work crews)?
• Called Social Loafing
• Social Facilitation
• improved performance of tasks in the presence of
  others when? examples?

9
Social Influence

• Deindividuation
• loss of self-awareness and self-restraint
  occurring in group situations that foster arousal
  and anonymity

10
Social Relations

• Stereotypes and Prejudice
• How do these develop?
• Can they be altered?
• (A class divided blue-eye, brown-eye film)

11
Social Relations- Attractiveness
12
Social Relations- Attractiveness

• Why do you judge someone as attractive?
• Blind Date (DVD Segment 30) Social Cognition
  and Person Perception
• Factors influencing attraction?
• Proximity
• mere exposure effect repeated exposure
  increases liking of them
• Similarity
• friends share common attitudes, beliefs,
  interests
• Physical Attractiveness
• What makes someone physically attractive?

13
What is attractive?
14
What is attractive?
15
Social Relations -- aggression

• Social views of aggression
• Modeling bobo dolls, violent media
  (desensitization?)
• Frustration-Aggression Principle
• Media and Aggression
• Television violence
• Pornography
• Video games

16
Bystander Studies

• What would you do? (ABC Primetime video)
• Kitty Genovese
• The decision-making process for bystander
  intervention

17
Bystander Effect

• tendency for any given bystander to be less
  likely to give aid if other bystanders are
  present