Social Psychology

1
Social Psychology

• The scientific study of the individual's
  interactions with others in terms of behavior,
  thoughts, and feelings

2
Social Psychology and Common Sense

• Common sense is contradictory
• Common sense is incomplete in a complex world
• Common sense is subject to biases in social
  cognitions hindsight bias, illusory
  correlations, illusion of unanimity, availability
  and representativeness heuristic

3
The Social Psychological Perspective

• The power of the situation
• The importance of cognitive processes as they
  interact with emotions (affect)
• Basic and applied science using a variety of
  methods including experiments and field studies
• Mid-range theories

4
The social situation

• The social situation includes the physical
  environment, the presence and actions of others,
  and the social norms inherent in the behavior
  setting
• People interact with their situation including
  choosing and changing situations
• Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions about
  situations affect our responses to them.

5
Social Cognition

• Schemas, attributions, and perceptions of
  ourselves, other people, and situations affect
  our responses to the world.
• The cognitive processes of memory, attention, and
  perception are important
• We engage in heuristic and systematic processing.

6
Cognitions and Emotions

• Cognitions influence emotions and emotions
  influence cognitions. They interact with one
  another and, in turn, influence behavior.
• Much processing of social information is
  implicit, non conscious, effortless, and
  automatic. Non conscious processes and
  associations affect perceptions of the world.

7
Some Trends

• Increasing importance of social cognition in
  responses to perception of selves, others, and
  the social situation
• NEW areas of application
• Multi cultural understanding of diversity
• Emphasis on neuroscience and sociobiological
  functions.

8

• Increasing emphasis on emotion (affect) along
  with cognition in explaining behavior
• Return to concern with the interaction of
  personality and situation in explaining behavior
• Use of correlational as well as experimental
  studies
• Emphasis on implicit non conscious process

9
Why Study Research Methods

• Empirical evidence from research findings is the
  basis of knowledge in social psychology.
• We are all consumers of science in our lives as
  citizens and as part of our careers.
• We are all informal scientists, and we need to
  know the limitations of our findings.

10
Study Design

• Case Study and Qualitative Designs
• Non experimental Quantitative or Correlational
  (observational, quantitative non experimental
  studies)
• Experimental in laboratory or field

11
Case Study and Qualitative

• Involves intensive interviews and testing of
  small number of cases. Qualitative methods often
  involve participant observation and interviewing.
  Sometimes qualitative.
• Can study rare cases and get feel for variables
  to generate hypotheses
• Cannot determine what is generalized

12
Correlational

• Able to study issues where practical and/or
  ethical factors limit experiments.
• Study how many variables interrelate
• Can use for unobtrusive studies
• Correlation implies prediction not cause. Third
  variable problem. Modern multivariate techniques
  help with causal puzzle.

13
Experiments

• Manipulate independent variables, randomly assign
  participants, control situation. Can look at
  causal package.
• Short term, low impact experience
• Novel environment subject to experimenter effect
  and demand characteristics.
• Volunteers not representative

14
The Social Psychology of the Experiment

• Experimenter effects and reactivity
• Experimenter expectancy effects and the Clever
  Hans experiments
• Evaluation apprehension
• Demand characteristics
• Participant reactance

15
Internal-External Validity Trade-off

• Internal validity deals with whether observed
  differences result from manipulation of the
  independent variable
• External validity deals with generalizability
• Usually studies high in one attribute are low in
  the other requiring trade-offs in study designs.

16
Data Collection

• Self Reports including attitude questionnaires,
  surveys, knowledge tests, psychological tests,
  mood and symptom reports, health histories,
  behavioral reports
• Observational measures
• Physiological measures for emotional arousal,
  brain function, and bodily states
• Archival information

17
Self Report Advantages

• Can collect data on behavior when practical or
  ethical factors limit observation
• Can determine opinions, knowledge, mood, physical
  symptoms, personality, and cognitive ability
  factors that hypothetically affect important
  behaviors.

18
Self Report Problems

• Conscious faking, defensiveness, poor memory, and
  wording problems may limit accuracy of behavioral
  reports.
• Self reports may not relate to important
  behaviors. Problems of sample adequacy, wording
  and order of questions, and issues affecting the
  attitude, knowledge relationship with behaviors.

19
Factors Affecting Attitude-Behavior Relationship

• Specific attitudes and knowledge predict specific
  behaviors
• Salience
• Sense of efficacy
• Attitudes of others
• Situational constraints

20
Systematic Observation

• Can be used in the lab or in naturalistic
  settings. It is the real thing.
• Problems in time and event sampling.
• Problems in sampling settings
• Problems with inter-observer reliability
• Requires careful construction of categories and
  training of observers

21
Problems With Using Deception

• Ethical and moral problems of lying
• Potential harm especially if person is hurt by
  the discovery of a potential behavior or the fact
  of being duped.
• Anger of participants and potential contamination
  of other studies once deception is known.
• Assessing the efficacy of deception

22
Dealing With Deception

• Institutional Review Board (IRB) looks at cost
  benefit balance, minimal deception, alternatives
  to deception.
• Debriefing and informed consent especially of
  right to withdraw. Do NOT use deception to lure
  person into study.
• Studies show duped participants do not feel
  harmed.

23
Science as a Body of Evidence

• We have more confidence in our understanding of
  some phenomena compared to others.
• We rely on a body of evidence rather than one
  study.
• Replications and confirmatory results using
  different methods and populations provide more
  confidence. Look for more data.

24
Perception Is

• Immediate
• Selective
• Structured
• Stable
• Meaningful

25
Human Cognitions

• Humans are good at making remote associations and
  seeing patterns, even if sometimes they are not
  there.
• People have limited capacity in their short term
  or working memory.
• They must use cognitive short cuts and allocate
  their focused attention.

26
Working Memory

• Short term memory, focus of attention, task
  allocation and multi tasking
• Limited capacity although new work not as
  specific on number of chunks
• Individual differences in capacity of working
  memory or executive function.

27
Automatic versus Controlled Processing

• We tend to use as little effort and cognitive
  capacity as possible in processing social
  information. Controlled, conscious, and focused
  processing is used only when needed in order to
  mulit task. .
• We need to make evaluations of strangers and
  novel situations as quickly as possible.

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• Automatic processing involves seemingly
  effortless, automatic, and non conscious
  processes. It is usually done quickly.
• Often evaluation of the social situation is done
  automatically and this evaluation may involve
  different parts of the brain. Response to
  negative emotions is associated with the amygdala
  in the limbic system.

29
Emotions and Social Cognition

• Emotions help people identify the resources and
  avoid dangers in the environment.
• Negative emotions cause people to stop ongoing
  activity to attend to dangers, identify dangers
  in the environment and be motivated to reduce the
  danger.
• Negative emotions operate more quickly in
  different brain centers.

30
Schemas

• Mental frameworks centering around a specific
  theme that help us organize information.
• Schemas help us identify important information,
  predict situations, interact smoothly, and work
  within our cognitive capacity. They provide
  packages of information for a complex world.

31
Examples of Schemas

• Self schema
• Gender role schema
• Schemas about social groups (may be stereotypes)
• Role schemas occupation, family relations
• Person schemas
• Relationship schemas (e. g., friendship, romance)
• Schemas as behavioral scripts

32
Schema Inconsistent Information

• People remember and process more quickly schema
  consistent information.
• Whoe schemas are self confirming, we do remember
  schema inconsistent information and we can notice
  inconsistent information particularly if it is
  relatively extreme. It is seen as the exception
  to the rule.

33
Cognitive Shortcuts

• Representativeness Heuristic
• Availability Heuristic
• Framing and anchoring
• Order Effects
• Logical errors such as honoring sunk costs, using
  the source of the communication to verify
  arguments, and ignoring base rates.

34
Priming

• Stimuli may act as a prime causing the person to
  attend to certain aspects of the environment.
• Priming represents the tendency of recent
  thoughts to influence subsequent interpretations.
• Important in activating schemas.

35
Negativity Bias

• People attend to and remember negative
  information more than positive facts.
• There may be evolutionary significance in this
  bias and negative information is more distinctive
  and may have more diagnostic significance.

36
Optimistic Bias

• People see the world optimistically and tend to
  see themselves as less likely to have bad things
  happen. They see the future as rosy even with a
  rocky past. They are subject to the planning
  fallacy.
• There is a pessimistic bias when people expect
  bad news or feedback.

37
Positive Illusions

• Optimistic attributional style
• Sense of control
• Sense of above average competence
• Some fooling yourself may be good.
• Depressed people may be more realistic about some
  aspects of life.

38
Counterfactual Thinking

• Such thinking is automatic and can cause regret
  and blame for self and others as in the just
  world hypothesis.
• If the person believes that a negative outcome is
  inevitable it helps with regret.
• Inaction inertia occurs when a person fails to
  act and then another positive outcome becomes
  available.

39
Thought Suppression

• People try to suppress unwanted thoughts through
  active modes or self distraction.
• Sometimes there is a rebound effect when people
  try too hard to suppress thoughts.
• People high in reactance experience more rebound
  effect.

40
Other Cognitive Biases

• Ignoring base rates when using the
  representativeness and availability heuristics
• Ignoring moderator variables that might not be
  observed. The person may be subject to the Post
  Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.
• Falling prey to the false consensus (pluralistic
  ignorance) effect

41
Kelleys Attribution Theory

• Consensus Everybody does it
• Consistency over time by the individual
• Distinctiveness of response to situation by the
  individual.
• Dispositional consensus and distinctiveness are
  low and consistency is high.
• Situational consistency, distinctiveness, and
  consensus are high

42
Jones and Davis Theory of Correspondent
Inferences

• Internal disposition if the behavior is freely
  chosen, has a non common effect (clear cause),
  and is low in social desirability.
• Discounting Tendency to attach less weight to
  causes when there are multiple causes.
• Augmentation Greater weight to causes in the
  presence of inhibitory causes.

43
Attribution Biases

• Fundamental attribution error (correspondence
  bias) or actor-observer effect. Tendency to
  attribute own behavior to situations and others
  behavior to dispositions.
• Defensive attribution or self serving bias.
• For good things internal. Bad things external

44
Dimensions of Attribution Applied to Self and
Others

• Internal-External
• Stable-Unstable
• Global-Specific
• Controllable-uncontrollable
• Application to depression, marriage, achievement
  motive, self handicapping, leadership,
  aggression, self efficacy, etc.

45
Schachters Two Factor Theory

• Physiological arousal is similar for emotions.
  In ambiguous situations, environmental cues help
  us label emotions.
• Participants given epinephrine in some cases
  without explanation. Assistants acted either
  happy or angry. Emotions labeled in terms or
  environment. Experiment questioned but
  applications still important.

46
Mood Dependent and Mood Congruent Memory

• Mood Dependent Memory We recall information more
  readily when in the same mood as when we
  remembered it.
• Mood congruent memory We notice and recall
  positive or negative information if we are in a
  positive or negative mood.
• Depressed people remember negative events

47
Impression Formation and Person Perception

• We have an immediate, structured, selective, and
  emotional response to people when we first meet
  them. We have a strong need to determine if they
  are likely to be good or bad to us. This is an
  automatic, seemingly effortless, non conscious
  process
• These impressions often lead to self fulfilling
  prophecies.

48
Combining Information

• Early research emphasized the importance of
  central traits such as warm or cold good or bad.
• People use a weighted averaging model to combine
  relevant central traits.
• The Rosenhan pseudopatient study illustrates the
  importance of central traits in a specific setting

49
Cognition and Impression Formation

• Modern approaches emphasize motivation and
  cognition. We seek information about traits and
  values and then about performance. Negative
  information carries greater diagnostic values.
• We from impressions with This is often
  automatic because we are mulit tasking.

50
Politicians and Impression Formation

• Modern media with short advertisements emphasizes
  image over issues.
• People vote for those who seem similar in
  personality. There is an emphasis on emotional
  response to candidates.
• People do not like negative advertisements but
  they respond to them.

51
Nonverbal Communication

• Paralanguage Pitch, tempo, loudness
• Facial expressions
• Eye contact
• Interpersonal distance
• Touching including shaking hands
• Gestures
• Body language and orientation

52
Detection of Deception

• Micro-expressions, fidgeting
• Channel discrepancies
• Voice quality Pitch increases especially when
  motivated to lie. Longer to begin responses,
  more starting/stopping sentences
• Different words Less first person, more negative
  emotions, words for simple actions

53
Accuracy in Detecting Deception

• Some, especially psychopaths, are more skilled
  liars.
• Trained people especially those who pay attention
  can be much more accurate than people in everyday
  situations.
• While women are better at sending and receiving
  non verbal messages, they are not better at
  detecting deception.

54
Impression Management

• We try to improve the impression others have of
  us through self enhancement and other
  enhancement.
• First impressions involve both verbal and
  nonverbal cues.
• Ingratiation can help particularly with high self
  esteem people. Few recognize ingratiation but
  rebound effect if they do.

55

• When followers believe that the leader cares
  about impressions of superiors but is unconcerned
  about followers (the slime effect), then the
  followers react extremely negatively and if the
  superiors detect it there can be a rebound in
  impression management.

56
Attitudes

• Traditional definitions involved our beliefs,
  feelings, and behavior towards an object.
• The problem is that these three aspects are
  correlated but not identical.
• Modern definitions emphasize evaluation of
  various aspects of our social world.

57
Functions of Attitudes

• Knowledge Schemas for organizing social
  information
• May express general affect from a genetic
  predisposition
• Supports our desire to be right (Social
  comparison) Increases self esteem.
• Express our values and identity
• Predict others behavior from our knowledge

58

• Supports ego defense Especially reactance and
  denial defense mechanisms.
• Supports impression motivation When we want to
  make a good impression we are motivated to
  express attitudes and think up arguments that
  make us look good to others. We are also
  motivated to suppress other attitudes.

59
Are Attitudes Inherited

• Although shared environment explains much of
  attitude similarity between parents and children,
  attitudes have a heritability component.
• Assortive mating increases similarity among
  parents.
• Mechanism probably through inheritance of
  emotionality and abilities.
• Different attitudes have different heritability

60
Dimensions of Attitudes

• Direction
• Magnitude or extremity
• Strength Importance, Accessibility, extremity,
  Acquisition through experience, Relevance
• Level of ambivalence
• Embedness or centrality

61
Attitude Measurement

• Attitude scales or questionnaires
• Likert scale
• Thurstone Scale
• Non reactive and non obtrusive measures
• Implicit attitude measures

62
Attitudes and Behavior

• Specificity of attitudes and the number of
  attitudes affecting an object.
• Salience or accessibility
• Strength Importance, extremity, knowledge
• Attitudes formed by experience
• Behavior expressed in public with normative
  support
• Few barriers to enacting behavior

63
Attitude-Behavior Links

• We approach decisions about behavior and
  relationships to attitudes in two ways Conscious
  reasoned actions and because of automatic
  implicit associations of attitudes.
• Time pressure, cognitive overload, low evaluation
  of importance, habitual responses tend to push
  for automatic processing.

64
The theories of reasoned action and planned
behavior

• Attitudes towards specific behavior
• Subjective norms and motivation to comply
• Perceived behavioral control and chances of
  reaching the goals implied by the behavior
• If positive results in behavioral intent

65
Attitudes-to-Behavior Process Model

• This is an implicit, non conscious process where
  an event activates perceptions.
• Attitudes shape our behavior by influencing our
  perception of events.
• At the same time knowledge about what is
  appropriate behavior (norms) is activated.
• Together perceptions of events and norms dictate
  behavior.

66
The Attitude Change Process

• Reach Audience
• Attend to message and selective exposure
• Understand message
• Yield to message rejecting communicator and
  making message extreme
• Remember message
• Act on message.

67
The Yale Approach

• Source the credibility and likablility of the
  communicator
• Message One versus two sided messages, using
  fear in messages, distraction in messages, using
  hot medium, use of hecklers, emotional hot
  buttons
• Audience Self esteem, unanimity

68
Fear in Messages

• Rear eliciting messages should have clear
  instructions on how to reduce the fear by taking
  specific actions.
• Too much fear elicits defensiveness.
• Easily imagined or terrifying symptoms use
  positive message. Less easily imagined symptoms
  use negative (fear) message.

69
Resistance to Persuasion

• Reactance Response to threat to freedom
• Forewarning Vigilance produces counterarguments
• Active and de facto selective avoidance
• Development of active arguments
• Rejecting the communicator in advance
• Inoculation against attacks on attitudes

70
Central (systematic) Vs. Peripheral (heuristic)
Processing

• Elaboration likelihood model points to some
  situations where we used central, systematic, or
  focused processing of messages.
• In most situations we use peripheral or heuristic
  processing where rules such as longer is
  stronger, or fast talkers are right prevail.
  Emotion is important here.

71
Effectiveness of Media Campaigns

• Set the agenda
• Provide new information
• Commit the uncommitted and support the committed
• Repeated exposure increases effectiveness
• Prime the person for more concerted attempts

72
Perceived Media Effects

• Groups on two sides of a story often see the same
  report as biased against their side.
• The third person effect indicates that people
  perceive media (e.g., propaganda, violence,
  pornography) affects and is negative for others
  but not influence them.

73
Implicit Attitude Theory

• People possess many implicit attitudes about
  which they may not have conscious awareness.
  These often involve stereotypes or basic
  affective responses.
• These attitudes are elicited automatically and
  very quickly.

74
Implicit Association Test

• Those high in implicit association should respond
  more quickly to stereotype consistent pairs of
  words presented subliminally than to stereotype
  inconsistent words. The response may be to pick
  out younger or older sounding names for example.
  Thelma-slow quicker than Lisa-slow.
• helma and slow faster than Lisa and slow.

75
Evaluative Priming Technique

• Uses a picture as a prime. (e.g., an older or
  younger person) shown subliminally. Then
  participant is asked to respond whether positive
  or negative.
• Participant should respond more quickly to
  stereotype consistent pairs.

76
Subliminal Messages

• People are not consciously aware of receiving
  subliminal messages.
• Recent research shows that they can be effective
  in changing attitudes, but they may not be more
  effective than supraliminal messages.

77
Festingers Dissonance Theory

• If two concepts (attitudes, behaviors) are
  perceived to be inconsistent or dissonant people
  have a drive to reduce the dissonance.
• We can reduce dissonance by changing our beliefs
  about attitudes or behaviors or both.
• We take the path of least resistence.

78
Means of Reducing Dissonance

• Change attitudes or behavior or both
• Seek new information
• Trivialize by minimizing significance or deciding
  that no dissonance exists.
• We take the path of least resistance.

79
Insufficient Justification Effect

• In the experiment participants told a lie to
  another that the experiment they were in was
  interesting. Those who were paid a large amount
  showed less attitude shift from the control than
  those who were paid a small amount. This was
  because the cognitions I lied for a little money
  and I am honest are dissonant.

80
Factors Required for Effect

• Free will
• Minimal coercion or reward
• A sense that the effect is important
• A sense of responsibility for the consequences of
  the effect.

81
Examples of Applications of Dissonance Theory

• Post-decisional dissonance and spreading of
  alternatives.
• Severity of initiation effect
• Counter-attitudinal role playing
• Confronting hypocrisy to change behavior.