Psyc 1501 Social Psychology

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Psyc 1501 Social Psychology

• The attempt to understand and explain how the
  thoughts feelings and behavior of individuals are
  influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
  presence of others.

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Social Cognition

• Thought processes through which people perceive
  and interpret information from and about
  themselves and other people.
• Cognitive consistency theory
• Study by Festinger and Carlsmith
• boring task with some participants asked to tell
  others that it was interesting and paid various
  amounts. Those paid 1 reported the task most
  interesting.

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Cont. Cognitive consistency

• Refers to the match between the cognitions
  (thoughts) and the behavior of a person.
  Important to mental well-being without it, we
  feel nervous, irritable.
• When cognitions and behaviors do not match, it
  results in cognitive dissonance.

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Conditions that make cognitive dissonance more
likely to occur

• You have freely chosen the action that causes the
  dissonance.
• You have committed yourself to that behavior and
  cannot undo your commitment.
• Your behavior has important consequences for
  other people.

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Social Perception Theory

• An alternative view to cognitive consistency
• When we are not sure what we believe, we infer
  our beliefs from our behavior.
• In the example of Festinger and Carlsmith, the
  group paid 1could not be telling they enjoyed
  the task because of the money, so you look at the
  situation, and you conclude to yourself that you
  must have liked the task.

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Comparison

• Cognitive consistency theory seems better able to
  explain attitude change while self-perception
  seems to explain attitude formation better.
• Self-perception is a special case of a more
  general kind of theory called attribution theory.

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Attribution theory

• An attribution is an explanation that points to
  the cause of a persons behavior.
• Many types of attribution we will focus on
  actor-observer effects.
• Actor-observer effects is the tendency to not
  only attribute the actions of others to stable
  internal personal dispositions but also to
  attribute our own actions to external situational
  variables.

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Forming and changing our attitudes

• Attitudes are acquired through experience not
  innate.
• They are stable and enduring
• They are evaluative we use them for judging.
• They can influence behavior.

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Influences on attitudes include

• Learning influences our attitudes
• Characteristics of the recipient influences
  attitudes
• In order to change, must appeal to these. If
  recipient is motivated, interested,
  knowledgeable, and able to think about issues,
  appeal to this person by a well-thought out
  argument.

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• If the recipient is not motivated, etc., appeal
  to them with inviting messages, attractive, and
  rewarding messages in rewarding message format
  (catchy jingles)
• If recipient is likely to hear counterarguments,
  give both messages.
• Use strong arguments repetitively
• Have message delivered by someone who is
  believable and appealing.

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Liking, loving, and interpersonal attraction.

• Equity theory
• People feel more strongly attracted to those with
  whom they have more equitable (fair)
  relationships of giving and taking. (Depends on
  priniciples of learning and cognitive-consistency)
  
• Balance theory
• A cognitive-consistency theory of attraction,
  suggesting that people who like each other try to
  maintain mutual give and take and similar
  likes/dislikes

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Cont.

• Theories of love
• Evolutionary theory
• the function of love is to create new
  generations.
• Attachment theory of love
• how we love stems from our relationship with our
  parents.
• Triangular theory of love
• love has 3 basic components intimacy, passion,
  and commitment. Different combinations lead to
  different kinds of love. The integration of all
  3 results in consummate love.

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Attraction

• Factors leading to attraction
• Arousal (how excited we become about a person)
• Familiarity (influenced by repetition)
• Proximity
• Physical attraction
• Similarity

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Group interactions

• Sometimes having other people around can improve
  an individuals performance (social facilitation)
  and sometimes it can hurt their performance
  (social interference)
• Sometimes working in a group reduces the effort
  exerted by the groups members (social loafing)
  Social loafing is affected by cultural
  orientation individualism encourages the focus
  to be on the good of the individual while
  collectivism encourages the focus to be on the
  welfare of the group.

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Conformity, compliance, and obedience

• Conformity
• modification of behavior in order to bring the
  behavior into line with the norms of a social
  group.
• Study by Solomon Asch
• Factors affecting conformity
• group size
• cohesiveness
• social status person who are average tend to be
  more conforming than those rated high, low, or
  very low in social desirability.
• Culture and appearance of unanimity

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• Obedience
• Milgrams study

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Prosocial behavior

• Any behavior that is approved by society and
  benefits individual persons or society as a
  whole.
• By-stander effect
• The presence of other people inhibits helping
  behavior because each person feels diffusion of
  responsibility

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Antisocial behavior

• Behavior that is condemned by society as a whole.
• Prejudice
• unfavorable attitude directed toward other
  groups. A negative attitude is not necessarily a
  prejudice if sufficient evidence warrents the
  negative attitude, it is not a prejudice. For
  example, a youth gang that is responsible for
  several murders.
• Forms our of our social categorization (sort
  people into groups) and stereotypes ( a perceived
  typical example that illustrates the main
  characteristics of a particular social category)

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Sleep and Dreaming

• What happens when we sleep?
• 2 theories
• Preservation/protection theory
• a means of protecting during the 24-hour day in
  which being awake, would place us at greatest
  risk.
• Restorative theory
• during sleep the body can restore the used-up
  resources and get rid of accumulate waste
  products in the body.

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Stages of sleep

• Stage 1 - 4 and REM
• Patterns throughout the night

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Sleep disorders

• Insomnia
• more common in women
• more common in middle-age than among younger
• Sleep apnea

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Dreams

• Themes
• failing
• being attacked
• repeatedly trying to do something
• Theories - Why we dream
• Freud - express unconscious wishes
• Activation-synthesis hypothesis

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Hypnosis

• A state of deep relaxation and extreme
  sensitivity to suggestion
• Originated by Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)
• animal magnetism