Social Psychology

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Social Psychology

• Chapter 10

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What Social Psychology Is

• The scientific study of how a persons thoughts,
  feelings, and behavior are influenced by the
  real, imagined, or implied presence of others
• Referred to by some as the psychology of
  everyday life

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What Social Psychology Is Not

• Sociology
• Concerned with looking at the machine as a whole
  (i.e., how groups of people live, work, and play)
• Social psychology focuses on the individual cogs
  of the machine (i.e. how does the member of the
  group act and how the member is influenced by the
  group)

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Social Influence

• The process through which the real or implied
  presence of others can directly or indirectly
  influence the thoughts feelings, and behavior of
  an individual
• Forms of social influence
• Conformity
• Compliance
• Obedience

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Im Not a Conformist! Conforming Is too
Mainstream

• Have you ever
• Taken out your phone when others have theirs out
• Faced the same direction as everyone else in an
  elevator
• Watched a TV show or movie a friend recommended
  to you
• Ordered the same thing in a restaurant as someone
  else with you

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Conformity

• Changing your behavior to match the behavior of
  others
• Extremely common, we all do it
• Not as bad as society tends to think

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The Asch Series of Studies

• 1 participant, several actors pretending to be
  participants (confederates)
• 4 max for effect
• Asked to match a line to one of the lines in a
  set
• Confederates would answer incorrectly
• The participant would answer correctly at first,
  but eventually would go along with the answer the
  rest of the group provided

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The Asch Series of Studies

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?viRh5qy09nNw

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Groupthink

• Kind of thinking that occurs when people focus on
  preserving group cohesion than truly assessing
  the facts of the problem at hand

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Compliance

• Changing your behavior as a result of other
  people asking for the change
• Person asking for the change usually doesnt have
  the power or authority to make you change
• Commonly seen in marketing
• Several techniques are used to gain compliance

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Compliance Techniques

• Foot-in-the-door technique
• asking for a small commitment and ask gradually
  for progressively larger commitments after
  getting compliance
• Door-in-the-face technique
• start by asking for a large commitment which is
  refused and then followed by a smaller commitment

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Compliance Techniques

• Lowball technique
• get a commitment from a person that becomes more
  involved
• Thats-not-all technique
• persuader makes an offer and then adds something
  to it to enhance the offer before a decision can
  be made
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vJpqiyFPdHZ4

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Obedience

• Changing your behavior at the command of an
  authority figure
• Very powerful force
• Interest in research came from the atrocities of
  the Nazis in WWII

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Milgrams Study

• Participant was instructed to teach another
  participant a set of words
• The teacher was also instructed to punish the
  learner through a shock for each wrong answer
• The shock increased intensity by 15 volts
• As the teachers began to hesitate giving higher
  voltages, the experimenter would tell them to
  continue

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Milgrams Study

• It was expected that the teachers would reach a
  point and stop giving the shock
• 65 of the teachers went to 450 volts (maximum
  amount)
• Results were unexpected
• Raised serious ethical concerns

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Social Cognition

• The ways people think about others and how those
  thoughts influence behavior towards others

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Attitudes, What are They?

• What is an attitude?
• What makes up an attitude?

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Attitudes

• Tendency to respond either positively or
  negatively towards a source of stimulation
• More general in nature
• Consists of three parts
• Specific parts define the whole
• Possible to be predisposed based on past
  experience

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ABC Model of Attitudes

• Affective component- emotion
• Behavior component- action
• Cognitive component- thought

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Build an Attitude Workshop

• General idea
• Affect
• Behavior
• Cognition

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Attitude Change

• Poor predictors of behavior
• Strong attitudes are better predictors
• Attitudes are subject to change
• Can be changed by
• Persuasion
• Cognitive dissonance

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Persuasion

• Process by which a person tries to change the
  belief, opinion, position, or course of action of
  another through argument, pleading, or
  explanation
• Combination of factors determines effectiveness
• Source
• Message
• Target audience

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Elaboration Likelihood Model

• People will either add details or information to
  a message or pay attention to other surface
  characteristics of the message
• Poses two types of processing
• Central route- people pay attention to the
  messages content
• Peripheral route- people pay attend to other
  factors rather than the messages content (i.e.,
  length, credibility of speaker)

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Cognitive Dissonance

• Sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when
  a persons behavior does not match his or her
  attitude
• Need to address this uneasiness
• Three solutions
• Change behavior to match attitude
• Change attitude to match behavior
• Justify behavior with a new line of thought

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Attribution

• Process of explaining your behavior and the
  behavior of others
• Justification
• Fulfills need for an explanation
• Will create an answer if not obvious
• Cognitive dissonance can occur if an explanation
  is not found

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Attribution Theory

• Two kinds of explanations
• External cause
• Internal cause
• Situational cause- external
• i.e., actions of others, aspects of the situation
• Dispositional cause- internal
• i.e., personality, character

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Fundamental Attribution Error

• Tendency to overestimate the influence another
  persons internal characteristics have on his/her
  behavior and to underestimate the influence of
  the situation

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Social Interaction

• Relationships between people
• Casual
• Intimate
• Prejudice
• Aggression
• Prosocial behavior
• Liking and loving

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Prejudice, Discrimination, and Stereotypes, Oh My!

• What is prejudice?
• What is discrimination?
• What is a stereotype?
• Are they the same or are they different?
• How are they the same or different?

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Prejudice

• Negative attitude held about people in a
  particular social group
• Hard to control
• Prejudice is not discrimination
• Discrimination is acting upon prejudice(s)
• Discrimination can be controlled

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Prejudice

• Prejudice is not a stereotype
• Stereotypes are thoughts
• Stereotypes can be positive or negative
• Stems from the idea of us vs them
• In-group- us people we identify with
• Out-group them people we dont identify with

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Brown Eye, Blue Eye Study

• Second grade class taught by Jane Elliot
• Divided students into 2 groups (brown eyes, blue
  eyes)
• Blue eyed kids were favored over brown eyed kids
• Brown eyed kids were criticized by both Jane
  Elliot and later their blue eyed peers
• Brown eyed kids felt and acted inferior

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Brown Eye, Blue Eye Study

• http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divi
  ded/etc/view.html

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Harms of Prejudice

• Scapegoating- an out-group with little power that
  becomes the target of blame, frustration, and
  negative emotions of the in-group
• Stereotype vulnerability- the effect of
  stereotypes of your group on your behavior

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Harms of Prejudice

• Self-fulfilling prophecy- expectations affect
  behavior in a way to make the expectation more
  likely to happen
• Easy to learn
• Takes effort to remedy

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Countering Prejudice

• Intergroup contact-opposing groups have direct
  contact with each other to see the other group as
  people through observation and interaction
• Can backfire
• Equal status contact- contact between groups
  where equal status or power is maintained between
  them
• Shown to work

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Aggression

• Behavior intended to cause harm to another person
• Can be physical
• Can be verbal
• Several causes
• Learned
• Biology
• Chemical

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Social Roles

• Pattern of behavior expected of a person as a
  result of their social position

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Role Time

• What are some social roles?
• What are the expectations of those roles?

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• Conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford
• Turned the basement into a prison
• 70 young men participated
• Randomly assigned to the role of guard or
  prisoner
• Planned to last for 2 weeks

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• Guards and prisoners given clothes for their role
• Guards had sunglasses covering their eyes
• Quickly began to assimilate to their roles
• Guards began to harass and beat the prisoners
• Study was called off after 5 days
• Social roles have a powerful influence on behavior

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vb8McGyYAwcU

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Prosocial Behavior

• Socially desirable behavior that benefits others
• Altruism- beneficial behavior done without
  expectation of a reward or gain
• Debated on whether or not if people are truly
  altruistic

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The Five Musts of Helping

• Must notice that there is a problem that needs
  addressing
• Must be able to interpret the cues as an
  emergency a need to help
• Must take responsibility to act

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The Five Musts of Helping

• Must decide how to help and what skills/abilities
  will be useful
• Must act

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Another Brief Interlude Survey

• Youre driving along on a road and your car dies,
  would you rather be on a major highway or a
  county road?
• Why would you want to be there?

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Bystander Effect

• The effect that the presence of other people has
  on the decision of whether or not to help
• Studied by Latane and Darley
• Inspired by the tragedy of Kitty Genovese in New
  York
• Help is less likely with more people present
• Diffusion of responsibility

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Bystander Effect

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vKIvGIwLcIuw