Chapter 18 Social Psychology

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Chapter 18 Social Psychology
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Social Psychology
We cannot live for ourselves alone.
Herman Melville
Social psychology scientifically studies how we
think about, influence, and relate to one another.
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Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations

• Attribution Theory
• Heider suggested that we have a tendency to give
  causal explanations for someones behavior, often
  by crediting either the situation or the persons
  disposition.

Fritz Heider
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Attribution Theory

• A teacher may wonder whether a childs hostility
  reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional
  attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse
  (a situational attribution).

Dispositions are enduring personality traits. So,
if Joe is a quiet, shy, and introverted child, he
is likely to be like that in a number of
situations.
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Fundamental Attribution Error

• The tendency to overestimate the impact of
  personal disposition and underestimate the impact
  of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of
  others leads to the fundamental attribution error.

We tend to commit the fundamental attribution
error when judging others. We tend to understand
the power of the situation better when we see our
behaviors.
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Effects of Attribution

• How we explain someones behavior affects how we
  react to it.

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Attitude

• A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to
  respond in a particular way to objects, other
  people, and events.

If we believe a person is mean, we may feel
dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly
manner.
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Attitudes Can Affect Action

• Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly
  because other factors, including the external
  situation, also influence behavior.

People can go with the consensus and support a
popular position. However, they may have their
private reservations.
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Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

• In the Korean War, Chinese communists solicited
  cooperation from US army prisoners by asking them
  to carry out small errands. By complying to small
  errands they were likely to comply to larger ones.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon The tendency for
people who have first agreed to a small request
to comply later with a larger request.
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Role Playing Affects Attitude Zimbardos
Stanford Prison Experiment

• The work of Philip Zimbardo (see, he is more than
  just a TV personality)
• Wanted to learn about behaviors and feelings of
  prisoners or guards
• Set up a phony prison in a university building
• Recruited male college students to participate
• Randomly assigned 24 participants to role of
  either prisoner or guard

Philip Uncle Phil Zimbardo
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Stanford Prison Experiment Methodology

• Guards instructed to make prisoners feel
  frustrated and not in control
• Prisoners arrested and booked as real prisoners
• Guards bullied the prisoners, began cruel
  treatment of prisoners and even developed
  feelings of power.

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Stanford Prison Experiment Results

• Prisoners staged a rebellion on the second day
• Guards stepped up their harassment and treated
  rebellion ringleaders differently than the
  good prisoners
• Prisoners told they couldnt leave many became
  anxious
• Guards increased bullying tactics as they
  perceived prisoners to be a real threat
• Everyone took on the role to which they were
  assignedthe experiment became very realistic
• Experiment ended after six days instead of two
  weeks
• Prisoners had lost their identity

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vZ0jYx8nwjFQ
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Actions Can Affect Attitudes

• Why do actions affect attitudes?
• Leon Festingers explanation is that when our
  attitudes and actions are opposed, we experience
  tension. This is called cognitive dissonance. To
  relieve ourselves of this tension we bring our
  attitudes closer to our actions.

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Part II Social Influence

• The greatest contribution of social psychology is
  its study of attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and
  actions and the way they are molded by social
  influence.

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Conformity Obedience

• Behavior is contagious, modeled by one, followed
  by another. We follow behavior of others to
  conform. Other behaviors may be an expression of
  compliance (obedience) toward authority.

Conformity
Obedience
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Conformity

• Conformity Adjusting ones behavior or thinking
  to coincide with a group standard.

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Solomon Aschs Conformity Experiment

• Group Pressure and Conformity experiment
• Subject asked to match one of three lines to a
  standard line the answer was obvious

Solomon Asch
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Asch Methodology Results

• Other group members insisted that one of the
  shorter lines was actually the same height as the
  standard line
• Subject began to question what he had thought was
  the obvious answer
• Subject is relatively likely to give the same
  answer as the group, even if its obviously
  incorrect
• Less than 1 of subjects chose the wrong line
  when asked the question on their own
• More than one-third of subjects chose the wrong
  line when asked in a group that had chosen the
  same wrong line

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Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

1. One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
2. The group has at least three people.
3. The group is unanimous.
4. One admires the groups status and
   attractiveness.
5. One has no prior commitment or response.
6. The group observes ones behavior.
7. Ones culture strongly encourages respect for a
   social standard.

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Why do people conform?

• Normative Social Influence Influence resulting
  from a persons desire to gain approval or avoid
  rejection. A person may follow social norms
  because there may be a severe price to pay if not
  followed.

Informative Social Influence The group may
provide valuable information or help you make
tough decisions (after all we like to be right)
however, stubborn people will never listen to
others.
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Informative Social Influence

• Baron and colleagues made students do an
  eyewitness identification task. If the task was
  easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity was low
  in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec. exposure)
  task.

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Obedience
People comply to social pressures. How would they
respond to outright command? Stanley Milgram
designed a study that investigates the effects of
authority on obedience.
Stanley Milgram (1933-1984)
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Stanley MilgramsObedience Experiment

• Real subjects were assigned the role of teacher
• Actors assigned the role of learner, but the
  actual subjects thought the learners were also
  subjects in the experiment
• Teacher instructed to give the learner electric
  shocks if he answered a question wrong
• Teacher didnt know the shocks were not real

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Milgram Methodology Results

• Learner would groan and eventually scream in
  agony
• The experimenter insisted that the teacher
  continue
• Teachers were visibly distressed about the
  experiment, but 63 continued it until the end
• When the learner said he had a slight heart
  condition and screamed even louder, 65 of
  teachers continued until the end
• Similar results for women and for men

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Milgram Further Findings

• Teachers most likely to obey perceived authority
  figures, especially those from prestigious
  institutions

• More likely to obey instructions when victim
  was at a distance and depersonalized

• More likely to obey without role models who
  defied the authority figures orders

http//today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/34878372
35946104
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Individual Resistance

• A third of the individuals in Milgrams study
  resisted social coercion.

An unarmed individual single-handedly challenged
a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.
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Implications of Milgrams Experiments

• Obedience to authority can keep people from
  following their own morals and standards
• Ordinary people can perform cruelties in the
  process of obeying authority figures in their
  daily lives
• Incrementally increasing the level of shock made
  it more acceptable for the teachers to continue
  but were still torn in hearing the victims
  screams.

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Group Influence

• How do groups affect our behavior? Social
  psychologists study various groups

1. One person affecting another
2. Families
3. Teams
4. Committees

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Social Facilitation

• Refers to improved performance on tasks in the
  presence of others. Triplett noticed cyclists
  race times were faster when they competed against
  others than when they just raced against the
  clock.

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Social Loafing

• The tendency of an individual in a group to exert
  less effort toward attaining a common goal than
  when tested individually.
• Why does it happen?
• People tend to feel less accountable
• in a group setting
• 2. People tend to rely on the efforts of their
  group mates more.

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Deindividuation

• The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in
  group situations that foster arousal and
  anonymity.

Mob behavior
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Group Polarization

• Enhances a groups prevailing attitudes through a
  discussion. If a group is like-minded, discussion
  strengthens its prevailing opinions and attitudes.

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Groupthink

• Irving Janus came up with this principle in which
  a mode of thinking that occurs when the desire
  for harmony in a decision-making group overrides
  the realistic appraisal of alternatives.

Attack on Pearl Harbor Kennedy the Cuban
Missile Crisis Watergate Cover-up Chernobyl
Reactor Accident
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Prejudice

• Simply called prejudgment, a prejudice is an
  unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward
  a group and its members. Prejudice is often
  directed towards different cultural, ethnic, or
  gender groups.

Components of Prejudice

1. Beliefs (stereotypes)
2. Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
3. Predisposition to act (to discriminate)

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Reign of Prejudice

• Prejudice works at the conscious and more at
  the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is
  more like a knee-jerk response than a conscious
  decision. In the last few decades, overt
  prejudice has decreased, yet subtle prejudices
  still exists.
• Why does prejudice arise?
• Social Inequalities (increases prejudice)
• Social Divisions
• Emotional Scapegoating
• http//wimp.com/stealingbike/

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In Out Groups

• In group Those with whom one shares a common
  identity.
• Out group Those perceived as different from
  ones in group.
• In group Bias The tendency to favor ones own
  group.

When our team wins we say we won when they
lose we say they lost.
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• In an old documentary about the making of the
• original Planet of the Apes." Kim Hunter played
  the
• female chimpanzee, and she talked about all the
  stunt
• people who played in the movie knowing each other
  
• and being friends. However, she observed that
  during
• lunch breaks on the set, when no one had time to
  take
• off their animal makeup, that "gorillas" sat with
• "gorillas," "chimps" sat with "chimps,"
  "orangutans
• sat with their kind, etc.

http//www.spike.com/video/planet-of-apes/2713235
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Emotional Roots of Prejudice

• Prejudice provides an outlet for anger emotion
  by providing someone to blame. After 9/11 many
  people lashed out against innocent
  Arab-Americans.
• This is one example of Scapegoat Theory. People
  love to blame somebody else (usually based on
  prejudices)!

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Just-World Phenomenon

• The tendency of people to believe the world is
  just, and people get what they deserve and
  deserve what they get.

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Hindsight Bias

• After learning an outcome, the tendency to
  believe that we could have predicted it
  beforehand may contribute to blaming the victim
  and forming a prejudice against them.

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Conflict

• Conflict is perceived as an incompatibility of
  actions, goals, or ideas.
• A Social Trap is a situation in which the
  conflicting parties, by each rationally
• pursuing their self-interest, become
• caught in mutually destructive behavior.
• The water that I am personally using is not that
  much anyway. (If everybody thought that way we
  would run out more quickly!!!)

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Psychology of Attraction

• Proximity Geographic nearness is a powerful
  predictor of friendship. Robert Zajonc and others
  discovered that repeated exposure to novel
  stimuli increases their attraction (mere exposure
  effect).
• Physical Attractiveness Once proximity affords
  contact, the next most important thing in
  attraction is physical appearance. Many studies
  have shown
• that more attractive people are more
  popular,
• are treated better, earn more money and
  are
• perceived to be happier than less
  attractive people.
• Similarity Similar views among individuals
  causes the bond of attraction to strengthen.
  Similarity breeds content and opposites usually
  do not attract!

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Romantic Love

• Passionate Love An aroused state of intense
  positive absorption in another, usually present
  at the beginning of a love relationship.
• Companionate Love A deep, affectionate
  attachment we feel for those with whom our lives
  are intertwined.

1. Equity both partners share equally in the
relationship 2. Self-disclosure honest
sharing of details about ourselves.
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Prosocial Behaviors

• Altruism is an unselfish regard for the welfare
  of others.

March 13, 1964 Kitty Genovese was brutally
attacked outside her apartment in Queens, NYC.
She was stabbed and raped. In spite of her
repeated screams for help, why didnt Kitty
Genoveses neighbors call the police earlier or
help her in some other way before it was too
late?
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John Darley and Bibb Latanés Bystander
Intervention Experiment

• The Genovese case as well as other similar cases
  caused Darley and Latane to study why people
  didnt help out.
• In their experiment they hypothesized that people
  would be less likely to report smoke in a room if
  others were present
• Placed subjects in rooms that filled with smoke
• 75 of subjects reported smoke if they were alone

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Darley and Latané Results
In order for bystanders to help

• People have to notice the incident

• People have to interpret the incident as urgent

• People have to take responsibility for helping out

But
People are less likely to help if others are
around. This is called the Bystander Effect
(diffusion of responsibility)
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Darley and Latané Further Studies

• There are certain circumstances under which
  people are more likely to help someone in need
  when
• theyre not in a hurry
• they have observed someone else being helpful
• they feel guilty
• theyre in a good mood
• theyre focused on others and not preoccupied
• theyre outside of an urban area
• the victim appears to be truly deserving of help
• the victim is similar in appearance or other
  characteristics to the bystanders

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The Norms for Helping

• Social Exchange Theory Our social behavior is an
  exchange process. The aim is to maximize benefits
  and minimize costs. Youll help if the rewards
  for doing so outweigh the costs of helping.
• Reciprocity Norm The expectation that we should
  return help and not harm those who have helped
  us.
• SocialResponsibility Norm Largely learned, it
  is a norm that tells us to help others when they
  need us even though they may not repay us. This
  is how frequent volunteers often feel.

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Muzafer Sherifs Robbers Cave Experiment

• 22 Boy Scouts divided into two equal groups
• Stage 1 each group lived separately,
• developed their own rules and leadership
• At end of stage 1, began to become aware of the
  other group
• In stage 2, intense rivalry developed between the
  two groups
• Researchers kept the scores close had them
  compete for prizes

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Robbers Cave Experiment

• Researchers tried to build peace between the two
  groups
• Best way developing Superordinate Goals (shared
  goals that override differences among people and
  require their cooperation).
• Peace building worked well boys ended up getting
  along