Unit 12: Social Pyschology

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Unit 12 Social Pyschology

• Essential Task 12-1Apply attribution theory to
  explain the behavior of others with specific
  attention to the fundamental attribution error,
  self-serving bias, just-world hypothesis and
  differences between collectivistic and
  individualistic cultures

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Stereotypes
Primacy Effect
Schema
12-1
12-2
Social Cognition
Social Behavior
deindividuation, the self-fulfilling
prophecy, bystander effect social facilitation
12-5
Treatment of group members
12-4
12-3
12-6 / 12-7
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Social Psychology

• The scientific study of the ways in which the
  thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one
  individual are influenced by the real, imagined,
  or inferred behavior or characteristics of other
  people
• Todays class
• How you think about people
• How you explain their behavior

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Attribution Why did he do that?

• Attribution Theory tries to explain how people
  make judgments about the causes of other peoples
  behavior
• Three criteria used to judge behavior
• Distinctiveness Is this how the person treats
  everyone or are you different?
• Consistency Has the person always treated you
  this way or is this different?
• Consensus Do other people do this same thing or
  is this really different?

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Attribution Why did he do that?

• Bob walks past you without saying hi.
• Distinctiveness Your explanation as to why Bob
  did this will be different if he does this to
  everyone in the hall or just you
• Consistency Your explanation as to why Bob did
  this will be different if he always says hi to
  you or if you dont really know each other.
• Consensus Whether youre in New York vs. a
  college of 600 will change how you explain Bobs
  behavior.

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Biases in Attribution

• Fundamental attribution error when explaining
  the behavior of others this is the tendency to
  overemphasize personal causes underemphasize
  situational causes
• Actor-Observer Bias This is the opposite used by
  us when we explain our own behavior. We
  overemphasize situational causes and downplay
  personality.
• Defensive attribution
• Self-Serving Bias Tendency to attribute our
  successes to our own efforts and our failures to
  external factors
• Just-world hypothesis Assumption bad things
  happen to bad people and good things happen to
  good people
• Attribution across cultures varies dramatically

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Effects of Attribution

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

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Collectivistic vs. Individualistic
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