Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology Health Studies Level 4 An introduction and brief overview of the approach

2. Aims By the end of the session you will be able to understand: The origin of social psychology Become familiar with the following introductory areas within social psychology Schemata Conformity Attitudes and stereotyping Attitude Change.

3. What is Social Psychology? �Social Psychology is the scientific investigation of how thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others�. (Allport, 1935 in Hogg and Vaughan, 2002, p.2).

4. What do Social Psychologist do? Explaining human behaviour Do not study animals Certain principles investigated that can be generalised to human beings and other primates (Hinde, 1982). Study of animals does not take one very far in explaining human social behaviour, unless one is interested in its evolutionary origins (e.g., Buss and Kenrick, 1998).

5. Behaviour Social Psychologist study behaviour- because it is behaviour that can be observed (Hogg and Vaughan, 2002, p.3). Also interested in- feelings, thoughts, attitudes, intentions and goals, (not directly observable but can be inferred from behaviour). These are the psychological dimension of social behaviour (as they occur in the human brain).

6. What makes social psychology social? Deals with how people are affected by other people who are physically present, who are imagined to be present, or even whose presence is implied (Hogg and Vaughan, 2002, p.3).

7. Social Psychology is Scientific Social Psychology uses uses the scientific method to construct and test theories. Has concepts such dissonance, attitude, categorisation and identity, to explain social psychology phenomena. No theory is true just because it is logical. Theory from data and or previous theory and then conduct empirical research, in which data are collected to test the theory.

8. Social Psychology and close scientific neighbours

9. First Experiment in Social Psychology Norman Triplett (1898)

10. Racing cyclist go faster when being paced than when alone. Go even faster when being raced than just paced. Study in Social Facilitation.

11. Impression Formation Schemata- set of beliefs or expectations about something that is based on past experience and is presumed to apply to all members of that category (Frisk and Taylor, 1991).

12. Example�.

13. Schemata serves some important functions�(Gilbert, 1998) Allow us to make inferences about people. Crucial role in how we interpret and remember information. (Rothbart, Evans and Fulero, 1979 in Rana and Morley, 2005, p.220) Half group told that they would be receiving information about friendly, sociable men. Other half told that they would be learning about intellectual men. Both groups then given the same information about 50 men and were asked to say how many were intelligent and how many funny.

14. What did Rothbart, Evans and Fulero, (1979) find?� Participants who had expected to hear about friendly men dramatically overestimated the number of friendly men in the set. Those who heard about intellectual men dramatically overestimated intelligent men in the set. They also many of the details they received about the men that were inconsistent with their expectations. The participants hear and remember what they expect.

15. What do you think�

16. Schemata can lure us into remembering things that we never actually observed. Overtime add new information to our mental files. However, later experiences generally do not influence us nearly so much as our early impressions- Primacy Effect. First impression can lead to Self-fulfilling Prophecy.

17. Social Influence

18. Compliance, obedience, conformity. Compliance Yielding to majority group pressure. Asch (1952) conformity reflects a rational process in which people construct a norm from other people�s behaviour in order to determine correct and appropriate behaviour for themselves. However, if confident then others behaviour is irrelevant. Others behaviour is relevant, when something is ambiguous.

19. Which is the same?

20. Asch (1951, 1952, 1956) Male students Asked to participate in a visual discrimination task Seated around a table of seven to nine Turns in fixed order to call out publicly the same line. Eighteen trials. Reality only one person was a true native participant. This person also gave an incorrect answer to an unambiguous task.

21. Why conform? Uncertain and self-doubt as a consequence of the disagreement within themselves and the group. Result is self-consciousness, fear of disapproval, feeling of anxiety and even loneliness. Perception may have been inaccurate and the rest of the group were correct. Others knew that the group were not correct but went along with them as did not want to stand out. Ridiculed and feeling stupid. Deutsch and Gerard (1955) even when answer in private cubicles and task is unambiguous rates of conformity are 23 per cent.

22. Who conforms? Low self-esteem High need for social support or social approval Need for self-control Low IQ High Anxiety Feelings of self-blame and insecurity in the group Authoritarian personality (Costanzo, 1970; Crutchfield, 1955; Elms and Milgram, 1966; Raven and French 1958).

23. Situational Factors Group size; conformity greatest with three to five, and additional members have little effect (Stang, 1976).

24. Two factors Two processes of social influence are responsible for conformity (Kelley, 1952) Informational influence- accept information from another as evidence about reality. Comes into play when uncertain. Normative influence-confirm to the positive expectations of others. Need for social approval and acceptance.

25. Attitudes

26. Forming Attitudes

27. Attitudes are learned rather than innate. Attitude formation: the process of forming our attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, the influence of others and our emotional reactions.

28. Behavioural Approaches Many attitudes people hold are often as a result of direct experience with attitude objects. Traumatic or frightening experiences can be important in the formation of attitudes (Oskamp, 1977; Sargant, 1957). Zajonc (1968) Mere Exposure Effect- number of times you encounter an object results in your attitude being affected in one direction or another. If lacking information, exposure results in greater attraction to the object (Bornstein, 1989).

29. Classical Conditioning underlies the formation of a wide variety of attitudes (Staats and Staats, 1957; Zanna, Kiesler and Pilkonis, 1970). Client coming in and being �ageist. Did not have this view to begin with but was exposed to this view by parents. For example, how can you be professional when you are so young? Instrumental Conditioning is a form of learning which is followed by positive consequences is more likely to be repeated. Insko (1965) attitudes can be shaped in adults verbal reinforces I.e., that is good.

30. Observational Learning- attitude formation as part of the social learning process which does not rely on direct reinforcers. Bandura (1973) Modelling- tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real life or symbolic model. Observing what the response is of others. An SLT could be a role model for their client!

31. Prejudice and Discrimination

32. Definition Prejudice: an attitude: is an intolerable, unfavourable and rigid view of a group of people. Assume that all people from a certain group share negative qualities; Unable to see members of that group as individuals; Ignore information that disproves their beliefs. Discrimination: a behaviour: act or many acts which denies opportunities and social esteem to an entire group of people or individual members of that group. Treat the group as less than equal.

33. Prejudice Three components: beliefs, feelings and behaviour tendencies. Prejudicial beliefs are negative stereotypes. Ignore or dismiss individual qualities of the individual that do not match the stereotype (Allport, 1954). Ultimate attribution: tendency for a person to make internal attributions for their shortcomings and external attributions for their success.

34. Sources of Prejudice Frustration-aggression theory: prejudice is the result of the frustrations experienced by the prejudiced group (Allport, 1954). Displace their anger and hostility onto those even lower on the social scale than themselves in the form of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviour. People who are the victims of this displaced aggression become scapegoats and are blamed for the problems of the times.

35. Authoritarian Personality Adorno et al (1950) prejudice to a complex cluster of personality traits called authoritarianism. Stone, Lederer and Christie (1993) authoritarian individuals tend to be rigidly conventional, favouring following the rules and abiding by tradition, and hostility towards those who defy those norms. Fear, reject and avoid other groups which they do not belong to.

36. Cognitive sources of prejudice: �cognitive misers�- try to simply and organise their social thinking as much as possible. Tom much simplification leads to stereotypes. Prejudice and discrimination. This is very much dominant.

37. Racism Racist ha the belief that members of certain racial or ethnic groups are innately inferior. Intelligence etc are biologically determined. You are one of us or one of them. In-group: solidarity and look at out-group members as competitors, enemies, unworthy of respect. In-group bias: group as superior to every other group.

38. Attitude Change

39. Compliance

40. Tactic for enhancing compliance Ingratiation: Someone to like you in order to obtain a compliance request. Smith, Pruitt and Carnevale (1982) shoppers when approached to sample a new food product were more likely to sample and buy the item when they were touched in a socially acceptable way (although the food did not taste any better).

41. Multiple Requests: instead of a single request, a two-step procedure is used, with the first request functioning as a set-up or softener for the second real request. Foot-in-the door-technique: get someone to agree to a small request, the person will later be more willing to comply with a larger request. Dejong (1979) understood in relation to self-perception theory. By complying to a small request, people become committed to their behaviour and develop a picture of themselves as giving, the subsequent large request compels them to appear consistent.

42. Door- in-the �face tactic: (Cialdini et al, 1975) foot in the door fails, this can be successful. Large request first and then a small one. Politicians use this frequently. Second request does not seem that bad.

43. Reading Any basic psychology text which dedicates a chapter to social Psychology. Social Psychology Text.