Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology

2. Social Psychology • scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another • How we influence one an other and how others influence us

3. Obedience • When you change your opinions, judgments, or actions because someone in a position of authority told you to. The key aspect to note about obedience is that just because you have changed in some way, it does not mean that you now agree with the change. (ex. You participate in whatever activity I tell you too  ) • Compliance • the tendency to agree to do what is requested especially if there are certain factors present: a feeling that there is give and take, believability, likeability, limited supply and positive feedback from others. (most students go along with each other) • Conformity • adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard (even without authority figure students will go along with the group even if a bit uncomfortable) • Group Sanctions • The idea that in most groups we are rewarded with acceptance and approval for conformity and threatened with rejection and or ridicule for non-conformity (ex. When an idea is rejected) • Norms • The unwritten but understood rules of a society or culture for the behaviors that are considered acceptable and expected. (very quickly group set norms about rejecting and accepting ideas) • Social Loafing • tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable (some people went along without contributing any ideas)

4. Social Influence • Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment

5. 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 Number of times Participant Participant rubs face shakes foot Confederate rubs face Confederate shakes foot Social Influence • The chameleon effect

6. Social Influence • Asch’s conformity experiments

7. Social Influence • Informational Social Influence • influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

8. 50% 40 30 20 10 0 Difficult judgments Conformity highest on important judgments Percentage of conformity to confederates’ wrong answers Easy judgments Low High Importance Social Influence • Participants judged which person in Slide 2 was the same as the person in Slide 1

9. Remember? • Conformity • Social Roles • Attitudes

10. Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1970) What was this experiment about? Watch the Video of the experiment For more info go to www.zimbardo.com

11. Ethics? • Informed consent? • Physical/ Psychological harm ?

12. Social Influence • Deindividuation • loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

13. Social Influence • Some individual resist social coercion

14. Social Thinking • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent • example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

15. Social Thinking • Cognitive dissonance

16. Social Influence • Group Polarization • enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group • Groupthink • mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives

17. Social Influence • If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions

18. Social Relations • Ingroup • “Us”- people with whom one shares a common identity • Outgroup • “Them”- those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup

19. Social Relations • Ingroup Bias • tendency to favor one’s own group • Scapegoat Theory • theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame • Just-World Phenomenon • tendency of people to believe the world is just • people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

20. Social Thinking • Attribution Theory • tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition

21. Self Fulfilling Prophecy • Pygmallion Principle • Blue Eyed/ Brown Eyed Experiment

22. Social Thinking • Fundamental Attribution Error • tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition • Attitude • belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people and events

23. Tolerant reaction (proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide berth) Situational attribution “Maybe that driver is ill.” Negative behavior Unfavorable reaction (speed up and race past the other driver, give a dirty look) Dispositional attribution “Crazy driver!” Social Thinking • How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it

24. Internal attitudes External influences Behavior Social Thinking • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences

25. Social Relations • Prejudice • an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members • involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action • Stereotype • a generalized (sometimes accurate, but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people

26. Social Relations • Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice

27. Social Relations • Vivid cases (9/11 terrorists) feed stereotypes

28. Social Relations • Aggression • any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy • Frustration-Aggression Principle • principle that frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression

29. Social Relations

30. Social Relations • Men who sexually coerce women

31. Social Thinking • Attitudes follow behavior • Cooperative actions feed mutual liking

32. Some interesting experiments… • Violinist in the Metro Station • Do you take the time to stop and appreciate the beauty around you? According to an experiment conducted in 2007, chances are you don’t. World famous violinist Josh Bell posed as a street musician in a Washington D.C. metro station to see how many people would stop and listen. Despite the fact that he was playing a $3.5 million handcrafted violin and had just sold out a concert in Boston where ticket prices averaged $100 each, very few people stopped to appreciate his beautiful performance. He made a measly $32 that day.

33. This started out as an ad… Check out this social psychology experiment….

34. Halo Effect • the idea that our overall impression of a person can be based on one trait about them. • For example, if someone has a likeable personality, people might find that person’s other qualities more appealing. • In a recent experiment, a man made two videos for a dating website. In the first video, he read the script in an upbeat manner, whereas in the second, he read the same script in a more melancholy fashion. The first video was given to a one group of girls and the second was given to another group, who watched the video in a separate room. • The girls who watched the upbeat video found the man to be likeable, while the girls who watched the second video found the man to be unpleasant, even though he had read the exact same script. • Thus demonstrating the importance of tone in the perception of overall attractiveness and modeling the Halo Effect in action.

35. Missing Child Experiment • People often fail to notice their surroundings, an idea that was put to the test during a missing child experiment. A flier with information and a picture about a “missing child” was posted on the doors of a busy store. Some people stopped to study the flier while others merely glanced at it or didn’t look at all. What all of these people had in common that they were completely oblivious of the fact that the boy on the flier was standing right in front of the store. This experiment demonstrates that humans tend to overlook a lot of the things around 

36. Social Thinking • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon • tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request • Role • set of expectations about a social position • defines how those in the position ought to behave • Social Facilitation • improved performance of tasks in the presence of others • occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered (ex. Homefield advantage) • Normative Social Influence • influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

37. Social Facilitation

38. Social Relations • Conflict • perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas • Social Trap • a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior

39. Person 1 Choose A Choose B Optimal outcome Person 2 Choose B Choose A Probable outcome Social Relations • Social trap • by pursuing our self-interest and not trusting others, we can end up losers

40. Social Relations- Attractiveness • Mere Exposure Effect • repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them • Conceptions of attractiveness vary by culture

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

42. Social Relations • Equity • a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it • Self-Disclosure • revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others • Altruism • unselfish regard for the welfare of others

43. Social Relations • Bystander Effect • tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

44. Social Relations • The decision-making process for bystander intervention

45. Social Relations • Social Exchange Theory • the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs • Superordinate Goals • shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

46. Social Relations • Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-reduction (GRIT) • a strategy designed to decrease international tensions • one side announces recognition of mutual interests and initiates a small conciliatory act • opens door for reciprocation by other party