Understanding Social Psychology: Influences and Behaviors

1. Chapter 16: Social Psychology AP Psychology

2. Social Psychology Study of how others influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions Focuses on: How large social forces bring out the best and worse in us Why people act differently in the same situations and why the same person might act differently in different situations

3. Our Thoughts About Others • Attributions • An explanation for the cause of behaviors and events Mistaken Attributions • Fundamental Attribution Error • Misjudging the causes of others’ behavior as due to internal (dispositional) causes rather than external (situational) ones

4. Attribution

5. Fundamental Attribution Error

6. Other Attribution Errors • Saliency Bias • Focusing on the most noticeable (salient) factors when explaining the cause of behavior • Just-World Phenomenon • Tendency to believe that people generally get what they deserve • Self-Serving Bias • Taking credit for our successes and externalizing our failures

7. Self-Serving Bias

8. Attitudes • Attitude • Learned predisposition to respond cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally to a specific object

9. Cognitive Dissonance • Cognitive Dissonance • A feeling of discomfort resulting from a mismatch between an attitude and a behavior or two competing attitudes • Example: smoking! • Example: Festinger and Carlsmith’s study

10. Cognitive Dissonane

11. Cognitive Dissonance

12. Group Processes • Roles • Sets of behavioral patterns connected with particular social positions • Philip Zimbardo’s Prison Study (1971)

13. Deindividuation • Deindividuation • Reduced self-consciousness, inhibition, and personal responsibility that sometimes occurs in a group, particularly when members feel anonymous

14. Group Decision Making • Group Polarization • Group’s movement toward either riskier or more conservative behavior, depending on the member’s initial dominant tendency • Why? • As people interact and share opinions, they find new and more persuasive information that supports their original idea

16. Group Decision Making • Groupthink • Faulty decision making that occurs when a highly cohesive group strives for agreement and avoids inconsistent information • Examples: Kennedy and Bay of the Pigs, war in Iraq, failure to anticipate Pearl Harbor attack, etc.

17. Other Group Behavior • Social Facilitation • Improved performance of simple tasks in the presence of others • If the task is difficult or unpracticed, a person will do worse in the presence of others

18. Other Group Behavior • Diffusion of Responsibility • The diffusion of personal responsibility for acting by spreading it among other group members • Example: Kitty Genovese murder • Bystander Effect • Presence of other people reduces helping behavior • Example: Bystander Experiment, Chinese Girl Hit, Homeless Man Stabbed

20. Other Group Behavior • Social Loafing • Phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they are alone

21. Social Loafing – Rope Pulling

22. Our Feelings About Others • Prejudice • A learned, generally negative, attitude towards members of a group (includes thoughts, feelings, and potential behaviors) • Stereotype • A set of beliefs about the characteristics of people in a group that is generalized to all group members (Average Asian) • Discrimination • Negative behaviors directed at members of a group

23. Prejudice

24. Why does prejudice exist? • Learning • Learned through media, parents, friends, etc. • Personal Experience • One bad experience, people generalize to all • Mental Shortcuts • Attempts to simplify and make quick judgments • Ingroup favoritism, outgroup homogeneity • Economic & Political Competition • Displaced Aggression • Scapegoat

25. Interpersonal Attraction • Interpersonal Attraction • Positive feelings towards another • Most important determinants? • Physical Attractiveness • Proximity • Mere exposure effect • Similarity • Opposites attract? • Need complementarity, need compatibility

26. Love • Romantic Love • Intense feeling of attraction to another within an erotic context and with future expectations • Usually short-lived • Companionate Love • Strong and lasting attraction characterized by trust, caring, tolerance, and friendship • Grows stronger with time

27. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

28. Our Actions Towards Others • Conformity • Changing behavior because of real or imagined group pressure • Solomon Asch’s experiment (1951) • Asch’s conclusions: • Subjects often conform to a group, even when obviously wrong • Conformity increases with the size of the group, but only when the group is unanimous

29. Why conform? • Normative Social Influence • Conforming out of need for approval and acceptance • Informational Social Influence • Conforming out of need for information and direction • Reference Groups • People we conform to because we like and admire them and want to be like them

30. Chameleon Effect • Chameleon Effect • Our tendency to unconsciously mimic those around us • Examples: yawning, picking up on people’s moods

31. Obedience • Obedience • Following direct commands, usually from an authority figure • Stanley Milgram’s Study (1961) • Have times changed?

32. Why Obey? • Foot –in-the-Door Technique • A first, small request is used as a setup for a later, larger request • Door-in-the-Face Technique • A large request is made knowing it will probably be refused so that the person will agree to a much smaller request • Lowball Technique • An initial agreement is made before all of the details are explained • Reciprocity

33. Extra Credit Opportunity! • You may ask for 5 or 10 points of extra credit. • If everyone asks for 5 points, everyone gets 5 points. • If you ask for 10 points, you will get 10 points…UNLESS more than 6 people ask for 10 points, THEN everyone gets 0 points. • Write your name on your slip of paper and either “5” or “10” written. DO NOT LET ANYONE SEE YOUR PAPER!

34. Social Trap • People do what is in their best interest, even though it may hurt the group • Short-term gains vs. long-term loss for group • Examples: overfishing, logging

35. Aggression & Altruism Aggression: Any form of behavior intended to harm or injure another living being Where does aggression come from?- Instincts - Genes - Brain & Nervous System - Substance Abuse - Mental Disorders - Hormones & NTs - Aversive Stimuli (e.g. noise, heat, pain, bullying, frustration), Culture & Learning, Violent media/video games Altruism: Actions designed to help others with no obvious benefit to the helper Why are we altruistic?Evolutionary Perspective: favors survival of genes Egoistic Model: motivated by anticipated gain Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: motivated by concern for others