Social Psychology

1. Social Psychology • Basic premise: Who we are is determined by our social interactions • --Past: our social development • --Present: social influence We’ll start with an area of overlap between cognition and social influence; attitudes, including their formation and change

2. Attitudes & Attitude Change • Definition of an attitude (vs. belief) ABC • Affective-- evaluation (+/-), • Behavioral tendencies policy • Cognitive (belief) • Central feature: consistency • Propaganda and other attitude change mechanisms

3. Strong Generalization About Attitudes We like to maintain consistancy of attitudes: • selective exposure • selective interpretation • selective memory

4. Propaganda or Attitude Change 1. Characteristics of the source of a message --Credibility, expertise, knowledge, prestige plus sleeper effect • Characteristics of the message --One-sided vs. two-sided --Fear + way out --Moderate discrepancy • Characteristics of the recipient --intelligence

6. Attitudes • Explicit attitude • Implicit attitude • Involuntary, uncontrollable, often unconscious • IAT (lab) • But implicit cognitions aren’t all-controlling

7. Attitudes toward groups • Prejudice • Affective component • Hostile or negative attitude toward people just because they are a group member • Stereotypes • Cognitive component • Generalization in which identical characteristics are assigned to all members • Discrimination • Behavioral component • Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a group member because of their membership

8. Prejudice in the classroom • Jane Elliott • Prejudice can be taught • Told students blue-eyed people were better than brown-eyed people • Brown-eyed children had to wear collars and sit in the back of class • Over the course of one day: brown eyed children became self-conscious, depressed, and demoralized • Next day: Elliott switched the stereotypes about eye-color (brown=good) • Brown-eyed kids exacted their revenge

9. Why are stereotypes maintained? • Illusory correlation • See correlations where they don’t exist • Remember confirmatory examples more • Example: Cheerleaders are outgoing • Out-group homogeneity effect • Us vs. them • “All ______ are alike” • See others as exemplars of their group • In-group bias • Positive feelings for people who are part of our in-group • Alumni, state residency, affinity varies with distance!

10. Fundamental Attribution Error • Interpret behavior as a characteristic of the individual rather than the situation • Do not take into account the situation • Person unemployed must be a bad worker, if I lose job, bad boss • Maintain stereotypes: • Attribute confirmatory examples to the individual • Ignore/attribute to the situation examples which don’t fit or stereotype

11. Stronger Theories of Attitude Consistency • Balance Theory (Heider) • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger) • Self Perception Theory (Bem)

12. Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Leon Festinger: Two cognitions that are in conflict or dissonant (one implies the opposite of the other) result in pressure to change one or both to bring them into consonance • In practice, the two are an attitude and a behavior and the attitude changes

13. Three types of Dissonance Situations or Experiments • Justification of effort (Aronson & Mills) • Inadequate external justification --when prophecy fails (Ms. Keech) --counterattitudinal advocacy (Yale) • Consequences of a decision (Brehm)

18. Knox & Inkster betting study (consequences of making a decision)

19. Self Perception Theory- Bem • The theory and its relation to cog. diss. • Experimental evidence (Bem, Valins) • Can we know ourselves given all this? • (Back to Missouri!)

22. Bystander Apathy & Intervention • Surprising work of Darley & Latane on the effect of the no. of bystanders

29. Mechanisms That Produce Bystander Apathy Effects • moral diffusion • lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of action. airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped, and they were people more familiar with the surround. 3. costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised bythe presence of others (surveillance) 4. rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know what to do/day, keep your mouth shut etc. 5) mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90 %

31. Mechanisms That Produce Bystander Apathy Effects • moral diffusion • lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of action. airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped, and they were people more familiar with the surround. 3. costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised bythe presence of others (surveillance) 4. rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know what to do/day, keep your mouth shut etc. 5) mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90 %

32. Solomon Asch: Conformity • Conformity: Good or bad? • Major findings: 1/3 & 2/3 conform! • What it takes to resist! • Conclusion

35. Stanley Milgram: Obedience • Description of Experiment • Basic findings 2/3 • Field theory explanation (exper. vs. victim force fields)

41. Underlying Explanation • Foot in the door • Other is responsible (diffusion of resp.) • Aloneness- lack of social support • Ambiguity about situation/what to do!!! • Other directedness (Reisman)

42. Schein’s POW Work • Level of compliance and how it was obtained • The power of social isolation • Who resisted? • Solution: inner codes vs. external or situational control • Conclusion: balance?……