Social Psychology

Social Psychology Chapter 13

Social Psychology • Social psychology is the scientific study of how the individual is influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of other people

Behaviour in Social and Cultural Context • Roles and rules • Social influences on beliefs • Individuals in groups • Group conflict and prejudice

Roles and Rules • Defining norms and roles • The obedience study (Milgram) • The prison study (Zimbardo) • The power of roles

Defining Roles and Rules • Norms • Rules about how we are supposed to act • Includes social conventions, explicit laws, and implicit cultural standards. • Roles • Positions in society that are governed by norms about how people in those positions should behave. • Culture • Program of shared rules for behaviour in a community or society, and • A set of values, beliefs and attitudes shared by most members of that community.

Obedience • Obedience is compliance with the orders of another person or group • Classic studies of obedience were performed by Stanley Milgram • Milgram told participants they would be participating in a study of the effects of punishment on learning

Obedience Examples • Jonestown Massacre • Nazi Persecution of Jews • My Lai Massacre

Obedience • Milgram’s 1936 classic study • Would people obey an authority and violate own ethical standards? • Told experiment was about learning & instructed to shock another participant (confederate) when an error was made

Milgram’s Study • Participants assigned role of “teacher” • Confederate assigned role of “learner” • “Teacher” required to shock “learner” for each mistake made on task • Shocks increased by 15v after each mistake

Obedience abroad • Other researchers found that obedience to authority is not specific to Western culture, and that it applies to men and women, and younger and older individuals

Conclusions • Obedience function of situation, not personality: ZIMBARDO • Nature of the relationship to authority influences obedience

How realistic is this? • Nurse study (Hofling et al. (1966)) • Nurses were telephoned by a doctor they didn't know. • They were ordered to administer a nonprescribed drug in double the maximum dosage to a patient. • 22 nurses were called. • Results?

Why Do People Conform? • The social conformity approach states that people conform to avoid the stigma of being wrong or deviant • Attribution also explains conformity • When a person can identify causes for group behaviour they disagree with, conformity decreases

According to Jack Brehm, reactance arises when people feel their freedom is being restricted, they are motivated to reestablish it Reactance theory focuses on how people try to re-establish their feeling of free choice Reactance Theory

The Prison Study - Zimbardo • Subjects were physically and mentally healthy young men who volunteered to participate for money. • Randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards. • Given no further behavioral instructions. • Predictions?

Prison Study • Those assigned the role of prisoner became distressed, helpless, and panicky. They begged to be let out of study. • Those assigned the roles of guards became either nice, “tough but fair,” or tyrannical (1/3). • Study had to be ended after 6 days.

Conclusion • Behavior depends partly on roles • Roles can overrule personality and values

The Power of Roles • Why do people obey an authority figure, especially when it violates their interest or values?

Social Influences on Beliefs • Defining social cognition • Attributions • Attitudes

Social Cognition • How the social environment influences thought, memory, perception, and other cognitive processes. • How people’s perceptions of themselves and others affect relationships, thoughts, beliefs and values.

Inferring the Causes of Behaviour: Attribution • Attribution is the process by which a person infers other people’s motives or intentions • Attribution must take into account internal as well as external causes of behaviour

Why do people do what they do? • Attribution Theory • Situational – cause is something in situation • Dispositional – cause is something in person (trait or motive)

Two rules • Discounting rule • Less likely to make dispositional attribution if behavior is required, demanded, or expected in the situation. • Augmentation rule • More likely to make dispositional attribution if the behavior is the opposite of what is expected, required, or demanded in the situation

Why People Make Attributions • People use attributions to maintain a sense of control over their environment • Knowledge about the causes of events helps predict and control similar events in the future

Errors in Attribution • Errors or bias can occur in making attributions about the behaviour of others • Sometimes errors occur because people use mental shortcuts that are not accurate

Fundamental Attribution Error • Occurs when explaining the behavior of others • Tendency to overestimate dispositional factors & underestimate situational factors (assume people’s behavior is caused by their internal dispositions and situational influences are underestimated) • More common in Western nations

The Actor-Observer Effect • The actor-observer effect is the tendency to attribute the behaviour of others to internal causes • One’s own behaviour is attributed to situational causes

Attributions • Self-serving bias • Occurs when explaining own behavior (and in-group’s) • Luck vs skill • Tendency to take credit for one’s good actions and attribute mistakes to situation. • Affected by culture

Just World Hypothesis • The need to believe that the world is fair and that justice is served • Bad people are punished and good people rewarded • People get what they deserve • Bad outcomes are ‘asked for’ • Can lead to blaming the victim

Attitudes • Attitudes are feelings and beliefs about other people, ideas, or objects that are based on a person’s past experiences, and shape future behaviour

Dimensions of Attitudes • The cognitive dimension of an attitude consists of thoughts and beliefs • The emotional dimension of an attitude involves evaluate feelings (such as like or dislike) • The behavioural dimension of an attitude involves how beliefs and evaluations are demonstrated

Attitudes consist of 3 components: • 1. Affectively based Attitudes: • They are based more on people's feelings and values than on their beliefs. • They do not result from rational examination of the issues (i.e., not governed by logic). • They can result from the conditioning process. • 2.Cognitively based Attitudes: • They are based primarily on people's beliefs. • 3. Behaviorally based Attitudes: • They are based on self-perception of one's own behavior when the initial attitude is weak or ambiguous.

Attitudes • Attitudes are tendencies to react in a characteristically positive or negative fashion toward targets. • Explicit • We are aware of them, they shape conscious decisions • Implicit • We are unaware of them, they may influence our behaviour in ways we do not recognize.

Are Attitudes Good Predictors of Behavior? • LaPiere (1934) • Studied prejudicial attitudes & behavior towards Chinese • Visited 184 restaurants with Chinese couple • Surveyed same restaurants • Behavior did not match attitudes

Attitudes & Behavior • Attitudes & behavior influence each other • Often attitudes dispose people to behave in certain ways • Attitudes can change to reduce cognitive dissonance and by persuasive techniques.

Attitudes are Better Predictors If… • Attitude is strong • Few competing influences • High personal importance • Forms part of self-concept • Specific to situation • Accessible: how easily the attitude comes to mind. • Importance of / Level of knowledge about object • How extreme the attitude about object.

Factors Influencing Attitude Change • Change in social environment • Social influence • Change in behaviors • Due to a need for consistency

Cognitive Dissonance • Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental discomfort that arises from a discrepancy between two or more of a person’s beliefs, or between beliefs and behaviour • Leon Festinger believed that people try to reduce cognitive dissonance by changing one’s attitudes or behaviours • Cognitive Dissonance • A state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, • OR • When a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behavior

Individuals in Groups • Conformity • Groupthink • The anonymous crowd • Disobedience and dissent

Groups: Sharing Common Goals • A group is two or more people working with a common purpose, characteristics, or interests

Social influence refers to the ways people alter the attitudes or behaviours of others Social Influence

Social Influence • Conformity = yielding to real or imagined social pressure • When a person changes her or his attitudes or behaviours so they are consistent with those of other people or norms, the person is exhibiting conformity • Examples? • Why do people conform?

Conformity – Asch, 1951 • Studied conformity in visual perception • Asch found that people in a group adopt its standards • Participants in groups of 7-9 were asked to match line lengths. • Only one group member, the “naïve” participant, was really unaware of the purpose of the study • After a few trials, confederates in the group began to pick the wrong line. • How does the participant respond? Would he agree with an obviously wrong answer?

Compliance • Were participants pretending to change or did they really change their beliefs? Compliance = yielding to social pressure publicly, but private beliefs do not change • WHY do people conform in this situation? • Normative influence: We conform to others because we want to be liked and accepted by them. This is more realistic than you think!

Who is best liked in a group? • Schachter (1951). The Johnny Rocco Study • Students participated in groups concerning how to best treat a young juvenile delinquent (Johnny Rocco) • Three of the students were confederates who played the role of: • the modal member (agreed w/ group majority) • the slider (initially disagreed, then changed to agree) • the deviate (disagreed w/ group majority)

Group Polarization • The risky shift is when people in groups may be more willing to take chances they would not take if making decisions alone • Exaggerations in group members’ attitudes or behaviours may also occur after a discussion • Shifts in attitudes or behaviours are called group polarization

One explanation says this occurs because people initially view themselves as more extreme than other group members When people discover they are similar to the other members, they shift and become more extreme Changes in the individual are called the choice shift Group Polarization

The persuasive argument explanation is a different view This says people’s attitudes become polarized when they hear others in the group express similar attitudes Group Polarization

Another view is called diffusion of responsibility This says individual group members feel they cannot be held responsible for the group’s actions This feeling may allow members to make more extreme decisions than they would individually Group Polarization

Social comparison may also play a role in group polarization This says that people compare their views to those they respect Group Polarization

Social Psychology