Describe this person. What is your impression of this person?

2. Describe this person. • What is your impression of this person? • What kind of a person do you think he/she is? • What do you think are his characteristics? • How do you feel about this person?

4. Little informationJudged the qualities of the person • Impression developed quickly, almost immediately

5. Made inferences based on physical features, expression • Possible bias?

6. Chapter 16 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

7. Social Psychology • The discipline that seeks to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (Allport, 1985)

8. The Social Self • Self • Selfhood  always in a social context • Self is vital for interactions/relationships • “Selfhood is almost unthinkable outside of social context” (Baumeister, 1998) • Self-Concept: • the belief and feeling we have about ourselves • a product of social interaction

9. The Social Self • Self-Concept: • Cooley’s Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Self (Cooley, 1902) • We create “selves”  emerges from our interactions with others and our own reflection as to how others see us • We reflect about ourselves based on how we think other people see us • Object of own reflection • Example: • A child is told he/she is “a good kid” ... Treated as a “good kid” by parents and relatives ... • The child then believes that he/she is a “good kid”

10. The Social Self • Self-Concept: • Other influences: • Gender • Social roles • Being a son, daughter, student, doctor etc. • Self-perceptions • Observations of what we like, dislike, find interesting etc. • reveals our attitudes, emotions etc. • Social comparisons • Our abilities and attitudes compared with others (peers, friends) • Collectivist or Individualistic society • What characteristics are expected? What are emphasized by the culture?

11. The Social Self • Self-Schema (Markus, 1977) • System of beliefs about our self is organized • “Schematic” includes extreme characteristics; repeatedly observed • “I am good at _____” • We easily make judgments about ourselves based on info that fit our self-schemas • We predict our future behavior based on our self-schemas • Filter info based on it • The reason why people with poor or negative self-schema have such difficulty changing their self-concept  filter out “the good stuff” ... Believe “the bad stuff” • Example: If you believe you are not good at ...

12. The Social Self • Self-Esteem • How we evaluate ourselves: either positively or negatively • Self-worth • Tends to be stable over time; temporary fluctuations (Baumeister, 1998) • Those with good self-esteem: Tend to be happy, healthy, successful, productive (Brehm, Kassin & Fein, 2006) • One important source of self –worth is ... • Parenting (Teh, 2005) • Parents who love and accept unconditionally; but still place well-defined limits • Provide warmth, caring, security, availability, support

13. The Social Self • Self-Discrepancies • Actual self – how we see ourselves • Ought self – consists of the characteristics we believe we should have • Responsibility, duty (ex. to be studious) • Ideal self – characteristics we aspire for • (ex. being sociable) • Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987) • Greater discrepancy between ACTUAL & OUGHT SELVES •  greater feelings of guilt, self-contempt • Greater discrepancy between ACTUAL & IDEAL SELVES •  greater feelings of frustration, disappointment, and dissatisfaction

14. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Social Perception: • Process by which we try to understand other people & social situations • Includes • Impression Formation • How we form impressions of other people • We integrate info  judgment of the person’s qualities • Occur quite rapidly, even with little info • Attribution • Our attempt to explain why a person behaved the way they did

15. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Impression Formation • Physical features • Most easily accessible info • gender, face, age, build, clothes • And, whatever is striking or unusual • Ex. Pretty? • Non-verbal behavior • Facial expression • Reliable basis for judging emotional states; facial expressions are universal across cultures (Ekman & Freisen,1971) • Eye contact • Ex. Attentive, intimacy, submissive • From physical, non-verbal & verbal info • initial judgements  Kind? Sincere? Friendly? Flirt? Mayabang? • Positive vs. Negative impression • Like vs. Dislike for the person

16. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Impression Formation • We “average” not “add” info (Anderson, 1965) • Average positive info with negative • Example: Sincere and kind, but, shy and not too intelligent lowered positive overall impression • Traits differ in importance • Weighted average based on what perceiver considers as important • Biases in Impression Formation • Implicit Personality Theory (Anderson & Sedikides, 1991; Schneider, 1973) • What personality traits are expected to go together Example: Shy & ___________ Outgoing & ____________ • Stereotyping • We categorize • based on a need to conserve mental energy • May result in erroneous perceptions

17. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Attribution • Our attempt to explain why a person behaved the way they did • Taking into account the traits of the person & the situation in which the behavior occurs • It helps us predict future behavior • To form a coherent understanding of the world • To control the environment • Particularly when something unexpected or unpleasant happens • Ex. Your boyfriend/girlfriend is quiet. Is she upset? With you?

18. Social Thinking • Attribution • The Dimensions of Causality • Internal/External Causes • Stable/Unstable Causes • Controllable/Uncontrollable Cause

19. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Attribution • Internal Attribution • We attribute according to their internal characteristics • Emotional state, beliefs, attitudes, personality etc. • Ex. He argued with the stranger ‘coz he’s a jerk. • External attribution • Attribute behavior to external factors • Situation or social context • Ex. He argued with the stranger ‘coz that stranger was being rude.

20. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Biases in Attribution • Fundamental Attribution error (Ross, 1977) • Tendency to overestimate internal causes and underestimate situational causes for other people’s behavior • This can be due to our focus on the person more than their situation, about which we may know very little. • When we are playing the role of observer, which is largely when we look at others, we make this fundamental attribution error.

21. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Reasons for Fundamental Attribution Error • Actor-observer effect (Jones & Nisbett, 1972) • We tend to see other people’s behaviors as being caused by their personal disposition, while perceiving our own actions as due to situational factors. • Ex. When other people are rude  They aren’t nice. • When we are rude  because we had a bad day • Perceptual salience • We tend to over-estimate the causal role (salience) of information we have available to us. • From the observer’s point of view: actor stands out • Therefore, observer makes internal attribution • From the actor’s point of view: the situation stands out • Therefore, actor makes external attribution (situational)

22. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Biases in Attribution • Self-serving Bias • This is our tendency to take credit for success (attribute to internal factors) and deny any responsibility for failure (attribute to external factors). • This helps to protect our ego. • Example • I am proud of my good exam results except for the failure in one subject where I was unfortunately rather ill on the day of the examination.

23. Social Perception: Understanding Others • Explanatory Style and Life Perspective • How we approach life is shaped by the attributions we make • The difference between optimists & pessimists  Explanatory style – how they habitually make attributions Optimists: explain good experiences due to permanent, universal, & internal causes. Pessimists: explain good experiences as being due to external, temporary, or specific causes. the opposite for pessimists/optimists concerning bad experiences Origins of explanatory style? Childhood • parent optimists or pessimists? How would they explain things? • Type of criticism received • bad experiences (leads to pessimism)

24. Attitudes: Understanding How We React to Our Social World • Attitudes: • Predispositions towards action. • About or towards people and things. (like/dislike; favorable/unfavorable) • Evaluative of people, objects and ideas. • 3 components: Made up of emotional reactions (affective), thoughts and beliefs (cognitive), and actions (behavioral) components • Three components may not always be consistent (Affective usually more powerful) • Ex. Smoke cigarettes even though cognitively one is aware of the facts about smoking

25. Attitudes: Understanding How We React to Our Social World • Forming Attitudes • Direct experience with object • Was it a positive or negative experience? • Observations of own behavior (Self-Perception Theory) • If unaware of our attitude, we make conclusions based on our own behavior • Ex. “I spend a lot of time with Juan  I must like Juan.” • “My best friend and I don’t talk as much  maybe I’ve outgrown her” • Influence of media • Classical and operant conditioning

26. Social Thinking • Attitudes • Can Behavior Predict Attitudes? • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • A concept developed by Festinger that refers to an individual's motivation to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) caused by two inconsistent thoughts. • Self-Perception Theory • Bem's theory about the connection between attitudes and behavior; it stresses that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior.

27. Cognitive Dissonance Theory

28. Social Perception Theory

29. ... What is your reaction to the following ads?

35. Attitudes: Understanding How We React to Our Social World • Attitudes & Behavior • A person’s behavior does not always correspond with their attitude • Do you care about the environment? • Do you believe in honesty? In not stealing? • Some factors • Is there freedom of choice? • Situational pressures

36. Attitudes: Understanding How We React to Our Social World • Attitude Change • Variables • Source (communicator) • Message (communication) • Channel (medium) • Receiver • Research reveals • More credible the source  produces more attitude change. • The more attractive/likable  produces more attitude change.

37. Attitudes: Understanding How We React to Our Social World • Research reveals • When a person is more motivated to and able to assess merits •  central route of persuasion will be taken • Merits of the message • When person is not motivated or able to examine merits •  peripheral route of persuasion (peripheral cues) • Attractiveness of communicator? • Number of arguments (regardless of quality) • Fear is more effective ... • If consequences are likely; • And person is capable of taking the action recommended • Contact with people, more effective than the mass media • More likely to change attitudes, during adolescence & early adulthood

38. Social Influence • Conformity and Obedience • Conformity • Involves a change in a person's behavior to coincide more with a group standard. • Asch’s Conformity Experiment • “choose the matching vertical line” • Factors that Contribute to Conformity • Normative Influence • The influence that other people have on us because we seek their approval or avoid their disapproval. • Informational Influence • The influence other people have on us because we want to be right.

39. Social Influence • Conformity and Obedience • Conformity • Factors that Contribute to Conformity • Unanimity of the Group • Prior Commitment • Personal Characteristics • Group Member’s Characteristics • Cultural Values

40. Social Influence • Conformity and Obedience • Obedience • Milgram’s Obedience Study • Resisting Social Influence

41. The Milgram Study: • The experiment • The experimenter • The “teacher” • The “learner” ... 50 year-old with a heart condition • Told by the experimenter that they would be participating in an experiment helping his study of memory and learning in different situations. • The "teacher" was given a 45-voltelectric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing for each wrong answer. • After a number of voltage level increases, the “learner” started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, all responses by the learner would cease. • At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the learner. • If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:[ • Please continue. • The experiment requires that you continue. • It is absolutely essential that you continue. • You have no other choice, you must go on. • If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

42. LO 13.4 Obedience Menu

43. The Milgram Study: • Results • The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. • Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. • All of the poll respondents believed that only a sadistic few (average 1.2%) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. • Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock. • In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock • though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. No participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level. • Later, Prof. Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results

44. The Milgram Study: • Professor Milgram elaborated two theories explaining his results: • A subject who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person's behavioral model. • the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow.

45. Milgram Obedience Study

46. The Tragedy of the Commons • The Tragedy of the Commons is a type of social trap, often economic, that involves a conflict over finite resources between individual interests and the common good. • The term derives originally from William Forster Lloyd – observed a medieval village land holding for his 1833 book on population • Current problems • Uncontrolled human population • Water over-extraction of groundwater and wasting water • Forests - slash and burn • Energy resources and climate - Burning of fossil fuels and consequential global warming • Animals - Habitat destruction and poaching • Oceans – Overfishing

47. The Tragedy of the Commons • Preventing the Tragedy of the Commons • The individualistic solution • Making the collectivist interest profitable to people acting to promote their own short –term interests • Taxes • Fines • The collectivistic solution • Inducing individuals to accept values which serve the group’s interest or to act explicitly with the group’s interest in mind • Social norms Learning to line up? To wait your turn? Learning to follow traffic rules?

48. Group Behavior • Group Structure • Roles • Leader • Member • Norms • rules • Culture • How do groups make decisions? • Informational influence (intellective tasks) • Who has the best factual info and arguments • Normative influence (judgemental tasks) • Conformity that leads to consensus • Group Polarization effect • Tendency of groups to arrive at decisions that are more extreme than the initial opinions of the members • If already cautious .. After group discussion, more cautious • If already a risk-taker ... After group discussion, more risk-taking • All arguments in one direction  leads to extreme position

49. Group Behavior • Groupthink • Faulty decision-making that happens when a group fails to examine alternative courses of action leading to defective decisions Why? To achieve consensus ... And a pleasant social atmosphere Lead to the explosion of the Space shuttle Invasion of Iraq? • How to avoid? • Leader should first take impartial position, be open to criticism • Should encourage members to question, criticize • Assign devil’s advocate • Outside experts • 2nd round of discussion

50. Group Behavior • Leadership • Tries to achieve “constructive or adaptive change” • 3 interrelated processes • Leader establishes direction • Aligns people to the vision • Motivates and inspires