Social Psychology: Attitudes, Group Influences, Social Relations, Attraction, and Altruism

1. Social Psychology: Attitudes, Group Influences, Social Relations, Attraction, and Altruism

2. Warm Up • 1. How do the fundamental and situational attribution errors differ? • 2.What was the significance of the Milgram study? • 3. What types of situations cause ppl to follow orders the best ? • 4. Describe the Zimbardo study? • 5. What is Deindividuation? • 6. What is dehumanization?

3. Person 1 Choose A Choose B Optimal outcome Person 2 Choose B Choose A Probable outcome Bump or Jump Illustrates: • Social Trap: a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest gets caught in mutually destructive behavior.

4. Internal attitudes External influences Behavior Do Attitudes Guide Our Actions? • Attitude:beliefs and feelings that predispose our reaction to objects, people, and events. • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences:

5. Attitudes are Likely to Affect Actions When: • Outside influences on what we say and do are minimal. • The attitude is specifically relevant to the behavior. • We are keenly aware of our attitudes.

6. Do Our Actions Affect Our Attitude? Foot in the Door Phenomenon: tendency to comply with a larger request after agreeing to a small one. Ex: P.O.W.’s in Korean War Cognitive Dissonance: when our awareness of our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the discomfort (dissonance) by changing our attitudes.

7. Group Influences • Reasons for Conformity: • Normative Social Influence: influence from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disproval. • 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 Conformity and Informational Influence • Conformity with a group is a highest when the task is difficult and important.

9. Group Influences • 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. • Why? When others are around us we become physiologically aroused. • Arousal helps with easy tasks but not with difficult. • EX: Running vs. New Math Problem

10. Home Advantage in Major Team Sports Home Team Games Winning Sport Studied Percentage Baseball 23,034 53.3% Football 2,592 57.3 Ice hockey 4,322 61.1 Basketball 13,596 64.4 Soccer 37,202 69.0 Social Facilitation and Home Field Advantage

11. Group Influences • Social Loafing: the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable. • Especially common among men in individualistic cultures. • Leads to the “free-rider” problem

12. Effects of Group Interaction • Group Polarization: the enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group. Ex: non-racist vs. racist students meeting to discuss issues. Each sides attitudes will be amplified. • Groupthink: the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.

13. Power of Individuals • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: occurs when one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief. • Man who believes woman is attracted to him; women more likely to act that way or vice-versa.

14. Social Interactions • 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 (often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people

15. Us vs. Them • Ingroup: “Us”---people who one shares a common identity. • Outgroup: “Them”---those perceived as different or apart of one’s ingroup. • Ingroup bias: the tendency to favor one’s own group. • Scapegoat theory: the theory that prejudice an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame • Nazis scapegoat jews for economic frustration. “If the Jews did not exist, we should have to invent him.”

16. Roots of Prejudice • Categorization • Vivid Cases • Just World Phenomenon: the tendency of people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get. • Example: social darwinism…p.666

17. Aggression • Causes of Aggression: • Genes • Neural Influences: stimulation to certain neural regions can increase or decrease aggression. • Biochemical Influences: high testosterone levels correlate with aggressive behavior…2-way…testosterone boosts and is boosted by aggressive behavior. • Alcohol: 4/10 violent crimes…3/4 spousal abuse

18. Murders and rapes per day in Houston, Texas Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit Causes of Aggression • Frustration-Aggression Principle: the principle that frustration---the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal---creates anger, which can generate aggression. • Aversive stimuli also increases aggression…ex: more spousal abuse in hotter years and months.

19. Media and Aggression • Average child sees 8000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school on TV…desensitization? • In the U.S. and Canada, homicide rates doubled between 1957 and 1974, coinciding with the introduction of television. • “Rape Myth”…pornography that portrays sexual aggression as pleasurable for the victim increases acceptance of coercion in sexual relations.

20. Psychology of Attraction • Importance of Proximity: can’t fall in love with someone you’ve never met. • Mere Exposure Effect: the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases the liking of them…mirror image vs. reverse. • Similarity also is a strong determinant of attraction: share common goals, interests, and attitudes.

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

22. Making Love Last • Equity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it…decision-making, bank accounts, etc. • Self Disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others breeds liking.

23. Altruism • Altruism: unselfish regard for the welfare of others. • Bystander Effect: less likely to give aid if others are present..diffusion of responsibility. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdLzpVFWJ_c • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqTdXOQmXrc • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJeAOcC7c6M

24. Increasing Altruism & Cooperation • Social Exchange Theory: the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. Ex: volunteer at homeless shelter if believe benefits (good feelings, etc.) outweigh costs (time, effort, etc.) • Superordinate Goals: shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation. Ex: Remember the Titans

25. At a school wide pep rally preceding a big game at Williams James High School, each grade has a designated t-shirt color and seating area in the bleachers. Student leaders organize classes so that their colored shirts combine to form the school flag. The coach gives an exciting speech, the cheerleaders perform a routine, and the band plays the school song while the students sing in unison. Explain the behavior and perceptions of the participants in the pep rally using the concepts below. Be sure to apply the concepts to the scenario in your explanation. • Cocktail party effect • Conformity • Figure-ground • Deindividuation • Social Loafing