Social Psychology

AP Psych. Prep 14

Social Psychology
How our psychology is influenced by others, by our social environment.

Looks at a lot of influences on our daily lives as we interact with others.

Outline
Attitudes Behaviour and Attitudes

Attribution Theory
Stereotypes, Prejudice, Discrimination Aggression Prosocial Behaviour Attraction

Social Environment and our Behaviour

Group Dynamics

Social Cognition
A subset of social psychology; looks at how we think about ourselves and the relations between those including effects of memory, bias, thinking, etc.

Social Cognition perspectives see us constantly gathering information to understand and predict our social worlds

Attitudes
Attitude - set of beliefs and feelings, involve our evaluations of things (if we feel things are good and bad) lots of research into how to influence or change peoples attitudes. (advertising industry really likes to know how to make people like things)

Attitudes
Mere exposure effect - the more youre exposed to something, the more youll like it.

Thats why companies play their commercials over and over.

Attitudes
When trying to convince someone, persuasive messages can go through two types of processing:

central route - deep processing; thinking about the content of the message, using full rational cognitive powers to evaluate how persuasive the message is

Attitudes
peripheral route - deciding how persuasive a message is based on other factors (not message content) including characteristics of the communication method, the person giving the message, etc.

Attitudes
e.g. communicator - attractive people, celebrities, and experts make messages more persuasive

audience - less educated audience is more likely to be convinced by a message

Attitudes
method - less educated audience = better to use one-sided message

more educated audience = better to show both sides of an argument, and try to refute the opposing side

Attitudes
causing fear with messages can be effective, but too much fear can reduce how well the message convinces people

Behaviour and Attitudes

Studies find that attitudes dont tell us exactly what peoples behaviour will be

cognitive dissonance theory - idea that people are motivated to make their attitudes and behaviour match. (relates to connection between behaviour and attitudes)

Behaviour and Attitudes

if not matching, we feel mental uncomfortableness (dissonance)

we get rid of dissonance by changing our behaviour or our attitudes. Often easier to change the attitude

Happens outside conscious awareness

Behaviour and Attitudes

e.g. if your attitude is that only fat, weak-willed people eat sweets, but you start to eat sweet foods occasionally, you might change your attitude to think sometimes regular people eat sweets too, and its not so bad.

Cognitive Dissonance

Behaviour and Attitudes

Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith 1950s study of cognitive dissonance

participants did a boring task, and experimenter asked them to lie to the next person (who was a confederate, working for the psych.) and say it was interesting.

Behaviour and Attitudes

Some participants were paid $20, some were paid $1.

Then they measured attitudes towards the task. $20 group felt task was boring - no dissonance b/c lie was for lots of money; so there was no attitude change

Behaviour and Attitudes

$1 group felt task was more interesting - $1 was not enough to justify the lie. Therefore the person feels cognitive dissonance, which causes attitude change.

Behaviour and Attitudes

Compliance - getting someone to do what you want them to do.

Do you know strategies to try to get someone to do a favour? fulfil a request

Behaviour and Attitudes

Psychologists have studied compliance strategies foot-in-the-door - the idea that if someone does a small thing for you, they will be likely to do a larger thing too if you ask them

Behaviour and Attitudes

e.g. -Can you make one copy of this sheet for me? -Sure -Oh, while youre doing that, can you copy these 10 sheets as well. -Um, I guess so

Behaviour and Attitudes

door-in-the-face - if someone refuses a big request, they will then be more likely to do a smaller thing because the second one seems like less work, easier etc.

Behaviour and Attitudes

e.g. -Can you copy these 500 sheets for me? -...Uh, no. -Ok, sorry. Then how about just these 10? I really need them for class in 10 minutes. -Sure, ok.

Behaviour and Attitudes

Norms of Reciprocity - societal rules or expectations that say if we help someone, they should help us back.

Predicts that if you help someone theyll probably be more likely to help you later in return.

Attribution Theory
How do we explain behaviour we see in our social world? To what do we attribute causes of behaviour?

Attribution Theory
Two scales: dispositional/person vs. situation and stable vs. unstable attributions

dispositional/person - we think something happens because of the nature of the person...

Attribution Theory
situation - due to factors of the situation stable - unchanging unstable - more variable, changing

e.g. stable-dispositional could be that person is always angry

Attribution Theory
e.g. unstable-situation could be in this case, the situation with the Japanese man was harsh and caused him to be angry

unstable-disposition: ______________ _______________________________

stable-situation: _________________ ______________________________

Attribution Theory
According to Harold Kelly, we often look at 3 things before we make our attributions:

1. consistency - is the reaction similar to previous reactions? How consistently does the person act?

Attribution Theory
2. distinctiveness - is this situation similar or different from the other situations youve witnessed?

3. consensus - how do others in the same situation act? the same, or different?

Attribution Theory
consensus is really helpful for making person vs. situation determinations Why do you think this is true?

consistency is really helpful when we decide stable or unstable? Why?

Attribution Theory
Self-fulfilling prophecies - our attributions / expectations of people can influence their behaviour, and can even cause them to do what we thought they would do.

Attribution Theory
e.g. If I hear from other teachers that ___ student is a trouble maker, I might treat them more harshly, watch them closely, etc. This might make them feel stress, anger, and this might cause them to act out in class, make trouble. My expectation caused this to happen.

Attribution Theory
Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson studied this in a classroom setting (1968 - Pygmalion in the Classroom)

Attribution Theory
Gave test to students (just normal IQ test) and chose some students randomly. Told teachers that the test said these students were going to start doing much better in school. Wasnt true, just random students... But when tested later, they did do better than their friends.

Attribution Theory
Teachers expectations caused students to do better. They must have treated the students differently somehow to cause this kind of change...

But happened outside of conscious knowledge, teachers didnt try to improve these particular students

Attribution Theory
self-fulfilling prophecies are why we need to be careful about our expectations for people. People may meet our positive expectations, but they might also fulfil our negative expectations...

Attribution Theory
Social Biases

When we make attributions about our own and others behaviour we an sometimes make mistakes.

Attribution Theory
Fundamental Attribution Error - we more often make dispositional/person attributions for other people, and situational attributions for ourselves.

Attribution Theory
If you meet a new person and they act angrily, youre more likely to assume they are a jerk, and unlikely to think about possible situational factors (like someone just stole the persons phone, for example)

Attribution Theory
But for ourselves, we put much more weight on possible situational causes for how we act.

Attribution Theory
Possibly stronger effect in individualistic cultures (e.g. U.S., Canada, Europe), than in collectivist cultures (e.g. Asian, Native Canadian...) where focus is less on individual and more on families, groups, etc.

Attribution - Other Biases

Self-serving bias - we tend to take more credit for successes than we take responsibility for failures.

e.g. if we pass a test I worked hard

Im smart or

if we fail Test was hard or Teacher is a jerk

Attribution - Other Biases

Just-world bias - tendency to think that bad things happen to bad people. So if something bad happens to someone, they must have deserved it....

Maybe a way to protect our minds, feel safe (if we are good people, well be ok)

Attribution - Other Biases

Just-world bias is a very dangerous way of thinking

Can cause us to blame the victim a common and horribly dangerous trap to fall into...

Blaming the Victim

Attribution - Other Biases

False-consensus effect - people tend to think that most people agree with them on any issue

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Stereotype - expectations or ideas about what members of a group are like. Can be positive or negative, and can be about any kind of group.

Some psychologists see stereotypes as our schemata about groups. Others think stereotypes are harder to change.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Prejudice - Pre-judging unfair attitude towards a group of people because you judged them before you saw the evidence

Usually a negative attitude.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

One specific example is ethnocentrism - prejudice that your group is better than other groups (ethnic group, racial group)

Because you think your group is best. Look down on other groups as inferior

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Discrimination - when you act differently towards someone because of a prejudice that your hold.

in-group - your group

out-group - the outsiders, people not in your group, other groups

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Out-group homogeneity - the tendency to see people of other groups to be generally similar to each other.

Members of out-groups are thought to be more like each other than the members of your group are

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Probably because of how much experience we have with each other. We usually have little experience with outgroups, but a lot with our in-group, so its easier to see in-group as more varied....

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

In-group bias - researchers have also found people tend to prefer members of their own group.

Stereotypes and prejudice might come from our natural mental use of schemata to make categories to understand our world...

Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination

Or they might come from observational learning, where we might see others (including adults, parents) using stereotypes and discriminating and we learn to do the same thing.

Fighting Against Prejudice

Muzafer Sherif did a study examining prejudice and group animosity in 1966 (called Robbers Cave Study)

At a summer camp, divided children into two groups and had them compete in games (to create negative feelings towards each other)

Fighting Against Prejudice

Then he had them work together to solve some emergency problems (called superordinate goals) and found that this helped remove negative feelings and bring opposite group members closer.

Fighting Against Prejudice

This study is cited as support for the contact theory of fighting prejudice. Contact theory - idea that contact between groups with a shared goal or purpose can help remove prejudice

Note: just contact by itself wont remove prejudice...

Aggression
Psychologists see two kinds of aggression:

instrumental aggression - when aggression is used to get something we want

e.g. punch your friend to take her chocolate

Aggression
hostile aggression - aggression with no clear purpose, just to be aggressive, not to gain something

Theories of Aggression:
Psychoanalytic - Thanatos (death instinct)

Theories of Aggression
Evolutionary Perspective (Sociobiology) - aggression might be useful for us sometimes; to help us survive

(during our evolutionary history, not necessarily now...)

Theories of Aggression
Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis idea that being frustrated makes violence more likely Supported by research

Theories of Aggression
Observational Learning and Aggression - remember Albert Banduras bobo doll experiment

Prosocial Behaviour
Psychologists not just interested in negative behaviours like aggression, but also positive behavoiurs.

Prosocial Behaviour - helping others

Prosocial Behaviour
Bystander intervention - nearby people helping strangers who need help. (a commonly studied type of prosocial behaviour)

Prosocial Behaviour
Real life example: Murder of Kitty Genovese in New York, 1964 This young woman was stabbed to death, and at least 38 people saw or heard something, but no one called the police...

Prosocial Behaviour
This horrific case caused John Darley and Bibb Latane to study bystander intervention

Found that people who see someone in an emergency are less likely to help if there are more people around.
Called the Bystander Effect

Prosocial Behaviour
Some think this is because of diffusion of responsibility - each person feels less individual responsibility, because the resp. is divided among all the people.

So if one or two people only, they feel responsibility more strongly.

I dont need to help, someone else will

Prosocial Behaviour
Another part of the explanation is pluralistic ignorance - we decide if a situation is an emergency by looking at others.

If no one else seems to be worried, we assume the situation is not really an emergency.

Prosocial Behaviour
e.g. In the library, fire alarm goes off. You look at other people, see how they are reacting, and you decide if its an emergency or not if they seem calm, then you think its not an emergency...

Attraction
What will influence whether people are attracted to each other.

3 factors:

Similarity - we tend to be attracted to people who are similar to us (physically, attitudes, interests, backgrounds, etc.)

Attraction
Proximity - people who are near each other, spend a lot of time together, tend to be more attracted to each other

(So choose your seat carefully) Similar to mere-exposure effect

Attraction
Reciprocal Liking - if someone likes you, youre more likely to like them too. (reverse is also true)

Physical attractiveness often connected to symmetry - two sides reflect each other well

Which of these three is most attractive?

Attraction
Experiments where you show people faces and ask how attractive they are, people tend to say more symmetric faces are more attractive.

Attraction
As well, physically attractive people are assumed to have other characteristics, including having good personality, will perform well at their jobs, etc....

(We should be careful about this as well....)

Attraction
One other connected thing:

Self-disclosure - sharing personal info with others, often part of getting to know someone, becoming closer to them

Social Environment and our Behaviour How do other people influence our behaviour?

social facilitation - we tend to do better on tasks if people are watching us. e.g. an audience makes us run faster (for well practiced, easy tasks)

Social Environment and our Behaviour social impairment - how and audience can hamper our performance for more difficult tasks. We do less well if people are watching...

conformity - doing things the same as others, going along with how they think or act.

Social Environment and our Behaviour Solomon Asch (1951) classic study

Show lines to people, other people (confederates) say wrong answer, see if subject conforms and says same wrong answer, or tells the truth.

About 1/3 of the time the person conformed If all the confederates give the wrong answer, person is more likely to conform.

Social Environment and our Behaviour Obedience - if people are told to do something, do they do that thing? Are they obedient to the command?

Milgrams Obedience Studies (1974)

People teaching a confederate in another room (original study: they cant see the person, just hear them)

Milgram Obedience Study Setup Experimenter

Learner

Participant

Social Environment and our Behaviour

If the person makes a mistake, the scientist tells the participant to shock the person with a machine in front of them.

Not real shocks

Social Environment and our Behaviour Each mistake, they were told to shock with stronger shock, moving up the scale from weak shock to stronger shock

15 volts

450 volts

mild

XXX

Social Environment and our Behaviour

Confederate asked teacher participant to stop, said they had heart problems, and eventually stopped speaking

Even so, more than 60% of the people delivered all the shocks
Many people, including Milgram, were very surprised by this result....

Social Environment and our Behaviour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1 47ybOdgpE

Later studies found things that reduced obedience:

if participant could see the person

if they had to force the learners hand onto a shock plate (still 30%)

Social Environment and our Behaviour Things that reduced obedience:

if scientist switches with an assistant, who gives the orders if there are other confederates in room who say dont do it

Social Environment and our Behaviour These studies very unlikely to pass ethical reviews today. IRB would probably not let us do this study today

People were very disturbed to learn that the shock levels they administered would have killed the learner if they were real

Social Environment and our Behaviour Many parallels / comparisons made to Nazi Germany, and soldiers doing what they were told, even when it killed innocent people (Holocaust, Jewish and other people killed because solders were commanded to do it, and they obeyed...)

Group Dynamics
Our group memberships can also affect us. We are members of many groups, official and unofficial.

groups have rules, guidelines, called norms that guide how people should act

Group Dynamics
Often groups have roles. e.g. within a family there are different people with different expectations about how to act. e.g. mothers, sons, daughters, cousins, grandfathers, etc...

Group Dynamics
Social loafing - people who are lazy, because theyre in a group

If youre alone, people can easily tell how hard you work; people might be more lazy if they can hide within the group

Group Dynamics
Group polarization - groups tend to make more extreme/strong decisions than any one individual would on their own.

Possibly because of diffusion of responsibility, and maybe because some people might convince others to move to a more extreme position

Group Dynamics
Groupthink - Irving Janis idea that if people are in groups they might not say if they have problems with an idea;

so the idea might seem like more people agree. false agreement

They say yes, but are all thinking no

Groupthink

Group Dynamics
Deindividuation - when you feel less like an individual because youre in a group. Sometimes people do things they wouldnt normally do if they were along. Because they feel anonymous... e.g. Mob Behaviour

Group Dynamics
Stanford Prison Studies - Phillip Zimbardo (1971)

24 male students in basement of Stanford University building, randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards in a fake prison

Group Dynamics
Involves influence of both roles and deindividuation.

Guards and prisoners both started acting like their roles very quickly. Had to end study early because guards were being cruel to prisoners, who became very helpless.

Stanford Prison Study

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jwgzK1C8JA

Conclusion
Social Psychology is our last topic in AP Psychology, but it many ways it is the most interesting. We all live in a strong social world, and we are influenced and influence others psychology all the time. Understanding social psychology can help us see why we think and act in certain ways, and can help us repair our negative ways of thinking and acting.