Social Psychology:

Chapter 13

Social Behavior: Interacting

With People
Social psychology: the area of
psychology concerned with the
interaction between individuals and
groups and the effect of society on
behaviour
Only four species are ultra-social (including
us).

Survival among limited or scarce

resources

Aggression
Aggression: behavior whose purpose is to
harm another
Frustration-aggression hypothesis: a
principle stating that animals aggress only
when their goals are thwarted
Negative affect may also cause aggression.
Gender (being male) is the best predictor of
aggression.
Socialization and testosterone may be causes
Status and/or dominance may be threatened

Aggression varies by geographic location.

South more aggressive?
Culture affects standards of aggressive acts.

Culture of Honor
A set of societal norms whose central idea
is that people (particularly men) should be
ready to defend their honor with violent
retaliation if necessary
Southern U.S. has more honor-related
homicides (Nisbett et al., 1995)
Southern students respond more
aggressively to an insult in a lab setting
(Cohen, et al., 1996)

Figure 13.1
Hot and Bothered

Figure 13.2
I Spy Threat

Figure 13.3
The Geography of Violence

Questions
Why are men more physically
aggressive than women?
What evidence suggests that culture
can influence aggression?

Cooperation
Cooperation: behavior by two or
more individuals that leads to mutual
benefit
Cooperation is risky; the Prisoners
Dilemma game
Trustworthiness is key.

Figure 13.4
The Prisoners Dilemma

Questions
What makes cooperation risky?

Groups and Favoritism

Group: a collection of people who have something in
common that distinguishes them from others
Favoritism towards other members in the group

Prejudice: a positive or negative evaluation of another

person based on their group membership
Discrimination: positive or negative behavior toward
another person based on their group membership
Decision making in a group can be hindered
Deindividuation: when immersion in a group causes
people to become less aware of their individual values
Diffusion of responsibility: the tendency for individuals to
feel diminished responsibility for their actions when they are
surrounded by others who are acting the same way
Inclusion in groups promotes well-being and a feeling of
belonging

The Bystander Effect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=BdpdUbW8vbw

Questions
How do groups lessen the risks of
cooperation?

Figure 13.6
Mob Size and Level of Atrocity

Hot Science: The Eyes

Have It
Is the honor system
enough to ensure members
of a university pay for their
coffee?
Posting pictures of either
flowers or human eyes
above the coffee pot
yielded greater honesty
(paying for the coffee)
when the eye pictures were
posted than when the
flower pictures were
posted.
Even the slightest hint of
being watched makes us
mindful of our (ethical!)
behavior.

Altruism
Altruism: behavior that benefits
another without benefitting oneself
Reciprocal altruism: behavior that
benefits another with the expectation
that those benefits will be returned in
the future

Kin selection: people are more

likely to help those who are blood
relatives because it will increase the
odds of gene transmission to future
generations

Questions
Are human beings really altruistic?

Reproduction: The Quest for

Immortality
Sexual partners are selected
and women tend to be choosier.
Sex is a greater investment for
women.
Culture propagates a bias in
reputation.
Small changes in courtship ritual
can cause men to be choosier.

Questions
Why are women choosier than men?

The Ideal Romantic Partner

Mate selection is one of the most
fascinating aspects of human
behavior. Both men and women
spend a great deal of time and
energy advertising themselves as
potential mates and evaluating the
desirability of other people as mates.

Question 1: HEIGHT
My ideal romantic partner would be:
A. considerably taller than I
am.
B. a little taller than I am.
C. exactly my height.
D. a little shorter than I am.
E. any height; height isnt an
issue for me.

Question 2: AGE
My ideal romantic partner
would be:
A. considerably younger than I
am.
B. a little younger than I am.
C. exactly my age.
D. a little older than I am.
E. any age; age isnt an issue for
me.

Question 3: WEIGHT
My ideal romantic partner
would be:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.

considerably underweight.
a little underweight.
average weight.
a little overweight.
considerably overweight.

Question 4: COMMITMENT
My ideal romantic partner
would be:
A. Completely committed and faithful
for life.
B. Willing to commit for a period of
time.
C. Happy if both of us continued to
play
the field.
D. Either committed to me or not;
commitment isnt an issue for me.

A Typical Pattern of Results

Issue
Typical Female Prefers Typical Male Prefers
Height
Taller mate
Shorter mate
Age
Older mate
Younger mate
Weight
Average weight
Average weight
Commitment Mate willing to commit
Committed for now
Ambition
Ambitious, high status mate
Not an issue
Finances
Financially secure mate Not an issue
Health
Healthy mate
Healthy mate
AttractivenessAttractive mate
Very attractive mate
Ethics
Strong integrity
Flexible ethics

Preferences Across Cultures

EuropeanAmerican
1.Trust
2.Friendship
3.Love
4.Honesty

AfricanAmerican Jamaican
Honesty
Men
Love
Patience
Trust
Trust
Caring
Understanding
Communication
Communication
Women5.Trust
Truth
6.Friendship Love
Love
7.Love
Honesty
Honesty
8.Honesty
Trust
Respect

Japanese
Beauty
Cooking
Ability
Kindness
Youth

Love
Wealth
Fun
Honesty

Attraction
Attraction (feeling of preference) to another is caused
by situational, physical, and psychological factors.
Proximity breeds fondness.
Mere exposure effect: the tendency for liking to
increase with the frequency of exposure
Arousal can be misinterpreted as attraction.
Physical attractiveness is the major factor in
attraction (and elicits all kinds of preferential
treatment).
Body shape, symmetry, and age are all common factors.
These factors are also predictors of good genes and good
parenting.

We prefer mates who are psychologically (attitudes

and beliefs) similar to us for a variety of reasons.

Figure 13.8
Height Matters

Questions
Why does proximity influence
attraction?
Why is physical appearance so
important?
What kind of information does
physical appearance convey?
Why is similarity such a powerful
determinant of attraction?

The Real World: Making

the Move

Women being more selective in mates may have more to do with

courtship ritual.
Making the first move in dating would signal the mate with the greatest
interest, however in many cultures, men are expected to make the first
move in dating, regardless.
Does this cause men to feel like they do in fact have greater interest (and
women less interest)?
In a speed-dating experiment, either men or women remained seated
and were approached.
Results showed that when the men made the move, women were
choosier, but when women made the move, men were choosier.
Approaching someone makes us eager and being approached makes us
cautious.

Relationships
We form relationships to care for helpless offspring (more work
than one caretaker can normally provide).
Marriage in many cultures is the norm, and love is one of the major
reasons why.
Roughly one in two marriages end in divorce in our country.

There are two basic kinds of love:

Passionate love: an experience involving feelings of euphoria, intimacy,
and intense sexual attraction
Companionate love: an experience involving affection, trust, and
concern for a partners well-being

Social exchange: the hypothesis that people remain in

relationships only as long as they perceive a favorable ratio of
costs to benefits
Comparison level: the cost-benefit ratio that people believe they
deserve or could attain in another relationship
Equity: a state of affairs in which the cost-benefit ratios of the two
partners are roughly equal
Sunken-cost theories predict that following great investment, individuals
will settle for less than optimal cost-benefit ratios.

Figure 3.10
Passionate and Companionate Love

Questions
Why do people form long-term
romantic relationships?
How do people weigh the costs and
benefits of their relationships?

Social Influence: Controlling

People
Social influence: the ability to
control another persons behavior
There are three basic motivations which
make people susceptible to social
influence:
The hedonic motive, approval motive,
accuracy motive

The Hedonic Motive: Pleasure Is

Better Than Pain
Pleasure-seeking is the most basic of
all motives.
Reward and punishment can
influence behavior, but can also
backfire.

Questions
How effective are rewards and
punishments?

Figure 13.11
The Cost of Speeding

Culture and Community: Free

Parking
People dont like to be
manipulated and get upset when
their freedom is threatened.
An experiment asked participants
how they felt if asked to either
give up their personal campus
parking pass for a week or if the
entire parking lot was closed.
It was found that European
Americans were more irritated if
they had to give up their own
freedom (parking pass) than a
consequence that limited
everyones freedom (entire lot).
Latinos and Asian Americans felt
the opposite way.

Normative Influence
Norm: a customary standard for
behavior that is widely shared by
members of a culture
Normative influence: occurs when
another persons behavior provides
information about what is appropriate
Norm of reciprocity: the unwritten
rule that people should benefit those
who have benefited them

Figure 13.12
The Perils of Connection

Questions
How are we influenced by other
peoples behavior?

Conformity and
Obedience
Conformity: the tendency to do
what others do simply because
others are doing it
Solomon Aschs (1907-1996) conformity
study

Obedience: the tendency to do what

powerful people tell us to do
Stanley Milgrams
(1933-1984) obedience study

Normative pressure can have a

Figure 13.13
Aschs Conformity Study

Figure 13.14
Normative Influence at Work

Questions
Why do we do what we see other
people doing?
Why do we do what others tell us?

The Accuracy Motive: Right Is

Better Than Wrong
Attitudes tell us what we should do
and beliefs tell us how to do it.
Attitude: an enduring positive or
negative evaluation of an object or
event
Belief: an enduring piece of knowledge
about an object or event

Informational influence: occurs

when another persons behavior
provides information about what is
good or right

Questions
How do informational and normative
influence differ?

Persuasion and
Consistency
Persuasion: a persons attitudes or beliefs are influenced by
a communication from another person
Systematic persuasion: the process by which attitudes or beliefs
are changed by appeals to reason
Heuristic persuasion: the process by which attitudes or beliefs
are changed by appeals to habit or emotion

People evaluate the accuracy of new beliefs by assessing

their consistency with old beliefs.
Foot-in-the-door technique: a technique that involves a
small request followed by a larger request
Door-in-the-face technique: a strategy that uses
reciprocating concessions to influence behavior
Cognitive dissonance: an unpleasant state that arises
when a person recognizes the inconsistency of his or her
actions, attitudes, or beliefs
Change to alleviate anxiety
Inconsistencies can be justified

Figure 13.16
Systematic and Heuristic Persuasion

Figure 13.17
Alleviating Cognitive Dissonance

Questions
When is it more effective to appeal to
reason or to emotion?
Why do we care about being
consistent?
What happens when we are
inconsistent?

Social Cognition: Understanding

People
The medial prefrontal cortex is
activated when we think about other
peoples attributes.
Social cognition: the processes by
which people come to understand
others
We make inferences about others
based on the categories to which
they belong and the things they do
and say.

Stereotyping: Drawing
Inferences from Categories
Stereotyping: the process by which people draw inferences about
others based on their knowledge of the categories to which others
belong
Stereotypes can be inaccurate (acquired through hearsay or
observation).
We overestimate rare events.

Stereotypes can be overused.

We underestimate within-category variability.

Stereotypes can be self-perpetuating.

Perpetual confirmation: when observers perceive what they expect to
perceive
Self-fulfilling prophecy: the tendency for people to cause what they
expect to see
Stereotype threat

Subtyping: the tendency for people who are faced with disconfirming
evidence to modify their stereotypes rather than abandon them

Stereotyping can be automatic (occur unconsciously).

Training against this can help.

Figure 13.18
Seeing Correlations That Arent Really There

Figure 13.19
How Categorization Warps Perception

Figure 13.20
Perceiving Categories

Figure 13.21
Stereotype Threat

Questions
Why are stereotypes useful?
Why arent stereotypes changes by
experience?
How does categorization warp
perception?
In what way is a stereotype like a
virus?
Can we decide not to stereotype?

Hot Science: The Color of

Expectations
People see what they expect to see.
In an experiment, participants were asked to adjust
the color of objects from their natural color to a
neutral gray.
Objects that were uncommon (yellow blob) were
easily adjusted to gray.
Common objects (yellow banana) were over-adjusted
(past gray to slightly blue) because participants had
expected to continually see common objects in their
expected colors.

Attribution: Drawing Inferences

from Actions
Attribution: an inference about the cause of a persons
behavior
Situational attributions attribute the external situation as cause
Dispositional attributions attribute someones internal disposition
as cause

The covariation model claims we rely on consistency,

distinctiveness, and consensus.
Correspondence bias: the tendency to make a
dispositional attribution even when a persons behavior was
caused by the situation (fundamental attribution error)
Situational causes may be invisible.
Situational causes may be more complex.

Actor-observer effect: the tendency to make situational

attributions for our own behaviors while making
dispositional attributions for the identical behavior of others

Figure 13.22
The Covariation Model of Attribution

Questions
Why dont peoples behavior always
tell us something about them?
Why do we tend to make
dispositional attributions?

Where Do You Stand? The Model

Employee
Retail stores may be instructed to
recruit employees based on good
looks, not retail experience.
Retail employers are not allowed to
discriminate yet beauty is what sells
products.
Should businesses be required to
disregard a persons physical
attractiveness when making hiring
decisions?