Social Psychology Unit Objective: student will understand the powerful influences of social situation on the behavior of individuals and be introduced to research studies on attitudes and cultural influences. Do Now: Pick up Notes and Modules on Social Psychology Attitude Attraction Aggression Group Behavior the study of how a person’s perceptions or thoughts (social cognition), feelings, and behavior(social interactions) are influenced by the real, imagined or implied presence of others (social influence).

Kitty Genovese case in Kew Gardens NY. How do individuals and groups respond to an emergency? When people are alone, they will respond but when there are more than 3 people, most people usually do not do anything. Why? Maybe because it is dangerous to get involved, but there is more….. John Darley and Bibb Latane(1968) – discovered there are social behaviors that keep people from responding. Bystander Effect/ B ystander Apathy : Conditions in which people are more or less likely to help one another. In general…the more people around…the less chance of help….because of… Diffusion of Responsibility – someone else has taken or will take care of the situation.

Questions Social Psychologist ask Why are some people prejudiced toward certain others? Why do we obey some people but not others? What causes us to like, to love, or to hate others? How does society affect our thoughts and behavior?

Learning objectives of social influence Do people act differently in different situations? How does the presence of others affect an individual’s behavior? How do group dynamics influence behavior? How can an individual change a group’s behavior? We will study 2 more processes in the following classes, social cognition and social interaction.

Social Influence The process through which the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of an individual. Do our ideas and action remain consistent from day to day and from place to place? People can influence others to obey, or disobey, authority figures. And sometimes the mere presence of others can influence how people perform tasks.

How does the presence of others affect an individual’s behavior? Conformity occurs when we change our own behavior to match others’. (Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to match a unanimous group standard). Compliance occurs when we change our behavior as a result of another person’s request. Obedience occurs when we change our behavior at the direct order of an authority figure.

Conformity - adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard, could be bad or good or funny. elevator experiment

Asch’s Study of Conformity (1951)

Asch’s Results About 1/3 of the participants conformed. 70% conformed at least once. To strengthen conformity: The group is unanimous The group is at least three people. One admires the group’s status One had made no prior commitment

Compliance Strategies - changing behavior as a result of another person’s request. This is Consumer Psychology: Foot-in-the-door – will you wear my ring, ok, now will you marry me? Door-in-the-face – large request turned down, but will do a smaller more reasonable request. Relies on reciprocity. Norms of reciprocity – someone does something for you, you feel obligated to return the favor. Lowball technique – once commitment is made, then the cost goes up. Wait, that’s not all – for a short time, you can get 2 for the price of one!

Milgram’s Study on Obedience

What did we learn from Milgram? Ordinary people can do shocking things. Ethical issues…. Would not have received approval from today’s IRB (Internal Review Board). French game show:

How groups affect our behavior?

Group Dynamics

How groups affect Task performance The ease of a task can have an impact. No matter the ease, either difficult or easy, the presence of a group increases arousal. The rules of social influence affect different individuals differently. But we tend to do worse work in groups. Cultures that are collectivist do better than individualist because they believe that each person is just as responsible for the group’s performance at large.

Social Facilitation Theory If you are really good at something….or it is an easy task…you will perform BETTER in front of a group. If it is a difficult task or you are not very good at it…you will perform WORSE in front of a group (social impairment).

Social Loafing The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable.

Group Polarization Groups tend to make more extreme decisions than the individual. The strengthening of shared beliefs may increase through discussion of group. Example: political opinions of the whole group may become stronger.

Groupthink- concerned with group harmony So that group members will: suppress their doubts about the ideas supported by the group.( pressure, lack of disagreement) Invulnerability – feel they cannot fail and that they all agree. (self-deception) Rationalization - explain away warning signs and help each other rationalize their decision. Lack introspection – do not examine ethical or moral concerns. Stereotype – their “enemies” as stupid, weak, etc. Insularity – prevent group from hearing info from outside their group.

De-individuation People get swept up in a group and lose sense of self. More likely to commit acts of violence. Feel anonymous and aroused. Explains rioting behaviors.

Zimbardo’s Prison Study Showed how we can become anonymous AND become the roles we are assigned. Philip Zimbardo has students at Stanford U play the roles of prisoner and prison guards in the basement of psychology building. They were given uniforms and numbers for each prisoner. What do you think happened?

Leadership Theories Great person theory – leaders are extraordinary people who lead because they are born to, situation does not matter. Transactional view – many factors combine under the right conditions for the right kind of leader, but the situation might change. (ex. An aggressive demanding person could do well in an organization that is failing and that kind of manager, but when the organization begins to function well, having a pushy demanding boss could go badly quickly) Transformational view – leaders are those who have certain personality traits that inspire individuals and organizations to make positive change. The manager listens to the individuals and makes them feel valued.

Social Cognition Focuses on the ways in which people think about other people and how those thoughts influence behavior towards those person. Two aspects of social cognition(thinking) are : Attitudes – a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, person, object, or situation. Attributions – the process of explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of others.

Attitudes A set of beliefs and feelings are learned through experiences and contact with others. Advertising is based on attitude formation. Sometimes we form our attitudes just because we are exposed to it often. Mere Exposure Effect – begin to like just by being constantly exposed to something or someone. You will see this term again when we discuss social interactions.

Attitudes are Actually Made up of Three Different Parts

Attitude Formation Formed through different types of learning: direct contact – learned it by self direct instruction – taught by teacher interaction with others – taught by others Vicarious – accidently learned observational learning – learned by watching and imitating Not only influenced by other people in the individual’s immediate world but also by the larger world. (culturally) However, attitudes do not always predict actual behavior.

When Attitudes and Behavior Clash Cognitive Dissonance Theory: People want to have consistent attitudes and behaviors….when these to clash, people experience dissonance (an unpleasant tension). Usually they will change their attitude or justify their behavior. Leon Festinger (1959) dull task, given $1 or $20, wouldn’t lie to someone for $1, so changed their minds to think the task was fun. You have the idea that cheating is bad. But you cheat on a test!!! The teacher was really bad so in that class it is OK.

How can Attitudes be changed? Persuasion – the process by which one person tries to change someone else’s belief, opinion, or position. Elaboration likelihood model – how easily influenced one might be, depends on how they process information. Two parts of this model: Central Route v. Peripheral Route - people attend to the content of the message rather than making decisions based on other factors, such as emotions, the length or the source of the message, or anything other than the content.

Attribution The process of explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of others. When our own behavior does not make sense, we use cognitive dissonance, but … when we explain other’s behavior we use other explanations.

How do people explain actions of others? Attribution Theory – how we try to understand the cause of our own or other’s behavior. According to Heider(1958), we use two kinds of explanations: Situational Attribution – behavior comes from external factors out of the person’s control or Dispositional Attribution – behavior comes from internal factors within the person’s control, just as their personality or character. 30

Fundamental Attribution Error – over estimating the other person’s internal characteristic and underestimating the influence of the situation. Why do we do this? Cultural differences -Individualistic V. Collectivistic Cultures Self-Serving Bias – we tend to judge ourselves favorably. Our locus of control – internal or external. Our explanatory style – optimistic or not. Our attitudes! How do you view your teacher’s behavior on some days? You probably attribute it to their personality rather than their profession. But do you really know? What would you do in the same situation? If you win a game, it is because you are awesome…if you lose, it must have been the coach or weather or….

Other Attributions Errors When you start a romance, you assume they agree with your world views….Known as the honeymoon period. False Consensus effect – overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors. Can you think of any other tendencies we have that might make Attributions Errors?

Social Interaction The relationships between people, both casual and intimate. includes prejudices, discrimination, liking, aggression, and pro-social behaviors. In review: One of our primary cognitions is to group or categorize objects or people according to our schemas. This way we make sense of the world very quickly and know how to behave. Stereotyping is one way to categorize. Is stereotyping always a bad thing? It is if it leads to prejudicial behavior or discrimination.

Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination, What’s the difference? Stereotype: Overgeneralized idea about a group of people. (i.e. people with grey hair are old) Prejudice: attitude towards a group of people. Ethnocentrism- superiority of one's own group is an example of a negative prejudice. (i.e. old people are slow workers) Discrimination: An action(behavior) based on a prejudice. (i.e. not hiring an old person.

How does prejudice occur? They are learned: Social cognitive(learning) theory – attitudes are form through direct instruction, modeling, and other social influences. In-Group versus Out-Groups or “us” versus “them”. Social Identity Theory – the formation of a person’s self-concept in view of their membership of a particular social group, they believe they are a part of. There are 3 parts: Social categorization(assign categories to other), identification (self identify w/group), and Social comparison – the comparison of oneself to others in ways that raise one’s self-esteem. Realistic conflict theory – discrimination increased between groups that are in conflict over limited resources. A Class Divided (Peters, 1971) book about Jane Elliot(1968) class experiment about brown eyes, blue eyes

Prejudices can often lead to…. Influencing how people perceive others and themselves, making them bias towards themselves or others in the out-group. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - a prediction that causes itself to become true. Stereotype vulnerability(stereotype threat)– someone’s stereotype can affect the way people see themselves. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s “Pygmalion in the Classroom” experiment – people see what they expect to see..(teachers were told some children were more advanced than other and the teachers treated, graded, them better).

Overcoming Prejudice Best weapon is education and exposure to others: Jigsaw classrooms - is a cooperative learning approach that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, and improves student motivation. Intergroup Contact Theory - Contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if they are made to work towards a same goal. Serif Robber’s Cave study – where boys were divided into two groups and first were made to feel hostile towards each other, then had to resolve issues, like a water shortage, reduced their hostility and worked together to deal with the crisis where no one had power over the other (equal status contact).

What factors govern Attraction and Love? 5 Factors of Attraction

Physical Attractiveness

Reciprocal Liking You are more likely to like someone who likes you. Except when the one that is liked has low-self worth, then mistrust sets in and puts of the one who liked the other Due to self-fulfilling prophecy. And also, this does not hold true in some other situations, (like North Hills and in elementary school.)

Liking through Association Classical Conditioning can play a part in attraction. I love Theo’s Wings. If I see the same waitress every time I go there, I may begin to associate that waitress with the good feelings I get from Theo's. Then I fall in love with the waitress.

Proximity Geographic nearness Mere exposure effect: Repeated exposure to something breeds liking.

Similarity Birds of the same feather do flock together. Similarity breeds content.

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular theory of Love composed three elements of intelligence(analytical, creative and practical intelligence but also the 3 elements of love.)

Intimacy – is the psychological closeness one has for another, but not physical. Passion - is the physical aspects of love. Commitment – involves decisions one makes about relationship, I’ll be with them forever. Each of these components can be combined with one, two or all three. And the combinations can produce 7 different forms of love. Intimacy and passion combined can result in romantic love. Intimacy and commitment equal companionate love. The Love triangle will be on the next slide too.

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Psychology of Aggression Theories of Aggression: Bandura’s Modeling – learned from observing others Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis – when a person is prevented from reaching a goal. Biological – chemical and functional imbalances (alcohol, testosterone, the amygdala)

Power of Social Roles Some human aggression is influenced by learning, social learning theory. Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment A social role is the pattern of behavior that is expected in a particular social position.

Prosocial Behavior Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect: Conditions in which people are more or less likely to help one another. In general…the more people around…the less chance of help….because of… Diffusion of Responsibility Pluralistic Ignorance - People decide what to do by looking to others. Just world Phenomenon – people get what they deserve, blame the victim.

Beauty and Culture Different cultures view beauty differently.

Are these cultures really that different?