Unit 12: Social Pyschology WHS AP Psychology Unit 12: Social Pyschology Essential Task 12-1:Apply attribution theory to explain the behavior of others with specific attention to the fundamental attribution error, self-serving bias, just-world hypothesis and differences between collectivistic and individualistic cultures Logo Green is R=8 G=138 B=76 Blue is R= 0 G=110 B=184 Border Grey is R=74 G=69 B=64

Social Psychology Conformity Compliance Schema Attraction Attribution Attitudes and Persuasion Impact of Others on You Group Behavior Fundamental Attribution Error Self-Serving Bias Just-World Hypothesis Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Culture Schema Conformity Compliance Group Polarization Group Think In-Group/Out-Group Attraction Cognitive Dissonance Routes to Persuasion Unit 12: Social Psychology We are here

Social Psychology The scientific study of the ways in which the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one individual are influenced by the real, imagined, or inferred behavior or characteristics of other people Today’s class: How you think about people How you explain their behavior Why you like them

Social Cognition: How you think about people? Impression Formation – how do you construct your social cognition? Primacy effect Early information about someone weighs more than later information in forming impressions We are “cognitive misers” Self-fulfilling prophecy A person’s expectations about another elicits behavior from the other person that confirms the expectations “Hostile” partners continued to be more hostile Randomly identified “bloomers” made greater gains Schemata Stereotypes

Impression Formation Schemata Ready-made categories Allow us to make inferences about others (good for cognitive misers) Also plays a major role in how we interpret and remember information We will remember characteristics of our schema that weren’t there

Impression Formation Stereotypes A set of characteristics believed to be shared by all members of a social category It is usually unfair Most often applied to sex, race, occupation, physical appearance, place of residence, membership in a group or organization Can become the basis for self-fulfilling prophecies

Self-fulfilling prophecy (Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid, 1977) Attractiveness Stereotype – sociability and socially savy Men received “background” information about a woman they were about to talk with on a phone, info included a photo. Women received same info, but no photo. IV: Photo of woman either attractive or unattractive DVs: 1) Men’s expectations about the woman 2) Observers’ ratings of the woman’s behavior Results: When men expected that the woman was attractive, she was judged as friendly, warm, and more animated than when men believed they were talking with an unattractive woman. (self-fulfilling prophecy)

Attribution: Why did he do that? Attribution Theory: tries to explain how people make judgments about the causes of other people’s behavior Three criteria used to judge behavior Distinctiveness: Is this how the person treats everyone or are you different? Consistency: Has the person always treated you this way or is this different? Consensus: Do other people do this same thing or is this really different?

Attribution: Why did he do that? Bob walks past you without saying hi. Distinctiveness: Your explanation as to why Bob did this will be different if he does this to everyone in the hall or just you Consistency: Your explanation as to why Bob did this will be different if he always says hi to you or if you don’t really know each other. Consensus: Whether you’re in New York vs. a college of 600 will change how you explain Bob’s behavior. ACTIVITY

Biases in Attribution: The errors to which your guesses will succumb Actor-Observer Effect: attribute actions of others to internal factors and the actions of yourself to external factors Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overemphasize personal causes for others’ behavior and underemphasize personal causes for our own behavior Defensive attribution Self-Serving Bias: Tendency to attribute our successes to our own efforts and our failures to external factors Just-world hypothesis: Assumption bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people Attribution across cultures varies dramatically

Effects of Attribution How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it.

Collectivistic vs. Individualistic