No, this is not a guide on how to get a date.

 Persuasion  Obedience  Group dynamics  Prejudice  Culture Formation  Stereotyping

 Tendency to attribute internal attributes to other people’s behavior  Self-serving bias  good things happen to us: internal reasons  bad things happen to us: external  Just-world hypothesis  Good things happen to good people  Bas things happen to bad people  Halo effect  Because there is one good thing about a person, this means that everything is good about him or her

 75% of participants conformed to the group majority  The larger the group, the larger the majority.

 In the voice feedback condition, 65% of participants obeyed the Experimenter.  One of the obeying participants was a Holocaust survivor.  “Agentic State”

 College-aged students randomly assigned to be a guard or a prisoner in a prison simulation.  Meant to be a role play intended to study the psychological effects of incarceration,  Environment became a sadistic prison environment  Guards physically and mentally abused the prisoners and  The prisoners became convinced that they were meant to stay indefinitely.  The experiment shows how easy it is for people to assume their roles and let it become their reality.

 Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)  Boring Task  “Tell others that this was fun!”  Some paid $20, others paid $1  Those paid $1 rated activity as more enjoyable than those who were paid $20  Cognitive Dissonance: Discomfort caused by behavior and belief not being congruent  Choice: Live with dissonance, change behavior, or change belief  If behavior is forced, then change in belief is possible

 Need for consensus  Results in suppression of dissent  “Symptoms”  Illusion of invulnerability  Self-censorship  Pressure to make dissenters conform  Illusion of unanimity  Examples  1986 Challenger Explosion  Bay of Pigs Invasion  Kennedy: “How could we have been so stupid? When we saw the wide range of the failures we asked ourselves why it had not been apparent to somebody from the start. I guess you get walled off from reality when you want something to succeed too much”.

 Commitment & Consistency  We stay loyal to those we make a commitment  Consensus  We are more likely persuaded to an idea if we see others believing in that idea  Liking  We like those who are like us  Authority  We tend to believe an idea if an authority figure endorses it  Scarcity  We must have what is scarce  Reciprocation  If you give me something, I feel compelled to give something in return.

 Muzafer Sherif took 24 school aged boys and separated them into two groups.  Without being told to, each group formed its own identity (the Rattlers and the Eagles), assigned roles, and hierarchal structure.  When the groups became aware of each other, they insisted on doing competitive games against one another

 The two groups engaged in a series of competitions. The winning group would win a trophy.  After a few days, the to groups were brought into the camp cafeteria, where excessive name calling resulted.

 The two groups started calling each other names.  After a while pranks were played on one another.  An Eagle cabin was broken into by a Rattler and several items were stolen  Signs of hostility, aggression, and hatred were observed in both groups by researchers.

 Sherif and his colleagues found that intergroup hostilities could be overcome if both groups worked together to achieve a common goal.  The Movie Problem  Maryland Referndum on Slavery (1864)  Truman Desegregating the Armed Forces (1947)

 United States: African-Americans and immigrants provided competition in finding jobs. The greatest hostilities were found during the Great Depression.  Europe: Many bankers throughout Europe were Jewish. Having strong influence over the economy, many viewed Jews as competitors.