Social Psychology The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another In other words, why do we do what we do, how do we treat, interact with and view others, how do groups influence our actions? Today we will learn… —How you think about other peoples and your own behavior —How the way we think of others causes us to behave and treat others

What is Person perception? PP is the process of forming impressions of others. We dress up for job interviews and maybe dress down for our friend’s party. We might not mention embarrassing stuff about ourselves.

Our attitudes influence actions and beliefs about others. Attribution Theory (Fritz Heider) – people usually attribute others’ behavior to either their internal dispositions or their external situations.

Dispositional (internal) or Situational (external)? Durango only won because the best players on MCHS’s team were out with injuries – talk about good fortune. External (situational) M-CHS band won State because we have some of the best talent in the state. Internal (dispositional) Anybody could win the NFC east; the competition is so far below average when compared to the rest of the conferences. External (situational) MCHS won the baseball tournament because we put in a great deal of effort and practice. Internal (dispositional)

What happens when attributions are wrong? Our attributions have consequences. The following attribution errors lead to overconfidence.

Fundamental Attribution Error – underestimating situational influences when evaluating the behavior of someone else. – He swerved into my lane because he is a jerk. Actor-observer bias – attributing others’ behaviors to disposition but your own behaviors (even the same behaviors) to situational factors. – Example: He swerved into my lane because he is a jerk, but I swerved into the next lane because I was trying to avoid an animal in the road. Self-serving bias – crediting your own successes to disposition, but attributing your own failures to situation. – Example: I won the game because I’m talented. I failed the test because the questions were unfair.

So what does this mean? FAE is a pitfall of judging other people, a self- serving bias is an error in the way we look at and interpret ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in.

Do our actions influence our attitudes? Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding two contradictory beliefs or performing an action contradictory to our beliefs.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance theory states that we are motivated to reduce this uncomfortable feeling by changing our beliefs to match our actions. The dissonance (uncomfortable feeling) is less if we feel that we were forced to perform the action. Thus, the larger the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior, the smaller the tendency to change opinion.

Example of Cognitive Dissonance Smokers tend to experience cognitive dissonance because it is widely accepted that cigarettes cause lung cancer, yet virtually everyone wants to live a long and healthy life. In terms of the theory, the desire to live a long life is dissonant with the activity of doing something that will most likely shorten one's life. The tension produced by these contradictory ideas can be reduced by quitting smoking, denying the evidence of lung cancer, or justifying one's smoking. For example, a smoker could rationalize his or her behavior by concluding that everyone dies and so cigarettes do not actually change anything. Or a person could believe that smoking keeps one from gaining weight, which would also be unhealthy.

Social schemas Schema – organized clusters of ideas about something. In Piaget’s Preoperational stage, children have schemas about what a dog is. At first they think a dog is all furry animals with tails.

Social schema Organized clusters of ideas about categories of social events and people. We act differently at church than we do at a bar. We categorize people into groups like Emos, nerds, Jocks, etc. We have a schema about how a professor’s office might look like or how a gangster should dress or how to write a paper for English.

Stereotypes Type of schema A specific characteristic we assume somebody has because of their social schema. Oh, you are from Dallas. You must ride a horse to work! Yeehaw! I’m from Texas!

Subjectivity in Person Perception (confirmation bias?) We tend to notice behaviors in others that already fit our preconceived notions. We tend to notice the Asians who get straight A’s. We tend to notice the Emo who dresses like this: We notice the White guy who can’t dance. We see what we expect to see!

Subjectivity cont... We ignore events that do not fit with our stereotypes and tell ourselves that that is a rare exception. Ex: A redneck with a college degree.

What is Illusory correlation? Occurs when people think they have confirmed their stereotypes more than they actually have. Ex. Saying you never met an honest lawyer when in fact you have met a few. Ex: You say all football players are dumb jocks. But in reality, only a few are! (Just Kidding) This is an error because of our confirmation bias.

Evidence for illusory correlation. Subjects watched a video of a woman listening to classical music, drinking beer, and watching TV. If the subjects were told the woman was a librarian, then they remembered she listened to classical music. If the subjects were told she was a waitress, they remember the beer. If they were told she was unemployed, they remembered the TV.

Ingroup vs. out-group – just like in a high school cafeteria, in the wild, animals need to distinguish friend from foe. Ingroup bias - Those in our in-group are viewed in a positive light, while those in the out-group are viewed in terms of negative stereotypes. (they are inferior, they are all alike) Remember the “Baby Morality” video…

So what did we learn today? That our perceptions of people may be inaccurate given the situation and are prone to errors. – How? That our actions may impact the way we feel about something. – How? That the way we think about a person or situation may alter the way that we behave or treat other people. – How?

Self Fulfilling Prophesy Self-fulfilling prophecies—ideas that become reality simply because someone believes them When parents believe that a child will abuse alcohol, in fact, the child is likely to drink more than expected. The findings support the social theory that prophecies are especially self-fulfilling for stereotyped groups.

We now know how our perceptions or thinking can affect our behaviors or how we behave toward others, but what's next? Human interaction: How we behave toward others. – Aggression – Attraction – Conformity, obedience to authority, and situational behavior.