1. Chapter 16: Social Psychology

2. What is Social Psychology?
Social Psychology: study of how other people influence our thoughts, feelings, & actions

3. Our Thoughts About Others
Attribution: explanation for the cause of behaviors or events
Heider (1958) concluded that people need to see the world as coherent and controllable – so we seek “logical” conclusions to feel safer and in control

4. Our Thoughts About Others
To determine the cause of the behaviour we first decide whether the behavior comes from an:
internal (dispositional) cause, such as personal characteristics, or
external (situational) cause, such as situational demands.

5. Mistaken Attributions
Our attributions are frequently marred by two major errors:
1. Fundamental Attribution Error – more likely to blame personal, dispositional attributions (blame the person rather than the situation)
2. Saliency Bias – focusing on only the most salient (noticeable) factors when explaining the cause of behaviour

6. Mistaken Attributions
3. Self-Serving Bias – when explaining our own behaviour we emphasize internal personality characteristics for our successes and external environmental attributions for our failures
Ex. Student who does well on an exam = “I studied really hard”
VS.
Student who didn’t do well = “the teacher never taught us that concept” or “that wasn’t in the textbook for me to study”

7. Attitude
Attitude: learned predisposition to respond cognitively, affectively and behaviourally to a particular object
Cognitive = thoughts and beliefs
Affective = feelings
Behavioural = predisposition to act a certain way
Cognitive Dissonance: feeling of discomfort caused by a discrepancy between an attitude and a behaviour or between two competing attitudes
Can you think of an example?

8. Example: Smoking
Conflict: Individuals who smoke but know that it is bad for their health
Why would someone continue engaging in behavior they know is unhealthy?
A person might decide that they value smoking more than his or her health, deeming the behavior "worth it" in terms of risks versus rewards.
The smoker might convince himself that the negative health effects have been overstated. He might also assuage his health concerns by telling himself that he cannot avoid every possible risk out there.
Smoker might try to convince himself that if he does stop smoking then he will gain weight, which also presents health risks.
By using such explanations, the smoker is able to reduce the dissonance and continue the behaviour

9. Our Feelings About Others: Prejudice & Discrimination
Prejudice: learned, generally negative, attitude toward members of a group
Discrimination: negative behaviors directed at members of a group

11. Three Components of Prejudice
Cognitive: thoughts associated with objects of prejudice)
Stereotype: set of beliefs about the characteristics of people in a group generalized to all group members
Affective: feelings associated with objects of prejudice
Behavioral: actions associated with objects of prejudice
- ie. Discrimination

12. Sources of Prejudice & Discrimination
Learning
Personal Experiences
Mental shortcut
In-group Favoritism: in-group viewed more positively than outgroup
Outgroup Homogeneity Effect: outgroup judged as less diverse than in-group
Economic & political competition
Displaced aggression

14. Our Actions Toward Others: Social Influence
Conformity: changing behavior because of real or imagined group pressure
Obedience: following direct commands, usually from an authority figure

15. Our Actions Toward Others: Conformity
Asch’s Conformity Study
Participants were asked to select the line closest in length to X.
When confederates first gave obviously wrong answers (A or C), more than 1/3 of true subjects conformed & agreed with the incorrect choices.

16. Our Actions Toward Others: Conformity (Cont’d)
Why do we conform?
Normative Social Influence: need for approval & acceptance
Informational Social Influence: need for information & direction
Reference Groups: we conform to people we like & admire because we want to be like them

17. Our Actions Toward Others: Obedience
Remember Milgram’s obedience study?
Participants serving as “teachers” were ordered to continue shocking someone with a known heart condition who is begging to be released.
Result? 65% of “teachers” delivered highest level of shock (450 volts) to the pseudo-heart condition “learner.”

18. Our Actions Toward Others: Obedience (Cont’d)
Four major factors affecting obedience:
legitimacy & closeness of the authority figure
remoteness of the victim
assignment of responsibility
modeling/imitation

19. Group Dynamics
Group dynamics : studies groups and group processes. A group is defined as two or more people who are interacting with and/or influencing one another.
Common Group Processes:
Social facilitation —The mere presence of others can improve performance on well-practiced tasks (e.g., Ryan, a pool player, should perform better in front of a large crowd than while practicing his billiard moves alone).
Social inhibition —The mere presence of others can impair performance on tasks that one is not particularly good at (e.g., a novice pool player will perform less well in front of a group). B. Both social

20. Common group processes
Social loafing —On group tasks, people will sometimes exert less effort if individual contributions are not possible to identify (e.g., when working on a group project for class, only a few people from the group will do the majority of the task).
Men are more likely to exhibit social loafing than women, and people from individualistic countries are more likely to exhibit this behavior compared to people from collectivistic countries.

21. Common Group Processes
Bystander Effect – claims that behavior is influenced by the number of people available to intervene.
Example —In 1964 Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in front of her apartment in New York City at 2:30 a.m. Her murder was overheard by 34 of her neighbors, yet none of them came to her aid.
Why do you think this happened?

22. Diffusion of responsibility - tendency for individuals to think others will help, so they do not intervene.
Example—If two students are walking down the hallway at school, and a pen falls out of one student’s pocket or backpack, the other student is more likely to tell the first student that he or she dropped something when the two students are alone in the hallway. If the hallway is crowded with people and a pen falls out of a student’s pocket or backpack, the same other student may think others will help, and, therefore, he or she may not say anything.
Pluralistic ignorance – tendency to do nothing because others are doing nothing; everyone assumes everyone else must “know better,” and if others do not respond, then there must not be an emergency
Example—An alarm is sounding and no one is moving. A person assumes that there is no real threat because everyone else is acting as if things are normal.

23. Our Actions Toward Others: Group Processes
Group membership involves:
Roles: set of behavioral patterns connected with
particular social positions
Deindividuation: anonymity leads to reduced inhibition, self-consciousness, & personal responsibility

24. Group Processes: Problems with Decision Making
Group Polarization: group movement toward either a riskier or more conservative decision; result depends on the members’ initial dominant tendency
Groupthink: faulty decision making occurring when a highly cohesive group seeks agreement & avoids inconsistent information

25. Our Actions Toward Others: Group Processes (Cont’d)
Symptoms of Groupthink:
Illusion of invulnerability
Belief in group’s morality
Collective rationalizations
Stereotypes of out-groups
Self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity
Direct pressure on dissenters

26. Group Processes: “Power of the Situation”
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study
Students were randomly assigned to play the role of either “prisoner” or “guard.”
Original study, scheduled for 2 weeks, was stopped after 6 days due to serious psychological changes in both “prisoners” & “guards.”

27. Our Actions Toward Others: Aggression
Aggression: any behavior intended to harm someone

28. Our Actions Toward Others: Aggression (Continued)
Biological Factors in Aggression: instincts, genes, brain & nervous system, substance abuse & other mental disorders, hormones & neurotransmitters

29. Our Actions Toward Others: Aggression (Continued)
Psychosocial Factors in Aggression:
Aversive stimuli
Culture & learning
Violent media/ video games

30. Our Actions Toward Others: Aggression (Continued)
How can we control or reduce aggression?
Catharsis (bringing repressed feelings to consciousness)
Not a lot of support for this
Introduce incompatible responses (e.g., humor)
Improve social & communication skills

31. Our Actions Toward Others: Altruism
Altruism: actions designed to help others with no obvious benefit to the helper
Is there such thing as a self-less good deed?

32. Our Actions Toward Others: Altruism
Why do we help?
Evolutionary Model: favors
survival of one’s genes
Egoistic Model:
helping motivated by
anticipated gain
Empathy-Altruism Model:
empathy

33. Our Actions Toward Others: Altruism

34. Our Actions Toward Others: Altruism
Why Don’t We Help?
Diffusion of Responsibility: dilution, or diffusion, of personal responsibility
Ambiguity of the Situation: unclear what help is needed