1. Social Psychology
Fall 2011

2. Social Psychology
The study of how other people influence a person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.

3. Attributions Explanations for behaviors or events.
Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Saliency Bias
Self-Serving Bias
Many social psychologists believe that developing logical attributions for peoples behavior makes us feel safer and more in control.
FAE- midjudgment of others’ behavior as stemming from internal (dispositional) rather than external (situational) causes.
Example: if an instructor seems relaxed and talkative in class, you might conclude that he/she is an extroverted person. You may not realize that in situations that do not demand gregariousness, she tends to be shier.
Saliency Bias- we tend to jump to internal explanations bc human personalities and behaviors tend to be more salient (or noticeablke) than situational factors. This helps explain why people sometimes suggest that a raped woman in a short skirt was asking for it…”blaming the victim.”
Self-serving bias-when we explain our own behavior we tend to favor internal attributions for our successes and external attributions for our failures. This is motivated by the desire to maintain positive self esteem and a good public image.
Culture- in highly individualistic cultures, people are defined and understood as individual selves—largely responsible for their successes and failures. In collect. Cultures people are primarily defined as members of their social network—responsible for doing as others expect. Accordingly they are aware of situational constraints on behavior, making FAE less likely. The self-serving bias is also much less common in eastern nations…japan..ideal person is someone who is aware of his/her shortcomings.

4. Strong tension and discomfort (cognitive dissonance)
Attitudes
Learned predispositions to respond cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally to particular objects in a particular way.
Three components
Not permanent
Cognitive Dissonance
Rarely are we neutral in responses due to attitudes. Attitudes have three components: cognitive (thoughts and beliefs), affective (feelings), and behavioral (predisposition to act in a certain way toward an object or situation.
Cognitive dissonance- a feeling of discomfort caused by a discrepency between an attitude and a behavior or between two attitudes.
People are motivated to maintain consistency in their thoughts, feeling an actions
When inconsistencies or conflicts exist between our thoughts, feelings, and actions, they can lead to…
Strong tension and discomfort (cognitive dissonance)
To reduce this cognitive dissonance, we are motivated to change our attitude or behavior.

5. Prejudice
A learned, generally negative attitude directed toward specific people solely because of their membership in an identified group.
Three components
Prejudice is not discrimination
Attitude vs. action
Reasons: learning, mental shortcuts, economic and political competition, and displaced aggression.
Cognitive, affective, behavioral components.
Learning through classical and operant conditioning and social learning. Example: repeated portrayals of stereotypes in media.
Mental shortcuts: attempt to simplify a complex social world. Stereotypes allow people to make quick judgments. People use stereotypes to classify oters in terms of their membership in a group. Given that people generally classify themselves as part of the preferred group they create ingroups and outgroups.

6. Ingroup vs. Outgroup
Ingroup- category that people see themselves as belonging to.
Outgroup- any other category.
Ingroup Favoritism
Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
People of minorities are not recognized as varied and complex individuals. Example: facelessness in wars..Vietnam had gooks.

7. Prejudice Competition for Limited Resources Displaced Aggression
When the cause of frustration is too powerful and capable of retaliation or is ambiguous, people often redirect their aggression toward an alternative, innocent target, or a scapegoat.
Unknown prejudice
Prejudice offers economic and political advantages to the dominant group.

8. What can be done to combat prejudice?
Cooperation and subordinate goals
Increased contact
Cognitive retraining
Cognitive dissonance

9. Interpersonal Attraction
Positive feelings toward another
Three components
Physical attractiveness
Proximity
Similarity
Youthful appearance, symmetry.
Proximity promotes attraction simply due to mere exposure.
Love often develops from initial feelings of friendship and liking. Liking involves: a favorable evaluation reflected in greater feelings of admiration and respect. Love, a more intense experience, involves caring, attachment to the other person, and intimacy.

10. Conformity Conformity Solomon Asch’s Study of Conformity Three Factors
Three Factors
Normative Social Influence
Informational Social Influence
Reference Groups
Conformity- the act of changing behavior as a result of real or imagined group pressure.
Norms-expected behaviors that are adhered to by members of a group.
Reference groups-people we most admire, like, and want to resemble. Actors, sports stars.

11. Obedience
The act of following a direct command, usually from an authority figure.
Conformity and obedience allow social life to proceed with safety, order, and predictability.
Milgram’s study:
Milgram’s study could never be done the same way today due to the unethical nature of the deception and discomfort used in this study.

12. Group Membership Zimbardo Prison Experiment
Deindividuation-feeling less self-conscious, less inhibited, and less personally responsible as a member of a group tan when you’re alone.

13. Group Decision Making
Risky-shift-groups support riskier decisions than decisions they make as individuals.
Group Polarization-a group’s movement toward either riskier or more conservative behavior, depending on the members’ initial dominant tendencies.
The final decision—risky or conservative—depends primarily on the dominant preexisting tendencies of the group. As individuals interact and discuss their opinions, their initial positions become more exaggerated or polarized. Group polarization stems from persuasive arguments.

14. Groupthink
Faulty decision making that occurs when a highly cohesive group (a couple, a family, a panel of military advisers, an athletic team) strives for agreement and avoids inconsistent information.
Ignore immportant information. During discussions, members:
Come to believe that they are invulnerable
Tend to develop common rationalizations and stereotypes of the outgroup
Exert considerable pressure on anyone who dares to offer a dissenting opinion.
Many presidenial errors have been blamed on groupthink.

15. Aggression Any behavior intended to harm someone.
Why do we act aggressively?
Instinct
Genes
Brain and nervous system
Substance abuse and mental disorders
Hormones and neurotransmitters
Aversive stimuli
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
Culture and learning
Media and Video Games

16. Altruism
Actions designed to help other with no obvious benefit to the helper.
Also known as prosocial behavior.
Egoist Model-we help other only because we hope for later reciprocation, because it makes us feel virtuous, or because it helps us avoid feeling guilty.
Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis-simply seeing or hearing of another person’s suffering can create empathy—a subjective grasp of that person’s feelings or experiences.
Evolutionary theory siggests that altruism is an instinctial behavior that has evolved because it favors survival of one’s genes. By helping your child or other relative, you increase the odds of your gene’s survival.
Some say helping others happens in self-interest. Egoist Model
Few theories explain why we do not help.

17. Diffusion of Responsibility