1. Social Psychology Time-interval Exercise (p.9 IM)
example of Social Influence

2. Social Psychology How individuals Think about… one another
Influence… one another
Relate to… one another

3. Social Thinking How do you make sense of people’s behavior?
We make attributions… (explaining others’ behavior)
We use our “social intelligence”, but we often make an error….
Fundamental Attribution Error
tendency when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal traits
Examples? (e.g., “it was a just a few bad apples responsible for the Abu Ghraib abuses”)

4. Attitudes and Behavior
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when our thoughts are inconsistent (or when our thoughts and behavior are inconsistent).
Smoking example (“Smoking is unhealthy, but I smoke”)
rationalization (e.g., “sour grapes”)

5. Social Thinking and Social Influence
Stanford Prison Study by Zimbardo – role-playing, attitudes and behavior (McGraw-Hill DVD)
Situational and systemic factors must be taken into account
Norms and roles
Learned, socially based rules
Culturally-based

6. Social Influence Studies of conformity and obedience Videos
Candid Camera (begin w/ Segment 5)
Why do people behave in these ways?
Research Studies (McGraw-Hill DVD: next slide)

7. Social Influence Studies: Asch – conformity experiments
Milgram – obedience to authority
“Most people do what they are told to do as long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.”
Results: The majority of subjects continued to obey to the end – “Danger-Severe-XXX”

8. Social Influence
Question: In what specific ways does the presence of others influence your behavior?
Example: Do people in a group exert less effort compared to when they are individually accountable (e.g., work crews)?
Called Social Loafing
Social Facilitation
improved performance of tasks in the presence of others – when? examples?

9. Social Influence Deindividuation
loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

10. Social Relations Stereotypes and Prejudice How do these develop?
Can they be altered?
(A class divided: blue-eye, brown-eye film)

11. Social Relations- Attractiveness

12. Social Relations- Attractiveness
Why do you judge someone as attractive?
Blind Date (DVD Segment 30) – Social Cognition and Person Perception
Factors influencing attraction?
Proximity
mere exposure effect – repeated exposure increases liking of them
Similarity
friends share common attitudes, beliefs, interests
Physical Attractiveness
What makes someone physically “attractive?”

13. What is attractive?

14. What is attractive?

15. Social Relations -- aggression
Social views of aggression
Modeling: bobo dolls, violent media (desensitization?)
Frustration-Aggression Principle
Media and Aggression
Television violence
Pornography
Video games

16. Bystander Studies Kitty Genovese
What would you do? (ABC Primetime video)
Kitty Genovese
The decision-making process for bystander intervention:
Notices
incident?
Interprets
incident as
emergency?
Assumes
responsibility?
Attempts
to help No
help
Yes

17. presumed available to help
Bystander Effect
Percentage
attempting
to help 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10
Number of others
presumed available to help
tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present