1. Social Psychology Defined: The study of how humans relate to one another.

2. SOCIAL THINKING (Cognition) Attribution & Attitudes

3. 3 Perceiving & evaluating other people zWhy do we evaluate others? yall of us are naïve psychologists zAre we accurate? yoften yhowever, our judgments can suffer from a number of biases xwhen not using all our resources xwhen we have limited information xwhen we have hidden motives/goals e.g., our self-esteem is threatened

4. 4 Attributions from behavior zAttribution ya claim about the cause of someone’s behavior yseeking a reason for the occurrence of events/behaviors

5. 5 Person bias in attributions zPeople give too much weight to personality and not enough to situational variables zKnown as person bias OR F undamental Attribution Error/Bias zConditions promoting person bias ywhen task has goal of assessment of personality ywhen person is cognitively loaded zConditions promoting a situation bias ywhen goal is to judge the situation

6. 6 Attitudes zWhat is an attitude? ypredisposition to behave in a certain way toward some people, group, or objects ycan be negative or positive zCognitive dissonance theory yFestinger ywe we need our attitudes to be consistent with our behavior yit is uncomfortable for us when they aren’t ywe seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by inconsistency

7. 7 Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms zAvoiding dissonant information ywe attend to information in support of our existing views, rather than information that doesn’t support them Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an action yonce we’ve made a choice to do something, lingering doubts about our actions would cause dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside

8. 8 Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms zChanging an attitude to justify an action ywhen a person does something counter to their stated beliefs, then justify the deed by modifying their attitude

9. 9 Cognitive Dissonance

10. 10 Foot in Door Phenomenon zDefined: The tendency for people to comply with larger actions after first agreeing to smaller actions. z“Brainwashing” during the Korean War zImpact on Charitable donations

11. 11 Stanford Prison Experiment zhttp://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer y=%22stanford+Prison+Experiment%22&sear ch=Searchhttp://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer y=%22stanford+Prison+Experiment%22&sear ch=Search zEffect of Role Play on attitudes – Zimbardo Prison Experiment

12. 12 Two-stage Model of Attributions zFirst stage is rapid & automatic ybias according to goal (person/situation) zSecond stage is slower & controlled ywon’t occur if cognitively loaded ywe correct our automatic attribution

13. 13 Two-stage Model of Attributions What kind of person is Joe? How funny is the TV comedy? Person: Joe laughs easily Situation: the TV show is funny Observer’s goal Automatic Attribution Controlled Attribution Revision: could be a funny show Revision: maybe Joe laughs easily Example: Joe laughs hysterically while watching a TV comedy. What can we conclude?

14. 14 Cross-cultural differences zWestern culture ypeople are in charge of own destinies ymore attributions to personality zSome Eastern cultures yfate in charge of destiny ymore attributions to situation Age (years) 8 11 15 Adult 0.70 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0 United States India Attributions to internal disposition

15. 15 Actor-Observer Discrepancy zAttribute personality causes of behavior when evaluating someone else’s behavior Observer zAttribute situational when evaluating our own behavior – Actor ( Self Serving Bias) zWhy? yhypothesis 1: xwe know our behavior changes from situation to situation, but we don’t know this about others yhypothesis 2: xwhen we see others perform an action, we concentrate on actor, not situation -- when we perform an action, we see environment, not person

16. 16 Prior Information Effects zMental representations of people (schemas) can effect our interpretation of them yKelley’s study xstudents had a guest speaker xbefore the speaker came, half got a written bio saying speaker was “very warm”, half got bio saying speaker was “rather cold” x“very warm” group rated guest more positively than “rather cold” group

17. 17 Effects of Personal Appearance zThe attractiveness bias yphysically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality ystudies xteachers rate attractive children as smarter, and higher achieving xadults attribute cause of unattractive child’s misbehavior to personality, attractive child’s to situation xjudges give longer prison sentences to unattractive people

18. 18 Effects of Personal Appearance zThe baby-face bias ypeople with rounder heads, large eyes, small jawbones, etc. rated as more naïve, honest, helpless, kind, and warm than mature-faced ygeneralize to animals, women, babies

19. Social Relations Prejudice & Theories of Attraction

20. 20 Stereotypes zWhat is a stereotype? yschemas about a group of people ya belief held by members of one group about members of another group yhow can we study stereotypes? xearly studies just asked people xtoday’s society is sensitized to harmful effects of stereotyping xneed different ways of studying

21. 21 Studying stereotypes z3 levels of stereotypes in today’s research ypublic xwhat we say to others about a group yprivate xwhat we consciously think about a group, but don’t say to others yimplicit xunconscious mental associations guiding our judgments and actions without our conscious awareness

22. 22 Formation of Stereotypes zhttp://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=244252 1&page=1http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=244252 1&page=1

23. 23 Implicit Stereotypes zUse of priming: subject doesn’t know stereotype is being activated, can’t work to suppress it yBargh study xhave subjects read word lists, some lists include words like “gray,” “Bingo,” and “Florida” xsubjects with “old” word lists walked to elevators significantly more slowly yanother study xflash pictures of Black vs. White faces subliminally xgive incomplete words like “hos_____,” subjects seeing Black make “hostile,” seeing White make “hospital”

24. 24 Implicit Stereotypes zDevine’s automaticity theory ystereotypes about African-Americans are so prevalent in our culture that we all hold them ythese stereotypes are automatically activated whenever we come into contact with an African-American ywe have to actively push them back down if we don’t wish to act in a prejudiced way. yOvercoming prejudice is possible, but takes work

25. 25 Blue Eye Brown Eye Experiment zhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho ws/divided/etc/view.htmlhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sho ws/divided/etc/view.html zHow does this illustrate us vs them? ( in/out group) and scapegoat?

26. 26 Self-fulfilling Prophecies zWhen our beliefs and expectations create reality zBeliefs & expectations influence our behavior & others’ zPygmalion effect yperson A believes that person B has a particular characteristic yperson B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

27. 27 Studies of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy zRosenthal & Fode ytested whether labeling would affect outcome ydivided students into 2 groups and gave them randomly selected rats y1 group was told they had a group of “super genius” rats and the other was told they had a group of “super moron” rats yall students told to train rats to run mazes y“genius” rat group ended up doing better than the “moron” rat group b/c of the expectations of the students

28. 28 Studies of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy zRosenthal & Jacobson ywent to a school and did IQ tests with kids ytold teachers that the test was a “spurters” test yrandomly selected several kids and told the teacher they were spurters ydid another IQ test at end of year yspurters showed significant improvements in their IQ scores b/c of their teacher’s expectations of them

29. 29 Using Attitudes as Ways to “Justify” Injustice zJust-world bias ya tendency to believe that life is fair xit would seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway zJust-world bias leads to “blaming the victim” ywe explain others’ misfortunes as being their fault xe.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she doing in that neighborhood anyway?

30. 30 Attraction Handout zDiscuss dating techniques