1. Social Psychology
Chapter 12

2. Attitudes and Social Cognition
Learning Outcomes
Define persuasion
Explain social cognition
Social psychology: the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others

3. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes
Attitudes: evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief, or concept
Attitude change depends on factors:
Message source
Characteristics of the message
Characteristics of the target
Persuasion is the process of changing attitudes, one of the central aspects of social psychology. The ease with which we can change our attitudes depends on a number of factors, including message source (characteristics of a person who delivers a persuasive message), characteristics of the message (what the message is like: one-sided or two-sided), and characteristics of the target (i.e., intelligent people are more resistant to persuasion than those who are less intelligent).
Attitudes influence behavior. Generally, people strive for consistency between their attitudes and their behavior. People tend to hold fairly consistent attitudes. Ironically, in some cases, it is our behavior that shapes our attitudes.

4. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes
Central route processing: message interpretation characterized by thoughtful consideration of the issues and arguments used to persuade (content of the message)
Peripheral route processing: message interpretation characterized by consideration of the source and related general information rather than of the message itself (how the message is provided)

5. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes
Cognitive dissonance: the conflict that occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts (cognitions)

6. Social Cognition
Social cognition: the cognitive processes by which people understand and make sense of others and themselves
Schemas: sets of cognitions about people and social experiences
Impression formation: how we organize information about another person to form an overall impression of that person
Central traits: the major traits considered in forming impressions of others
One of the dominant areas in social psychology during the last few years has focused on learning how we come to understand what others are like and how we explain the reasons underlying others’ behavior.
How can we decide what’s important and what isn’t and make judgments about the characteristics of others? Social psychologists interested in this question study social cognition – the way people understand and make sense of others and themselves.

7. Social Cognition
Attribution theory: seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual’s behavior, what the specific causes of that person’s behavior are
Situational causes: perceived causes of behavior that are based on environmental factors
Dispositional causes: perceived causes of behavior that are based on internal traits or personality factors

8. Attribution Biases
The halo effect: an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics
Assumed-similarity bias: the tendency to think of people as being similar to oneself, even when meeting them for the first time

9. Attribution Biases
Self-serving bias: tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors (skill, ability, or effort), and to attribute failure to factors outside oneself
Fundamental attribution error: a tendency to over-attribute others’ behavior to dispositional causes and the corresponding minimization of the importance of situational causes; prevalent in Western cultures

10. Social Influence and Groups
Learning Outcomes
Define conformity
Explain compliance
Discuss obedience
Social influence: the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others

11. Conformity
Conformity: a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people; comes from subtle, sometimes even unspoken, social pressure
Solomon Asch experiments: participants conformed in about 1/3 of the trials; conformity higher when people must respond publicly, lower when at least one other person dissents from the group
The classic demonstration of pressure to conform comes from a series of studies carried out in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. In the experiments, participants thought they were taking part in a test of perceptual skills with 6 other people. The experimenter showed participants one card with 3 lines of varying length and a second card that had a fourth line that matched one of the first 3. Participants had to announce aloud which of the first 3 lines was identical in length to the “standard” line on the second card.
Asch found that in about 1/3 of the trials, the participants conformed to the unanimous but erroneous group answer, with about 75% of all participants conforming at least once. Subsequent research shows that conformity is considerably higher when people must respond publicly than when they can respond privately.

12. Conformity
Social roles: the behaviors that are associated with people in a given position
Philip Zimbardo “prison” study: conforming to a social role can have a powerful consequence on the behavior of anyone

13. Compliance
Compliance: behavior that occurs in response to direct social pressure
Foot-in-the-door technique: people are more likely to agree to a more important request if they have first agreed to a smaller one
Door-in-the-face technique: making a large request, expecting it to be refused, then following with a smaller one, which is the targeted request
When we refer to conformity, we usually mean a phenomenon in which the social pressure is subtle or indirect. But in some situations, social pressure is much more obvious, with direct, explicit pressure to endorse a particular point of view or behave in a certain way.
Several specific techniques represent attempts to gain compliance. They include foot-in-the-door (sign a petition, then get pressured to make a donation to a cause – since you’ve already signed the petition, you have a hard time turning this request down); door-in-the-face (someone makes an outrageous request which they expect to be refused – they follow with a more reasonable request, which is more often complied with); and that’s-not-all (salesperson offers a deal at an inflated price, but immediately thereafter offers an incentive, discount or bonus to clinch the deal).

14. Compliance
That’s-not-all technique: immediately after an initial offer at an inflated price, you are offered an incentive to clinch the deal
Not-so-free sample: you feel the need to reciprocate when given a free sample, so you are more likely to buy the product (based on the norm of reciprocity)
Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology: focuses on work and job-related issues, including worker motivation, satisfaction, safety, and productivity

15. Obedience
Obedience: a change in behavior in response to the commands of others (people in power/authority figures)
Stanley Milgram experiments: 65% of participants eventually used the highest setting on the shock generator (450 volts)
Participants said they obeyed mostly because they believed the experimenter would be responsible for any potential harm to the learner
Compliance techniques are used to gently lead people toward agreement with a request. In some cases, however, requests aim to produce obedience – a change in behavior in response to the commands of others. Although obedience is considerably less common than conformity and compliance, it does occur in several specific kinds of relationships (boss to subordinate, teacher to student, parent to child).
The classic experiment conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s had participants give increasingly strong shocks to another person as part of a study on learning. Most people who hear a description of this experiment feel that it’s unlikely that any participant would give the maximum level of shock, but in the experiment, some 65% of participants eventually used the highest setting on the shock generator (450 volts).

16. Prejudice and Discrimination
Learning Outcomes
Identify the origins of prejudice
Distinguish measuring practices for prejudice and discrimination
Assess ways to reduce prejudice and discrimination

17. Prejudice and Discrimination
Stereotype: a set of generalized beliefs and expectations about a particular group and its members
Help in categorizing & organizing information
Can be negative or positive, but all stereotypes oversimplify the world
Prejudice: a negative (or positive) evaluation of a particular group and its members (attitudes)

18. Prejudice and Discrimination
Discrimination: behavior directed toward individuals on the basis of their membership in a particular group
Self-fulfilling prophecy: when expectations about a behavior act to increase the likelihood that the behavior will occur

19. The Foundations of Prejudice
Prejudices are not innate; they are learned
Observational learning approaches: the behavior of parents, other adults, and peers shapes children’s feelings about members of various groups; prejudice is learned through imitation and reward and punishment
Social identity theory: people tend to be ethnocentric, viewing the world from their own perspective and judging others in terms of their group membership
No one has ever been born disliking a specific racial, religious or ethnic group. People learn to hate, in much the same way they learn the alphabet. For example bigoted parents may commend their children for expressing prejudicial attitudes.
Such learning starts early – children as young as 3 years old begin to show a preference for members of their own race.
Other explanations of prejudice and discrimination focus on how being a member of a specific group helps to magnify one’s sense of self-esteem.

20. The Implicit Personality Test
Implicit Association Test (IAT): allows for measurement of subconscious attitudes, and attitudes that people do not want to be shown, toward members of specific groups
Go to to take the test

21. Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination
Increasing contact between the target of stereotyping and the holder of the stereotype
Contact is relatively intimate
Individuals are of equal status
Participants must cooperate with one another
Making values and norms against prejudice more conspicuous
Providing information about the targets of stereotyping

22. Positive and Negative Social Behavior
Learning Outcomes
Compare and contrast the concepts of “like” and love
Explain aggression and prosocial behavior

23. Liking and Loving
Interpersonal attraction (close relationships): positive feelings for others; liking and loving
Factors in attraction (liking):
Proximity: geographic closeness leads to liking
Mere exposure: repeated exposure to any stimulus usually makes you like it more; if negative initial interaction, dislike will intensify
Nothing is more important in most people’s lives than their feelings for others. Consequently, it’s not surprising that liking and loving have become a major focus of interest for social psychologists. This area, known more formally as the study of interpersonal attraction (close relationships) addresses the factors that lead to positive feelings for others.
Some factors considered by social psychologists include: proximity, mere exposure, similarity and physical attractiveness.

24. Liking and Loving Factors in attraction (liking) (cont’d):
Similarity: increases liking because we assume that people with similar attitudes will evaluate us positively, which promotes our attraction to that person because of the reciprocity-of-liking effect
Physical attractiveness: all else being equal, physically attractive people are more popular than physically unattractive ones (beautiful = good)

25. Liking and Loving
Passionate (romantic) love: a state of intense absorption in someone that includes intense physiological arousal, psychological interest, and caring for the needs of another
Companionate love: the strong affection we have for those with whom our lives are deeply involved
Sternberg says love consists of decision/commitment, an intimacy component, and a passion component

26. Aggression and Prosocial Behavior
Aggression: the intentional injury of, or harm to, another person
Instinct approaches: aggression is the outcome of innate urges
Catharsis: the process of discharging built-up aggressive energy
Little evidence to support the need for catharsis
Frustration-aggression approaches: frustration produces anger, which leads to a readiness to act aggressively
Drive-by shootings, robberies, and abductions are just a few examples of the violence that seems all too common today. But also common are the simple kindnesses of life: lending a valuable compact disc, stopping to help a child who’s fallen off her bike, or merely sharing a candy bar with a friend. Such instances of helping are no less characteristic of human behavior than are the distasteful examples of aggression.
Sigmund Freud was one of the first to suggest, as part of his theory of personality, that aggression is a primarily instinctual drive. Little research has found evidence for the existence of a pent-up reservoir of aggression that needs to be released. In fact, some studies flatly contradict the notion of catharsis, leading psychologists to look for other explanations for aggression.

27. Aggression and Prosocial Behavior
Observational learning approaches: social and environmental conditions can teach individuals to be aggressive
Rewards and punishment given to both the individual and models whose behavior is imitated
Research shows much support
Prosocial behavior: helping behavior
Diffusion of responsibility: tendency for people to feel that responsibility for acting is shared, or diffused, among those present

28. Prosocial Behavior Four basic steps in deciding to help
Noticing a person, event, or situation that may require help
Interpreting the event as one that requires help
Assuming responsibility for helping
Deciding on and implementing the help
Altruism: helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-sacrifice

29. Stress and Coping Learning Outcomes
Define stress and discuss how it affects us
Explain the nature of stressors
Describe how we people cope with stress

30. Stress
Stress: a person’s response to events that are threatening or challenging
Stressors: circumstances or events that produce threats to our well-being
Both positive and negative events can produce stress
Most of us need little introduction to the phenomenon of stress! All of us face stress in our lives. Some psychologists believe that daily life actually involves a series of repeated sequences of perceiving a threat, considering ways to cope with it, and ultimately adapting to the threat, with greater or lesser success. Although adaptation is often minor and occurs without our awareness, adaptation requires a major effort when stress is more severe or longer lasting.
Ultimately, our attempts to overcome stress may produce biological and psychological responses that result in health problems.
Stress means different things to different people. For example, bungee jumping may be perceived as “exhilarating” by one person, and “near-deadly” by another. For people to consider an event stressful, they must perceive it as threatening or challenging and must lack all the resources to deal with it effectively. A person’s interpretation of events plays an important role in the determination of what is stressful.

31. The Nature of Stressors
Categories of stressors
Cataclysmic events: strong stressors that occur suddenly, affecting many people at once (ex.: natural disasters)
Personal stressors: major life events, such as the death of a family member, that have immediate negative consequences that generally fade with time

32. The Nature of Stressors
Categories of stressors (cont’d)
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): victims of major catastrophes or strong personal stressors feel long-lasting effects that may include re-experiencing the event in vivid flashbacks or dreams
Background stressors (daily hassles): everyday annoyances that cause minor irritations and may have long-term ill effects if they continue or are compounded by other stressful events

33. The Nature of Stressors
High cost of stress
Continued exposure to stress can result in decline in overall functioning because of constant secretion of stress-related hormones
Psychophysiological disorders (formerly known as psychosomatic disorders): medical problems influenced by an interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties

34. Figure 3
The general adaptation syndrome (GAS) suggests that there are three
major stages to stress responses. (Source: Selye, 1976.)

35. The Nature of Stressors
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI): the study of the relationship among psychological factors, the immune system, and the brain
Consequences of stress
Direct physiological effects
Engaging in behaviors harmful to one’s health
Indirect health-related behaviors

36. Coping with Stress
Coping: efforts to control, reduce, or learn to tolerate the threats that lead to stress
Emotion-focused coping: trying to manage your emotions in the face of stress
Problem-focused coping: trying to modify the stressful problem or source of stress
Avoidant coping: trying to use escape routes, such as wishful thinking, drug or alcohol use, or overeating; is often ineffective and can make the problem worse
Stress is a normal part of life, and not necessarily a completely bad part. Without stress, we may not be sufficiently motivated to complete the activities we need to accomplish.
It’s also clear that too much stress can take a toll on both our physical and psychological health. Efforts to control, reduce, or learn to tolerate the threats that lead to stress are known as coping. We habitually use certain coping responses to deal with stress, and most of the time we’re not aware of these responses.
People often employ several types of coping strategies simultaneously. They use emotion-focused strategies more frequently when they perceive circumstances as being unchangeable and problem-focused approaches in situations they see as relatively modifiable.

37. Coping with Stress
Learned helplessness: a state in which people conclude that unpleasant or aversive stimuli cannot be controlled – a view of the world that becomes so ingrained that they cease trying to remedy the aversive circumstances, even if they can actually exert some influence; correlated with depression
Social support: a mutual network of caring, interested others
Helps in coping with stress

38. Effective Coping Strategies
Turn threat into a challenge, focusing on ways to control it
Make a threatening situation less threatening; if situation is uncontrollable, change your appraisal and modify your attitude
Change your goals
Take physical action (ex.: exercise)
Prepare for stress before it happens (proactive coping)
How can we deal with the stress in our lives? There’s no universal solution because effective coping depends on the nature of the stressor and the degree to which it can be controlled.
Good coping strategies include turning a threat into a challenge; making the situation less threatening where possible; changing your goals; exercising to relieve stress; and preparing for stress before it happens.
We can’t get away from stress while we’re alive. Our best bet is to be as proactive as we can in realizing that stress will be with us and the best we can do is cope the best we can.