1. Psychology 100:12 Chapter 15.2 Social Psychology

2. Outline Perceiving others Attitudes –Cognitive dissonance –Persuasion Social Impact Study Question: Describe cognitive dissonance. How can it be used as a form of persuasion.

3. Social Psychology Biases in perceiving others – Fundamental attribution error -> too much emphasis on dispositional factors when attributing causes of other’s behaviour > Gives us a sense of control –Actor-observer discrepancy -> we tend to make the fundamental attribution error judging other’s but not our own behaviour –The self-serving bias -> Actor-observer discrepancy only holds for negative behaviour

4. –The primacy effect -> We weight first impressions too heavily >Asch’s (1946) experiment  Intelligent & industrious, impulsive and critical, stubborn & envious  Stubborn & envious, impulsive and critical, intelligent & industrious –Undue influence of surface characteristics >Attractive people: more intelligent, competent, sociable and moral  Neophyllus adults: more naive, honest, helpless, kind and warm Social Psychology

5. –Stereotypes -> Schema for identifiable groups E.g, > Women are less competent than men  Both men and women attribute successful performance to luck (situational) for women to skill (dispositional) for men Social Psychology

6. –Ingroup/outgroup -> We have different schema for people in our group than for people out of our group >Ingroup is more heterogenous, rated more favourably  Ethnocentricism >Outgroup is more homogenous, rated less favourably  Even when groups are defined arbitrarily Social Psychology

7. –The “Just-world” bias -> defensively assume that the world is fair >Thorton’s experiment  Women judged the fault of a victim in a rape scenario  Those who could see themselves in a mirror blamed the victim Social Psychology

8. Social cognition Attitude: An evaluative belief –LaPiere’s (1934)Study >Visited 50 hotels and 200 restaurants with Chinese couple  Only refused service by one hotel. >Wrote to same hotels and restaurants  92 % said they would NOT serve Chinese. Functions and components of attitudes >Very influenced by social context 1.Attitudes are far removed from sensory experience. 2.Attitutes hold strategic purposes in social interactions. –Three components 1. Cognitive: Beliefs 2.Affective: Emotional reaction 3. Behavioural: Actions Social Psychology

9. Social Cognition –Other factors >Subjective norms: Attitudes of people close to us. >Perceived control: Perceived environmental constraints. –The relationship between cognition and behaviour >Three forms. E.g., A negative attitude towards GMPs.  Irrelevant: e.g., Lobster for supper.  Consonant: e.g., Grow your own vegetables  Dissonant: e.g., Still eat lots of tofu, corn and canola oil. –Cognitive Dissonance >Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) forced compliance procedure. Social Psychology

10. Cognitive dissonance –How do we resolve dissonance? 1.Change your attitude  Towards eating worms (Comer & Laird, 1975)  Towards spending a lot of money on a car Low balling and dissonance 2.Change your behaviour  Quit smoking Social Psychology

11. Social Cognition –Postdecisional dissonance >We focus on the positive aspect of our choices  E.g., University, car model, where we live, etc.  Selective exposure and denial We seek out positive information and avoid negative E.g., Smoking. –Justifying effort >E.g.s, Hazing and other cult initiations. Social Psychology

12. Social Cognition Persuasion: The active and conscious effort to change attitudes through the transmission of a message. –The Peripheral and central routes to processing >Controlled and automatic processing –The peripheral and central routes to persuasion >Langer’s experiment  5 or 20 copies  No reason, pseudo-reason, or logical reason  “Because” is analyzed only for large requests Social Psychology

13. Social Cognition Peripheral cues: Source, content, and receiver Social Psychology

14. Social Cognition Making attributions from behaviour –Attribution: An inference about the cause of a behaviour. –Fritz Heider -> People are naive psychologists. >We can attribute behaviour to: 1.Personality or internal characterstics (Dispositional) 2.External factors (Situational)  E.g., Someone screams during a movie –While watching Hostel -> Situational –While watching Bambi -> Dispositional Social Psychology

15. Social Cognition Kelley’s model –People take into account three factors 1.Consistency across time.  Does the person always scream during horror movies? 2.Consensus across people.  Are other people watching the movie screaming too? 3.Distinctiveness across situations.  Does this person scream in other situations as well? Social Psychology

16. YES YES NO Situation YES NO YES Disposition YES NO NO Both NO N/A N/AExtraneous Does she always Scream at movies? Is everyone screaming? Does she scream in Other situations? Attribution Social Psychology –Three questions asked before making an attribution.