1. 1 Social Psychology: Attributions, Attitudes, Role Playing and Conformity

2. Agenda 1. Bell Ringer: How many waves? 2. Attributing Behavior/Attitudes and Actions Notes (20) 3. Zimbardo, Stanford Prison Experiment (30) 4. Attributing Behavior Scenarios (15) 5. Stereotypes? Who am I? (10) 2

3. 3 Social Psychology: Unit Objectives Define Social Thinking  Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations  Attitudes and Actions Analyze Social Influence  Conformity and Obedience  Group Influence  The Power of Individuals

4. 4 What is Social Psychology? Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. “We cannot live for ourselves alone.” Herman Melville

5. 5 Social Thinking Social thinking involves thinking about others, especially when they engage in doing things that are unexpected. 1.Does a person’s absenteeism signify illness, laziness, or a stressful work atmosphere? 2.Was the horror of 9/11 the work of crazed evil people or ordinary people corrupted by life events?

6. 6 Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations Attribution Theory: Fritz Heider (1958) suggested that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition. http://www.stedwards.edu Fritz Heider

7. 7 Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations A teacher may wonder whether a child’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution). http://www.bootsnall.org Dispositions are enduring personality traits. So, if Joe is a quiet, shy, and introverted child, he is likely to be like that in a number of situations.

8. 8 Fundamental Attribution Error The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the fundamental attribution error. Example: You’re teacher is strict and you assume she is mean. You see her at the mall one day and she’s laughing with friends – you are shocked.

9. 9 Effects of Attribution How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it.

10. 10 Attitudes & Actions: How they impact our behavior A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people, and events. If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner.

11. 11 Outside influences on our behavior and attitudes External situations, influence behavior. Not only do people stand for what they believe in (attitude), they start believing in what they stand for. Can be positive and negative Ex: There’s a new student you’ve been told she’s a bad person and you believe it even though you’ve talked to her and she seems nice.

12. 12 Brainwashing Situation: In the Korean War, Chinese communists were able to get U.S. Army poisoners to cooperate by asking them to carry out small errands. By complying to small errands they were likely to comply to larger ones. Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

13. 13 Actions Can Affect Attitudes Why do actions affect attitudes? One explanation is that when our attitudes and actions are opposed, we experience tension. This is called cognitive dissonance. To relieve ourselves of this tension we bring our attitudes closer to our actions (Festinger, 1957).

14. 14 Cognitive Dissonance

15. Create your own Example of Cognitive Dissonance Use the examples in your notes as a guide. Be ready to share 3 minutes 15

16. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study Use your video questions to discover what happened in the experpiment. 16

17. 17 Role Playing Affects Attitudes Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes. Originally published in the New Yorker Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.

18. Agenda 1. Bell Ringer: Attributing Behaviors Review (15) 2. Conformity and Obedience (15) 3. Asch and Conformity Video and Discussion (10) 4. Milgram and Violating Social Norms (article) (15) 5. Situations? What would violate social norms? (10) Project overview (5) 6. Milgram’s obedience trial. Examining the participants. (15-20) 18

19. 19 Conformity & Obedience Behavior is contagious, modeled by one followed by another. We follow behavior of others to conform. Humans want to fit in. Other behaviors may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority. Conformity Obedience

20. 20 Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard 1.One is made to feel incompetent or insecure. 2.The group has at least three people. 3.The group is unanimous. 4.One admires the group’s status and attractiveness. 5.One has no prior commitment to a response. 6.The group observes one’s behavior. 7.One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard.

21. 21 Group Pressure & Conformity Asch Experiment: Watch the video and see how people conform. Would you have spoken up?

22. 22 Obedience Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience. A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion. Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center

23. 23 Milgram’s Study Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales

24. 24 Milgram’s Study: Results

25. 25 Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies In both Asch's and Milgram's studies, participants were pressured to choose between following their standards and being responsive to others. In Milgram’s study, participants were torn between hearing the victims pleas and the experimenter’s orders.

26. Closure: What are five qualities that most clearly define who you are? What are the three skills you truly excel at? One of the best ways to avoid group pressure is having a strong self-concept 26