1. Social Thinking and Social Influence
This section covers:
The importance of roles and norms
How our behavior is influenced by others
IMAGE:[©John Reavenal/NTI/Landov] (Coon, p. 637)
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This section covers:
The importance of roles and norms
How we form judgments about others
Are these children of different “races”? Yes, this is a trick question. Only skin color differentiates these nonidentical twins.
The odds, by the way, of mixed race parents having a pair of twins like these two are one in a million.
How fair will it be when these two children experience differential treatment based solely on their skin color?

2. Social Psychology
How do interactions with others affect a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?
Humans have evolved to be social beings
IMAGE: [© Blend Images/Shutterstock] (Coon, p. 621)
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Social psychology examines the relationship between the individual and his or her social environment.
This includes the thoughts and inferences we make about others, the ways we choose to relate to other people, and the ways that other people influence our behavior.
In this example,
Humans are social beings
Early evolutionary pressures favored humans who chose to affiliate, or associate with others, and by doing so, sculpted much of the social behavior we observe today
We react negatively to the withdrawal of social support
Social isolation shares similar risks of death with high blood pressure, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle, and is positively correlated with risk of suicide
Disruptions of social connections through divorce, bereavement, separation, or ridicule are known to be among the most stressful experiences people may face
Evidence that our need for social contact has been incorporated into our genetic heritage can be found in our development and biology
See Open Yale’s lectures on social psychology:
(58:14)
(1:04:52)

3. Social Roles What position does someone occupy in society?
What behaviors are expected from him or her?
IMAGE: Chapter 13, page 646 (Cacioppo)
[From the BBC Prison Study, Copyright © BBC. Photograph courtesy of Alex Haslem Ph.D.]
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We all belong to many overlapping social groups:
Groups can based on family, activities, status, occupation, and other factors.
Groups help us classify people based on various characteristics
In each group, we occupy a particular position
Daughter, son, brother, cousin, student, athlete, band geek, overachiever, girlfriend, rebel
Social roles are patterns of behavior expected of persons in various social positions and include gender roles
For example, think of how you expect teachers to behave. You’d probably expect them to know their subject matter, to be honest and accurate, and to provide assistance when you ask for help.
The expectations of the roles that you occupy can influence your behavior.
A change in role can lead to a change in behavior. Think of someone who is given new responsibilities and “rises to the challenge.”
The Stanford Prison Study (conducted by Philip Zimbardo) examined how social roles and expectations can have a dramatic impact on behavior
Young men who had been randomly assigned to prisoner or guard roles quickly adopted behaviors consistent with those roles, leading to such inappropriate behavior that the study was stopped after only 6 days instead of the planned 14 days
Some guards became abusive in demonstrating their power and authority.
Some prisoners became meek and submissive
Zimbardo argued that the roles of guard or prisoner overwhelmed individuality
The fake prison turned into reality for the participants in the experiment. They lost sight of the outside world and fell into patterns consistent with their roles.

4. Attributions
Why did somebody behave in a particular way? What caused the behavior?
Internal (dispositional)
External (situational)
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Our success in the social world begins with our ability to perceive the characteristics and intentions of others
We not only “size up” other people very quickly in terms of their personal characteristics, but we also ask “why” they behave the way they do
Being able to predict the behavior of others has significant survival value
Judgments about the causes of a person’s behavior are known as attributions
Internal attributions are judgments assigning the cause of a person’s behavior to his or her personal qualities or characteristics
Thoughts, personality, needs, abilities
Situational attributions are judgments assigning the cause of a person’s behavior to his or her environment
Factors that lie outside of a person.

5. Fundamental Attribution Error
A tendency to attribute others’ behavior to internal factors
Why is this woman yelling at her companion?
IMAGE: [© Denise Hager/Catchlight Visual Services/Alamy] (Pastorino, p. 418): If you witnessed this scene, what attributions would you make about this woman’s behavior? Would you assume that her behavior reflects her personality traits? Or would you
assume that the situation must have elicited her behavior?
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Attributions are often made with limited information.
We can see the behavior, but need to make a logical leap to determine the cause of it. Sometimes that leap takes us in the wrong direction.
The fundamental attribution error is the most common type of attribution error people make.
We basically overestimate the importance of dispositional factors when observing the behavior of others
For instance, if somebody cuts you off in traffic or goes speeding by you, it’s common to think “that person is reckless” (or worse).
Another example is when people attribute the actions of a movie character to the actor or actress’s personality.
For more on attribution errors: (7:05)

6. Other Attribution Errors
We make different attributions for ourselves and others.
Actor-observer bias
Self-serving bias
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Other types of attribution errors are based on differences in how we view ourselves and others.
The actor-observer bias is our tendency to attribute others’ actions to internal factors, while attributing our own actions to external factors.
We are more aware of the situational factors affecting us. When we observe others, situational factors may be unknown or difficult to detect.
Imagine you’re driving on the freeway and suddenly notice that your exit is right up ahead, but you’re in the left lane. You might mash down on the accelerator to get ahead of traffic and sharply cut over to the exit. If you’re like most people, you (the ACTOR) will rationalize your behavior by attributing it to external factors:
I couldn’t get into the line of cars, so I had to speed up.
I was thinking about an argument I had earlier, otherwise I would have gotten over earlier.
There should be more signs to indicate which exits are coming up.
The other drivers on the road (the OBSERVERS) are likely to attribute your behavior to internal factors:
That person is a jerk!
What a horrible driver!
In the Self-serving bias, we judge our failures as due to situational factors but our successes as due to dispositional factors.
Doing this allows us to protect our self-esteem and view ourselves in a positive manner.
A classic example of this can be seen in students’ reactions to their performance on an exam.
Often, success on an exam will be attributed to internal factors:
I studied hard.
I’m intelligent.
I’m good at using a particular test-taking strategy.
Failure, on the other hand, is often attributed to external factors:
The questions were unfair (or tricky, difficult to understand, etc.).
The test didn’t cover the material I was told to study.
My roommate kept bugging me and I couldn’t study.
All of my professors scheduled exams this week and I didn’t have enough time to prepare.
Note that we don’t always use the self-serving bias, but it is a general tendency

7. Attitudes May include cognitive, affective, and behavioral components
Attitude on gun control
Cognitive (beliefs, ideas)
“Gun owners are more likely to shoot a loved one than a criminal.”
Affective (emotions, feelings)
“Guns just make me sick”
Behavioral (actions)
“I vote for gun-control politicians.”
IMAGE: Based on Figure 12.4 (Weiten)
[© Cengage Learning]
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An attitude is a mixture of belief and emotion that predisposes a person to respond to other people, objects, or groups in a positive or negative way
The cognitive component of an attitude is what you believe about a particular object or issue
The affective component consists of your feelings toward the attitudinal object
The behavioral component refers to your actions toward various people, objects, or institutions.
Attitudes are formed via:
Direct experience with the attitudinal object
Chance conditioning as a result of a small number of contacts with an attitudinal object
Interaction with others, including families and other groups
The media including newspapers, television/radio, and the Internet

8. Persuasion
Related to characteristics of the communicator, the message, and the audience
IMAGE: [© Cengage Learning] (Nevid, Figure 12.3, p. 452)
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Persuasion is any deliberate attempt to change attitudes or beliefs through information and arguments
According to the elaboration likelihood model, attitude change occurs through one of two routes of cognitive processing
The central route occurs when a person considers persuasive arguments carefully and thoughtfully
The peripheral route occurs when a person responds to cues that aren’t directly related to the argument being presented.
Instead of focusing the quality of the argument, someone might focus on qualities of the speaker or his/her emotional response.
When you are motivated and knowledgeable about a topic, you tend to engage in more elaborative processing.
You consider the argument more critically, think more deeply about pros and cons, and come up with counterarguments. This is the central route of persuasion.
When your motivation is low (e.g. you’re distracted or disinterested) or you lack the information or cognitive resources to evaluate a message, you’ll attend more to peripheral cues.
Attitudes achieved through the central route are more enduring, more resistant to counter-persuasion, and more predictive of behavior than are attitudes achieved through the peripheral route
Factors related to persuasion are typically divided into three major categories:
Communicator (speaker) variables are related to the person attempting to persuade us. Persuasion is more successful when the communicator is:
Attractive/likeable
Appears to be credible (seems trustworthy)
Appears to be an expert
Message variables are related to the argument being presented. Persuasion is more likely when:
The message doesn’t seem like an overt attempt to persuade us.
The message appears to present both sides of an issue.
This can make the communicator seem more trustworthy and knowledgeable.
Audience variables are characteristics of the people you’re trying to persuade.
Some people are more easily persuaded than others.
The mood of the audience can impact the type of evaluation they use.
When people are in a positive mood, they are less likely to be critical of a message, especially when peripheral cues help them maintain their positive mood.
When people are in a negative mood, they are more likely to be critical and less trusting.

9. Cognitive Dissonance
An uncomfortable state that occurs when behavior and attitudes do not match
How can this state be resolved?
IMAGE [© Colin Young-Wolff/Photo Edit] (Pastorino, p. 415): Because smoking is inconsistent with being health conscious, this person is likely to experience dissonance that
may lead to attitude or behavior change.
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Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable state that occurs when behavior and attitudes do not match
We want consistency in how we see ourselves, dissonance motivates us to seek resolution.
The discomfort can be resolved in several ways:
Changing one’s attitude entirely
Adding qualifiers that help “excuse” your behavior
Changing your behavior
Choosing to smoke in spite of constant warning messages can produce a sense of cognitive dissonance.
How might this smoker reduce her dissonance?
She might think of examples where smokers lived a long life.
She might view her actions as a rebellion against “nanny-state” laws
She might reject research showing the link between smoking and cancer
She might say, “I only smoke when I’m really stressed out.”
The result of these strategies is to bring her attitudes and behaviors more inline with one another.
Think of an example in which your behavior was inconsistent with your attitudes or beliefs
Were you motivated to reconcile these discrepancies?
Or did you simply ignore them?

10. Conformity
Behaving in ways that increase the likelihood of gaining a group’s approval and avoiding rejection
IMAGE: Based on Asch, 1951
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Conformity is matching your behavior and appearance to the perceived social norms of a group
Why do people conform?
Conformity can be useful in ambiguous situations
Conformity also reduces the risk of rejection by a social group
Solomon Asch studied conformity in one of the seminal experiments on the topic
Participants were asked to match a reference line to one of three comparison lines
One real participant was placed among a group of confederates and gave his/her answer last.
Sometimes the confederates picked the correct answer.
On critical trials, all of the confederates chose the same wrong answer.
Participants conformed on 37% of these critical trials by agreeing with the confederates.
About 75% of participants conformed at least once.
Asch found that the desire to fit in exerted pressure to conform. This is known as normative conformity.
Follow-up studies have shown that conformity is more likely when:
The rest of the group is unanimous.
If one confederate dissents, participants feel much less pressure to conform.
The group has at least 3 other members.
Participants are unsure of the correct answer.
In some cases, people look to other groups members for guidance.
This is known as informational conformity and is associated with actual changes in beliefs or attitudes.
See demonstrations of conformity in a variation of Asch’s classic study:
(8:58)

11. Compliance Agreeing to do something simply because we have been asked
IMAGE: [© Bob Daemmrich/The Image Works] (Nevid, p. 474)
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Compliance occurs when we simply agree to do something because another person asks us to do it, even if that person has no authority over us whatsoever
Complying with authority figures such as teachers or police officers can provide considerable advantages to society
In other situations, our natural tendency to affiliate leads us to behave in ways that encourage the development of relationships, including being compliant
Compliance is higher when factors that normally lead to the formation of relationships are present such as perceived similarity and physical attraction
Many sales techniques take advantage of compliance
The obligation to reciprocate has been used to explain compliance in the door-in-the-face scenario, in which a large, unreasonable demand is followed by a smaller request, which is really the one the requester expects to work
Consistency is used in the foot-in-the-door technique, in which a small request is followed up by a larger request.
If the request increases gradually, you can often get people to do things they normally wouldn’t agree to.
The lowball technique illustrated above is a compliance technique based on obtaining a person’s initial agreement to purchase an item at a lower price before revealing hidden costs that raise the ultimate price.
Learn more about compliance and how our tendencies towards compliance can be used by others:

12. Obedience Complying with instructions given by an authority figure
IMAGE: [© Joseph Reid/Alamy] (Pastorino, p. 435)
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Obedience is defined as compliance with the request of an authority figure.
Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram developed a unique and controversial research program to find out whether ordinary Americans would perform clearly immoral actions if they were instructed to do so. Participants in the Milgram studies were led to believe that a “learner” would receive electric shocks following each wrong answer. No actual shocks were ever administered.
The study proceeded as follows:
The participant was told they were taking part in a study looking at how punishment affects learning
Participants were always assigned to be the “teacher” while a confederate was assigned to be the “learner.”
When learners answered a question incorrectly, the teacher was instructed to administer a series of electric shocks
With each wrong answer, the shocks increased in intensity.
The shock generator went from 15–450 volts
Labels went from “Slight Shock” to “Danger: Severe Shock”
When you reach the 100V level, the learner begins to scream in response to the shocks
Around 300V, the learner goes silent and stops responding.
Although most participants showed signs of stress and verbally stated their concerns about the procedure, all of Milgram’s original 40 participants went as far as 300 volts, and 26 out of the 40 (65%) fully complied by administering the maximum shocks (450 volts)
If you were a participant, would you have obeyed the experimenter even as the learner cried out for help?
In follow-up studies, Milgram found some factors that influenced the level of obedience shown. Some things that reduced obedience:
Increasing the proximity between the participant and the learner.
Increasing the distance between the participant and the authority figure
Moving from the Yale campus to an office in Bridgeport, CT
Observing someone defy the authority figure
Some people have argued that Milgram’s results were a product of his time, but in 2006, a researcher named Jerry Burger attempted a partial replication of Milgram’s experiment.
Some aspects of the study were changed for ethical reasons, since the original procedure caused great stress for participants.
Burger found that modern participants showed slightly lower levels of obedience than Milgram found.
Interestingly, seeing someone defy the authority figure did NOT have a significant impact on the modern participants.
Obedience varies across cultures, but none is immune
No society can exist without any obedience at all; however, history is full of instances where blindly following orders leads people into highly unethical behavior
See Milgram’s study: (9:53)
For a contemporary take on Milgram’s research: and

13. Social Facilitation
Occurs when the presence of other people changes individual performance
IMAGE: [© Sven Hagolani/Corbis] (Coon, p. 600).
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Social facilitation occurs when the presence of other people changes individual performance
Well-practiced skills, like riding a bicycle, improve with an audience
The presence of the audience appears to enhance whichever patterns of behavior are currently dominant
The complexity of a task can also interact with the presence of an audience to produce either improved or impaired performance
Improvements in performance are more likely to occur when people are engaged in simple, well-practiced activities as opposed to highly complex, novel activities
When tasks are difficult, or people lack confidence in their abilities, performance can suffer when others are present.
In one study looking at students playing pool, researchers found that confident players increased their accuracy from 71% to 80% when shooting in front of a crowd.
Unsure players, however, shot worse when being watched (25%) than they did alone (36%).
Learn more about social facilitation:
(2:02)
(19:48)

14. Social Loafing
Reduced motivation and effort by individuals who work in a group as opposed to work alone
IMAGE: [© The Palm Beach Post/ZUMAPRESS.com/ZUMA Press, Inc/Alamy] (Cacioppo, p. 517)
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Social loafing is the reduced motivation and effort shown by individuals working in a group as opposed to working alone
Individual, gender, cultural, and task variables interact to produce social loafing
Women are somewhat less likely to demonstrate social loafing than men
Participants from Eastern cultures are less likely to loaf than those from the West
Simple physical tasks, such as screwing and unscrewing nuts and bolts, reliably produce social loafing in most people
Task complexity interacts with need for cognition, or the motivation to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive endeavors
Learn more about social loafing:
(14:31)

15. Deindividuation
Immersion of the individual within a group, making the individual relatively anonymous
IMAGE: [© REUTERS/Darren Staples] (Cacioppo, p. 518)
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Deindividuation refers to the immersion of the individual within a group, which makes the individual relatively anonymous
Deindividuation can lead normally law-abiding people to commit uncharacteristic atrocities, including riots and lynchings
Possible explanations for deindividuation
Anonymous people feel less accountable for their actions
People do not necessarily “lose themselves” in a group, but that their attention shifts from a personal identity to the identity of the surrounding group
It’s not unusual for people to get swept up in looting and rioting that can occur after momentous events.
In 1992, four police officers were acquitted of using excessive force while subduing Rodney King after a high speed chase, even though they were videotaped kicking him and beating him with batons.
In the aftermath of the not guilty verdicts, riots broke out in several areas of Los Angeles and lasted for 6 days.
In all, over 11,000 people were arrested, over 2,000 were injured, and 53 people died. Over $1 billion in property damage was caused by rioting, looting, and arson.
How can deindividuation account for the behavior (and misbehavior) of sports fans?

16. Groupthink
A type of flawed decision making in which a group does not question its decisions critically
IMAGE: [© SIPA/USA/SIPA/Newscom] (Nevid, p. 478)
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If group members suppress dissenting opinions in the interests of group cohesion, the group may fall into a state of groupthink
This type of flawed decision making might account for a number of unfortunate group decisions throughout history including the Challenger explosion and the pre-emptive strike on Iraq based on the conviction at the time that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
If people are afraid to speak out or “rock the boat,” the flaws in a plan may never come to light.
In some cases, the leaders of a group are unwilling to tolerate dissent.
In other cases, there may be implicit pressure to present alternative views.
Groupthink is especially likely in cohesive groups with high morale whose members already share similar attitudes
“One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink, and everybody agrees with everything, and there’s no discussion and there are no dissenting views. “(Barack Obama, 2008)
How did groupthink contribute to the Challenger explosion?
(7:23)
In group polarization, a period of discussion actually pushes group members to take more extreme positions in the direction they were already inclined
Two pressures appear to push individuals to take more extreme positions following a group discussion
Conformity and the desire for affiliation contribute to group polarization
Exposure to discussion on a topic introduces new reasons for holding an attitude