Agenda UNIT EIGHT SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY The

Agenda

UNIT EIGHT SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

• Attribution theory: The theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition. – Dispositional (internal) vs. situational (environment) attribution

ATTRIBUTION THEORY • Self-serving bias – when people see the cause of actions as internal (dispositional) when the outcome is positive or external (situational) when the results are negative.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

ATTRIBUTION THEORY • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy – Because person A expects person B to achieve or fail, Person B is likely to do just that. • Especially likely in education – Called the Rosenthal Effect

Attitudes and Actions • Attitude: Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events – Central route persuasion: Occurs when influenced people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. Focusing on candidates voting history during a debate. – Peripheral route persuasion: Occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness. Emotional. Billboards. – Attitudes can be acquired by things such as conditioning, observational learning, and through cognitive evaluation

Attitudes and Actions • The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. • “Start small and build” • Door-in-the-face Phenomenon: This strategy argues that after people refuse a large request, they will look more favorably upon a follow-up request that seems, in comparison, much more reasonable. • “Go Big and scale it back”

Role Playing Affects Attitudes • Role-Playing Affects Attitudes – Role: A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave. – Stanford Prison Study – Abu Ghraib

• Cognitive Dissonance: Relief From Tension – Cognitive dissonance theory: The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. – “Attitudes follow behavior” – Attitudes foster emotions

Crash Course Psychology #37: Social Thinking In your notes (main box or margins) fill in notes on the following…. 1. Social Psychology 5. Sanford Prison Experiment – Power 2. Fundamental Attribution Error of Roles & Situations 3. Dual-Process Theory of Persuasion 6. Cognitive Dissonance 4. Foot-in-the-door Phenomenon

CONFORMITY • Conformity: Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard • Automatic Mimicry: Tendency to mimic behaviors of those in your group • Chameleon effect • Mood linkage

– Solomon Asch study

Asch Conformity Study

• Conformity and Social Norms – Normative social influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. – Informational social influence: Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.

Reasons for Conforming Conditions That Strengthen Conformity – One is made to feel incompetent or insecure, have lesser status within the group – Group has at least three people – Group is unanimous – One admires the group’s status – One has made no prior commitment – Others in group observe one’s behavior – One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards – Women tend to conform more than Men

https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=o 8 Bkzv. P 19 v 4

WEEBLY PAGE VIDEO - MILGRAM

LESSONS FROM THE OBEDIENCE STUDIES • Obedience – Milgram’s studies on obedience • Procedure • Results – 60% administered the highest shock level • Ethics • Follow up studies

OBEDIENCE: FOLLOWING ORDERS LESSONS FROM THE OBEDIENCE STUDIES • Ordinary people being corrupted by an evil situation • People tend to obey legitimate authority

OBEDIENCE: FOLLOWING ORDERS

GROUP BEHAVIOR

Social Facilitation: Stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others. – Task difficulty – Expertise effects – Crowding effects Social Inhibition: The opposite of Social Facilitation. When the presence of others makes performance worse.

Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable. • Group Project effect • More likely when people don’t think they are being assessed or observed • Less accountability • View themselves as dispensable

Effects of the Group

Deindividuation: The loss of selfawareness and selfrestraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. Group Polarization: The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the groups.

• Groupthink: The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. – Bay of Pigs – Challenger explosion

The Power of Individuals • Social control vs personal control • Minority influence

Cultural Influences

Cultural Influences Culture: The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. – Culture within animals – Culture in humans

Cultural Influences Variation Across Cultures • Norm: An understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior. – Culture shock – Pace of life

CULTURAL INFLUENCES VARIATION OVER TIME • Changes over the generations

Prejudice: Unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. Stereotype: A generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people. Stereotype Threat: people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. Discrimination: Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

• Stereotype Threat: people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group.

PREJUDICE HOW PREJUDICED ARE PEOPLE?

Social Roots of Prejudice: Social Inequalities Just world phenomenon: The tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get. – Blame the victim Us and Them: Ingroup and Outgroup – Ingroup: “Us” – people with whom we share a common identity. – Outgroup: “Them” – those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup. – Ingroup bias: The tendency to favor our own group.

Prejudice Emotional Roots of Prejudice • Emotional roots of prejudice – Scapegoat theory: The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame. – Economic variables – Negative emotions

Prejudice Cognitive Roots of Prejudice • Categorization – Outgroup homogeneity – Other-race effect: The tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. Also called the crossrace effect and the own-race bias. • Vivid cases • Believing the world is just – Hindsight bias

Warm Up We are going to do a warm up where we all get 1 or 2 pieces of candy. Here are the rules. 1. On your piece of paper you will write if you want 1 piece or 2. 2. If everyone in the class writes a 1 – everyone will get 1 piece. 3. If only one person writes a 2 and everyone else writes a 1 – everyone gets one piece and the person who wrote a 2 gets 2 pieces of candy. 4. If more than one person writes a 2, no one gets candy. 5. NO DISCUSSING YOUR ANSWER

AGGRESSION

Aggression Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.

The Biology of Aggression • Genetic Influences - Dogfights • Neural Influences – Limbic System • Biochemical Influences Testosterone

Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression • Frustration-aggression principle: The principle that frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression. • Social and cultural influences – Aggression-replacement program: controlling aggression to reduce bad behaviors

• Media Model for Violence – Social scripts: Culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations • Do violent video games teach social scripts for violence?

Physical Attraction

The Psychology of Attraction Proximity • Proximity – Mere exposure effect: The phenomenon the repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.

The Psychology of Attraction Physical Attractiveness • Physical attractiveness

• Similarity – Positive correlation between similarity and liking – Reward theory of attraction: people are attracted to those who in some way make them feel good, or are attracted to those who remind them of people that they enjoy being around. – Matching Hypothesis. By Renée Grinnell. In the field of social psychology, the idea that people are more likely to form successful relationships with and express liking for people whose level of physical attractiveness roughly equals their own

Romantic Love • Love – Passionate love: An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship. – Companionate love: The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined. • Equity: A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it • Self-disclosure: Revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others.

Altruism • Altruism: Unselfish regard for the welfare of others. • Bystander Intervention – Diffusion of responsibility – Bystander effect: The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present. – Kitty Genovese

Altruism

Altruism

Altruism The Norms for Helping • Social exchange theory: The theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. • Reciprocity norm: An expectation that people will help, not hurt those who have helped them. • Social-responsibility norm: An expectation that people will help those needing their help

Conflict and Peacemaking Elements of Conflict • Conflict: A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas. • Social trap: A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior. – Non-zero sum game

• Mirror-image perceptions: Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive. • Self-fulfilling prophecy: A belief that leads to its own fulfillment.

Conflict and Peacemaking Promoting Peace • Contact • Cooperation – Superordinate goals: Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation.

Conflict and Peacemaking Promoting Peace • Communication • Conciliation – GRIT: Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction – a strategy designed to decrease international tensions.