Chapter 18 Social Psychology Definition of Social Psychology

Chapter 18 Social Psychology

Definition of Social Psychology • Social Psychology – scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to and interact with one another – Psychologists study • Attractions • Needs • Influences (Group, gender, race, ethnicity) – Examine within social context of situations

Attitude formation and change • Attitude: learned predispositions to respond in a favorable or unfavorable way to a specific object, person, or event • Psychologists study how we develop our attitudes and how we can change attitudes • Formation of attitude – Personal experience – Secondhand attitudes – Mere exposure effect

Changing Attitudes: Persuasion • central route of persuasion: when people think carefully and critically about the contents of a message, they take a central route to persuasion and are influenced by the strength and quality of the arguments. • peripheral route to persuasion: when people do not think critically about the contents of a message and are influenced by superficial cues, they take a peripheral route to persuasion

Behavior=Attitude and Social Influences • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences Internal attitudes External influences Behavior

How do we tend to explain behavior? Attribution Theory – In thinking about others’ behavior and its causes, we tend to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition – Simply put, we try to explain why someone does something – We are all prone to certain types of biases and distortions in judgment

The Effects of Attribution • How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it Situational attribution “Maybe that driver is ill. ” Tolerant reaction (proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide berth) Dispositional attribution “Crazy driver!” Unfavorable reaction (speed up and race past the other driver, give a dirty look) Negative behavior

Thinking About Behavior • Fundamental Attribution Error – tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition • Actor Observer bias – actors tend to attribute their own behavior to their circumstances (i. e. , situation causes) and the behaviors of those we observe to their dispositions – Self Serving Bias: – Tend to attribute we attribute our achievements and successes to personal, stable causes and our failures to situational factors – Self Handicapping – Handicap our own performance in order to build an excuse for anticipated failure

Attitude and Behavior • Cognitive Dissonance Theory – we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent with our actions by changing our attitudes – Rating monotonous tasks

Social Roles and Social Norms • Every culture has – Social roles – expectations of behavior – Social norms – standards for behavior in given situations

• Violating a social norm video example

Social Influence: Conformity and Obedience • Conformity – adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Reasons For Conforming • Normative Social Influence -influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval • Informational Social Influence – when we do not know how to behave, we copy other people.

Social Influence: Compliance Strategies • Asch’s conformity experiments

Elevator clip

Obedience • The act of obeying, following directions – Milgram’s Obedience Study – Sheep, not wolves

Social Influence • Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment Percentage of subjects who obeyed experimenter 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 The majority of subjects continued to obey to the end Very Extreme Moderate XXX Slight (75 -120) Strong strong Intense intensity Danger (435 -450) (15 -60) (135 -180) (195 -240) (255 -300) (315 -360) severe (375 -420) Shock levels in volts

What to remember • Social influences can be strong enough to make people conform to falsehoods or cruelty • Evil doesn’t require evil people, just ordinary people corrupted by an evil. • By understanding the process that shape this behavior, we may be less susceptible to pressures that might make us violate our own internal standards.

Conformity and Obedience • Zimbardo’s prison study – – Power of social roles influencing behaviors – Behavior changes to fit perceptions of role – Obedience in group situation

Group Project: Norm Violation Experiment Go out there and break the norm!