SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY LAST POWERPOINT OMG SOCIAL PSYCHOLGY Social

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY LAST POWERPOINT!!! OMG!!!

SOCIAL PSYCHOLGY • Social psychology seeks to answer such questions as: • • • Why are we attracted to some people and not others? What spurs friendship and romance? How do we account for acts of ultimate hate? How do we account for acts of ultimate selfless love? How do we form attitudes? How do these attitudes affect our actions? • Social Psychology the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. • This is most prevalent when we analyze why people act why they do… Especially when they act different from the ‘norm’.

ATTRIBUTING BEHAVIOUR TO PERSONS OR SITUATIONS • Attribution Theory theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition. • Ex. Teacher may wonder whether a student’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (a dispositional attribution) or a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution). • 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. • The situation impacts the person Ex. Quiet student in class… might be the star of the musical… • Creates self-serving bias in some instances.

THE EFFECTS OF ATTRIBUTION • Personal relationships – jury, interview, friendliness. • Ex. Sassy comment – Happy couple – ‘Oh, they are having a bad day’ – Unhappy couple – ‘Why is this person so hostile? ’ • Political relationships – Poverty and unemployment – personal dispositions of the poor and unemployed – people get what they deserve – criminals are to blame for crime, not society. • Job relationships – Managers view poor performing employees based on their personal factors (low ability or lack of motivation). Workers may see situational influences such as inadequate supplies, difficult co-workers, etc. • Hurricane Katrina Victims – How does this apply to attribution?

ACTOR OBSERVER

ATTITUDE AND ACTION • Does what we think affect what we do, or does what we do affect what we think? • Attitudes often predict our behaviour. Change the attitude… change the behaviour. Goal of Al Gore’s campaign of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. • Attitude feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

• Central Route Persuasion attitude change path in which interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. • Occurs mostly when people are naturally analytical or involved in the issue. • When issues don’t engage systematic thinking, persuasion may occur through a faster route called the peripheral route attitude change path in which people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness. • Ex. John F. Kennedy – What a dreamboat!!

• How does cooperative actions, such as those performed by sports team members influence attitude and action?

ACTIONS AFFECT ATTITUDES • Not only will people sometimes stand up for what they believe, they will also come to believe in the idea they have supported. Attitudes follow behaviour, rather than the vice versa. • The Foot-in-the-Door Phenomena the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. • Ex. American POWs in Chinese camps – small request to large. • Start small and build slowly.

• Role-Playing affects attitudes – Ex. Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study. Real life – Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with US military guards. (Page 649) • In both cases some people succumb to the situation, some do not. Person and situation interact. • Role a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.

STANFORD PRISON STUDY

ZIMBARDO

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: RELIEF FROM TENSION • When attitudes and actions don’t coincide, tension is experienced. • Cognitive Dissonance Theory theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and of our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. • The less coerced and more responsible we feel for a troubling act, the more dissonance we feel. The more dissonance we feel, the more motivated we are to find consistency, such as changing our attitudes to justify the act. • Attitudes follow behaviour!

SOCIAL INFLUENCE CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE • In most situations, when we know how to act, how to groom, how to talk, life tends to function smoothly. Ex. Dress code. • What is socially the norm or acceptable? • Behaviour is contagious: • Group of people looking upward, passer-bys do as well. • Buskers seed their tip jars. • One person laughs, yawns, coughs… others follow. • We are natural mimics – Called the Chameleon Effect – unconsciously we mimic others expression, postures and voice tones to help us feel what we are feeling. This mood linkage allows us to relate to each other.

• Conformity adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard. • Solomon Asch study – you arrive in a room with people already seated. Asked to identify which line matches the standard line. Second line is the answer for many slides. Then someone starts saying the 1 st or 2 nd line. More people agree. You will conform to their answer even though you know it to be wrong.

CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE GROUP PRESSURE AND CONFORMITY • Conditions That Strengthen Conformity • One is made to feel incompetent or insecure • 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

REASONS FOR CONFORMING • We like to go with the group dynamic. • Responding to normative social influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval. • Groups may provide valuable information, and only an uncommonly stubborn person will never listen to others. When we accept other`s opinions about reality, we are responding to informational social influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality.

OBEDIENCE • Milgram (student of Asch) knew that people often comply with social pressures. But how to they respond to outright commands? • People assigned who is the teacher, who is the learner. Leaner sits in an electrified chair. Teacher is to teach the learner a set of vocabulary and is to punish learner for wrong answers with 15 volt slight shocks. After each error, the teacher can increase the shocks value. 63% went up the highest shock value. (Page 654).

MILGRAM’S STUDY

Conformity and Obedience

CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE LESSONS FROM THE CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE STUDIES • Ordinary people being corrupted by an evil situation. • After first acts of compliance or resistance, attitudes begin to follow and justify behavior.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

GROUP INFLUENCE – INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHERS • Cyclists will race faster when against an opponent that when they are training on their own. • Social facilitation stronger responses on simple or welllearned tasks in the presence of others. Ex. Fishing reel races, intersections. • However, on tougher tasks (ex. Complex multiplication) people preform less well when observers or others working on the same task are present.

• 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. • Ex. Rope pull – alone vs. told there were 3 others. • In a group, feel less accountable and therefore worry less what other people think. • View themselves as disposable.

• Deindividuation the loss of self-awareness and selfrestraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. • Sometimes the presences of others both arouses people and diminishes their sense of responsibility. Ex. Food fight in cafeteria to rioting. • Group Polarization the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion with the groups. • Ex. High prejudice students discussed racial issues, they become more prejudiced.

• Groupthink the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decisionmaking group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. • Ex. Bay of Pigs, Challenger explosion, Pearl Harbour attack, Chernobyl explosion, Iraq war…

CULTURAL INFLUENCE • 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 humans… example? • Culture within animals… example? • Culture is a better way of being social. However, what makes cultures unique is the variations. • Norms an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior. • Personal Space the buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. • Pace of life can differ as well. • Cultures can change over generations.

THE POWER OF INDIVIDUALS • Social control VS personal control – They will interact. People are not sheep. When feeling pressured, we may react by doing the opposite of what is expected, thereby reasserting our sense of freedom. • Minority Influence – the power of 1 or 2 individuals to sway majorities. People may still follow the majority view but still feel sympathy for those in the minority view. Leads to change over time.

SOCIAL RELATIONS • Prejudice an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action. • As overt prejudicial feelings are minimized subtle prejudice can linger. People may not overtly vocalize their prejudices, but it does not mean they are not thinking it. • Stereotype a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people. • Discriminate unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members. • Ex. Not hiring a person because they are obese.

Prejudice How Prejudiced Are People?

PREJUDICE

SOCIAL ROOTS OF PREJUDICE • Social inequalities – When people have money, power and prestige, they usually develop attitudes that justify things as they are. Ex. View of slaves by slave owners in colonial America. • Us and Them: Ingroup and Outgroup – We are better off surviving in groups. Through our social identities we associate ourselves with certain groups. • What is your ‘social identity’? • 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.

WHAT IS THE SOCIAL IDENTITY OF THESE PEOPLE?

EMOTIONAL ROOTS OF PREJUDICE • Prejudice comes not only from the divisions of society but also from passions of the heart. Ex. How soldiers feel against the enemy. • Scapegoat theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame. • The scapegoat theory was a big part of the ‘War on Terrorism’. Americans felt they needed ‘someone to blame’. • Also plays a role in sports – ex. Other team played unfairly, etc.

COGNITIVE ROOTS OF PREJUDICE • Categorization is the way we simplify our world. • However, when looking at groups other than our own, we tend to over simplify the others. The ‘they’ all seem to look and act alike, while ‘we’ are diverse. • Other-race effect the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races. Also called the cross-race effect and the own-race bias. • However, the more exposure to another race, the easier the differences are to see.

• Vivid cases – page 670. • 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. • People justify their prejudices by blaming the victims. People get what they deserve. • Ex. ‘What terrible criminals these prisoners must have been’ – German civilian visiting concentration camp after WW 2. • Hindsight bias plays a role here as well. Ex. Rape cases.

AGGRESSION • Aggression any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy. • Do not confuse being an aggressive person with aggression itself. Ex. An assertive, persistent sales person is not aggressive. • Interaction of biology and experience.

AGGRESSION THE BIOLOGY OF AGGRESSION • Genetic Influences - Genes can show markings for more aggressive behavior. Ex. Testosterone level markings • Neural Influences – No one spot on the brain controls aggression because it is a complex behavior that occurs in particular contexts. The brain will facilitate aggression, not create it. • Biochemical Influences – Hormones, alcohol, drugs, etc. Ex. Female hyenas.

AGGRESSION PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL-CULTURAL FACTORS IN AGGRESSION • Aversive Events – suffering brings out character, but also the worst in us. • Frustration-aggression principle the principle that frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression. • Fight or flight reaction • Social and cultural influences – Ex. Children learn aggression from those around them. • Aggression-replacement program – way to frame discipline, teaching communication skills, how to control anger and be more thoughtful and reasoning.

AGGRESSION PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL-CULTURAL FACTORS IN AGGRESSION • Observing models of aggression – leads to aggression later on. Can be in the home or in media. • Rape myth – the idea that people invite or enjoy rape and get ‘swept away’ with being ‘taken’. • Acquiring social scripts – ‘Act like a man’ • Do video games teach, or release violence? • Catharsis hypothesis – The idea that we feel better when we blow off steam by venting our emotions.

Biopsychosocial Understanding of Aggression

ATTRACTION THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTRACTION • Proximity – geographic nearness. We are attracted to those who are closest to us. • Mere exposure effect the phenomenon the repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them. Ex. Albino penguin. • Physical attractiveness – based on features we like in ourselves. • Similarity • Reward theory of attraction – that we will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us and we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs.

WHICH FACE DOES CHRIS MARTIN LIKE BEST?

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. • Hotel Rwanda and Kitty Genovase examples – page 685. • Bystander Intervention – the presence of others is the single biggest factor as to if someone will help or not. People will only help if the situation allows us to notice the incident, interpret as an emergency and finally to assume responsibility for helping. • Diffusion of responsibility – the more people around, the more we assume someone else will help. First steps need to be taken usually by someone else before others may step in to help.

• Bystander effect the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

Altruism

Altruism

BYSTANDER EFFECT

ALTRUISM THE NORMS OF HELPING • Social exchange theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. • Example? Discuss! • Reciprocity Norm an expectation that people will help, not hurt those who have helped them. • Example? Discuss! • Social Responsibility Norm an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them. • Example? Discuss! • Page 687

CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING • 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, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

NON ZERO SUM GAME • Page 688

CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING ENEMY PERCEPTIONS • 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. • https: //www. youtube. com/w atch? v=NWF 2 JBb 1 bv. M • Explain the picture using mirror image perceptions.

CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING • Contact • Cooperation • Superordinate goals shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation. • Communication • Conciliation • GRIT Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction – a strategy designed to decrease international tensions. Page 692. • How can we apply GRIT to something in our school? • How does a team show superordinate goals?