Social Psychology Social Psychology is a broad field

Social Psychology

Social Psychology is a broad field devoted to studying:

how people relate to each other ¨ the development and expression of attitudes ¨ people’s attributions about their own behavior and that of others ¨ the reasons why people engage in both prosocial and antisocial behavior ¨ how the presence and actions of others influences the way people behave ¨

Topics in Sociology

How do we get people to do things for us?

n. Compliance Strategies are methods of getting others to comply with one’s wishes.

¨Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon. n. It suggests that if you can get people to agree to a small request first, they are more likely to agree to a follow-up request that is larger.

Can I go over to Suzy's house for an hour? " followed by "Can I stay the night? " n "Can I borrow the car to go to the store? " followed by "Can I borrow the car for the weekend? " n "Would you sign this petition for our cause? " followed by "Would you donate to our cause? " n "May I turn in the paper a few hours late? " followed by "May I turn it in next week? " n"

n Door-In-The-Face Phenomenon ¨Strategy marked by first making an extremely large request that the respondent will obviously turn down. The respondent is then more likely to agree to a second, more reasonable request.

n Will you donate $1000 to our organization? Oh. Well could you donate $10? '' n Can you help me do all this work? Well can you help me with this bit? ''

n. Another common strategy is known as the Norms of Reciprocity. People tend to think that when someone does something nice for them, they ought to do something nice in return.

n. IE. You feel compelled to send money to the charity organization that sent you the free address labels in the mail, or to vote for the candidate that handed out the delicious chocolate chip cookies.

How do we explain the behaviors that we observe?

¨You’re in a college library, observing two workers attempting to move a rather large filing cabinet. In unison, the two workers lift up the cabinet. All four doors fly open and the files spill out. What’s your first thought?

n. Attribution Theory tries to explain how people determine the cause of what they observe.

Dispositional Attribution We when observe other people’s behaviors, we believe that their success or failure is due to their long history of personal success or failure. The individual is given the credit or blame for the outcome. ¨

n The files fell out because the workers are dimwits. The files fell out because the workers weren’t strong enough. The files fell out because the workers were unable to balance the cabinet. The workers were inexperienced in this type of work.

Situational Attribution ¨ If you believe that a person’s success or failure is due to a consistently easy or difficult surrounding situation or environment. Something outside of the individual’s control has led to their success or failure.

n The files fell out because the locks on the cabinets broke. The files fell out because a student bumped into one of the workers and caused it to tip. The bright light from an overhead bulb blinded a worker and disoriented him. The floor must have been recently waxed and was slippery.

What might bias our observations of behaviors?

n You go to a party and start up a conversation with someone you haven’t met before. They don’t talk much, gaze around the room rather than look directly at you, and excuse themselves abruptly. You first thought about them is….

n Most of you probably said, “What a jerk”, right? n Did you consider that maybe they were just really shy, or that they just broke up with their significant other, or that maybe they were distracted by a minor car accident they had on the way to the party?

n When looking at the behaviors of others, people tend to overestimate the importance of personal factors, and underestimate the role of the environment. This is called the fundamental attribution error.

n. The tendency for people to overestimate the number of people who agree with them is called the false consensus effect.

n IE. If Brianna hates Psychology, she assumes that most people also find it boring, tedious, and utterly useless as well. If Shavanna likes pizza, she assumes that because it’s so good that everyone must like it too. She’s shocked to find people who don’t like it as much as she does.

n. Self-serving bias is the tendency to take more credit for good outcomes than for bad ones, and viseversa.

n IE. A star athlete will acknowledge that his fourth quarter touchdown won the game. The same athlete will point out that a tough loss was a team loss, and that everyone must step up their game the next time. He won’t admit that his dropped pass in the endzone lost the game.

n When attributing successes or failures, people tend to believe that bad things will happen to bad people, and that good things will happen to good people. This is called the just-world belief.

n One problem with the just-world belief is that we often tend to blame the victims of crimes for their plight. The guy shouldn’t have been walking down that dark alley when he was robbed…the girl shouldn’t have been wearing that revealing outfit when she was attacked.

n The larger the number of people who witness a problem, the less likely any one is going to intervene. This is called the bystander effect. The larger the group of people, the less responsibility any one individual feels to help. People tend to assume that someone else will take action so they don’t have to.

Kitty Genovese Case n The Bystander Effect – In The News n Latane and Darley Study n

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimmination

n We all have different ideas about what members of different groups are like, and these expectations may influence the way we interact with members of these groups. These ideas are called stereotypes.

n IE. New Yorkers are pushy, unfriendly and rude. Californians are laid back and relaxed. Midwesterners are simple and rural. Blondes are unintelligent. White men can’t jump.

n. A Prejudice is an undeserved, usually negative, attitude toward a group of people. Discrimination involves an action against a particular person or group.

n. People have a tendency to see members of their own group (in-group) as being more diverse than the members of other groups (out-group, or out-group homogeneity).

n IE. All blacks are this, and all Indians are that. But when talking about whites, there is a vast amount of differences. We generalize about groups that we are not a part of, and distinguish between members of groups that we are a part of.

n. In addition, the belief that people think of themselves and the members of their own group are good people is called in-group bias.

n. IE. Our fellow Americans and Christians are good and righteous, while those Middle-Easterners and Muslims are bad.

Why is it difficult for people to change their attitudes?

n An attitude is a set of beliefs and feelings n One reason that attitudes are difficult to change is due to the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. The theory is based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors, and when they do not, they experience unpleasant mental tension (dissonance).

Attraction What factors increase the chance that people will like one another?

n Living in the Cyber Age

if they are similar to us (similarity) ¨ we have frequent contact with them (proximity) ¨ those that return our positive feelings (reciprocal liking) ¨ those we share intimate and personal information with (selfdisclosure) ¨

Group Dynamics

n. All groups have norms, or rules about how group members should act. Within groups is often a set of specific roles, a function or part performed by each individual in the group.

n Conformity is the tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of your peers, of people of the same status. Obedience studies emphasize a person’s willingness to do what another asks if the person asking is in a position of authority or expertise.

n n n n The Milgram Experiment – Original Footage BBC Replicating Milgram The Heist – Replicating Milgram Asch and Conformity II Stanford Prison Experiment – Long Version Stanford Prison Experiment – Short Version

n Researchers have found that simple task performance improves in the presence of others. This is called social facilitation, though if the task is difficult or not wellrehearsed, performance is actually hurt by the presence of others. This is called social impairment.

n. Social loafing is the phenomenon when individuals do not put in as much effort when acting as part of a group as they do when they are acting alone.

n. Group polarization is the tendency of a group to make more extreme decisions than the group members would make individually.

n The loss of an individual’s selfrestraint occurs when they feel anonymous. This is called deindividualization. You’re prone to do more extreme things if you’re an anonymous part of the crowd.

n Groupthink occurs when group members suppress their reservations about ideas supported by the group. As a result, there is a false sense of unity, and the flaws of the group’s decision are overlooked.

ABC Series “What Would You Do? ”