8/25/2011

‫بسم  الرحمان الرحيم‬

In the Name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful,
the Especially Merciful

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Social Influences
upon Humans
Part One
Introduction to Psychology
Dr Aisha Hamdan

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Social Psychology
• Scientific study of:
–how we think about, influence, and
relate to one another

–how behavior, thoughts, feelings are

influenced by others

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Social Psychology
• Areas of study:
–Social perceptions and thinking
–Social influence on behavior
–Influence of group on members
–Aggression and helping behavior

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Social Thinking
• Attribution Theory
–tendency to give a causal
explanation for someone’s
behavior
–often by crediting either the
situation or the person’s
disposition

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Social Thinking
• 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

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Social Thinking
• How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we
react to it
Tolerant reaction
Situational attribution (proceed cautiously, allow
“Maybe road is slippery.” driver a wide berth)

Negative behavior

Unfavorable reaction
Dispositional attribution (speed up and race past the
“Crazy driver!” other driver, give a dirty look)

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Social Thinking
• Our behavior is affected by our inner
attitudes as well as by external social
influences

Internal External
attitudes influences

Behavior

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Social Thinking
• Attitude
–belief and feeling that predisposes
one to respond in a particular way to
objects, people and events
–example: “I believe that people are
basically good, but have the capacity
for evil”

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Student Activity
• Try to think of a situation in
which you did something that
went against your beliefs and
values?
• Write down what you did, what
your beliefs were and how you
felt afterward.

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Social Thinking
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
–When our behaviors and
beliefs/values are inconsistent we
may experience dissonance (anxiety,
guilt, etc.)
–We attempt to reduce the discomfort

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Social Thinking
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
–When we become aware that our
beliefs and our actions clash, we can
reduce the resulting dissonance by:
• changing our beliefs
• changing our behavior

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Social Thinking
• Cognitive dissonance

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Social Influences
• Parents
• Peers
• Society
–Social norms and
expectations

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Social Influence: Parents

The Messenger said, “Every
child is born on the fitrah. Then his
parents convert him to Judaism,
Christianity or Magianism. Just
like an animal giving birth to a
perfect baby animal, do you find it
mutilated at all?”
al-Bukhari and Muslim

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Social Influence: Peers

• The Prophet Muhammad
said, “A man is upon the religion
of his khaleel (close friend), so
let [each] one of you be careful
about the person he chooses to
be his intimate friend.”

Ahmad & at-Tirmidhi

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Social Influence: Peers

The Messenger of Allah said,
“The example of a righteous
companion and an evil one is that
of a carrier (seller) of al-musk and
a blower of bellows. As for the
carrier of al-musk, either he will
give [al-musk] to you as a gift, or
you will buy from him, or you will
find a pleasant order emanating
from him.

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Social Influence: Peers

And as for the blower of
bellows, he will burn your
clothes or you will find a foul
odor emanating from him.”

al-Bukhari, Muslim, Ahmad

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Social Influence
• Conformity
–adjusting one’s behavior or thinking
to coincide with a group standard
• Normative Social Influence
–influence resulting from a person’s
desire to gain approval or avoid
disapproval

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Social Influence
• Asch’s conformity experiments

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Social Influence

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Social Influence
Difficult judgments
50% • Participants
40 judged which
Conformity highest
30 on important person in
Percentage of judgments
conformity to
Slide 2 was
20
confederates’ the same as
wrong answers Easy judgments
10 the person in
0
Slide 1
Low High
Importance

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Social Influence

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Social Influence
• Obedience to
Authority
• Milgram asked
participants to
punish a stranger
with increasingly
higher levels of
shock in a learning
task

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Social Influence
• Obedience to
Authority

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Social Influence

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Social Influence
• Obedience to Authority
• He described his experiment to 110
psychiatrists, college students, and
middle-class adults
• He asked, “How far would you go in
shocking the learner for incorrect
responses?”

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Social Influence
• Obedience to Authority
• The average estimated response of all
three groups was about 135 volts (first lever
in the “strong shock” category)
• When asked to guess how other people
would behave – virtually everyone
responded that no one would proceed to
the end of the shock panel
• They thought most would stop when the
learner first indicated pain

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Social Influence
• Obedience to Authority
• How far do you think people would go?
• How far would you go?
–In obedience to authority?

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Social Influence
• Effects of Roles on Behavior
• Zimbardo set up a mock prison at
Stanford University
– Students volunteered and were randomly
assigned to be either prison guards or
prisoners
– What do you think happened in that
study?
– Did the “roles” they were in have an
influence upon their behavior?

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Social Influence

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Social Influence
• Obedience to Authority
• Five subjects stopped at the last lever
in “Intense Shock”
• Eight more disobeyed in the “Extreme
Intensity” category
• One stopped at “Danger: Severe
Shock”
• Remaining 26 obeyed to the end

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Social Influence
• Milgram’s obedience experiment
Percentage 100
of subjects 90
who obeyed 80
experimenter 70
60
50
The majority of
40 subjects continued
30 to obey to the end
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10
0
Moderate Very Extreme 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

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Social Thinking and

Influence
• Affect of Role-Playing on Behavior
–Zimbardo:
–“When ordinary people are put in a
novel, evil place, such as most
prisons, Situations Win, People
Lose”
–Power of situation
–Do you agree?

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Conformity from
Islamic Perspective
• Nothing wrong with conformity per se
• Conform beliefs and actions with
Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet
(saws)
• Obedience to Allah and Prophet (saws)
emphasized in Islam
• Should not conform with group if
against the teachings of Islam

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‫‪Conformity from‬‬
‫‪Islamic Perspective‬‬
‫ش ِر َك ِبي‬ ‫َوإِن َجا َھدَا َك َعلى أَن ُت ْ‬
‫س َل َك ِب ِه ِع ْل ٌم َف َال ُتطِ ْع ُھ َما‬ ‫َما َل ْي َ‬
‫صا ِح ْب ُھ َما فِي ال ُّد ْن َيا َم ْع ُروفا ً‬ ‫َو َ‬
‫َوا َّت ِب ْع َس ِبيلَ َمنْ أَ َن َ‬
‫اب إِ َل َّي ُث َّم إِ َل َّي‬
‫َم ْر ِج ُع ُك ْم َفأ ُ َن ِّب ُئ ُكم ِب َما ُكن ُت ْم َت ْع َملُونَ‬

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Conformity from
Islamic Perspective
“But if they (both) strive with you to
make you join in worship with Me
others that of which you have no
knowledge, then obey them not, but
behave with them in the world
kindly, and follow the path of him
who turns to Me in repentance and
in obedience. Then to Me will be
your return, and I shall tell you
what you used to do.”
Luqmaan (31):15

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Conformity from
Islamic Perspective
The Messenger of Allah said:
“There is no obedience to any
created being (person) if it involves
disobedience to the Creator.”

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Conformity from
Islamic Perspective
• In these cases, the beliefs and
attitudes of the individual must be
stronger than the situation
• Criterion for all things must be
Islam

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Social Influence
• Social Facilitation
–improved performance of tasks in
the presence of others
–occurs with simple or well-learned
tasks but not with tasks that are
difficult or not yet mastered

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Social Influence
• Social Loafing
– tendency for people
in a group to exert
less effort when
pooling their efforts
toward attaining a
common goal than
when individually
accountable

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End of Session

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