Introduction to Psychology

PSY 101
Lecture 12/ Modules 25
Social Psychology
Lecturer: Catherine Sesay
 What is Social Psychology?
• Social psychology is a broad field whose goals are to
understand and explain how our thoughts, feelings,
perceptions, and behaviors are influenced by the
presence of, or interactions with, others
• Major topic of social psychology include:
– How people behave in groups
– How we form impressions and perceive others
– How we form attitudes and stereotypes
– How we evaluate social interactions
– Why racism exists
 Perceiving Others
• Person perception refers to seeing someone
and then forming impressions and making
judgments about that person’s likability and
the kind of person he or she is, such as
guessing his or her intentions, traits, and
behaviors
• Our initial impressions and judgment of
someone can be influenced by various factors…
 Perceiving Others
1. Physical appearance
2. Need to explain
• you try to explain why he looks, dresses, or behaves in
a certain way
3. Influence on behavior
• your first impressions will influence how you would
like or interact with a person
4. Effects of race
• members of one race generally recognize faces of their
own race more accurately than faces of other races
 Physical Appearance
• One factor that plays a major role in person
perception, especially forming first
impressions, is physical attractiveness
• People who are judged as more physically
attractive generally make more favorable
impressions
• Looking at attractive faces activated the
brain’s reward/pleasure center
 Physical Appearance
• Evolution
– attractiveness was a visible sign of a person having
good genes, being healthy, and becoming a good
mate
– men are most attracted to youthful women who
have an “hourglass figure”
– women are most attracted to men who have
masculine faces, with a larger jaw and greater
muscle mass
 Stereotypes
• Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that
people have certain traits because they
belong to a particular group
• Stereotypes are often inaccurate and
frequently portray the members of less
powerful, less controlling groups more
negatively than members of more powerful or
more controlling groups
 Development of Stereotypes
• Once negative stereotypes are formed, they
are difficult to change
• We develop stereotypes when we are
rewarded with social approval for holding
certain attitudes and beliefs
• Cultural pressures to adopt certain values and
beliefs about members of different groups
• E.g. being overweight vs. being thin
 Stereotypes
• Negative stereotypes are often accompanied
by prejudice and discrimination
• Prejudice refers to an unfair, biased, or
intolerant attitude toward another group of
people
• E.g. believing that overweight women are not
as intelligent, competent, or capable as
women of normal weight
 Stereotypes
• Discrimination refers to specific unfair
behaviors exhibited toward members of a
group
• E.g. An employer’s bias against hiring
overweight applicants
 Functions of Stereotype
• Why stereotypes?
1. Thought-saving devices
• save us thinking time
2. Alertness and survival
• to make us alert and cautious around members of an
unfamiliar group
• Problems with stereotypes
• difficult to change because they occur automatically and
without our awareness
• we often dismiss information that contradicts or doesn’t fit
our stereotypes
 Explaining Social Behavior
Attributions
• Attributions are things we point to as the
causes of events, other people’s behaviors,
and our own behaviors
• Attribution Theory
– tendency to give a causal explanation for
someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the
situation or the person’s disposition
 Internal vs. External Attributions
• Internal/dispositional attributions are
explanations of behavior based on the internal
characteristics or dispositions of the person
performing the behavior
• External/situational attributions are
explanations of behavior based on the
external circumstances or situations.
 Internal vs. External
Attributions
 How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we
react to it
Tolerant reaction
Situational attribution (proceed cautiously, allow
“Maybe that driver is ill.” driver a wide berth)

Negative behavior

Unfavorable reaction
Dispositional attribution (speed up and race past the
“Crazy driver!” other driver, give a dirty look)
 Attributions
• Kelley’s Model of Covariation: says that in
making attributions, we should look for
factors that are present when the behavior
occurs and factors that are absent when the
behavior does not occur.
• In doing so we consider three factors…
 Attributions
• Consistency: Does this person regularly
behave this way in this situation?
• Consensus: Do many other people regularly
behave this way in this situation?
• Distinctiveness: Does this person behave this
way in many other situations?
 Attributions
Biases & Errors
 Often people lack the information, the time,
or the motivation to make a logical attribution
and use the cognitive miser model
• The cognitive miser model says that, in
making attributions, people feel they must
conserve time and effort by taking cognitive
shortcuts
 Attributions
Biases & Errors
 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 Effect
 tendency, when you are behaving, to attribute your
own behavior to situational factors. However, when
you are observing others, you attribute another’s
behavior to his or her personality traits or disposition
 Attributions
Biases & Errors
 Self-Serving Bias
 refers to explaining our successes by attributing
them to our dispositions or personality traits and
explaining our failures by attributing them to the
situations
 E.g. why did you receive a good or bad grade?
 The self-serving bias can be considered another
part of the actor-observer effect
 Attitudes
• An attitude is any belief or opinion that
includes an evaluation of some object, person,
or event along a continuum from negative to
positive and that predisposes us to act in a
certain way toward that object, person, or
event
• Attitudes can have a significant impact on
behavior and very powerful influences on our
lives
 Components of Attitudes
1. Cognitive component
– Includes both thoughts and beliefs that are
involved in evaluating some object, person, or idea
2. Affective
– involves emotional feelings that can be weak or
strong, positive or negative
3. Behavioral
– involves performing or not performing some
behavior
 Components of Attitudes
• Beliefs and feelings are involved in how we form
attitudes
– E.g. beliefs may be more important in forming political
attitudes
– E.g. feelings may be more important in forming dietary
attitudes
• In some cases, engaging in some behavior can influence
the formation of an attitude
– E.g. having a good or bad experience in doing something may
result in a positive or negative attitude toward that activity
 Attitude Change
• Attitude change results from self or others
• Why do people change their attitudes?
• Two popular theories that explain why people
change their attitudes
• Cognitive-dissonance theory
– refers to a state of discomfort that motivates us
to reduce our cognitive inconsistencies by making
our beliefs more consistent with our behavior
 Attitude Change
• There are two main ways to reduce CD
1. Adding or changing beliefs
• adding new beliefs or changing old beliefs and
making them consistent with our behavior
2. Counterattitudinal behavior
• involves taking a public position that runs counter to
your private attitude
 Attitude Change
 Cognitive dissonance
 Attitude Change
• Self-perception theory
– Self-perception theory says that we first observe or
perceive our own behavior and then, as a result, we
change our attitudes
• Note
– With cognitive-dissonance we are trying to reduce the
inconsistency in our beliefs and behaviors
– With self-perception simply reflects another way of
explaining our own behaviors, i.e. behaviors give rise
to attitudes
 Attitudes - Persuasion
• Central route: The central route for persuasion
presents information with strong arguments,
analyses, facts, and logic
• E.g. If the audience is interested in thinking about real issues
• Peripheral route: The peripheral route for
persuasion emphasizes emotional appeal, focuses
on personal traits, and generates positive feelings
• E.g If the audience is more interested in the candidate’s
personality or image
 Elements of Persuasion
• the source of the message
– We are more likely to believe sources who have a
sense of authority, appear honest and
trustworthy, have expertise and credibility, and
are attractive and likable
• the content of the message
– Convincing and understandable facts vs. messages
that arouse emotion, sentiment, and loyalty
– One sided vs. two sided messages
 Elements of Persuasion
• the characteristics of the audience
– Audiences who are interested in facts are best
persuaded using the central route
– Audiences interested in personal traits are best
persuaded using the peripheral route
 Social & Group Influences
• Persuasion can also be a result of social forces
• Individuals may agree to be subjected to a variety
of behaviors e.g. hazing, because it makes them
feel part of a group
• “Going along” with the group is an example of
conformity
• Conformity refers to any behavior you perform
because of group pressure, even though that
pressure might not involve direct requests
 Social & Group Influences
 Conformity
 adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to
coincide with a group standard
 Examples
 Wearing clothes that are in style
 Adopting slang phrase
 Buying popular products
 “water-bottle” phenomenon
 Social & Group Influences
• Asch’s conformity experiments showed how social
pressures can influence conformity
 Compliance
• However we may conform publicly but
disagree privately
• Compliance is a kind of conformity in which
we give in to social pressure in our public
responses but do not change our private
beliefs
 Compliance
 Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
 tendency for people who have first agreed
to a small request to comply later with a
larger request
 a compliance technique used by a
salesperson
• If you are officially or formally asked to
comply with a request, your compliance
is called obedience.
 Obedience
• Obedience refers to performing some
behavior in response to an order given by
someone in a position of power or authority
• Most of us obey orders, rules, and regulations
that are for the general good
• But what if the orders or rules are cruel or
immoral? Would people obey?
 Milgram’s Experiment
• The Setup
– teacher is a volunteer,
– learner is an accomplice of the experimenter
– the learner is strapped into a chair and has electrodes
placed on his wrists
– the electrodes are attached to a shock generator in the next
room
– the teacher is to ask the learner a series of questions, for
each wrong answer, the teacher is to shock the learner and
to increase the intensity of the shock by 15 volts for each
succeeding wrong answer
 Milgram’s Experiment
• The Conflict
– the question was whether a teacher would continue
and deliver the maximum shock
• The Results
– The scary question was how many “teachers”
(subjects) would deliver the maximum intensity shock
to the “learner.”
– To the surprise and dismay of many, including
Milgram, 65% of the subjects delivered the full range
of shocks, including the final XXX 450 volts
 Milgram’s Experiment
 Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment
 Social & Group Influences
• The results of these experiments helped answer
a question people had asked since World War II:
Why had Germans obeyed Hitler’s commands?
• According to Milgram’s experiments, social
situations that involve power and authority
greatly increase obedience to the point that a
large percentage of people will obey orders even
if they are clearly unreasonable and inhumane
 Helping: Prosocial Behavior
• Another interesting question: Why do people
help?
• Prosocial behavior, which is also called helping,
is any behavior that benefits others or has
positive social consequences
• Altruism is one form of helping or doing
something, often at a cost or risk, for reasons
other than the expectation of a material or
social reward
 Why People Help
• Researchers suggest at least three different
motivations:
– We may help because we feel empathy
– We may help because we feel personal distress
– We may help because of our norms and values
• Two theories
– Decision-Stage Model
– Arousal-Cost-Reward Model
 Why People Help
• The decision-stage model of helping says that you
go through five stages in deciding to help:
1. you notice the situation
2. you interpret it as one in which help is needed
3. you assume personal responsibility
4. you choose a form of assistance
5. you carry out that assistance
• The arousal-cost-reward model of helping says
that we make decisions to help by calculating the
costs and rewards of helping
 Social & Group Influences
Group Dynamics
• Groups are collections of two or more people
who interact, share some common idea, goal,
or purpose, and influence how their members
think and behave
• Group influences can greatly change how you
think, feel, and behave
 Social & Group Influences
Group Dynamics
• Two powerful group influences come in the
form of group cohesion and group norms
• Group cohesion is group togetherness, which
is determined by how much group members
perceive that they share common attributes
• Group norms are the formal or informal rules
about how group members should behave
• Lying to protect one another, rites, rituals etc.
 Social & Group Influences
Group Dynamics
• Why do we join groups?
– Abraham Maslow (1970) The need for love and
belonging
– Leon Festinger (1954) Social comparison theory
• Social comparison theory says that we are driven to
compare ourselves to others who are similar to us, so
that we can measure the correctness of our attitudes
and beliefs
– We can accomplish things in groups we cannot do
alone
 Social & Group Influences
Behavior in Crowds
• Being in a crowd can cause you to think and
behave differently than when you’re alone
• Being in a crowd
– can increase or decrease personal performance
– encourage individuals to engage in antisocial
behaviors, such as riots
– cause individuals to refuse to help to someone in
need
 Social & Group Influences
Behavior in Crowds
• Facilitation and Inhibition
– Social facilitation is an increase in performance in the
presence of a crowd
– Social inhibition is a decrease in performance in the
presence of a crowd
• Deindividuation in Crowds
– Deindividuation refers to the increased tendency for
subjects to behave irrationally or perform antisocial
behaviors when there is less chance of being
personally identified
 Social & Group Influences
Behavior in Crowds
• The Bystander Effect
– The bystander effect says that an individual may feel
inhibited from taking some action because of the
presence of others
– two explanations for the bystander effect
• The informational influence theory says that we use the
reactions of others to judge the seriousness of the situation
• The diffusion of responsibility theory says that, in the
presence of others, individuals feel less personal
responsibility and are less likely to take action in a situation
where help is required
 Social & Group Influences
Behavior in Crowds
• The presence of others also influences how we make
decisions
• Group discussions change individuals’ judgments
• Group polarization is a phenomenon in which group
discussion reinforces the majority’s point of view and
shifts that view to a more extreme position
• Groupthink refers to a group making bad decisions
because the group is more concerned about reaching
agreement and sticking together than gathering the
relevant information and considering all the alternatives