Unit XIV

1. Unit XIV Social Psychology

2. What is Social psychology? • scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

3. 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 • 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 • http://youtu.be/6c3uwOYnUfs

4. Social Thinking • Attitude • belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people and events

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

6. Internal attitudes External influences Behavior Social Thinking • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences

7. Social Thinking • Attitudes follow behavior • Cooperative actions feed mutual liking

8. Social Thinking • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon • tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request http://youtu.be/YzQnqZzPHDU

9. Social Thinking • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger) • we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent • example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

10. Social Thinking • Cognitive dissonance

11. Social Influence • Conformity • adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard • http://youtu.be/fQI8pZJiMe0(Candid Camera) • http://youtu.be/TrNIuFrso8I(Info.)

12. 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 Number of times Participant Participant rubs face shakes foot Confederate rubs face Confederate shakes foot Social Influence • The chameleon effect

13. Social Influence Conformity this is the way in which our thoughts and actions are affected by the presence of those around us.- conscious and unconscious behavior The effect other people have on us

14. Social Influence • Asch’s conformity experiments http://youtu.be/iRh5qy09nNw

15. Asch Aim – To see if social influence was as strong if the task was less ambiguous Method – Asked participants to match a test line to 3 different lines, one of which was clearly a good match. He used actors for most of the group and asked them to say the wrong line. He then recorded the response of the naive participant Results – Participants conformed saying the obviously wrong answer 32% of the time (1 out of 3 conformed) Conclusion – social influence still occurs but is less strong with a less ambiguous task

16. Deutsch and Gerrard suggested there were 2 main reasons for social influence Informative social influence Normative social influence

17. The ‘need to be right’ When we are in ambiguous situations we are unsure how to act so we look to see what other people are doing and copy them because we assume they are right. This is particularly true if we believe the people around us to have superior knowledge e.g. older more experienced Informative social influence The ‘need to be liked’ When we are in a social situation we have a strong desire to be liked by the rest of the group and therefore do or say things to make this more likely. However, our desire to be liked may be higher for certain groups of people and therefore our need to conform may go up Normative social influence

18. Can you think of examples when you have experienced • Normative social influence • Informative social influence

19. What type of conformity do these instances show? • Wearing the same style of clothes as your friends • Answering a difficult question the same as someone else because you don’t know the answer • Walking past a screaming child because everyone else is • Joining a queue without checking what it is for • Wearing your tie half undone • Saying ‘in-it’ at the end of a sentence • Copying a spelling mistake made on the powerPoint • Starting to wear make up in year 8

20. Do you think all culture conform to the same extent? Studies have shown that Japanese cultures conform the most. The Japanese government are trying to reduce the conformity in their schools to try to increase the level of creative thinking and innovation The French have a very low level of conformity and are well known for striking against things they do not like

21. Social Influence • Deindividuation • loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

22. 50% 40 30 20 10 0 Difficult judgments Conformity highest on important judgments Percentage of conformity to confederates’ wrong answers Easy judgments Low High Importance Social Influence • Participants judged which person in Slide 2 was the same as the person in Slide 1

23. Social Influence • Some individuals resist social coercion

24. Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment 1971 OBEDIENCE AND SOCIAL ROLES… http://www.prisonexp.org/ (Info. site) http://youtu.be/sZwfNs1pqG0 (youtube video)

25. 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

26. Social Facilitation

27. Social Influence • Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment http://youtu.be/BcvSNg0HZwk

28. 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 How could you test this at school? With your table, design a study and share out in 2 minutes…

29. Think about What could affect the level of social loafing? Size of Group The Task Performed Culture

30. Social Relations • Bystander Effect • tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present http://youtu.be/JozmWS6xYEw http://youtu.be/tGaJrgi_SpE

31. Diffusion of responsibility poem Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, And Nobody This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done

32. Following orders of someone in authority Obedience Change in a persons behaviour or opinions as the result of group pressure Conformity The state of losing out sense of individuality and becoming less aware of our own responsibility for our actions Deindividuation when people do not put in as much effort as a member of group as they do as an individual Social Loafing People are less likely to help when they are in a crowd because responsibility is diffused Bystander Effect

33. Social Influence • Group Polarization • enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group • Groupthink • mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives • http://youtu.be/qYpbStMyz_I

34. Social Influence • If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions

35. Social Relations • Prejudice • an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members • involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action • Stereotype • a generalized (sometimes accurate, but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people

36. Origins of Prejudice • Socialization • We are not born with stereotypes, but we grow to imitate those who we respect • Realistic Group Conflict Theory • When groups are forced to compete for scarce resources (e.g., good jobs, nice homes, college educations), they threaten each other in a very negative manner • ‘Our group is better than yours’ becomes justification for greater access to these positive resources

37. Social Relations • Does perception change with race?

38. Stereotypes • If we use schemas to form overall impressions of others because we are cognitive misers… • Stereotypes: group schemas, containing a set of beliefs about people in a particular social category • Stereotype Threat: http://youtu.be/nGEUVM6QuMg

39. Social Relations • Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice

40. Social Relations • Vivid cases (9/11 terrorists) feed stereotypes

41. Ways to Reduce Prejudice • Allport’s Contact Theory • Under certain conditions, direct contact between members of different groups will improve relations • Contact must involve: • Mutual interdependence • A common goal • Equal status of groups • Informal, interpersonal contact • Multiple contacts • Social norms of equality

42. Social Relations • Ingroup • “Us”- people with whom one shares a common identity • Outgroup • “Them”- those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup • Ingroup Bias • tendency to favor one’s own group

43. Social Relations • Scapegoat Theory • theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame • Just-World Phenomenon • tendency of people to believe the world is just • people get what they deserve and deserve what they get • http://youtu.be/a0jZzBEKIMc

44. Social Relations • Aggression • any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy • Assertiveness • Behavior intended to express dominance or confidence • Assertiveness is not aggression • Frustration-Aggression Principle • principle that frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression

45. Violence • U.S. has highest murder rate in the world among developed countries • More than 15,000 murders every year • More than 92,000 reported rapes • More than 7 million reported violent acts overall • Every 5 minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime • More than 50% of 5th graders report being a victim of violence (70% of those have seen weapons used) • Guns kill an American child every 3 hours

46. Biological Theories • Aggressive impulses may be hereditary • Twin studies: • Correlations of aggression higher among monozygotic twins than dizygotic pairs • Aggression is associated with • Low levels of serotonin • High levels of testosterone • Activation of the amygdala can lead to aggressive behaviors (though it still depends on situational factors)

47. Gender Differences in Aggression • Men use more physical, direct forms of aggression • Men’s aggression is more likely to do physical harm, and thus gets more attention • Girls and women use more indirect forms of aggression (e.g., spreading rumors). • There is no clear sex difference in reporting feelings of anger

48. Gender Differences in Aggression • Provocation: The great equalizer? • Men are more likely to attack physically when unprovoked than women • What happens when people are irritated, frustrated, or threatened by another person? • Bettencourt & Miller (1996) • Conducted a meta-analysis of gender differences in aggression • Found that when provocation is involved, the typical gender difference in physical aggression is reduced or eliminated

49. Physical Discomfort & Aggression • Heat • Humidity • Pain • Noxious fumes • Poverty • Crowding

50. Social Relations