Social Psychology

Chapter 18 (695-741)

Mr. Holland
Social Psychologists
 Explore how we think about, influence, and relate to
other people.
 Attributions
– Dispositional attribution – to attribute a behavior or action to
someone’s personality
– Situational attribution – to attribute a behavior or actions to
someone’s specific situation.
– Fundamental attribution error – to underestimate the
situational and overestimate the personal disposition. To
basically assume someone did something, like get angry,
because they are “like that all the time.”
Attitudes

Attitudes are beliefs and feelings that predispose us to

certain behavior when we react to different things.

Attitudes are most likely to guide our actions if:

 Outside influences on what we say or do are minimal
 The attitude is specifically relevant to the behavior
 We are keenly aware of our attitudes
Actions
 Actions can also guide attitudes
 Foot-in-the-door phenomenon – the
idea that by agreeing to do a small
thing, people will later be more
susceptible to agreeing to do a big
thing
 Role-Playing can affect attitudes
 Cognitive dissonance can possibly
change attitudes. Your mind will
resolve this dissonance by either
changing your attitude or changing the
facts that you observed.
Role Playing

 Role Playing can greatly affect attitudes

 The Stanford Prison Experiment by Phil
Zimbardo. Regular people were put into the
roles of “guards” and “prisoners.”
 http://www.prisonexp.org/slide-1.htm
Conformity
 Solomon Asch, conformity
and the line tests (295-300)
- 75% choose the wrong
answer to conform
 Milgram’s, obedience shock
tests (308-316)
-65% completed the entire
test using “danger severe
shock!”

Learn from this!

Ask Questions!
Reasons for Conformity

 To avoid rejection or gain social approval

- Normative Social Influence
*How does Corliss enforce normative social
influence?
 We are receptive to other’s opinions about
things especially if we are not sure ourselves
or if our opinion is important.
- Informative social influence
Conformity

 Individualisticcultures tend to have less

conformity in them but still have a lot.
 Obedience and conformity occur much less
often when there are role models for
defiance. (why no one can have
headphones on!)
Group Influence

 Social Facilitation – When the group affects

your performance. For simple or well
rehearsed tasks group facilitation helps you
do better. But for complex or new tasks it
can make you do worse.
 Social Loafing – tendency for people in a
group to put in less effort towards a common
goal than if they were working on their own.
The Danger of the Group

 Deindividuation – Loss of self-awareness and

self-restraint occuring in group situations that
foster arousal and anonymity.
- examples: Concerts, Riots, War, Abu
Ghraib Iraq
Group Polarization

 Enhancing the opinions of a group by talking

about them in the group. Making the group
more cohesive and less likely to agree with
outsiders.

How can you avoid group polarization?

What are the possible effects of the internet on
Group Polarization?
Groupthink

 Groups often want “harmony.” They don’t

like dissent.
 Groupthink censors individuals, who do not
speak up, because they want to conform.
Famous Examples: Bay of Pigs invasion, Pearl
Harbor, Escalation of Vietnam, Invasion of
Iraq.
Social Relations

Social Roots of Prejudice

 Social Inequalities (wealth, status, power)
- Prejudice rationalizes inequalities
- Blame the victim / Self fulfilling prophesy
In Group Bias

 People have a need to belong. This means

people will join groups. People tend to favor
the groups they are in.
 This predisposed prejudice against strangers
 Group polarization can make things worse
Scapegoating

 Scapegoat theory – The theory that prejudice

offers an outlet for anger by providing
someone to blame.
 Despised out groups can actually raise an in-
groups self-esteem. People who have low
self esteem often restore it by knocking down
other people.
 People with higher self esteem are usually
more open
Cognitive Roots

 Categorization
- The human brain naturally categorizes things
for you so you can understand the world you
live in.
- Categorizing humans results in stereotyping,
stereotyping often has some truth but over-
generalizes and can cause prejudice and
discrimination.
Cognitive roots

 Vivid cases – often a vivid case can cause a

stereotype
 Just World Phenomenon – The belief that
people get what they deserve. This
contributes to prejudice because we think
rich people deserve to be rich and poor
people somehow deserve to be poor even if
its not the case.
Aggression

 Aggression in psychology is any physical or

verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
 Behavior emerges from an interaction of
biology and experience.

Why is it impossible for aggression to be a

simple instinct?
Biology of Aggression

Aggression is a complex
behavior that occurs in
particular contexts,
many things influence
it.
Biology sets our
thresholds for
aggression but
situations pull the
trigger.
Biological factors

 Biochemical - (serotonin),
hormones, drugs such as alcohol
influence neural systems that
control aggression
 Genetic – Twin studies reveal
genetics can influence aggressive
dispositions. (don’t worry Moore
Twins, fraternal twins much less
likely to share aggressive
dispositions). The most famous
genetic indicator of increased
aggression is simply the y
chromosome
Biological factors

 Neural influences – The brain has a complex

system for initiating and inhibiting
aggression. No one part of the brain is
responsible entirely but they do influence the
likeliness of aggressive behavior in a given
context.
Psychology of Aggression

 Frustration-aggression principle
Being blocked from a goal can
increase one’s readiness to be
aggressive.
 Frustration causes anger which
causes aggression esp. if there
is an aggressive cue around –
like a gun.
Many factors increase aggressiveness

 Averse stimuli such as, physical pain,

personal insults, foul odors, hot
temperatures, cigarette smoke,
 Learned Behavior – people are more likely to
use aggression if they have learned
aggression pays, either by direct reward or
by observation
Cultural Values

 High crime rates are reported in societies that have a

great disparity between rich and poor.
 Cultural values such as “manly honor” as opposed to
pacifism can affect aggression.
 Absence of a Father figure correlates to increased
aggression.
 Not all individuals react the same to these social
stresses.
Learned aggression and the Media
 Sexual aggression in the modern world is on the rise.
More women are complaining about sexual attacks,
and harassment.
 Most TV/Movie/Internet sexual acts are casual and
often start with aggressive behavior, the woman
resisting and then finally “giving in.” This unrealistic
portrayal of “romance” is the first and most often
repeated kind of modeled sexual encounter most
people experience in the media
 The over $15 Billion internet porn industry makes
more than all major league sports combined.
Sexual Aggression and the Media

 Experiments reveal that watching

pornography (even if non violent) makes
one’s own partner seem less attractive,
makes friendliness seem more like sexual
advances, and makes sexual aggression to
be taken less seriously.
 However, no one explanation can be used to
predict a violent act. Aggression is complex.
Violence and Video Games

 Experiments do show
that violent video
games do increase
aggressive tendencies
and behavior, but they
themselves cannot
predict an aggressive
person or disposition.
Game Theory “Social Trap”

 Conflict – A perceived
incompatibility of
actions, goals, or ideas
 Game Theory – when
parties acting in their
own interest choose
what’s worst for both of
them.
Enemy Perceptions

 People tend to demonize their

enemies, often in mirror images of
each other. For example both
Osama Bin Laden and people of the
US may call each other “terrorists”
or “murderers” that follow their
religion in a heretical way. It
doesn’t make either side right or
wrong its just a comment on how
opposing sides think about each
other.
Attraction

 Proximity and mere exposure effect – just

physically being near someone for a great
amount of time tends increase the chances
of liking someone. Familiarity increases the
chance you will like someone or something.
 Appearance or physical attraction –
Unfortunately appearance does matter a
great deal in how people judge others.
Physical attraction

 Physical attractiveness accounts for people

thinking that attractive people are more
healthy, happier, more socially skilled, more
sensitive, and more successful, though NOT
more honest or compassionate.
 However, attractiveness is basically
unrelated to people’s personal self-esteem or
happiness
Physical Attractiveness

 “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or in

most cases the culture.
 To be more “attractive” people in different
cultures have pierced their noses, bound
their feet to keep them tiny like a child’s,
lengthened their necks, dyed or painted their
skin or hair, become fatter, have surgery to
become thinner, filled their breasts with
silicone, etc etc
Attraction
 Woman spend more on make-up than on education
and social services combined. 8.5 million cosmetic
surgeries occurred in 2001
 Some things are attractive through-out time. Men
think a more youthful appearance is usually
attractive in woman, woman are attracted to men
who seem healthy looking, mature, dominant, and
affluent.
 Average is attractive, digital average composits have
been rated as more attractive of the actual people
that made them up.
Attraction

 Feelings – how you feel about a person DOES

matter as well.
 We like those who like us
 We like people who are more similar than more
different. Opposites usually don’t attract as much.
 Passionate vs. Companionate love
 Equity
 Self-Disclosure
Passionate Love

 Passionate Love (romantic love)

depends significantly on arousal. In
an aroused state (arousal being
caused by most any reason) people
can seem more attractive. Because
passionate love is based on constant
arousal it usually fades at some point.
Non-western cultures who rate love
as not essential to a good marriage
indeed have better divorce rates
Companionate Love

 Companionate love is a deep affectionate

attachment to someone. When someone
becomes a part of your soul and a partner in
everyday life.
 One key to an enduring relationship is equity
The idea that both partners receive from a
relationship in proportion to what they put
into it. No one partner is giving or taking
more. Mutually sharing self, possessions,
support, and caring about each other’s
welfare is the key to ANY intimate
relationship.
Intimacy

 Self-disclosure – the psychological term for

sharing intimate aspects of yourself with
others. Increases in intimacy can also
increase passion.
Altruism

 The ability to unselfishly care about the well

being of others
 Probably one of humanities greatest
attributes.
Bystander Effect

 When witnessing a tragedy, a bystander is actually less

likely to help if he or she is not alone and there are
other bystanders around.
 Kitty Genovese, New York 1964 Rape and stabbing
victim cried out for help and no one helped her. Rapist
walked away when finished, then came BACK and
stabbed her and raped her AGAIN in front of many
witnesses.
Social Exchange Theory

 Constant goal to maximize rewards and

minimize cost.
 Cost benefit analysis or utilitarianism
Cooperation

 Cooperation to achieve
superordinate goals can
reconcile differences and make
people more tolerant of each
other.
 As conflict intensifies
stereotyping becomes more
common, communication
harder, extreme viewpoints
more common.
Conciliation

 GRIT – Graduated and Reciprocated

Initiatives in Tension Reduction
 Using Foot in the Door Phenomenon sides
can gradually reduce a crisis by taking small
steps to reduce tensions.