Social Psychology

• Basic premise: Who we are is

determined by our social interactions
– --Past: our social development
– --Present: social influence

We’ll start with an area of overlap between

cognition and social influence; attitudes,
including their formation and change
 Attitudes & Attitude Change
• Definition of an attitude (vs. belief) ABC
– Affective: including evaluation (+/-)
– Behavioral tendencies policy
– Cognitive (belief)
• Central feature: consistency
• Propaganda and other attitude change
mechanisms
 Strong Generalization About
Attitudes
We like to maintain consistancy of
attitudes:
1. selective exposure
2. selective interpretation
3. selective memory
Propaganda or Attitude Change
1. Characteristics of the source of a message
--Credibility, expertise, knowledge, prestige
plus sleeper effect
2. Characteristics of the message
--One-sided vs. two-sided
--Fear + way out
--Moderate discrepancy
3. Characteristics of the recipient
--intelligence level
 Techniques for Selling
• Reciprocity: create an obligation
• Low-balling: get commitment, up price
• Foot in the door: start small
• Door in the face: start big!
• That’s not all! –sweeten the deal
• Prestige: Everyone (or famous) doing it
• Exclusive, defining: You are 1 of 3…
• Bait and switch
 Attitudes
• Explicit attitude: attitudes we are aware of

• Implicit attitude
– Involuntary, uncontrollable, often
unconscious
– IAT (lab)
– But implicit cognitions aren’t all-controlling
 Attitudes toward groups
• Stereotypes
– Cognitive component
– Generalization in which identical characteristics
are assigned to all members
• Prejudice
– Affective component
– Hostile or negative attitude toward people just
because they are a group member
• Discrimination
– Behavioral component
– Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a
group member because of their membership
• 1. Suburban housewife
• 2. Professional football player
• 3. College professor
• 4. Business CEO
• 5. Insurance salesman
• 6. Carpenter

• A. Chevy sedan
• B. Ferrari
• C. Mercedes sedan
• D. Dodge mini-van
• E. Buick Lasalle
• F. Toyota Prius
Prejudice in the classroom ex.
Jane Elliott: Prejudice can be taught (Demonstration/not exper.)
– Told students blue-eyed people were better than brown-eyed
people
– Brown-eyed children had to wear collars and sit in the back
of class
– Over the course of one day: brown eyed children became
self-conscious, depressed, and demoralized
– Next day: Elliott switched the stereotypes about eye-color
(brown=good)
– Brown-eyed kids exacted their revenge

So can discrimination and aggression!

Sherif & Sherif: Robber’s Cave Experiment
 Why are stereotypes maintained?
• Categories enable prediction: Make us feel (rightly or
wrongly) that we understand world & what will happen!

• Illusory correlation
– See correlations where they don’t exist
– Remember confirmatory examples more
– Example: Cheerleaders are outgoing

• Out-group homogeneity effect

– Us vs. them
– “All ______ are alike”
– See others as exemplars of their group

• In-group bias
– Positive feelings for people who are part of our in-group
– Alumni, state residency, affinity (varies with distance)!
 Fundamental Attribution Error
• Interpret behavior of others as a characteristic of the
individual rather than the situation and behavior of self
as due to situation
– Person unemployed must be a bad worker, if I lose job, bad boss
– If my friend gets a low grade: dumb or lazy friend, if I get low
grade: hard exam!
• Maintain stereotypes:
– Attribute confirmatory examples to the individual
– Ignore/attribute to the situation examples which don’t fit or
stereotype
 Stronger Theories of Attitude
Consistency
• Balance Theory (Heider)
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
• Self Perception Theory (Bem)
 Heider’s Balance Theory
Want to maintain consistency among our attitudes
– Prefer to agree with someone I like
– Disagree with someone I dislike
– Three + & one + balanced, 0 + and 2 + unbalanced
Object Object

+ + - +
-

Self Other Self Other

+ -
 Balance Theory
• What if my attitudes are imbalanced?
Object Object

- + + +
-

Self Other Self Other

+ -
– Change beliefs about the object -
– Change beliefs about the person
• Change whichever is easier
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Leon Festinger: Two cognitions that are
in conflict or dissonant (one implies the
opposite of the other) result in pressure
to change one or both to bring them into
consonance
• In practice, the two are an attitude and a
behavior and the attitude changes
Three types of Dissonance Situations
or Experiments
• Justification of effort:
--(Aronson & Mills)
--when prophecy fails (Ms. Keech)
• Inadequate external justification
--counterattitudinal advocacy (Yale)
• Consequences of a decision (Brehm)
Knox & Inkster betting study
(consequences of making a decision)
 Self Perception Theory- Bem
• The theory and its relation to cog. diss.
• Experimental evidence (Bem, Valins)
• Can we know ourselves given all this?
• (Back to Missouri!)
Real World Example of Induced Attitude Change
 Bystander Apathy &
Intervention
• Surprising work of Darley & Latane on
the effect of the no. of bystanders
 Mechanisms That Produce
Bystander Apathy Effects
1. Moral diffusion
2. Lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of action.
airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped, and
they were people more familiar with the surround.
3. Costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised
by the presence of others (surveillance)
4. Rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know what
to do/day, keep your mouth shut etc.
5) Mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90 %
 Solomon Asch: Conformity
• Conformity: Good or bad?
• Major findings: 2/3 conform 1/3 of time!
• Hard to resist!
• But lots of power!
• Conclusion
 Stanley Milgram: Obedience
• Description of Experiment
• Basic findings 2/3 obey
• Field theory explanation (exper. vs.
victim force fields)
 Underlying Explanation
• Foot in the door
• Other is responsible (diffusion of resp.)
• Perceived lack of expertise/knowledge
• Aloneness- lack of social support
• Ambiguity about situation/what to do!!!
• Other directedness (Reisman)
 Schein’s POW Work
• Level of compliance and how it was
obtained
• The power of social isolation
• Who resisted?
• Solution: inner codes vs. external or
situational control
• Conclusion: balance?……a dilemma we
all have to solve
 Don’t Underestimate Social
Influence
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