Module 12

Social
Psychology
Objectives
After studying this module, you are expected to

• define social psychology, the basic concepts and theories related to

group behavior;
• describe attitude, how they are formed and changed;
• explain the attribution theory with emphasis on its different biases;
• distinguish the difference among conformity, compliance, and
obedience;
• evaluate whether groups enhance or impair performance;
• realize and appreciate the importance of membership in group; and
• demonstrate how social processes and social relations develop.
 Social psychology has been defined as the study of how people think about,
influence, and relate to other people and on how people’s thoughts, feelings, and
actions are affected by others

Social cognition is the area of social psychology that explores how people
select, interpret, remember, and use social information
 The Role of Perception

Person Perception refers to seeing someone and then forming impression

and making judgments about that person’s likability and the kind of person he
or she is.
In forming impression, there are four factors that influenced your judgment
Physical appearance. This factor influences your initial impressions and judgments of a person.

Influence on behavior. The first impression you have on a person influences how you would
interact with a person.

Effects on race. This means we may perceive faces that are racially different from our own
in a biased way because they do not appear as distinct as faces from our won race.
Physical attractiveness has been recognized as a powerful social cue

Stereotype is a general belief about a group’s characteristics that does not consider any
variations from one individual to another.

Two major functions

Thought – saving device. In making social decisions, stereotypes help us conserve

time and energy thus make quick (and sometimes inaccurate) decisions by not
having to analyze an overwhelming amount of personal and social information.

Alertness and survival is another function of stereotype. It makes us alert and

cautious around members of an unfamiliar group.

Attribution theory helps us get explanation on the underlying causes of a person’s

behaviors (situational and dispositional).
Situational causes are based on the external circumstances or situations which are
outside the person

Dispositional cause (based on her internal traits or personality characteristics)

Typical attribution biases include the following:

The halo effect refers to a phenomenon in which an initial understanding that a person has
positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics.

Assumed-similarity bias would occur when we assume that people’s attitudes, opinions,
likes and dislikes are fairly similar with ours even when we just meet them for the first time.

The self-serving bias refers to the tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors
(skill, ability or effort) and to attribute failure to factors outside oneself.

The fundamental attribution error refers to the tendency to over attribute others’ behavior
to dispositional causes and the corresponding minimization of the importance of situational
causes.
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. It has 3 components:

Cognitive component. This component of attitude includes both thoughts and beliefs
that are involved in evaluating some object, person, or idea.

Affective component of attitude involves emotional feelings that can be weak or strong,
positive or negative.

Behavioral component of attitude involves performing or not performing some behavior.

Attitude Formation. Attitudes are form on the basis of our personal experiences

Attitude Change. Just as attitudes guide behavior, several evidences also exist that
changes in behavior sometimes precede changes in attitudes

There are two popular theories that explain why people change their attitudes:

Cognitive dissonance. It is an uncomfortable state that occurs when our outward

behavior doesn’t match our attitude.

Self-perception theory was conceptualized by Daryl Bem (1967). It says that we

first observe or perceive our own behavior and then, as a result, we change our
attitude.
 Persuasion is described as the process of changing attitudes; one of the central concepts of
social psychology. There are two primary information-processing routes to persuasion and they
are:

Central route processing occurs when the recipient thoughtfully and carefully
considers the issues and arguments involved in persuasion.

Peripheral route processing occurs when people are persuaded on the basis of
factors unrelated to the nature or quality of the content of a persuasive message.
 Social Influence and Groups

Groups typically have rules for behavior, known as social norms: can be explicit, or conscious;
can also be implicit, or unconscious.

Conformity refers to a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow

the beliefs or standard of other people

Compliance occurs when we simply agree to do something because another person asks
us to do it, even if that person has no authority over us.

Obedience refers to the performance of some behaviors in response to an order given

by someone in a position of power and authority.
 Aggression and Prosocial Behavior
Aggression refers to social behavior whose objective is to harm someone,
either physically or verbally. There are three approaches, namely:

Instinct theories propose that aggression is primarily the outcome of innate or inborn urges.

Lorenz an ethologist (a scientist who studies animal behavior)asserted that aggressive energy
constantly builds up in an individual until the person finally discharges it in a process called
catharsis.

Frustration- Aggression theory suggests that frustration produces anger, leading to a

readiness to act aggressively.

Observational learning asserts that people learn to behave aggressively by observing

aggressive models and by having their aggressive responses reinforced
 Prosocial behavior, which is also called helping, is any behavior that benefits others or
has positive social consequences

Altruism an unselfish interest in helping another person (Burks & Kobus, 2012). In contrast to
altruism is egoism, which involves giving to another person to gain self-esteem

The principle of reciprocity means that we behave kindly under the assumption that
someone will show us the same kindness someday
 Group Dynamics
Group cohesion, a group togetherness, which is determined by how much group
members perceived that they share common attributes

Group norm, which is described as formal or informal rules about how group members
should behave, can exert powerful influences, both good and bad, on group member’s
behaviors
 Group Membership
Social comparison theory states 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

Group Influence
Deindividuation, the increased tendency for subjects to behave irrationally or perform
antisocial behaviors when there is less chance of being personally identified .

Social contagion is defined as an imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior,

emotions, and ideas
 Group Performance
Social facilitation occurs when the presence of other people changes individual performance

Social facilitation refers to a person’s tendency to exert less effort in a group because of
reduced accountability for individual effort. Its effect is lowered performance
 Group Decision Making
Being in a group creates social pressures that influence how we think and
make decisions. There are two important factors to consider to understand
group decision making, namely:

Group polarization

When individuals discussed the dilemmas as a group, they were more willing to
endorse riskier decisions than when they were queried alone

Group think

Refers to the impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right
decision is less important than maintaining group harmony
 Interpersonal Attraction
The factors that initially attract two people to each other

Proximity or physical closeness. You are more likely to become

attracted to an individual you pass in the corridor everyday than
someone you rarely see.

Mere exposure. This concept stresses that repeated exposure to a

person is often sufficient to produce attraction.

Similarity. Knowing that others have similar attitudes, values, or

traits makes us like them more.

Physical attractiveness. People who are physically attractive are

more popular than physically unattractive ones.
 Building Relationship
Building relationship starts with sharing personal information about yourself which follows
a regular progression as people become more intimate with each other.

Decision/commitment, the initial thoughts that one loves someone and the intent to
maintain the relationship over time.

Intimacy refers to the feelings of closeness and connectedness.

Passion, the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance.
 Maintaining Relationship

In maintaining a relationship, people continue to use openness

and self-disclosure as relationship mature, along with
participation in joint activities, provision of reassurance, and
communication

Ending Relationship

There are times when maintaining a relationship is

difficult, one of the reasons could be that one person is
just wrong for someone. A sense of inequity or unfairness
in a relationship may also cause it to end