Social Psychology

Chapter 14

1

Social Psychology

Social Thinking  The Fundamental Attribution Error  Attitudes and Actions Social Influence  Conformity and Obedience  Group Influence  Lessons From the Social Influence Studies 2

Social Psychology

Social Relations  Prejudice  Aggression  Attraction  Altruism  Conflict and Peacemaking 3

Social Psychology

“We cannot live for ourselves alone.” Herman Melville Social psychology is the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

4

The Fundamental Attribution Error

When analyzing another’s behavior, there is a tendency to

overestimate

the influence of personal traits, and

underestimate

the effects of the situation 5

The Fundamental Attribution Error

• Experiment: Even when students were informed that a young woman had been instructed to act icy or warm, they still attributed her behavior to her personal traits (Napolitan & Geothals, 1979) • Cultural differences – People in East Asian culture tend to be more sensitive to the power of situations 6

The Fundamental Attribution Error

• When we explain

our

behavior, we are sensitive to situational influence – Also for people we have seen in many contexts • We are more likely to commit the F.A.E. when we disapprove of the stranger’s behavior • Taking the stranger’s point of view can help decrease incidence of the F.A.E.

– Reflecting on our past self also switches our perspective 7

Political Effects of Attribution

• How to explain poverty or unemployment?

– Political conservatives often blame the personal traits of the poor and unemployed – Social scientists are more likely to blame past and present situations • Poor education, lack of opportunity, discrimination, etc.

Our attributions have real consequences 8

Attitudes and Actions

•

Attitudes

are feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events 9

Attitudes affect Actions

• Particularly when external influences are minimal, and attitude is stable, specific, and easily recalled • Experiment: people given vivid information changing their attitude – Informed them about tanning, linking it to skin cancer – had lighter skin a month later compared to a group not having their attitude influenced 10

Or: Actions affect Attitudes

• Cooperative actions can build an attitude of team loyalty • Attitudes

follow

behavior – Foot-in-the-door phenomenon – Role-playing – Cognitive dissonance 11

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

• In the Korean War, Chinese communists solicited cooperation from US army prisoners by asking them to carry out small errands. • People who have first agreed to a small request are more likely to comply later with a larger request • To get people to agree to something big, start small and build 12

Role-Playing Affects Attitudes

• In many life stages, we take on new

roles

– sets of behavioral expectations about a social position • May feel phony at first, as if “acting” the role – “Fake it until you make it” 13

Role-Playing Affects Attitudes

• Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students. Guards and prisoners developed role-appropriate attitudes.

• Individual differences – not everyone gave into the situation 14

Why do actions affect attitude?

Cognitive dissonance theory

: We feel discomfort when beliefs don’t match with our actions or other thoughts. To relieve this tension, we may change our beliefs and attitudes to fit our choices – If we have chosen to support a party or president, we will change our understandings to fit the policies – Foot in the door: if I have taken a small action to help someone, I decide I must have wanted to help, and then it’s easier to get me to help more – Fake it till you make it: Make yourself act kindly, and kind intentions will grow. 15

Social Psychology

Social Influence  Conformity and Obedience  Group Influence 16

Conformity and Obedience

•

Chameleon effect

: we take on the emotional tones of those around us, imitating others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones • When students worked beside people who rubbed their own faces or shook a foot, the students tended to do so too (Chatrand & Bargh, 1999) • Automatic mimicry helps us

empathize

, to feel what others feel 17

Group Pressure and Conformity

•

Conformity

: adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard 18

Group Pressure and Conformity

• Solomon Asch (1955) asked “which line is the same length as the standard?” – Before subject’s turn to answer, confederates say “Line 3” – More than 1/3 of subjects conformed to wrong answer 19

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw Solomon Asch 20

Group Pressure and Conformity

We are more likely to conform when we – Are made to feel incompetent or insecure – Are in a group with at least three people – Are in a group in which everyone else agrees – Admire the group’s status and attractiveness – Have not already committed to any response – Know that others in the group will observe our behavior – Are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for social standards 21

Why Do We Conform?

• To avoid rejection or gain approval – Responding to

social norms

• Because we are open-minded and were convinced by new information from the group • Whether conformity is perceived as good or bad depends on our values • Conformity rates are lower in individualistic cultures like the U.S. 22

Obedience

• People give into social pressures. What about outright commands? • Stanley Milgram (1963) investigated the effects of authority on obedience 23

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdb20gcc_Ns 24

The Milgram Experiment

• You, as the “teacher”, must shock the “learner” if he gives a wrong answer • With each wrong answer, increase the voltage • The “learner” appears in pain, the experimenter says you must continue 25

Milgram Experiment: Results

26

More Milgram Obedience Results

• In later experiments, Milgram found that obedience was highest when – The person giving orders was close at hand and perceive to be a legitimate authority figure – The authority figure was supported by a respected, well-known institution – The victim was depersonalized or at a distance 27

Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies

• Social influences can make people conform to falsehoods or give in to cruelty “I was only following orders.” – Adolf Eichmann, Director of Nazi deportation of Jews to concentration camps 28

Group Influence

• One of the first social psychology experiments (Triplett, 1898): – Adolescents would wind a fishing reel faster in the presence of someone doing the same thing • Group Influences – Social Facilitation – Social Loafing – Deindividuation 29

Social Facilitation

• The presence of others raises arousal levels, intensifies performance and responses (the ‘faster reeling’ study) •

Social facilitation

: stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others • What you do well, you are likely to do even better in front of an audience 30

Home Team Advantage

31

Social Loafing

• When performing a task as a group, people tend to exert less effort toward a common goal – Especially common in individualistic cultures 32

Social Loafing

• People acting as part of a group feel less accountable, worry less about what others think of them • People who are not highly motivated, who don’t identify strongly with the group, may

free-ride

on others’ efforts 33

Deindividuation

• Group situations that foster

arousal

and

anonymity

may lead to a loss of self awareness and self-restraint • Experiment: People dressed in a KKK hood delivered twice as much shock to a victim as uncovered people did 34

Group Polarization

• • Over time, differences between groups of college students tend to grow

Group polarization :

strengthening of a group’s preexisting attitudes through discussions within the group 35

Groupthink

• In a deeply cohesive group, members may try to reach consensus without critically evaluating ideas • Involved in a number of politically dangerous situations – Bay of Pigs invasion – Escalation of Vietnam war 36

Social Psychology

Social Relations  Prejudice  Aggression  Attraction  Altruism  Conflict and Peacemaking 37

Prejudice

• An unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members • A three-part mixture of: – Beliefs (

stereotypes

) – Emotions (hostility, envy, fear) – being likely to act on the beliefs (

discrimination

) 38

How Prejudiced Are People?

• Open prejudice has waned • Subtle prejudice lingers – many people still feel uncomfortable with other races 39

Ingroup and Outgroup

• We have a need to belong and have a group identity –

Ingroup bias

: we have a tendency to favor our own group 40

Emotional Roots of Prejudice

• • When threatened, people cling more tightly to their prejudices

Scapegoat theory

: prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame – High levels of prejudice among economically frustrated people – In experiments, temporary frustration increases prejudice 41

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

• Forming categories – When we categorize people into social or ethnic groups, we overestimate their similarities – The

other-race effect

: tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races (Irving Teranishi and me) • Emerges during infancy (between 3 and 9 months) 42

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

• Remembering vivid cases – Violent cases are readily available to our memory and feed our stereotypes 43

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

• Believing the world is just – People have a tendency to justify their culture’s social systems.

– We’re inclined to

think that the way things are is

the way they ought to be. This makes it hard for us to visualize a need to change inequalities.

44

Aggression

•

Aggression

: any verbal or physical behavior intended to hurt or destroy • As we’ll see on upcoming slides, aggression emerges when biology interacts with experience 45

The Biology of Aggression

• Genetic Influences • Neural Influences • Biochemical Influences 46

The Biology of Aggression

• Genetic Influences – Animals may be bred for aggressiveness – Having a “violent temper” can be influenced by genes • Neural Influences – No one spot in the brain controls aggression – Certain brain stimulations can either inhibit or produce aggression – Violent criminals may have diminished frontal lobe activity 47

The Biology of Aggression

• Biochemical Influences –

Testosterone

circulates in the blood, and influences neural control of aggression Muscular young males tend to have higher levels of testosterone, and be more aggressive –

Alcohol

also unleashes aggressive responses to frustration 48

The Psychology of Aggression

• Psychological factors that trigger aggression – Frustration or rejection – Learning that aggression is rewarding – Observing models of aggression 49

The Psychology of Aggression

Frustration-aggression principle

: • Frustration creates anger, which can generate aggression • Feelings of being socially excluded can lead to aggressive responses • These factors were at work in various school shootings 50

The Psychology of Aggression

• Learning that aggression is rewarding – Children whose aggression successfully intimidates other children may become more aggressive – Animals that have successfully fought to get food or mates become more ferocious 51

The Psychology of Aggression

• Observing models of aggression – We often imitate what a model says and does – Aggression Replacement Training (Goldstein) works with juvenile offenders and gang members and their parents, teaching new ways to control anger  Youths became less likely to offend (commit violent acts) again 52

The Psychology of Aggression

• Observing models of aggression – Repeatedly watching on-screen violence makes us less sensitive to cruelty, and primes us to respond aggressively when provoked • Teaches us

social scripts :

culturally modeled guides for how to act in various situations – X-rated films and women-hating song lyrics can teach aggressive and misogynistic

sexual scripts

53

Other Social Psychology Issues

• Attraction and Romantic Love • Altruism • Bystander Psychology • Conflict and Cooperation 54

Attraction

• Special sorts of attachments – close friendships and romantic love – help us cope with other relationships • What is the psychological chemistry that binds us together?

55

Psychology of Attraction

Ingredients for attraction: –

Proximity

–

Physical attractiveness

–

Similarity

56

Proximity

• • People are most inclined to like (and marry) those who are nearby

Mere exposure effect

: repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them – A Taiwanese man wrote 700+ letters to his girlfriend proposing marriage. She married the mailman.

– We are more comfortable with a mirror image of ourselves than a regular photo 57

Proximity/Familiarity

• People prefer the candidate whose image had been (secretly) blended with their own 58

Physical Attractiveness

• Physical appearance most important factor in first impressions • Behavior toward and attitudes about others influenced by their physical attractiveness – for both men and women “I constantly think about my looks”

Men Women Canada USA

18% 17% 20% 27%

Mexico Venezuela

40% 47% 45% 65% 59

In the Eye of the Beholder

• Conceptions of beauty vary with culture and time • Youthful physical features appear to be universally considered attractive, at least for females 60

Similarity

• Lasting friends and couples are likely to share attitudes, beliefs, and interests, among other factors • We also like those who like us •

Reward theory of attraction

: We like those whose behavior is rewarding to us, and continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs 61

Romantic Love

Passionate Love

Aroused state of positive absorption in another

Companionate Love

Deep affectionate attachment for those with whom our lives are intertwined

Nothing

62

Passionate Love

• Two-factor theory of emotion: Many emotions are an arousal state plus a label • Studies show: Men getting their heart rate up by any means, from exercise to erotica, felt more attracted to a woman they met while still stirred up, attributing their arousal state to the attraction • Passionate love may be physical, as misattributed, and temporary 63

Romantic Love

• Transition to companionate love is adaptive – Shift focus to family and parenting • Key ingredients for lasting relationships –

Equity :

both partners receive in proportion to what they give –

Self-disclosure :

revealing intimate aspects of yourself to others – Romance? Overvaluing this increases divorce 64

Altruism

•

Altruism

is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others Wesley Autrey jumped onto subway tracks to save a fallen stranger from oncoming train 65

Bystander Intervention

• In 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered as 38 neighbors heard but did nothing • Was this simply the opposite of Altruism, or is something more complex going on?

66

Bystander Intervention:

Deciding whether to Intervene 67

The Bystander Effect

• Study: participants heard a crash and yell in the next room • Results showed the

Bystander effect

: any given bystander is less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present 68

Conflict

•

Conflict

: a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas •

Mirror-image perceptions

: mutual views often held by people in conflict – Each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful, and the other side as evil and aggressive 69

Cooperation

•

Superordinate goals

: shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation • Members of interracial groups who form teams and work together come to feel friendly toward one another 70