PSYC

Social Psychology

PSYCHOLOGY David G. Myers C. Nathan DeWall Twelfth Edition

Chapter 13

Chapter Overview

 Social Thinking  Social Influence  Antisocial Relations  Prosocial Relations

Social Thinking

 Social psychology  The scientific study of how we think about, influence,

and relate to one another

 Social psychologists  Use scientific methods to study how people think

about, influence, and relate to one another  Study the social influences that explain why the same

person will act differently in different situations

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Social Psychology Scientific study of how individuals think about,

influence, and relate to one another ▪ Personality

psychologists ▪ Study personal traits and

processes that explain why different people may act differently in a given situation

▪ Social psychologists ▪ Study social forces that

explain why the same person may act differently in different situations

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A student in our class got an F on Exam 2. You happen to see their score…

What are your thoughts?

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How Do We Explain Our Social World?

§

§

underestimate situational influences and

overestimate personality influences

You need to Attribute Cause

(what explains the grade?)

Personality (Internal Disposition)

Situation (External)

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) When we observe others’ behavior, we tend to:

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When explaining behavior of others, we tend to:

Underestimate the influence of

the situation

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

overestimate the effects of personality

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overestimate the effects of

personality

When explaining behavior of others, we tend to:

underestimate the influence of

the situation

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

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Overestimate the effects of personality

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) When explaining behavior of others, we tend to:

Underestimate the influence of

the situation

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overestimate situational

factors

When explaining our own behavior, we tend to:

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

Underestimate the influence of

the situation

Social Thinking

 When explaining others’ behavior, especially from an individualist Western cultural perspective:  Fundamental attribution error is committed by

underestimating the influence of the situation and overestimating the effects of stable, enduring traits.

 Behavior is more readily attributed to the influence of the situation.

 Explaining and attributing actions can have important real-life social and economic effects.

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es You are in charge of distributing funds that can impact homeless people.

What would committing the FAE sound like if you were to explain why someone might be homeless?

AN ATTRIBUTION QUESTION Poverty and homelessness ▪ Personal traits (drug addict, irresponsible, lazy) ▪ Social circumstances (no low-cost housing, poor economic

conditions, and insufficient mental health services)

Could this affect how you might distribute those funds?

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Fundamental Attribution Error – Me vs You

▪ Driving to school one snowy day, Marco narrowly misses a car that slides through a red light.

▪ “Slow down! What a terrible driver,” he thinks to himself.

▪ Moments later, Marco himself slips through an intersection and yelps, “Wow! These roads are awful. The city plows need to get out here.”

▪ What social psychology principle has Marco just demonstrated?

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Attitudes Affect Actions Affect Attitudes

Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs, that predispose reactions to objects, people, and events.

Actions are our behaviors toward objects, people, and events.

You stand up for what you believe in.

You believe more in something you’ve stood up for.

Attitude Action

Action Attitude

Positive Neutral Negative

Attitudes Affect Actions

 Attitudes are feelings influenced by beliefs, which predispose people to have specific reactions to objects, people, and events.  Peripheral route persuasion occurs when people

are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness

 Central route persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts

Actions Affect Attitudes (part 2)

 Actions can modify attitudes  Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: The tendency for people

who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

 Role: A set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave

 Attitudes follow behavior  Cooperative actions, such as those performed by people

on sports teams, feed mutual liking. Such attitudes, in turn, promote positive behavior.

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Actions Affect Attitudes – your doings build your beliefs.

▪ Foot-in-the-door phenomenon involves compliance with a large request after having agreed to a small request

Social Thinking (part 4)

 When attitudes do not fit with actions, tensions are often reduced by changing attitudes to match actions (cognitive dissonance theory).  We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel

when two of our thoughts (cognitions) clash.  Brain regions become active when people experience

cognitive dissonance.  Through cognitive dissonance, we often bring

attitudes into line with our actions (Festinger).

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Actions conflict with Attitudes conflict with Actions

▪ Cognitive Dissonance inconsistency between actions and attitudes resulting in feeling of frustration and being uncomfortable.

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Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment The Power of Situation

▪ Role playing ▪ Guards

▪ Justified their actions with the need to maintain order ▪ Gained power from uniform, mirror glasses and baton ▪ Deindividuation

▪ Prisoners ▪ Isolated ▪ Humiliated ▪ Dehumanized ▪ Learned to be helpless

▪ Ethical Concerns

Social Influence

 Social contagion  Chartrand and colleagues

(1999)  Demonstrated the chameleon

effect with college students  Automatic mimicry helps people to

empathize and feel what others feel.

 The more we mimic, the greater our empathy, and the more people tend to like us.

 This is a form of conformity.

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es Chameleon effect

You start laughing exactly like your

friend

You are likely to buy something from a salesperson who wears a hat with the logo of a team you like

▪ Humans are natural mimics, unconsciously imitating others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones.

▪ Automatic mimicry helps people empathize and feel what others feel. The more the mimicry, greater the empathy

People heard that an accident occurred because some car brand’s breaks were faulty. All of a sudden everybody with that car brand started experiencing ”faulty breaks” until it was discovered that the original accident was due to something else…

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es What IsConformity? Change in behavior or belief as

the result of real or imagined group pressure

 Positive or Negative?

Acceptance Compliance Obedience

Conformity and Obedience

 Solomon Asch and others have found that people are most likely to adjust their behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard in the following circumstances:  They feel incompetent or insecure.  Their group has at least three people.  Everyone else agrees.  They admire the group’s status and attractiveness.  They have not already committed to another response.  They know they are being observed.  Their culture encourages respect for social standards.

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es More Classic Conformity and Obedience Studies?

Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

Test of perceptual judgment

7-9 people in a group

All confederates exceptYOU

All confederates give thesame wrong answer

What answer would YOU give?

33% of the timeYOU will go along with thegroup

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Asch’s Studies of Group Pressure

In what city can you find Hollywood?

San Francisco 78%

This was in the 1950. What about us, today?

Los Angeles 22%

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Group Pressure and Conformity

People are more likely to conform when they:

• 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 themselves to any response • Know that others in the group will observe their behavior • Are from a culture that strongly encourages respect for

social standards

People May Conform for Many Reasons

 Normative social influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

 Informational social influence: Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

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Why Conform?

Based on a person's desire to fulfill the expectations of others ▪ “I don’t want tobe

different” ▪ to gain acceptance ▪ Produced by social

image

 Occurring when people accept evidence about reality provided by other people

to appear correct “You must be right!”

Produced by desire to be correct

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Normative Influence Informational Influence

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Classic Conformity and Obedience Studies

lea of

• 65 pa be

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Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

What happens when the demands of authority • Te clash with the demands of conscience…

What did Nazi soldiers did during WWII?

They were evil.

Followed orders.

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Figure 6.4 - Milgram’s Obedience Experiment

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

Assigned to be “teacher” or “student”

A “mock” study of punishment on memory.

Teacher administers shock after every wrong answer. Shocks increase in intensity.

Student is in a different room but his voice could be heard.

Teachers are told by experimenter they must continue with stronger and stronger shock.

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

 Stanley Milgram’s experiments  People obeyed orders even when

they thought they were harming another person.

 Strong social influences can make ordinary people conform to falsehoods or exhibit cruel behavior.

 In any society, great evil acts often grow out of people’s compliance with lesser evils.

Milgram’s Follow-up Obedience Experiment

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What Are the Classic Conformity and Obedience Studies?

Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.

110 surveyed adults said they would disobey at 135 volts.

How about others?

Maybe 1 in 1000 would go to the XXX level of shock. 65% went all

the way to 450 volts

Prod 1: Please continue. Prod 2: The experiment requires that you continue. Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue. Prod 4: You have no other choice. You must go on.

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Copyright 2016 © McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Milgram’s Obedience Experiments

What breeds obedience?

DISTANCE

CLOSENESS AND LIGITIMACY OF AUTHORITY

INSTITUTIONLAUTHORITY

LIBERATING EFFECT OF GROUP INFLUENCE

Group Behavior (part 1)

 Social facilitation (Triplett): The presence of others arouses people, improving performance on easy or well-learned tasks but decreasing performance on difficult tasks.  Performance can also be hindered because the most

likely, but not necessarily the correct, response occurs.  Home town advantage

 Crowding effect

Group Behavior (part 2)

 Home team advantage  When others observe us, we perform well-learned

tasks more quickly and accurately.  On new and difficult tasks, performance is slower and

less accurate.

Sport Years Percentage of home games won

Nippon League Baseball 1998–2009 53.6

Major League Baseball 1903–2009 53.9

National Hockey League 1917–2009 55.7

International Rugby 1871–2009 56.9

National Football League 1966–2009 57.3

International Cricket 1877–2009 57.4

National Basketball Association 1946–2009 60.5

Women’s National Basketball Association

2003–2009 61.7

English Premier League Soccer 1993–2009 63.0

NCAA Men’s Basketball 1947–2009 68.8

Major League Soccer 2002–2009 69.1

Home Advantage in Team Sports

Group Behavior (part 3)

 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

 Causes  Acting as part of group and feeling less accountable  Feeling individual contribution does not matter  Taking advantage when there is lack of identification

with the group

Group Behavior (part 4)

 Deindividuation  A loss of self-awareness and self-restraint that occurs

in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity  Thrives in many different settings

Phenomenon Social context Psychological effect of others’ presence Behavioral effect

Social facilitation Individual being observed Increased arousal Amplified dominant behavior, such as doing better what one does well (or doing worse what is difficult)

Social loafing Group projects Diminished feelings of responsibility when not individually accountable

Decreased effort

Deindividuation Group setting that fosters arousal and anonymity

Reduced self-awareness Lowered self-restraint

Behavior in the Presence of Others: Three Phenomena

Deindividuation

During England’s 2011 riots and looting, rioters were disinhibited by social arousal and by the anonymity provided by darkness and their hoods and masks. Later, some of those arrested expressed bewilderment over their own behavior.

Group Polarization and Groupthink

 Group polarization  Group discussions with like-minded others strengthen members’

prevailing beliefs and attitudes.  Internet communication magnifies this effect, for better or for worse.

 Groupthink  People are driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making

group, with this desire overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives.

 Individual power  The power of the individual and the power of the situation interact.  A small minority that consistently expresses its views may sway the

majority.

Group Polarization

 If group members are like-minded, discussion strengthens the prevailing opinions.

 Talking over racial issues increased prejudice in a high- prejudice group of high school students and decreased it in a low- prejudice group (Myers & Bishop, 1970).

Antisocial Relations (part 1)

 Prejudice: An unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally 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.

 Discrimination: unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members.

Antisocial Relations (part 2)

 Prejudice  “Prejudgment”  An unjustified negative attitude

toward some group and its members

 Often targets a different cultural, ethnic, or gender group

 Components  Beliefs  Emotions  Predispositions to action

(to discriminate)

Antisocial Relations (part 3)

 Implicit prejudice  Implicit racial associations

 Implicit association tests results: Even people who deny racial prejudice may carry negative associations.

 Unconscious patronization  Lower expectations, inflated praise, and insufficient criticism

for minority student achievement

Antisocial Relations (part 4)

 Implicit prejudice  Race-influenced perceptions

 Automatic racial bias

 Reflexive bodily responses  Unconscious, selective responses when looking at faces

Explicit and Implicit Prejudice

 Our prejudice is more often implicit—an unthinking knee-jerk response operating below the radar, leaving us unaware of how our attitudes are influencing our behavior.

 Psychologists study implicit prejudice in several ways:  Testing for unconscious group associations  Considering unconscious patronization  Monitoring reflexive bodily responses

Prejudice Over Time

Targets of Prejudice (part 1)

 Racial and ethnic prejudice  People with darker skin tones experience greater

criticism and accusations of immoral behavior (Alter et al., 2016).

 Our perceptions can reflect implicit bias.

Targets of Prejudice (part 2)

 Gender prejudice  Overt gender prejudice has declined sharply, but both

implicit and explicit gender prejudice and discrimination persist.

 Despite equality between the sexes in intelligence scores, people have tended to perceive their fathers as more intelligent than their mothers (Furnham & Wu, 2008).

Targets of Prejudice (part 3)

 LBGT prejudice  In 2016 two dozen countries allowed same-sex marriage, but

dozens more had laws criminalizing same-sex relationships.  39 percent of LBGT persons reported having “been rejected by a

friend or family member” because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (Pew, 2013a).

 58 percent reported being “subject to slurs or jokes” (Pew, 2013a).

 80 percent of LGBT adolescents reported sexual orientation- related harassment in the prior year (GLSEN, 2012).

 Gays and lesbians are America’s most at-risk group for hate crimes (Sherman, 2016).

Roots of Prejudice (part 1)

 Social roots of prejudice  Social inequalities: Often lead to the development of

attitudes that justify the status quo  Just-world phenomenon: Good is rewarded and evil

is punished  Stereotypes: Rationalize inequalities

Roots of Prejudice (part 2)

 Groups: Through social identities, people associate themselves with others.

 Evolution prepares people to identify with a group.  Ingroup: “Us”—people with whom we share a

common identity  Outgroup: “Them”—those perceived as different or

apart from our ingroup  Ingroup bias: The tendency to favor our own group

Roots of Prejudice (part 3)

 Scapegoat theory: The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

 Research evidence (Zimbardo)  Prejudice levels tend to be high among economically

frustrated people.  In experiments, a temporary frustration increases

prejudice.

Cognitive Shortcuts

 Forming categories  Humans categorize people by race: Mixed-race

people are identified based on their minority identity.  Similarities are overestimated during categorization,

creating “us” and “they.”  Overestimation also occurs, in the form of the other-

race effect or bias.

Categorizing Mixed-Race People

Vivid Cases Feed Stereotypes

The Biology of Aggression

 Biology influences aggression at three levels.  Genetic influences

 Evidence from animal studies and twin studies; genetic Y chromosome genetic marker; MAOA gene

 Alcohol associated with aggressive responses to frustration

 Neural influences  Neural systems facilitate or inhibit aggression when provoked

 Aggression more likely to occur with frontal lobe damage

 Biochemical influences  Testosterone linked with irritability, assertiveness,

impulsiveness, and low tolerance for frustration; alcohol effect

Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression

 Aversive events  Frustration-aggression principle: Frustration

creates anger, which can spark aggression

 Other anger triggers  Hot temperatures, physical pain, personal insults, foul

odors, cigarette smoke, and crowding, among others  Previous reinforcement for aggressive behavior,

observing an aggressive role model, and poor self- control

Temperature and Retaliation

Psychological and Social-Cultural Factors in Aggression

 Media portrayals of violence provide social scripts that children learn to follow.

 Viewing sexual violence contributes to greater aggression toward women .

 Playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Psychological and Social-Cultural Influences on Aggression Do violent video games teach social scripts for violence?  Nearly 400 studies of 130,000

people suggest video games can prime aggressive thoughts, decrease empathy, and increase aggression.

 Some researchers dispute this finding and note other factors: depression, family violence, and peer influence.

Biopsychosocial Understanding of Aggression

Altruism (part 1)

 Altruism is an unselfish concern for the welfare of others.  People are most likely to help when they notice an

incident, interpret it as an emergency, and assume responsibility for helping (Darley et al.).

 Odds for being helped increase if the person appears to deserve help or is a woman.

 Similarity to self, being unhurried or in a good mood, feeling guilty, and being focused on others and not preoccupied also raise the likelihood of being helped.

Altruism (part 2)

 Bystander effect  Tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to

give aid if other bystanders are present  Occurs when there is a diffusion of responsibility

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Bystander effect

▪ Kitty Genovese Legacy ▪ Tendency for any given

bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

▪ Occurs when there is a diffusion of responsibility

The Norms for Helping

Positive social norms encourage generosity and enable group living.  Socialization norm: Social expectation that

prescribes how we should behave  Reciprocity norm: Expectation that people will

respond favorably to each other by returning benefits for benefit (cost-benefit analysis; utilitarianism; social exchange theory)

 Social-responsibility norm: Expectation that people should help those who depend on them