Chapter 16: Social Behavior

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Chapter 16 Social Behavior
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Social Psychology the study of how individuals
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced
by others

• Person perception
• Attribution processes
• Interpersonal attraction
• Attitudes
• Conformity and obedience
• Behavior in groups

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Person PerceptionForming Impressions of Others

• Effects of physical appearance good-looking
  individuals are seen as more competent, secure
  better jobs, and earn higher salaries
• physical variables in person perception indicate
  that facial features that are similar to infant
  features influence perceptions of honesty
  (baby-faced people being viewed as more honest).
• Social schemas structures that guide information
  processing (working-class, snob, dumb jocks,
  wimps)
• Stereotypes beliefs that people have certain
  characteristics because of their membership in
  certain groups (sex, age, ethnic/occupational
  groups)

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Figure 16.1 Examples of social schemas
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Person PerceptionForming Impressions of Others

• Prejudice and discrimination Prejudice is a
  negative attitude toward a person because of
  group membership, while discrimination is an
  action
• create Memory biases that can lead to
  confirmation of previously held beliefs
• Transmission of prejudice across generations
  occurs in part due to observational learning and
  may be strengthened through operant conditioning

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Person PerceptionForming Impressions of Others

• Subjectivity in person perception people tend to
  see what they expect to see and overestimate how
  often they see it this is called the Illusory
  Correlation
• Spotlight effect people tend to assume that the
  social spotlight shines more brightly on them
• Illusion of asymmetric insight, or the tendency
  to think that ones knowledge of ones peers is
  greater than peer knowledge of oneself, also
  supports the subjectivity of person perception.

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Person PerceptionForming Impressions of Others

• Evolutionary psychologists argue that many biases
  in person perception were adaptive in our
  ancestral past, for example, automatically
  categorizing others may reflect the primitive
  need to quickly separate friend from foe
• (Ingroup vs Outgroup)
• Evolutionary perspectives argue that person
  perception swayed by attractiveness b/c it has
  been associated with positive reproductive traits
  throughout history

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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• Attributions inferences that people draw about
  the causes of events, others behavior, and their
  own behavior (b/c people have a strong need to
  understand their experiences)
• Internal Att. ascribe the causes of behavior to
  personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and
  feelings
• External Att ascribe behavior to situational
  demands and environmental constraints
• Why did Mr. X lose his job?
• Wrecked car

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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• Harold H. Kelley (1967, 1973) has devised a
  theory that identifies some to the important
  factors that people consider in making an
  internal or external attribution, the covariation
  model
• People tend to be biased in the way they make
  attributions, research indicates
• Attributions ultimately represent guesswork about
  the causes of events, and these guesses tend to
  be slanted

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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• Biases in attributions
• Fundamental attribution error an observer favors
  internal attributions in explaining others
  behavior
• In general, we are likely to attribute our own
  behavior to situational causes and others
  behavior to dispositional causes (actor-observer
  bias)
• Defensive attribution blaming victims for their
  misfortune, so one feels less likely to be
  victimized in a similar way (hindsight bias)
• Self-serving bias the tendency to attribute
  ones success to personal factors and ones
  failures to situational factors

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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• Research indicates that there are cultural
  influences on attributional tendencies, with
  individualistic emphasis in Western cultures
  promoting the fundamental attribution error and
  the self-serving bias.
• Weiners Model of Attributions for Success and
  Failure
• Assumes peoples explanations for success and
  failure focus on internal-external causes AND
  stable-unstable causes

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Figure 16.23 Bias in the attributions used to
explain success and failure by men and women
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Figure 16.4 An alternative view of the
fundamental attribution error
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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• A political question?
• Conservatives tend to attribute social blight
  (poverty, homelessness, and criminal behavior) to
  internal characteristics
• Liberals are more likely to attribute the same
  social problems to institutional failures and
  unjust social practices

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Attribution Processes Explaining Behavior

• Cultural influences
• Individualism putting personal goals ahead of
  group goals, defining success in terms of
  personal attributes instead of group affiliation
• Collectivism putting group goals ahead of
  personal goals and defining identity in terms of
  groups one belongs to (clan, tribe, social class,
  caste)
• Chart page 641

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Cultural and Attibutional tendencies

• Child rearing parents in collectivist cultures
  emphasize obedience, reliability, and proper
  behavior
• Parents in individualistic cultures emphasize the
  development of independence, self-esteem, and
  self reliance
• Instead, Japanese subjects exhibit a
  self-effacing bias as they tend to downplay their
  own ability and attribute success to external
  factors in fact they are more self-critical

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Figure 16.22 Relationship between prejudice and
discrimination
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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Key factors in attraction
• Physical attractiveness the key determinant of
  romantic relationships, particularly in the
  initial stages of dating
• Matching hypothesis proposes that males and
  females of approximately equal physical
  attractiveness are likely to select each other as
  partners
• Similarity birds of a feather flock together
  Couples tend to be similar in age, race,
  religion, social class, personality, education,
  intelligence, physical attractiveness, and
  attitudes

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Byrnes research suggests that similarity causes
  attraction, particularly attitude similarity
• Davis and Rusbult (2001) have shown that
  attraction can also foster similarity, with
  dating partners experiencing attitude alignment

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Key factors in attraction (cont.)
• Reciprocity people tend to like those that like
  them, and we see others as liking us more the
  more we like them
• When a partner helps one feel good about oneself,
  a phenomenon called self-enhancement occurs
• Studies suggest that people seek feedback that
  matches and supports their self-concepts, as
  well, a process known as self-verification

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Romantic Ideals the more people match the ideals
  we set for them, the more satisfied we tend to be
  with the relationship
• People tend to focus on their partners virtues
  and minimize their partners faults

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Perspectives on love
• Hatfield Berscheid
• Passionate love complete absorption in another
  that includes tender sexual feelings and the
  agony/ecstasy of intense emotion
• vs. Companionate love warm, trusting, tolerant
  affection for another whose life is deeply
  intertwined with ones own
• These may coexist, but not necessarily

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Sternberg divides companionate love further
• Intimacy refers to warmth, closeness, and
  sharing
• Commitment an intent to maintain a relationship
  in spite of the difficulties and costs

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Close Relationships Liking and Loving

• Hazen Shaver
• Love as attachment looked at the link between
  love and attachment relationships in infancy
• Subdivided it into 3 categories
• Secure Attachment more committed, satisfying
  relationships (56)
• Anxious-Ambivalent attachment (20)
• Avoidant Attachment (24)

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Figure 16.7 Infant attachment and romantic
relationships
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Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction

• Mating priorities
• Physical attraction is seen as aspects of sound
  health, good genes, and high fertility
  (reproductive potential)
• Facial Symmetry is seen as a key element to
  attraction in diverse cultures
• Men are more interested in women in finding a
  youthful, attractive mate
• Women place more emphasis on ambition, social
  status, and financial potential (What can my
  babys daddy do for my baby?)

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Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction

• Both sexes are willing to lie about personality,
  income, past relationships, and career skills to
  impress a prospective date who was attractive

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Attitudes positive or negative evaluations of
  objects of thought
• 3 components
• Cognitive beliefs people hold about the object
  of attitude (beliefs, ideas)
• Affective emotional feelings stimulated by an
  object of thought (emotions, feelings)
• Behavioral the predispositions to act in a
  certain way (actions)

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Figure 16.9 The possible components of attitudes
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Figure 16.21 The three potential components of
prejudice as an attitude
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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Attitudes and behavior are not as consistent as
  one might assume, in part because attitude
  strength varies, and in part because attitudes
  only create predispositions to behave in certain
  ways.
• Persuasion is undermined when a receiver is
  forewarned, when the sender advocates a position
  that is incompatible with the receivers existing
  attitudes, or when strong attitudes are targeted.

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes
• Source sends a communication
• Credibility persuasion successful message
• expertise more influential when arguments are
  ambiguous
• Trustworthiness argument accepted with little
  scrutiny
• Likeability increases sources effectiveness

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)
• Message information transmitted
• One-sided no alternate info
• Two-sided arguments more effective
• Fear Arousal successful if fear is aroused, most
  fail to

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)
• Receiver person to whom the message is sent
• Forewarning expectations and prior knowledge are
  more influential than personality
• disconfirmation bias arguments that go against
  previous schemas are more scrutinized and
  analyzed
• resistance can promote resistance when you
  resist persuasive efforts, you become more
  certain of those attitudes

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Although there are some situational limitations,
  two-sided arguments and fear arousal are
  effective elements in persuasive messages.
• Repetition is helpful, but adding weak arguments
  to ones case may hurt more than help.
• Research has indicated that there are many
  factors at play in attitude change.
• A source of persuasion who is credible, expert,
  trustworthy, likable, and physically attractive
  tends to be relatively effective in stimulating
  attitude change.

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Theories of attitude change
• Learning theory Attitudes may be shaped through
  classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and
  observational learning
• Dissonance theory inconsistent attitudes cause
  tension and that people alter their attitudes to
  reduce cognitive dissonance(Festinger)
• Self-perception theory people infer their
  attitudes from their behavior. Behavior affects
  attitude (Bem)

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Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Theories of attitude change (cont.)
• Elaboration likelihood model central routes to
  persuasion yield longer-lasting attitude change
  than peripheral routes. (Petty and Cacioppo)
• central routes people carefully ponder the
  content and logic of persuasive messages (a
  politicians well thought out speech)
• peripheral routes persuasion that depends on
  nonmessage factors such as attractiveness of the
  source (a politician who depends on flag waving
  and parades).

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Figure 16.10 Overview of the persuasion process
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Figure 16.12 Design of the Festinger and
Carlsmith (1959) study
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Figure 16.13 Bems self-perception theory
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Yielding to Others Conformity

• Conformity when people yield to real or
  imagined social pressure
• Solomon Asch (1950s) (Classic experiment) line
  study
• 37 of men conformed!
• Group size more people, more likely to conform
• Group unanimity one person dissents, less
  conformity

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Yielding to Others Obedience

• Obedience Stanley Milgram (1960s)
• Obedience is a form of compliance that occurs
  when people follow direct commands, usually from
  someone in a position of authority
• Milgram, was troubled over the Nazi war criminal
  defense I was just following orders. He
  designed a landmark experiment to determine how
  often ordinary people will obey an authority
  figure, even if it means hurting another person

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Yielding to Others Obedience

• (Milgram)Controversial landmark experiments
• 40 men from the local community recruited
• teacher was seated before an apparatus that had
  30 switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts, with
  labels of slight shock, danger severe shock, and
  XXX etc.
• Although the apparatus looked and sounded real,
  it was fake, 65 of the men administered all 30
  levels of the shock
• presence of a dissenter only 10
• extremely controversial, as his method involved
  considerable deception and emotional distress on
  the part of subjects.

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Yielding to Others Obedience

• The Power of Situation The Stanford Prison
  Simulation
• http//www.prisonexp.org/

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Behavior in GroupsThe Influence of Other People

• The bystander effect - Darley and Latane (1968)
• People are much less likely to provide help in a
  group then by themselves due to the Diffusion of
  responsibility
• Reviews of studies on over 6,000 subjects
• subjects who are alone help about 75 of the time
• subjects in the presence of others help about 53
  of the time.
• The only variable shown to significantly impact
  the bystander effect is ambiguity of the need for
  help.

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• Group productivity Studies also show that
  productivity decreases as group size increases.
• This is believed to be due to 2 factors loss of
  efficiency resulting from a loss of coordination
  of effort and social loafing
• social loafing Social loafing is a reduction in
  effort by individuals when they work in groups as
  compared to when they work alone.

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Figure 16.18 The effect of loss of coordination
and social loafing on group productivity
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Behavior in GroupsThe Influence of Other People

• Decision making in groups groups often arrive at
  riskier decisions (risky shift) or a more
  cautious approach depending on which way they
  were leaning to begin with this is called
• Polarization Group polarization occurs when
  group discussion strengthens a groups dominant
  point of view and produces a shift toward a more
  extreme decision in that direction.

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Behavior in GroupsThe Influence of Other People

• Groupthink Groupthink occurs when members of a
  cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the
  expense of critical thinking in arriving at a
  decision.
• This is a disease of group decision making b/c it
  stifles dissent and increases pressure to conform
• Some people even shelter information that would
  contradict the groups views (us vs. them)
• Bay of Pigs

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Behavior in GroupsThe Influence of Other People

• Janis Theory
• members of a group suspend critical thought
• Censor dissent
• Pressure to conform increases
• mind guards tend to shelter the group from info
  that contradicts the groups view

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Behavior in GroupsThe Influence of Other People

• Group Think (cont.)
• Major causes of Group Think are
• Group cohesiveness strength of the liking
  relationships linking group members
• Isolation when group works in
• Strength of the leader
• High Stress
• Look at chart page 666