General Psychology

1
General Psychology

• Chapter 14
• Social Psychology

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Social Cognition Making Sense of the World

• Social Psychology field of psychology concerned
  with how others influence the thoughts, feelings,
  and behaviors of the individual

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Social Cognition Making Sense of the World

• What information about the social nature of the
  world do we have stored in memory?
• How does that information influence social
  judgments, choices, attractions, and behaviors?

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Social Cognition Making Sense of the World

• Naïve realism tendency for us to believe that
  we see the world in a more rational, objective
  way than other people do

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Nature of Attitudes

• Attitude relatively stable disposition toward
  some object or event. Consists of
• Affect
• Behaviors
• Cognitions

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Attitude Formation

• Formed through learning
• Observational Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning

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Figure 14.1 A schematic diagram of how attitudes
may be formed through classical conditioning.
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Attitude Formation

• Mere exposure phenomenon the more one is
  exposed to an object, the greater likelihood that
  he or she will develop positive attitudes about
  that object

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Attitude Formation

• Agenda setting
• First level media tells audience which issues
  are important
• Second level media works to shape the
  audiences attitudes about the issues it chooses
  to discuss

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Attitude Change Mechanisms

• Leon Festinger
• Cognitive Dissonance a negative emotional state
  arises when our attitudes, thoughts, and
  behaviors are out of balance or are inconsistent

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Attitude Change by Persuasion

• Successful persuasion depends on nature of
  message and the audience
• Rational appeal
• Emotional appeal
• Fear appeal

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Attitude Change by Persuasion

• Elaboration likelihood model model of
  persuasion stating that there are 2 alternative
  routes to persuasion the central route and the
  peripheral route

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Spotlight Attitudes Toward People with
Disabilities

• A person with a disability has difficulty
  performing certain functions (seeing, walking,
  etc.), has difficulty with the activities of
  daily life, or with certain social roles (school
  work, work on a job, etc.)

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Spotlight Attitudes Toward People with
Disabilities

• Persons with disabilities
• Are often the object of prejudice and
  discrimination (even with laws prohibiting such
  discrimination)
• Are often seen as less able in areas unrelated to
  their particular disability
• Are often of lower-than-average economic status
• May be seen as not just different, but also
  damaged

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Figure 14.2 Leon Festingers results.
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Attitude Change Mechanisms

• Postdecisional dissonance cognitive dissonance
  that occurs after making a decision between 2
  mutually exclusive, equally attractive, different
  alternatives

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Attitude Change Mechanisms

• Darrel Bem
• Self-perception theory we keenly observe
  behavior, including our own, and look for an
  explanation for that behavior

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Attitude Change Mechanisms

• Persuasion application of rational and/or
  emotional arguments to convince others to change
  their attitudes and beliefs

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Attitude Change Mechanisms

• Yale communication model considers the
  influence of the source of a message, the
  structure of a message, and the audience for a
  message
• Source very important!

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Prejudices, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

• Prejudice attitude that represents a biased
  often negative disposition toward groups of
  persons
• Racism
• Sexism

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Prejudices, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

• Stereotype rigid set of positive or negative
  beliefs about a group of people
• Rigid, over-generalized, often biased schema
• Explicit stereotypes
• Implicit stereotypes

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Prejudices, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

• Discrimination behavioral component of
  prejudice
• The (usually) negative behavior(s) directed at a
  member of a group simply because of that persons
  membership in the group

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Spotlight Racial Profiling of African Americans
and Hispanic Americans

• Profiling when members of law enforcement stop,
  search, or arrest persons on the basis of their
  race or ethnicity, national origin, or religion

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Spotlight Racial Profiling of African Americans
and Hispanic Americans

• Blacks are stopped and searched about 20 more
  often than are Caucasians
• Problem perceived as worse than it is
• Example of aversive racism
• Racial profiling is outlawed in U.S. and 30
  states

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Attribution Processes

• Internal attribution explains the source of a
  persons behavior in terms of a characteristic of
  the person (trait or disposition)
• External attribution explains the source of a
  persons behavior in terms of the situation or
  context outside the individual

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Attribution Processes

• Fundamental attribution error tendency to favor
  internal attributions rather than external
  situational explanations

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Attribution Processes

• Just world hypothesis bias in which people come
  to believe that good things only happen to good
  people and bad things only happen to bad people

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Attribution Processes

• Self-serving bias success or positive outcomes
  are attributed to personal, internal sources, and
  failures, or negative outcomes are attributed to
  situational or external sources

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Attribution Processes

• Actor-observer bias one tends to use external
  attributions for his or her behaviors and
  internal attributions for the behavior of others

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Interpersonal Attraction

• Reinforcement-affect model people are attracted
  to others who provide rewarding experiences
• Social exchange model what matters most is a
  comparison of the costs and benefits of
  establishing a relationship

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Interpersonal Attraction

• Equity theory extends social exchange model to
  add appraisal of rewards and costs for both
  parties in a relationship

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Interpersonal Attraction

• Reciprocity a person tends to value and like
  others who like and value him or her
• Proximity simple physical closeness yields
  attraction
• Mere exposure phenomenon liking increases with
  repeated exposure
• Physical attractiveness

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Factors Affecting Personal Attraction

• Matching phenomenon suggests that one is often
  attracted to someone else of the same level of
  physical attractiveness and social status
• Opposites may attract, but similarity is more
  powerful over time!

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Conformity

• Modifying behavior under perceived pressure to do
  so, so that it is consistent with the behavior of
  others

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Conformity

• Solomon Asch found that people were susceptible
  to social pressure when they were in an ambiguous
  situation
• True partner effect any social support for
  ones decision minimizes conformity

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Figure 14.3 The type of stimuli used in Aschs
conformity experiments.
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Conformity

• Factors influencing degree of conformity
• The more competent the majority, the greater the
  conformity
• The more ambiguous the situation, the greater the
  conformity
• Women conform more than men in some circumstances

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Obedience to Authority

• Obedience results when one yields to the pressure
  of perceived authority
• Obedience demonstrated in the laboratory by
  Stanley Milgram
• Teachers were asked to shock observers in a
  task presented as a learning experiment
• Even when learners yelled in protest, many
  participants continued with shocks when asked to
  do so by the experimenter

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Figure 14.4 Results from Milgrams experiments.
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Bystander Intervention

• Social psychology of bystander intervention deals
  with the conditions under which observers
  (bystanders) will come to the aid of someone
  perceived to be in trouble

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Bystander Intervention

• First, the bystander must notice what is
  happening.
• The bystander must label the situation as an
  emergency.
• The bystander must decide that it is his or her
  responsibility to do something.
• The bystander must implement his or her decision.

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Figure 14.5 Bystander intervention model.
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Bystander Intervention

• Bystander effect social inhibition of helping
• Accounted for by
• Audience inhibition tendency to be hesitant to
  do anything in front of others, especially
  strangers

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Bystander Intervention

• 2. Pluralistic ignorance ones tendency to
  believe that he or she is confused and does not
  know what to do in an emergency, whereas everyone
  else is standing around doing nothing for some
  reason

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Bystander Intervention

• 3. Diffusion of responsibility the greater the
  number of people present, the smaller is each
  persons perceived obligation to intervene

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Bystander Intervention

• Empathy-altruism hypothesis empathy is one
  reason for helping those in need
• Egoism motive for helping someone in need is to
  avoid personal distress for not helping

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Social Loafing and Facilitation

• Social loafing is the tendency to work less
  (decrease individual effort) as the size of the
  group in which one is working becomes larger

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Social Loafing and Facilitation

• Social facilitation when the presence of others
  improves an individuals performance
• Social interference when the presence of others
  leads to poor performance

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Decision-Making in Groups

• Groups tend to recognize answers faster.
• Groups with high-quality members perform better
  than those with low-quality members.
• Groups bring more resources to problem-solving
  tasks.
• Interpersonal cohesiveness and task-based
  cohesiveness increase productivity.

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Decision-Making in Groups

• Risky shift phenomenon groups make decisions
  that are riskier than those made by individuals
• Group polarization effect group participation
  will make any individuals reactions more extreme
  or polarized

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Decision-Making in Groups

• Groupthink 8 symptoms
• An illusion of invulnerability
• Rationalization
• Unquestioned belief in groups inherent morality
• Stereotyped views of the enemy
• Conformity pressures
• Self-censorship
• An illusion of unanimity
• Emergence of self-appointed mindguards