1. Social Psychology Chapter Sixteen
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2. Did You Know That…
Revealing too much about yourself when first meeting someone can convey a negative impression?
The Japanese are more likely than Americans to attribute their success to luck or fate than to themselves?
People tend to believe that attractive people have more desirable?
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3. Did You Know That… (cont.)
In a study of police trainees, friendships were more likely to be formed among those whose names began with the same or adjacent letters of the alphabet?
At least 38 people in a quiet urban neighborhood heard the screams of a woman who was viciously attacked by a knife-wielding assailant but did nothing?
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4. Did You Know That… (cont.)
The origins of prejudice may be traced back to ancestral times?
Most subjects in a famous but controversial study administered what they believed to be painful and dangerous electric shocks to other subjects when instructed to do so by the experimenter?
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5. Module 16.1 Perceiving Others
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6. Module 16.1 Preview Questions
What is social perception?
What are the major influences on first impressions, and why do first impressions often become lasting impressions?
What role do cognitive biases play in the judgments we make about the causes of behavior?
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7. Module 16.1 Preview Questions (cont.)
What are attitudes and how are they acquired?
How are attitudes related to behavior, and how do they change in response to persuasive appeals?
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8. Social Psychology
The branch of psychology that studies how our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by our social interactions with others.
Social Perception: The process by which we form impressions, make judgments, and develop attitudes about the people and events that constitute our social world.
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9. Impression Formation
The process by which we form an opinion or impression of another person.
Influenced by:
Personal disclosure
Social schemas
Stereotypes
Impressions can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
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10. Attributions
Personal explanations about the causes of behaviors or events.
Two types of attributions
Dispositional Causes: Causes relating to internal characteristics or traits of individuals.
Situational Causes: Causes relating to external or environmental events.
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11. Cognitive Biases in Attribution
Fundamental attribution error
Attribute behavior to internal factors
Disregard external situational factors
Actor-observer effect
Attribute one’s own behavior to external causes
Attribute others’ behavior to internal causes
Self-serving bias
Attribute personal success to internal factors
Attribute failure to external factors
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12. Attitudes
A positive or negative evaluation of persons, objects, or issues.
Consists of 3 components:
Cognitions: set of beliefs
Emotions: feelings of liking or disliking
Behaviors: inclinations to act positively or negatively.
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13. Figure 16.1: Attitudes

14. Sources of Attitudes Our social environment
Heredity, through its influence on our:
Intelligence
Temperament
Personality traits
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15. Attitudes and Behavior
Attitudes only modestly linked to behavior
Many factors limit this relationship, especially situational constraints.
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16. Figure 16.2: Elaboration Likelihood Model
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17. Figure 16.3: Getting Your Message Across: Factors in Persuasive Appeals
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18. Module 16.2 Relating to Others
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19. Module 16.2 Preview Questions
What are the major determinants of attraction?
What factors are linked to helping behavior?
What is prejudice, and how does it develop?
What can be done to reduce prejudice?
What factors contribute to human aggression?
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20. What Is Attraction? Feelings of liking others
Having positive thoughts about them
Inclinations to act positively toward them
Includes friendships and romantic relationships
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21. Determinants of Attraction
Similarity
Attitudes, appearance, class, race, other similarities
Physical attractiveness
Major determinant of initial attraction
Matching hypothesis
Proximity
Provides more chances for interacting
Reciprocity
Liking others who like us back
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22. Helping Behavior A form of prosocial behavior.
Behavior that benefits others.
Motives underlying helping behavior:
Altruistic motives
Self-centered motives
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23. Figure 16.4: A Decision-Making Model of Bystander Intervention
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24. Figure 16.4: A Decision-Making Model of Bystander Intervention (A Closer View)
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25. Figure 16.4: A Decision-Making Model of Bystander Intervention (A Closer View)
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26. Influences on Helping Situational ambiguity Perceived cost
Diffusion of responsibility
Similarity
Mood and gender
Attributions of the cause of need
Social norms
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27. Prejudice
Preconceived attitude, usually unfavorable, formed without critical thought or evaluation of the facts.
Components
Cognitive: biased beliefs about other groups.
Emotions: dislike toward members of other groups.
Behavior: discrimination or biased/unfair treatment of people based on group membership.
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28. How Does Prejudice Develop?
Negative stereotypes that are learned or acquired
Direct experience
Cognitive biases
Out-group negativism
In-group favoritism
Out-group homogeneity
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29. Prejudice: Individual Differences
Learning experiences
Cognitive style
Universalist orientation: less prejudiced
Authoritarian personality style
Rigidity, obedience and respect for authority
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30. Effects of Stereotyping and Prejudice
Racism is the negative bias held toward members of other racial groups.
Significant source of environmental stress for many minority group members.
Stereotyping can lead to lowered expectations.
Stereotypical beliefs an become internalized.
Stereotype threat can lead to poorer performances.
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31. Figure 16.5: An Experimental Study of Stereotype Threat
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32. Reducing Prejudice: Allport’s Contact Hypothesis
Reduce prejudice by bringing groups into close contact
Facilitated by:
Social and institutional support
Acquaintance potential
Equal status
Intergroup cooperation
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33. Reducing Prejudice: Individual Efforts
Teach empathy
Avoid stereotypical thinking
Rejecting negative thoughts
Rehearsing positive images
Diversity education
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34. Is Human Aggression Instinctual?
Fighting instinct as basic survival mechanism
Aggression among males used to:
Establish dominance
Defend territory
Claim food, mates, resources
Human aggression may be too complex to be based on instinct.
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35. Influences on Aggression
Biological Influences
Violent behavior and abnormal brain circuitry
Male sex hormone, testosterone
Inherited tendencies
Learning Influences
Aggressive behavior learned like other behaviors
Observational learning, reinforcement
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36. Influences on Aggression
Sociocultural Influences
Violence occurs within social contexts
Violence as social influence tactic
Alcohol use
Strongly linked to aggressive behavior
Loosens inhibitions
Impairs cognitions, sensitivity, perception
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37. Influences on Aggression
Emotional Influences
Frustration, anger may trigger aggression
Environmental Influences
Rising temperatures, more aggression
Extreme high temperatures, dampen aggression
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38. Group Influences on Individual Behavior
Module 16.3
Group Influences on Individual Behavior
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39. Module 16.3 Preview Questions
What is social identity?
What was the significance of the Asch study on conformity?
What are compliance techniques based upon?
Why were Milgram’s findings so disturbing, and why were his methods so controversial?
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40. Module 16.3 Preview Questions (cont.)
How does the presence of others affect individual performance?
What are deindividuation, group polarization, and groupthink?
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41. Our Social Selves
Personal Identity: Involves our sense of ourselves as unique individuals.
Social Identity: Involves our sense of ourselves as members of particular groups.
“Group identity”
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42. Conformity
Tendency to adjust one’s behavior to actual or perceived social pressures.
What pressures do we conform to?
General social norms
Group or peer norms
Asch’s classic study on conformity
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43. Figure 16.6: Stimuli Similar to Those Used in the Asch Conformity Studies
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44. Why Do People Conform? People assume majority must be correct.
People value group acceptance more than being correct.
People feel that it is easier to go along than disagree with the group.
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45. Influences on Conformity
Gender differences
Women, by a small margin, more likely to conform.
Cultural differences
People from collectivistic cultures tend to conform more.
Personality factors
Low self-esteem, shyness, desire to be liked
Situational factors
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46. Compliance
The process of acceding to the requests or demands of others.
Factors influencing compliance:
Appeals from a recognized authority
Desire for social validation
Desire for consistency
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47. Compliance Techniques
Foot-in-the-Door Technique: Small then larger favor
Bait-and-Switch Technique: Item not available as advertised
Low-ball Technique: Low price becomes higher
Door-in-the-Face Technique: Excessively large, then smaller request
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48. Obedience
Compliance with commands or orders issued of others, usually authority figures.
Milgram’s research
“Teacher” shocks “learner”
Most subjects obeyed, delivering high voltage shock.
Demonstrates potential for ordinary people to do harm by following authority.
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49. Why Do People Obey Immoral Commands?
Legitimization of authority
Early socialization
Taught to obey authority figures
Social comparison
Foot-in-the-door effect
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50. Social Facilitation
Tendency for people to work better or harder when working in the presence of others.
Exposure to others induces energizing arousal.
Increases performance of dominant responses.
Not always correct response
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51. Figure 16.7: Effects of the Presence of Others
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52. Social Loafing
Tendency for people to apply less effort working as members of a group.
More likely when performance is not being evaluated.
Reduced with:
More appealing tasks
Visibility of individual performance
Individual accountability
Public feedback on individual performance
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53. Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness that may occur when one acts in concert with the actions of a crowd.
May be destructive
Deviant, reckless mob behavior
Results from:
Anonymity in the crowd.
Shifting attention from one’s own thoughts and standards to the actions of the group.
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54. Group Decision Making
Group Polarization: Tendency for group members to adopt views more extreme but in the same direction as their original views.
Risky-shift phenomenon may occur
Why does it occur?
Social validation
Normative influences
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55. Groupthink
Tendency for members of a group to lose ability for critical evaluation.
Pressure to conform prevents debate
Likely with:
Members strongly attached to group
External threat present
Strong-minded leader
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56. Avoiding Group Think Encourage consideration of all alternatives
Group leader avoids stating preferences
Outside opinions and analyses
Encourage “devil’s advocate”
Subdivide into independent groups
Meetings to reassess and evaluate new information
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57. Application: Psychology Goes to Work
Module 16.4
Application: Psychology Goes to Work
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58. Module 16.4 Preview Question
What are some areas of interest to industrial/organizational psychologists today?
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59. Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Studies people at work and organizations in which they work.
Key areas of interest:
Job satisfaction
Adjustment to a changing workplace
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60. Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction
Qualities of job
Status, pay, benefits
Interesting and fulfilling
Personality traits of employees
Self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional stability
Fit between attributional style and amount of control at work
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61. Adjustment to a Changing Workplace
Challenges of the changing workplace
Less secure
Changes in technology
Flexible work shifts, locations
Organizational culture: System of shared values and norms within an organization.
Develops to fit the needs of workers and the workplace.
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