1. Studying the way people relate to, think about and influence others
Social Psychology
Attitude
Attraction
Group Behavior
Aggression
Studying the way people relate to, think about and influence others

2. Some questions in social psychology
Does being late for school signify something?
How do our beliefs affect our interactions with others?
How does a catastrophe turn some people into heroes and others into criminals?
Is she nice to me or to everybody?
Etc……….
We are social animals!!

3. The Lunch Date

4. Attribution Error Fritz Heider
People usually attribute others behavior whether to internal dispositions or external situations
Are you just a cranky person or is there some stress at home? Is my AP Psychology teacher outgoing? But you only know me from one setting
Is the person a bum or unemployed? ( not me of course)

5. Attribution Theory- How do we explain other’s behavior
Tries to explain how people determine the cause of the behavior they observe.
It is either a….
Situational Attribution- a reaction to stress or abuse
Dispositional Attribution- an aggressive personality
And
Stable Attribution- lasting
Unstable Attribution -temporary

7. Fundamental Attribution Error
How do you view your teacher’s behavior?
You probably attribute it to their personality rather than their profession.
But do you really know?
We tend to overestimate the role of dispositional factors (personality) and underestimate the importance of the situation.
Self-Serving Bias:readiness to perceive yourself more favorably
If you win it is because you are awesome…if you lose, it must have been the coach or weather or….

8. Effects of Attribution
Every day we struggle to explain others’ actions
Guilty or innocent?
Nice or mean?
Genuinely friendly or self-serving
Lazy or unemployed?
Effects our thinking politically and in other areas
Conservatives tend to place blame on personal attributions of the poor and unemployed
Point to remember:
“Our attributions-to individuals’ disposition or to their situations- should be made carefully. They have real consequences.”(Myers)

9. Attitudes: Feelings influenced by beliefs
They determine our reactions to people objects and events .
Central Route v. Peripheral Route of Persuasion
Central means that you are involved in the issue-use a solid argument to convince somebody- analytical. Why learning something would be good for them? Get a good job. Use reasonable arguments
Peripheral route – you respond to a product endorsed by someone famous or try to teach someone something by using an attractive teacher.

10. Actions affect attitudes
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon- a tendency for people who agree to a small action to comply with a larger one later on.
The idea: To get people to do something big- start small
Works also with good deeds
Doing becomes believing
During Korean War. Chinese communists had prisoners run errands etc. then slowly the prisoners came to their way of thinking (Brainwashed)

11. Attitude and Behavior Do attitudes tell us about someone’s behavior?
Leon Festinger:
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
People want to have consistent attitudes and behaviors….when they are not they experience dissonance (unpleasant tension).
Usually they will change their attitude.
When Civil Rights law passed racial prejudice lessened
Moral actions strengthen moral convictions

12. Role Playing Affects Attitudes: Role is a set of expectations about a social position, that defines behavior
Zimbardo Prison Experiment
Toxic situations can make even good people bad
When adapting to new role ( whether playing or not) feels as though you are playing a game. As time wears on the role becomes more real
Showed how we deindividuate AND become the roles we are given.
Cognitive Dissonance in action
Philip Zimbardo has students at Stanford U play the roles of prisoner and prison guards in the basement of psychology building.
They were given uniforms and numbers for each prisoner.
What do you think happened

13. Social Influence
Social influence can be seen in conformity, our compliance and group behavior.
Conform in clothing, speech, suicides and copy cat crimes, events in LeRoy, New York
Social strings are strong no one wants to be the loner. But how strong are they?

14. Conformity Studies
Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

15. Asch’s Study of Conformity

16. Asch Experiment

17. Asch’s Results About 1/3 of the participants conformed.
70% conformed at least once.
To strengthen conformity:
The group is unanimous
The group is at least three people.
One admires the group’s status
One had made no prior commitment
One is made to feel incompetent

18. Chameleon Effect People look toward the sky so do you
Someone laughs and you join in, yawn etc.
We are natural mimics
Someone is happy you become happy = mood linkage

19. Candid Camera

20. Reasons for Conforming
Why do we clap when others clap, see what they see
Studies show students who live in dorms begin to think like each other.
Generally we respect the norms that govern our society
Reason: Normative social influence- price is too high not to conform or to be different
Informational social influence- groups provide valuable information only stubborn people will never listen to the group.
Our view of social influence as bad or good depends on our values Is this right/wrong
Then came Millgram!

21. Milgram’s Study
Of Obedience

22. Millgram Study

23. Results of the Milgram Study

24. What did we learn from Milgram?
Ordinary people can do shocking things.
Ethical issues….
Would not have received approval from today’s IRB (Internal Review Board).

25. How groups affect our behavior?

26. Social Facilitation Theory
If you are really good at something….or it is an easy task…you will perform BETTER in front of a group.
If it is a difficult task or you are not very good at it…you will perform WORSE in front of a group (social impairment).
Home team advantge
In book: when a light turns green the drivers drive 100yds in 15% less time when side by side

27. Social Loafing
The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable. Causes: In a group feel less accountable, view individual efforts as dispensable, may not strongly identify with the group
More prevalent in individualistic cultures

28. Deindividuation People get swept up in a group and lose sense of self.
Feel anonymous and aroused.
Explains rioting behaviors.
Bullying on the internet s

29. Group Dynamics

30. Group Polarization
Groups tend to make more extreme decisions than the individual.
Zimbardo study: women dressed in Klan outfits administered more electric shock

32. Groupthink
Group members suppress their reservations about the ideas supported by the group.
They are more concerned with group harmony.
Worse in highly cohesive groups.
Occurs when the desire for group harmony in a decision-making process overrides a realistic look at the situation.
Combination of overconfidence, conformity, fear of unpopularity
EX: Bay of Pigs- JFK

33. Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination
Overgeneralized idea about a group of people.
Prejudice:
Undeserved (usually negative) attitude towards a group of people. Ethnocentrism is an example of a prejudice.
Discrimination:
An action based on a prejudice.

34. Racism

35. Blue Eyes Brown Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqp6GnYqIjQ

36. Is it just race? NO Palestinians and Jews Yankees v Red Sox
Men and Women

37. How does prejudice occur?
Social Roots:
Have v have nots- when the haves have they develop attitudes that justify things as they are ex: slave owners justified slavery, blacks were too ______
Discrimination increases stereotyping and prejudice through the reactions it provokes in its victims

38. Just world Phenomenon (reading) Good is rewarded and evil is punished
Belief that people get what they deserve
Justifies the rich having money and the poor is having none
Should have known better
Also know as:
Blame-the-victim

39. Us and Them: Ingroup and the Outgroup
Part of evolution
The social definition of who we are also tells us who we are not
Make instant judgments about people: language, accent,
The “us” the ingroup automatically excludes “them” the outgroup
Creates an ingroup bias- favoring ones own group
Social identity formed as we associate ourselves with certain groups and contrast ourselves to other groups- predisposes us to prejudice

40. Emotional Roots
Scapegoat theory- finding someone to blame when things go wrong
Target for one’s anger
High among economically troubled people
Boosts our own self -esteem

41. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
Simplify our world through categorization
Own-Race effect or own race bias develops around 3-9 months
Own race effect the ability to recognize the face of one’s own race more accurately than the face of others
Video from 60 minutes
Morality and babies

42. Combating Prejudice Contact Theory
Contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if they are made to work towards a superordinate goal.

43. Prejudices can often lead to a….
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A prediction that causes itself to be true.
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s “Pygmalion in the Classroom” experiment. High expectations students perform, low expectations students do poorly

44. Psychology of Aggression Read 671-678
Causes: genetic and neural, biochemical
Theories of Aggression:
Psychological- frustration- aggression model- frustration creates anger, anger begets aggression
Sociocultural
Observational

45. Prosocial Behavior/Altruism- the unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Kitty Genovese case in Kew Gardens Queens, NY.
Bystander Effect:
Conditions in which people are more or less likely to help one another. In general…the more people around…the less chance of help….because of…
Diffusion of Responsibility
Pluralistic Ignorance
People decide what to do by looking to others.

46. Help someone when… Person appears to need help and deserves help
Similar to us in some way
Observed helpfulness
Not in a hurry
Live in a small town or rural area
Feeling guilty
Focused on othe

47. Bystander effect

48. Norms for Helping
Social exchange theory- weigh the costs of doing good (time, etc.) against the benefits good feelings ex: Blood donor costs time, anxiety, benefits- reduces guilt, social approval, feels good. If rewards outweigh costs, you help
Reciprocity norm- return help to those who have helped us
Social – responsibility norm- help those who need help. Children- reciprocity norm not in play

49. Conflict and Peacemaking
Problem of Social traps: when the conflicting parties, by each pursuing their own interests, get caught in mutually destructive behavior
Mirror-image perceptions- as we see them they see us ex: they are evil, so they see us as evil
Self-fulfilling prophecies- belief that leads to its own fulfillment

50. Attraction
5 Factors of Attraction

51. Proximity Geographic nearness Mere exposure effect:
Repeated exposure to something breeds liking.

52. Which person would you want to have a long term relationship with?

53. Reciprocal Liking You are more likely to like someone who likes you.
Why?
Except in elementary school!!!!

54. Similarity Paula Abdul was wrong- opposites do NOT attract.
Birds of the same feather do flock together.
Similarity breeds content.

55. Liking through Association
Classical Conditioning can play a part in attraction.
I love Theo’s Wings. If I see the same waitress every time I go there, I may begin to associate that waitress with the good feelings I get from Theo's.

56. Physical Attractiveness

57. The Hotty Factor
Physically attractiveness predicts dating frequency (they date more).
They are perceived as healthier, happier, more honest and successful than less attractive counterparts.

58. What is beauty?

59. Beauty and Culture
Obesity is so revered among Mauritania's white Moor Arab population that the young girls are sometimes force-fed to obtain a weight the government has described as "life-threatening".

60. Are these cultures really that different?