“We cannot live for ourselves alone.” Social Psychology “We cannot live for ourselves alone.” --Herman Melville Social psychology is a branch of psychology which examines the impact of social influences on human behavior.
Studying the way people think about, influence, & relate to others. Social Psychology Attitude Attraction Group Behavior Aggression Studying the way people think about, influence, & relate to others.
Social Psychologists A social psychologist looks at the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of both individuals and groups. The field also examines interpersonal interaction, analyzing the way in which someone interacts with other people, whether on a singular basis or in the form of a large group. Social psychology also examines cultural influences like advertisements, books, films, television, and radio, looking at the ways in which these influences impact human behavior.
How do we think about one another? Social Thinking How do we think about one another?
Attitudes influence actions… Attribution Theory (Fritz Heider) – people usually attribute others’ behavior to either their internal dispositions or their external situations.
Dispositional (internal) or Situational (external)? They won only because the best athletes on the Central State’s teams were out with injuries – talk about good fortune. External (situational) They won because they have some of the best talent in the country. Internal (dispositional) Anybody could win this region; the competition is so far below average in comparison to the rest of the country. They won because they put in a great deal of effort and practice.
Attribution At Work
Fundamental Attribution Error The tendency to underestimate the impact of a situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition. How do you view your teacher’s behavior? You probably attribute it to their personality rather than their profession.
Our attributions have consequences Our attributions have consequences. The following attribution errors lead to overconfidence.
Fundamental Attribution Error – underestimating situational influences when evaluating the behavior of someone else. He swerved into my lane because he is a jerk. Actor-observer bias – attributing others’ behaviors to disposition but your own behaviors (even the same behaviors) to situational factors. Example: He swerved into my lane because he is a jerk, but I swerved into the next lane because I was trying to avoid an animal in the road. Self-serving bias – crediting your own successes to disposition, but attributing your own failures to situation. Example: I won the game because I’m talented. I failed the test because the questions were unfair.
Answer in your notes Tell me a time when you made the fundamental attribution error (FAE) on someone only to discover you were wrong. Tell a time when someone made the FAE on you.
Attitudes & Actions A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people, and events. If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner. Preview Question 2: Does what we think predict what we do, or does what we do affect what we think?
Attitudes Can Affect Actions Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors, including the external situation, also influence behavior.
Actions Can Affect Attitudes Not only do people stand for what they believe in (attitude), they start believing in what they stand for. D. MacDonald/ PhotoEdit Cooperative actions can lead to mutual liking (beliefs).
Small Request – Large Request In the Korean War, Chinese communists solicited cooperation from US army prisoners by asking them to carry out small errands. By complying to small errands they were likely to comply to larger ones. Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
Actions Can Affect Attitudes Why do actions affect attitudes? One explanation is that when our attitudes and actions are opposed, we experience tension. This is called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding two contradictory beliefs or performing an action contradictory to our beliefs.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance theory states that we are motivated to reduce this uncomfortable feeling by changing our beliefs to match our actions. The dissonance (uncomfortable feeling) is less if we feel that we were forced to perform the action. Thus, the larger the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior, the smaller the tendency to change opinion.
Cognitive Dissonance
Role Playing Affects Attitudes Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes. Originally published in the New Yorker Phillip G. Zimbardo, Inc.
Zimbardo’s prison study Role playing - subjects who play a role often begin to “become” the role How can the subjects’ behavior in this study be explained by cognitive dissonance theory?