Social Psychology

The branch of psychology that studies how people think, feel, and behave in social situations Two Basic Areas of Social Psychology: 1. Social cognition is the study of the mental processes people use to make sense out of their social environment 2. Social influence is the study of the effect of situational factors and other people on an individual’s behavior

Making Sense of Others: How you form your judgments

Social Cognition The mental processes that people use to make sense out of their social environment –Person perception –Social categorization –Implicit personality theory –Attribution –Attitudes –Stereotypes

Person Perception Mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of others This is an active & subjective process that occurs in a interpersonal context that has three components: The characteristics of the person you are sizing up Your own characteristics as a perceiver The specific situation the process occurs in

Person Perception’s Four Basic Principles Factors that determine your person perception of others: You treat others according to how you perceive them to be, not by who or what they really are Your goals determine the amount and kind of information you collect You evaluate people partly in terms of how you expect them to behave (social norms) Your self-perception influences how you perceive others (See Subway Scenario in textbook pg. 499)

Social Categorization Mental process of classifying people into groups on the basis of their shared characteristics. Much of it is automatic and spontaneous, and it often occurs outside conscious awareness Categories are usually broad: gender, race, age, occupation. Using social categories helps us mentally organize and remember info about others but may lead to inaccurate conclusions. It ignores a person’s unique qualities and makes a conclusion on very limited information.

Implicit Personality Theories A network of assumptions about the relationship among various types of people, traits, and behaviors. Form cognitive schemas through our previous experiences that we begin to associate with different “types” of people. When we perceive someone to be a particular “type” we assume the person will display the traits & behaviors that others of that “type” display. A useful shortcut but not always accurate. (See John Gacy example on pg. 501)

Prior Information Effects Mental representations of people (schemas) can effect our interpretation of them –Kelley’s study students had a guest speaker before the speaker came, half got a written bio saying speaker was “very warm”, half got bio saying speaker was “rather cold” “very warm” group rated guest more positively than “rather cold” group

Physical Attractiveness Implicit cultural message is “beautiful is good” Attractive people are perceived as more intelligent, happier, and better adjusted Also seen as more vain and less modest. Really NO difference between attractive and less attractive people on these characteristics Overall, attractive people tend to be less lonely, more popular, and less anxious in social situations Attractive people are more likely to attribute other people’s approval of their accomplishments to looks rather than effort or talent.

Effects of Personal Appearance The Attractiveness Bias Physically attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality –teachers rate attractive children as smarter, and higher achieving –adults attribute cause of unattractive child’s misbehavior to personality, attractive child’s to situation –judges give longer prison sentences to unattractive people

Effects of Personal Appearance The baby-face bias –people with rounder heads, large eyes, small jawbones, etc., rated as more naïve, honest, helpless, kind, and warm than mature-faced –generalize to animals, women, babies

Brain reward when making eye contact with attractive people Results of an fMRI study show: Direct eye contact with a physically attractive person, a brain area called the ventral striatum is activated When an attractive person’s eye gaze is shifted away from the viewer, activity in the ventral striatum decreases Why does this matter? Ventral striatum is a brain area that predicts reward: – neuronal activity increases when an unexpected reward suddenly appears – decreases when an expected reward fails to appear

Attribution: Explaining the Causes of Behavior

Attribution Process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own The explanation given for a particular behavior

Attribution Theory People tend to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition

Situational Disposition Attributing someone’s actions to the various factors in the situation

Dispositional Attribution Attributing someone’s actions to the person’s disposition, i.e. their thoughts, feelings, personality characteristics, etc.

Effects of Attributions

Attribution Bias Fundamental attribution error Actor-observer discrepancy Blaming the victim (just-world hypothesis) Self-serving bias Self-effacing bias

Fundamental Attribution Error Explains how we view OTHER’S behaviors The tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to give too much weight to personality and not enough to situational variables People tend to blame or credit the person more than the situation. It is common in individualistic cultures

Using Attitudes as Ways to “Justify” Injustice Just-world bias –a tendency to believe that life is fair, people get what they deserve and deserve what they get –it would seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway Just-world bias leads to “blaming the victim” –we explain others’ misfortunes as being their fault, –e.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she doing in that neighborhood anyway?

Actor-Observer Bias Explains how we view our OWN behavior Attribute personality causes of behavior when evaluating someone else’s behavior Attribute situational when evaluating our own behavior We tend to judge a person on their actions we see whether these are a true reflections of that person or not. Why? –hypothesis 1: we know our behavior changes from situation to situation, but we don’t know this about others –hypothesis 2: when we see others perform an action, we concentrate on actor, not situation -- when we perform an action, we see environment, not person –See the Active Psych Demo for more info on this.Active Psych Demo

Self-Serving Bias Tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes –Individualistic Cultures do this.

Self-Effacing Bias Modesty bias - involves blaming failure on internal, personal factors, while attributing success to external, situational factors –Collectivist cultures do this. – Less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error – More likely to attribute the causes of another person’s behavior to external, situational factors rather than to internal, personal

Cross-Cultural Differences Western culture –people are in charge of own destinies –more attributions to personality Some Eastern cultures –fate in charge of destiny –more attributions to situation Age (years) Adult United States India Attributions to internal disposition