1. Social Psychology

2. What Is Social Psychology?
The scientific study of the ways in which the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of an individual are influenced by the real or imagined behavior of others.
Main areas
Social cognition
Attitudes
Social influence
Social action

3. SOCIAL COGNITION
Knowledge and understanding concerning the social world and the people in it (including oneself)
Building blocks
Impression formation
Attribution
Interpersonal attraction

4. SOCIAL COGNITION continued…….. Impression Formation
Schema
A set of beliefs or expectations about something that is based on past experience
Primacy effect
The fact that early information about someone weighs more heavily than later information in influencing one’s impression of that person.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
The process in which a person’s expectation about another elicits behavior from the second person that confirms the expectation.
Pygmalion effect
Stereotypes
A special type of schema about members of a social category

5. SOCIAL COGNITION continued…….. Attribution Theory
The theory that addresses the question of how people make judgments about the causes of behavior.
Behavior is typically explained as being the result of either internal or external factors.
Biases in Attributions
Fundamental attribution error/actor-observer bias
The tendency of people to overemphasize internal causes for other people’s failures and overemphasize external causes for other people’s successes.
Defensive attribution / self-serving bias
The tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.
Attribution across cultures

6. SOCIAL COGNITION continued…….. Interpersonal Attraction
Major determinants
Proximity
Physical attractiveness
Similarity
Exchange
Equity
Intimacy
Self-disclosure

7. ATTITUDES
A relatively stable organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavior tendencies directed toward something or someone—the attitude object.
Components of an Attitude
Evaluative beliefs
Feelings
Behavioral tendencies
Attitude & behavior
Self-Monitoring
The tendency for one to observe a situation for cues about how to react.
Acquiring Attitudes

8. Attitude continued……………..
Prejudice - an attitude
An unfair, intolerant, or unfavorable view of a group of people.
Discrimination - behavior
An unfair act or series of acts taken toward an entire group of people or individual members of that group.
Interplay of prejudice and discrimination
Sources of Prejudice
Frustration aggression/displaced aggression
Authoritarian personality
Racism
Prejudice and discrimination directed at a particular racial group

9. Attitude continued…………….. Changing attitude
The Process of Persuasion
Must attend to the message,
Comprehend the message
The source
The message
The medium of communication
Characteristics of the audience
Accept it as convincing
Cognitive Dissonance
Perceived inconsistency between two cognitions
Ways to Reduce Cognitive Dissonance
Increase the number of thoughts that support one of the beliefs.
Reduce the importance of one of the cognitions.

10. SOCIAL INFLUENCE
The process by which others individually or collectively affect one’s perceptions, attitudes, and actions.
Social Influence and Culture
Cultural norms learned through formal & informal way
Perception about other’s culture

11. Social Influence continued…...
Conformity
Voluntarily yielding to social norms, even at the expense of one’s own preferences
factors influencing conformity
Characteristics of the situation
Size of the group, Degree of unanimity, Nature of task
Characteristics of the individual
Attraction of group, Expected future interaction, member’s low status in the group, lack of member’s complete acceptance
Conformity across cultures

12. Social Influence continued…...
Compliance
A change of behavior in response to an explicit request from another person or group.
Obedience
A change of behavior in response to an explicit command from another person, typically an authority figure.
Milgram’s Obedience Studies
Classic work by Stanley Milgram showed that many people were willing to obey orders to administer harmful shocks to other people.
situational factors
Power of authority
Surveillance
Responsibility of act is shared

13. SOCIAL ACTION Change of behavior which depends on presence of others
Deindividuation:
Loss of personal sense of responsibility in a group
Mob behavior
A snowball effect, Protection
Helping behavior

14. SOCIAL ACTION CONTINUE….
Linked with self interest
Not linked with self-interest/Altruistic behavior
Factors Influencing Helping
Situational variables
Presence of other people/ Bystander effect,
Ambiguity of situation
Personal characteristics
Amount of personal responsibility felt
Amount of empathy felt
One’s present mood
No fear of embarrassment
High need for approval
Helping behavior across cultures

15. Social Action continued…….
Group Dynamics
Group polarization in decision making:
The tendency for people to become more extreme in their attitudes, especially in risk taking (risky shift), as a result of group discussion.
Factors Affecting Group Effectiveness
Nature of the task & Skills of group members
Interaction among members
Group size & Social loafing
Cohesiveness & Group think

16. Social Action continued…….
Group Leadership
Great person theory:
Leadership is a result of personal qualities and traits that qualify one to lead others. Concept of born leaders
ignores social and economic factors.
Right person at right time at right place
Transactional View of Leadership
A number of factors interact to determine who becomes a leader:
Traits of the potential leader
Aspects of the situation in which the group finds itself
Response of the group and the leader to each other
Fiedler’s Contingency Model
Task-oriented; Mainly focuses on doing the task well
Relationship-oriented; Focuses on maintaining group harmony and cohesiveness
Leadership across cultures

17. Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology
I/O psychology is concerned with the application of psychological principles to the problems of human organizations.
Decision making, job motivation, productivity, job satisfaction, team work, job stress, leadership etc