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Chapter 12
Social Psychology
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2. Attitudes and Social Cognition Module 39
Learning Outcomes
Define persuasion
Explain social cognition
Social psychology: the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others
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3. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes
Attitudes: evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief, or concept
Attitude change depends on factors:
Message source: characteristics of the communicator, such as expertise & trustworthiness
Characteristics of the message: two-sided (presenting both sides of the argument) more effective than one-sided
Characteristics of the target: for example, intelligent people are more resistant to persuasion than less intelligent people
Persuasion is the process of changing attitudes, one of the central aspects of social psychology. The ease with which we can change our attitudes depends on a number of factors, including message source (characteristics of a person who delivers a persuasive message), characteristics of the message (what the message is like: one-sided or two-sided), and characteristics of the target (i.e., intelligent people are more resistant to persuasion than those who are less intelligent).
Attitudes influence behavior. Generally, people strive for consistency between their attitudes and their behavior. People tend to hold fairly consistent attitudes. Ironically, in some cases, it is our behavior that shapes our attitudes.
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4. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes (cont.)
How the target responds to the message is related to the types
of information processing that the target uses. Social
psychologists have discovered two primary information
processing routes.
Central route processing: message interpretation characterized by thoughtful consideration of the issues and arguments used to persuade (content of the message)
Peripheral route processing: message interpretation characterized by consideration of the source and related general information rather than of the message itself (how the message is provided)
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5. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes (cont.)
Cognitive dissonance: the conflict that occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts (cognitions)
Attitudes can be changed by persuasion. Social
psychologists study how people change, or keep,
attitudes and how those attitudes can be changed
through persuasion, the message itself and how we
process the information.
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6. Persuasion: Changing Attitudes (cont.)
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7. Social Cognition: Understanding Others
One area of social psychology is learning how we come to understand
what other people are like and how we explain the reasons for others’
behavior.
Social cognition: the cognitive processes by which people understand and make sense of others and themselves
Schemas: We tend to hold schemas for specific types of people. Regardless of how accurate a schema may be, they help us organize, categorize and recall information about others. Schemas can help us predict how a person will act in the future.
Impression formation: how we organize information about another person to form an overall impression of that person
Central traits: the major traits considered in forming impressions of others. The presence of a central trait can alter the meaning of other traits.
One of the dominant areas in social psychology during the last few years has focused on learning how we come to understand what others are like and how we explain the reasons underlying others’ behavior.
How can we decide what’s important and what isn’t and make judgments about the characteristics of others? Social psychologists interested in this question study social cognition – the way people understand and make sense of others and themselves.
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8. Social Cognition: Understanding Others (cont.)
We form impressions of other people quickly because we tend
to fit people into schemas that represent particular types of
people and help us decide how we will interact with them.
Attribution theory: seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual’s behavior, what the specific causes of that person’s behavior are
Situational causes: perceived causes of behavior that are based on environmental factors
Dispositional causes: perceived causes of behavior that are based on internal traits or personality factors
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9. Social Cognition: Understanding Others (cont.)
The attribution theory generally makes accurate predictions, people
Sometimes process information incorrectly because of attribution
biases.
Attribution biases
The halo effect: an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics
Assumed-similarity bias: the tendency to think of people as being similar to oneself, even when meeting them for the first time
Self-serving bias: tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors (skill, ability, or effort), and to attribute failure to factors outside oneself
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10. Social Cognition: Understanding Others (cont.)
Fundamental attribution error: a tendency to over-attribute others’ behavior to dispositional causes and the corresponding minimization of the importance of situational causes; prevalent in Western cultures
The culture in which we are raised plays a role in the way we
Attribute others’ behavior. The fundamental attribution
error is found primarily in Western culture. The difference in
thinking is based on how the world is perceived. Western
culture holds a more individualistic world view, while
Eastern culture holds to a more collectivistic orientation.
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RECAP
Social cognition involves the way people understand and make sense of others and themselves. People develop schemas that organize information about people and social experiences in memory and allow them to interpret and categorize information about others.
People form impressions of others in part through the use of central traits, personality characteristics that receive unusually heavy emphasis when we form an impression.
Attribution theory tries to explain how we understand the causes of behavior, particularly with respect to situational or dispositional factors.
Even though logical processes are involved, attribution is prone to error. For instance, people are susceptible to the halo effect, assumed-similarity bias, self-serving bias, and fundamental attribution error.
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12. Social Influence and Groups Module 40
Learning Outcomes
Define conformity
Explain compliance
Discuss obedience
Social influence: the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others
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13. Conformity: Following What Others Do
Conformity: a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people; comes from subtle, sometimes even unspoken, social pressure
Solomon Asch experiments: participants conformed in about 1/3 of the trials; conformity higher when people must respond publicly, lower when at least one other person dissents from the group.
Asch’s study was designed to study conformity. Asch’s study showed how individuals can be influenced by pressure to conform, even when faced with an obviously incorrect solution. Subsequent studies on conformity demonstrated that conformity is considerably higher when people must respond publically.
The classic demonstration of pressure to conform comes from a series of studies carried out in the 1950s by Solomon Asch. In the experiments, participants thought they were taking part in a test of perceptual skills with 6 other people. The experimenter showed participants one card with 3 lines of varying length and a second card that had a fourth line that matched one of the first 3. Participants had to announce aloud which of the first 3 lines was identical in length to the “standard” line on the second card.
Asch found that in about 1/3 of the trials, the participants conformed to the unanimous but erroneous group answer, with about 75% of all participants conforming at least once. Subsequent research shows that conformity is considerably higher when people must respond publicly than when they can respond privately.
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14. Conformity: Following What Others Do (cont.)
Social roles: the behaviors that are associated with people in a given position or role
Philip Zimbardo “prison” study: conforming to a social role can have a powerful consequence on the behavior of anyone
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15. Compliance: Submitting to Direct Social Pressure
Compliance: means behavior that occurs in response to direct social pressure to endorse a particular point of view or behave in a certain way. There are several techniques used to gain compliance:
Foot-in-the-door technique: people are more likely to agree to a more important request if they have first agreed to a smaller one
Door-in-the-face technique: making a large request, expecting it to be refused, then following with a smaller one, which is the targeted request
When we refer to conformity, we usually mean a phenomenon in which the social pressure is subtle or indirect. But in some situations, social pressure is much more obvious, with direct, explicit pressure to endorse a particular point of view or behave in a certain way.
Several specific techniques represent attempts to gain compliance. They include foot-in-the-door (sign a petition, then get pressured to make a donation to a cause – since you’ve already signed the petition, you have a hard time turning this request down); door-in-the-face (someone makes an outrageous request which they expect to be refused – they follow with a more reasonable request, which is more often complied with); and that’s-not-all (salesperson offers a deal at an inflated price, but immediately thereafter offers an incentive, discount or bonus to clinch the deal).
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16. Compliance: Submitting to Direct Social Pressure (cont.)
That’s-not-all technique: immediately after an initial offer at an inflated price, you are offered an incentive to clinch the deal
Not-so-free sample: you feel the need to reciprocate when given a free sample, so you are more likely to buy the product (based on the norm of reciprocity)
Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology: focuses on work and job-related issues, including worker motivation, satisfaction, safety, and productivity. I/0 also studies decision making and the fit between workers and their jobs.
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17. Obedience: Following Direct Orders
Obedience: a change in behavior in response to the commands of others (people in power/authority figures).
Obedience is not as common as conformity and compliance, but it does occur.
We may show obedience to people because of the power they have over us. Employers, parents, teachers and police officers are examples of people who have power over us by virtue of the power they have in a position or the ability to reward or punish.
Compliance techniques are used to gently lead people toward agreement with a request. In some cases, however, requests aim to produce obedience – a change in behavior in response to the commands of others. Although obedience is considerably less common than conformity and compliance, it does occur in several specific kinds of relationships (boss to subordinate, teacher to student, parent to child).
The classic experiment conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s had participants give increasingly strong shocks to another person as part of a study on learning. Most people who hear a description of this experiment feel that it’s unlikely that any participant would give the maximum level of shock, but in the experiment, some 65% of participants eventually used the highest setting on the shock generator (450 volts).
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Milgram Experiment
Stanley Milgram developed a study in the 1960s to study obedience. In this
experiment, participants were told the experiment was about learning. The idea was
to teach someone a list of words and then give them a test. If the subject produced
incorrect answers, a “shock generator” was activated giving the subject a shock
ranging from 15 to 450 volts.
Milgram found that 65% of participants eventually used the highest settings (450 volts) to administer shocks to the learner, even though the learner had told them of a heart condition and begged for the experiment to stop.
The participants were interviewed after the experiment and said they complied because they felt they were not responsible and only following orders and they believed the experimenter would be responsible for any potential harm to the learner
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19. Prejudice and Discrimination Module 41
Learning Outcomes
Identify the origins of prejudice
Distinguish measuring practices for prejudice and discrimination
Assess ways to reduce prejudice and discrimination
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20. Prejudice and Discrimination (cont.)
We often view people, not in terms of their unique, personal
characteristics, but in terms of the characteristics we attribute to
all members of a particular group.
Stereotype: a set of generalized beliefs and expectations about a particular group and its members
Help in categorizing & organizing information
Can be negative or positive, but all stereotypes oversimplify the world
Prejudice: a negative (or positive) evaluation of a particular group and its members (attitudes)
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21. Prejudice and Discrimination (cont.)
Discrimination: behavior directed toward individuals on the basis of their membership in a particular group. Discrimination can be both positive and negative: acting on positive stereotypes can lead to discrimination by showing favoritism to a particular group of people.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: when expectations about a behavior act to increase the likelihood that the behavior will occur. Stereotyping can also cause members of groups to behave in ways that reflect the stereotype through self-fulfilling prophecy (expectations about the occurrence of a future event or behavior that act to increase the likelihood that the event or behavior will occur).
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22. The Foundations of Prejudice
Prejudices are not innate; they are learned. No one is born disliking a specific group. People learn to discriminate just as how they learn the alphabet.
Observational learning approaches: the behavior of parents, other adults, and peers shapes children’s feelings about members of various groups; prejudice is learned through imitation and reward and punishment
Social identity theory: people tend to be ethnocentric, viewing the world from their own perspective and judging others in terms of their group membership
Group membership to provide social respect brings about unfortunate results: We come to believe that our own group (ingroup) is better than other groups (outgroup).
- Neither the observational learning theory nor the social identity theory fully explains prejudice.
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23. Recap
People tend to stereotype, which leads to prejudice and discrimination.
Stereotypes are generalized beliefs and expectations about a specific group and its members.
Stereotyping and prejudice can lead to discrimination, behavior directed toward individuals on the basis of their membership in a particular group.
Prejudice is the negative (or positive) evaluation of a particular group and its members.
According to observational learning approaches, children learn stereotyping and prejudice by observing the behavior of parents, other adults, and peers.
Social identity theory suggests that group membership is used as a source of pride and self-worth, and this may lead people to think of their own group as better than others.
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24. Measuring Prejudice and Discrimination: The Implicit Personality Test
Implicit Association Test (IAT): allows for measurement of subconscious attitudes, and attitudes that people do not want to be shown, toward members of specific groups
Go to to take the test
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25. Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination
Psychologists have developed several strategies for diminishing the effects of prejudice and discrimination. Some of those strategies are:
Increasing contact between the target of stereotyping and the holder of the stereotype.
Increasing contact between the target and the holder can decrease negative stereotyping.
Situations in which contact is relatively intimate, where participants are of similar or equal status; participants who must cooperate or are dependent on one another are more likely to reduce stereotyping.
Making values and norms against prejudice more conspicuous.
Reminding people of the values already held regarding equality and fair treatment of others is often enough to reduce discrimination.
Hearing others making strong antiracist statements makes a person more likely to condemn racism.
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26. Critical Thinking
A teacher is facing a dilemma. Two students have missed passing a final exam by one point. Mary is a good student, but happens to belong to a group the teacher secretly dislikes. Jane happens to be from a family much like the teacher’s own. In reviewing grades, the teacher finds that he has added points to Jane’s test so she will pass. He has kept Mary’s score the same, and consequently, Mary will fail the course. When he discovers his grading discrepancy, he attempts to rationalize his decisions. 1. How would you handle the situation if you were the teacher? 2. How do you rationalize, or resolve that situation in your own mind? 3. Is it possible to be totally devoid of prejudice? Why or Why Not? Meaningful answers please! 
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