1. Social Psychology Chapter 18

2. Focuses in Social Psychology
Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
OBJECTIVE 1| Describe the three main focuses of social psychology.

3. Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations
Attribution Theory: Fritz Heider (1958) suggested that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.
OBJECTIVE 2| Contrast dispositional and situational attributions, and explain how the fundamental attribution error can affect our analysis of behavior.
Fritz Heider

4. Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations
Dispositional Attribution - Personality
Situational Attribution - Circumstances

5. The pizza delivery guy is late.
Example
The pizza delivery guy is late.
Dispositional?
Situational?

6. Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the fundamental attribution error.

7. Effects of Attribution
How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it.

8. Actor-Observer Effect
The tendency to attribute the causes of one's own behavior to external factors while attributing other's behavior to internal factors.

9. Example
Bad grade on a test

10. Self-Serving Bias Success is a result of internal factors
Failure is a result of external factors.

11. Attitude
A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people, and events.
Source?
Social Environment
OBJECTIVE 3| Define attitude.

12. Social Norm
Social norms consist of rules of conduct and models of behavior prescribed by a society.
They are rooted in the customs, traditions and value systems that gradually develop in this society.
Can you think of examples of three social norms? For each, why don’t we violate them?

13. 3 Components of Attitude
Cognitions
Emotions
Behavior

14. Persuasion

15. Three Factors of Persuasion
Source Variables
Message Variable
Recipient Variable

16. Two Routes to Persuasion
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Two routes reflect the tension between wanting to be right and wanting to be efficient.
Central Route: Persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.
Peripheral Route: Persuasion that results when people are influence by incidental cues such as the speaker’s attractiveness.

17. ELM – Elaboration Likelihood Model

18. Small Request – Large Request
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
Take this survey…Can we talk in person?

19. Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon
Large request – Small Request
Can I borrow $100? How about $10?

20. Bystander Effect
refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present.

21. Diffusion of Responsibility
The probability of help has often appeared to be inversely related to the number of bystanders;
in other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help.
The mere presence of other bystanders greatly decreases intervention.

22. 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.
OBJECTIVE 5| Explain how the foot-in-the-door phenomenon, role-playing, and cognitive dissonance illustrate the influence of actions on attitudes.

23. Cognitive Dissonance

24. 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.

25. What is peer pressure?
Does it actually exist?

26. Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
Obedience
People comply to social pressures. How would they respond to outright command?
Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience.
Courtesy of CUNY Graduate School and University Center
OBJECTIVE 8| Describe Milgram’s experiments on obedience, and outline the conditions in which obedience was highest.
Stanley Milgram
( )‏

28. Milgram’s Study Both Photos: © 1965 By Stanley Miligram, from the
film Obedience, dist. by Penn State, Media Sales

29. Milgram’s Study: Results

30. Individual Resistance
A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion.
AP/ Wide World Photos
An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.

31. Conformity & Obedience
Behavior is contagious, modeled by one followed by another. We follow behavior of others to conform.
Other behaviors may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority.
OBJECTIVE 6| Describe the chameleon effect, and give an example of it.
Conformity Obedience

33. Social Norm
Social norms consist of rules of conduct and models of behavior prescribed by a society.
They are rooted in the customs, traditions and value systems that gradually develop in this society.
Can you think of examples of three social norms? For each, why don’t we violate them?

34. Sub-Cultures
a subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates themselves from the larger culture to which they belong.

35. The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).
As simple as using a southern accent while living in the south, to actually mimicking another’s body language, posture, and behavior.

36. Asch Line Experiment
Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity, adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard.
OBJECTIVE 7| Discuss Asch’s experiments on conformity, and distinguish between normative and informational social influence.

37. Group Pressure & Conformity
An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
William Vandivert/ Scientific American

38. Reasons for Conformity
Normative Social Influence
You want to fit in.
Informative Social Influence
You believe the others are correct.

40. Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
The group has at least three people.
The group is unanimous.
One admires the group’s status and attractiveness.
One has no prior commitment or response.
The group observes one’s behavior.
One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard.

41. Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies
In both Ash's and Milgram's studies, participants were pressured to follow their standards and be responsive to others.
OBJECTIVE 9| Explain how the conformity and obedience studies can help us understand our susceptibility to social influence.
In Milgram’s study, participants were torn between hearing the victims pleas and the experimenter’s orders.

42. Group Influence One person affecting another Families Teams Committees
How do groups affect our behavior? Social psychologists study various groups:
One person affecting another
Families
Teams
Committees

43. Individual Behavior in the Presence of Others
Social facilitation: Refers to improved performance on tasks in the presence of others.
Compared to their performance when alone, when in the presence of others, they tend to perform better on simple or well-rehearsed tasks and worse on complex or new ones
OBJECTIVE 10| Describe conditions in which the presence of others is likely to result in social facilitation, social loafing, or deindividuation.

44. Social Loafing
The tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort toward attaining a common goal than when tested individually (Latané, 1981).

45. Deindividualization
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Mob behavior

46. Effects of Group Interaction
Group Polarization enhances a group’s prevailing attitudes through a discussion. If a group is like- minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions and attitudes.
OBJECTIVE 11| Discuss how group interaction can facilitate group polarization and groupthink.

47. Groupthink
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.

48. Margaret Bourke-White/ Life Magazine. © 1946 Time Warner, Inc.
Power of Individuals
The power of social influence is enormous, but so is the power of the individual.
Non-violent fasts and appeals by Gandhi led to the independence of India from the British.
Margaret Bourke-White/ Life Magazine. © 1946 Time Warner, Inc.
OBJECTIVE 12| Identify the characteristic common to minority positions that sway majorities.
Gandhi

49. Reciprocity Norm
An expectation that people will help, not harm, those who have helped them
Example – Wedding Parties/Invitations
Salesman – “free gift”

50. Social Trap
A situation which conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior
Example: “I only put a little garbage in the lake, not enough to cause any real damage.”
Result: Many people feel this way, Lake is destroyed, property value declines

51. Ingroup bias The tendency to favor ones own group
Example: High School Cliques that think that their group is better than others

52. GRIT Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction
1.) One side announces recognition of mutual interests and its intent to reduce tension
2.) Then initiates one or more small acts
3.) Modest beginning opens the door for reciprocation by the other party

53. Tit for Tat
"equivalent retaliation"

54. Hedonic Motive
A pleasurable incentive for acting a certain way.

55. Approval Motive What is peer pressure?
Desire to be accepted by our peers.

56. Accuracy Motive
Our desire to be correct or accurate.