1. First Semester Final Exam Review
Topics Covered
Social Psych
Thinking
Critical thinking
Learning
Neuroscience
Consciousness
Stress and Health
Nature and Nurture of Behavior
Developing Person

2. 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

3. Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations
A teacher may wonder whether a child’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution).
Dispositions are enduring personality traits. So, if Joe is a quiet, shy, and introverted child, he is likely to be like that in a number of situations.

4. Napolitan and Goethals experiment at Williams College
They had students talk, one at a time, talk to a woman who was either acting critical or was being warm. They told half the students that she was being spontaneous and told the other half the truth. What do you suppose the effect of being told the truth was? NO EFFECT- if friendly, they thought she was warm. If unfriendly, believed she was cold. Thus, they thought her behavior was dispositional rather than situational- even when told her behavior was situational. FAE is universal. However, does it occur more in Western countries or East- Asian countries?

5. Who are we more likely to commit FAE with?
When explaining our own behavior, or the behavior of those we know well and see in varied situations, we are sensitive to how behavior changes with the situation.
When explaining others behaviors, we disregard the situation and leap to unwarranted conclusions about personal traits.

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

7. Effects of Attribution
Real life examples-
Deciding whether a shooting was malicious or self- defense ?
Happily married couple- He/ she are having a bad day;
Unhappily Married couple- why did I marry such a mean person?
Political effects – Some people blame New Orleans residents for not evacuating before the predicted 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Others attributed their inaction to their situation- to their not being cars or bus transportation

8. Attitude
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.
OBJECTIVE 3| Define attitude.

9. Attitudes Can Affect Action
Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors, including the external situation, also influence behavior.
Democratic leaders supported Bush’s attack on Iraq under public pressure. However, they had their private reservations.
OBJECTIVE 4| Describe the conditions under which attitudes can affect actions.

10. Attitudes Can Affect Action
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).

11. Attitudes Guide Our Actions if
Outside influences on what we say and do are minimal
Attitudes is specifically relevant to behavior
We are keenly aware of our attitudes
How does this occur?
Through central route persuasion and peripheral route persuasion
Real life example- Al Gore’s film- Inconvenient Truth changed some minds through central route persuasion- when interested people focus on arguments and respond with favorable thoughts (took the scientific evidence) Other persuasion techniques include a faster peripheral route- incidental cues such as endorsements by respected people.
What to remember? You change mind due to info- CRP; you change mind due to person, PR

12. 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.

13. Foot in the door Phenomenon- Good Deeds vs. Bad Deeds
Boost charitable contributions
Blood donation
Product sales
Bad Deeds-
Hazing
Zimbardo Experiment
Abu Ghraib

14. 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.

15. 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.
To relieve ourselves of this tension we bring our attitudes closer to our actions (Festinger, 1957).

16. Role Playing Affects Attitudes
Role- a set of make explanations about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.
Examples- soldier, teacher, military
“Fake it until you make it”
Example- Zimbardo experiment

17. Details of Zimbardo Experiment
College students volunteered to spend time in a laboratory situation, half guards, half prisoners? Guards succumbed to the situation- same thing happened at Abu Ghraib Prison

18. Cognitive Dissonance
Proposed by Leon Festinger; says when our attitudes and actions don’t coincide, we experience tension, or cognitive dissonance. Thus, we bring our attitudes in line with our actions. Ex- WMD’s in Iraq, public changing opinion

19. Cognitive Dissonance

20. Social Influence Examples
People stare upwards and passersby do the same
Put your own money in tip jar
Laughs, cough, yawning
We are natural mimics
This is called the chameleon effect- unconsciously mimicking other’s expressions, postures, and voice tones
We get happier around happy people and sadder around sad people

21. Shootings and Suicide
After Columbine, every state experienced copycat threats
Marilyn Monroe suicide- suicides increased by 200 that month
Saddam Hussein execution- dozens of boys accidently hung themselves, after slipping nooses around their own heads.

22. Group Pressure and Conformity
Conformity- adjusting one’s behavior of thinking to coincide with a group standard
Solomon Asch Experiment- Actors pick the wrong line and then people are coerced by conformity to pick something they know is wrong
Alone- less than 1% made mistake
In Groups- wrong 33% of the time

23. 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.

24. Reasons for Conformity
Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection. A person may respect normative behavior because there may be a severe price to pay if not respected. Example- GBN Hazing Case
Informative Social Influence: The group may provide valuable information, but stubborn people will never listen to others. Example- Ku Klux Klan experiment

25. Informative Social Influence
Baron and colleagues (1996) made students do an eyewitness identification task. If the task was easy (lineup exposure 5 sec.), conformity was low in comparison to a difficult (1/2 sec. exposure) task.

26. Informative Social Influence
Baron et al., (1996)

27. 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. Obedience is Highest When?
Person giving the orders is considered a legitimate authority figure
Authority figure supported by prestigious university (Yale higher than CLC)
Victim depersonalized or at a distance, even in another room
No role models for defiance

31. Real Life Examples
German reserve police officer story; ordered in Poland- 500 men, only 15 dissent
GBN Hazing Case
Pledge of Allegiance

32. 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.

33. Group Influence- How is our behavior affected by being a part of the group?
One person affecting another
Families
Teams
Committees

34. Individual Behavior in the Presence of Others
Social facilitation: Refers to improved performance on tasks in the presence of others. Triplett (1898) noticed cyclists’ race times were faster when they competed against others than when they just raced against the clock.
If your good, you do better, if your bad you do worse.
OBJECTIVE 10| Describe conditions in which the presence of others is likely to result in social facilitation, social loafing, or deindividuation.
Michelle Agnis/ NYT Pictures

35. Social Facilitation and Crowding
Comedy routines seem funnier when the room is densely packed room
Arousal triggered by crowding amplifies other reactions (laughter)

36. 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) Example- Kids in group projects once they identify the overachiever. Example 2- Tug of War

37. Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity. Example- class colors; GBN Hazing case
Mob behavior

38. 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. Example- politics; racist jokes
OBJECTIVE 11| Discuss how group interaction can facilitate group polarization and groupthink.

39. Groupthink
A mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides the realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Watergate Cover-up
Chernobyl Reactor Accident

40. Power of Individuals- Minority Influence
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.
Key Point- a minority that holds its position is far more successful at swaying majority than a minority that waffles.
Margaret Bourke-White/ Life Magazine. © 1946 Time Warner, Inc.
OBJECTIVE 12| Identify the characteristic common to minority positions that sway majorities.
Gandhi

41. Social Relations
Social psychology teaches us how we relate to one another through prejudice, aggression, and conflict to attraction, and altruism and peacemaking.

42. Prejudice
Simply called “prejudgment,” a prejudice is an unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is often directed towards different cultural, ethnic, or gender groups.
Components of Prejudice
OBJECTIVE 13| Identify three components of prejudice.
Beliefs (stereotypes)
Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
Predisposition to act (to discriminate)

43. Reign of Prejudice
Prejudice works at the conscious and [more at] the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is more like a knee-jerk response than a conscious decision.

44. How Prejudiced are People?
Over the duration of time many prejudices against interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.
OBJECTIVE 14| Contrast overt and subtle forms of prejudice, and give examples of each.

45. Experiments that illustrate unconscious Prejudice
Implicit Racial Associations- words associated with races
Unconscious Patronization- white teachers score black essays higher
Race influenced perceptions- Computer simulation where people shot faster and more if suspect was black
Black Faces- death sentences given to defendants that had stereotypically Black features
Nine out of ten white respondents were slow when responding to words like “peace” or “paradise” when they saw a black individual’s photo compared to a white individual’s photo (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003).

46. Examples of public and private prejudice
Black motorists stopped more and searched more than whites by police in CA
9/11 aftermath- 4/10 admitted prejudice against Muslims
Gays and lesbian discrimination
Most women still live in more poverty than men.
About 100,000,000 women are missing in the world. There is a preference for male children in China and India, even with sex-selected abortion outlawed.

47. Social Roots of Prejudice
Prejudice develops when people have money, power, and prestige, and others do not. Social inequality increases prejudice.
Example- Blame- the- victim- dynamic- poverty produces higher crime rate; which someone can use to justify discrimination of those who live in poverty
Allport- believes this causes self- blame and anger

48. In and Out Groups
Ingroup: People with whom one shares a common identity. Example- Cubs fans Outgroup: Those perceived as different from one’s ingroup. Example- White Sox Fans Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor one’s own group.
Mike Hewitt/ Getty Images
Scotland’s famed “Tartan Army” fans.

49. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
One way we simplify our world is to categorize. We categorize people into groups by stereotyping them.
OBJECTIVE 17| Cite four ways that cognitive processes help create and maintain prejudice.
Michael S. Yamashita/ Woodfin Camp Associates
Foreign sunbathers may think Balinese look alike.

50. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
In vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists can feed stereotypes or prejudices (terrorism). Most terrorists are non-Muslims.

51. Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
The tendency of people to believe the world is just, and people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (the just-world phenomenon).
© The New Yorker Collection, 1981, Robert Mankoff from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

52. Aggression
Aggression can be any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
It may be done reactively out of hostility or proactively as a calculated means to an end.
Research shows that aggressive behavior emerges from the interaction of biology and experience.
OBJECTIVE 18| Explain how psychology’s definition of aggression differs from everyday usage.

53. Influences
Genetic Influences: Animals have been bred for aggressiveness for sport and at times for research. Twin studies show aggression may be genetic. In men, aggression is possibly linked to the Y chromosome.
Neural Influences: Some centers in the brain, especially the limbic system (amygdala) and the frontal lobe, are intimately involved with aggression. Case Study- 15 death row inmates all suffered head injuries

54. Influences
Biochemical Influences: Animals with diminished amounts of testosterone (castration) become docile, and if injected with testosterone aggression increases. Prenatal exposure to testosterone also increases aggression in female hyenas.

55. The Psychology of Aggression
Four psychological factors that influence aggressive behavior are:
Dealing with aversive events
Learning aggression is rewarding
Observing models of aggression
Acquiring social scripts
OBJECTIVE 20| Outline four psychological triggers of aggression.

56. Aversive Events Ron Artest (Pacers) attack on Detroit Pistons fans.
Studies in which animals and humans experience unpleasant events reveal that those made miserable often make others miserable. Frustration Aggression Example- A principle in which frustration (caused by the blocking of an attempt to achieve a desired goal) creates anger, which can generate aggression.
Jeff Kowalsky/ EPA/ Landov
Ron Artest (Pacers) attack on Detroit Pistons fans.

57. Learning to Express and Inhibit Aggression
When aggression leads to desired outcomes, one learns to be aggressive. This is shown in both animals and humans.
Inhibiting Aggression- replacement programs have brought re- arrest rates of gang members by improving communication, learning to control anger, and encouraging moral reasoning.
Cultures that favor violence breed violence. Scotch-Irish settlers in the South had more violent tendencies than their Quaker Dutch counterparts in the Northeast of the US.

58. TV violence, pornography, and society
Pornography leads some men to accept the rape myth- the idea that some woman invite or enjoy rape

59. Observing Models of Aggression
Sexually coercive men are promiscuous and hostile in their relationships with women. This coerciveness has increased due to television viewing of R- and X-rated movies.
Experiment- men who watch X rated films- find partner not as attractive, woman’s friendliness as a come on

60. Do Video Games Teach or Release Violence?
The general consensus on violent video games is that, to some extent, they breed violence.
Adolescents view the world as hostile when they get into arguments and receive bad grades after playing such games.
Experiments- Mortal Kombat- arousal and hostility rose;
Myers does not believe in catharsis hypothesis- the idea we feel better if we blow off steam
OBJECTIVE 21| Discuss the effects of violent video games on social attitudes and behavior.

61. Conflict
Conflict has occurred in society since the beginning of times, but psychologists see it as a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas. This occurs due to our pursuing of our own interest rather than the collective well being. This leads to social traps.
Social trap
by pursuing our self-interest and not trusting others, we can end up losers
Optimal
outcome
Probable
Person 1
Choose A Choose B
Choose B Choose A
Person 2

62. Social Relations Social trap
Optimal
outcome
Probable
Person 1
Choose A Choose B
Choose B Choose A
Person 2
Social trap
by pursuing our self-interest and not trusting others, we can end up losers

63. Enemy Perceptions
Those in conflict have a curious tendency to form diabolical images of one another. This leads to mirror image perception- as we see our side as ethical and peaceful, the other side views us as evil and aggressive.

64. 3 components to attraction
Proximity- geographic nearness; occurs due to the mere exposure effect- repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them
We prefer people who also look like us which is the idea of the mirror images. (works when we vote)

65. 3 components to attraction
Physical attractiveness- study; people liked good looking dates the best; predicts popularity; dating; unrelated to self- esteem
Universal Aspects- men prefer youthful appearance; woman to those they deem mature, dominant, affluent
Both prefer symmetrical faces

66. 3 components to attraction
Similarity- prefer people who have our attitudes, beliefs, and interests
Reward theory- simply states we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than costs

67. Social Relations- Romantic Love
Two factor theory of emotion- adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder- explain study
Passionate Love
an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another
usually present at the beginning of a love relationship
Companionate Love
deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined

68. Social Relations Equity Self-Disclosure Altruism
a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it
Self-Disclosure
revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others
Altruism
unselfish regard for the welfare of others

69. Altruism + Examples
Darley + Latane- attributed inaction to situational factors- the presence of others; They believe we will only help if we 1- interpret situation; 2- interpret as emergency; 3- assume responsibility;
Why did Genovese murder occur? Diffusion of responsibility- any single person less likely to help
Best odds of helping- appears to need and deserve help, similar to us, just observed someone being helpful, not in a hurry, small town or rural area, feeling guilty, not preoccupied, are in a good mood

70. Social Relations
The decision-making process for bystander intervention

71. Social Relations Bystander Effect
tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

72. Social Relations- Psychology of Helping
Social Exchange Theory
the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs
Social Responsibility Norm- an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them- example religious service

73. Social Relations- Peacemaking
Occurs through cooperation- Need to have
Superordinate Goals
shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation; Example- patriotism after 9/11- 90% approval rating
Communication- third party mediator- win, win rather than win-lose; Example- Relationship troubles

74. Social Relations
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-reduction (GRIT)
a strategy designed to decrease international tensions
one side announces recognition of mutual interests and initiates a small conciliatory act
opens door for reciprocation by other party
Example- Kennedy’s gesture of stopping atmospheric nuclear tests began a series of conciliatory acts that culminated in 1992 atmospheric ban- treaty