Chapter 13Social Behavior

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by others.

SOCIAL PERCEPTION Social perception: the way we seek to

understand other people and events.

Impression formation: process by which we combine various sources of information about a person into overall judgment

Attribution: process by which we use information to make inferences about the causes of behavior or events

IMPRESSION FORMATION: FIRST WE CATEGORIZE PEOPLE INTO GROUPS

Human beings are categorizing creatures. We identify objects—including other people—according to features

that distinguish them from other objects. In social categorization, physical features such as race, sex, age, and

attractiveness are most common ways to classify people, especially during first encounters. Social categorization often occurs without conscious thought or effort.

CATEGORIZING CAN LEAD TO STEREOTYPING

Stereotypes: fixed ways of thinking about people that doesn’t allow for individual variation

Stereotypes are “shortcuts to thinking” that provide us with information about individuals we do not personally know.

These cognitive shortcuts also can inhibit our thinking.

EXPLAINING PEOPLE’S BEHAVIOR: ATTRIBUTING MOTIVES

Internal attribution: any explanation that locates the cause as inside the person (personality)

External attribution: any explanation that locates the cause as outside the person (situation)

EXAMPLE OF ATTRIBUTION

ATTITUDES

Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations of objects. “Objects” include people, things, events, and issues. When we use such words as like, dislike, love, hate, good,

and bad, we are describing our attitudes.

REPEATED EXPOSURE SHAPES ATTITUDES

Mere exposure effect: tendency to develop more positive feelings toward objects and individuals the more frequently we are exposed to them

People are more exposed to their mirrored facial images than they are to their true facial images, thus they tend to have more positive attitudes toward the former than the latter.

CONDITIONING SHAPES ATTITUDES

Attitudes can be formed are through operant and classical conditioning.

In operant conditioning, pleasant or unpleasant stimuli that follow a performed behavior may respectively lead to positive or negative attitudes.

In classical conditioning, attitudes may form by pairing a previously neutral stimulus with another stimulus that naturally evokes a positive or negative response in a person.

ATTITUDE CHANGE OCCURS WITH OR WITHOUT COMPREHENSION OF THE PERSUASIVE MESSAGE

Consciously attempting to change attitudes through the transmission of some message is called persuasion.

The elaboration likelihood model: a theory that there are two ways in which persuasive messages can cause attitude change, each differing in the amount of cognitive effort or elaboration they require

THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL:

HIGH ELABORATION When motivated and able to think carefully about the message

content, we take central route to persuasion and are influenced by strength and quality of the arguments

LOW ELABORATION When unable or unwilling to analyze the message, we take the

peripheral route to persuasion, where we pay attention to cues that are irrelevant to the content or quality of communication, such as attractiveness of communicator or sheer amount of information presented

ATTITUDE CHANGE CAN OCCUR WITH OR WITHOUT COMPREHENSION OF THE PERSUASIVE MESSAGE

When people take peripheral route to persuasion, it isn’t important to comprehend the message: Attitude change can occur without comprehension.

In comparison to attitudes formed through central processing, attitudes formed through peripheral processing are: Weaker, Less resistant to counterarguments, and Less predictive of actual behavior.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORYLEON FESTINGER

Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory contends that we are motivated to change our attitudes because of an internal desire to keep our attitudes and behavior consistent.

Cognitive dissonance: a feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is inconsistent with one’s attitudes

To relieve this feeling of discomfort, we often change our attitudes so that they are in line with our behavior.

Research suggests that expected cognitive dissonance effects are affected by cultural upbringing & underlying psychological needs.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Social influence: the exercise of social power by a person or group to change the attitudes or behavior of others in a certain direction

Social power can originate from having access to certain resources or from being liked and admired by others.

The three main behavioral consequences of social influence are conformity, compliance, and obedience.

ASCH’S RESEARCH: THE POWER OF CONFORMITY PRESSURE

Conformity: a yielding to perceived group pressure Asch’s line judgment studies demonstrate that people

often find it easier to conform rather than challenge the unanimous opinions of others.

ASCH’S LINE JUDGMENT TASK

PEOPLE WILL OBEY DESTRUCTIVE ORDERS

Obedience: performance of an action in response to a direct order (usually from

a high status person).

Milgram’s obedience research Sixty-five percent of participants obeyed the

destructive commands of an authority figure (the experimenter in a “learning study”).

Most people believe(d) they would resist the destructive commands and openly rebel.

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY

Source: Data from S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1974; and S. Milgram, The Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992.

HURTING AND HELPING OTHERS

Aggression: any form of behavior intended to harm another living being

Helping: voluntary behavior that is carried out to benefit another person

AGGRESSION: INTENTION TO HARM ANOTHER LIVING BEING

Two types of aggression: Instrumental aggression: intention to achieve a goal Hostile aggression: intention to cause injury or death to

the victim

In some instances no clear distinctions can be made between hostile and instrumental aggression; aggression might start out instrumentally but then turn hostile.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN STYLES OF AGGRESSION

Men are more likely than women to engage in physical aggression.

They also experience physical aggression differently.

Women view their physical aggression as stress-induced, precipitated by loss of self-control, and a negative experience.

Men perceive physical aggression as exercise of control over others, provoked by challenges to their self-esteem. and a positive experience.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN STYLES OF AGGRESSION

Women more frequently engage in indirect aggression than do men:

Indirect aggression is a form of social manipulation in which the aggressor attempts to harm another person without a face-to-face encounter

GENDER COMPARISONS IN AGGRESSION

BYSTANDER INTERVENTION: DECIDING TO HELP The model of bystander intervention (John

Darley and Bibb Latané) involves a series of five decisions:

1. Notice that something unusual is happening.

2. Decide whether something is wrong and help is needed.

3. Determine the extent to which one has responsibility to help.

4. Settle on the appropriate form of assistance to render.

5. Decide to carry out the helpful behavior.

THE MODEL OF BYSTANDER INTERVENTION: A FIVE-STEP DECISION PROCESS

PROXIMITY AND SIMILARITY MOST POWERFUL FACTORS IN ATTRACTION

One of most powerful factors in determining whether a relationship develops with another person is his or her proximity to you.

One reason is opportunity Another reason is familiarity

PROXIMITY AND SIMILARITY MOST POWERFUL FACTORS IN ATTRACTION

Another power factor in attraction is similarity. The Matching Hypothesis says that we choose people who are similar to us.

One reason we seek similar others is for social validation. Another reason is the desire for consistency or “balance,” in our

thoughts, feelings, and social relationships. Balance is created when both parties value same things—that is, when they have similar attitudes.

A third reason is social comfort and absence of conflict.