Essential QuestionEssential Question•How are individuals affected and influenced by groups?

Social PsychologyDefinition: Sub-field of psychology that studies of how others influence our thoughts, feelings and actions

Focuses on…- How large social forces such as groups, social roles and norms bring out the best and worst in all of us

- Explaining why people act differently in the same situation, and why the same person may act differently in different situations.

Behavior in Groups: The Impact of OthersHawthorne Effect (Observer Effect): is a type of reactivity in which individuals modify or improve an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed.

Social Facilitation: presence of others increases our performance on simple tasksEx.Being watched while doing task vs. being alone when doing task better on simple tasks worse on complex tasks

Social Impairment: presence of others worsens our performance.

Social Loafing: tendency to put less effort in when working with others

Behavior in Groups

•Decision Making

•Group Polarization - when group discussion leads to a more “polarized” point of view by the group

•Groupthink - when feel pressure to conform to the group, stops critical thinking to avoid dissention in the group•Ex: Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs

Group Polarization

Conformity: Social Influence•Chameleon Effect: our tendency to unconsciously mimic

those around us• Yawning when others yawn• Picking up the mood of a happy or sad person•Dress like your friends• This automatic mimicry is an ingredient in our ability to

empathize with others

Conformity: Asch Line Study• Conformity - yielding to social pressure• Asch’s Conclusions1) subjects often conform to a group, even when the group states

clearly inaccurate conclusions 2) conformity to a group increases with the size of the group, up to

five or six, but only when the group is unanimous in its beliefs

Behavior in Groups•Deindividuation: People lose, to some extent, their sense of self.

•Bystander Effect: less likely to help others when in groups than when alone

Percentage of Bystanders Helping Victims & Time Taken

Bystander Apathy: Darley & Latane’s (1968) Smoke Filled Room

•The Smoke-Filled Room (Latane & Darley, 1970) SS showed up for an experiment and were asked to fill out a set of questionnaires. While filling out these questionnaires, the room began to fill up with smoke. •SS were tested in three conditions: • 1) Alone in room • 2) w/ 2 confederates • 3) w/ 2 other "real" subjects

•DV: % subjects reporting smoke within 6 mins

Diffusion of Responsibility

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Alone 2 confederates 3 naïve subjects

Percentageof SSReportingSmoke

Diffusion of Responsibility

• Chair Study (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1977)

• Diffusion of responsibility among Whites may be heightened when the victim is Black

• Chairs fall on a fellow subject (B or W)

• DV: % who help

Results

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White Victim Black Victim

No other witness2 other witnesses

Percentage who help

ObedienceObedience

Role-playing: people who behaved in certain ways in scripted scenarios have adopted attitudes in keeping with those roles. (Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment

Milgram’s Conclusionssituational pressures can make people obey instructions that go against their belief systems

Obedience Experiment

Persuasion• Factors in predicting the effectiveness:

• Source: • Is the communicator credible, trustworthy, likable, attractive, similar to

individual?

•Message: • Fear vs. logic: fear is more effective if they only produce a moderate

amount of fear and provide a way to avoid the consequence• One or two sided: Usually more effective to present both sides if

audience is not yet committed• Repetition

• Target Audience:• Personality, expectations, preexisting attitudes, intelligence• Teens to mid-twenties more susceptible to persuasion

Persuasion: Elaboration Likelihood Model• The ease of persuading an individual is linked to how they process

information• People either: • Elaborate (add information) to what they hear or;• They do not. Instead paying attention to length, who delivered it,

and how attractive deliver is• Two types of processing• Central-route processing: individuals attend to the content of the

message• Peripheral-route processing: relies on cues outside of the content.

• Message source, length, ect…

Compliance: Persuasion Techniques•Limited time offer•Everyone is buying!!!•DEAL!!!•Reciprocation•Foot –in-the-door•Door-in-the-face•Lowball

Compliance: Foot-in-the-Door

• First starts with a smaller request• Later followed by a greater request• Individuals are more likely to comply because they want to

behave consistently with previous response

Compliance: Door-in-the-Face

• Opposite of Foot-in-the-Door• Larger request comes first

(Normally refused)• Followed by smaller, more

reasonable request• Technique often relies on norm

of reciprocity• If someone does something for a

person, the person should do something in return.

Compliance: Lowball Technique

• Once commitment is made, the cost of the commitment is increased• “Cost” is not always money.

(time, effort, ect.)• Think buying a car. After the

initial decision, they often offer many add-ons.

Compliance: That’s-Not-All

• Make an offer, but prior to person having time to decide, extras are offered. • Often used in infomercials• This also often activates

norm of reciprocity

Attitudes & Attitude Formation- When we observe & respond to the world around us, it is never without

the influence of our attitudes (even if we don’t realize it). - Advertisers spend millions because they know thatattitudes can be shaped & changed….to their benefit $$

• Definition Positive, negative, or mixed feelings, based on our beliefs, that

predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

Ex: A friend tells you that they believe Coach Stove is a mean teacher. You may feel dislike for Coach Stove, and act unfriendly.

• Components of Attitudes• Cognitive: What you believe• Affective: How you feel about it• Behavioral: What you are willing to do about it

Components of Attitudes

Cognitive DissonanceDefinition: Sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when a

person’s behavior does not correspond to that person’s attitudes.

Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) Experiment• Asked to do hour long boring task• Offered $1 or $20 to say it’s fun• Results: Larger payment led to less dissonance b/c high payment could account for ‘lying’.

• Those paid $1 convinced themselves the task was interesting and fun. $1 was not enough to justify lying so those people changed their attitude to saying they enjoyed the task

Example: After you go to all the trouble of buying a new house you start to like it more

Social Categorization and Implicit Social Categorization and Implicit Personality TheoryPersonality Theory• Social Categorization: : assignment of a person one has just met to a

category based on characteristics in common with people you have experienced in the past• Stereotype: set of characteristics that people believe are shared by

all members of a group• Implicit Personality Theory: : set of assumptions that people have

about how different types of people, personality traits, and actions are related.

Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958)

Definition: Inferences that people draw about the causesof events, others’ behavior, and their own behavior

Dispositional Attribution: we attribute a person’s behavior to an internal state (personality, abilities, etc.)

Situational Attribution: attributing a person’s behavior to an external state (stress, abuse, hardship, wealth, etc.)

• Function: People like to explain and understand behavior and the events that impact their lives

• Attributions are made when an event is unusual and personal

• “Just world” phenomenon

Bias in Attribution• Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE): Observer’s bias in favor of

internal attributions in explaining others’ behaviorEx: Someone else drops out of college because “they couldn’t handle the

pressure or work load” – internal.

• Actor–observer Bias: An extension of FAE. Explains the errors that one makes when forming attributions about behavior(Jones & Nisbett, 1971).• When people judge their own behavior, and they are the actor, they are

more likely to attribute their actions to the particular situation than to a generalization about their personality. • When an observer is explaining the behavior of another person (the

actor), they are more likely to attribute this behavior to the actors’ overall disposition rather than to situational factors.

Ex. You drop out of college because “tuition was raised and you had to help support your family” – external

Bias in Attribution• Self-Serving Bias: Tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal factors

and one’s failures to situational factors• Defensive Attribution: Tendency to blame the victim for their misfortune, so

that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way

• In-group bias- tendency to favor your own group over the out-group

Attribution Example

Covariation Model of Attribution

Person Perception• Definition: The process of forming impressions of others

• Impressions are influenced by:• Physical appearance• good looking people are seen as intelligent, friendly, and

confident• Schemas: Organized clusters of ideas about categories of social

events and people• 1st Impressions: self fulfilling prophecy, primacy• Stereotypes: gender, race, job

What conclusions are drawn?

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination• Stereotype: Thoughts and beliefs held about people strictly

because of their membership in a group• Prejudice: A negative attitude held toward members of a group• Discrimination: Negative actions towards a group

Theory in which the formation of a person’s identity within a particular social group is explained by social categorization, social group is explained by social categorization, social identity, and social comparison

Social Identity Theory

Stereotype VulnerabilityStereotype Vulnerability

• The effect that people’s awareness of the stereotypes associated with their social groups has on their behavior

• Self fulfilling prophecySelf fulfilling prophecy: the tendency of one’s expectations to affect one’s behavior in such a way as to make the expectations more likely to occur.

Essential QuestionEssential Question•How are individuals affected and influenced by groups?

Stereotype Cartoon

Articles Showing Bias

ScapegoatingScapegoating• Scapegoat: a person or a group, typically a member of an out-group,

who serves as a target for frustration and negative emotions of members of the in-group.

Attraction• Contributors to Attraction• Proximity: Physical closeness (mere exposure)• Physical Attractiveness: Pleasant physical appearance (often

different depending on culture), signs of health such as symmetry (universal)• Similarity: Commonalities between two people• Opposites?: Complementary Qualities• Reciprocity: The tendency to like those who like you

Triangular Conception of Love

As proposed by Robert Sternberg

Aggression & AltruismAggression: Any form of behavior intended to harm or injure another living being

Where does aggression come from? - Instincts - Genes - Brain & Nervous System - Substance Abuse - Mental Disorders - Hormones & NTs - Aversive Stimuli (e.g. noise, heat, pain, bullying, frustration), culture & learning, Violent media/video games

Altruism: Actions designed to help others with no obvious benefit to the helper

Why are we altruistic?Evolutionary Perspective: favors survival of genes

Egoistic Model: motivated by anticipated gain

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: sometimes for selfish gains, other times truly selfless & motivated by concern for others

Kitty Genovese Story…diffusion of responsibility…

Candid Camera: Social Psychology at Work