Social Psychology CH 13Learning Goal One: Describe how people think about the social world.

Experiencing Psychology: Are 180,000 Heads Better Than One? The chapter begins by discussing how a college

student, Tiffany Philippou, used a technique called crowdsourcing and generated a wealth of information about traveling to London.

Whether interacting face to face or online, solving problems and forming bonds is in essence social psychology.

Brainstorming by a group of people on facebook caused Philippou to gain information and problem-solve about a place she never been to.

Social Psychology

Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one

another.

Attitude AttractionAggression

Group Behavior

SOCIAL COGNITION Social Psychology is the study of how people think

about, influence, and relate to other people.

Social Cognition is an area of psychology that examines how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information.

The most important principles are how individuals perceive others, how they come to understand the behavior of others, and how their attitudes relate to their behavior and that of others.

Person Perception People judge others by their looks. The face can tell a lot about

someone to a social perceiver.

Attractive individuals are thought to be better adjusted, socially skilled, friendly, likable, extraverted, and more likely to achieve superior job performance.

Research has shown that even three- to six-month-old infants preferred to look at attractive faces versus unattractive ones.

Stereotypes are generalizations about a group’s characteristics, though those traits may vary from one individual to the next. Stereotypes are used to simplify the understanding of people by classifying them as belonging to one group or another.

In a self-fulfilling prophecy, an individual’s expectations cause them to act in ways that serve to make those expectations come true.

First Impressions The primacy effect is an individual’s

tendency to attend to and remember what they learned first.

When an individual wants to impress someone else, they put their best foot forward. After getting to know the person, however, there is a lot more information available to form an opinion.

The attribution theory views individuals as motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part oftheir effort to make sense of the behavior.

The internal/external cause includes all causes internal and external to the person.

The stable/unstable cause is whether an individual perceives the cause of behavior to be stable or unstable.

The controllable/uncontrollable cause is whether a cause is perceived as controllable or uncontrollable.

When an individual is successful at something because of some internal characteristic they feel proud, but when it is due to some external characteristic there is not the same pay-off.

Fundamental Attribution Error

We tend to overestimate the role of dispositional factors.

Individualistic V. Collectivistic Cultures

False Consensus Effect

Self-Serving Bias

How do you view your teachers’ behaviors?

You probably attribute it to their personalities rather than their profession.

But do you really know?When you start a

romance, you assume that they agree with your world views….honeymoon period.

If you win it is because you are awesome…if you lose, it must have been the coach or weather or….

Attributional Errors and Biases The fundamental attribution error

occurs when the importance of internal traits is overestimated and the importance of external situations is underestimated.

Most individuals tend to explain behavior in terms of the personalities of the people involved rather than the situation.

Stereotypes, Prejudice and Discrimination

Stereotype: Overgeneralized idea

about a group of people.

Prejudice: Undeserved (usually

negative) attitude towards a group of people (sometimes seems unconscious). Ethnocentrism is an example of a prejudice.

Discrimination: An action based on a

prejudice.

unconscious level

Heuristics in Social Information Processing Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts that

allow individuals to make decisions rapidly.

The false consensus effect is an overestimation of the degree to which everyone else thinks or acts the way an individual does, and it is the result of the individual using their own outlook to predict that of others.

The Self as a Social Object One of the most important self-related variables is self-esteem,

which is the degree to which an individual has a positive or negative attitude about themselves.

A positive illusion is a positive view that an individual has about themselves that is not necessarily rooted in reality. Most people tend to think of themselves as above average in a variety of positive characteristics.

A self-serving bias refers to the tendency to take credit for success and to deny responsibility for failures.

Self-objectification refers to the tendency for an individual to see themselves primarily as an object in the eyes of others.

Stereotype Threat A stereotype threat is an individual’s

fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear about being judged on the basis of a negative stereotype about his or her group.

The stereotype threat has been shown to have a negative effect of women taking a math test compared to men that have equally strong math training.

Social Comparison Social comparison is the process by

which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and abilities in relation to other people.

Individuals are more likely to compare themselves to others that are similar to them.

AttitudesA set of beliefs and

feelings.Advertising is ALL

based on attitude formation.

Mere Exposure EffectCentral Route v.

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

Attitudes Attitudes are how individuals feel about things. It’s their

opinions and beliefs.

1. Can Attitudes Predict Behavior?

There are many situations where an individual’s attitudes will change their behavior. Some of these attitudes are: when the person’s attitudes are strong, when the person shows a strong awareness of his or her attitudes and rehearses and practices them, when the attitudes are relevant to the behavior, and when the person has a vested interest in the issue.

Can Behavior Predict Attitudes? Research has shown that changes in

behavior sometimes precede changes in attitudes.

Attitude and Behavior Do attitudes tell us about

someone’s behavior?

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Leon Festinger People want to have consistent

attitudes and behaviors….when they are not they experience dissonance (unpleasant tension).

Usually they will change their attitude to match behavior (relieves tension).

You have a belief that cheating on tests is bad.

But you cheat on a test!!!

The teacher was really bad so in that class it is OK.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Cognitive dissonance occurs when an individual’s

psychological discomfort is caused by two inconsistent thoughts. What an individual does and what they say they believe are inconsistent. The individual can either change their attitude or change their actions. They will try to justify their actions or change their attitude before changing their behavior.

Effort justification is explained in the following way: goals that require a lot of effort are the ones that are valued the most. If a great deal of effort is put forth, yet the goal is still not reached, then cognitive dissonance occurs.

ü The role of self-esteem is very strong in cognitive dissonance. There is a discrepancy between cognition about a particular behavior and the person’s self-image.

Self-Perception Theory The self-perception theory stresses that

individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behavior.

Behaviors can cause attitudes.

Persuasion Persuasion occurs when individuals try to change

another person’s attitudes. a. The Communicator (Source)

Whether or not someone is believable depends on their expertise or credibility.

b. The Medium

The medium refers to how the message is presented; meaning what type of technology is used.

The Target Age and attitude strengths are two characteristics of

the audience that can determine whether or not a message will be effective.

Younger people are more likely to change their attitudes than older ones.

The elaboration likelihood model explains the relationship between the rational and emotional aspects of appeals. It describes two ways to persuade: one is a central route, which engages someone thoughtfully and the other is a peripheral route, which involves non-message factors, such as the credibility and attractiveness.

The Message (stet)Emotional appeals are very

powerful. Negative appeals play at the audience’s emotions. The less informed an audience, the more likely they will respond to an emotional appeal.

Compliance/Persuasion Strategies

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

Door-in-the-face phenomenon

Successful Persuasion An important aspect is the order in which arguments are

presented. The foot-in-the-door technique states that the strongest point or demand should be made in the beginning, or makes a small request at the beginning to get them to listen and comply and then asks for something more at the end. Another technique is the door-in-the-face, in which the communicator makes the important point up front (which the listeners will probably reject)and then makes a weaker point at the end.

Cognitive Dissonance is also an important tool in successful persuasion.

Resisting Persuasion Inoculation, giving people weaker

arguments, allows people to resist persuasive techniques.

Prior warning about persuasive appeals is also helpful in resisting them.