Psychology: Unit 3-Social Psychology

Social Psychology: The study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social Thinking: How do we think about one another?

Attribution Theory: The idea that we give a casual explanation for someone's behavior

• We credit that behavior either to the situation or 
• To the person's disposition

Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to underestimate the impact of a situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

• How do you view your teacher's behavior? 
• You probably attribute it to their personality rather than their profession.

Negative Behavior

• Situational Attributional: "Maybe that driver is ill"
• Dispacitional Attributional; "Crazy Driver"
• Tolerant Reaction: "proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide breath"
• Unfavorable Reaction: "Speed up, pass them"

Attitudes: A belief or feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to something

"More often, our actions affect our attitudes."

*Foot-in-the-door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.

• If I give out an answer on a quiz, what happens next?

*Door-in-the-face Phenomenon: The tendency for people who say no to a huge request, to comply with a smaller one.

• If I ask my wife fro the 1952 Toopps Mantle Card ($15 K), she will say NO.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory: We do not like when we have either conflicting attitudes or when our attitudes do not match our actions

• When they clash, we will change our attitudes to create chance.

Social Influence

 

Conformity: Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

• How did you fell for the first time someone asked you to smoke?

Asch's Study

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity:

• One is made to feel incompetent
• The group is at least 3 people
• The group is unanimous
• One admires the group's status
• One had made no prior commitment
• The person is observed

Reasons for Conforming

Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment

Informational Social Influence: Influence resulting from one's willingness to accept other''s opinion about reality

Milgram's Experiment

Group Influence on behavior---Let's look at how groups affect our behavior

Social Facilitation: Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others

• Occurs with simple or well learned tasks
• Not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered 

Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a  group to exert less effort when pooling efforts toward a common goal than if they were individually accountable

Deindividuation: The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and an anonymity.

Group Polarization: The concept that a group's attitudes is one of extremes and rarely moderate.

• As a group, both the Black Panthers and the KKK are more extreme than the average individual in a group. 

Groupthink: The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides the common sense.

• How could the hazing incident in Northbrock High School be an example groupthink?

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Occurs when one person's belief about others leads to act in ways that induce the others to appear to conform the belief

Social Relations

Prejudice: An unjustifiable attitude towards a group of people

• Usually involves stereotyped beliefs (a generalized belief about a group of people)

Social Inequalities (A principle reason behind prejudice)

• Ingroup: "us" - people with whom one shares a common identity
• Outgroup: "them" - those perceived as different than one's ingroup
• Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor one's own group

The Scapegoat Theory: The theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

Aggression

Aggression: Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy

The Psychology of Aggression

• Frustration-Aggression Principle:
• The blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal
• Creates anger which generates aggression
• Goals can be won: sports or work, relationships

Conflict

• A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas
• Social trap or prisoner's dilemma

The Just World Phenomenon: The believe that those who suffer, deserve their fate

Reciprocity Norm: Expectation to help those who have helped you

Social Responsibility: The expectation that people will help those that depend on them

5 Factors of Attraction

1. Proximity
• Geographic nearness
• Mere-exposure effect: repeated exposure to something breeds liking
• Minor image concept
2. Reciprocal liking: you are more likely to like someone who likes you
• Why?
• Except in Elementary School!!!
3. Similarity
• Paula Abdul was wrong-opposites do not attract
• Birds of the same feather do flock together
• Similarity breeds content
4. Physical Attractiveness
• What is beauty?
• Some people say beauty is facial symmetry
5. Love
• Passionate Love: An aroused state of INTENSE positive absorption of another
• Compassionate Love: The deep affectionate ATTACHMENT we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined
• What makes compassionate love work?
• Equity
• Self-Disclosure

Altruism: An unselfish regard for the welfare of others

• Kitty Gerovese Case
• Bystander Effect: bystanders are less willing to help of their are other bystanders around

Social Exchange Theory: The idea that our social behaviors an exchange process, which we maximize benefits and minimize costs

Peacemaking: Give people super-ordinate (shared) goals that can only be achieved through cooperation

• Win win situations through mediation
• GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction)