Chapter 12

social psychology

psychology
fourth edition
Psychology, Fourth Edition Copyright ©2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Saundra K. Ciccarelli • J. Noland White All rights reserved.
 Social Psychology Definition

Video
Social psychology is the scientific study of how
people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others.
Social psychology looks at behavior and mental
processes but also includes the social world in
which we exist, as we are surrounded by others to
whom we are connected and by whom we are
influenced in so many ways.
 Social Psychology
Major themes of social psychology are:
• Social cognition and perception
• The self in a social context
• Attitudes and persuasion
• Group decisions
• Attraction and close relationships
• Prosocial behavior
• Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination
 Social Psychology
Factors Affecting Conformity
• Social influence: the process through
which the real or implied presence of
others can directly or indirectly influence
the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of an
individual
Social Psychology and Conformity

• Conformity: changing one’s own behavior

to match that of other people
Stimuli Used in Asch’s Study
Participants in Asch’s famous study on conformity were first shown the standard line. They were then shown the three
comparison lines and asked to determine to which of the three was the standard line most similar. Which line would you
pick? What if you were one of several people, and everyone who answered ahead of you chose line 3? How would that
affect your answer? Source: Adapted from Asch (1956).
 Groupthink and Compliance
Groupthink: occurs when people place more
importance on maintaining group cohesiveness
than on assessing the facts of the problem with
which the group is concerned
 Group Behavior
Group polarization: members involved in a group
discussion tend to take somewhat more extreme
positions and suggest riskier actions than do
individuals who have not participated in a group
discussion
 Group Behavior

• Social facilitation: positive influence of

others on performance
• Social impairment: negative influence of
others on performance
– social loafing: people who are lazy tend not to
do as well when other people are also
working on the same task, but they can do
quite well when working on their own
 It’s easier to hide laziness when working in a group
 Group Behavior
• Deindividuation: a lessening of one’s sense of
personal identity and personal responsibility
– groups or crowds can offer a sense of anonymity
 Ways to Gain Compliance

• Compliance: changing one’s behavior as

a result of other people directing or asking
for the change
• Consumer psychology: branch of
psychology that studies the habits of
consumers in the marketplace, including
compliance
 Gaining Compliance

• Foot-in-the-door technique: asking for a

small commitment and, after gaining
compliance, asking for a bigger commitment
• Door-in-the-face technique: asking for a
large commitment and then, after being
refused, asking for a smaller commitment
• Lowball technique: getting a commitment
from a person and then raising the cost of
that commitment
 Obedience

• Obedience: changing one’s behavior at

the command of an authority figure
• Milgram study: “teacher” administered
what he or she thought were real shocks
to a “learner”
– participants consistently follow orders to
administer apparently painful shocks

Video
Control Panel in Milgram’s Experiment
In Stanley Milgram’s classic study on obedience, the participants were presented with a control panel
like this one. Each participant (“teacher”) was instructed to give electric shocks to another person (the
“learner,” who only pretended to be shocked). At what point do you think you would have refused to
continue the experiment?
 Attitudes

• Attitude: a tendency to respond positively

or negatively toward a certain person,
object, idea, or situation
• Three components of an attitude:
1. the affective (emotional) component
2. the behavioral component
3. the cognitive component
Three Components of an Attitude
Attitudes consist of the way a person feels and thinks about something, as well as the
way the person chooses to behave. If you like country music, you are also likely to think
that country music is good music. You are also more likely to listen to this style of music,
buy this type of music, and even go to a performance. Each of the three components
influences the other two.
 Attitudes

• Attitudes are often poor predictors of

behavior unless the attitude is very
specific or very strong
 Formation of Attitudes

• Direct contact with the person, situation,

object, or idea
• Direct instruction from parents or others
• Interacting with other people who hold a
certain attitude
• Vicarious conditioning: watching the
actions and reactions of others to ideas,
people, objects, and situations
 Persuasion
Components of, Formation of, and Changes in Attitude

• Persuasion: the process by which one

person tries to change the belief, opinion,
position, or course of action of another
person through argument, pleading, or
explanation
– key elements in persuasion are the source of
the message, the message itself, the target
audience, and the medium
 Persuasion

• Elaboration Likelihood Model

– people will either elaborate on the persuasive
message or fail to elaborate on it
– the future actions of those who do elaborate
are more predictable than those who do not
 Persuasion
• Elaboration Likelihood Model (cont’d)
– central-route processing: involves
attending to the content of the message itself
– greater long term effectiveness
– peripheral-route processing: involves
attending to factors not involved in the
message, such as the expertise of the source
of the message, the length of the message,
and other non-content factors
 Cognitive Dissonance
When Attitudes Do Not Match Actions

• Cognitive dissonance: sense of discomfort

or distress that occurs when a person’s
behavior does not correspond to that
person’s impression
– lessened by changing the conflicting behavior,
changing the conflicting attitude,
or forming a new attitude to justify the
behavior
Video
 Social Categorizaion
Social Categorization and Implicit Personality Theories

• Impression formation: forming of the first

knowledge a person has about another
person
– primacy effect: the very first impression one
has about a person tends to persist even in
the face of evidence to the contrary
 Social Categorization

• Social categorization: the assignment of a

person one has just met to a category
based on characteristics the new person
has in common with other people with
whom one has had experience in the past
– stereotype: a set of characteristics that people
believe is shared by all members of a
particular social category
 Implicit Personality Theories
• Implicit personality theory: sets of
assumptions about how different types of
people, personality traits, and actions are
related to each other
– Implicit Association Test (IAT): measures the
degree of association between concepts
• Schemas: mental patterns that represent
what a person believes about certain types of
people
– schemas can become stereotypes
 Attributions
How People Explain Others’ Actions

• Attribution: the process of explaining

one’s own behavior and the behavior of
others
• Attribution theory: the theory of how
people make attributions
 Attributions
• Situational cause: cause of behavior
attributed to external factors:
– delays
– the action of others
– some other aspect of the situation
• Dispositional cause: cause of behavior
attributed to internal factors
– personality
– character
 Attributions

• Fundamental attribution error (actor-

observer bias): the tendency to
overestimate the influence of internal
factors in determining behavior while
underestimating situational factors
 Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudice: negative attitude held by a

person about the members of a particular
social group
• Discrimination: treating people differently
because of prejudice toward the social
group to which they belong
 Prejudice and Discrimination

• Forms of prejudice include ageism,

sexism, racism, and prejudice against
those who are too fat or too thin
• In-groups: social groups with whom a
person identifies; “us”
• Out-groups: social groups with whom a
person does not identify; “them”
 Prejudice and Discrimination

• Scapegoating: tendency to direct prejudice

and discrimination at out-group members
who have little social power or influence
 Stopping Prejudice

Social cognitive theory

views prejudice as an
attitude acquired
through direct
instruction, modeling,
and other social
influences.
 Stopping Prejudice
Realistic Conflict Theory
Description: When there is limited resources, then this leads to conflict, prejudice
and discrimination between groups who seek that common resource. Once hostility
has been aroused, it is very difficult to return to normal relations and an ongoing
feud can arise.

Research: Muzafer Sherif divided a Boy Scout camp into two groups, the Eagles
and the Rattlers. After helping the groups to each become cohesive, he introduced
competitive games and other conflicts. Before long, a full-scale riot was in progress
and the researchers had to work hard at mediation to defuse the situation.

Example: A common situation is where jobs are scarce and an established group
blames immigrants for ‘taking the food out of our children's’ mouths’.

So what? Using it: Gain control over a resource required by many. Where you
cannot, point to others who use the resource as causes of your own ills.

Defending: When resources are limited, pre-empt conflict by setting up joint

councils, etc. to decide fairly on allocation.

Adapted from http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/realistic_conflict.htm

 Stopping Prejudice

• Social identity theory: the formation of a

person’s identity within a particular social
group is explained by social categorization,
social identity, and social comparison
– social identity: the part of the self-concept
including one’s view of self as a member of a
particular social category
– social comparison: the comparison of oneself
to others in ways that raise one’s self-esteem
 Stopping Prejudice

• Stereotype vulnerability: the effect that

people’s awareness of the stereotypes
associated with their social group has on
their behavior
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: the tendency of
one’s expectations to affect one’s behavior
in such a way as to make the expectation
more likely to occur
 Stopping Prejudice

• Equal status contact: contact between

groups in which the groups have equal
status, with neither group having power
over the other
 Stopping Prejudice

“Jigsaw classroom”: educational technique in

which each individual is given only part of the
information needed to solve a problem, forcing
individuals to work together to find the solution
 Attraction
• Interpersonal attraction: liking or having
the desire for a relationship with another
person
– physical attractiveness
– proximity: physical or geographical nearness
– people like people who are similar to
themselves OR who are different from
themselves (complementary)
– reciprocity of liking: tendency of people to like
other people who like them in return
 Love

• Love: a strong affection for another person

due to kinship, personal ties, sexual
attraction, admiration, or common interests
• Sternberg’s three components of love:
1. intimacy
2. passion
3. commitment
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
This diagram represents the seven different kinds of love that can result from combining the three
components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Notice that some of these types of love sound
less desirable or positive than others. What is the one key element missing from the less positive types of
love? Source: Adapted from Sternberg (1986).
Love
 Love

• Romantic love: consists of intimacy and

passion
• Companionate love: consists of intimacy
and commitment
• Consummate love: ideal love, in which all
three components are present
 Aggression
Biology and Learning Influences on Aggression

• Aggression: behavior intended to hurt or destroy

another person
• Frustration–aggression hypothesis: aggression
is a reaction to frustration
• Konrad Lorenz saw aggression as an instinct for
fighting to promote the survival of our species
• Biological influences on aggression may include
genetics, the amygdala and limbic system, and
testosterone and serotonin levels
 Aggression

• Social role: the pattern of behavior that is

expected of a person who is in a particular
social position
– violent TV, movies, and videos are related to
aggression
 Altruism
Altruism and Deciding to Help Others

• Prosocial behavior: socially desirable

behavior that benefits others
• Altruism: prosocial behavior that is done
with no expectation of reward and may
involve the risk of harm to oneself
• The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is
larger in individuals who make altruistic
choices
Bystander Effect: Kitty Genovese
Bystander effect: the effect that the presence
of other people has on the decision to help or
not help
– help becomes less likely as the number of
bystanders increases

Video
Elements Involved in Bystander Response
In a classic experiment, participants were filling out surveys as the room began to fill with smoke. As you can see in the
accompanying graph, the time taken to report smoke and the percentage of people reporting smoke both depended on
how many people were in the room at the time the smoke was observed. If a person was alone, he or she was far more
likely to report the smoke and report it more quickly than when there were three people. Source: Latané & Darle (1969).
 Bystander Effect
• Diffusion of responsibility: a person fails to
take responsibility for action or for inaction
because of the presence of other people
who are seen to share the responsibility
 Responsibility

Five steps in making a decision to help

1. noticing
2. defining an emergency
3. taking responsibility
4. planning a course of action
5. taking action
Video
 Social neuroscience
• Social neuroscience: the study of how
biological processes influence social
behavior
– studies use fMRI and other imaging
techniques to discover areas of the brain
involved in social actions
 The End Chapter 12
social psychology

psychology
fourth edition
Psychology, Fourth Edition Copyright ©2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Saundra K. Ciccarelli • J. Noland White All rights reserved.