Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY

1. Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY Chapter 18 Social Psychology James A. McCubbin, PhD Clemson University Worth Publishers

2. Social Thinking • Social Psychology • scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another • Attribution Theory • tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition

3. Attribution Theory • Attribution theory is a Social Psychological theory that relates to the way in which people explain their own behavior and that of others. According to this theory, people tend to attribute (or explain) psychological or external causes as the determining factor in behavior. For example, if someone acts mean to you one day, would you attribute the behavior to the person being a jerk (internal attribution) or to the person having a bad day (external attribution)? Attribution theory examines the ways in which people make these attributions. Make sure you review the definition for the Fundamental Attribution Error, which relates directly to this.

4. Social Thinking • Fundamental Attribution Error • tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition • Attitude • belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people and events

5. Fundamental Attribution Error Example • Imagine this situation, you are at school and someone you know comes by, you say hello, and this person just gives you a quick, unfriendly "hello" and then walks away. How would you attribute this situation -- why did this person act this way? If you react to this situation by saying the person is a "jerk" then you have made the fundamental attribution error; the tendency for an observer, when interpreting and explaining the behavior of another person (the actor), to underestimate the situation and to overestimate the personal disposition. Maybe the person was having the worst day of their life, just found out a loved one died, failed a test and was feeling devastated, etc. In this case, the situation may have caused them to act in a way that was different than their normal happy self. But, you, as a normal observer, would instead attribute their behavior to them as a person...acted that way because that is the type of person they are.

6. Tolerant reaction (proceed cautiously, allow driver a wide berth) Situational attribution “Maybe that driver is ill.” Negative behavior Unfavorable reaction (speed up and race past the other driver, give a dirty look) Dispositional attribution “Crazy driver!” Social Thinking • How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it

7. Internal attitudes External influences Behavior Social Thinking • Our behavior is affected by our inner attitudes as well as by external social influences

8. Social Thinking • Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon • tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request • For example, someone might want you to give to give 5 hours of your time a week for the three months as a volunteer to a charity (a big request). But to get you to agree to this big request, they first ask you to volunteer for 1 hour one time and one time only. After hearing this small request, which you are willing to agree to, they then work their way up asking you to volunteer time until you are willing to agree to the big request. You are more likely to agree to this when you have already said yes to the small request.

9. Social Roles • Role • set of expectations about a social position • defines how those in the position ought to behave • We all have roles that we play. No, not in roles in a "play", but roles we play in life. To a psychologist, a role is a set of expectations about the ways in which people are supposed to behave in different situations. Roles are dependent on all sorts of things like the position a person holds, the culture, etc. For example, a person who is the CEO of a company is expected to act in certain ways specifically because of the title the person holds and the expectations we have in our society about the ways CEOs should behave.

10. Cognitive Dissonance Exercise • Draw a five-point Likert Scale on your piece of paper. • Example: 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree Disagree Switzerland Agree

11. Social Thinking • Cognitive Dissonance Theory • we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent • example- when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

12. Social Thinking • Cognitive dissonance

13. Social Influence • Conformity • adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard • Normative Social Influence • influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

14. Social Influence • Asch’s conformity experiments

15. Social Influence • Norm • an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior • prescribes “proper” behavior • Informational Social Influence • influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

16. 50% 40 30 20 10 0 Difficult judgments Conformity highest on important judgments Percentage of conformity to confederates’ wrong answers Easy judgments Low High Importance Social Influence • Participants judged which person in Slide 2 was the same as the person in Slide 1

17. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage of subjects who obeyed experimenter The majority of subjects continued to obey to the end Moderate (75-120) Very strong (195-240) Extreme intensity (315-360) XXX (435-450) Danger severe (375-420) Slight (15-60) Strong (135-180) Intense (255-300) Shock levels in volts Social Influence • Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment

18. Social Influence • Testing facilitated communication

19. Social Influence • Social Facilitation • improved performance of tasks in the presence of others • occurs with simple or well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered • Social Loafing • tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

20. Home Advantage in Major Team Sports Home Team Games Winning Sport Studied Percentage Baseball 23,034 53.3% Football 2,592 57.3 Ice hockey 4,322 61.1 Basketball 13,596 64.4 Soccer 37,202 69.0 Social Facilitation

21. Social Influence • Deindividuation • loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

22. Social Influence • Group Polarization • enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group • Groupthink • mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives

23. +4 +3 +2 +1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 High High-prejudice groups Prejudice Low-prejudice groups Low Before discussion After discussion Social Influence • If a group is like-minded, discussion strengthens its prevailing opinions

24. Social Influence • Self-fulfilling Prophecy • occurs when one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief

25. Social Relations • Prejudice • an unjustifiable (and usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members • involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action • Stereotype • a generalized (often over generalized) belief about a group of people

26. 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage answering yes Would you vote for a woman president? Do whites have a right to keep minorities out of their neighborhoods? 1936 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Year Social Relations • Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice

27. Social Relations • Ingroup • “Us”- people with whom one shares a common identity • Outgroup • “Them”- those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup

28. Social Relations • Ingroup Bias • tendency to favor one’s own group • Scapegoat Theory • theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame • Just-World Phenomenon • tendency of people to believe the world is just • people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

29. Social Relations • Aggression • any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy • Frustration-Aggression Principle • principle that frustration – the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal – creates anger, which can generate aggression

30. 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0 Murders and rapes per day in Houston, Texas 40-68 69-78 79-85 86-91 92-99 Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit Social Relations • Uncomfortably hot weather and aggression

31. 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Arrest per 100,000 15- to 17- year-olds 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 Social Relations • Juvenile violent crime arrest rates

32. Sexual promiscuity Coerciveness against women Hostile masculinity Social Relations • Men who sexually coerce women

33. Social Relations • Conflict • perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas • Social Trap • a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior

34. Person 1 Choose A Choose B Optimal outcome Person 2 Choose B Choose A Probable outcome Social Relations • Social trap • by pursuing our self-interest and not trusting others, we can end up losers

35. Social Relations- Attractiveness • Proximity • mere exposure effect- repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them • Physical Attractiveness • youthfulness may be associated with health and fertility • Similarity • friends share common attitudes, beliefs, interests

36. Social Relations • Passionate Love • an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another • usually present at the beginning of a love relationship • Companionate Love • deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined

37. Social Relations • Equity • a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it • Self-disclosure • revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others • Altruism • unselfish regard for the welfare of others

38. Yes Yes Yes Notices incident? Interprets incident as emergency? Assumes responsibility? Attempts to help No No No No help No help No help Social Relations • The decision-making process for bystander intervention

39. 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Percentage attempting to help 1 2 3 4 Number of others presumed available to help Social Relations • Bystander Effect • tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

40. Social Relations • Social Exchange Theory • the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs • Superordinate Goals • shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

41. Social Relations • Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-reduction (GRIT) • a strategy designed to decrease international tensions • one side announces recognition of mutual interests and initiates a small conciliatory act • opens door for reciprocation by other party