Intro to Social Psychology

Definitions of Social Psychology

• Social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in social contexts, and how individuals influence each other.
• It considers the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
• The focus is on individual behavior within social settings.

Core Values of Social Psychology as a Science

• Accuracy involves precise, error-free data.
• Objectivity requires remaining free from bias.
• Skepticism involves verifying claims before accepting them.
• Open-mindedness involves being willing to change views with new evidence.

Factors Influencing Social Behavior & Thought

• Others' behavior and characteristics
• Cognitive processes like memories, beliefs, and judgments
• Environmental factors such as weather and noise
• Cultural context including social norms and traditions
• Biological factors, including genetics and hormones

Motives Driving Human Behavior

• Forming social connections
• Understanding ourselves and others
• Gaining or maintaining status
• Protecting ourselves and loved ones
• Attracting and keeping romantic partners

Person-Situation Interactions

• People behave differently based on the situation.
• Different situations highlight different motives.
• Individuals can choose, change, and be changed by situations.
• Situations can select people.
• People have varied responses to the same situation.

Timeline of Social Psychology Development

• 1859: Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published.
• 1897: Tripplett conducted the first experiment on social facilitation.
• 1908: The first Social Psychology textbooks were published by McDougall and Ross.
• 1930-1950s: Foundational theories emerged, including Asch's work on conformity.
• Festinger contributed with social comparison and cognitive dissonance theories.
• Heider developed attribution theory.
• Milgram explored obedience.
• 1970: Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment.
• 1980s: Cognitive approaches gained prominence.
• 1990s: Stronger ethical standards were established.
• 2000s–Now: Social Neuroscience and applied psychology are growing areas

Contemporary Areas in Social Psychology

• Positive Psychology focuses on social support and wellbeing.
• Interpersonal Relationships examine development and breakup.
• Legal Psychology studies witness credibility and jury decisions.
• Social Influence involves persuasion, particularly online.
• Prejudice & Race Relations address stereotypes, profiling, and justice.
• Social Neuroscience studies brain activity and social behavior.
• Group Dynamics & Identity covers race, gender, and nationality.
• Prosocial Behavior focuses on altruism and sustainability.

Major Theoretical Perspectives

• SocioCultural Perspective (Ross): Emphasizes the influence of culture and social norms.
• Evolutionary Perspective (McDougall): Focuses on behaviors that helped humans survive and reproduce.
• Social Learning Perspective (Allport, Hull): States that behavior is shaped by rewards, punishments, and imitation.
• SocioCognitive Perspective: Examines how people think about, remember, and interpret social information.

Research Methods in Social Psychology

• Systematic Observation involves naturalistic observation and surveys.
• Correlation examines the relationship between two variables.
  • Direction and strength indicate the nature of the relationship.
• The Experimental Method involves systematically changing an independent variable to observe its effect on a dependent variable, using random assignment and controls.
• Ethics in social psychology research
  • Includes avoiding deception.
  • Involves addressing ethical concerns, such as harm and misleading information.
  • Requires adhering to guidelines and best practices, like obtaining informed consent, avoiding coercion, and providing debriefing.

Definition of the Self

• The self is the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity.
• It combines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that form a sense of who we are.
• It organizes social thinking and energizes behavior.

Functions of the Self

• Behavioural: Self-presentation & self-expression shapes how others perceive us; Goal setting & self-regulation involves planning and managing behavior over time.
• Cognitive: Self-concept is a mental representation of oneself; self-schemas organize information about the self; memory & attention are focused on self-related information; social comparison evaluates the self in relation to others.
• Affective: Emotional responses are based on how events relate to the self; self-esteem is an emotional evaluation of self-worth; emotional regulation manages feelings linked to self-perception.

Theoretical Perspectives

• William James: Describes the duality of self, with the "Me" being the known and the "I" being the knower.
• Charles Cooley: Introduces the "looking-glass self," where self-concepts are formed through others' opinions.
• George Herbert Mead: Highlights that the self forms through social interaction, with "I" representing the spontaneous and "Me" representing the socialized self.

Origins of the Self

• Introspection: Reflecting inward, which can often be inaccurate.
• Self-Perception: Understanding the self by observing our own actions ("I am what I do").
• Feedback from Others: Reflecting on how people respond to us.
• Social Comparison:
  • Upward comparison: Comparing ourselves to those who are better, which can motivate or lower self-esteem.
  • Downward comparison: Comparing ourselves to those who are worse, which boosts self-esteem.
• Socialization: Learning the norms and roles through culture and society.

Biases in Self-Understanding

• Fundamental Attribution Error: Attributing others' behavior to internal causes.
• Actor-Observer Bias: Attributing our own behavior to situational causes.
• Self-Serving Bias: Attributing success to internal factors and failure to external ones.
• Above Average Effect: Believing we are better than most.
• Positive Illusions: Holding overly favorable views of ourselves.

Self Over Time

• Autobiographical Memory: Comparing our past selves with our present selves to see growth.
• Possible Selves: Imagining future selves, whether desired or feared, to guide motivation.

Social Identity Theory

• Personal Identity: Unique traits, such as "I am creative".
• Social Identity: Group memberships, such as "I'm Trinbagonian".
• Personal vs. Social Identity Continuum: The salient identity depends on the context.
• Intragroup comparison (individual level), Intergroup comparison (group level).

Self-Esteem

• Emotional evaluation of the self.
• High self-esteem: Linked to confidence, but can also be associated with potential for aggression.
• Low self-esteem: Associated with depression and poor outcomes.
• Explicit Self-Esteem: Conscious self-evaluation.
• Implicit Self-Esteem: Unconscious attitudes about the self.
• Measured by: Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale to measure explicit self-esteem; IAT measures implicit self-esteem.

Self-Concept

• Composed of self-esteem, social identity & roles, the self-image and self-perception.
• Independent self-concept is found in individualistic cultures.
• Interdependent self-concept is found in collectivist cultures.

Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins)

• Actual Self: Who you are now.
• Ideal Self: Who you want to be.
• Ought Self: Who you think you should be (duties, responsibilities).

Self-Presentation Strategies

• Ingratiation: Making others like you.
• Intimidation: Appearing dangerous to gain control.
• Self-promotion: Highlighting your strengths.
• Exemplification: Portraying moral integrity.
• Supplication: Appearing needy to gain help.
• Self-verification: Making others agree with your self-view.
• Self-deprecation: Downplaying the self to show humility or to admire others.

Attitudes: Definitions

• Evaluations of any aspect of the social world.
• Associations between an attitude object and evaluations of it.
• Predispositions to respond positively or negatively.
• Attitudes can be explicit being conscious, controllable, and reportable; Attitudes can be implicit as well being unconscious associations.

Attitude Formation

• Classical Conditioning involves learning by association, such as pairing a product with positive images; this process can happen subliminally.
• Instrumental Conditioning (Operant) where behavior is rewarded or punished; positive reinforcement adds a reward and negative reinforcement removes something negative like explaining how social approval influences attitudes.
• Observational Learning, learning by watching others where parents, peers, and media are key influences explaining trends like attitudes toward fashion.
• Social Comparison (Festinger, 1954) where people evaluate attitudes by comparing themselves to others, aligning with those they feel similar to.
• Genetics: Twin studies indicate a small genetic component for certain attitudes as traits can influence attitude development.

ABC Components of Attitudes (Allport, 1935)

• Affective: Emotions (e.g. fear, anger, love).
• Behavioral: Intentions/actions toward objects.
• Cognitive: Thoughts/beliefs.

Functions of Attitudes

• Knowledge: Organizing understanding of the world.
• Affective: Influencing emotional responses.
• Behavioral: Guiding actions and decisions.
• Value Expressive: Expressing identity and values.
• Social Adjustment: Helping fit into groups.
• Instrumental: Gaining rewards or avoiding punishments.
• Self-Esteem: Enhancing self-worth.
• Ego-Defensive: Protecting from uncomfortable truths.
• Impression Motivation: Shaping how others perceive us.

Attitudes & Behaviour

• Social Context: Norms, expectations, public/private actions.
• Attitude Strength: Strong = accessible = better predictors.
• Vested Interest: Relevance = stronger impact.
• Personal Experience: Direct experience = stronger link.
• Attitude Certainty: Clarity + correctness = stronger influence.
• Specificity: Specific attitudes = better behavior predictors.

When Attitudes Don't

• Situational pressures, availability of other attitudes, or pluralistic ignorance.
  • DeFleur & Westie (1958): Attitudes ≠ actions due to social pressure.

Models Explaining Behaviour

• Social behavior is influenced by rational thought; which is known as Theory of Planned Behavior and components like attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.
• Attitude-to-Behaviour Process Model explains spontaneous/impulsive behavior, stating that situations activate attitudes which turns into an automatic response.

Attitude Change

• Learning, persuasion, and/or cognitive dissonance, depending on resistance.

Persuasion (Yale Model)

• Source: Credible, similar, attractive, high-status.
• Message: Clarity, balance (1- vs. 2-sided), fear appeals.
• Audience: Intelligence, age, self-esteem, distractibility.
• Sleeper Effect: Over time, the source is forgotten but the message is remembered.

Persuasion Processing

• Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Central Route involves deep thinking, leading to strong, lasting change; Peripheral Route uses cues like status for weaker effects.
• Heuristic-Systematic Model: Similar to ELM with systematic vs. shortcut-based processing.

Resisting Persuasion

• Selective Avoidance/Exposure: Avoiding challenges, seeking agreement.
• Forewarning: Expecting persuasion = better resistance.
• Counterarguing: Mentally rebutting arguments.
• Inoculation: Exposure to weak attacks strengthens beliefs.
• Psychological Reactance: Resists threats to freedom; Can cause a boomerang effect.
• Ego Depletion: Tired minds are more easily persuaded.

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957)

• Discomfort arises from inconsistency between attitudes/behaviors; reduced by changing attitudes/behavior, justifying with new info, or trivializing conflict. Self-affirmation helps restore self-worth; Minor counterattitudinal behavior increases dissonance.

Measuring Attitudes

• Direct Methods - agreement levels (1–5 or 1–7)
  • Likert Scale
  • Thurstone Scale - Judges rate how favorable statements are.
• Indirect Methods
  • IAT (Implicit Association Test): Reaction time reveals biases.
  • Physiological: Skin conductance = emotional arousal; Pupil Dilation: Arousal or interest.
  • EMG: Facial muscle response = emotion detection.

Definition of Social Cognition

• Social cognition is how people think about the social world.
  • Select
  • Interpret
  • Use information to make judgments. (Sanderson & Safdar, 2012)

Four Core Processes of Social Cognition

• Attention means focusing on specific features of the environment or self and can be limited and selective.
• Interpretation means assigning meaning to events.
  • Many situations are open to multiple interpretations.
• Judgment means using information to form impressions/decisions.
  • Often, judgments are based on limited data or based on best guesses.
• Memory means storing and retrieving information.
  • Memory affects what we attend to and how we interpret events.

Cognitive Shortcuts

• The use of schemas and heuristics is required, as we can't process all information.

Schemas

• Mental frameworks based on experience and culture allowing ease for:
  • Interpreting
  • Organizing
  • Processing Social Information
• Can guide behaviour but also cause errors or stereotypes.

Types of Schemas

• Situational: Typical sequence of events (e.g., dining at a restaurant)
• Person: Based on personality traits
• Occupation: Expected behaviours in job roles
• Social Roles: Behaviours expectations for roles
  • Eg, teacher, student
• Social Groups: Beliefs or stereotypes about groups

Effects of Schemas

• Influence attention, encoding, and retrieval
• Priming: Recent exposure activates related schemas (e.g., “bread” → “butter")

Downsides to Schemas

• Distortion of reality
• Stereotyping
• Perseverance effect: Resistance to change
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: Behave in ways that confirm our expectations

Modes of Social Thought

• Automatic Processing with ease, fast, unconsciousness, and effortless (amygdala) is helpful for routine or overwhelming situations.
• Controlled Processing requires effort, slow, consciousness, and the prefrontal cortex and is used for complex decisions or unfamiliar tasks.

Heuristics (Mental Shortcuts)

• Occurs when: There's too much info (information overload),Time is limited, and decisions must be made quickly.
• Types:
  • Representativeness: Judging based on resemblance to a stereotype which can ignore base rates (how common something is) or assuming a math-loving person is more likely an engineer than a lawyer
  • Availability: Judging based on how easily info comes to mind which can overestimate rare but vivid events (e.g., plane crashes)
  • Anchoring and Adjustment involves starting with an anchor (initial value) and adjusting from it because adjustments are often too small, or a high asking price for a car influences sale price.
  • Status Quo Bias, Preference for the current state of things liking like a mayor more just because they already hold office.

Sources of Error in Social Cognition

• Negativity Bias: More focus on negative info
• Optimistic Bias: The overlooking of risks, expecting good outcomes
• Overconfidence Barrier: Believing too much in our own judgments
• Planning Fallacy: Underestimating time needed for tasks
• Counterfactual Thinking: Thinking "What if..." thoughts about alternate outcomes
• Thought Suppression: Trying not to think about something makes it more prominent
• Magical Thinking: Thinking irrational thought creates emotionally compelling beliefs

Affect and Cognition (Emotion & Thought Interaction)

• A person's perception, memory, and decision-making can be affected by mood
• The ability to recall information that matches our current mood, is known as mood-congruent
• Recalling is easier when the mood matches what you are learning

How Thought Influences Emotion

• Emotional reactions are shaped by schemas.
• The two-factor theory of emotion: Includes emotion = cognitive interpretation + physical arousal.
• Future emotions are predicted by affective forecasting (often inaccurately)
• When negative feelings prolong, rumination/worry exists
• Conscious efforts are represented by emotion regulation which occurs from distraction, shopping and alcohol,

Social Neuroscience Evidence

• Two distinct brain systems are: Logical (rational, long-term thinking) or Emotional (Impulsive, seeks immediate reward)
• Problem solving and decision-making are affected by how the brain system interact

Social Influence

• Efforts by individuals to change others' attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, or behaviors.

Conformity

• Definition: Changing behavior or attitudes to align with social norms.
• Asch (1950s): 76% conformed at least once; 37% average conformity rate. Conformity drops with a dissenter or private responses.

Factors that Increase Conformity:

• Cohesiveness: Stronger group bonds = more conformity.
• Group Size: Larger group = more pressure.
• Status: Lower-status individuals conform more.
• Unanimity: Everyone agreeing increases pressure.
• Descriptive Norms: What people typically do.
• Injunctive Norms: What people should do.
• Normative Focus Theory: Norms influence more when they're personally relevant.

Why People Conform:

• Normative Influence: Desire to be liked.
• Informational Influence: Desire to be right.
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment: Roles and environment led to extreme, unethical behavior. ; Situation > Personality.

Why Some Resist Conformity:

• Value independence.
• Have power/status.
• Presence of dissenters.
• Strong self-esteem or convictions.

Compliance

• Changing behavior due to a direct request.

Compliance Principles:

1. Friendship/Liking
2. Commitment/Consistency
3. Scarcity
4. Reciprocity
5. Social Validation
6. Authority

Techniques:

• Liking relies on Ingratiation which encourages people to make the other person like you; incidental Similarity highlights similarities.
• Consistency ensures people start small, then escalate; Make the offer worse after acceptance when relying on lowballing.
• Reciprocity ensures people start big, then go small; adding perks before they decide when offering a That's not all.
• Scarcity, when emphasized creates a Playing hard to get or Deadline
• Creating Sales/Dissonance occurs upon offering four walls technique which ensures people Get a person to commit mentally, then offer items

Obedience

• Following direct commands from an authority figure results in an increase in:
  • Increased responsibility
  • Questionable Authority
  • Provide Disobedience Models so that there's more awareness

Milgram's Study:

-65% gave maximum 450V shocks. -Factors: authority figure, Yale setting, gradual escalation, no time to reflect.

Why Destructive Obedience Happens:

• Authority takes responsibility.
• Obedience is a strong social norm.
• Foot-in-the-door technique.
• No time for deep thinking.

Resisting Obedience:

• Increase personal responsibility.
• Question authority.
• Provide models of disobedience.
• Raise awareness about influence.

Unintentional Social Influence

• Emotional Contagion: We "catch" others' feelings.
• Symbolic Social Influence: People we think about influence our actions (even when absent).
• Modeling: We imitate others when unsure how to act.

STEREOTYPES

• Generalized beliefs about traits of social groups (cognitive part of attitudes). • Can be positive/negative, accurate/inaccurate. • Influence how we process information.

Why Use Them:

• Mental shortcuts (schemas) when we lack full info. • Save cognitive effort, fulfill motivations. • Out-group homogeneity: “they're all alike." • In-group differentiation: “we're all unique."

Activation Types:

• Automatic: Triggered by cues, unconscious.

• Motivated: Activated to meet goals or needs as it's also influenced by exposure, information available, and personal goals.

Operation:

• Shape attention, memory, and interpretation whilst Inconsistent information is often rejected or placed in subtypes (exceptions to the rule).

Survival Mechanisms:

• Selective memory or memory (remember stereotype-consistent info). • Illusory correlations: Perceive links where none exist (e.g., minorities & crime). Attribution biases (e.g., fundamental attribution error). • Subtyping/contrast effect: Preserve stereotypes despite conflicting evidence. • Confirmation bias or self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gender Stereotypes:

• Women: warm but not competent.
• Men: competent but aggressive. • Reflect and reinforce power/status differences.

Change?

• Possible through shifting group relations, social norms, or group membership.

Stereotype Threat:

• The fear of confirming a stereotype can reduce performance like the women in STEM who take tests.

DISCRIMINATION

• Negative behavior toward people based on group membership and comes in forms like racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, etc. • Can be systemic and learned early via socialization - depending on whether it's shown also depends on social norms.

PREJUDICE

• Negative attitudes toward members of social groups or affective component that shapes how information about those groups is processed as it can be driven by unrelated (incidental) feelings. Why It Persists: • Boosts self-esteem. • Saves mental effort. • Can operate outside awareness.

Types:

• Implicit: Unconscious, automatic. • Explicit: Conscious, deliberate.

Origins:

1. Perceived Threat based to self/group identity or resources which comes at a realistic conflict theory where competition = prejudice.
2. Social Categorization that comes from a mentality made up of us vs. them thinking which leads either to an ultimate attribution error where ingroup = good & outgroup =bad - or Social identity theory that entails boosting an ingroup to establish self esteem

REDUCING PREJUDICE

1. Learning not to hate: Through direct or vicarious experiences so that the parents role may be to play a key role.
2. Contact Hypothesis: Enhancing positive outcomes during positive or cooperative contact, by increasing familiarity and reducing anxiety.
3. Re-categorization: Enhancing the viewing of others as part of a shared group.
4. Social Influence: Group norms affect individual prejudice levels.
5. Collective Guilt Responses: People may reduce guilt by blaming others or denying responsibility.

IMPACT OF OTHERS' PREJUDICE

• Conforming increases, due to exposure to the views portrayed by others.
• There may be activation of stereotypes so that behaviour is often influenced during such individuals.

MEASURING RACIAL ATTITUDES

• Modern Racism is Subtle; denies discrimination exists or blames minorities while also depending on

measures like:

• Bogus Pipeline: Fake lie detector increases honesty.
• Implicit Measures as:* Bonda Fide Pipeline: Uses reaction times after race-based priming.

What is a Group?

• A group is a collection of two or more people; are seen as a coherent unit, share a common identity, have shared goals, are engaged in similar activities, and see themselves as similar & distinct from outsiders.

Characteristics of Groups

• Roles: Expected behaviors for certain positions (leader, follower); internalized into self-concept.
• Status: Rank in a group based on qualifications.
• Norms: Rules that guide behavior (e.g., collectivism vs. individualism).
• Entitativity: The Perception of the group as unified.
• Cohesiveness: Forces that bind members and make them want to stay.

Why Join Groups:

• Evolutionary survival
• Stress and threat mitigation
• Goal attainment
• Labour Dividends
• Cultural identity
• Self-knowledge and self-esteem enhance

Costs of Group Membership:

• Loss of Individuality
• Psychological/Material price
• Time invested/effort made

Reasons People Leave Groups:

• No longer aligns to their values
• Costs outweigh benefits
• Ideological shift is happening
• Perception of harm is happening

Social Facilitation:

• Occurs around others -Presence or involvement
• Triplett: Cyclists go further in groups
• Zajonc/Drive theory: presence → arousal -Dominant response
• Correct response is higher performance
• Incorrect would worsen performance
• Evaluation apprehension theory
• Distraction causes conflict and theory

Social Loafing

• Reduced effort
• Ringlemann: Less rope pulling effort
• How is this caused: Anonymity. Diffusion of Responsibility or a Lack of perceived performance
• Reducing this: identifiable

Group Dynamics

• Deindividuation -A conformist state is created from awareness reduction

Cooperation vs Social Dilemmas

• Co-operative to achieve better results

Conflict vs Social Dilemmas

• Belief is poor and communication is scarce when there are differing goals -Resolution such: bargaining -Superordinate

Fairness in Groups

• Justice needs to be fair -Distributive -Transactional in nature by mood and status

Decision Making Techniques

• Most wins
• Groupthink: from bad cohesion
• Polarizations exist

Culture And Groups

• Collectivist: harmonic and group focused
• Individualistic: competition and autonomy Social loafing doesn't occur in every setting and scenario

Factors Affecting Attraction

1. Motivation to stay together Innateness helps maintain relationships and seek them whether it's evidence of a baby preferred face or the effects of solitary confinement.
2. Proximity and physical proximity. Affects perception on an increase In person or not: affects communication quality

Similarities

Similarities occur when dissimilarities are effective Similar people come from byrne and Nelsons rule. Dissimilarities = attraction reduction

Reciprocity

• Like those who like us and are enhanceable. -Obvious Mimicry or flattery The more like minded: the more social

Culture And Groups

• Physical Attractiveness: Varies between cultural and agreement -Facial features -Body weight

Affects all emotion which causes: -influence through direction -reinforcement affect through reward

Theories Related To Attraction

• Balance: to keep peace -Social comparison of status -Exchange through worth

Satisfaction is the

• Equity theory

Types of Close Relationships

• Family: basis - Attachment is formed -Shapes what is created

Relationship patterns consist of -Caregiver types.

• Friendships equals variety and mutual support.
• Women use greater disclosure
• Romance shows enhanced similarity from theories by stenberg.

Definitions

What is aggression and its types: -Harm someone not wanting the behaviour

• A way to avoid harm The key types that are found involve: -instrumental -directed -directed/face/face

Theories Of Aggression

• Evolution
• Biology based

Social Learning Theory: -What you watch may impact Influences: Video games

Factors Of Aggression

Personal

• Provocation can lead to emotion states
• Situation and Transfer theory
• Exclusion increases hostility reactions

Personal based factors are.

• Those hostile The model with TASS Narcicissnm

Gender also is a key part as.

• Men more likely to show directive emotion
• Females may show weaponized emotion

In realtionships is:

• Domestric
• Work based -Controlling the Aggression using the right techniques may benefit but could come across:
  • Myth based
  • punishment

What is Prosocial Behaviour?

• A positive behaviour

Altusiism is also behaviour through helping.

Prosciability Involve

• Empathy

Is a behaviour that can be made so to express

What fails to make people help?

-The way the world works.

In situations it can lead to what effect?

• The Bystander effect -Responsibilty -Ignorance

Ways That Prosociality Is Increased Through

• High Arousal
• Help that is clear
• Relationship

Behaviour Is Reduced With These

• Distractions.
• Low Reward.
• Ambiguity

Aspects Related To Internal Motivation

• What if the situation is related to a person
• What if you are to help?

The Overall Mood Will Affect

The way we are inclined with the situations