Social Psychology: Influences and Attribution

Social Psychology Overview

• Social psychology examines how people and situations influence behavior.
• It focuses on how individuals conceptualize and interpret situations, and how these interpretations influence their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
• Intrapersonal topics relate to the individual while interpersonal topics pertain to dyads and groups.

Influences on Behavior

• Situationism is the view that behavior is determined by the immediate environment and surroundings.
• Dispositionism is the view that behavior is determined by internal factors.

Attribution

• Attribution refers to a belief about the cause of a result.
• Locus of control (internal vs external), stability (stable vs unstable), and controllability (controllable vs uncontrollable), are the three dimensions of attribution.

Fundamental Attribution Error

• When explaining a person's behavior, there is a tendency to overemphasize internal factors and underemphasize external factors.
• In a 1977 quizmaster study, undergraduates would be randomly assigned to be the quizmaster or contestant.
• The quizmasters created and asked the questions, and the contestants only scored 4/10 on average.
• All participants rated general knowledge, and contestants rated the quizmaster’s intelligence higher than their own.
• Observers also rated general knowledge of the quizmaster as having more compared to the contestant.
• Individualistic cultures tend to focus on individual achievement and autonomy, focusing more on individuals in general.
• Collectivist cultures tend to focus on communal relationships like family and friends, with less focus on the individual.

Actor-Observer Bias

• Actor-observer bias is the phenomenon of attributing others’ behaviors to internal factors while attributing our own behaviors to situational factors.

Self-Serving Bias

• Self-serving bias is attaching attributions to an outcome that puts ourselves in a favorable light.
• There is the tendency to explain successes as a result of dispositional factors and failures due to situational factors.

Just-World Hypothesis

• The just-world hypothesis is the belief that people get the outcomes they deserve.
• Good people get positive outcomes while bad people get negative outcomes.
• This allows a sense of control over outcomes since the world is predictable.

Social Roles

• Social roles are a pattern of behavior that is expected of a person in a given setting or group.

Social Norms

• Social norms are a group's expectation of what thoughts and behaviors are appropriate and acceptable for its members.

Scripts

• A script is a person's knowledge about the sequence of events expected in a specific, familiar setting.
• Social norms and social roles depends on this and acts as as an important source to guide behavior.

Stanford Prison Experiment

• The Stanford Prison Experiment took place in 1971.
• 24 male, college-level participants who are psychologically healthy, were paid $15/day.
• They were randomly assigned as either a guard or prisoner, for several weeks.
• Prisoners and Guards fully assumed their roles.
• On Day 2, guards forced prisoners to strip, confiscated beds, and isolated leaders, and progressed to harassment.
• Prisoners accepted the abuse and began to show signs of severe anxiety and hopelessness.

Attitudes

• Attitudes are an evaluation of a person, an idea, or an object.
• They can be favorable (positive) or unfavorable (negative).
• They involve the components of affect, behavior, and cognition.

Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance is psychological discomfort arising from holding two or more inconsistent attitudes, behaviors, or cognitions.

Cognitive Dissonance and Effort

• A difficult initiation into a group causes people to like the group more, such as in the Aronson & Mills 1959 study.
• There is great value in goals and achievements, with efforts from Heckert et al., 2007.

Persuasion

• Persuasion is the process of changing attitude toward something based on some kind of communication.
• This process is from mostly outside forces.
• Persuasion models/mechanisms include Yale Attitude Change Approach, Elaboration Likelihood Model, and Foot-in-the-Door Technique.

Yale Attitude Change Approach

• With Yale Attitude Change Approach, the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes depends on certain features.
• These features include Message source, Message content, and Audience characteristics,

Yale Attitude Change Approach: Factors of the Source

• Credibility and physical attractiveness are important factors of the source.

Yale Attitude Change Approach: Factors of the Message

• Subtlety, sidedness, and timing are important factors of the message.

Yale Attitude Change Approach: Factors of the Audience

• Attention, intelligence, self-esteem, and age are important factors of the audience.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

• The Elaboration Likelihood Model involves two main routes that play a role in delivering a persuasive message.
• The Central Route is logic-driven, using data and facts to convince people of an argument's worthiness.
• The Peripheral Route uses peripheral cues to associate positivity with the message or product.

Foot-In-The-Door Technique

• The persuader gets a person to agree to bestow a small favor or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a bigger item, such as in Freedman & Fraser 1966.
• Past behavior often directs the future behavior, and there is a desire to maintain consistency once there is commitment to a behavior.

Types of Social Influence

• Conformity is changing your behaviour to go along with the group even if you do not agree with the group.
• Compliance is going along with a request or demand.
• Normative social influence is conformity to a group norm to fit in, feel good, and be accepted by the group.
• Informational social influence is conformity to a group norm prompted by the belief that the group is competent and has the correct information.
• Obedience is changing your behaviour to please an authority figure or to avoid aversive consequences.
• Groupthink is tendency to prioritize group cohesion over critical thinking that might lead to poor decision making. Its more likely to occur when there is perceived unanimity among the group.
• Group polarization is the strengthening of the original group attitude after discussing views within a group.
• Social facilitation is improved performance when an audience is watching versus when the individual performs the behavior alone.
• Social loafing is exertion of less effort by a person working in a group because individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group, thus causing performance decline on easy tasks
• Deindividuation is a group situation in which a person may feel a sense of anonymity and a resulting reduction in accountability and sense of self.

Conformity and the Asch Effect

• Conformity is the change in a person's behaviour to go along with the group, even if they do not agree with the group.
• The Asch Effect is the influence of the group majority on an individual's judgment.
• In the 1955 Asch experiment, 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line.

Factors that Influence Conformity

• Size of the majority group, presence of another dissenter, public vs private responses, age, gender, and socioeconomic background are the factors that affects conformity.

Compliance

• Compliance is going along with a request or demand, even if you do not agree with the request.

Motivations to Conform and Social Influence

• Normative social influence drives people to conform to the group norm to fit in, to feel good, and to be accepted by the group.
• Informational social influence drives people to conform because they believe the group is competent and has the correct information, particularly when the task or situation is ambiguous.

Obedience to Authority

• Obedience is the change of an individual's behavior to comply with a demand by an authority figure, in concern for a consequence if they do not comply.
• In the 1963 Milgram experiment, 40 men agreed to participate in “a study to improve learning and memory.”
• It involved 'Teachers', or participants, and ‘Learners' or confederates.
• Teachers were told by an authoritative researcher to shock the Learners in 15V increments, up to 450V each time they answered a question wrong.
• Of the participants, 65% delivered shocks of 450V.

Boundaries of Obedience

• Obedience drops when the experiment was moved to an off-campus office building (to 48%), teachers and learners were in the same room (to 40%), orders were given by phone (to 23%), the authority of the experimenter decreased, or the humanity of the person being shocked increased.

Groupthink

• Groupthink is the modification of the opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe is the group consensus.
• Its causes include a highly cohesive group, with a strong sense of connection, a directive group leader, and isolation from others.
• Its symptoms include perceptions of invincibility, perceptions of moral correctness, self-censorship, quashing dissenting opinions, illusion of unanimity, and viewing outgroup opinions negatively.

Avoiding Groupthink

• Seeking outside opinions by creating diverse groups, voting in private, and having the leader withhold position statements until all group members have voiced their views are some ways of avoiding groupthink.
• Conducting research on all viewpoints, weighing the costs and benefits of all options, and developing a contingency plan can avoid group think.

Group Polarization

• Group polarization is the strengthening of an original group attitude after the discussion of views within a group.

Social Loafing

• Social Loafing is a reduction of individual effort to achieve a goal when working in a group.
• It is less likely to occur if individuals know their work will be assessed or if individuals are required to complete self-evaluations.
• It is more likely to occur as the group size increases and within college students.

Social Facilitation

• Social Facilitation is when an individual performs better when an audience is watching than when the individual performs the behavior alone.
• This usually involves someone skilled at the task performed.

Deindividuation

• Deindividuation is when a person feels a sense of anonymity which creates a reduction in accountability and sense of self when among others.
• This is often pointed to when mob or riot-like behaviors occur.

Prejudice

• Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one's membership in a particular social group.
• A stereotype is a belief or assumption about individuals based solely on their membership in a group, regardless of individual characteristics.
• Discrimination is a negative action toward an individual as a result of one's membership in a particular group.
• Types of prejudice include racism, sexism, ageism, and homophobia.
• Prejudice and discrimination comes from social learning and conformity to social norms with children learning prejudiced attitudes and beliefs from society.

Stereotypes and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true.

Stereotypes and Confirmation Bias

• Confirmation Bias and Stereotypes involve seeking out and preferentially remembering information that supports stereotypes and ignoring information that is inconsistent.

In-Groups and Out-Groups

• An in-group is a group that we identify with or see ourselves as belonging to.
• An out-group is a group that we view as fundamentally different from us.
• In-Group Bias is a preference for our own group over other groups.
• Scapegoating is blaming an out-group when the in-group is experiencing conflict.

Aggression: Hostile and Instrumental

• Aggression is seeking to cause harm or pain to another.
• Hostile Aggression is motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain,
• Instrumental Aggression is motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain.
• According to Evolutionary Psychology, men display aggression to display dominance over other males.
• Women engage in aggression to protect their children, and to be a more desirable mate.
• Frustration Aggression Theory occurs when humans are prevented from achieving an important goal, they become frustrated and aggressive.

Bullying and Cyberbullying

• Bullying is the repeated negative treatment of another person, often an adolescent, over time.
• It involves bully, victim, and witnesses/bystanders.
• It has an increased risk with children who are emotionally-reactive, labeled as different, or has perceived diversity in gender and sexual orientation.
• Cyberbullying involves using technology and social networking to engage in repeated covert, private, or concealed behaviour that is intended to cause psychological or emotional harm to another person.
• Cyberbullying is more common in girls for both victim and bully.

Bystander Effect

• The Bystander Effect is the phenomenon by which a witness or bystander does not volunteer to help a victim or person in distress.
• Diffusion of Responsibility is the tendency for no one in a group to help because the responsibility to help is spread throughout the group.

Prosocial Behavior and Altruism

• Prosocial Behavior is voluntary behaviour with the intent to help other people.
• Altruism involves people's desire to help others even if the costs outweigh the benefits of helping, and operates on empathy.

Forming Relationships

• Forming relationships depends on proximity and similarity.
• Homophily is the tendency for people to form social networks with others who are similar.
• Relationships depends on reciprocity, give and take, and self-disclosure which shares personal information.

Attraction Factors

• Physical traits among men involve tall, broad shoulders, and narrow waists.
• Physical traits among women involve large eyes, high cheekbones, and slender builds.
• For both physical traits, high levels of facial and body symmetry are important.
• Social traits among men involve achievement, leadership qualities and job skills.
• Social traits among women involve affection, warmth and social skills.
• The Matching Hypothesis suggests that people tend to pick someone they view as their equal in physical attractiveness and social desirability.

Triangular Theory of Love

• The Triangular Theory of Love has 3 components, Robert Sternberg (1986).
• The 3 components of this theory are intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Social Exchange Theory

• Social Exchange Theory involves keeping a tally of costs and benefits of relationships to maximize benefits and minimize costs.