Social Psychology Notes PDF

**[WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?]**   Human brain evolved to socialise - Social thinking when at rest   The **social context** influences us profoundly - how the presence of others affects individual - \"feeling watched\"     **Social psychology**: the [**scientific study** of how **ind...

**[WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?]**   Human brain evolved to socialise - Social thinking when at rest   The **social context** influences us profoundly - how the presence of others affects individual - \"feeling watched\"     **Social psychology**: the [**scientific study** of how **individuals** think, feel and behave in their **social context**] - Applies scientific method - unlike common sense - **Common sense** seems to explain many social psychology facts - Also often contradicts itself - Need to tell facts from myths - [Scientific method:] - **Systematic** collection of evidence - [Individual is the focus] even within group - Anything that concerns other people or is influenced by other people - [Topics]: liking, loving, aggression\...     Applications and questions - Social **perception** - [what effects the way we perceive others and ourselves?] - How do people form impressions of others? In the blink of an eye? - Social **influence** - [how do we influence each other?] - Why do people perform worse in groups than when alone? - Social **relations** - [what causes us to like, love, help and hurt others?] - How different are the sexes in the what they look for in intimate relationship? - Bystander effect? Social relation + influence   - Categories are not categorical - just a guide   Related fields - Sociology (groups) - Clinical psychology (treat) - Personality psychology (individual differences) - Cognitive psychology (mental processes)   **[HISTORY]**   [Always existed but not studied until end of 1800]   - 1880-1920 - birth and infancy - Triplett (cyclists) and Ringelmann (tug-of-war) - initial studies - McDougall, Ross and Allport - first books - 1930-50 - Sherif - first experiment on [conformity] and influence - [Hitler] and the Nazis - Milgram\'s experiment (**obedience**) - Asch\'s experiment (**conformity**) - **Interactionist perspective** (Lewin): both an individual's personality and environmental characteristics influence behaviour - Can social psychology be used proactively? - [addressing real problems in society] - 1960-70 - Social psychology [expanded ] - Experiments were not well seen - considered not accurate - 1970-90 - Experiments methodology and regulations improved - increased acceptance - **Social cognition**: how people [perceive, remember and interpret information] about themselves and others - Development of international and multicultural perspectives - [Pluralism]: many methods of investigation - Today - **Integration** of emotion, motivation and cognition - Genetics and evolutionary perspectives - **Behavioural genetics**: examines the role of [genetic factors] in behaviour - **Evolutionary psychology**: uses the [principles of evolution] to understand human social behaviour - Cultural perspective (WEIRD) - **Culture**: system of enduring meanings, beliefs, values, assumptions, institutions and practices [shared by a large group of people and transmitted through generations] - **Cross-cultural research**: compare and contrast people of different cultures - Collectivistic vs individualistic; interdependent vs independent model of self - **Multicultural research**: examine racial and ethnic groups within cultures - Other interdisciplinary approaches - [Behavioural economics]: how psychology - particularly social and cognitive psychology - relates to economic decision-making - Fundamental processes regarding social relations and identity - Political inclinations, social attitudes, moral decisions - Environmental studies - Social brain and body - [Social neuroscience]: relationship between neural and social processes - [Embodied cognition]: close links between our minds and the positioning, experiences and actions of our bodies - People's perceptions and judgements reflect and can influence their bodily experiences - New technologies and the online world - ERP, TMS, MEG, fMRI - Online communication - study and manipulate - FoMO - **Evolutionary mismatch**: too many people to compare ourselves with   **RESEARCH METHODS**   Social psychology can and should be studied according to scientific principles Even if some concepts seem obvious, they need to be empirically supported   **What is the question? -\> what is already known? -\> develop hypothesis and test its predictions**   **[DEVELOPING IDEAS]**   Getting ideas and finding out what has been done - [Find questions and find priorities ] - **Hypothesis**: an explicit, [testable prediction] about the conditions under which an event will occur - [Based on observation] and existing theories - **Theory**: organised [set of principles used to explain] observed phenomena - Important even if wrong - **Basic research**: the goal is to increase the [understanding of human behaviour], often by testing a hypothesis based on a theory - **Applied research**: the goals are to enlarge the [understanding of naturally occurring events and to find solutions] to practical problems   **[REFINING IDEAS]**   [Define and measure variables ]   Conceptual variables and operational definitions   - **Conceptual variable**: [abstract] and general form - **Operational definition:** [specific procedures] for manipulating or measuring a conceptual variable - Eg. Scales - **Construct validity**: the extent to which [the manipulations in an experiment really manipulate the conceptual variables] they were designed to manipulate, and the measures used in a study (experimental or otherwise) really measure the conceptual variables they were designed to measure   Measuring variables   - **Self-reports**: question or set of questions that together measure a single conceptual variable - Can be inaccurate and misleading - [Bogus pipeline technique:] participants are led to believe a lie detector will verify their responses = more accuracy - Question type may [bias] answer - Context can bias answer - [False memories] - **Behavioural observations** - [Require interrater reliability]: degree to which different observers agree on their observations - Avoid distorted interpretation and recollection of own behaviour - [Knowing to be observed may interfere with behaviour] - **Technology** - Heart rate, hormones levels, arousal, eye tracking, fMRI - Brain imaging - [May not measure the concept of interest]   **[TESTING IDEAS: RESEARCH DESIGNS]**   Descriptive research: discovering trends and tendencies - [Observational] studies - [Archival] studies - Can be incomplete - [Surveys] - Best with random sampling - **Qualitative research**: seeks to identify what something means to a person - Data in [non-numerical form] - Unstructured - **Quantitative research**: concerned with quantifying a problem - Data in [numerical form] - Structured   Correlational research: looking for associations - Variables are not manipulated - Observation, archive, surveys - **Correlation coefficient**: statistical measure of [strength and direction of relationship] (-1 +1) - Advantage: - Can study association of naturally occurring variables - Disadvantage - **Correlation is not causation**   Experiments: looking for cause and effect - **Experiment**: form of research that can demonstrate causal relationships because the experimenter has [control] over the events that occur and participants are [randomly assigned] to conditions - Eliminates influence of any factor other than the experimental manipulation - Variables can be [ethically manipulated] - **Random sampling**: sample has to come from a broad population to generalise results - **Random assignment**: each participant has an equal chance of being in any of the conditions - [Necessary to determine cause-effect] - Easier than random sampling and cost-effective - [Laboratory experiment]: high control - [Field experiment]: real-world setting - low control but more natural behaviours - **Independent variable**: the variable that is [manipulated] - **Dependent variable**: the variable that is [measured] - **Subject variable**: [pre-existing differences] among participants - **Statistical significance: 5%** possibility of results found by chance - Replication: strengthens significance - **Internal validity**: the [IV caused the change in the DV] - [Confound]: a factor other than the IV that varies consistently along with the manipulation which may question internal validity - **Control groups**: increase internal validity - [Experimenter expectancy effects]: expectations about the results affect behaviour which in turn influences participants - Need [double blind] experiments - **External validity**: the same results can be obtained under different circumstances (people and context) - Need big samples or much diverse - Use of internet has pros and cons - **Mundane realism**: degree to which the [experimental situation resembles real world events] - **Experimental realism**: degree to which [experiment lets participants behave naturally] - **Deception**: giving false information to participants - Uses [confederates] - Increases [realism ] - Recreates situations which are unlikely to happen naturally - Ethic?   Meta-analysis: combining results across studies - **Meta-analysis**: set of statistical procedures used to [review a body of evidence] by combining the results of individual studies to measure the overall reliability and strength of particular effects - [Increases strength and reliability] of results   Culture and research methods - Most results are [not generalisable] across cultures - Language barriers/translation difficulties   **[ETHICS AND VALUES ]**   Where is the line? Milgram and Zimbardo experiments   Sharing info is important for research but can create issues in society (eg. Differences between groups) - Choosing to share info may depend on researcher\'s bias   Ethics review bodies and informed consent - **Protect** human participant - [Research ethic committees] - [Institutional review boards] - **Informed consent:** [deliberate and voluntary decision] to participate in research based on description - [Before] study - **Debriefing**: a [disclosure] in which the researcher explains the purpose of the research, attempts to resolve any negative feelings and emphasises the scientific contribution made by the participants' involvement - [After] study - [Discloses deceptions]   Ethics and consent online - Everyone agrees to [terms and conditions] but no one knows what it implies - ethic?   Values and science - [Moral and legal] responsibility to abide by ethical principles - What is studied and how depends on researcher\'s values - **Honesty** is mandatory - Study needs to be replicable **[THE SOCIAL SELF]**   **The self:** [the little voice in your head] - Involves processes that underlie the **capacity** [for self-awareness, self-representation, and self-regulation] - A set of systems that permit humans to **reflect** on themselves and to **respond** to those self-reflections [cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally]   ABC of self: - **Affect - self-esteem** - **Behaviour - self-presentation** - **Cognition - self-concept**     **[SELF-CONCEPT ]**   [Cocktail party effect]: tendency of people to pick a personally relevant stimulus (name) out of a complex and noisy environment - Humans have **selective attention** - The self is an important object of attention   **Self-concept**: the [sum of an individual\'s beliefs about his or her own personal attributes] / the sum of cognitive beliefs that people have about themselves / [summary of all knowledge, memories, and beliefs about oneself] - **Self-schemas:** belief about oneself that [guides the processing] of self-relevant information - [Schematic] individuals - with respect to a particular attribute: other [factors revolve around one attribute] - [Aschematic] individuals - with respect to a particular attribute: other [factors do not interfere with attribute] - Many schemas - **Schema**: [personal thoughts and beliefs] about a particular object - Eg. Stereotype - Developed through **experiences** - **Resistant to change** **Rudiments Of Self-Concept**   - Sense of identity is based on biology - [Synaptic connection provide sense of continuity needed for identity] - Self can be transformed or destroyed by severe brain damages - Brain more active when seeing/hearing relevant stimuli - Some animals can recognise themselves - Self-recognition emerges 18-24mo - **Looking-glass self**: [other people serve as mirrors in which we see ourselves] - We come to know ourselves by [imagining what other think of us and integrating such perceptions] in self-concept - We draw our sense of self from [past and current relationships] with others - **Self-perception blind spots**: some trait others see and agree upon that [we are not aware of]   **Sources Of Self-Concept**   - Introspection: internal reflection - Can impair self-knowledge - One can trick oneself - Thoughts, feelings and behaviours are governed by non-conscious processes - [People overestimate positive aspects of self] - think they\'re better than average - Difficulties in **affective forecasting**: [predicting how one would respond] to future emotional events - [Impact bias]: overestimating strength and duration of emotional reactions - Underestimate resilience - Focus on single event - Self-perception (theory): when internal states are difficult to interpret, people gain self-insight by [observing their own behaviour] - When situation alone is insufficient to have caused behaviour - [When coaxed into something or unsure, people identify with their public statements and behaviours] - Self-fulfilling prophecy? - **Vicarious self-perception**: [knowing about oneself by observing someone with whom one identifies] - Priming?   - **The self-other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) mode**l: - [We know our internal traits better] - [No self-other difference on external traits] - [Others may know better our blind spots] - **Self-perceptions of emotion** - **Facial feedback hypothesis**: changes in [facial expression can trigger corresponding emotion] - Not necessarily show - can just feel (eg. Paralysed people) - Facial movement may produce physiological changes in the brain that agree with emotion expressed - [Body posture]: same as facial expression - **Self-perceptions of motivation** - **Intrinsic motivation**: originates within - [own interest] - Predicts the quality of performance - **Extrinsic motivation**: originates outside - a [means for a benefit] - Predicts the quantity of performance - Reward for an enjoyable activity can undermine interest - [Over-justification effect]: tendency for i[ntrinsic motivation to diminish for activities that have been associated with reward] or other extrinsic factors - [Paradox of reward] - Verbal reward may increase intrinsic motivation - positive feedback about competence - Response to reward may depend on individual traits and attitudes - Influences of other people - theory of looking-glass - **Social comparison theory:** people [evaluate] their own abilities and opinions by [comparing themselves to others] - When? - more objective means of self-evaluation are not available - With whom? - to those who are similar to us in relevant ways   - **Facebook** - Active vs passive usage - Passive is worse for self-perception - Feeling better or worse about the self? - The comparison is not realistic -\> [\"Facebook depression\"] - **Two-factor theory of emotion:** [physiological arousal + cognitive interpretation = emotion] - Can be influenced by what others are feeling (copy arousal -\> wrong interpretation = same emotion) - When people are unclear about their emotional states, they interpret how they feel by watching others - Others behaviour must be plausible - Autobiographical memories: recollection of sequence of events of one\'s life - Serve to have a coherent self-concept - Need memories to know who you are - Recent past - Adolescence/early adulthood - \"Firsts\" - Emotionally intense/valuable - good or bad - But mostly good ones - People detach from \"old selves\" in which they do not identify with anymore - Nostalgia: connects past and present self   **Culture And Self-Concept + Self-Esteem**   - **Individualism**: values [independence, autonomy and self-reliance] - Westernised/industrialised countries: - [Independent view of self] - Self-description: traits - Memories: autobiographical - Career: independent decision - Strive for: personal achievement - Overestimate contributions - [See themselves less similar to others] - [Self-serving bias ] - **Collectivism**: values **interdependence, cooperation and harmony** - Eastern/rural/poorer - [Interdependent view of self] - Self-description: group affiliation - Memories: social aspects - Career: seek advice - Strive for: group status satisfaction - Underestimate contributions - [See themself more similar to other] - **Culture cycle:** individuals are [shaped by their interactions] with others, by formal institutions, and by commonly shared ideas of what is a good and right way to be a person. In turn, through their actions and behaviours, individuals shape these aspects of their own world - May depend on language/syntax - **Dialecticism**: Eastern system of thought that [accepts the coexistence of contradictory characteristics] within a single person - Adapt the self to the situation more often/easily - Generational shifts: changed occurrence of words -\>may change attitudes - Social class: more wealth = more independence / less wealth = more cooperation **[SELF-ESTEEM]**   **Affective component** of the self positive and negative self-evaluations - Can fluctuate (success, failures..) - Decrease: childhood to adolescence - Increase: adolescence to adulthood - Decline: old age **The Need For Self-Esteem**   - We all value different attributes more   - Is high self-esteem a good thing? What relates to it? - Better grades? - cannot establish causal order - Better work performance? - cannot establish causal order - More popularity? - no relationship - Better/longer relationships? - no relationship - Bullying? - no relationship - Juvenile delinquency? - no relationship - Happiness? - yes - Smoking? - no relationship - Drugs / drinking? - no relationship - Promiscuous behaviours? - no relationship   - [Impact of high self-esteem] - Confident, happy, healthy, productive and successful - Better sleep - [Impact of low self-esteem] - Depressed, pessimistic, prone to failure and no confidence - More anxious - **Boosting self-esteem causes beneficial outcomes** - **Trying too hard can make one anxious** - **Probably not as impactful as we thought it to be**   - How do we boost or create our self-esteem? - Sociometer theory: people are [inherently social animals] and the desire for self-esteem is driven by a more primitive [need to connect] with others and gain their approval - The sociometer detects acceptance and rejection -\> high and low self-esteem (**index of inclusion**) - Different brain regions activation - Self-esteem is an indicator of how others perceive us - Terror management theory: humans [cope with the fear of their own death] by constructing worldviews that help to preserve their self-esteem - Thought of death leads to behavioural paralysis - People are [motivated by self-preservation]: give meaning and purpose - Distract ourselves - [Cultural worldview:] how to do well in different societies - personalised   **Self-Esteem, Gender And Minority Status**   - **Men have higher self-esteem** than women - Men focus on physical attributes - Women focus on morality - Minorities/colour have higher self-esteem than white - Not Asians   **Self-Discrepancy Theory**   - **Actual self** - **Ought self** - **Ideal self** - [Self-esteem: match/mismatch between] how we see and how we want to see ourselves - We feel the **worse** with: - [The amount of discrepancy] - [The importance of discrepancy] - [The focus on discrepancy]   **The Self-Awareness Trap**   - Self-awareness theory: [self-focused attention leads people to notice self-discrepancies], thereby motivating either an escape from self-awareness or a **change in behaviour** - The more self-focused, the more bad mood arises - Can lead to disorders and diseases   - From self-awareness to self-discrepancy - When people are self-focused, they are more likely to behave in ways that are consistent either with their own personal values or with socially accepted ideals - **If reduction of self-discrepancy seems unlikely, individuals will escape from self-awarenes**s - Disorders and diseases   - Alcohol and self-awareness - Escaping negative implications of self-awareness - Drunken self-inflation: inflating own perceived important traits when inebriated   - Self-consciousness - **Private self-consciousness**: tendency to introspect about [inner thoughts and feelings] - Make self-descriptive statements - Find self-relevant words - Reduce self-discrepancies to own standards - **Public self-consciousness**: tendency to focus on [public image] - Sensitive to others\' opinions - Reduce self-discrepancies to socially accepted norms   - Religion - Thoughts of an all-knowing God reduces people's sense of anonymity and increase their sense of accountability - Reminders of God increase resistance to temptation   **Self-Regulation And Its Limits**   - **Self-regulation**: processes by which [we seek to control or alter our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and urges] in order to achieve a personal or social goal - Desires conflict with motivations, goals and values   - Self-control as a limited resource - All self-control efforts draw from a single common reservoir - Exercising self-control is like flexing a muscle - [it becomes fatigued until replenished ] - Belief in willpower determines self-regulatory processes   **Ironic Mental Processes**   - **Ironic processes**: [the harder you try to inhibit a thought, feeling or behaviour, the less likely you are to succeed] - \"Choking\" when under pressure - Type of failure caused by trying too hard and thinking too much - Switching from automatic to self-conscious   - Ironic operating processes - **Effort at maintaining control -\> concern of failing -\> search for unwanted thought** - Will prevail if tired or distracted   **Mechanisms Of Self-Enhancement**   - Better-than-average effect: [people believe they are better], more honourable, more capable and more compassionate than others - [Especially on personal traits considered important] - Implicit egotism: unconscious and [subtle form of self-esteem/self-enhancement] - Quicker to associate with positive than negative traits - [Unconsciously drawn to self-relevant stimuli] - Involves who we interact with - Self-serving beliefs: people tend to [take credit for success and distance themselves from failure], while seeing themselves as objective rather than biased - Optimistic bias for the future - illusion of control - Self-handicapping: actions people take to [handicap their own performance in order to build an excuse] for anticipated failure / **setting things up in advance to explain poor performance** - Eg. Setting too high goals - Self is insulated from failure and enhanced by success - **Better than admitting lack of ability** - Ultimately makes it worse - Most common for [procrastination] - [Presentational self-handicapping:] self-handicapping but just in words with others - Bask in reflected glory (BIRG): increase self-esteem by [associating with others who are successful] - [Wearing branded clothes] - [Bragging about meeting VIPs] - Cut off reflected failure (CORF): increase self-esteem by [dissociating with others who are unsuccessful] - Consistent with deriving self-esteem from association with others - Downward social comparisons: [defensive] tendency to compare ourselves with others who are worse - Downward temporal comparison: compare present (better) to past (worse) self - Can make overall health worse - decrease resilience, acceptance and self-esteem   **Positive Illusions**   - Advantages: - Increase happiness - Display greater confidence - Have more success - Disadvantages: - Can rise chronic patterns of self-defeating behaviours - Denial of problems - Rely on illusion of control - No room for improvement - Lower consideration by others - Those with low self-esteem/depression have a more realistic view of the self - **Which is better? Realism or illusion?**   **Culture And Self-Esteem**   - **Does culture dictate how one should think of oneself or how one should talk about oneself?** - The need for positive self-regard is universal - Culture dictates how we seek to fulfil this need - Being \"good\" is a cultural construct - **Culture impacts self** (perception, concept, evaluation, esteem)   **[SELF-PRESENTATION]**   **Spotlight effect**: tendency to believe that the social spotlight [shines brightly on one than it really does] **Social identity**: the face we maintain **Self-presentation:** process by which people try to [shape what other people think of us and what we think of ourselves] - Conscious, unconscious, accurate, misleading..   Strategic self-presentation: efforts to **shape others\' impressions** in specific ways to gain influence, power, sympathy or approval - **Ingratiation**: acts motivated by a [desire to be liked] - **Self-promotion**: acts motivated by a [desire to gain respect] - Pleasing and agreeable behaviours/tactics - Can backfire if trying [too] hard - Can impact health - risky behaviours to comply/look better - [Narcissism]   Self-verification: desire to **have others perceive us as we truly perceive ourselves** - Motivation to [confirm or verify self-concept in the eyes of others ] - Tendency to accept agreeing messages but correct inconsistencies - Can [follow with behaviour] that emphasises \"correct\" trait   - Self-verification and social choice - Self-verification clashing with self-enhancement - cannot show weaknesses in public - Preference to socialise with those who see weaknesses   Self-monitoring: tendency to **change behaviour in response** to the self-presentation concerns (demands) of the situation - **High self-monitoring**: [adapt] more easily - Might prepare in advance - Mimic others - Linked to better career progression - **Low self-monitoring**: l[ess concerned] about social acceptance - Always present the [one and true self]   **[THE MULTIFACETED SELF]**   **Self**: enduring aspect of personality and invisible \"inner core\" **stable over time and slow to change** - At least a part is moulded by life experiences and varies from situation to situation **Multiple self-aspect framework**: the self-concept is a collection of multiple selves, each of which might be activated at a given moment   **[OBSERVATION: ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL PERCEPTION]**   Social perception: process by which people come to understand one another   First impressions are influenced by a person\'s appearance - We infer potential appearance when other senses are firstly involved - Eg. Hearing a voice and making up a face We prejudice people based on facial feature - Eg. we read personality traits from faces / we read traits **into** faces - **Halo effect** - beautiful people are good people - Eg. we read personality traits from more than just the face - Gait / movements - Speed   First impressions are quick and \"accurate\" - better to say \"consistent\" - Cannot define what accuracy is - **Accuracy**: \>50% - the correct response is **above chance**   **Physical Appearance**   - People **evaluate spontaneously and unconsciously** whether a face is: - Aggressive - Trustworthy or not - Need to focus on features that resemble happy or angry expressions - Competent / dominant-\> mature looking - Likeable - Attractive - Kind / submissive -\> baby face - Human beings are programmed by evolution to respond gently to infantile features - We associate infantile features with helplessness traits and then overgeneralise this expectation to baby-faced adults - Intelligence - debated, probably not   - **Sociosexuality**: inferring by faces is a person is more likely to be in committed relationships vs many shorter ones - Based on - Height - Weight - Skin colour - Hair colour - Tattoos / piercings - Eyeglasses - Voice pitch - Similarity to known ones - Face shape - And more     **Perceptions of Situations**   - Based on experience, **people can imagine the sequence of events likely to unfold** - Culture specific - [Knowledge of social setting provides context] for understanding others\' verbal and non-verbal behaviours   **Behavioural Evidence**   - **Recognising what one is doing** at a given moment - Identification from movements - what/who - The way in which people divide a stream of behaviour can influence perception - Perception of mind: process by which people **attribute humanlike mental states to various animate and inanimate object**s or people - better for those who can contextualise the behaviour they see - People perceive mind along - [Agency]: target\'s ability to plan and execute behaviour - [Experience]: capacity to feel pleasure, pain, etc - **Important in how we perceive, connect with, and behave towards one another**   - Non-verbal behaviour: reveals a person\'s feelings without words, **through facial expressions, body language and vocal cues** - [Influences social perception by making quick judgements ] - Can be done in 5-60 sec! - Almost always accurate - Non-verbal behaviour online: emojis   - A focus on the face: emotions are expressed in an innate and universal way - Happiness - Sadness - Anger - Fear - Surprise - Disgust - May be easier if same ethnicity   - **Not all emotions are expressed, not all expressions are emotions**   - Adaptive significance of facial expressions: **recognising emotions has a survival/adaptive value** - Automatic response and disengage to an angry face - Visceral response to disgust and others\' disgust - Excessively expressing emotions as a function of creating a reaction - Suppressing expression of emotions as a function of protection   - What is in a smile? Whether real or fake, people engage more with smilers - [Reward - reinforce behaviour] - [Affiliation - desire for social bonding] - [Dominance - assert status]   - Gaze and touch: - [Human are highly attentive to eyes] - gaze can communicate feelings but culturally sensitive - [Touch is important for conveying social] support, building rapport, produce positive outcomes   - Culture and non-verbal behaviour: - Non-verbal communication (gestures and stuff) - Personal space - Looking -or not- in the eye - Smiling - Greeting   **Distinguish Truth from Deception**   **People often try to hide or stretch the truth about themselves** (poker face, public campaigns)   - Cues to deception: the **face** can communicate emotion but is relatively **easy to control, unlike nervous movements** of the hands and feet - Professionals who are specially trained to make these kinds of judgements are [highly prone to error] - For others, easier to make mistakes if person is from a different culture - Four channel of communication to provide information: - Spoken word - Face - Body - Voice - most telling   - Cuing into cognitive effort: lying requires more thinking than telling the truth - Recall stories in different chronological order - Maintain eye contact   **[ATTRIBUTION: FROM ELEMENTS TO DISPOSITIONS]**   Inner disposition: stable characteristics such as personality traits, attitudes and abilities   **Attribution Theories**   - Group of theories that describe **how people explain the causes of behaviour** - We always try to come up with complex explanations - **Personal attribution: attribution to internal characteristics of an individual** - **Situational attribution: attribution to factors external to an individual** - Fundamental attribution error   - Attribution theorists do no try to determine the causes of behaviour but try to understand people\'s perception of causality   - Correspondent inference theory: people try to infer from an action whether the act corresponds to an enduring personal trait of the individual - On the basis of: - Choice - deliberate behaviour is more informative than coerced behaviour - Expectedness - unexpected behaviour is more informative than expected behaviour - Effects - acts that produce single, desirable outcomes are more informative than acts that produce many   - Covariation theory: in order for something to be the cause of a behaviour, it must be present when the behaviour occurs and absent when it does not - Three kinds: - [Consensus] - how different people react to the same stimulus - [Distinctiveness] - how the same person reacts to different stimuli - [Consistency] - how the same person reacts to the same stimulus at different times - Two ways of social perception - Human behaviours are caused by fixed personal characteristics - Information is processed in a self-serving manner   **Attribution Biases**   - Human mind operated by two system of thought: - System 1: quick, easy and automatic - intuitive - System 2: slow, controlled, requires attention and effort - reasoned   - Cognitive heuristics: information-processing guidelines that enable us to think quick and easy but often lead to errors - Availability heuristic: tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind - Influenced by what is available in memory   - False consensus effect: tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes and behaviours - By-product of availability heuristic - likely to notice and recall instances of similar rather than dissimilar behaviour   - Base-rate fallacy: people are relatively insensitive to consensus information in the form of numerical base rates but more influenced by graphic and dramatic event (good or bad) - Misperception of risk - By-product of availability heuristic - if what seen is perceived as relevant and credible, it overcomes the statistics   - Counterfactual thinking: tendency to imagine alternative outcomes that might have occurred but did not - the \"what if?\" - Expected better = more disappointment - more common - Expected worse = more satisfaction - Education - Career - Romance   - Fundamental attribution errors: **tendency to overestimate the role of internal factors and underestimate the impact of external**   - Attribution: a two-step process - 1: identify behaviour and make quick personal attribution - automatic - 2: adjust inference to account for social influences - conscious - Step 1 is easier because of a perceptual bias - focus on salient factors   - People are more likely to commit the fundamental attribution error when busy or distracted **Culture and Attribution**   - Cultural variations in the use of words to represent reality - Influences the way we perceive the world - Influences the way we view individuals and their place in their social context   - Culture and the fundamental attribution error - Mostly a Western phenomenon (individualistic)   - Focal objects and backgrounds - Western cultures (individualistic): emphasise the individual and his or her attributes - East Asian cultures (collectivistic): focus on the background that surrounds that individual - Influences perception but also representation (eg. Art, athlete description)   - Biculturalism and attributions - Retaining manners of country of origin while adopting some of the new country - Not arbitrary - can hold both beliefs and use accordingly   **Motivational Biases**   - Wishful seeing: people see what they need to see   - Need for self-esteem: self-serving bias - Take more credit for success than blame for failure - Seek information about own strengths than weaknesses - Overestimate group contributions - Exaggerate control - Positive predictions - False-consensus effect helps people believe that their ways are correct   - It can bias social perception - Belief in a just world: belief that individuals get what they deserve and deserve what they get - Discrediting victims - Laziness and sinful lifestyle to be punished - BUT increases forgiveness   - Blaming the victim: symptom of the fundamental attribution error - Poor people are lazy - Victims are careless - Abused provoked the abuser - STIs are for promiscuous people - The more threatened we feel by an apparent injustice, the greater is the need to protect ourselves from the implication that it could happen to us - so we disparage the victim - The more distracted we are, the more we derogate the victim   - We tend to enhance members of disadvantage groups to restore justice by compensation **[INTEGRATION: FROM DISPOSITIONS TO IMPRESSIONS]**   **Information Integration: The Arithmetic**   - **Impression formation: integrating information about a person** to form a coherent impression - [Summation model:] the more positive traits one has, the better - more impressed - [Averaging model:] the higher the average value of all the traits, the better - less impressed - More average traits dilute the impact of highly positive/negative traits - **Information integration theory**: impressions are based on - Personal disposition and the current state of the perceiver - A weighted average of the target person\'s characteristics   **Deviations From the Arithmetic**   - Perceiver characteristics: individuals differ in the kind of impressions formed of others - Use the self as a standard - Current mood   - Embodied perception: the way we view ourselves and others is influenced by the physical position, orientation, sensation and movements of our bodies - Embodiment effect: eg. physical warmth and social closeness activate neural activity in the same region of the brain, - The structure that regulates body temperature may also regulate feelings of social warmth - When we are warm we perceive others as warmer   - Social priming: tendency for frequently or recently used concepts to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information - Can be unconscious   - Target characteristics: some of the big 5 are easier to detect - extraversion the easiest - Trait negativity bias: tendency for negative information to weigh more heavily on our impression than positive - Forming stronger negative opinions - Innuendo effect: forming negative inferences about the dimension not directly positive evaluated by others   - Context characteristics: the context around the target influence our first impression   - Implicit personality theories: network of assumptions about the relationships among various types of people, traits and behaviours - If someone has one trait, we believe they have other, related traits - Central traits: traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions - Eg. Warm and cold   - Warmth and competence: terms into which people differentiate each other first - \"universal dimension of social cognition\"   - Inferring moral character: morality is the most important factor in forming impressions of others - Distinctly moral traits are more important than distinctly warm traits   - The primacy effect: tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than - [Mechanisms of the primacy effect] - Once an accurate impression is formed, less attention is given to subsequent information - Lose interest and concentration - applies to readings and questionnaires - Need for closure: the desire to reduce cognitive uncertainty - heightens importance of first impressions - Change-of-meaning hypothesis: once an accurate impression is formed, inconsistent information is interpreted in light of that impression **[CONFIRMATION BIASES: FROM IMPRESSION TO REALITY ]**   Confirmation bias: tendency to seek, interpret and create information that **verifies existing beliefs**   **Perseverance of Beliefs**   - People form early impressions that interfere with their subsequent ability to 'see straight' once presented with improved evidence   - Mixed evidence is confirmatory evidence: events that are ambiguous enough to support contrasting interpretations are like let us see or hear in them what we expect to see or hear   - Contrary evidence is dismissed evidence - Belief perseverance: tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited - Once people form an opinion, that opinion becomes strengthened when they merely think about the topic, even if they do not articulate the reasons for it   **Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing**   - A vicious cycle: by thinking someone has a certain trait, people engage in a one-sided search for information, and in doing so, they create a reality that ultimately supports their beliefs   **Consequences of Confirmatory Biases**   - Attraction breeds interaction - Our negative first impressions tend to persist because we reinforce it with our behaviour towards the person/object   **Self-Fulfilling Prophecy**   - Process by which an individual's expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations - Rejection prophecy: insecure people are socially awkward -\> behaviour increases rejection -\> rejection reinforces insecurity   - Contrasting view of the self-fulfilling prophecy - The perceiver alters own behaviour that is consistent with the first impression formed - The perceiver can unconsciously influence others with own actions - Can some perceivers just be very good at predicting outcome from experience, and consequent behaviour is just an efficient choice?   - Self-fulfilling processes - Perceiver forms impression of target - Perceiver behaves in a manner consistent with impression - Target adjusts behaviour to perceiver\'s action   **[SOCIAL PERCEPTION: THE BOTTOM LINE]**   S\|勵꿰혜S Persistent nowadays - 39% disability - 24% sex - 21% race - 8% human rights - 8% age   **[FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS]**   **Definitions** - **Stereotype**: cognitive **belief** or association that links a whole group of **people** with certain traits or characteristics - [type of schema] - Can be used for people and objects - eg. Buying a piece of fruit - expectations - [Bringing assumed knowledge to items we believe belong to a group] - Would be hard to function with no stereotypes (= experience) - [Sets the stage for prejudice] - **Prejudice**: negative **feelings** towards certain people based on **their connection** to a certain group - [Perceived group membership] - not necessarily real - Can be wrong, can be unanimous among people - [Projecting traits] assumed to belong to a certain group to person/item - Must include an **evaluation** (positive or negative) - **Discrimination**: negative **behaviours** directed against people based on them being **members** of a certain group - [Unequal treatment] - Can operate independently but often reinforce each other   - **Racism**: prejudice and/or discrimination based on a person's racial **background**, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one racial group over another - [Based on own perception of that particular race] - **Sexism**: prejudice and/or discrimination based on a person's **gender**, or institutional and cultural practices that promote the domination of one gender over another - [Based on own perception of that gender]     **Social Categories**   - **Social categorisation**: the classification of people into groups on the basis of **perceived common attributes** - Can be adaptive - Quick impressions to guide interactions - Subject to perception bias   - Categorisations: variation and stability - Race, gender, age - more common - Prejudice can enhance bias - There is more genetic variation within races than between races -\> race is a social concept - Multiracial individuals - Those who think race is stable and biologically based are less likely to engage with outgroups - Ethnic minorities not considered member of the nation they belong to   - Ingroups vs outgroups - **Ingroups**: groups with which an individual feels a sense of membership, belonging and identity - **Outgroups**: groups with which an individual does not feel a sense of membership, belonging or identity - **Categorisation -\> difference gets exaggerated** - [Outgroup homogeneity effect:] tendency to assume that there is greater similarity among members of outgroups than among members of ingroups - Less contacts/familiarity with them - Brain: we process information differently whether is IG or OG member   - Dehumanising outgroups - OG processed more like objects than human beings - Eg. Nazis and Jews - Eg. Blacks are half-monkeys - Eg. Bogans - Dehumanisation can be seen in neural activity - Can have harsh consequences - Police and black people -\> apes - Women raped/assaulted -\> animal/object   **Motives for Social Categorisation**   - [Evolution]: survival depended on forming small groups of similar others   - Social identity motives - **Ingroup favouritism**: tendency to discriminate in favour of ingroups over outgroups - **Social identity theory**: people favour ingroups over outgroups in order to **enhance their self-esteem** - [Self-esteem = personal identity + social identity] - Belittling others to feel more secure about self - Schadenfreude: the experience of pleasure at other people's misfortunes - Intergroup discrimination = negative ABC towards OG + favourable ABC towards IG   - [Social identity and self-esteem] - Threats to one's self-esteem heighten the need for ingroup favouritism - Expressions of ingroup favouritism enhance one's self-esteem - Terror management motives - People cope with the fear of their own death by [constructing worldviews that help preserve] - Favouring ingroups over outgroups is one important way that people preserve their cultural worldviews and try to attain a kind of immortality - Intergroup dominance and status motives - **Social dominance orientation:** desire to see one's ingroup as dominant over other groups, and a willingness to adopt cultural values that facilitate oppression over other groups - **System justification theory:** people are motivated (at least in part) to defend and justify the existing - Protects the status quo - Stereotype content model: warmth and competence - **Stereotype content model:** the relative status and competition between groups influence group stereotypes along the dimensions of competence and warmth - Competence dependent on group status in society - Warmth dependent on perceived competition   **[STEREOTYPES: THE COGNITIVE CORE OF THE PROBLEM]**   **Socialisation of Stereotypes**   - **Socialisation**: processes by which people **learn the norms, rules** and information of a culture or group - [Includes familiar/\"common\" stereotypes] - projecting social categorisation to group = stereotype - Easily learned - parents! - Stereotypes and prejudice can be [taught implicitly] - parents - Can grow with course of life   - Gender stereotypes - Since birth - What girls/boys should: wear, think, study, appear, act - Awareness of different gender is rising   - Social role theory: small gender differences are magnified in **perception by the contrasting social roles** occupied by men and women - [Biological + social factors] - Division of labour - Behaving in ways that fits the role given - Wrong perception of \"nature\" when is \"nurture\"   - Media effects - Media depiction can influence viewers even indirectly/unconsciously - Contribute to body image problems and eating disorders   **How Stereotypes Distort Perceptions and Resist Change**   - The role of ambiguity: contributes to the persistence of stereotypes because under ambiguity, everyone can confirm their views - Stereotypes of groups influence people's perceptions and interpretations of the behaviours of group members - When a target of a stereotype behaves in an ambiguous way perceivers reduce the ambiguity by interpreting the behaviour as consistent with the stereotype   - Illusory correlations: a tendency for people to overestimate the link between variables that are only slightly or not at all correlated - or very rare   - Confirmation via communication - Stereotypes are perpetuated through repeated communications - chinese whisperer - A story will eventually change to conform with the established stereotype   - Confirmation bias: tendency to seek, interpret and create information to **confirm expectations** - Maintain and strengthen stereotype - [Lead to self-fulfilling prophecy]   - Self-fulfilling prophecies - A perceiver's false expectations about a person cause that person to [behave in ways that confirm] - Stereotypes can trigger behavioural confirmation - Attributions and subtyping - People often do not take into account the context that someone was in when they try to explain his or her behaviour - Attribute behaviour to stereotype if it matches - Attribute behaviour to context if it doesn\'t match - [Stereotypes survive disconfirmation through subtyping] - Exceptions to a stereotype are placed in a separate category rather than used to revise the held stereotype     **Automatic Stereotype Activation**   - Stereotypes can bias our perceptions and responses even if we don\'t agree with them - can be unaware - Priming - Subliminal presentations: presenting stimuli so faintly or rapidly that people do not have any conscious awareness of having been exposed to them - People may become motivated to stereotype others so that they feel better about themselves, and this can make them more likely to activate stereotypes automatically   **The Case of Amadou Diallo**   - Unarmed African American shot by police - 41 shots - 19 hits !! - Stereotype: black men more likely to carry a gun than white men   - **Shooter bias:** when the decision must be made very quickly, [members of some groups are more likely to be mistakenly perceived as holding a gun] than members of other groups   **Being Stigmatised**   - Persistently being stereotyped, perceived as deviant and devalued in society due to being a member of a particular social group or possessing a particular characteristic - Public stigma: social and psychological reactions to a stigmatised individual - Self-stigma: social and psychological effects of being stigmatised - Stigma by association: impact of being friends or family members with a stigmatised individual - Profound implications: self-esteem, depression, anxiety, life satisfaction   **Stereotype Threat**   - Concern about **being evaluated based on negative stereotypes** about one's group - Can hamper achievement in academic domains - Increasing anxiety and intrusive thoughts - Disidentification with domain of threat - quit school   - Original studies: priming black/white students -\> test performance changed   - Prevalence and diversity of threats - **Stereotype threats**: affect any group for which strong negative stereotypes are relevant in particular settings - Social identity threats: affect groups devalued even in absence of specific negative stereotypes - Just knowing about the stereotype is enough for a person to be affected by stereotype threat - Particularly if the individual strongly identifies with the target group   - Causes of stereotype threat effects: - Arousal and stress - Drain cognitive resources - Loss of focus - Impair working memory   - Reducing stereotype threat: make people think and challenge established stereotypes   - Stereotype boost: priming can help succeed   **[CONFLICT, PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION: PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE]**   **Intergroup Conflict: The Source of the Tension**   - Belonging to an ingroup satisfies needs for social identity, helps contribute to terror management and addresses fundamental motives relating to status and dominance   - Robbers Cave: a field study of intergroup conflict - How easily group conflict can arise through competition - Peace was restored when the boys were given superordinate goals that required cooperation - This experiment illustrated the broader concept of realistic conflict theory, where competition drives group behaviour and conflict, while cooperation can reduce tension   - Realistic conflict theory: hostility between groups is caused by **direct competition** for limited resources - **Relative deprivation**: feelings of discontent roused by the belief that one fares poorly **compared with others** - People's reactions to [objective circumstances] depend on their [subjective comparisons] - Comparisons depend on social categorisation--in particular how we categorise ourselves   **Racism: Current Forms and Challenges**   - Racial prejudice and discrimination have been decreasing in many nations around the world - is it??   - Modern and aversive racism - Modern racism: subtle form of prejudice that tends to surface when it is safe, socially acceptable or easy to rationalise - Ambiguous - Old-fashioned racism still exists - Aversive racism: the ambivalence between fair-minded attitudes and beliefs, and unconscious and unrecognised prejudicial feelings and beliefs - Microaggression: the everyday, typically rather subtle but hurtful forms of discrimination that are experienced quite frequently by members of targeted groups - People establish their moral credentials of not being racist by demonstrating that they have good - Implicit race-based bias: operates unconsciously and unintentionally - Physical distancing - Lack of eye contact - Health system: poorer communication and warmth   - Interracial interactions - Divides between racial and ethnic groups tend to promote - Hostility - Fear - Distrust - More than the divides based on other social categories (gender, appearance, age) - Interactions become less natural and more awkward - Try to look like a racist - **Meta-stereotype:** stereotype that people think others hold about their own group - Thoughts about the outgroup\'s stereotypes about them and worry of being seen as consistent with them - Interracial interactions are often avoided   **Sexism: Ambivalence, Objectification and Double Standards**   - **Gender stereotypes (genderism)**: indicate what men and women in a given culture **should** be like - Ambivalent sexism: about women - **Hostile sexism**: negative, resentful feelings about women's abilities, value and ability to challenge men's power - **Benevolent sexism**: affectionate, chivalrous feelings founded on the potentially patronising belief that women need and deserve protection   - Objectification: women are viewed and treated as mere bodies or objects and less as fully functioning human beings - Needs are not accounted for - Sometimes happens to men too - Double standards: - Even women might be prejudiced against women - Women's achievements in traditionally male roles are often devalued or attributed to luck - Increasing inconsistent results   - Pervasiveness of sex-biased stereotypes - Subtle bias - Less than subtle bias - Occupational choice - Gender pay gap - Competent \"look\"   **Beyond Racism and Sexism: Age, Weight, Sexuality and Other Targets**   - Any social categorisation can lead to prejudice and discrimination - Ageism - Disability - Political ideology - Religion - Sex orientation   - Some biases are considered more acceptable from many - Eg. Weight and sexuality   **[ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM: REDUCING PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION]**   **Intergroup Contact**   - Contact hypothesis: under certain conditions, direct **contact between members of rival groups** will reduce intergroup prejudice - Doesn\'t always work - Ideal conditions for successful contact: - Equal status - Personal interaction - Cooperative activities - Social norms   - The value of intergroup contact: contact reduces prejudice by - Enhancing knowledge about outgroup - Reducing anxiety about intergroup contact - Increasing empathy and perspective taking   - The jigsaw classroom: cooperative learning method used to reduce racial prejudice through interaction in group efforts - Learning single topics each and teaching to others - Increased communication, cooperation, acceptance, feelings   - Intergroup friendship: best ways to experience many of the optimal conditions for contact - Less intergroup anxiety and prejudice   - Extended contact effect: knowing that an ingroup friend has a good and close relationship with a member of an outgroup can produce positive intergroup benefits in ways similar to direct contact - Both direct and extended work, just in different ways   - Imagined contact: even imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member can increase positive intergroup behaviour and decrease prejudice - increases the perceived humanness of outgroups who might otherwise be dehumanised   **Shared Identities**   - Shared goals and fates can effectively reduce prejudice and discrimination - Changing how group members categorise each other - If members of different groups re-categorise themselves as members of a more inclusive superordinate group, intergroup attitudes and relations can improve   **Enhancing Belonging**   - Making groups realise they are not difference and should not think they are   **Exerting self-control**   - Controlling prejudice takes effort: people do not have the time, energy or awareness to dedicate to this effort - Age, intoxicated, tiredness   - Controlling prejudice takes motivation - External: not wanting to appear to others to be prejudiced - Internal: not wanting to be prejudiced, regardless of others knowing - Self-regulation of prejudiced response model: internally motivated individuals in particular may learn to control their prejudices more effectively over time - Influences the effectiveness of anti-prejudice messages   **Changing Cognitions**   - Changing pattern of thoughts against outgroups may be the solution - Education helps!   **Changing Culture**   - Pop culture influences a lot - especially younger people - Peers help understand norms about stereotypes and prejudice - Legislation important **[THE STUDY OF ATTITUDES]**   **Attitude**: **positive, negative or mixed \"reaction\"** to a person, object or idea - [Self-esteem]: attitude about self - [Attraction]: positive attitude towards others - [Prejudice]: negative attitude towards others - Immediate and automatic process - A **learned evaluative response**, directed at **specific objects**, which is **relatively enduring** and **influences and motivates** our behaviour toward these objects - [Learned]: we are not \"born\" to anything - it all derives from experience - Few things is an evolutionary predisposition - [Evaluation]: what do you think of that thing? - [Specific objects]: inanimate and people - [Relatively enduring]: eg. Longer than a mood but shorter than a personality trait - [Influences and motivates]: NOT determine   **Dispositional attitude**: general **tendencies** to like or dislike things   Purpose: quick judgement - Good vs bad - Helpful vs hurtful - Seek vs avoid   Cons: closed-minded   **How Attitudes are Measured**   - Self-report measures of attitudes - **Attitude scales**: multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person\'s attitude towards something - Likert scale - **Bogus pipeline**: phoney lie-detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions - Increases accuracy   - Non-verbal behaviour measures of attitudes - Facial expressions, body language.. - Sometimes [unconscious] - Facial electromyography (EMG): detects muscle changes in face   - Neural activity measures of attitudes - Electroencephalograph (EEG): records brainwaves/activity associated with stimulus   - The Implicit Association Test (IAT) - **Implicit attitude**: attitude that the person is **not aware** of having - **IAT**: measures the [speed] with which people [associate] pairs of concepts (eg. Black/white with good/bad) - Useful for those topics people are not honest about in self-reports   **The Link Between Attitudes and Behaviour**   - LaPiere (1934): Do not always match - Wicker (1969): no stable attitude, low correlation, dissonance   - Attitude(measure)-behaviour similarity - [The more similar, the more they match] - Attitude(measure)-behaviour links in context   - **Reasoned action model:** - **Intention is the best predictor of behaviour** (psychological predictor) - People often do not or cannot follow through on their intentions - even if they match - Intention is assessed soon before behaviour is enacted - **Intention is predicted by attitudes and subjective norms** - [Attitudes]: evaluation of consequences of engaging with behaviour - Can be informed by past experiences - [Subjective norms]: the attitudes of those close to us - their reaction to your behaviour - The RAM seem to work for only certain behaviours that do not require control - **Theory of planned behaviour**: attitudes towards a **specific behaviour** combined with **subjective norms** and **perceived control** to influence a person's actions - Behaviour is influenced less by general attitudes than by attitudes towards a specific behaviour - Behaviour is influenced not only by attitudes but also by subjective norms -- our beliefs about what others think we should do - Attitudes give rise to behaviour **only when we perceive the behaviour to be within our control** - Attitude strength (importance) - [Directly affect self-interest] - [Relate to deeply held values] - [Shared with close people]   - Three additional factors - Being well **informed** - How the **attitude was formed** - directly vs indirectly - Attitude **accessibility** - how quickly it arises   **[PERSUASION BY COMMUNICATION]**   **Persuasion**: process by which attitudes are changed   **Two Routes to Persuasion**   - Central route to persuasion: process by which a person **thinks carefully about a communication** and is influenced by the **strength of its arguments** - For a persuasive message to have influence, the recipients of that message must learn its contents and be motivated to accept it - [Reception] - [Acceptance] - [Elaboration]: thinking about and scrutinising the arguments contained in a persuasive communication - Self-validation hypothesis: people assess validity of their attitudes towards persuasion - The confidence with which individuals hold their thoughts or attitudes is crucial for determining whether those thoughts will influence their subsequent judgments or behaviours - Peripheral route to persuasion: process by which a person **does not think carefully about a communication** and is influenced by **superficial cues** - Slogans, uniforms, symbols.. (eg. Hitler) - Celebrities for marketing - Simple evaluation of communication - May be based on messenger or apparent valid arguments - Attitude embodiment effect: physical posture, gestures, or movements of a person can influence their attitudes and judgments   - Route selection - Persuasive communication: - Source - Message - Audience   **The Source**   - Credibility: where/who from - Competence: the speaker\'s ability - knowledge, credentials, language, implicit respect for experts, agreement or disagreement with own attitude - Trustworthiness: source\'s perceived honesty - We naturally distrust who we perceive might benefit from persuasion - We prefer those who go against own interest   - Likeability: characteristics - Similarity: people more persuaded if identify with source - Physical attractiveness of sponsor   - Impact of message: depends on recipient\'s involvement - If personally relevant: message credible regardless of source - If not personally relevant: source credibility if pivotal -\> peripheral route - Sleeper effect: delayed increase in the persuasive impact of a non-credible source - Message from a low-credibility source becomes more persuasive as the source is forgotten - Discounting cue hypothesis: tendency to remember the message but forget the source   **The Message**   - Length - Peripheral route: the longer a message, the more valid it must be - Central route: long is ok if info are valid, otherwise counterproductive   - Order: what will people remember more? - Primacy effect: when recalling after more time has passed - Recency effect: when recalling soon after   - Discrepancy: how much different from existing positions to have an impact? - Better to be cautious - some discrepancy needed to produce a change but too much can cause rejection   - Fear appeals: emotional persuasion - Fear-based appeals are common and overall effective - Eg. Graphic pictures, tv advertisements, political messages..   - Positive emotions - More persuaded when feeling good (or snacking!) - Surroundings of message influence receivers   - Subliminal messages: presenting commercial messages outside of conscious awareness - Movies, ads, music - The use of stimuli below or near the threshold of awareness are banned in AUS and UK - No solid evidence that it works - The cue may be perceived but does not persuade **The Audience**   - Personal traits and differences that ultimately dictate levels of persuasion   - Need for cognition: extent to which people enjoy and participate in effortful cognitive activities - Message needs to be tailored to audience - High-cognition: central route - Low-cognition: peripheral route   - Self-monitoring - High self-monitors: regulate behaviour out of concern for public appearance - More persuaded by messages of social images - Low self-monitors: behave according to own beliefs - More persuaded by quality   - Regulatory fit: the more the message fits recipient\'s frame of mind the more they are influenced - Need to tailor language and body language - Promotion-oriented - seek success - Prevention-oriented - avoid loss   - Audience resistance - When attitude/value is under attack we either succumb and change or resist and maintain (more likely!) - Forewarning: the more time you have to think about it, the more you resist - Inoculation hypothesis: exposure to weak versions of a persuasive argument increases later resistance - Reactance - Psychological reactance: people react against threats to their freedom by asserting themselves and perceiving the threatened freedom as more attractive - Going against an idea just because   **[PERSUASION BY OUR OWN ACTIONS]**   **How Attitudes are Formed**   - Inherited? - There is a genetic predisposition - Possibly linked to cognition, traits and temperament   - Learned? - Exposure - Rewards and punishment - Social circle - Culture and social context - Attitudes that are learned (even unconsciously) can be changed - Classical conditioning - Evaluative conditioning: implicit and explicit attitudes towards neutral objects can form by their association with positive and negative stimuli - even unconsciously   **Role-Playing**   - Attitudes can change after pretending for a long time   - From behaviour to attitude change - Attitude more likely changes if inspired by own behaviour rather than passive exposure - Role-playing: more change when people expect to communicate to others the message received - Communication can be adjusted to next person\'s existing beliefs   - Self-generated persuasion: more attitude change is produced by having people generate arguments themselves than listen passively to others making the same arguments - Either for a shared or non-shared attitude   **Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Classic)**   - Inconsistent cognitions arouse **aversive motivational states/bad feelings** that people become **motivated to reduce** - caused by any sort of inconsistency - What really hurts is the knowledge that you committed yourself to an attitude-discrepant behaviour freely and with some knowledge of the consequences - [Underlying explanation for guilt, shame and embarrassment]   - Ways to reduce dissonance - Change attitude - Add consonant cognitions - Change behaviour   - Types of dissonance - Basis: our decisions are logical and rational - After making a decision **we become biased to the chosen alternative** with the amount of bias determined by the positive things and the unchosen alternatives - Types: - Post-decisional dissonance - People are more confident of their choices after a positive outcome than negative - Attitude-discrepant behaviour - Insufficient vs sufficient justification - Eg. \$1 vs \$20 reward: bigger reward causes more discrepancy/dissonance   - Justifying attitude-discrepant behaviour - Avoid cognitive dissonance -\> change beliefs and align with behaviour - Sufficient justification: perform an attitude-discrepant behaviour because of large reward - Eg. Lie about how good something is - Insufficient justification: freely perform an attitude-discrepant behaviour without receiving a large reward - Insufficient deterrence: people refrain from engaging in a desirable activity, even when only mild punishment is threatened - They all work   - Justifying effort - Effort/suffering = cognitive dissonance - People tend to develop a more **positive attitude towards something they've worked hard or suffered for**, even if the outcome isn\'t great - Self-persuasion   - Justifying difficult decisions - Difficult decision = cognitive dissonance - People **exaggerate the positive aspect of the option chosen** and negative aspects of the one not chosen - Self-persuasion   **Cognitive Dissonance Theory (New)**   - Vicarious dissonance: people feel discomfort and change attitudes when in disagreement with group or when observing inconsistent behaviour from those with who they identify   - Four steps to dissonance arousal and dissonance reduction - Attitude-discrepant behaviour must produce unwanted negative consequences - Feeling personally responsible for the unpleasant outcomes of behaviour - Freedom of choice: no choice? No drama - Consequences foreseeable in the moment: didn\'t know? No drama - Psychological arousal (negative): needs to happen - Attributing arousal to own behaviour: taking accountability   - Classic and new approaches - Classic theory: cognitive dissonance arises from actions that contradict our attitudes, especially if these actions lead to negative consequences - People change attitudes to reduce discomfort - New look theory: cognitive dissonance can occur from mere inconsistency, even without negative outcomes. - People change attitude to align with a lie they told - even if harmless - All is culturally influenced   **Alternative Routes to Self-Persuasion**   - Self-perception theory: we infer how we feel (when ambiguous or uninterpretable) by observing ourselves and the circumstances of our own behaviour - Attitude change occurs when behaviour is slightly inconsistent with existing attitudes, and people infer their feelings based on their actions - Vs dissonance theory: attitude change occurs when behaviour strongly conflicts with existing attitudes, causing psychological discomfort   - Impression-management theory: the desire to appear consistent to others drives attitude changes more than the internal need to resolve cognitive dissonance - Avoid blame - Only when observed? Not always   - Self-esteem theories: when actions threaten our self-concept, we change in attitude to repair self-esteem - Discrepancies between behaviour and self-image - High self-esteem people more affected by dissonance - Self-affirmation reduces dissonance   **Behavioural Ethics and Ethical Dissonance**   - How do people behave when faced with temptation? - Intentional vs unintentional (distraction) lapses   - Ethical dissonance: internal state of turmoil that arises from behaving in ways that violate our own moral code - Self-serving justifications (pre- and post-) to cope with anticipation and experience - Blaming other or circumstances - \"everyone is doing it\" - Rationalise the good that comes from the misdeed - Confessing/apologising/offering compensation - Distancing themselves - Promise \"never again\"   - Moral licensing: tendency to justify an anticipated misdeed by citing good things that we have done - When moral credentials are established, moral dissonance is reduced   **[CHANGING ATTITUDES: THE TAKEAWAY]**   Persuasion through: - Communication with others - central and peripheral route - Internal processes - cognitive dissonance, self-perception, impression management, self-esteem **Social influence**: the ways that people are **affected** by the real and imagined **pressures of others** - **Conformity** - **Compliance** - **Obedience**      **[SOCIAL INFLUENCE AS \"AUTOMATIC\"]**   We unconsciously and involuntarily copy others - Animals do it too - From infancy   Social function: better interactions by being \"in sync\"   [Social aspect of mimicry:] - [Need for affiliation] - [Looking favourable ] - [Mimic less when self-focused ]   We also mimic mood and language When together, two people can synchronise to an external stimulus   **[CONFORMITY]**   The tendency to **[change] our perceptions, opinions or behaviour in ways that are consistent with group norms**   [We are more conformist than we like to believe or admit and perceive others as more conformist than us (fundamental attribution error)] - Instead we try to rationalise our behaviour in a way that is consistent with our perceived independence - Particularly high status   Pro: maintains peace and social order Cons: engaging in bad behaviours because others are doing the same   **Classic Studies of Conformity**   - **Sherif** - [autokinetic effect]: in darkness a stationary point of light appears to move, sometimes erratically, in various directions - The image \"moved\" more when seen alone than when seen with others - **When physical reality is [ambiguous] and we are uncertain of our own judgements, others are a valuable source of information** - The individual response differed much more when they did not know other\'s responses - Outcome: people change their future responses based on what other say - to conform - **Asch** - [conformity dilemma]: the right answer is not shared so the participant agrees with the wrong answer from confederates - Only 1/3 time they conformed - **75% matched the confederates on at least one trial** - Only 25% gave the correct answer on all trials - [People conformed more when lines were more similar] - Many who [did not conform said they felt 'conspicuous' and 'crazy', like a 'misfit', but could not believe it]   - Also applies to virtual influences (social media) - Eg. Language   **Why Do People Conform?**   - Need to be right - **Informational influence (conformity)**: people conform because they [want to make good and accurate judgements] and [assume that when others agree on something, they must be right] - **Basis for false memories** - Value of reviews   - Fear of ostracism - **Normative influence (conformity)**: people conform because they [fear the consequence of rejection] that follows deviance - Need to avoid negative emotions - Resilience matters   - Distinguishing types of conformity - **Private conformity (true acceptance/conversion)**: people accept the position taken by others [in their mind] - **Long lasting** - Linked to informational influence - **Public conformity (compliance)**: superficial change in overt behaviour [without a change of opinion] produced group pressure - **Short lived** - Linked to normative influence     **Majority Influence**   - Group size**:** conformity increases with group size -- but only up to a point - [Law of diminishing return]: too many is counterproductive - Less noticeable - Seems fake - Need to assess the **number of independent minds** - Asch: **minimal majority of 3** required for conformity effect (1/3 time) - adding confederates did not increase conformity   - Social norms - **Pluralistic ignorance**: [misperceiving what is normative], particularly when others are too afraid or too embarrassed to publicly present their true thoughts, feelings and behaviours - Knowing how others are behaving in a situation is necessary for conformity, but these norms will influence us only when they are brought to our awareness   - Presence of an ally - Asch: the presence of a single confederate who agreed with the participant [reduced conformity by almost 80%] - [Even after they left the experiment] - Because they agreed with the participant or because they disagreed with the majority? - It is more difficult for people to stand alone for their convictions than to be part of a tiny minority - Any dissent, **whether it validates an individual's opinion or not**, can reduce the normative pressures to conform - **Breaking consensus**   - Gender - Depends on how comfortable - It may actually be the familiarity with the topic/issue - [Women conform more in public than private] - [Men conform more in private than public] - Evolutionary perspective: conform to attract   **Minority Influence**   - Anti-conformists are seen as competent and honest but often disliked and rejected - Minority slowness effect: respondents with minority opinions were slower to answer the questions   - Moscovici\'s theory: majorities are powerful by virtue of their sheer numbers, whereas **non-conformists derive power from the style of their behaviour** - Stable [repetition] draws attention - [Consistency] communicates persistence - same results as Asch - [Self-confidence] is persuasive - People will re-examine own views - Conform first to establish credential -\> later deviance is more accepted - Processes and outcomes of minority influence - Dual-process approach: - **Majorities elicit public conformity** with social pressure on individual - **Minorities produce private conformity** by inducing re-thinking - People tend to disagree with majority when there is no right/wrong answer - To have influence over a group, lone individuals must exhibit 'authentic dissent'   **Culture and Conformity**   - [Individualistic: less conformity] - [Collectivistic: more conformity ]   **[COMPLIANCE]**   **Changes in behaviour that are elicited by direct requests** - Requests can be disguised   **Mindlessness and Compliance**   - We respond mindlessly to words without fully processing the information they are supposed to convey - Eg. [Hearing \"because\" without a real reason increases compliance ] - We can also be mindlessly tricked into complying because we are not thinking   **The Norm of Reciprocity**   - We treat others as they have treated us - eye for an eye, gift for a gift - [We can be \"bought\" by gifts/lollies] - Especially if close in time   **Sequential Request Strategies**   - **Changing the size of the request**      - Foot-in-the-door technique: 2x success - **Start with a small initial request that is easy to comply with** - Crucial that we engage - even if we cannot do - **Increased chances that another, larger request will succeed** - We want to maintain the good image given in the first instance (self-perception) - Only if we care about others\' opinions   - Lowballing: 2x success - has to be same person - **Securing agreement with a request** - **Increase the size of the request by revealing hidden costs** - Increased commitment decreases hesitation - Feelings of obligation with first agreement - Self-presentation   - Door-in-the-face technique: up to 3x success - has to be same person - **Fake first request made to be rejected** - **Second actual request** - Perceptual contrast: now it\'s way less - Reciprocal concession: pressure to respond to changes in bargaining   - That\'s-not-all technique: up to 2x success - **Product offered at a price** - **Discount/bonus offered before costumer can reply** - Needs to be immediate   **Resisting Sequential Compliance**   - [Saying \"no\" is uncomfortable but not impossible] - Tactics work better if hidden/subtle and perceived as sincere   **[OBEDIENCE]**   **Behaviour change produced by following the orders of [authority ]** - The power of uniforms - Nazis were \"just following orders\" - But some did it because they wanted to - This kind of war issues still happen today - [Moral disengagement]: deny personal responsibility, minimise consequence, dehumanise victim   **Milgram\'s Research: Forces of Destructive Obedience**   - Wanted a paradigm that could speak more directly to real-world consequences of obedience to authority - What if pressure did not come from a group (conform) but from an experimenter (authority)? - Does obedience differ across nations? - [Participant] tests the [learner's] memory and administer electric shocks of increasing intensity whenever he makes a mistake - Shocks will be painful but will not cause permanent tissue damage - 15V (slight shock) - 375V (danger: severe shock) - 450V (XXX) - After the learner\'s increasing protests, the tester asks the researcher for guidance - **Experimenter tells he must continue** - [Testers\' beliefs before experiment] - [Stop at 135V] - [Never 450V] - Testers\' actions - **65% gave the 450V** - **What we think we would do does not agree with what we actually do when faced with authority**   - **Implications**: - **All participants were tormented by the experience** - Bodily reactions when obeying against will - **Repeated experiments gave the same results** - Individual traits can influence - Authoritarian personality - Context/situation - **Authority figure type** - The person, location and type of uniform are crucial and cumulative - [more obedience] - If authority figure is perceived as powerful, it can even not be present - phone orders - **Proximity of victim** - Physical and/or emotional proximity further [decreases obedience] - **Experimental procedure** - [Less obedience if participants believed to be accountable] for pain - Transmitter: takes orders and passes them - more obedience - Executant: perform order - less obedience - Gradual escalation: because it was only 15V more each time, it was too late by the time they realised it was too much - \"in too deep\" - **Novelty of situation: no experience or means for comparison** - If confederated refused, more participants refused - [Fast pace: no time to think]   **Decreasing conformity and obedience**   - **Obedience** - [Proximity] to learner - If there is [disagreement] - If anyone [disobeys ]   - **Conformity** - When just one confederate gave a different answer to majority, conformity was reduced markedly     **Milgram in the Twenty-First Century**   - Harassment instead of shocks: experiment found 92% would harass upon order - Shocks up to 150V: 70% would have continued - [Same general findings as Milgram ]   Lingering Questions from Milgram\'s Experiment - Why did people follow orders? What are the moral implications?   - Engaged followership: participants behaviour indicated their **engagement in science** - [Wanted to help experimenter and make a contribution] - \"you have no choice\" arouses psychological reactance - protect own freedom   - Explanation, not forgiveness   **Defiance**   - From social media to synchrony: - Social media helps share and divulge information - Synchrony of behaviour increases unifying effects and tendency for following others   - Disobedience in groups - Same as in conformity**, just one ally can help disobey**   **[THE CONTINUUM OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE]**   **Social Impact Theory**   - **Social influence depends on the strength, immediacy and number of individual sources relative to target people** - [Strength]: status, ability and relationship to target - [Immediacy]: proximity in time and space to target - [Number]: the more sources, the more influence - up to a point - People can **resist** social pressure - [Strength and distance]: If the target is strong and far away from the source of pressure, they are less likely to be influenced or pressured - [Group influence]: If the target is not alone but with others who share similar views or are also resisting, the impact of social pressure is reduced even further   - Theory helps predict \"when\"   **Perspectives on Human Nature**   - [Human malleability vs resistance]: no definitive answer to whether humans are more easily influenced or resistant to influence - Some people and cultures are more inclined towards conformity - Others prioritize autonomy and resistance to social pressures - [Cultural and temporal variability]: people\'s attitudes towards conformity and autonomy are shaped by their cultural backgrounds and can change over time - [Impact of social influence]: will today\'s children grow up to be more resistant to social influence than previous generations? - [The importance of balance between conformity and independence]: - Conformity, compliance, and obedience can promote group solidarity and prevent societal discord - Excessive conformity can lead to negative outcomes like narrow-mindedness and destructive obedience - Independence and assertiveness can lead to division if taken to extremes Groups increase stereotypes and their consequences Groups are different than the sum of their parts **The presence of others affects our performance**   **[FUNDAMENTAL OF GROUPS]**   **What Is a Group?**   - **Group**: set of individuals who **interact over time and have shared** fate, goals, or identity - Sex, race, other - Can be dispersed across time and space   - [Groups]: rigid boundaries - [Collectives]: people engaging in a common activity but having little direct interaction with each other   **Why Join a Group?**   - The complexity and ambitions of **human life require that we work in groups** - Humans have an **innate need to belong** to groups stemming from **evolutionary needs** to increase survival and reproduction -\> [social brain hypothesis] (explains primates\' large brains) - **Social identity theory**: people's f[eelings of self-worth comes from their identification] with particular groups - [Groups give meaning and purpose]   **Key Features of Groups: Roles, Norms, and Cohesiveness**   - **Socialisation**: [adjustment and learning about group rules ] - Explicit or implicit   - Roles: set of **expected behaviours** - Formal: titles - Informal - Instrumental: help achieve tasks - Expressive: provide emotional support and maintain moral