PSY2101 Lecture 12 Social Psychology PDF

PSY2101 Introduction to Psychology Lecture 12 Social Psychology Social Psychology The study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, motives and behaviors influence, and are influenced by, the behaviors of others (within social contexts). Social psychologi...

PSY2101 Introduction to Psychology Lecture 12 Social Psychology Social Psychology The study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, motives and behaviors influence, and are influenced by, the behaviors of others (within social contexts). Social psychologists are concerned with how we explains other’s behavior and how others’ behavior affects us. Images searched from Google Image  Social cognition: Constructing social reality Attribution theory Fundamental attribution error Self-serving biases Self-fulfilling prophecies Situation: Power of the situation Roles and Rules Conformity Obedience to authority Images searched from Google Image  Social cognition: Constructing social reality Attribution theory Fundamental attribution error Self-serving biases Self-fulfilling prophecies  Attribution Theory (Hieder, 1958) Social perceivers infer the causes of events Attribution theory: a general approach to describe the ways the social perceiver uses information to generate causal explanations A tendency to give a causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation (external or situational causality) or the person’s disposition (internal or dispositional causality) The questions I am not smart were too difficult!!! enough. The teacher was I haven’t studied bad!!! hard enough. Images searched from Google Image Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE, Ross, 1997) A tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behaviors (usually negative), to underestimate the impact of situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition Why did my classmate fail the exam? He is just not very intelligent He doesn’t work hard He lacks skills in reading and writing Images searched from Google Image  Self-serving biases The good stuff (success) we do is due to internal factors and the bad stuff (failure) is due to external factors. Why did I fail the exam? The exam was not fair The teacher was so bad The questions were so hard It wasn’t my fault Why did I get A for the exam? I studied really hard I am smart I earned the A myself It wasn’t luck Images searched from Google Image  Self-fulfilling prophecies (Merton, 1957) Expecting certain things to happen will shape the behavior of the perceiver in such a way that the expected is more likely to happen Images searched from Google Image  Situation: Power of the situation Roles and Rules Conformity Obedience to authority  Roles and Rules How situation (roles) turns normal and psychologically healthy people into BAD, MAD and SAD? Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1973) Images searched from Google Image Situational influences on prosocial behavior On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death near her apartment. More than 38 witnesses heard or saw the attack, but only one man contacted the police. The lady finally died. Why did so many citizens fail to intervene when they heard her cries for help? Bystander Effect Diffusion of responsibility Bystanders are less willing to help if there are other bystanders around Images searched from Google Image  Conformity The tendency for people to adopt the behaviors, attitudes, and values of other members of a reference group Two forces that lead to conformity Informational Normative social influence social influence  Informational social influence Wanting to be correct, right and to understand how best to act in a given situation Stimuli: light → actually stationary but appeared to move when viewed in total darkness with no reference points. Task: judge the amount of movement of a spot of light Images searched from Google Image  Informational social influence Wanting to be correct, right and to understand how best to act in a given situation Results: Initially, individual judgments varied widely. In groups with strangers, participants’ estimates began to converge: They perceived the light moving in the same direction and amount. Interestingly, when alone in the darkened room afterward, participants continued to follow the group norm established during the group session. Sherif’s Autokinetic Effect Images searched from Google Image  Normative social influence Wanting to be liked, accepted, and approved by others Asch Effect Task: indicate which of the 3 lines was the same length as the standard line Procedures: only one student in each group was a real participant. All the other participants were experimental confederates, and they always chose the same wrong line together. Results: 37 of the 50 subjects conformed to the majority at least once, and 14 of them conformed on more than 6 out of the 12 trails. Images searched from Google Image  Obedience to authority What made thousands of Nazis willing to follow Hitler’s orders and send millions of Jews to the gas chambers? Did they have no moral values? Images searched from Google Image  Milgram’s Obedience Study Procedures: participants took the role of a teacher and were to punish each error made by the student (confederate). Punishment: to deliver a series of what they thought were extremely painful electric shocks to the student. Student: a 50 years old man who mentioned about a heart Cover story condition but was willing to go a scientific study of memory and along with the procedure. learning, the educational purpose of the “The experimenter requires that you continue.”/ “You have no other study was to discover how choice; you must go on.” punishment affects memory → learning could be improved White coated experimenter: through the proper balance of legitimate authority figure and reward and punishment ordered the teacher to do his/her jobs whenever he/she hesitated Images searched from Google Image  Milgram’s Obedience Study Results The majority of participants obeyed the authority fully. No participants quitted below 300 volt. 65% went all the way to 450 volt. Images searched from Google Image  Social cognition: Situation: Constructing social reality Power of the situation Attribution theory Roles and Rules Fundamental attribution error Conformity Self-serving biases Obedience to authority Self-fulfilling prophecies Readings: Textbook chapter: “Social psychology”  Final Exam (50%) Date: 16 Dec 2024 (Monday) Time: 14:00 - 16:00 Venue: Gymnasium Format: 60 MCQ (60%) Short Questions (40%) Select 4 out of 6 to answer Scope: Lecture 1 – 12