Transcript SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
The Best of Both Worlds of
Psychology and Sociology
Classification of Social Psychology
• SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS study our
behavior in groups, our interpersonal
relationships and social influence. Social
Psychologists seek to understand how the
presence of others affects the thoughts,
feelings and behavior of the individual.
Central to study is Social Cognition, the
ways in which we perceive and interpret
information from others.
Social Interaction
Classification of Social Psychology
• Social psychologists study areas of our
social behavior such as interpersonal
attraction, social perception, stereotypes,
prejudice, human aggression, conflict
management, social influence, conformity
and obedience.
Social Influence
Classification of Social Psychology
• SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS study many
interesting topics concerning the nature of
our attitudes, interpersonal perceptions,
social persuasion and group behavior
such as decision-making in groups, prosocial and anti-social behavior.
Group Behavior
Classification of Social Psychology
• Social psychologists postulate that man is
a "SOCIAL ANIMAL" who needs group
affirmation, inclusion, affection and a
sense of belonging.
Sense of Belonging
INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION
ATTITUDES
• ATTITUDES are central to interpersonal
perception and include evaluative
responses that influence our thoughts,
emotions and actions. Attitudes are
learned, relatively stable and enduring and
affect the way we think, act, feel and
behave. Attitudes are consistent and
relatively lasting perceptions and
evaluations of people, ideas and things.
Attitudes are learned and affect the
way we think, act, feel and behave.
ATTITUDE
• ATTITUDES are learned and relatively
enduring beliefs that predispose one to act
and feel in particular ways. Attitudes have
three components: COGNITIVE,
AFFECTIVE and BEHAVIORAL; that is
they affect the way we think, feel and act
toward others.
Attitude
ATTITUDE
• ATTITUDE FORMATION is the process of
learning evaluative responses and may be
acquired through classical conditioning, operant
conditioning or social learning. In classical
conditioning, the person or idea that we have no
attitude toward is paired with an object or
concept that we have acquired an attitude
toward and stimulus and response
generalization occurs. In operant conditioning
we are rewarded or punished for certain
attitudes. In social learning we observe others
and internalize what we observed.
ATTITUDE FORMATION
SOCIAL COGNITION
• SOCIAL COGNITION refers to ways in
which we perceive and interpret
information from others. SOCIAL
SCHEMAS are cognitive structures,
clusters of ideas about people, events and
things. Stereotypes are a type of schema
about groups or categories of people.
SOCIAL COGNITION
STEREOTYPES
• STEREOTYPES are learned rigid beliefs,
attitudes toward groups of people that
influence our impressions of others. Sexroles stereotypes , for instance, are strong
beliefs that people hold about the
attitudes, behaviors, personalities and
even capabilities of men and women.
Sex-roles Stereotypes
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
• SELECTIVE PERCEPTION arises as
schemas in general and stereotypes in
particular direct our perception so that we
see what we want to see. Stereotypes are
not absolute but are broad generalizations
that tend to ignore the diversity (variability)
in a group and increase the probability
(likelihood) that we will tend to see the
things we expect to see.
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
Obama is a Socialist
Bush is a War-Hawk
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
• PREJUDICE is an attitude toward a group that
leads people to evaluate members of a group
negatively. Prejudice involves "pre-judgement" of
a person based on learned assumptions. The
denial of privileges to a person because of
prejudice is DISCRIMINATION, the behavioral
component of prejudice. Prejudices are often
very deep-seated attitudes that individuals
maintain stubbornly, refusing to be influenced by
information or experiences that may disprove
their "prejudgments."
PREJUDICE & DISCRIMINATION
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
• SELECTIVE PERCEPTION maintains attitudes
of prejudice as people with a stereotype about a
particular group will tend to "see what they
expect to see", selecting information that is
congruent with their preconceived stereotype.
Thus it is difficult to change stereotyped schema
that women are overly emotional or not as
intelligent as people who hold this attitude will
find "evidence" to support their perception.
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
• SOCIAL PERCEPTION is an interesting subfield
of social psychology that investigates the way in
which we form and modify our impressions and
feelings toward others. What attracts us to
others?
Attraction
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
• PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS is an important
factor because of its PRIMACY EFFECT, the
fact that our first impressions are powerful in
setting both our expectation and evaluations of
another person.
INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION
• INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION is
influenced by factors such as
attractiveness. We judge attractive
children, for instance, to be smarter, more
popular and well adjusted. Interestingly, if
we treat attractive children "as if" they are
intelligent and popular they are likely to
"live-up" to our social expectations.
INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION
• This process is called the "SELF-FULFILLING
PROPHECY," the tendency to act out the expectations of
others as we begin to believe the "prophecies."
INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION
• KEY FACTORS IN ATTRACTION are
physical attractiveness and proximity, the
tendency to form friendships and marry
those who are spatially close to us. We
also tend to like others who are like us
(similarity) and those who reciprocate our
affection (reciprocity.)
MAJOR THEORIES OF
INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION
• Reinforcement theory
• Social exchange theory
• Equity theory
• We are attracted to others not only for
their initial attractive qualities but also for
their similarity in attitudes and interests,
their personal characteristics and for what
we think we can gain from the relationship.
REINFORCEMENT THEORY
• The REINFORCEMENT THEORY states
that attraction results from a positive
reinforcing emotional experience. We tend
to like others who like us and make us feel
good about ourselves.
SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY
• SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY proposes
that we consider the costs and benefits of
a relationship with other possibilities and
choose the one person who seems to give
us the most rewards.
EQUITY THEORY
• EQUITY THEORY is based on the belief
that people are most comfortable in a
balanced relationship in which their
perceived contributions and benefits are
relatively equal to their partners'.
THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS
• ATTRIBUTION THEORY states that people tend
to look for explanations for their own behavior
and that of others. An ATTRIBUTION is a belief
concerning why people behave in a certain way.
The ATTRIBUTION PROCESS includes
observation of behavior and the process by
which we draw inferences about the motives and
traits of others. ATTRIBUTIONS involve
inferences about the cause of a person's
behavior such as a failure or being late.
THE ATTRIBUTION PROCESS
• Do we see others as we see ourselves? Social
psychologists would say no and explain that we
make a FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
. We tend to attribute the behavior of others to
INTERNAL DISPOSITIONAL INFLUENCES,
personality factors and character traits such as
laziness rather that to EXTERNAL
SITUATIONAL INFLUENCES, external factors
such as it being a difficult test.
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION
ERROR
• Thus there is a FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION
ERROR in the attribution process. We tend to
hold others responsible for their misdeeds and
mistakes and find internal character flaws
(INTERNAL DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION) to
explain their behavior. However we find
ourselves victims of outside uncontrollable
circumstance or situations (EXTERNAL
SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTION).
SELF-SERVING BIAS
• The SELF-SERVING BIAS includes our
tendency to take credit for our good actions and
our success while attributing our failures to
external causes such as bad luck, an unfair test
or another person. We tend to attribute our
successes to internal factors and our failure to
external factors. Ironically we tend to see
ourselves as much less self-centered than
others! You also may have noticed that you tend
to be "above average" when you rate yourself
compared to others!
SELF-SERVING BIAS
• In other words, as Freud would note, this is
RATIONALIZATION.