Chapter 14: Social - Where can my students do assignments that
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Transcript Chapter 14: Social - Where can my students do assignments that
Social psychology
Concerned with how others influence
the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of
the individual
Social thinking
When something unexpected occurs, we
analyze why people act as they do
is she warm to all people she has just met, or
is she interested in me?
Explaining other’s and our
own behavior
Attribution theory
Heider (1958) people try to decide whether
someone’s behavior is the result of internal
or external causes
Internal Attributions
Explanations based on someone’s stable
characteristics
Attitudes, personality traits, abilities
They are smart
External Attributions
Explanations based on the situation
The environment, events of the day,
rewards or penalties for acting that way
They have a lot of people around them to
help them make smart decisions
Errors people make
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to infer internal attributions for
other people’s behavior even when they
see evidence for external influences
Actor-observer effect
We are more likely to assume internal
attributions for other’s behavior than our
own.
Actor = explain your own behavior.
I fell off my bike because the sidewalk was bumpy
external attribution
observer = explain someone else’s behavior
they fell off their bike because they are clumsy
internal attribution
Self-serving bias
We say our positive behaviors reflect
internal attributes
Good test score = I’m smart
But our negative behaviors reflect
external attributes
Bad test score = Bad test
Handicapping strategies
Intentionally putting yourself at a
disadvantage to provide an excuse for
an expected failure
partying until 3 am on the night before an
exam you expect to do poorly on.
provides an external attribute for something
the person feels he or she is poor at (internal
attribute).
I was really hung over, how could I do well?
Stanford Prison experiment
Zimbardo (1972)
College students volunteered to spend time in a
simulated prison
randomly assigned
Guards - uniforms, billy clubs, whistles, and
instructed to enforce certain rules
prisoners - locked in a barren cell, forced to
wear humiliating outfits
First day or two the people self-consciously played
their roles
then it got real - too real
guards had mean attitudes - and devised
cruel and degrading routines
prisoners - broke down, rebelled, or
became passively resigned.
Study called off after only 6 days
What we do we gradually become
Conformity
Asch
Yielding
Originally 37% conformity
75% conformed at least once
Small percentage believed the majority was correct
Most did not have confidence in their own judgements
Some did not want the confederates to think there was
something wrong with them
Independent
Knew majority was wrong and had confidence in their own
judgements
Strong need to remain independent – nonconformists
Wanted to perform well on the task
Obedience to Authority
Would an ordinary person placed in an
extraordinary situation obey an
authority and inflict pain on an
innocent victim.
Milgram’s study
Participate with another person
Experiment is about the effects of punishment on
learning
One person will be the teacher
The other will be the learner
The drawing was rigged
Confederate
The subject was always the teacher
Deliver increasingly stronger shocks for incorrect
answers
Please continue
The experiment requires that you continue
65% of subjects went all the way to the
end of the shock meter
Danger: Severe Shock --- XXX