Transcript Unit 14 Social Psychology: Attraction

Part 1:
*Attributing Behavior to
Persons or to Situations
*1. Attitudes and Actions
*2. Conformity and
Obedience
*3. Group Influence
*4. Cultural Influence
*5. The Power of Individuals
1. In order to change people’s racist behaviors, we first need
to change their racist attitudes.
 2. Most people would refuse to obey and authority figure
who told them to hurt an innocent person.
 3. Studies of college and professional athletic events indicate
that home teams win about 6 in 10 games.
 4.Individuals pull harder in a team tug-of-war than when they
pull in a one-on-one tug-of war.
 5. The higher the morale and harmony of a social group, the
more likely are its members to make a good decision.
 6. Sex-selective neglect and abortions have resulted in China
and India together having 76 million fewer females than they
should have.
 7. Those who keep a gun in the house are more likely to be
murdered.
 8. From research on liking and loving, it is clear that
opposites do attract.
 9. We are less likely to offer help to a stranger if other
bystanders are present.
 10. Simply putting individuals from two prejudiced groups of
people into a close contact will defuse conflict.

1. False
2. False
3. True
4. False
5. False
6. True
7. True
8. False
9. True
10. False
“We cannot live for ourselves alone.”
Herman Melville
Social psychology scientifically studies how we
think about, influence, and relate to one
another.
Social thinking involves thinking about others,
especially when they engage in doing things
that are unexpected.
 1:
If a very good friend gets angry
with you, how would you explain
his/her behavior? If that same friend
does something nice for you, how
would you explain the behavior?
 2:
Are your thoughts about your good
friend’s behavior different than your
thoughts about someone you're only
acquainted with? Why or Why not?
Attribution Theory:
Fritz Heider (1958)
suggested that we
have a tendency to
give causal
explanations for
someone’s
behavior, often by
crediting either the
situation or the
person’s
disposition.
Fritz Heider
Was my friend a jerk because she had a bad day or is just a bad person?
A teacher may wonder whether a child’s
hostility reflects an aggressive personality
(dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to
stress or abuse (a situational attribution).
Dispositions are enduring
personality traits. So, if Joe
is a quiet, shy, and
introverted child, he is
likely to be like that in a
number of situations.
The tendency to overestimate the impact of
personal disposition and underestimate the
impact of the situations in analyzing the
behaviors of others leads to the fundamental
attribution error.
Example: Someone trips you and you think they did it on purpose because they are mean.
1. You are out to dinner
and your server brings
you the wrong food. If
you were committing the
fundamental attribution
error, you might assume
that this happened
because…
How we explain someone’s behavior affects how
we react to it.
Social Effects: Happy Couples
chalk up an argument to other
person having a bad day. Divorced
couple could attribute it to the
other person just being mean.
 Political Effects: how do we explain
poverty? Ex. Conservatives tend to
attribute social problems to the poor
and unemployed. Liberals blame past
and present situations.
 Workplace Effects managers
could attribute poor performance
of personal factors.

Does what we think predict
what we do, or does what we
do affect what we think?
Attitude: A belief and feeling that predisposes a
person to respond in a particular way to objects, other
people, and events.
If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike
for the person and act in an unfriendly manner.
The central route to persuasion involves being persuaded by the
arguments or the content of the message.
For example, after hearing a political debate you may decide to vote for a
candidate because you found the candidates views and arguments very
convincing.
Political persuasion.
The peripheral route to persuasion involves being persuaded in a
manner that is not based on the arguments or the message
content.
For example, after reading a political debate you may decide to
vote for a candidate because you like the sound of the person's
voice, or the person went to the same university as you did.
The peripheral route can involve using superficial cues such as
the attractiveness of the speaker.
Strong social pressure can weaken the attitude –
behavior connection, such as when Democratic leaders
supported Bush’s attack on Iraq under public pressure.
However, they had their private reservations.
Not only do people stand for what they believe in
(attitude), they start believing in what they stand
for.
Cooperative actions can
lead to mutual liking
(beliefs).
Discussion: The Low-Ball Effect
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon tendency
for people who agree to a small action to
comply later with a larger one.

Door-in-the-face phenomenon large request is made
knowing it will probably be refused so that the person will
agree to a much smaller request
Norms of reciprocity
“hey if I scratch your back I expect you to scratch mine”
We do not like when we have either conflicting
attitudes or when our attitudes do not match our
actions.

•When they clash, we will change our attitude to
create balance.
Dark Knight - Cognitive Dissonance
What do experiments on conformity and compliance
reveal about the power of social influence?
….Behavior is contagious. We are natural
mimics..called the chameleon effect.
Normative social influence. Avoid rejection or
gain social approval.
Informational Social Influence: When we
accept others opinions about reality.
Adjusting one’s
behavior or thinking to
coincide with a group
standard.

Social psychologist, Stanley Milgram: Situation powerfully influence people.
Obedience highest when: person giving the orders were perceived to be a legitimate
authority figure, when authority figure was supported by prestigious institution, when
victim was at a distance, no role models for defiance
About 1/3 of the
participants conformed.
• 70% conformed at
least once.
To strengthen
conformity:
•
•
•
•
•
The group is unanimous
The group is at least three
people.
One admires the group’s status
One had made no prior
commitment

How do groups affect our behavior?
Social Loafing: The tendency for people in a
group to exert less effort when pooling efforts
toward a common goal than if they were
individually accountable.
 Sounds like group work to me  Video also
includes a little door in the face 

People get swept up in
a group and lose sense
of self.
 Feel anonymous and
aroused.
 Explains rioting
behaviors.

Groups tend to make more extreme decisions
than the individual.

For example, after a group discussion, people already supportive of a war become more
supportive, people with an initial tendency towards racism become more racist and a
group with a slight preference for one job candidate will come out with a much stronger
preference.
Group members suppress their
reservations about the ideas
supported by the group.
• They are more concerned with
group harmony.
• Worse in highly cohesive groups.
•
Showed how we
deindividuate AND become
the roles we are given.
• Philip Zimbardo has
students at Stanford U
play the roles of prisoner
and prison guards in the
basement of psychology
building.
• They were given
uniforms and numbers for
each prisoner.
• What do you think
happened?
•
People get swept up in
a group and lose sense
of self.
 Feel anonymous and
aroused.
 Explains rioting
behaviors.

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared
by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to
the next.

Stereotype:
• Overgeneralized idea about a group of
people.
Prejudice:
• Undeserved (usually negative) attitude
towards a group of people.
•
Discrimination:
• An action based on a prejudice.
Contact Theory
 Contact between hostile groups will reduce
animosity if they are made to work towards a
superordinate goal.
Ingroup: People with whom one shares a common
identity. Outgroup: Those perceived as different from
one’s ingroup. Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor one’s
own group.
Mike Hewitt/ Getty Images
Scotland’s famed “Tartan Army” fans.
Prejudice provides an outlet for anger [emotion] by providing
someone to blame. The Germans before WW2 would blame the
Jews for their poor economy. According to the scapegoat theory of
prejudice, finding someone to blame when things go wrong can
provide a target for one’s anger.
To boost our own sense of status, it helps
to have others to denigrate.
Other-Race effect or own-race bias: emerges
between 3 to 9 months and that is when there is a
tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more
accurately than another's. Remember Cotton?

In vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists can
feed stereotypes or prejudices (terrorism). Most
terrorists are non-Muslims.
Tendency to believe that the world is just and that
people get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

Kitty Genovese case in
Kew Gardens NY.
Bystander Effect:
•
Conditions in which people are
more or less likely to help one
another. In general…the more
people around…the less chance of
help….because of…
• Diffusion of Responsibility
Pluralistic Ignorance
• People decide what to do by
looking to others.
•
Aggression can be any physical or verbal
behavior intended to hurt or destroy.
It may be done reactively out of hostility or
proactively as a calculated means to an end.
Research shows that aggressive behavior emerges
from the interaction of biology and experience.
1. Genetic Influences
2. Neural Influences
3. Biochemical Influences
Biochemical Influences: Animals with diminished
amounts of testosterone (castration) become docile,
and if injected with testosterone aggression
increases. Prenatal exposure to testosterone also
increases aggression in female hyenas.
Four psychological factors that influence
aggressive behavior are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
dealing with aversive events;
learning aggression is rewarding;
observing models of aggression; and
acquiring social scripts.
Genetic Influences: Animals have been bred for
aggressiveness for sport and at times for research.
Neural Influences: Some centers in the brain,
especially the limbic system (amygdala) and the
frontal lobe, are intimately involved with
aggression.
Studies in which animals and humans experience
unpleasant events reveal that those made
miserable often make others miserable.
Ron Artest (Pacers) attack on Detroit Pistons fans.
Even environmental temperature can lead to
aggressive acts. Murders and rapes increased
with the temperature in Houston.
When aggression leads to desired outcomes, one
learns to be aggressive. This is shown in both
animals and humans.
Cultures that favor violence breed violence.
Scotch-Irish settlers in the South had more violent
tendencies than their Puritan, Quaker, & Dutch
counterparts in the Northeast of the US.
The media portrays social scripts and generates
mental tapes in the minds of the viewers. When
confronted with new situations individuals may
rely on such social scripts. If social scripts are
violent in nature, people may act them out.
The general consensus on violent video games is
that, to some extent, they breed violence.
Adolescents view the world as hostile when they get
into arguments and receive bad grades after playing
such games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGE46VQ4hQ
5 Factors of Attraction
Geographic nearness
Mere exposure
effect:
 Repeated exposure to
something breeds
liking.

You are more likely to
like someone who likes
you.
 Except in elementary
school!!!!

Paula Abdul was
wrong- opposites do
NOT attract.
 Birds of the same
feather do flock
together.
 Similarity breeds
content.

Classical Conditioning
can play a part in
attraction.
 I love BBQ, If I see
the same waitress
every time I go there,
I may begin to
associate that
waitress with the good
feelings I get from
Larry’s.

Physically
attractiveness predicts
dating frequency (they
date more).
• They are perceived as
healthier, happier,
more honest and
successful than less
attractive
counterparts.
•
Obesity is so revered among
Mauritania's white Moor Arab population that
the young girls are sometimes force-fed to
obtain a weight the government has described
as "life-threatening".
Your job is to use the following concepts from
social psychology to make some recommendations
that will help with this romantic dilemma.

Dear Abby, I have been dating a young woman for
about 8 months. I fear she is losing interest in me.
We attend different schools, so I can’t spend as much
time with her as I would like. I am afraid she may
have fallen for some other guy. Can you give me
some advice about how to win her back?
 Signed, Worried and Weary

Proximity
Physical attractiveness
Reciprocal liking
Liking through Association
What role should self-disclosure play in securing
the relationship
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FYI Self-disclosure is both the conscious and
subconscious act of revealing more about oneself
to others
