Transcript Psychology in Our Social LivesStudentx

Psychology in Our Social Lives
• Social psychology is the scientific study of how
people think, feel, and behave in social
situations.
• Social cognition refers to the mental processes
people use to make sense out of their social
environment.
• Social influence is the effect of situational
factors and other people on an individual’s
behavior.
Close Relationships
• One of the most important tasks faced by
humans is to develop successful relationships
with others.
• These relationships include acquaintanceships
and friendships but also the more important
close relationships, which are the long-term
intimate and romantic relationships that we
develop with another person—for instance, in a
marriage.
• A major interest of social psychologists is the
study of interpersonal attraction, or what makes
people like, and even love, each other.
• Similarity is important for relationships both
because it is more convenient (it’s easier if
both partners like to ski or go to the movies
than if only one does), but also because
similarity supports our values—I can feel
better about myself and my choice of
activities if I see that you also enjoy doing the
same things that I do.
• Liking is also enhanced by self-disclosure, the
tendency to communicate frequently, without
fear of reprisal, and in an accepting and
empathetic manner.
• Another important determinant of liking is proximity, or the extent
to which people are physically near us.
• Proximity has its effect on liking through the principle of mere
exposure, which is the tendency to prefer stimuli (including but not
limited to people) that we have seen more frequently.
• The effect of mere exposure is powerful and occurs in a wide
variety of situations. Infants tend to smile at a photograph of
someone they have seen before more than they smile at a
photograph of someone they are seeing for the first time), and
people prefer side-to-side reversed images of their own faces over
their normal (nonreversed) face, whereas their friends prefer their
normal face over the reversed one.
• Mere exposure may well have an evolutionary basis. We have an
initial fear of the unknown, but as things become more familiar
they seem more similar and safe, and thus produce more positive
affect and seem less threatening and dangerous).
• Although the closeness measure is very simple, it
has been found to be predictive of people’s
satisfaction with their close relationships, and of
the tendency for couples to stay together.
• When the partners in a relationship feel that they
are close, and when they indicate that the
relationship is based on caring, warmth,
acceptance and social support, we can say that
the relationship is intimate.
• Relationships are close in part because the couple
becomes highly interdependent, relying on each
other to meet important goals.
• Commitment refers to the feelings and actions
that keep partners working together to maintain
the relationship and is characterized by mutual
expectations that the self and the partner will be
responsive to each other’s needs.
• People also find relationships more satisfactory,
and stay in them longer, when they feel that they
are being rewarded by them. When the needs of
either or both of the partners are not being met,
the relationship is in trouble (cost-effective).
• Both partners must benefit from the relationship.
• Intimacy is also dependent on passion—the partners
must display positive affect toward each other.
• People are happier in their relationships when they
view the other person in a positive or even an
“idealized” sense, rather than a more realistic and
perhaps more negative one.
• The most important characteristic in a relationship is a
sense of responsiveness.
• If people are happy, can trust their partner, are in a
relationship in which their partner understands,
validates, and cares for them, they are more likely to
stay in the relationship.
• It is this unconditional giving and receiving of love that
promotes the welfare of both partners and provides
the secure base that allows both partners to thrive.
• When we observe people’s behavior we may
attempt to determine if the behavior really
reflects their underlying personality.
• The process of trying to determine the causes of
people’s behavior, with the goal of learning about
their personalities, is known as causal
attribution.
• People who are high in self-monitoring—the
tendency to regulate behavior to meet the
demands of social situations—tend to change
their behaviors to match the social situation and
thus do not always act on their attitudes.
Person Perception: Forming
Impressions of Other People
• Person perception refers to the mental processes we use to
form judgments and draw conclusions about the
characteristics and motives of others.
• Person perception is an active and subjective process that
always occurs in some interpersonal context. Every
interpersonal context has three key components:
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• a. the characteristics of the individual you are attempting to
size up
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• b. your own characteristics as the perceiver
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• c. the specific situation in which the process occurs
Person perception follows some basic principles
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• a. Principle 1. Your reactions to others are determined by your
perceptions of them, not by who or what they really are.
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• b. Principle 2. Your goals in a particular situation determine
the amount and kind of information you collect about others.
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• c. Principle 3. In every situation, you evaluate people partly in
terms of how you expect them to act in the situation. Social
norms are the “rules,” or expectations, for appropriate
behavior in a particular social situation.
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• d. Principle 4. Your self-perception also influences how you
perceive others and how you act on your perceptions.
What are social norms?
• Social norms as societal rules or expectations of
appropriate behavior in a particular situation.
• What is the norm of reciprocity?
• The norm of reciprocity, which obligates people
to give back the type of behavior they have
received.
• For example, a friend gives you a birthday gift and
you reciprocate. Or, someone offers you a
compliment and you compliment that person the
next time you see him or her.
Most people can choose behaviors “accurately” by following
what most do in a social setting
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• Attribution theory proposes that we usually
attribute others’ behavior either to their internal
dispositions or to their external situations
• Attribution error is the theory that we explain
someone’s behavior by crediting either the
situation or the person’s
disposition…overestimating the influence of
personality and underestimating the influence of
the situation.
Culture and Human Behavior: Explaining Failure and
Murder:
Culture and Attributional Biases
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• a. People from collectivistic cultures often demonstrate a bias
opposite of the self-serving bias. The self-effacing bias, or modesty
• bias, involves blaming failure on internal, personal factors, while
• attributing success to external, situational factors.
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• b. Members of collectivistic cultures are less likely to commit the
• fundamental attribution error than are members of individualistic
• cultures; that is, collectivists are more likely to attribute the
• causes of another person’s behavior to external, situational factors
• rather than to internal, personal factors.
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• How we attribute others’ behavior shapes our attitude
of them…
• We can be persuaded for reasons other than the
merits of a case…
• Central route persuasion is an attitude-change path in
which interested people focus on the arguments and
respond with favorable thoughts…1st
• When issues don’t engage systematic thinking,
persuasion may change attitudes through peripheral
route…people respond to incidental cues, such as
celebrity endorsements, and make snap
judgments…backup 2nd
• The foot in the door phenomenon is the tendency for
people who have first agreed to a small request to
comply later with a larger request…have a student first
ask another student for a pen, then paper
• (You)The fundamental attribution error plays a role in a
common explanatory pattern called blaming the victim-the
tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for
having somehow caused the problem or for not having
taken steps to avoid or prevent it
• (US)The actor-observer discrepancy…you’re a klutz, but I
slipped! The tendency to attribute one’s own behavior to
external, situational causes, while attributing the behavior
of others to internal, personal causes especially when the
behavior leads to negative outcomes
• A second bias is the just world bias, the assumption that
the world is just and people get what they deserve and
deserve what they get
• Self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute successful
outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and
unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes
The Effect of Attitudes on Behavior
• Research indicates that you’re most likely to behave in
accordance with your attitudes when
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• 1. Attitudes are extreme or are frequently expressed.
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• 2. Attitudes have been formed through direct experience.
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• 3. You are very knowledgeable about the subject.
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• 4. You have a vested interest in the subject.
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• 5. You anticipate a favorable outcome or response from
others for doing so.
The Effect of Behavior on Attitudes
• 1. Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state of
psychological tension (dissonance) that occurs when there’s
an inconsistency between two thoughts or perceptions
(cognitions). It typically results from the awareness that
attitudes and behavior are in conflict.
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• Experiments by Philip Zimbardo and colleagues underscore
the power of cognitive dissonance.(I have a link on the
learning web)
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• 2. Cognitive dissonance can change an attitude or the
strength of an attitude so that it is consistent with some
behavior that has already been performed.
Using Mental Shortcuts in Person
Perception
• 1. Social categorization is the mental process of categorizing people into
groups (or social categories) on the basis of their shared characteristics.
Much of it is automatic and spontaneous, and it often occurs outside
conscious awareness.
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• 2. Using social categories is cognitively efficient and naturally adaptive but
may lead to inaccurate conclusions. It ignores a person’s unique qualities.
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• C. Implicit Personality Theories: He’s Not That Kind of Person!
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• 1. An implicit personality theory is a network of assumptions or
• beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and
behaviors. Through previous social experience, we form schemas about
the traits and behaviors associated with different “types” of people.
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• 2. Physical attractiveness plays a particularly influential role in person
perception. From childhood, people are bombarded with the message
“what is beautiful is good.” Most people associate physical attractiveness
with a wide range of desirable characteristics.
• 3. Researchers have found very few personality differences between
beautiful people and their plainer counterparts.
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• a. Overall, attractive people tend to be less lonely, more popular,
• and less anxious in social situations.
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• b. Physical attractiveness is not correlated with intelligence, mental
• health, or self-esteem.
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• 4. Focus on Neuroscience: Brain Reward When Making Eye Contact with
Attractive People
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• a. Results of an fMRI study show that when we make direct eye
• contact with a physically attractive person, a brain area called
• the ventral striatum is activated; when an attractive person’s eye
• gaze is shifted away from the viewer, activity in the ventral
• striatum decreases.
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• b. The ventral striatum is a brain area that predicts
reward:
• Neural activity increases when an unexpected reward
suddenly appears and decreases when an expected
reward fails to appear.
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• c. This is the first study to show that the brain’s ventral
striatum processes rewards in the context of human
social interaction.
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• 5. Implicit personality theories, like social categories,
can be useful as mental shortcuts in perceiving other
people, but they are not always accurate.
Understanding Prejudice
• Prejudice is a negative attitude toward people who
belong to a specific social group. It is ultimately based on
the exaggerated notion that members of other social
groups are very different from members of our own
social group. Keep two well-established points in mind.
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• 1. Racial and ethnic groups are far more alike than
they are different.
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• 2. Any differences that may exist between members
of different racial and ethnic groups are far smaller
than differences among various members of the
same group.
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Stereotypes to Prejudice
1. A stereotype is a cluster of characteristics that are
associated with all members of a specific social group, often
including qualities that are unrelated to the objective criteria
that define the group.
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• 2. Relying on stereotypes is problematic for several reasons:
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• a. Attributing a stereotypic cause for an outcome or event can
blind us to the true cause.
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• b. An effect of stereotypes is stereotype threat, in which a
person performs in accordance with his or her group’s
stereotype, once formed, stereotypes are hard to break.
• d. When confronted by evidence that contradicts a
stereotype, people tend to discount that information.
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• People who engage in stereotypes often look
at others in terms of “us” the in group, and
“them” the out group
• When we look at the in group, we tend to look
at the behaviors of the persons in the in group
as more favorably
• The behaviors of the members of the out
group are looked at unfavorably
In Group/Out Group
• Creating special cases (exceptions) allows people to maintain
• stereotypes in the face of contradictory evidence.
• 3. People have a strong tendency to perceive others in terms of two basic
social categories: “us” and “them.”
• a. The in-group (“us”) refers to the group to which we belong.
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• b. The out-group (“them”) refers to groups of which we are not a member.
• In combination, stereotypes and in-group/out-group bias form the
cognitive basis for prejudicial attitudes.
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• 7. Prejudice also has a strong emotional component, which is intensely
negative and involves hatred, contempt, fear, and loathing.
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Behaviorally, prejudice can be displayed in the form of
discrimination
• 4. Two important patterns characterize our views of in-groups
versus out-groups.
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• a. Typically, we describe the members of our in-group as being
• quite varied, despite having enough features in common to
• belong to the same group.
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• b. We tend to see members of the out-group as much more similar
• to one another, even in areas that have little to do with the criteria
• for group membership. This tendency is called the out-group
• homogeneity effect.
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• 5. In-group bias is the tendency to judge the behavior of in-group
• members favorably and out-group members unfavorably. One form
of in-group bias, called ethnocentrism, is the belief that one’s own
• culture or ethnic group is superior to others.
Conformity
• When we are in a group, we can sometimes pressure
others to conform, or adjust our behavior or thinking
toward some group standard
• Conditions that strengthen conformity…
• 1. One is made to feel incompetent
• 2. The group has at least 3 people
• 3. The group is unanimous
• 4. One admires the group’s status
• 5. One has made no prior commitments
• 6. Others in the group observe one’s behavior
• 7. One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social
standards
Reasons for Conforming
• Solomon Asch conducted research in which the
answer was clearly wrong, but he wanted to examine
the conditions under which conformity is most likely
• Normative social influence resulting from a person’s
desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
• Informational social influence, influence resulting from
one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about
reality… Informative social influence refers to behavior
that is motivated by the desire to be correct
• Conformity is decreased when we have an ally in our
dissent from majority opinion, even if the dissenter’s
competence is questionable
Do We Always Conform?
• There are cases in which a smaller number of individuals is
able to influence the opinions or behaviors of the larger
group…minority influence
• Minorities who are consistent and confident in their
opinions may be able to be persuasive
• Minority influence may have a creative effect on the
majority
• In cases when people feel that their freedom is being
threatened by influence attempts may be able to resist
persuasion; developing a strong emotional reaction that
leads people to resist the pressure to
conform…psychological reactance.
• Reactance presents a desire to restore freedom that is
being threatened…a complete resistance to the pressure
Obedience
• Social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted
one of the most systematic and controversial
investigations in the history of
psychology…how and why people obey the
destructive dictates of an authority figure
• Following the one in authority
• The person is in a level of emotional distress
• There is some level of emotional distance
Group Influence
• Sometimes people perform better in the presence of
others’ …social facilitation
• Social Loafing is the tendency to expend less effort on a
task when it is a group effort. As a general rule, the
greater the number of people involved in a collective
effort, the lower each individual output
• Social loafing is reduced or eliminated when…
• The group is composed of people we know
• We are members of a highly valued group
• The task is meaningful or unique
• Women are less likely to engage in social loafing than
are men
Negative Emotions increase
Aggression
• If we are aware that we are feeling negative emotions,
we might think that we could release those emotions
in a relatively harmless way, such as by punching a
pillow or kicking something, with the hopes that doing
so will release our aggressive tendencies. Catharsis—
the idea that observing or engaging in less harmful
aggressive actions will reduce the tendency to aggress
later in a more harmful way—has been considered by
many as a way of decreasing violence, and it was an
important part of the theories of Sigmund Freud.
• The social norm that condones and even encourages
responding to insults with aggression is known as the
culture of honor.
Group Polarization
• If a group is like minded, discussion strengthens
its prevailing opinions.
• Group Polarization occurs when people within a
group discuss an idea that most of them either
favor or oppose, high prejudice makes more
polarization…when groups discuss subjects
negative in connotation, the people can become
more strongly supportive of the
subject…idealogical separation +
deliberation=polarization
Social Facilitation: Individual Performance
in the Presence of Others
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1. Social facilitation is the tendency for the presence of other people to
enhance individual performance.
2. When others are watching, a relatively simple or well-rehearsed task tends
to be well performed. However, if the task is complex or poorly learned, the
opposite effect can occur: The presence of other people is likely to hinder
performance.
Deindividuation: When Group Members Feel Anonymous
1. Deindividuation is the reduction of self-awareness and inhibition
that can occur when a person is part of a group whose members feel
anonymous.
2. It can lead to irresponsible or antisocial behaviors; one way to counteract
deindividuation is to heighten self-awareness.
Helping Behavior: Coming to the Aid of
Strangers
• The chilling story of Kitty Genovese’s murder triggered
hundreds of investigations into the conditions under which
people will help others.
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• Prosocial behavior describes any behavior that helps another
person, whether the underlying motive is self-serving or
selfless.
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• 1. Altruism is helping another person with no expectation of
personal reward or benefit.
• 2. Sometimes we help people out of guilt or in order to gain
something, such as recognition, rewards, increased selfesteem, or having the favor returned.
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Factors That Increase the Likelihood of
Bystanders Helping
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1. The “feel good, do good” effect.
2. Feeling guilty.
3. Seeing others who are willing to help.
4. Perceiving the other person as deserving help.
5. Knowing how to help.
6. A personalized relationship with the other
person.
Factors That Decrease the Likelihood of Bystanders
Helping
• 1. The presence of other people. The bystander effect is a phenomenon in
which the greater the number of people present, the less likely each
individual is to help someone in distress. This seems to occur for two
reasons:
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• a. diffusion of responsibility, the phenomenon in which the presence of
other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in
distress because the obligation to intervene is shared (or diffused) among
all the onlookers.
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• b. our desire to behave in a socially acceptable way (normative social
influence) and to appear correct (informational social influence).
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• 2. Being in a big city or a very small town.
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• 3. Vague or ambiguous situations.