Chapter 16: Social Behavior

Social Psychology: the study of how individuals thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others

• Person perception• Attribution processes• Interpersonal attraction• Attitudes• Conformity and obedience• Behavior in groups

Person Perception:Forming Impressions of Others

• Effects of physical appearance: good-looking individuals are seen as more competent, secure better jobs, and earn higher salaries– physical variables in person perception indicate

that facial features that are similar to infant features influence perceptions of honesty (baby-faced people being viewed as more honest).

• Social schemas: structures that guide information processing (working-class, snob, dumb jocks, wimps)

• Stereotypes: beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in certain groups (sex, age, ethnic/occupational groups)

Figure 16.1 Examples of social schemas

Person Perception:Forming Impressions of Others

• Prejudice and discrimination: Prejudice is a negative attitude toward a person because of group membership, while discrimination is an action – create Memory biases that can lead to

confirmation of previously held beliefs– Transmission of prejudice across

generations occurs in part due to observational learning and may be strengthened through operant conditioning

Person Perception:Forming Impressions of Others

• Subjectivity in person perception: people tend to see what they expect to see and overestimate how often they see it… this is called the Illusory Correlation– Spotlight effect: people tend to assume

that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them

– Illusion of asymmetric insight, or the tendency to think that one’s knowledge of one’s peers is greater than peer knowledge of oneself, also supports the subjectivity of person perception.

Person Perception:Forming Impressions of Others

• Evolutionary psychologists argue that many biases in person perception were adaptive in our ancestral past, for example, automatically categorizing others may reflect the primitive need to quickly separate friend from foe– (Ingroup vs Outgroup)

• Evolutionary perspectives: argue that person perception swayed by attractiveness b/c it has been associated with positive reproductive traits throughout history

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• Attributions: inferences that people draw about the causes of events, others behavior, and their own behavior (b/c people have a strong need to understand their experiences)– Internal Att.: ascribe the causes of behavior to

personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings– External Att: ascribe behavior to situational

demands and environmental constraints• Why did Mr. X lose his job?• Wrecked car…

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• Harold H. Kelley (1967, 1973) has devised a theory that identifies some to the important factors that people consider in making an internal or external attribution, the covariation model– People tend to be biased in the way they

make attributions, research indicates– Attributions ultimately represent guesswork

about the causes of events, and these guesses tend to be slanted

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• Biases in attributions– Fundamental attribution error: an observer favors

internal attributions in explaining other’s behavior• In general, we are likely to attribute our own

behavior to situational causes and others’ behavior to dispositional causes (actor-observer bias)

– Defensive attribution: blaming victims for their misfortune, so one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way (hindsight bias)

– Self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute one’s success to personal factors and ones failures to situational factors

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• Research indicates that there are cultural influences on attributional tendencies, with individualistic emphasis in Western cultures promoting the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias.

• Weiner’s Model of Attributions for Success and Failure– Assumes people’s explanations for

success and failure focus on internal-external causes AND stable-unstable causes

Figure 16.23 Bias in the attributions used to explain success and failure by men and women

Figure 16.4 An alternative view of the fundamental attribution error

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• A political question?– Conservatives tend to attribute social blight

(poverty, homelessness, and criminal behavior) to internal characteristics

– Liberals are more likely to attribute the same social problems to institutional failures and unjust social practices

Attribution Processes: Explaining Behavior

• Cultural influences: – Individualism: putting personal goals

ahead of group goals, defining success in terms of personal attributes instead of group affiliation

– Collectivism: putting group goals ahead of personal goals and defining identity in terms of groups one belongs to (clan, tribe, social class, caste)

– Chart page 641

Cultural and Attibutional tendencies

• Child rearing parents in collectivist cultures emphasize obedience, reliability, and proper behavior

• Parents in individualistic cultures emphasize the development of independence, self-esteem, and self reliance

• Instead, Japanese subjects exhibit a self-effacing bias as they tend to downplay their own ability and attribute success to external factors; in fact they are more self-critical

Figure 16.22 Relationship between prejudice and discrimination

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

• Key factors in attraction– Physical attractiveness: the key determinant of

romantic relationships, particularly in the initial stages of dating

– Matching hypothesis: proposes that males and females of approximately equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners

– Similarity: “birds of a feather flock together” Couples tend to be similar in age, race, religion, social class, personality, education, intelligence, physical attractiveness, and attitudes

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

• Byrne’s research suggests that similarity causes attraction, particularly attitude similarity

• Davis and Rusbult (2001) have shown that attraction can also foster similarity, with dating partners experiencing attitude alignment

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

• Key factors in attraction (cont.)– Reciprocity: people tend to like those that

like them, and we see others as liking us more the more we like them• When a partner helps one feel good

about oneself, a phenomenon called self-enhancement occurs

• Studies suggest that people seek feedback that matches and supports their self-concepts, as well, a process known as self-verification

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

– Romantic Ideals: the more people match the ideals we set for them, the more satisfied we tend to be with the relationship• People tend to focus on their partners

virtues and minimize their partners faults

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

• Perspectives on love– Hatfield & Berscheid –

• Passionate love: complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the agony/ecstasy of intense emotion

• vs. Companionate love: warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply intertwined with one’s own

–These may coexist, but not necessarily

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

– Sternberg – divides companionate love further• Intimacy: refers to warmth, closeness,

and sharing• Commitment: an intent to maintain a

relationship in spite of the difficulties and costs

Close Relationships: Liking and Loving

– Hazen & Shaver – • Love as attachment: looked at the link

between love and attachment relationships in infancy

–Subdivided it into 3 categories»Secure Attachment: more

committed, satisfying relationships (56%)

»Anxious-Ambivalent attachment (20%)

»Avoidant Attachment (24%)

Figure 16.7 Infant attachment and romantic relationships

Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction

• Mating priorities– Physical attraction is seen as aspects of

sound health, good genes, and high fertility (reproductive potential)

• Facial Symmetry is seen as a key element to attraction in diverse cultures

• Men are more interested in women in finding a youthful, attractive mate

• Women place more emphasis on ambition, social status, and financial potential (What can my baby’s daddy do for my baby?)

Evolutionary Perspective on Attraction

• Both sexes are willing to lie about personality, income, past relationships, and career skills to impress a prospective date who was attractive

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Attitudes: positive or negative evaluations of objects of thought– 3 components

• Cognitive: beliefs people hold about the object of attitude (beliefs, ideas)

• Affective: emotional feelings stimulated by an object of thought (emotions, feelings)

• Behavioral: the predispositions to act in a certain way (actions)

Figure 16.9 The possible components of attitudes

Figure 16.21 The three potential components of prejudice as an attitude

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Attitudes and behavior are not as consistent as one might assume, in part because attitude strength varies, and in part because attitudes only create predispositions to behave in certain ways.

• Persuasion is undermined when a receiver is forewarned, when the sender advocates a position that is incompatible with the receiver’s existing attitudes, or when strong attitudes are targeted.

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes– Source: sends a communication

• Credibility: persuasion successful message

• expertise: more influential when arguments are ambiguous

• Trustworthiness: argument accepted with little scrutiny

• Likeability: increases sources effectiveness

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)– Message: information transmitted

• One-sided: no alternate info• Two-sided arguments: more effective• Fear Arousal: successful if fear is

aroused, most fail to

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Factors in changing attitudes (cont.)– Receiver: person to whom the message is sent

• Forewarning: expectations and prior knowledge are more influential than personality

• disconfirmation bias: arguments that go against previous schemas are more scrutinized and analyzed

• resistance can promote resistance: when you resist persuasive efforts, you become more certain of those attitudes

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Although there are some situational limitations, two-sided arguments and fear arousal are effective elements in persuasive messages.

• Repetition is helpful, but adding weak arguments to one’s case may hurt more than help.

• Research has indicated that there are many factors at play in attitude change. – A source of persuasion who is credible, expert,

trustworthy, likable, and physically attractive tends to be relatively effective in stimulating attitude change.

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Theories of attitude change– Learning theory: Attitudes may be shaped

through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning

– Dissonance theory: inconsistent attitudes cause tension and that people alter their attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance(Festinger)

– Self-perception theory people infer their attitudes from their behavior. Behavior affects attitude (Bem)

Attitudes and Attitude Change

• Theories of attitude change (cont.)– Elaboration likelihood model: central routes to

persuasion yield longer-lasting attitude change than peripheral routes. (Petty and Cacioppo)

• central routes: people carefully ponder the content and logic of persuasive messages (a politicians well thought out speech)

• peripheral routes : persuasion that depends on nonmessage factors such as attractiveness of the source (a politician who depends on flag waving and parades).

Figure 16.10 Overview of the persuasion process

Figure 16.12 Design of the Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) study

Figure 16.13 Bem’s self-perception theory

Yielding to Others: Conformity

• Conformity : when people yield to real or imagined social pressure– Solomon Asch (1950s): (

Classic experiment) line study• 37% of men conformed! • Group size: more people, more likely to

conform• Group unanimity: one person dissents,

less conformity

Yielding to Others: Obedience

• Obedience – Stanley Milgram (1960s)– Obedience is a form of compliance that

occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in a position of authority

– Milgram, was troubled over the Nazi war criminal defense “I was just following orders.” He designed a landmark experiment to determine how often ordinary people will obey an authority figure, even if it means hurting another person

Yielding to Others: Obedience

• (Milgram)Controversial landmark experiments– 40 men from the local community recruited – teacher was seated before an apparatus that had

30 switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts, with labels of slight shock, danger: severe shock, and XXX etc.

– Although the apparatus looked and sounded real, it was fake, 65% of the men administered all 30 levels of the shock

• presence of a dissenter: only 10%– extremely controversial, as his method involved

considerable deception and emotional distress on the part of subjects.

Yielding to Others: Obedience

• The Power of Situation: The Stanford Prison Simulation

• http://www.prisonexp.org/

Behavior in Groups:The Influence of Other People

• The bystander effect - Darley and Latane (1968)– People are much less likely to provide help in a

group then by themselves due to the Diffusion of responsibility

– Reviews of studies on over 6,000 subjects • subjects who are alone help about 75% of the

time• subjects in the presence of others help about

53% of the time. • The only variable shown to significantly

impact the bystander effect is ambiguity of the need for help.

• Group productivity: Studies also show that productivity decreases as group size increases. – This is believed to be due to 2 factors: loss

of efficiency resulting from a loss of coordination of effort and social loafing

• social loafing: Social loafing is a reduction in effort by individuals when they work in groups as compared to when they work alone.

Figure 16.18 The effect of loss of coordination and social loafing on group productivity

Behavior in Groups:The Influence of Other People

• Decision making in groups: groups often arrive at riskier decisions (risky shift) or a more cautious approach depending on which way they were leaning to begin with this is called:– Polarization: Group polarization occurs

when group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction.

Behavior in Groups:The Influence of Other People

• Groupthink: Groupthink occurs when members of a cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the expense of critical thinking in arriving at a decision. – This is a disease of group decision making

b/c it stifles dissent and increases pressure to conform

– Some people even shelter information that would contradict the group’s views (us vs. them)

– Bay of Pigs

Behavior in Groups:The Influence of Other People

• Janis’ Theory: – members of a group suspend critical

thought– Censor dissent– Pressure to conform increases– “mind guards” tend to shelter the group

from info that contradicts the group’s view

Behavior in Groups:The Influence of Other People

• Group Think (cont.)– Major causes of Group Think are

• Group cohesiveness: strength of the liking relationships linking group members

• Isolation: when group works in…• Strength of the leader• High Stress

–Look at chart page 666