Social Relations

How do we relate to others?

Attraction Conflict and Prejudice Altruism and Peacemaking Aggression

Prejudice

• An unjustifiable attitude towards a group of people.

• Usually involves stereotyped beliefs (a generalized belief about a group of people).

Overt

Subtle

Prejudice Over Time

Does perception change with race?

Is it just race?

NO•Palestinians and Jews•Towners and Lakers

•Men and Women

But women have some things going for them like……

Which person would you want to have a long term relationship

with?

Social Inequalities(A principle reason behind

prejudice)• Ingroup: “us”- people

with whom one shares a common identity.

• Outgroup: “them”- those perceived as different than one’s ingroup.

• Ingroup bias: the tendency to favor one’s own group.

Scapegoat Theory• The theory

that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Why is their prejudice?•Categorization•Vivid Cases

(Availability Heuristic)

•The Just-World Phenomenon

Aggression

• Any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy.

The Biology of Aggression

• Genetics• Neural

Influences (is aggression in the brain)

• Biochemical

The Psychology of Aggression

Frustration-Aggressive Principle:

• the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal

• Creates anger which generates aggression.

Goals can be:

•Sports or work

•Relationship

•Body Condition etc…

Hot Weather and Aggression

Can we learn to be aggressive or gentle?

They can be learned but….Once learned they are difficult to

change.

Aggression and TV

Watches =

• By the time you are 18, you spend more time in front of TV than in school

•2/3 of all homes have 3 or more sets average 51 hours a week.

•By the time a child finishes elementary school they have witnessed 8000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on TV

•Over half of all deaths do NOT show the victim's pain

•As TV watching has grown exponentially, as does violent behavior- a strong positive correlation.

•How do you think TV has effected sexual aggression?

Conflict

• A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals or ideas.

• Social trap or prisoner's dilemma.

Attraction

5 Factors of Attraction….

Proximity• Geographic nearnessMere exposure effect:• Repeated exposure to something breeds liking.• Taiwanese Letters• Mirror image concept

Reciprocal Liking

• You are more likely to like someone who likes you.

• Why?• Except in

elementary school!!!!

Similarity

• Paula Abdul was wrong- opposites do NOT attract.

• Birds of the same feather do flock together.

• Similarity breeds content.

Liking through Association

• Classical Conditioning can play a pert in attraction.

• I love Theo’s Wings. 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 Theo's.

Physical Attractiveness

The Hotty Factor

• Physically attractiveness predicts dating frequency (they date more).

• They are perceived as healthier, happier, more honest and successful than less attractive counterparts.

What is beauty?• Some people say beauty is facial symmetry.

Beauty and Culture

Are these cultures really that different?

LOVE• Passionate Love: an

aroused state of INTENSE positive absorption of another.

• Compassionate Love: the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.

What makes compassionate love work?

•Equity

•Self-disclosure

Altruism

• Unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

• Kitty Genovese case.

• Bystander Effect (bystanders less willing to help if there are other bystanders around).

Social Exchange Theory

• The idea that our social behavior is an exchange process, which we maximize benefits and minimize costs.

Peacemaking

• Give people superordinate (shared) goals that can only be achieved through cooperation.

• Win Win situations through mediation.

• GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction).

Social Influence

Conformity

• Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

How did you feel the first time someone asked you to smoke?

Asch’s Study

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

• One is made to feel incompetent• The group is at least three people• The group is unanimous• One admires the group’s status• One had made no prior

commitment• The person is observed

Reasons for Conforming

Normative Social Influence

• Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disappointment

Informational Social Influence

• Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

ObedienceMilgram’s Experiments

Milgram’s Obedience Study

What did we learn from Asch & Milgram?

• Ordinary people can do shocking things.

Group Influence on Behavior

Lets look at how groups effect our behavior.

Social Facilitation

• Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others.

•Occurs with simple or well learned tasks.•Not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered.

Yerkes- Dodson Law

• There is an optimal level of arousal for the best performance of any task:

•   easy tasks--relatively high

•   difficult tasks--low arousal

•   other tasks--moderate level

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.

Deindividuation

• The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

Group Polarization

• The concept that a group’s attitude is one of extremes and rarely moderate.

As a group, both the Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan are more extreme than the average individual in the group.

Group Polarization

Groupthink

• The mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides common sense.How could the hazing incident at Northbrook High School be an example of groupthink?

We also influence ourselves

The Power of the Individual can be stronger than a

group.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

• Occurs when one person’s belief about others leads one to act in ways that induce the others to appear to confirm the belief.If you think someone finds you attractive, they more likely will!!!

Social Psychology

The study of how we think about, influence and

relate to one another.

Social Thinking

How do we think about one another?

Attribution Theory• The idea that we give a casual

explanation for someone's behavior.

•We credit that behavior either to the situation or….

•To the person’s disposition.

Was my friend a jerk because she had a bad day or is just a bad person?

Fundamental Attribution Error

• The tendency to underestimate the impact of a situation and overestimate the impact of personal disposition.

How do you view your teacher’s behavior? You probably attribute it to their personality rather than their profession.

Attribution At Work

The Effects of Attribution

•Social Effects•Political

Effects•Workplace

Effects

Attitudes

• A belief or feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to something.

How might different attitudes respond to this picture?

Do our attitudes guide our actions?

Only if….

• External pressure is minimal.

• We are aware of our attitudes.

• The attitude is relevant to the behavior.

Attitudes

More often, our actions affect our attitudes.

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

• The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.If I give out an answer on a quiz,

what happens next?

Door-in-face Phenomenon

• The tendency for people who say no to a huge request, to comply with a smaller one.

If I ask my wife for the 1952 Topps Mantle card ($15k) she will say? NO

But she may let me buy a new playstation game.

Zimbardo Prison StudyRole playing affects attitudes. What do you think happened when college students were made to take on the roles of prison guards and inmates.

What happens when we become aware that our attitudes don’t match or

actions?

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• 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.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• How does cognitive dissonance theory play a part in pledging a fraternity?