9.

Social Psychology

 We spend much of our lives in the presence of other people, with whom we
interact in a variety of ways and in different settings.
 Social psychologists study the way we affect and are influenced by other people,
both in groups and in intimate relationships.
 Social psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the way
individuals’ thoughts; feelings and behaviors are influenced by others.
 This focus covers a wide range of possible interests. For example, it includes the
study of the ways in which we perceive other people and how those
perceptions affect our behavior toward them. Similarly, it involves concerted
efforts to understand the determinants of interpersonal influences and of
attitude change. Thus, social psychologists might study how perceptual
stereotypes affect interactions or how the decisions of a committee member are
influenced by what others on the committee do or say. Sometimes the interest is
on the mutual influence exerted by individuals in close relationships, such as
marriage.
Social Cognition: Understanding Others
 One of the most dominant areas of study in social psychology during the last few
years has focused on learning how we come to understand what others are like
and how we explain the reasons underlying others’ behavior.
Understanding what others are like
 Consider for a moment the enormous amount of information about other people to
which we are exposed. How are we able to decide what is important and what is
not, and to make judgments about the characteristics of others?
 Social psychologists interested in this question study social cognition- the
processes that underlie our understanding of the social world. They have learned
that individuals have highly developed schemas, sets of cognitions about people
and social experiences. These schemas organize information stored in memory;
represent in our minds the way the social world operates; and give us a frame
work to categorize and interpret information relating to social stimuli.
 We typically hold schemas for particular types of people in our environments.
Our schema for “teacher,” for instance, generally consists of a number of
characteristics: knowledge of the subject matter she/he is teaching, a desire to
impart such knowledge, and an awareness of the student’s need to understand
what is being said.
Impression Formation
 The earliest work on social cognition was designed to examine impression
formation, the process by which information about others is converted into more
or less enduring cognitions or thoughts about them.
Attribution Processes: Understanding the causes of behavior
 Most of us have, at one time or another, puzzled over the reasons behind
someone’s behavior.
 In contrast to work on social cognition, which describes how people develop an
overall impressions about others personality traits, attribution theory seeks to

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 explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individuals behavior, what
the specific causes of that person’s behavior are.
 When trying to understand the causes underlying the given behavior, individuals
typically try first to determine whether the cause is situational or dispositional.
 Situational causes are those brought about by something in the environment. For
instance, someone who knocks over a quart of milk and then cleans it up is
probably doing so not because he or she is necessarily a terribly neat person, but
the situation is one that requires it.
 In contrast, a person who spends ours shining the kitchen floor is probably doing
so because he or she is a neat person- hence, the behavior has a Dispositional
cause, prompted by the person’s disposition (his or her internal traits or
personality characteristics).
 In general, an attributional pattern that overemphasizes the importance of
external causes is maladaptive for it reduces people’s sense of personal
responsibility for success or failure. But, when attributions are based on internal
factors, they suggest that a change in behavior- such as increased effort- can bring
about a change in success.
Social Influence
 Social influence is the area of social psychology that considers situations in which
the actions of an individual (or a group) affect the behavior of others. We’ll
consider three major types of social influence: conformity, compliance, and
obedience.
Conformity: Following what others do
 Conformity is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to
follow the beliefs or standards of other people.
 Among the most variables producing conformity are the following.
1. The characteristics of the group. The more attractive the group is to
its members, the greater its ability to produce conformity. The lower
the status- the social rank held with in a group- of a person and the
greater the similarity of the individual to the group, the greater is the
power of the group over the individuals behavior.
2. The nature of the individual’s response. Conformity is considerably
higher when people must make a response publicly than when they can
respond privately.
3. The kind of task. People working on tasks and questions that are
ambiguous (having no clear answer) are more susceptible to social
pressure. Moreover, tasks at which an individual is less competent
relative to the group create conditions in which conformity is more
likely.
4. Unanimity of the group. Conformity pressures are more pronounced
in groups that are unanimous in their support of a position.
Compliance: Submitting to direct social pressure
 When we discuss conformity, we are usually talking about a phenomenon in
which the social pressure is not in the form of direct order. But, in some situations
social pressure is much more obvious, and there is direct, explicit pressure to
endorse a particular point of view or behave in a certain way.

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 Social psychologists call the type of behavior that occurs in response to direct
social pressure Compliance.

The foot- in- the door: when a small request leads to a larger one
 According to this technique, you first ask a person agree to a small request and
later ask the person to comply with a more important one. It turns out that
compliance with the ultimate request increases significantly when the person first
agrees to the smaller favor.
The door- in- the- face Technique: Where a large request leads to a smaller one
 In this technique a large request, refusal of which is expected, is followed by a
smaller one. The use of this technique is wide spread in everyday life. You may
have used it at some point yourself, perhaps by asking your parents for a very
large increase in your allowance and later settling for less.
Low-balling
 In low-balling an agreement is reached, but then the seller reveals additional
costs.
That is not all technique
 In this procedure, you are offered a deal in an inflated price. But immediately
following the initial offer, the salesperson offers an incentive, bonus, to clinch
the deal. In one study, the experimenters set up a booth and sold cupcakes for 75
cents each. In one condition, customers were told directly that the price was 75
cents. But, in another condition, they were told the price was $1.00, but had been
reduced to 75 cents. As the that’s- not- all technique would predict, more
cupcakes were sold at the reduced price- even though it was identical to the cost
in the other experimental condition.
 The not so free sample: If you are ever given a free sample, keep in mind that
it comes with a psychological cost. Although they may not catch it in these terms,
salespeople who provide samples to potential customers do so in order to instigate
the norm of reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity is the well-accepted societal
standard dictating that we should treat other people as they treat us.
 Recipient of free sample, then, suggests the need for reciprocation- in the form of
a sale of course.

Obedience: Obeying direct orders

 Compliance techniques provide a means by which people are gently led
toward agreement with another person’s request.
 In some cases, however, requests are geared toward producing obedience, a
change in behavior that is due to the commands of others. Although
obedience is considerably less common than conformity and compliance,
it does occur in several specific kinds of relationships. For example, we may
show obedience to our boss, teacher, or parent merely because of the
power they hold to reward or punish us.
Forming and Maintaining Attitudes
 Attitudes are learned predispositions to respond in a favorable or unfavorable
manner to a particular person or object.

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 Social psychologists generally consider attitudes to follow the ABC model,
which suggests that an attitude has three components: affect, behavior, and
cognition. The affect component encompasses our positive or negative
emotions about something- how we feel about it.
 The behavior component consists of a predisposition or intention to act in
a particular manner that is relevant to our attitude.
 Finally, the cognition component refers to the beliefs and thoughts we
hold about the object of our attitude. For example someone’s attitude
towards Aster Awoke may consist of a positive emotion (the affect
component), an intention to buy her latest recording (the behavior component)
and the belief that she is a good singer (the cognition component).
 Every attitude has these three interrelated components, although they vary in
terms of which element predominates and in the nature of their relationships.
All attitudes however, develop according to the general principles that social
psychologists have discovered about their formation, maintenance, and
change.
 Although people do not enter the world holding well-defined attitudes toward
any particular person or object, any one who had seen an infant smile at her
parents knows that at least certain attitudes develop quickly. Interestingly,
some of the same principles, which govern how attitudes are acquired and
develop in the youngest of children, continue to operate through out life.
 Classical Conditioning: Learning to like and learning to hate- People develop
associations between various objects and the emotional reactions that
accompany them.
 Operant Conditioning: Attitudes that are reinforced, either verbally or
nonverbally tend to be maintained. Conversely, a person who states an attitude
that elicits ridicule from others may modify or abandon the attitude. Vicarious
learning, in which a person learns something through the observation of
others, can also account for attitude development.
Persuasion: Attitude change
 Research has identified a number of factors that promote effective
persuasion:
 Message Source: The individual who delivers a persuasive message has a
major impact on the effectiveness of that message. Communicators who are
both physically and socially attractive seem to produce greater attitude
change.
 Moreover, the expertise and trustworthiness of a communicator are related
to the impact of a message- except in situations in which the communicator is
believed to have an ulterior motive.
 Characteristics of the message: It is not just who delivers a message but
what the message is like that affects attitude and behavior change.
 One-sided arguments- in which only the communicator’s side is presented-
are probably best if the communicator’s message is initially viewed favorably
by the audience.
 But, if the audience, receives a message an unpopular viewpoint, two-sided
messages- which includes both the communicator’s position and the one he or

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 she is arguing against- are more effective probably because they are seen as
more precise and thoughtful.
 In addition, fear producing messages are generally effective, although not
always. Fear appeals work best if they include precise recommendations for
actions to avoid danger.
 Characteristics of the recipient or target: The weight of research carried
out on the subject suggests that those who are of high intelligence are more
resistant to persuasion than those of lower intelligence.
 One factor that is important in determining whether a message is accepted is
the type of information carried out by the recipient.
 There are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. Central route
processing occurs when the recipient thoughtfully considers the issues and
arguments involved in the persuasion. Peripheral route processing, in contrast,
occurs when the recipient uses more easily understood information that
requires less thought, such as the nature of the source, or other information
less central to the issue involved in the message itself.

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Interpersonal attraction and the development of relationships
 While perception and influence are always involved in our relationships with
others, social psychologists have studied a number of other factors, which help to
determine the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships.
 Why people are initially attracted to each other? What processes are involved in
shaping the nature of the relationships as they develop? The answers to these
questions are the focus of the next sections.
Interpersonal Attraction
 Why do you like some people more than others? The general answer is that we
like people to the extent that that our interaction with them are rewarding or
reinforcing.
 With this in mind, we can examine some of the specific factors that have been
found to affect the attraction one person feels for another, in each instance
keeping alert to the role of reinforcement.
 Proximity: One of the factors, which has been shown to affect the degree of
attraction one person feels for another is physical nearness, or proximity. If you
live in a dormitory or an apartment, consider the friends you made when you first
moved in. Chances are you became friendliest with those who lived
geographically closest to you.
 Attitude similarity/ similarity: We tend to like those who are similar to us.
Discovering that others are similar in terms of attitudes, values, or traits promotes
liking for them.
 One reason similarity increases the likelihood of interpersonal attraction is that we
assume that people with similar attitudes will evaluate us positively. Because
there is a strong reciprocity of liking effect (a tendency to like those who like us),
knowing that someone evaluates us positively will promote attraction to that
person. In addition, we assume that when we like someone else, that person likes
us in return.
 Physical Attractiveness: People who are physically attractive are more popular
than those who are physically unattractive, if all other factors are equal.
 One of the remarkable things about physical attractiveness is the degree of
consensus about what constitutes beauty. People have clear and similar
preferences regarding the specific dimensions of facial configuration, which make
a face attractive.
 Need Complementary: Some couples seem totally mismatched in terms of
personality, interests, and attitudes, yet are clearly quite captivated with one
another.
 Social psychologists have explained that instances in which people are attracted to
dissimilar others by considering the needs that their partners fulfill. According to
this reasoning, we may be attracted to this reasoning; we may be attracted to those
people who fulfill the greatest number of needs for us. Thus a dominant person
may seek someone who is submissive and vice versa.

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Aggression and Pro-social Behavior
Hurting Others: Aggression
 We need look no further than our daily paper or the nightly news to be bombarded
with examples of aggression, both on a social level (war, invasion, assassination,
and terrorism) and on an individual level (crime, child abuse, and the many petty
cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting on one another.
 Most social psychologists define aggression in terms of the intent and purpose of
behind the behavior. Aggression is intentional injury of or harm to another person.
Approaches explaining aggression:
- Instinct approaches- aggression is primarily the outcome of innate- or
inborn- urges. According to proponents of this approach human beings
along with members of other species, have a fighting instinct, which in
earlier times ensured protection of food supplies and weeded out of the
weaker of the species.
- Frustration- Aggression approaches- Aggression as a reaction to
frustration.
- Suppose you’ve been working on paper that is due for a class early the
next morning, and your word processor printer runs out of ink just before
you can print out the paper. You rush to the store to buy more ink, only to
find the salesclerk locking the door for the day. Even though the clerk can
see you gesturing and literally beginning him to open the door, he refuses,
shrugging his shoulders and pointing to a sign that says when the store
will open the next day.
- At that moment the feeling you experience toward the salesclerk probably
place you on the verge of real aggression of some sort, and you probably
are seething inside.
 Observational Learning Theories: Learning to Hurt Others
 Do we learn to be aggressive? The observational learning (sometimes called
social learning) approach to aggression says we do.
 Taking an almost opposite view from the instinct, which focuses on the innate
aspects of aggression, observational learning theory emphasizes how social and
environmental conditions can teach individuals to be aggressive.
 Aggression is seen not as inevitable, but as learned response that can be
understood in terms of rewards and punishments.
 This approach has important implications for understanding the effects of
aggression observed in the media.
Helping Others: The brighter side of human nature
 Turning away from aggression, we move now to the opposite- and brighter- side
of the coin of human nature: helping behavior. Helping behavior or pro-social
behavior as it is more formally known, has been investigated under many
different approaches, but the question that psychologist have looked at most
closely relates to bystander intervention in emergency situations. What are the
factors that lead someone to help a person in need?

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 One critical factor is the number of others present. When more than one-person
bears witness to an emergency situation, there can be a sense of diffusion or
responsibility among others.
 Diffusion of responsibility is a tendency for people to feel that responsibility for
acting is shared, or diffused, among those present.
 The more people that are present in an emergency, then, the less personally
responsible each individual feels-and there fore the less help is provided.
 Altruism: is helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-
sacrifice.