Social psychology is the study of how people relate to and influence each other. Key topics covered include person perception, stereotyping and prejudice, aggression and prosocial behavior, attribution theory, interpersonal attraction, and attitude formation and change. Social cognition involves making quick judgments and inferences about others based on appearance and behaviors. Attribution theory examines how people explain the causes of behaviors as either internal or external factors.

1. Social Behavior Alia Griese & Leah Romm AP Psychology – Andrade, Period 1 2010-2011

2. Social Psychology Social Psychology is a broad field devoted to studying the way that people relate to others. Social Cognition : as people go through their daily lives, they act like scientists, constantly gathering data and making predictions about what will happen next so they can act accordingly.

3. Person Perception Judgments of others can be distorted by their physical appearance, as we tend to ascribe desirable personality characteristics and competence to those who are good looking. People are quick to draw inferences about others based on how they move, talk, and gesture. Social schemas and stereotypes can influence our perception of others. Stereotypes tend to be broad overgeneralizations that can lead us to see what we expect to see and to overestimate how often we have seen it (the illusory correlation effect ). Can be positive or negative, applied to any group (racial, ethnic, geographical, etc) Prejudice is an undeserved, usually negative, attitude toward a group of people, usually a result of negative stereotypes. While prejudice is as attitude, discrimination involves an action (based on prejudice). Stereotype  Prejudice  Discrimination

4. Person Perception (continued) People tend to overestimate the degree to which others pay attention to them, which is called the spotlight effect . Evolutionary psychologists argue that many biases in person perception, such as the tendency to quickly categorize people into in-groups (members of one’s own group) and out-groups (those not belonging to one’s group), exist because they were adaptive in humans’ ancestral past. People tend to see members of their own group as more diverse than members of other groups; this is called out-group homogeneity . In-group bias is one’s preference for members of one’s in-group. Contact theory: contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity, but only if the groups are made to work toward a goal (called the superordinate goal ) that benefits all and requires everyone to participate.

5. Aggression and Antisocial Behavior Two types of aggression: instrumental (aggressive act is intended to secure a particular end) and hostile (aggression with no clear purpose) Causes of human aggression: Freud  aggression because of death instinct Sociobiologists  aggression is adaptive under certain circumstances Frustration-aggression hypothesis : the feeling of frustration makes aggression more likely Exposure to aggressive models makes people aggressive (Bandura’s Bobo doll study!)

6. Prosocial Behavior Bystander effect/intervention: the conditions under which people nearby are more and less likely to help someone in trouble The larger the number of people witnessing an emergency situation, the less likely anyone is likely to intervene, due to diffusion of responsibility (large group  individuals feel less responsible to help  “someone else will do it” mentality) Pluralistic ignorance: people seem to decide what is appropriate by looking to others.

7. Attribution Attribution theory : how people determine the cause of what they cause The types of attribution are: In an internal (aka dispositional or person) attribution , people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. In an external , or situational, attribution , people infer that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors. When people make a stable attribution , they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. When making an unstable attribution , they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors. Harold Kelley  attributions are made based on consistency (how similarly the individual acts in the same situation over time), distinctiveness (how similar this situation is to other situations), and consensus (how others in the same situation have responded). Self-fulfilling prophecy: The expectations we have about others can influence the way those others behave.

9. Attribution (continued) Attributional Biases: The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, abilities, and feelings. The actor-observer bias refers to the fact that actors favor external attributions in explaining their own behavior, whereas observers favor internal attributions. Defensive attribution is the tendency to blame victims for their misfortune (so that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar manner) The self-serving bias is the tendency to explain one’s successes with internal attributions and one’s failures with external attributions. Cultures vary in their emphasis on individualism (putting personal goals ahead of group goals) and collectivism (putting group goals ahead of personal goals), which influence attributional biases. People from collectivist cultures tend to be less prone to the fundamental attribution error and to the self-serving bias .

10. Interpersonal Attraction Factors in Attraction: A key determinant of romantic attraction for both sexes is physical attraction. The matching hypothesis asserts that males and females of roughly equal physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners. Married and dating couples tend to be similar on many traits, probably because similarity causes attraction and because attraction can foster similarity. Research on reciprocity shows that liking breeds liking and that loving promotes loving ( reciprocal liking ) In romantic relationships people evaluate how close their partners come to matching their ideals, but these perceptions are highly subjective, so partners often come to idealize each other. Self-disclosure: when one shares a piece of personal information with another. Close relationships with friends and lovers are often built through self-disclosure.

11. Interpersonal Attraction (continued) Perspectives on Love Some theorists distinguish between passionate love and companionate love , with the latter divisible into intimacy and commitment . Another approach views romantic love as an attachment process and argues that love relationships in adulthood mimic attachment patterns in infancy, which fall into three categories: secure, anxious-ambivalent, and avoidant. Cultural and Evolutionary Influences The traits that people seek in prospective mates seem to transcend culture, but societies vary in their emphasis on romantic love as a prerequisite for marriage. According to the evolutionary psychologists, some aspects of good looks influence attraction because they have been indicators of reproductive fitness. Men tend to be more interested than women in seeking youthfulness and attractiveness in mates, whereas women tend to emphasize potential mates’ financial prospects. The gender gap in mating priorities influences the tactics that men and women use in pursuing romantic relationships. Women tend to underestimate men’s relationship commitment, whereas men tend to overestimate women’s sexual interest.

13. Attitude Formation and Change Attitude - a set of beliefs and feelings Attitudes are evaluative meaning that our feelings toward aspects of our environment are necessarily positive or negative Mere exposure effect states that the more one is exposed to something, the more one will come to like it

14. Attitude Formation and Change (continued) Advertising The Message vs. The Communicator the communicator has been found to influence the effectiveness of the message attractive people, famous people, and experts are among the most persuasive communicators the way a message is presented can influence how effective and influential the message will be when dealing with a relatively uniformed audience, presenting a one-side message is best, however, when attempting to influence a more sophisticated audience, a communication that acknowledges and then refutes opposing arguments will be more effective some research says messages that arouse fear are effective, however too much fear can cause people to react negatively to the message itself

15. Attitude Formation and Change (continued) The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior 1934- LaPiere conducted an early study that illustrated that the relationship between attitudes and behaviors is far from perfect attitudes do not perfectly predict behaviors what people say they would do and what they actually would do often differ cognitive dissonance theory is based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors when they do not, they experience unpleasant mental tension or dissonance Festinger and Carlsmith conducted an experiment in which subjects performed a boring task and were then asked to lie and tell the next subject that they had enjoyed the task. T o reduce the dissonance, they changed their attitudes and said that they actually did not enjoy the experiment.

16. Attitude Formation and Change (continued) Compliance Strategies foot-in-the-door phenomenon suggests that if you can get people to agree to a small request, they will become more likely to agree to a follow-up request, they will become more likely to agree to a follow-up request that is larger door-in-the-face strategy argues that after people refuse a large request, they will look more favorably upon a follow-up request that seems, in comparison, more reasonable norms of reciprocity - when people tend to think that when someone does something nice for them, they ought to do something nice in return

17. Attitude Formation and Change (continued) The Influence of Others on an Individual's Behavior the phenomenon in which the presence of others improves task performance is known as social facilitation social impairment is when a task being observed is a difficult one rather than a simple, well-practiced skill, and being watched by others actually hurt performance

18. Conformity Conformity is the tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of others

19. Conformity (continued) Solomon Asch (1951) conformity involves following a group without being explicitly told to do so Conformity becomes more likely as group size increases up to a size of seven. Stanley Milgram (1974) obedience studies have focused on participants' willingness to do what another asks them to do Adult men drawn from the community showed a remarkable tendency to follow orders to shock an innocent stranger, with 65% delivering the maximum shock.

20. Group Dynamics Some groups are more cohesive that others and exert more pressure on their members All groups have norms which are rules about how group members should act Within groups is often a set of specific roles

21. Group Dynamics (continued) Social loafing is the phenomenon when individuals do not put in as much effort when acting as part of a group as they do when acting alone As part of a group, a person may be less motivated to put in an impressive performance Being part of a group may encourage members to take advantage of the opportunity to reap the rewards of the group effort without taxing themselves unnecessarily Group polarization is the tendency of a group to make more extreme decisions than the group members would make individually Loss of self-restraint occurs when group members feel anonymous and aroused, and this phenomenon is known as deindividuation Groupthink occurs when group members suppress their reservations about the ideas supported by the group as a result, false unanimity is encouraged and flaws the the group's decisions may be overlooked

22. Unifying Themes of Psychology for the Social Behavior Chapter: Psychology if empirical Behavior is shaped by cultural heritage People’s experience of the world is highly subjective