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Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY
(6th Ed)
Chapter 18
Social Psychology
James A. McCubbin, PhD
Clemson University
Worth Publishers
 A- Sensorimotor
 B- Preconventional
 C- Intimacy vs.
Isolation
 D- Formal Operational
 E- Trust vs. Mistrust
 F- Generativity vs.
Stagnation
 G- Concrete
Operational
 H- Postconventional
 I- Conventional
 J- Autonomy vs. Shame
and Doubt
 K- Integrity vs. Despair
 L- Preoperational
Social Thinking
 Social Psychology
 scientific study of how we think about,
influence, and relate to one another
 Attribution Theory
 tendency to give a causal explanation for
someone’s behavior, often by crediting
either the situation or the person’s
disposition
Social Thinking
 Fundamental Attribution Error
 tendency for observers, when analyzing
another’s behavior, to underestimate the
impact of the situation and to
overestimate the impact of personal
disposition
 Attitude
 belief and feeling that predisposes one to
respond in a particular way to objects,
people and events
Social Thinking
 How we explain someone’s behavior affects
how we react to it
Situational attribution
“Maybe that driver is ill.”
Tolerant reaction
(proceed cautiously, allow
driver a wide berth)
Dispositional attribution
“Crazy driver!”
Unfavorable reaction
(speed up and race past the
other driver, give a dirty look)
Negative behavior
Social Thinking
 Our behavior is affected by our inner
attitudes as well as by external social
influences
Internal
attitudes
External
influences
Behavior
Social Thinking
 Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
 tendency for people who have first
agreed to a small request to comply
later with a larger request
 Role
 set of expectations about a social
position
 defines how those in the position
ought to behave
Zimbardo Experiment
 Male volunteers randomly assigned to be either guards
or prisoners
 Guards instructed to maintain order
 Within two days:
 Guards acted cruelly, often without reason
 Prisoners showed signs of extreme stress and
depression
 Had to end experiment after 6 days, even though it
was meant to last two weeks
 No lasting results, but changed ethical standards of
experimentation
Social Thinking
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
 we act to reduce the discomfort
(dissonance) we feel when two of our
thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent
 example- when we become aware that
our attitudes and our actions clash, we
can reduce the resulting dissonance by
changing our attitudes
Social Thinking
 Cognitive dissonance
Social Influence
Conformity
 adjusting one’s behavior or
thinking to coincide with a
group standard
Normative Social Influence
 influence resulting from a
person’s desire to gain
approval or avoid disapproval
Group Pressure to Conform
 Asch Study
 Participants shown a card with three lines on it
and asked to pick the one that is the same length
as the first line
 When all other group members give the incorrect
answer, the participant conforms at least half the
time
 Why?
Conformity is the standard means of gaining
approval and being liked- taught as children
Social Influence
 Asch’s conformity experiments
Social Influence
 Norm
 an understood rule for accepted
and expected behavior
 prescribes “proper” behavior
 Informational Social Influence
 influence resulting from one’s
willingness to accept others’
opinions about reality
Milgram’s Experiment
 1960- Would participants administer painful
shocks to others merely because an
authority figure had instructed them to do
so?
 2000 male participants
 Told they were participating in a study on
learning
 Each time the learner made a mistake, the
“teacher” was ordered to push a button to deliver
an electric shock
 Shocks were false, but they did not realize this
because the learners displayed distress and pain
Milgram’s Experiment
 62% of the volunteers pushed the shock
button until they reached maximum severity
 Implied that ordinary individuals could
easily inflict pain on others if such
issues were ordered by an authority
figure.
 Ethical issues?
 Replication?
 Has been replicated with young, liberal college
students
Milgram’s Experiment
Social Influence
 Milgram’s follow-up obedience experiment
Percentage
of subjects
who obeyed
experimenter
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
The majority of
subjects continued
to obey to the end
Moderate
Very
Extreme
XXX
Slight (75-120) Strong
strong Intense intensity Danger (435-450)
(15-60)
(135-180) (195-240) (255-300) (315-360) severe
(375-420)
Shock levels in volts
Social Influence
 Social Facilitation
 improved performance of tasks in the
presence of others
 occurs with simple or well-learned tasks
but not with tasks that are difficult or
not yet mastered
 Social Loafing
 tendency for people in a group to exert
less effort when pooling their efforts
toward attaining a common goal than
when individually accountable
Social Facilitation
Home Advantage in Major Team Sports
Sport
Games
Studied
Home Team
Winning
Percentage
Baseball
23,034
53.3%
Football
2,592
57.3
Ice hockey
4,322
61.1
Basketball
13,596
64.4
Soccer
37,202
69.0
Social Influence
 Deindividuation
 loss of self-awareness and
self-restraint in group
situations that foster arousal
and anonymity
Group Decision Making
Group polarization- group discussion
reinforces the majority’s point of view
and shifts group members’ views to a
more extreme position
Before
Against
For
Against
For
After
Group Decision Making
Groupthink- poor decision making that
occurs as a result of a group
emphasizing unity over critical
thinking
 Might refrain from criticizing each other or
might not discuss opposing viewpoints
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Social Influence
High +4
+3
+2
High-prejudice
groups
+1
Prejudice 0
Low-prejudice
groups
-1
-2
-3
Low -4
Before discussion
After discussion
 If a group is
like-minded,
discussion
strengthens
its prevailing
opinions
Social Influence
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
 occurs when one person’s
belief about others leads one
to act in ways that induce the
others to appear to confirm
the belief
Prejudice and Discrimination
 Prejudice- Prejudgment; an ATTITUDE
towards a person or group
 Formed without sufficient evidence
 Not easily changed
 Strengthened by stereotypes
 Discrimination- unequal TREATMENT
towards individuals based on membership in
a group instead of individual characteristics
 Stereotype
 a generalized (often overgeneralized) belief about
a group of people
Social Relations
 Americans today express much less
racial and gender prejudice
Percentage 90
answering 80
yes 70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Would you vote for
a woman president?
Do whites have a right
to keep minorities out of
their neighborhoods?
1936 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
Year
Social Relations
 Ingroup
 “Us”- people with whom one
shares a common identity
 Outgroup
 “Them”- those perceived as different or
apart from one’s ingroup
Social Relations
 Ingroup Bias
 tendency to favor one’s own group
 Scapegoat Theory
 theory that prejudice provides an outlet for
anger by providing someone to blame
 Just-World Phenomenon
 tendency of people to believe the world is
just
 people get what they deserve and deserve
what they get
Social Relations
 Aggression
 any physical or verbal behavior
intended to hurt or destroy
 Frustration-Aggression Principle
 principle that frustration – the
blocking of an attempt to achieve
some goal – creates anger, which
can generate aggression
Social Relations
 Uncomfortably hot weather and aggression
Murders 8.0
and rapes
per day in
7.5
Houston, Texas
7.0
6.5
6.0
40-68
69-78
79-85
86-91 92-99
Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit
Social Relations
 Juvenile violent crime arrest rates
Arrest per 1,000
100,000
15- to 17- 900
year-olds 800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Social Relations
 Men who sexually coerce women
Sexual
promiscuity
Coerciveness
against
women
Hostile
masculinity
Social Relations
 Conflict
 perceived incompatibility of actions, goals,
or ideas
 Social Trap
 a situation in which the conflicting parties,
by each rationally pursuing their selfinterest, become caught in mutually
destructive behavior
Social Relations
Person 1
Person 2
Choose B
Choose A
Choose A
Choose B
Optimal
outcome
Probable
outcome
 Social trap
 by pursuing
our selfinterest and
not trusting
others, we
can end up
losers
Social Relations
 Equity
 a condition in which people receive from
a relationship in proportion to what they
give to it
 Self-disclosure
 revealing intimate aspects of oneself to
others
 Altruism
 unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Social Relations
 The decision-making process for
bystander intervention
Notices
incident?
Yes
Interprets
incident as
emergency?
No
No
help
Yes
Assumes
responsibility?
No
No
help
No
No
help
Yes
Attempts
to help
Social Relations
100
Percentage
attempting
to help
 Bystander
Effect
90
90
80
80
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
0
11
2
2
33
Number of others
presumed available to help
44
 tendency for
any given
bystander to
be less likely
to give aid if
other
bystanders
are present
Social Relations
 Social Exchange Theory
 the theory that our social
behavior is an exchange process,
the aim of which is to maximize
benefits and minimize costs
 Superordinate Goals
 shared goals that override
differences among people and
require their cooperation
Social Relations
 Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in
Tension-reduction (GRIT)
 a strategy designed to decrease
international tensions
 one side announces recognition of
mutual interests and initiates a small
conciliatory act
 opens door for reciprocation by other
party
Schachter- Anxiety- “Misery loves
company”
People suffering from a high
level of anxiety are more likely to
seek out company than those
who are less anxious
Women told that they would
receive shocks and asked if they
wanted to wait alone or together
How we Choose Friends
Physical proximity
Reward Values
 Stimulation value- can expose you to new
ideas or experiences
 Utility value- can help you achieve your
goals
 Ego-Support Value- provides sympathy,
approval, encouragement
How We Choose Friends
Approval- agree with us and support
us
Similarity- in background, attitude,
and interests
Complemtarity- attraction between
opposite types of people because of
the ability to supply what the other
lacks
 Still unable to verify that opposites attract
How We Choose Friends
 Physical Appearance (Dion)
 Attractive people are consistently viewed more
positively
Seen as more sensitive, kinds, strong, poised,
and modest
Obese adults are discriminated against when
applying for jobs
Unattractive children are more likely to be
judged for bad behavior
Both men and women pay less attention to
physical appearance when choosing a marriage
partner than inviting someone to a party
First Impressions
 Initial judgments may influence us more than
later information
 Primacy effect- the tendency to form
opinions of others based on first impressions
 Self fulfilling prophecy- the way in which
you act towards someone changes depending
on your impression of him or her and this in
turn affects how that person acts with you
 Mere exposure effect- repeated exposure
to novel stimuli increases liking of them
Love Relationships
The idea of love without marriage no
longer is shocking, but the idea of
marriage without love is unpopular to
most Americans
 One of the main reasons people have a
difficult time adjusting to love and
marriage
May explain the divorce rate
Types of Love- Hartfield
 Passionate love- intense, sensual, and allconsuming
 Feelings of excitement and sexuality, but also of
danger- that it might go away
 Usually fades in any romantic relationship
 Compassionate love- friendship, liking
someone, mutual trusting
 There when passionate love fades, more stable
Rubin Study
 Couples who had been together from a few
weeks to six or seven years answered
questions about their partners and their
same sex friends
 Liking- respect for another person and feelings of
similarity
 LovingNeed or attachment- strong desire to be with the
other person
Caring, or the desire to give- very altruistic, not
self-centered
Intimacy- uncensored self-disclosure- risky!!
Rubin Study
 Differences between men and women
 Women express the same degree of love for her
partner as he did for her
 But women tend to like their boyfriends- respect
and identify with them-more than their bfs liked
them
 Women tended to love and share intimacies with
their same sex-friends more than men
 One year later, when both the man and women
expressed interest, the relationship is more likely
to progress
Love does not happen to you; you must work at
it and nurture it!
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of
Love
Different kinds of love are made of
different degrees of intimacy, passion,
and commitment
Intimacy + Passion
Physically and emotionally
Connected without commitment
(True Friendships w/o Passion;
Long-Term Commitment)
All 3- Ideal difficult
to obtain
Passionate, obsessive
Love at first sight without
Intimacy or commitment
Passion + Commitment
(Commitment based on
Passion without time for
Intimacy to develop;
Shallow relationship)
Intimacy + Commitment
(Long-Term Committed
Friendships, such as marriages
with faded passion)
Desire to love each other
Without intimacy or
passion
Marriage
Chances best if similar backgrounds,
levels of education, religious view
parents are happily married, happy
childhoods, good relations with family
Tend to marry people who are of
similar attractiveness, age, and
physique
Social Relations
 Equity
 a condition in which people receive from
a relationship in proportion to what they
give to it
 Self-disclosure
 revealing intimate aspects of oneself to
others
 Altruism
 unselfish regard for the welfare of others
Social Relations
 The decision-making process for
bystander intervention
Notices
incident?
Yes
Interprets
incident as
emergency?
No
No
help
Yes
Assumes
responsibility?
No
No
help
No
No
help
Yes
Attempts
to help
Social Relations
100
Percentage
attempting
to help
 Bystander Effect
 tendency for
any given
bystander to
be less likely to
give aid if
other
bystanders are
present
90
90
80
80
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
0
11
2
2
33
Number of others
presumed available to help
44
Social Relations
 Social Exchange Theory
 the theory that our social
behavior is an exchange process,
the aim of which is to maximize
benefits and minimize costs
 Superordinate Goals
 shared goals that override
differences among people and
require their cooperation
Social Relations
 Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in
Tension-reduction (GRIT)
 a strategy designed to decrease
international tensions
 one side announces recognition of
mutual interests and initiates a small
conciliatory act
 opens door for reciprocation by other
party