Social Psychology
Marshall High School Psychology Mr. Cline Unit One BB * What is Social Psychology?
• Do you attribute your success to your abilities and failure to outside forces?
• We are going to look at possible ways of weighing personal responsibility and environmental factors when trying to determine what caused an outcome.
• Internal vs. External Causes of Behavior
• When you achieve a goal, do you attribute your success to your abilities or to the situation?
• Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider developed attribution theory to explain the process by which we attribute outcomes based on internal behavior and external events.
• Internal causes include emotions, talent and other personal characteristics, whereas external reasons include environmental factors.
• Imagine driving past the scene of an accident on the highway.
• The driver, who is unharmed, looks very young.
• Without any knowledge of the situation, you may come to the conclusion that the accident was the driver's fault. * What is Social Psychology?
• Internal vs. External Causes of Behavior
• We might assume that it was due to inexperience, assigning an internal behavior, the driver's ability, as the cause.
• In reality, at the time of the accident there was an external factor: a deer ran out in front of the car, causing the driver to swerve off the road to avoid hitting it.
• Stable vs. Unstable Causes of Behavior
• Cognitive psychologist Bernard Weiner built on Heider's attribution theory to distinguish between stable and uncontrollable causes in evaluating performance.
• Adding this dimension, internal and external factors could either have unchanging or variable aspects.
• For example, a baseball player can have a natural athletic ability, which is an internal-stable factor; however, the amount of effort that they put into batting practice from day to day is an internal-unstable factor.
• Hitting a home run is a difficult task, or an external-stable factor, whereas the wind blowing in the right direction at the exact moment the bat hits the ball is pure luck and is thus an external-unstable factor. * What is Social Psychology?
• Errors in Assigning Cause
• The tendency to celebrate our own success as an indication of our internal abilities and failure as a result of external factors is an error recognized as self-serving bias.
• For example, a baseball player might claim that his grand slam was due to talent but chalk up losing the game to a bad luck streak.
• On the other hand, the common trend of blaming internal behaviors is known as the fundamental attribution error.
• It's easy to fall into the trap of faulting people rather than situations, as was the case for the car crash example.
• A third error in assigning cause is called the just world hypothesis, which assumes that judgments on performance are fair and people get the outcome that they deserve.
• The error in this logic is that it blames the victim, even when external factors are involved.
• When you encounter a homeless person, do you assume they're lazy or do you consider possible external factors, like lack of access to education?
• According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans in 2011, over 30% of the adult homeless population in America served military duty and suffer from a lack of adequate health care, affordable housing and support networks (www.nchv.org). * What is Social Psychology?
• Errors in Assigning Cause
• We all attribute causes to categorize behaviors and events. Since these attributions influence the way we interact with others, it's important to consider both internal and external reasons which are either controllable or beyond a person's control.
• So, how can we be persuaded to change our attitudes or behave in a certain way?
• We will now look at four strategies of persuasion that can be used in a variety of social situations.
• Let's consider how our friends, family members and social groups influence our attitudes. How does society and peer pressure persuade us to behave in certain ways?
• Strategies of Persuasion
• 'You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.' According to the reciprocity norm, we are likely to feel obligated to exchange social gestures in kind.
• When someone gives us something or does us a favor, social rules dictate that we should return the courtesy. * What is Social Psychology?
• Persuasion
• Another method of persuasion is the lowball technique.
• Say you're looking at new cars. You've already agreed to the initial offer, when the dealer asks you if you want to add on features, like GPS or satellite radio, which are available at an added cost.
• You're more likely to pay the higher price once you've already agreed to the base rate.
• It's a good idea to read the fine print on that 'special offer.'
• One more common sales strategy is to create a false sense of scarcity.
• Have you ever bought something because it was only available for a limited time?
• The scarcity principle relies on the idea that limited edition items seem more attractive because they're in short supply.
• You better grab them fast before they run out! * What is Social Psychology?
• Persuasion
• Coercive persuasion is a tactic that uses fear to manipulate people.
• By placing people in stressful and vulnerable situations where outside information is restricted, cult leaders persuade members to rely on the group for relief.
• As you can see, social influences affect the ways people make decisions on a daily basis.
• They shape our interactions with other people, as well as our buying habits.
• Some groups use coercive persuasion to alter and reward certain types of behavior, but similar tactics can be used for marketing and advertising, as well as for enforcing social rules.
• Many of these tactics rely on us conforming to accepted social norms.
• Why do we conform?
• How do factors like group size and social status affect the likelihood of conformity?
• We will look at two types of conformity to attempt to answer those questions. * What is Social Psychology?
• Social Pressure
• Why do we give in to peer pressure?
• Sometimes we change our attitudes and behaviors so people will like us. This behavior is called normative conformity, or acting within social norms.
• Other times, we look to the group to provide knowledge about appropriate behaviors and attitudes. This behavior is known as informational conformity, or the tendency to rely on group wisdom to dictate appropriate actions.
• Imagine it's your first year in college. You're excited to meet new people, so you join a special interest group for environmentally conscientious students.
• You're also on the soccer team. After a winning game, your teammates all go out to celebrate. While you're parading through the campus, your teammates are tossing bottles and food wrappers on the ground.
• As you pass a member of your eco-group, you see her expression of disgust as litter lands at her feet.
• Do you say something to your teammates? * What is Social Psychology?
• Social Pressure
• A common response would be to give in to the majority and act like you don't care that your teammates are littering.
• Your soccer team is made up of 30 of the most popular students on campus, and you're afraid what they'll think if you don't show loyalty to the group.
• You want them to accept you and invite you to other team social events.
• Group size affects the level to which individuals conform.
• Conformity increases when the majority of the group members are acting in unison, an effect that can be compared to herd behavior, what we can also refer to as mob mentality.
• What if you did say something and this gave others the courage to also speak up?
• When it comes to views about littering and the environment, you follow the lead of the environmental group and tap into that group's informational influence.
• You and your eco-friend start picking up the trail of litter.
• Conformity is sometimes eliminated when one person diverges from the group. * What is Social Psychology?
• Social Pressure
• Unanimous beliefs are the most influential, but a minority influence can impact a larger group if persuasive.
• How does the fact that you're one of the newest members of the team impact your decision?
• If you were the team captain, would you be more likely to tell your teammates that their actions weren't cool?
• Conformity is more likely when the message is coming from higher status individuals.
• On the flip side, people with low self esteem are more likely to conform than those with high self esteem.
• Soloman Asch's Conformity Experiments
• You may recall this from day one.
• In the 1950's, a group of male students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania were told they were participating in a study of visual perception.
• The subjects were seated in a row and shown two cards, one with a single black line and the other with three lines of varying lengths, one of which was the same length as the line on the other card.
• All but one of the participants was told to answer correctly during the first two trials and incorrectly the third time. * What is Social Psychology?
• Soloman Asch's Conformity Experiments
• The participants announced their answers verbally, so the final respondent, who had not been told to give a certain response, would either conform to the majority or deviate from the norm.
• This is a video of Dr. Asch conducting the experiment * What is Social Psychology?
• Soloman Asch's Conformity Experiments
• This study showed that about 25% of the participants never conformed.
• Surprisingly, the 75% who did conform went with the majority, even when the wrong answer was given and the difference in the length of the lines was as much as seven inches!
• Cultural Influences
• Additionally, conformity is stronger in cultures where a collective group identity is stressed (such as in Asia, Africa and Latin America) and less valued in cultures where individualism and diversity is valued (as is the case in North America and Western Europe).
• Personal commitment to a group increases our level of conformity with that group.