Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers Psychology Fifth Edition Chapter 12: Social Psychology Don H....

Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers

PsychologyFifth Edition

Chapter 12:Social Psychology

Don H. Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury


Social Psychology

The branch of psychology that studies how people think, feel, and behave in

social situations


How Do We Form Impressions of Other People? Deciding where to sit in a subway car or on the bus involves making some quick decisions about other people. What kinds of factors do you consider when youmake such judgments about others?


“Goodbye everybody.”

© The New Yorker Collection 2004 Robert Leighton from Cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.


Person Perception Your reactions are determined by your

perceptions of others Your goals determine the amount and

kind of information you collect You evaluate people partly in terms of

how you expect them to behave (social norms)

Your self-perception influences how you perceive others


What do you expect?


Using Social Categories We often use superficial cues such as clothing and context to assign people to social categories and draw conclusions about their behavior. For example, you might characterize some people in this crowd as belonging to the category of “businessmen” because they are wearing dress shirts and ties—and conclude that they are on their way to work. What other sorts of social categories are evident here?


Physical Attractiveness

Implicit cultural message is “beautiful is good” Attractive people are perceived as more

intelligent, happier, and better adjusted Really no difference between attractive and

less attractive people on these characteristics Attractive people are more likely to attribute

other people’s approval of their accomplishments to looks rather than effort or talent.


What Is Beautiful Is Good We are culturally conditioned to associate beauty with goodness and evil with ugliness—an implicit personality theory that has been dubbed the “what is beautiful is good” myth. One example of this cultural conditioning is the classic Disney film Snow White. In the scene shown, the wicked stepmother is disguised as an old woman, complete with a wart on her nose. She offers the poisoned apple to the innocent and virtuous heroine, Snow White. (The Walt Disney Co.)


Pogo the Clown Dressed as Pogo theclown, John would visit sick children inthe hospital to cheer them up. He was Also a successful building contractor and active in local politics. Giventhis information, what sorts of personal qualities would you expect him to display?


Eye-Contact Face Non–Eye-Contact Face


Attribution

Process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own

The explanation given for a particular behavior


Attribution Bias

Fundamental attribution error Actor-observer discrepancy Blaming the victim (just-world

hypothesis) Self-serving bias Self-effacing bias


Fundamental attribution error

We attribute the behavior of others to internal, personal characteristics while ignoring or underestimating the effect of external or situational factors.

Situation: It appears that someone cut you off when changing lanes on the highway.


FAE thought

“What a stupid jerk. He doesn’t care who he hurts.”


The reality The driver’s wife is lying down in the

back seat in labor; they’re on their way to the hospital. He wasn’t focused on the road because his wife was screaming in pain.


Situation: A man is in line at the grocery store in the express lane (12 items or less). He had 16 items.


FAE thought: A customer comes up behind the

man just as he is placing items on the belt and thinks, “How dare he have so many extra items. This is an express lane. He can wait in the long lines like everyone else. He thinks he is so special and doesn’t have to follow the rules.”


Reality: No one was behind him when he

was approaching the lane. The man asked the checker if it was all right to come through with a few extra items. The response from the checker was, “Sure, come on.”


Using Attitudes as Ways to “Justify” Injustice

Just-world bias a tendency to believe that life is fair, e.g., it would

seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway

Just-world bias leads to “blaming the victim” we explain others’ misfortunes as being their fault, e.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she doing

in that neighborhood anyway?


Blaming the Victim Fifteen-year-old Shawn Hornbeck is shown at a press conference, shortly after being reunited with his family. Four years earlier, Shawn had been kidnapped and held captive. When the FBI suspected Shawn’s kidnapper in the abduction of another boy, both boys were rescued. As details of Shawn’s captivity became public, many people asked why Shawn hadn’t tried to escape or call the police while his kidnapper was at work. As it turned out, the kidnapper had abused and terrorized Shawn for months. At one point, he tried to strangle Shawn. When Shawn pleaded for his life, the kidnapper made the boy promise that he would never try to escape. “There wasn’t a day when I didn’t think that he’d just kill me, ”Shawn later recalled. Why do people often “blame the victim” after crimes, accidents, or other tragedies?


When You Can’t Blame the Victim “Blaming the victim” is one way that people reestablish their belief that the worldis just. But what about situations where it is impossible to justify the victim’s fate, as in the case of people who died in the terrorist attacks against the United States in September 2001? Psychologist Cheryl Kaiser and her colleagues (2004) found that when people feel sympathy for the victim, they tend to use a different strategy to restore balance to the world: they advocate revenge against those who perpetrated the injustice. As Kaiser explains, “Punishing the people who perpetrated the injustice is a form of retributive justice: Although bad things happened to good people, if the bad people are punished, they will get what they deserve, which willrestore justice.”


Actor observer discrepancy

When it comes to explaining our behavior (actor), we use external or situational factors, but in the same situation, we attribute other’s behavior to internal factors.

It could be that we have more information to make an explanation.

We are less susceptible to this with people we know well.


Explaining Misfortune: The Self-Serving Bias Given the self-serving bias, is this bicyclist likely to explain his accident by listing internal factors such as his own carelessness or recklessness? Or is he more likely to blame external factors, such as swerving to miss a spectator or catching his tire in a rut? Just so you know, the fallen rider Wearing orange is American Lance Armstrong, who crashed after his handlebars snagged on a plastic bag held by a spectator, Armstrong went on to win the Tour de France.


Attitudes

What is an attitude? predisposition to evaluate some people,

groups, or issues in a particular way can be negative or positive Has three components

Cognitive—thoughts about given topic or situation Affective—feelings or emotions about topic Behavioral—your actions regarding the topic or

situation


Figure 12.1 The Components of Attitudes An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of an object, person, or idea. An attitude may have cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.


Attitudes and Behavior These Greenpeaceactivists have set up a symbolic wind turbine in front of the Castle Peak coal power station in Hong Kong. They are demonstrating their commitment to renewable energy and their opposition to coal plants in Asia that contribute to global warming. People who hold strong opinions and express them frequently, like these Greenpeace activists, are most likely to behave in accordance with their attitudes.


Cognitive Dissonance

Unpleasant state of psychological tension or arousal that occurs when two thoughts or perceptions are inconsistent

Attitudes and behaviors are in conflict it is uncomfortable for us we seek ways to decrease discomfort

caused by the inconsistency


Fried Grasshoppers: Tasty or Disgusting? Most Americans do not rate fried grasshoppers as one of their favorite foods. Suppose you agreed to eat a handful ofgrasshoppers after being asked to do so by a rude, unfriendly research assistant. Do you think your attitude toward fried grasshoppers would improve more than aperson who ate grasshoppers after being asked to do so by a friendly, polite experimenter?


Figure 12.2 How Cognitive Dissonance Leads to Attitude Change When your behavior conflicts with your attitudes, an uncomfortable state of tension is produced. However, if you can rationalize or explain your behavior, the conflict (and the tension) is eliminated or avoided. If you can’t ex-plain your behavior, you may change your attitude so that it is in harmony with your behavior.


Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms Avoiding dissonant information

– we attend to information in support of our existing views, rather than information that doesn’t support them

Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an action– once we’ve made a choice to do something,

lingering doubts about our actions would cause dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside


Prejudice

A negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific social group


Stereotypes

What is a stereotype?

A cluster of characteristics associated with all members of a specific group of people

a belief held by members of one group about members of another group


Philip G. Zimbardo Phil Zimbardo (b.1933) grew up in an immigrant family in a poor neighborhood in the South Bronx, an experience that sensitized him to the power of situational influences and the destructive nature of stereotypes and prejudice (Zimbardo, 2005, 2007). Much of Zimbardo’s research has been focused on investigating what he has called “the subtle but pervasive power of situations to influence human behavior.” Zimbardo’s research has ranged from attitude change to shyness, prison reform, and the psychology of evil. As Zimbardo (2000b) observes, "The joy of being a psychologist is that almost everything in life is psychology, or should be, or could be. One can’t live mindfully without being enmeshed in the psychological processes that are around us.” Later in the chapter, we’ll encounter the experiment for which Zimbardo is most famous—the Stanford Prison Experiment.


Combating Prejudice and Stereotyping The attacks on the United States by members of a radical Islamic terrorist group in September 2001 brought an increased awareness of religious differences among ethnic groups. But along with outbreaks of anger against members of certain religious groups, there were also many attempts toreach across racial, ethnic, and religious divisions to find a new sense of national unity. Here, clergy of different faiths join hands and sing during an interfaith prayer service in Detroit, Michigan, one of hundreds that took place in cities across the country in the days and weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.


The Power of Stereo-types American movies have made the image of the cowboy almost universally recognizable. What kinds of qualities are associated with the stereotype of the cowboy? How might that stereotype be an inaccurate portrayal of a person working on a cattle ranch today?


Social Categories

In-group—the social group to which we belong In-group bias—tendency to make favorable

attributions for members of our in-group Ethnocentrism is one type of in-group bias

Out-group—the social group to which you do not belong Out group homogeneity effect—tendency to

see members of the out-group as more similar to each other


Social Identity and CooperationSocial identity theory states that when you’re assigned to a group, you

automatically think of that group as an in-group for you

Sherif’s Robbers Cave study 11–12 year old boys at camp boys were divided into 2 groups and kept

separate from one another

each group took on characteristics of distinct social group, with leaders, rules, norms of behavior, and names


Robbers Cave (Sherif)

Leaders proposed series of competitive interactions which led to 3 changes between groups and within groupswithin-group solidarity negative stereotyping of other group hostile between-group interactions


Creating Conflict Between Groups Psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his co-leagues demonstrated how easily hostility and distrust could be created between two groups. Competitive situations, like this tug-of-war, increased tension between the Rattlers and the Eagles.


Robbers Cave

Overcoming the strong we/they effectestablishment of superordinate goals

e.g., breakdown in camp water supplyovercoming intergroup strife -

researchstereotypes are diluted when people

share individuating information


Overcoming Group Conflict To decrease hostility betweenthe Rattlers and the Eagles atRobbers Cave, the Researchers created situationsthat required the joint efforts Of both groups to achieve acommon goal, such as fixingthe water supply. These cooperative tasks helped the Boys recognize their common interests and become friends.


Social Influence

• How behavior is influenced by the social environment and the presence of other people

ConformityObedienceHelping Behaviors


Conformity

Adopting attitudes or behaviors of others because of pressure to do so; the pressure can be real or imagined

2 general reasons for conformity Informational social influence—other people

can provide useful and crucial information Normative social influence—desire to be

accepted as part of a group leads to that group having an influence


Asch’s Experiments on Conformity

Previous research had shown people will conform to others’ judgments more often when the evidence is

ambiguous


Life in society requires consensus as An indispensable condition. But consensus,to be productive, requires that each individual contribute independently outof his experience and insight. Whenconsensus comes under the dominanceof conformity, he social process is polluted and the individual at the same time surrenders the powers on which his functioning as a feeling and thinking being depends.”—SOLOMON ASCH (1955)


Figure 12.3 Sample Line Judgment Task Used in the Asch Conformity Studies In Asch’s classic studies on conformity, subjects were asked to pick the comparison line that matched the standard line.Source: Asch (1957).


Asch’s Experiments on Conformity

All but 1 in group was confederate

Seating was rigged Asked to rate which

line matched a “standard” line

Confederates were instructed to pick the wrong line 12/18 times

Comparison linesStandard lines1 2 3


Asch’s Experiments on Conformity Results

Asch found that 75% participants conformed to at least one wrong choice

subjects gave wrong answer (conformed) on 37% of the critical trials

Why did they conform to clearly wrong choices? informational influence? subjects reported having doubted their own

perceptual abilities which led to their conformance – didn’t report seeing the lines the way the confederates had


Effects of a Nonconformist

If everyone agrees, you are less likely to disagree

If one person disagrees, even if they give the wrong answer, you are more likely to express your nonconforming view

Asch tested this hypothesis one confederate gave different answer from

others conformity dropped significantly


Adolescents and Conformity Conformity to group norms peaks in early adolescence, as the similar Hairstyles and clothing of these friends show. Think back to your own adolescence. Do you remember how important it was to you to fit in with other adolescents, especially those in your peer group?


Obedience

Obedience compliance of person

is due to perceived authority of asker

request is perceived as a command

Milgram interested in unquestioning obedience to orders


Social Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Milgram is best known for his obedience studies, but his creative research skills went far beyond the topic ofobedience. To study the power of social norms, forexample, Milgram sent his students out into New York City to intrude into waiting lines or ask subway passengers to give up their seats. Milgram oftencapitalized on the “texture of every day life” to “examine the way in which the social world impinges on individual action and experience” (Milgram, 1974a).


The “Electric Chair” With the help of the real subject, who had been assigned to the role of “teacher,” the experimenter straps the “learner” into the electric chair. Unbeknownst to the real subject, the learner was actually a 47-year-old accountant who had been carefully rehearsed for his part in the experimental deception. The experimenter told both subjects, “Although the shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage.”


Milgram’s “Shock Generator” Machine A young Stanley Milgram sits next to his “shock generator.” Milgram went to great lengths to make the shock generator look as authentic as possible. The front panel of the bogus shock generator had been engraved by professional industrial engravers. Whenever the teacher pressed a shock switch, the red light above the switch went on, a buzzing and clicking sound was heard, and the needle on the voltage meter swung to the right. Very convincing details. Do you think you would have been fooled into believingthat this was a real shock generator?


The After effects of Milgram’s Study: Were Subjects Harmed? Milgram’s findings were disturbing. But some psychologists foundhis methods equally upsetting. For example, in one experimental variation, participants were ordered to physically hold the learner’s hand on a “shock plate.” Thirty percent obeyed. To psychologist DianaBaumrind (1964), it was unethical for Milgram to subject his participants to that level of emotional stress, humiliation, and loss of dignity. But Milgram (1964) countered that he had not set out to createstress in his subjects. It was his unanticipated results, not his methods, that disturbed people. Who would object to his experiment, he asked, “if everyone had broken off at ‘slight shock’ or at the first sign of the learner’s discomfort?”Concerns were also expressed that participants would experience serious after effects from the experiment. However, in a follow up questionnaire, 84% of participants in Milgram’s experiment Indicated that they were “glad to have taken part In the experiment,” and only about 1 percentregretted participating (Milgram, 1974b).


Figure 12.4 Factors That Decrease Destructive Obedience By systematically varying his basic experimental design, Milgram identified several factors that diminish the likelihood of destructive obedience. In this graph, you can see the percentage of subjects who administered the maximum shock in different experimental variations.For example, when Milgram’s subjects observed what they thought were two other subjects disobeying the experimenter, the real subjects followed their lead 90 per-cent of the time and refused to continue.Source: Adapted from data reported in Milgram (1974a).


Would you have obeyed? “I was instructed by persons in higher rank to ‘stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera,’” Lynndie England (2005) said. Among those calling the shots was her then lover, Corporal Charles Graner, the alleged ring leader who was sentenced to ten years in prison for his attacks on Iraqi detainees. Graner, England, and one other reservist were convicted of mistreatment and given prison sentences, while the other six Reservists made plea deals. No officers were court-martialed or charged with any criminal offense, although some were fined, demoted, or relieved of their command.


Accepting Responsibility At her trial, Lynndie England, the fileclerk from a small town in West Virginia, apologized for her actions. In an interview after her conviction, England (2005) Said that she was still “haunted” by memories of events in theprison. She would always feel guilty, she said, “for doing thewrong thing, posing in pictures when I shouldn’t have, degrading [the prisoners] and humiliating them—and not saying anything to anybody else to stop it.”


Destructive Obedience and Prejudice Blind obedience to authority combined with ethnic prejudice in Germany during World War II led to the slaughter of millions of Jews in concentration camps. When questioned after the war, Nazi officials and soldiers claimed that they were “just following orders.” Over the half-century since the end of World War II, genocide and politically inspired mass killings occurred in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda.


Today, in the Sudanese Darfur, more than 300,000 people have been killed and thousands more driven from their homes by armed militia groups.

Destructive Obedience and Prejudice


Explanations for Milgram’s Results

Abnormal group of subjects?numerous replications with variety of

groups shows no support

People in general are sadistic?videotapes of Milgram’s subjects show

extreme distress


Explanations for Milgram’s Results

Authority of Yale and value of science

Experimenter self-assurance and acceptance of responsibility

Proximity of learner and experimenter

New situation and no model of how to behave


Follow-Up Studies to Milgram


Why Don’t People Always Help Others in Need?

Diffusion of responsibilitypresence of others leads to

decreased help responsewe all think someone else will

help, so we don’t


Why Don’t People Always Help Others in Need?Latane studies

several scenarios designed to measure the help response

found that if you think you’re the only one that can hear or help, you are more likely to do so

if there are others around, you will diffuse the responsibility to others

Kitty Genovese incident


The Murder Scene At the end of the sidewalk you can see the railroad station where Genovese parked her car. Along the sidewalk are entrances to shops as well asstairways leading to apartments above the shops. After Genovese staggered to the entrance of her apartment, her attacker returned and stabbed her to death. Laterinvestigations suggested that there may have been fewer than 38 witnesses’ stories, and that some of those witnesses could not have seen the attacks from their windows (Manning & others, 2007, 2008). Nevertheless, the essential story is true: Many people heard Genovese’s screams, yet no one stepped forward to help (Brock, 2008).


Prosocial Behavior in Action Everyday life is filled with countless acts of prosocial behavior. Many people volunteer their time and energy to help others. In Modesto, California, Doug Lilly volunteers for “Meals on Wheels.” Along with delivering meals to about 65 elderly residents each week, Lilly also checks to make sure that they are safe and healthy.


Coming to the Aid of a Stranger Everyday life is filled with examples of people who come to the aid of a stranger in distress, like this sign posted at the corner of Toronto’s Queen and Palmerston streets. Without knowing any details beyond those written on the sign, can you identify factors that might have contributed to the helping behavior of the bystanders in this situation?


The Bystander Effect The couple on the left is obviously trying to ignore the heated argument between the man and Woman on the right—even though the man is physically threatening the woman. What factors in this situation make it less likely that bystanders will intervene and try to help a stranger? Do you think that you would intervene? Why or why not?


Individual and Groups

Social Loafing—tendency to expend less effort on a task when it is a group effort

Reduced when Group is composed of people we know We are members of a highly valued group Task is meaningful

Not as common in collectivist cultures


Social Loafing These teenagers, hard at work at a Habitat for Humanity building project in Austin, Texas, demonstrate that social loafing does not always take place. When people know the other members of their group, social loafing is less likely to occur. What other factors make social loafing less likely?


Social Facilitation As the crowd watches and applauds their performance, these professional runners are likely to turn in some of their best running times. When does the presence of other people facilitate the performance of a task? When does it work against us?


Deindividuation: Anonymity and Reduced Self-Awareness The hood and mask of the Ku Klux KlanUniform heighten the sense of anonymity felt by Klan members. So does the darkness of night at this cross-burning. Such factors add to the likelihood that People will commit antisocial acts that they would not commit if their identities were known.


Sales Techniques and Cognitive Dissonance

Foot-in-the-door technique ask for something small at first, then hit

customer with larger request later small request has paved the way to

compliance with the larger request cognitive dissonance results if person has

already granted a request for one thing, then refuses to give the larger item


Social Pressure in Group Decisions

Group polarization majority position

stronger after a group discussion in which a minority is arguing against the majority point of view

Why does this occur? informational and

normative influences

Against For

Group 1 Group 2Before group discussion

Strength of opinion(a)

Against For

Group 1 Group 2After group discussion

Strength of opinion(b)

Copyright © 2010 by Worth Publishers Psychology Fifth Edition Chapter 12: Social Psychology Don H....

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