Social Psychology

• Basic premise: Who we are is determined by our social interactions– --Past: our social development– --Present: social influence

We’ll start with an area of overlap between cognition and social influence; attitudes, and the drive toward attitude consistency

Strong Generalization About Attitudes

We like to maintain consistancy of attitudes:

1. selective exposure2. selective interpretation 3. selective memory

Stronger Theories of Attitude Consistency

• Balance Theory (Heider)

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)

• Self Perception Theory (Bem)

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Leon Festinger: Two cognitions that are in conflict or dissonant (one implies the opposite of the other) result in pressure to change one or both to bring them into consonance

• In practice, the two are an attitude and a behavior and the attitude changes

Three types of Dissonance Situations or Experiments

• Justification of effort (Aronson & Mills)

• Inadequate external justification

--when prophecy fails (Ms. Keech)

--counterattitudinal advocacy (Yale)

• Consequences of a decision (Brehm)

Knox & Inkster betting study (consequences of making a decision)

Self Perception Theory- Bem

• The theory and its relation to cog. diss.

• Experimental evidence (Bem, Valins)

• Can we know ourselves given all this?

• (Back to Missouri!)

Emotion and Self-Perception

• Emotions involve both bodily activation (brain-endocrine) and precipitating stimuli

• Naïve view: perception of p-stimuli causes us to feel a certain way-->activates body

• James-Lange view: p-stim. causes physiological arousal--> perceived emotion

• Cognitive theory: p-stim. + physiol. arousal --> perceived emotional state

Social Influence (continued): some dangerous findings

Bystandar Apathy

Conformity

Obedience

Bystander Apathy & Intervention

• Surprising work of Darley & Latane on the effect of the no. of bystanders

Mechanisms That Produce Bystander Apathy Effects

1. moral diffusion 2. lack of clarity--ambiguity of interp. and of

action. airport/subway crutch--fall 83 vs. 41 % helped, and they were people more familiar with the surround.

3. costs of intervention. sometimes they are raised bythe presence of others (surveillance)

4. rules for behaving: don't stare, unless you know what to do/day, keep your mouth shut etc.

5) mood: Isen dime in coin slot mailing letter 10-->90 %

Solomon Asch: Conformity

• Conformity: Good or bad?

• Major findings: 1/3 & 2/3 conform!

• What it takes to resist!

• Conclusion

Stanley Milgram: Obedience

• Description of Experiment

• Basic findings 2/3

• Field theory explanation (exper. vs. victim force fields)

Underlying Explanation

• Foot in the door

• Other is responsible (diffusion of resp.)

• Aloneness- lack of social support

• Ambiguity about situation/what to do!!!

• Other directedness (Reisman)

Schein’s POW Work

• Level of compliance and how it was obtained

• The power of social isolation

• Who resisted?

• Solution: inner codes vs. external or situational control

• Conclusion: balance?……