Ch. 15

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Ch. 15

• Social Psychology

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• Social psychology is the scientific study of the
  ways in which the thoughts, feelings, and
  behaviors of one individual are influenced by the
  real, imagined, or inferred behavior or
  characteristics of other people.

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1. Social Cognition

• A. Impression Formation
• Schemata - ready-made categories
• Primacy effect
• Early info weighs more
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• We bring about expected behavior in another
  person
• Stereotypes
• A set of characteristics believed to be shared
  by all members of a social category

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• B. Attribution
• Explaining behavior
• Biases
• Fundamental attribution error
• Overemphasize personal causes for others and
  underestimate personal causes for self

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• Defensive attribution
• Success attributed to own efforts, failure to
  external factors
• Just-world hypothesis - assume bad things happen
  to bad people
• Attribution across cultures
• Varies dramatically

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• C. Interpersonal Attraction
• Proximity - living or working close
• Physical Attractiveness
• Power assumptions about character
• Similarity
• In attitudes, interests, values, background
• Exchange
• We like people who appreciate us
• Intimacy - self disclosure

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2. Attitudes

• A. The Nature of Attitudes
• Attitudes and behaviors
• Relatively stable beliefs, feelings, and
  behaviors (math)
• Self-monitoring
• Behave as others expect
• Attitude development
• Imitation
• Reward
• Teachers
• Peers
• Mass media

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• B. Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice
• Unfair attitude
• Sources of prejudice
• Frustration-aggression theory
• Displaced frustration - scapegoat
• Authoritarian personality
• Rigidly conventional

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• Racism
• Directed at particular racial group
• Modern racism
• More subtle
• Institutional racism
• 36,915 average income of white family
• 21,423 average income of African-American family

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• Reducing prejudice
• Recategorize
• Catholics and Protestants view themselves as
  Christians
• Education
• Equal status contact and one-to-one contact
• Cooperation

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• C. Attitude Change
• Process of Persuasion
• 1. Attention
• 2. Comprehending
• 3. Accepting

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• Communication Model
• Source
• Message
• Medium
• Audience
• Cognitive dissonance
• Two contradictory cognitions
• Increase consonant elements

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• D. Compliance
• Change in behavior in response to a request
• E. Obedience
• Obey orders

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3. Social Influence

• A. Cultural Influence
• Norm
• Shared idea about how to behave
• B. Cultural Assimilators
• technique of asking why people behave a certain
  way - staying open-minded

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• C. Conformity
• Yield to social norms
• Conformity across cultures
• Varies - higher in collectivist cultures

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• D. Compliance
• Change in behavior in response to a request from
  someone
• foot-in-the-door (get them to say yes first)
• lowball (get compliance then raise price)
• door-in-the-face (get them to decline large
  request then ask something smaller)

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• E. Obedience
• Change in behavior in response to a command
• Milgram

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4. Social Action

• A. Deindividuation
• Loss of personal sense of responsibility in a
  group
• B. Helping Behavior
• Altruistic behavior - helping behavior that is
  not linked to personal gain
• Bystander effect - helpfulness decreases as
  bystanders increase
• Helping behavior across cultures

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• C. Group Dynamics
• Polarization in group decision making
• Shift toward more extreme position
• The effectiveness of groups
• Groupthink - Bay of Pigs invasion, Watergate
  cover-up, Challenger disaster

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• Group Leadership
• Great person theory
• Personal qualities qualify one to lead

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• D. Organizational Behavior
• Productivity
• Hawthorne effect
• Just attention of experimenter changed behavior
• Communication and responsibility
• Buy-in is important
• Shared governance