Social Psychology

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Social Psychology

• Social Cognition
• Explaining our behaviour
• Attribution theory (Heider, 1958 Kelley,
  1967)
• Justifying our behaviour
• Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)
• Social Influence
• one-on-one interactions
• blind obedience to authority (Milgram,
  1963)
• attractiveness (Smith Engel, 1968)
• many-on-one interactions
• obedience revisited (understanding
  atrocities)
• effects of audiences and conformity (Asch,
  1952/6)
• many-on-many interactions
• understanding crowd behaviour

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What is Social Psychology?

• In a general sense, Social Psychology addresses
  the interaction between individuals and the
  society they live in.
• For example, it addresses issues like
• gt How do we form representations of ourselves
  and others?
• gt How do our attitudes arise? What role does
  prejudice play and how can it be understood?
• gt How is our behaviour molded and affected by
  the social context we are in?

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Social cognition

• Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo
• Attribution Theory
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Self-serving Bias
• Cognitive Dissonance
• Festinger and Carlsmith

www.prisonexp.org
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Festinger and Carlsmiths Forced Compliance
Experiment
Participants rating
Reward for coaxing other participants
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Social Influence

• The manner in which groups or individuals bias us
  to behave in certain ways.
• Two ways of looking at this
• aspects of certain individuals that may make them
  have more or less of an effect on our behaviour
• the effects that being part of a group may have
  on our individual behaviour
• one-on-one, many-on-one, and many-on-many
  interactions

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Social Influence

• one-on-one interactions
• Social psychologists have found that
• 1) we can be strongly influenced by people we
  perceive as authority figures, and
• 2) we are more strongly influenced by people
  we view as being physically attractive.

Milgrams Blind obedience studies
Smith and Engel (/68), wanna buy a car?
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Social Influence

• many-on-one interactions
• obedience revisited
• usually delivered on a one-to-one basis, but
  authority figures usually speak with authority of
  society
• legitimate domain of authority
• using Milgrams study to understand greater
  atrocities
• 1) agent of someone elses will psychological
  distance (e.g., Hitler)
• 2) cognitive reinterpretation dehumanization
  (e.g., Nazi, Vietnam, and Bosnian war terms)
• 3) slippery slope instilling obedience gradually
  (e.g., Military training)

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Social Influence

• many-on-one interactions
• effects of audiences

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Social Influence

• many-on-many interactions
• understanding crowd behaviour
• deindividuation
• anonymity
• Dieners Halloween study (1976)

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• Social Impact Theory Latane (1979 1981)
• social influence can be understood by thinking
  of the individual as exposed to a field of social
  forces that converge upon a target (the
  individual)
• impact decreases with more targets
• e.g. of stage fright
• e.g. of diffusion of responsibility
• e.g. of social loafing

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Social Psychology continued...

• Altruism
• social influence revisited
• bystander apathy
• ambiguity,
• pluralistic ignorance,
• diffusion of responsibility
• the cost of helping
• the Good Samaritan (Darley Batson,
  1973)
• stimulus overload hypothesis (Milgram,
  1970)
• environmental noise level as a
  determinant of
• helping behaviour (Mathews and Canon,
  1975)

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• bystander apathy
• ambiguity
• of situation
• not being sure of whats going on
• pluralistic ignorance
• other witnesses unsure of whats going on
• each witness looks to the others to decide if
  there is an emergency
• diffusion of responsibility
• somebody else will do (or has already done)
  something

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bystander apathy indicates that people
sometimes dont recognize that a need for help
exists and that even when they do, they might not
help because they think others will. What if
situation is not ambiguous and responsibility is
not diffused because there is no one else
around? would we now see altruistic behaviour?
the costs of helping the Good Samaritan
(Darley Batson, 1973) stimulus overload
hypothesis (Milgram, 1970) environmental noise
level as a determinant of helping
behaviour (Mathews and Canon, 1975)
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Environmental noise level as a determinant of
helping behaviour (Mathews and Canon, 1975)
of passersby helping