SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
- Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one
another.

I. GROUP DYNAMICS
a. This is a general term for some of the phenomena we observe when people interact
b. Effects of being in a group:
i. Social Facilitation- is an increase in performance on a task that occurs when the
task if performed in the presence of others
Ex: playing sports
ii. Social Inhibition- opposite of social facilitation; occurs when the presence of others
makes performance worse
Ex: giving a speech
iii. Social Loafing- the reduced effort group members put into a task as a result of the
size of the group
Ex: lifting a large box alone takes great effort, but lifting with other people
results in less effort exerted
iv. Group Polarization- occurs when a judgment or decision of a group is more
extreme than what individual members would have reached on their own
v. Deindividuation- the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations
that foster arousal and anonymity
c. Resolving conflicts within a group:
i. Cooperative Orientation- people try to maximize the outcomes for all individuals
involved
ii. Altruistic Orientation- people seek to maximize the outcome for others
iii. Individualistic Orientation- people try to maximize their own benefit
iv. Competitive Orientation- similar to individualistic orientation, however these
people are willing to maximize their own benefit at the expense of others
d. Irving Janis- came up with the idea of groupthink- when members of a group are driven
to reach unanimous decisions, they don’t evaluate the repercussions of their decisions
i. Occurs when groups making decisions are isolated and homogeneous, lack of
impartial leadership, high level of pressure for decision to be made
ii. In the group, a mindguard may take on responsibility of criticizing or even
ostracizing members who don’t agree with the rest

II. ATTRIBUTION
a. Refers to how people assign responsibility for certain outcomes; 2 categories
i. Dispositional Attribution- assumes that the cause of behavior or outcome is internal
Ex: when students fail a test, they might attribute that failure to their own
poor work habits or lack of intellectual abilities
ii. Situational Attribution- assigns the cause to the environment or external conditions
Ex: when students fail a test, they could attribute their failure to poor
teaching
b. Self-Serving Bias- sees the cause of actions as internal (dispositional) when the outcomes
are positive, or external (situational) when the results are negative
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Ex: if a class fails a test, the teacher blames the students; however if the
class does well, the teacher attributes it to their superior teaching
c. Fundamental Attribution Error- someone attributes others’ behavior as reflection of their
internal disposition, not considering situational effects; usually true in negative outcomes
Ex: a friend is late to meet you somewhere; you blame their lateness on
their laziness rather than traffic or a car accident
d. Self-fulfilling Prophecy- some attributions actually affect the outcome of the behavior
e. Rosenthal Effect- teachers are told that certain kids are expected to achieve in following
year, they tend to do better than others, even when there is no difference in ability levels

III. INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION/ATTRACTION

a. The tendency to positively evaluate a person and then to gravitate to that person
b. Factors leading to interpersonal attraction:
i. Positive evaluation, shared opinions, good physical appearance, familiarity,
proximity of the individuals to each other
ii. Positive Evaluation- we all like to be positively evaluated, therefore we tend to
prefer the company of people who think highly of us
iii. Shared Opinions- typically thought of as a form of social reinforcement
c. Mere-Exposure Effect- based on the idea that we have more positive feelings about
things to which we are frequently exposed

IV. CONFORMITY, COMLIANCE, OBEDIENCE

a. Conformity- is the modification of behavior to make it agree with that of a group
i. Solomon Asch performed studies on the nature of conformity; group members all
give an obvious wrong answer, participant asked to give answer, gave wrong one
ii. Factors influencing conformity: group size, cohesiveness of the group opinion,
gender, social status, culture, appearance of unanimity
b. Compliance- tendency to agree to requests of others, even at expense of own interests
i. Foot-in-the-door Phenomenon- involves making requests in small steps at first, in
order to work up to big requests
c. Obedience-compliance with commands given by an authority figure
i. Stanley Milgram did a famous research study called the obedience study; showed
that people have strong tendency to comply with authority figures; electric shocks
ii. Social-Learning Theory- modeling

V. ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDE CHANGE

a. Attitudes are combinations of affective (emotional) and cognitive (perceptual) reactions
to different stimuli
b. Persuasion- process by which a person or group can influence the attitude of others
i. Most people are swayed by facts; market researchers call it the central route to
persuasion
ii. Other factors influencing the persuasion process: interpersonal attractiveness,
nature of the message (repetition), fear, self-esteem
c. Cognitive Dissonance- when attitudes and behaviors contradict each other
i. Leon Festinger studied this; concluded that people are likely to alter their attitude
to fit their behavior
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Ex: law-abiding citizens speed frequently; which is going to change—their

attitude toward the law or their speeding? generally, people adjust their
attitudes and continue their behavior

VI. ALTRUISM AND HELPING BEHAVIOR

a. Research into this topic was a result of the Kitty Genovese story
b. Altruism- an unselfish regard for the welfare of other; helping behavior; helps reduce
tendency toward bystander effect
c. Bystander Effect- indifference when people see or hear what is happening, but don’t
intervene
i. Occurs as a result of diffusion of responsibility- when each person assumes
someone else will do it

VII. ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

a. This area of psychology deals primarily with the workplace
b. Equity Theory- proposes a view where workers evaluate their efforts vs. their rewards
c. Human Factors Research- deals with the interaction of person and machine
d. Hawthorne Effect- indicates that workers being monitored for any reason work more

VIII. ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR

a. Behavior that is harmful to society or others, can be divided into two kinds
b. Prejudice- negative belief or feeling about members of a particular group without
evidentiary backing
i. Discrimination is behavioral; acting on the attitude and treating members of that
group differently from members of other groups
ii. Stereotypes-beliefs about people based on their membership in a particular group;
can be positive, negative, or neutral
1. Usually based on gender, race/ethnicity, gender/sex, religion, social status,
occupation
iii. Outgroup Homogeneity- those perceived as different from one’s ingroup
iv. Ingroup Homogeneity- people with whom one shares a common identity; ingroup
bias is the tendency to favor one’s own group
v. Illusory Correlation- a false conclusion in which we tend to see relationships where
they don’t actually exist
Ex: noticing that people of a certain ethnic group are apprehended for
crimes while ignoring that people of the same ethnic group also do
positive things for society
vi. Contact Hypothesis- theorizes that groups with stereotypes about each other would
lose those stereotypes if the groups were exposed to each other
vii. Ethnocentrism- the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is
centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own
c. Aggression- behavior directed toward another, with the intention of causing harm
i. Factors that contribute to aggression:
1. Genetics, neural, biochemical
2. Dealing with aversive events, learning aggression is rewarding, observing
models, acquiring social schemas
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ii. Hostile Aggression- emotional and impulsive, and is typically induced b pain or
stress
iii. Instrumental Aggression- aggression committed to gain something of value
Ex: a child pushing another child on the playground to get a prized toy
iv. Biological factors that lead to aggression: genetics, neural, biochemical
v. Environmental factors that lead to aggression: dealing with aversive events,
learning aggression is rewarding, observing models, acquiring social schemas
1. Phil Zimbardo proposed the theory of dehumanization- the ability to view the
victims of violence as somehow less than human