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General Psychology 203Social Psychology

What is social psychology?Person perception• Social categorization• Implicit personality theories• Physical attractiveness

The psychology of attribution• Fundamental attributional error and actor/observer

discrepancy• Self-serving bias

The Social psychology of attitudes• The effect of attitudes on behavior• The effect of behavior on attitudes• Cognitive dissonance

Understanding prejudice• Stereotypes, ingroup bias, outgroup homogeneity effect,

emotional source of prejudice• Overcoming prejudice

Social Influence• Conformity (Asch experiment)• Obedience (Milgram experiments)

Helping behavior: The Kitty Genovese murder• What factors affect whether we will help someone?

The influence of groups on individual behaviorApplication: Persuasion techniques• Scarcity (not in Hockenbury)• Foot in the door• Door in the face• Reciprocity norm• Appeal to fear (not in Hockenbury)

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Attitudes

An attitude is a relatively stable evaluation of a person,object, situation or issue. This evaluation can be positive,negative, or ambivalent. Most attitudes have threecomponents: a cognitive, emotional and behavioral. Whenwe talk about attitudes, we could be talking about differentcomponents of an attitude.• Cognitive: Your beliefs, thoughts, or ideas about the

object of an attitude• Emotional: Feelings and emotions about the object of

an attitude• Behavioral: A predisposition to act in a particular way

For example, you could have an attitude towards• exercise,• gun control,• abortion rights or• sexist women.

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Attitudetowardsexercise

Cognitivecomponent

“Exercise isgood for yourhealth”

“Exercise is agood stressreliever”

“Exerciseimproves myappearance”

Emotionalcomponent

“Exercisemakes me feelgreat”

“Exercise is fun”

Behavioralcomponent

“I exerciseevery day”

“I read articlesabout exercise”

“I buy exerciseequipment”

Your beliefs,thoughts, orideas about theobject of anattitude

Feelings andemotions aboutthe object of anattitude

A predispositionto act in aparticular way

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Attitudetowards

gun control

Cognitivecomponent

“Gun ownersend up shootingthemselvesmore often thanthey shootthieves.”

Emotionalcomponent

“Guns make mesick”

Behavioralcomponent

“I vote for gun-controladvocateswheneverpossible”

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When do attitudes predict behavior?

Like traits, attitudes have a hard time predicting behavior.There are some conditions in which attitudes are likely toinfluence or determine behavior. You are more likely tobehave in accordance with your attitudes when (page483):• Attitudes are extremely or are frequently expressed,• Attitudes have been formed through direct

experience,• You are very knowledgeable about the subject,• You have a vested interest in the subject. If you

personally stand to gain or lose something on aspecific issue, you’re more likely to act in accordancewith your attitudes, and

• You anticipate a favorable outcome or response fromothers for doing so.

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Cognitive Dissonance

An unpleasant state of psychological tension or arousalthat occurs when two (or more) thoughts, perceptions orbehaviors are inconsistent. Typically dissonance resultsfrom the awareness that attitudes and behaviors are inconflict.

Behavior and attitudes are inconsistent, tensionarises

When we notice a discrepancy, we are motivated toreduce it by• changing the behavior,• changing your attitude,• changing your belief or attitude by “distorting reality”

such aso explaining away the inconsistency,o reducing the importance of the inconsistency,o denying the behavior (denial),o claiming that you are “better than average”,o surrounding yourself with consonant information

to make the inconsistency appear small relativeto the consonant information (bolstering),

o saying that the inconsistency is necessary for amore important purpose (transcendence),

o claim that you were “forced” to be inconsistent,• or using any of the ego defense mechanism.

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Important: Cognitive dissonance theory says nothingabout the truth or falsity of the statements to reduceanxiety. Only that we feel compelled to reduce theanxiety.

This tension or anxiety is especially strong when we donot perceive an external cause for this inconsistency. Ifwe perceive our behavior was coerced or the source of theinconsistency is external, there is little tension. However,if we are coaxed, we have nothing to attribute thecontradictory behavior except ourselves.

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Explain away theinconsistency

“I’ll quit before it can hurtme.”“I really don’t smoke thatmuch”

Change thebehavior

Quit smoking

Source of cognitivedissonance

Behavior: I smokeAttitude: Smoking isbad for you

Change theattitude

Smoking isn’tthatdangerous

Reduce the importance of theinconsistency

“I have good genes. People inmy family live all live to a ripeold age”“I exercise more and have abetter diet than most peoplewho smoke—I’m better thanaverage”“No one in our family has everhad cancer”“The evidence is weak thatsmoking causes cancer”“There is no evidence linkingsmoking and cancer”

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Explain away theinconsistency

“It was only once”“There was no realdanger”

Change thebehavior

Act safe.Follow safetyprocedures

Source of cognitivedissonance

Behavior: Icommitted an unsafeact at workAttitude: Safety isimportant

Change theattitude

Safety isn’tthat important

Reduce the importanceof the inconsistency

“The safety protocols areoverrated.”“I am safe in general.”“Accidents won’t happento me—I’m better thanaverage.”

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Social Perception

Implicit personality theories: A network of assumptions orbeliefs about the relationship among various types ofpeople, traits, and behaviors. Although your textbookdoes not explicitly call it this, you may want to think of thisas a stereotype.

What is the purpose of implicit personality theories?• People are trying to infer unobservable traits through

observable characteristics. These inferences aremental shortcuts (heuristics) that are prone tosystematic errors—especially if you have very littletime to make these inferences.

Common examples of implicit personality theories(stereotypes) apply to the following:• Serial killers (The serial killer from Spokane doesn’t fit

our stereotype of serial killers)• Rapists• The physically attractive• Racial, religious and ethnic groups• Scientists, engineers, accountants, computer

programmers• Blonds• Bald men• Politicians: Republicans, Democrats• Terrorists• The elderly and the young (see chapter 9)• Homosexuals and lesbians (see chapter 10)• The mentally ill (see chapter 14)

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• We make unconscious decisions based on implicittheories about people. Over time, we reinforce thesetheories through biased thinking strategies such asthe:

• confirmation bias (Chapter 7: Thinking, Language andIntelligence),

• fallacy of positive instances (Chapter 7: Thinking,Language and Intelligence),

• belief-bias (Chapter 7: Thinking, Language andIntelligence),

• fundamental attributional error, and the• actor-observer bias.

In addition, our beliefs will affect how we interpretambiguous behavior in a way that is consistent with ourbeliefs (eg. if you believe that homosexuals areeffeminate, you will interpret behavior by homosexuals asmore effeminate than that by heterosexuals). If ourtheories and beliefs about people are valid, we will makegood inferences. If our theories and beliefs are not valid,we will make bad inferences.

Poor implicit theories about people can confer advantagesto some groups or individuals while discriminating againstothers (and thus affect their self-efficacy, and likelihood ofreaching their full human potential--remember the Barakupeople in Japan (Chapter 7)).

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Attributional Biases in Social Perception

Attributional biases are thinking processes people useabout groups, individuals or yourself that cansystematically lead to errors in perception.

• Physical attractiveness stereotype (PAS)• Fundamental attributional error (FAE)• Actor/Observer discrepancy• Self-serving bias and self-effacing bias• Just world belief (JWB) and blaming the victim

(other biases and thinking strategies learned in Chapter 7:Thinking, Language and Intelligence that can affect socialperception)• fallacy of positive instances• belief bias• confirmation bias• availability heuristic• representative heuristic

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Physical attractiveness stereotype

The presumption that physically attractive people possesssocially desirable traits: What is beautiful is good.

In general, physically attractive people are perceived andthought to be:• more intelligent• more likely to do better in school• happier• better adjusted• socially competent• more successful• less socially deviant• sexier• more vain• less modest

Questions we should ask about our implicit beliefs:• Where does the belief match "reality"?• Where does the belief not match “reality”?• What does the evidence show?

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The scientific evidence shows:

Attractive people are:• more popular• given the benefit of the doubt• make a better first impression (later impressions are

less affected by attractiveness)• make more money• have more prestigious jobs• less lonely• less anxious in social situations

However, attractiveness is not related to• intelligence• happiness• mental health• self-esteem

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Fundamental Attributional Error (FAE)

The tendency to attribute the behavior of other peopleto internal, personal characteristics, while ignoring orunderestimating the effects of external, situational factors.This attributional error is common when bad thingshappen and observers tend to blame the victim of crime,disaster such as floods, or illness.

For example:• When people take note of ethnic neighborhoods,

dominated by crime and poverty, the personalqualities of the residents are blamed for theseproblems, while other situational explanations, suchas job discrimination, poor police service, etc. aredownplayed.

• When one fails to get a job, people can underestimate(social) situational factors such as opportunity andconnections and overemphasize dispositional factorsand label people as incompetent or lazy.

• Americans used IQ tests to demonstrate thatCaucasians were more intelligent that manyimmigrants at the turn of the century,

• The internment of the Japanese during WWII,• The development of the atomic bomb during WWII,• The exposure of an unborn fetus to radiation without

the mothers’ knowledge. While we agree that theseare unacceptable, there is a tendency to discountsituational factors and public sentiment at the time.

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Why is recognizing the Fundamental AttributionalError important?

There are many factors influencing behavior. Notrecognizing the fundamental attributional error(overestimating personality factors and underestimatingsituational factors) makes it difficult to address problemssuch as the following because we focus too much on theperson.• Student’s cheating on exams: We tend to make

personality attributions and focus on the person, andnot take into account social pressures to do well.

• School Shootings: There is a tendency to focus onthe personality of the individual and not look at thesocial environment, such as bullying, which tookAmericans a long time.

• Bob Kerry’s Vietnam experience: There is a tendencyto blame the SEAL team involved as making a baddecision and not the situation they were in (Six menbehind enemy lines with little support).

• Telemarketers: People tend to focus on theindividuals as being bad people, calling them andbeing annoying, and not as a person who needed towork and that was what was available.

• Driving: People tend to blame people for being baddrivers when they aren’t allowed to merge in andignore situational factors (such as another car notallowing that driver to merge).

• Drug abuse: The root causes of drug use are partiallysituational. Telling someone “just say no!” is (andwas) an ineffective strategy to fight drugs abuse.

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Actor-observer discrepancy

As an exception to the fundamental attributional error,there tends to be a bias in the opposite direction. Whenwe are the actor (explaining our own behavior), we tend toattribute our own behavior to external causes. When weare the observer of someone else’s behavior, we tend toattribute their behavior to internal causes.

Examples:• When I don’t know how to do my job, it is due to lack

of training (the situation). When you don’t know howto do the job, it is incompetence (dispositional).

• When I come to the meeting unprepared and late, it isbecause something came up or traffic was bad.When you come unprepared and late, it is due to lackof interest in the job.

• When I hit you, it is because I was provoked. Whenyou hit me, it is because you are aggressive.

• She’s a reckless, out-of-state driver. I was pressedfor time.

• I forgot because of a brain fart. You forgot becauseyou are incompetent.

• When I’m unemployed, it is because of a bad jobmarket. When “they” are unemployed, it is because“they” are lazy.

• When I leave the cell phone on in class, it was anaccident. I got distracted when I normally turn it off.When other students forget to turn their cell phone offin class, it is because they are irresponsible andinconsiderate.

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• When “kids” misbehave it is because they are “bad”.When I misbehaved as a kid, it was just somethingyou did.

• When I use the physical attractiveness stereotype, itis because he/she was just SO attractive. When youuse the physical attractiveness stereotype, it isbecause you are shallow.

Why does this bias occur?

What have we studied before where we are inconsistent inexplaining behavior or biased in interpreting andexplaining “our reality”?

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Self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute successful outcomes todispositional and internal causes and unsuccessfuloutcomes to external, and situational causes. This ismore common in individualistic cultures. The opposite ofthe self-serving bias is the self-effacing bias, which ismore common in collective cultures.

“When I win it is skill, when I lose it is bad luck”

Effect of the self-serving bias:• Those who tend to commit the self-serving bias tend

to be happier, but have a less accurate perception ofthe world around them.

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Just World Belief and Blaming the Victim

The strong need for people to believe that the world is justand fair. Because the world is “just and fair”, victims musthave done something to deserve his or her fate.Therefore people get what they deserve and deserve whatthey get. The consequence of this belief is that peopletend to:• blame the victim of rape,• blame battered spouses by saying they provoked their

beatings and they “let it happen to themselves”,• blame the victims of dog attacks,• blame the poor are solely responsible for their

condition,• blame sick people are responsible for their illness.

A disproportional amount of weight is given to dispositional(personality) factors, and the contribution of situationalfactors is underestimated—the fundamental attributionalerror. The wealthy and healthy see their good fortune,and the misfortune of others as justly deserved. Linkinggood fortune with virtue and misfortune with moral failureenable the fortunate to feel pride in their achievementsand absolve them of responsibility toward themisfortunate.

Relate the just world belief to cognitive dissonance theory(belief: I am a good person, behavior: ______).

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Attributional biases and social perception

• Physical attractiveness stereotype (PAS)• Fundamental attributional error (FAE)• Actor/Observer discrepancy• Self-serving bias and self-effacing bias• Just world belief (JWB) and blaming the victim

What are other “double standards” and biases we usewhen evaluating others and ourselves?

Who should learn about these attributional biases? Whyshould they learn about them?

What are the consequences of not recognizing how wemake attributions--especially when we are inconsistent (orwhy should we study how we perceive others)?

These biases in attribution can be difficult to spot becausethey rarely occur in tandem (very rarely will we say weaced a test because of hard work, and then say we faileda test because it was unfair. These statements oftenfollow each other after some time making them moredifficult to see).