3. Social Psychology
• Social psychology: the scientific study of how we feel about, think
about, and behave toward the other people around us and how those
people influence our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
• We may not be aware that our cognitions, emotions, and behaviors are
strongly influenced by the social situation.
Source: Alizada Studios / Shutterstock.com
4. Social Psychology (Continued)
• Social cognition: the part of human thinking that helps us understand
and predict the behavior of ourselves and others.
• Attitudes: our enduring evaluations of people or things.
• Social norms: the accepted beliefs about what we do or should do in
particular social situations.
5. Appearance:
Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination
Cognition
Em
otion
Behavior
• The tendency to attribute personality characteristics
to people on the basis of their external appearance
or social group memberships.
Stereotyping
• The tendency to dislike people because of their
group memberships.
Prejudice
• Negative behaviors toward others based on
prejudice.
Discrimination
6. Appearance
Self-fulfilling
prophecy
• Our expectations about
other’s personality
characteristics lead us to
behave in ways that make
those beliefs come true.
Social identity
• The positive emotions that
we experience based on
our group memberships.
7. Relationships
• The type of relationship
we have with someone
determines how
physically close we
allow them to get.
9. The Mere Exposure Effect
• Proximity has its effect on liking through the mere exposure effect: the
tendency to prefer stimuli a(including people) that we have seen more
frequently.
10. Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale
• A tool to assess how close a relationship is.
• Predictive of relationship satisfaction and the tendency for couples to
stay together.
11. Factors in Relationship Satisfaction and Durability
• Intimate: based on caring, warmth, acceptance, and
social support.
• Interdependent: relying on each other to meet
important goals.
• Commitment: feelings and actions that keep
partners working together to maintain the
relationship.
• Rewarding: the needs of the partners are being
met.
• Responsiveness: being sure they can trust the other
person to understand, validate, and care for them.
12. Causal Attribution:
Forming Judgments by Observing Behavior
• Attribution: the process of trying to determine the causes of people’s
behavior.
• Personal (dispositional) attribution
• Situational attribution
• Attributional biases
• Self-serving attributions.
• Fundamental attribution error: overestimating the role of
personal factors and overlooking the impact of situations in judging
others.
• Don’t be so quick to judge other people!
13. Attitudes and Behavior
• Attitudes
• Our relatively enduring
evaluations of people and
things.
attitudes
• Can affect
behavior
behavior
• Can affect
attitudes
14. Attitudes and Behavior (Continued)
• Self-monitoring: the tendency to regulate behavior to meet the
demands of social situations.
• Self-perception: when we use our own behavior as a guide to help us
determine our own thoughts and feelings.
• Foot-in-the-door technique: a method of persuasion in which one is first
persuaded to accept a rather minor request and then asked for a larger
one after that.
• Cognitive dissonance: the discomfort we experience when our
behavior does not align with our thoughts or beliefs.
• Sunk cost fallacy: the tendency to continue a course of action in
which one has already invested money, time, or effort.
15. Techniques That Can Be Effective
in Persuading Others
Technique Examples
Choose effective communicators.
Communicators who are attractive, expert, trustworthy, and
similar to the listener are most persuasive.
Consider the goals of the listener.
If the listener wants to be entertained, then it is better to
use a humorous ad; if the listener is processing the ad
more carefully, use a more thoughtful one.
Use humor.
People are more easily persuaded when they are in a good
mood.
Use classical conditioning.
Try to associate your product with positive stimuli such as
funny jokes or attractive models.
Make use of the listener’s emotions.
Humorous and fear-arousing ads can be effective because
they arouse the listener’s emotions.
Use the listener’s behavior to modify their attitude.
One approach is the foot-in-the-door technique. First, ask
for a minor request and then ask for a larger request after
the smaller request has been accepted.
16. Helping Others: Prosocial Behavior Helps Create
Harmonious Relationships
• Prosocial behavior: any behavior we engage in to benefit others.
• Factors that increase prosocial behavior:
• Positive moods
• Similarity
• Guilt
• Empathy and gratitude
• Benefits
• Self-preservation
17. Altruism
• Altruism: any behavior designed to increase another person’s welfare and
particularly those actions that do not seem to provide a direct reward to the
person who performs them.
18. Altruism (Continued)
• Reciprocal altruism and the reciprocity norm:
• If we help other people now, those other people will return the favor
should we need their help in the future.
• Social responsibility norm:
• We should try to help others who need assistance, even without
any expectation of future paybacks.
Source: Ringo Chiu /
19. How the Presence of Others Can Reduce Helping
• The Latané and Darley model of helping is based on the idea that a
variety of situational factors can influence whether or not we help.
• People are less likely to notice, interpret, and respond to the needs of
others when they are with others than when they are alone.
• Diffusion of responsibility: we assume that others will take action,
and, therefore, we do not take action ourselves.
20. Overcoming the Bystander Effect
• Make sure others notice what’s happening and interpret it as an
emergency.
• Yell, “Emergency!”
• Identify one person in the crowd to act.
• “You, in the yellow jacket!”
• Give the identified person a task.
• “Call 911!”
21. Human Aggression
• Aggression: behavior that is intended to harm another individual,
physically or psychologically.
• Reactive aggression—response to a threat.
• Proactive aggression—purposeful planned attack.
• Both socially determined and in our genetic code.
• Just because we can act aggressively doesn’t mean that we will.
• Alcohol increases the likelihood of an aggressive response.
• Hormones, especially testosterone, play an important part in
regulating aggression.
22. Negative Experiences Increase Aggression
• We are more likely to be aggressive when experiencing negative emotions.
• Displaced aggression is directed at an object or person other than the one
who caused the frustration.
• Catharsis: the mistaken belief that observing or engaging in less harmful
aggressive actions will reduce more harmful aggression later.
• Violent media or video games may increase aggression, but the relation
between the two is not very strong.
• Desensitization: the tendency over time to show weaker emotional
responses to emotional stimuli.
• A culture of honor is a social norm that condones and even encourages
responding to insults with aggression.
23. Conformity
• Conformity: a change in beliefs or behavior that occurs as the result
of the presence of the other people around us.
• Variables that increase conformity:
• Number in majority
• Unanimity
• Status and authority.
24. Group Conformity
• In Asch’s study, 76% of the participants gave
at least one incorrect response.
• Overall, 37% of the responses were
conforming.
25. Obedience
• Obedience: compliance with the request or demand of a perceived
authority.
• Milgram conducted a study in which participants believed they were
giving shocks to another person as part of a learning experiment.
• 65% of Milgram’s participants gave shock up to the 450 V maximum,
even though that shock was marked as “danger: severe shock” and
the participant was no longer responding.
• A 2006 study closely replicated the research, though due to ethical
considerations, the participants were not allowed to go above 150 V.
• We are not all bad people; the social situation is responsible for the
behavior.
26. Do We Always Conform?
• We do not always conform.
• There are individual differences in the tendency to conform related to
self-esteem and the need for approval.
• However, individual differences are less important than situational
factors in affecting conformity.
• Minority influence:
• Sometimes, a smaller number of individuals can influence the
opinions or behaviors of the larger group.
• Psychological reactance:
• A strong emotional reaction that leads people to resist conformity
when they feel their freedom is being threatened.
27. Working in Front of Others:
Social Facilitation and Social Inhibition
Social facilitation
Easy task+
= better performance
Social inhibition
Difficult task +
= poorer performance
28. Drive-Arousal Model of Social Facilitation
• The presence of others should result in facilitation when the task is
easy or well-learned, as the dominant response is the correct one.
• The presence of others should result in inhibition when the task is hard
or not well-learned, as the dominant response may be incorrect.
29. Working Together in Groups
Group process
gain
Group process
loss
• Social loafing
• Groupthink
Group process: the events that occur while the group is working on the
task.
30. Group Process Loss
• Social loafing
• People may not work as
hard in a group as they
do when they are
working alone.
• A study found that
although more men
pulled harder on a rope
than fewer men did, the
result was less than it
should have been.
31. Groupthink
• Groupthink: group members who are prioritizing group harmony do
not voice concerns about a decision being made, with the end result
being a poor group decision.
• More likely to occur when:
• Members feel a strong group identity.
• There is a strong and directive leader.
• The group needs to make an important decision quickly .
• Implicated in the 2002 decision to invade Iraq, the 1986 and 2003
crashes of two space shuttle missions, and the Enron debacle in 2001.
33. Using Groups Effectively
• Illusion of group productivity: the tendency for group members to
overvalue the productivity of the groups they work in.
34. Using Groups Effectively (Continued)
• Provide equitable rewards for performance.
• Keep group member contributions identifiable.
• Create positive group norms.
• Improve information sharing.
• Allow plenty of time.
• Set specific and attainable goals.
36. Lets Discuss!
Two suspects are arrested for a joint crime and interrogated in separate rooms.
Each has the option to either confess and implicate the other or remain silent. If
both remain silent, they each get a short prison sentence due to lack of evidence.
If one confesses while the other stays silent, the confessor goes free, and the
silent one receives a long sentence. If both confess, they each get a moderate
sentence. The suspects cannot communicate, so each must decide independently,
weighing personal risk against potential mutual benefit.
● What would you choose in this scenario, and why—confess or stay silent?
● How does trust (or lack thereof) influence decisions in this dilemma?
● Can you think of a real-life example, like cheating on a group project, where
individual gain harms the group?
● What role does communication play in resolving such dilemmas?
● How might repeated interactions (like in ongoing friendships) change the
outcomes?
● Ethically, is it ever justified to prioritize self-interest over the group?
37. Lets Discuss!
A community relies on voluntary contributions to maintain a shared public park
that everyone can use for free. Contributions fund upkeep like cleaning,
landscaping, and repairs. Individuals who contribute bear the cost, while those
who don't still enjoy the park's benefits. If too few people contribute, the park falls
into disrepair, affecting the entire community, but each person might hope others
will cover the expenses.
● What motivates someone to free-ride instead of contributing to a public good?
● How does anonymity (e.g., not knowing who contributes) affect participation
rates?
● Relate this to school fundraisers—why do some students participate while
others don't?
● What strategies, such as social pressure or rewards, could increase
contributions?
● How does this dilemma reflect broader societal challenges, like funding public
transportation?
