Social Psychology

Syeda Batool Najam

Institute of Business Management

1. Explain social cognition.

2. How attitudes formed.

3. Discuss the prejudice & discrimination

and how it can be reduced.

4. Discuss social influence and group

behavior
 Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention to
how we view and affect one another.

More precisely, it is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Social Thinking
How we perceive ourselves and others
Social Psychology is the
scientific study of ………

What we believe
Judgments we make
Our attitudes COMPARISON WITH SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Influence Personality Psychology – stresses individual

Culture differences in behavior
Pressures to conform
Persuasion
Groups of people Cognitive Psychology – study of how people think
about, perceive and remember aspects of the
Social Relations
world.
Prejudice
Aggression Sociology – study of behavior of people in the
Attraction and Intimacy
aggregate (population level).
Helping
Attitude

A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often rooted

in one’s beliefs, and exhibited in one’s feelings and intended behavior).

Conscious and
Explicit reportable

Attitude
Uncontrollable and
Implicit not consciously
accessible to us.
Attitudes can influence our thoughts, even if they are not always reflected in our overt behavior.
Moreover, while many of our attitudes are EXPLICIT attitudes— conscious and reportable—other
attitudes may be IMPLICIT attitudes—uncontrollable and perhaps not consciously accessible to us.

Many “color-blind” or self-perceived egalitarian Americans will report positive explicit attitudes toward
African Americans. However, they may also display negative involuntary evaluative reactions toward
African Americans— implicit attitudes—because it is almost impossible to grow up in the United
States without acquiring such negative racial associations. Furthermore, such implicit attitudes have
consequences for important outcomes such as juror decision making when the defendant is African
American
How Well Does our Attitude Predict Behaviour?

An individual who likes minding their own business and keeping to themselves, would that person step
up in a crowd and help someone in need? Would they always do this? Or sometimes? Or never?

Wicker offered a shocking conclusion. People’s expressed attitudes hardly predicted their varying
behaviors. Does attitude perfectly predict behavior?

• Student attitudes toward cheating bore little relation to the likelihood of their actually cheating.

• Attitudes toward the church were only modestly linked with church attendance on any given Sunday.

• Self-described racial attitudes provided little clue to behaviors in actual situations.

Moral
Hypocrisy
 Social psychologists view attitudes as important as that they do often affect our
behavior. This is especially likely to be true when attitudes are strong and
accessible.

• When people hold positive attitudes toward particular celebrities they are likely
to enjoy hearing about events in their lives, follow their postings on twitter, and
generally attend to information about them.

• People who consider the future consequences of their actions reported more
positive than negative thoughts about a vaccine after reading balanced
information about its potential benefits and risks, and this predicted their
attitudes about the vaccine and the extent to which regret for not acting was
anticipated—which then predicted the decision to have their daughter
vaccinated for the human papilloma virus
ATTITUDE FORMATION
Attitudes are formed with the help of:

1. Classical Conditioning

• Direct condition

• Indirect conditioning

• Subliminal conditioning

2. Instrumental conditioning

3. Observational learning
Role of Strength
The term strength captures the EXTREMITY of an attitude (how strong the emotional reaction is), the
degree of CERTAINTY with which an attitude is held (the sense that you know what your attitude is
and the feeling that it is the correct position to hold), as well as the extent to which the attitude is
based on PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with the attitude object. These three factors can affect attitude
accessibility (how easily the attitude comes to mind in various situations), which ultimately determines
the extent to which attitudes drive our behavior

EXTREMITY
A large university were telephoned and asked if they
would participate in a campaign against increasing the
legal age for drinking alcohol from 18 to 21, their
responses depended on whether they would be
affected by the policy change or not (Sivacek & Crano,
1982). Students who would be affected by this new law
—those younger than 21—have a stronger stake in
this issue than those who would not be affected by the
law because they were already 21 or would reach this
age before the law took effect. Thus, it was predicted
that those in the first group—whose interests were at
stake—would be much more likely to join a rally
against the proposed policy change than those in the
second group. This is exactly what happened: While
more than 47 percent of those with high vested
interest agreed to take part in the campaign, only 12
percent of those in the low vested interest group did
so.
CERTAINITY
Research has identified two important components of
attitude certainty: attitude clarity— being clear about
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
what one’s attitude is—and attitude correctness—
feeling one’s attitude is the valid or the proper one to
Considerable evidence indicates that attitudes
hold. The participants felt negative about carrying
formed on the basis of direct experience with the
identification cards with them at all times. Then, in
object about which we hold a particular attitude
order to manipulate the perception of consensus
can exert stronger effects on behavior than ones
concerning their attitude position, half of the
formed indirectly. Consider the difference between
participants were given feedback that most other
having a friend tell you that a particular car model,
students agreed with their attitude toward the
“Brand X,” is a lemon versus having experienced
identification card issue, while the other half were told
some failures with this brand yourself. When
that most other students disagreed with them.
looking at new models of “Brand X,” would your
Although attitude clarity was equivalent in both the
friend’s opinion even come to mind? Maybe not.
high and low consensus conditions, perceived
Would your own experiences come to mind?
correctness was greater when consensus was high (the
rather than low. When a person learns that others
share one’s attitudes, it acts as justification for that
attitude and thereby increases certainty.
How is prejudice distinct from
stereotyping, discrimination,
racism and sexism?
 Stereotype

Prejudice

Discrimination
Stereotype

A belief about the personal attributes of a group of people. Stereotypes are sometimes
overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information.

Jeff thinks vegetarians don't care about the environment, which is a negative stereotype.

Jeff thinks vegetarians are healthy and peace-loving. Those are positive stereotypes because they reflect
well on the group.
Prejudice

A preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members. A prejudice is not based on
experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside actual experience. In simple words,
prejudice is a feeling towards a person based on their affiliation with a group.

Jeff thinks that meat eaters don't care about the environment, which is (as we've already seen) a
stereotype. But if he decides that he doesn't like Eddie just based on the fact that Eddie eats meat, then
he is being prejudiced. His feeling of dislike, which springs from his belief in a negative stereotype, is
prejudice.

If he likes Eddie, it is a positive prejudice and if he dislikes him, then it is a negative prejudice.
Discrimination

Unjustified negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Although Jeff and Eddie have different culinary preferences but they still manage get along well together.
Therefore there is no discrimination against their prejudice and stereotype.

But if Jeff leaves the kitchen and shames him in front of people every time because of his eating habits
then this is discriminant behavior. As over here he is acting on his prejudice and stereotype against Eddie.
 An attitude is a distinct combination of
A
Affect (feelings) feelings, inclinations to act, and beliefs. It
can be easily remembered as the abc’s of
attitudes:
B
Behavior
• Affect (feelings)

• Behavior tendency (inclination to act)

C
Cognition (Belief)

• Cognition (beliefs)
Sexual Orientation

• The U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health revealed that gay and lesbian teens
are much more likely to be harshly punished by schools and courts than are their straight
peers, despite being less likely to engage in serious wrongdoing.

• In a U.S. national survey, 20 percent of gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons reported having
experienced a personal or property crime based on their sexual orientation, and half reported
experiencing verbal harassment
Age

People’s perceptions of the elderly—as generally kind but frail, incompetent, unproductive predispose
patronizing behavior, such as baby-talk speech that leads elderly people to feel less competent and
act less capably.
Reducing Prejudice

On Learning Not To Hate

• Social Learning View—prejudice is acquired through direct and vicarious

experiences in much the same manner as other attitudes

• Children learn negative attitudes by hearing parents and other significant others express them
and then being rewarded for adopting them.

• Contact Hypothesis—view that increased contact between members of

various social groups can be effective in reducing prejudice between them

• Increased contact can decrease prejudice by increasing familiarity and reducing anxiety.
People often believe such stereotypes, yet ignore them when given
personalized, anecdotal information. Thus, many people believe “politicians
are crooks” but “our Senator Jones has integrity.” No wonder many people
have a low opinion of politicians yet usually vote to reelect their own
representatives. And no wonder some White Americans who felt general
distrust of Black people came to trust and support a Black presidential
candidate as they came to know him.

People sometimes maintain general prejudices (such as against gays and

lesbians) without applying their prejudice to particular individuals whom
they know and respect, such as Ellen DeGeneres.
Social Influence

Efforts by one or more persons to

change the behavior, attitudes, or
feelings of one or more others.
During an exam, another student’s cell phone begins to ring loudly.
What does this person do?

You are driving on a street when you see and hear an ambulance
approaching you from behind. What do you do?
The people involved could, potentially, behave in many different ways. But
probably you can predict with great certainty what they will do. The student
with the loud cell phone will silence it immediately—and perhaps apologize
to other members of the class sitting nearby.

When you hear an ambulance, you will pull over to the right and perhaps
stop completely until it passes.
Conformity

The fact that we can predict others’ behavior (and our own) with considerable confidence in these and
many other situations illustrates the powerful and general effects of pressures toward conformity—
toward doing what we are expected to do in a given situation. Conformity, in other words, refers to
pressures to behave in ways consistent with rules indicating how we should or ought to behave. These
rules are known as social norms, and they often exert powerful effects on our behavior.

Conformity - A type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behavior to
adhere to existing social norms.
Why Do People Conform?

- It Makes Life More Predictable. When norms telling people how to behave don’t exist or are
largely ignored, chaos can develop. Countries in which traffic regulations are taken lightly provide a
clear illustration of this fact and of why conformity can sometimes be very useful.

- To ‘look good’ to others, to make a positive impression on them. For instance, at work, many
employees adopt what are known as facades of conformity the appearance of going along with the
values and goals of their organizations, even if they really do not. They often say things they don’t
really believe, suppress personal values different form those of the organization, and keep certain
things about themselves confidential. They may find doing so to be unpleasant but necessary to
further their careers, and are more likely to engage in them when they feel that they have little input
into how things are run (including their own jobs), and intend to leave thus assuring that they will get
a positive recommendation!
Conformity Experiment – Asch’s Line Judgment Task

Participants in Asch’s research were asked to report

their judgments on problems such as this one. Their
task was to indicate which of the comparison lines
(1, 2, or 3) best matched the standard line in length.
To study conformity, he had participants make
these judgments out loud, only after hearing the
answers of several other people—all of whom were
Asch’s assistants. On certain critical trials the
assistants all gave wrong answers. This exposed
participants to strong pressures toward conformity
We genuinely believe in what the group has persuaded us to do.
Acceptance
Sincere, inward conformity

Longer-term private acceptance Conformity that

involves both acting
For example, you exercise like millions of others because we
accept that it is good for our health
and believing in
accord with social
Acceptance sometimes follows compliance. (For example, public pressure
commitment)
Real Life Examples Related to the Experiment
1. Comedy show laugh tracks-listening to the laughing audience makes us laugh as well

2. Mood linkage effect-people who work in the same group tend to share the ups and downs of moods

In your group, when one friend feels happy/low, does that effect everyone else's mood?

Laughing, coughing, checking cell phone, loneliness, happiness, sleep loss, obesity, drug use, etc.

Social contagion examples-the spread of behaviour from one person to another or to a whole group

1. The chameleon effect-if you are in an experiment where a person either rubs their face occasionally or shakes their
foot. Would you behave like them?

Would that behaviour also effect the way you feel? Would you catch on that behaviour?

2. Yawning and mirror neurons -we all carry these neurons that mimic witnessed actions, hence we often yawn when
other people are yawning
What Predicts Conformity?

What conditions or settings could result in higher conformity?

We are going to look at 5 such factors

Group Size

In laboratory experiments, a small group can have a big effect.

Asch and other researchers found that 3 to 5 people will elicit much more conformity than just 1 or 2.

Increasing the number of people beyond 5 yields diminishing returns

Unanimity

Example of the Asch experiment where one person before you gives the correct answer and all the
people before gave a wrong answer

Would that one correct answer provide you the courage to not conform to other who are giving the
wrong answer

Study says YES

Cohesion

For example, if a homosexual friend of yours is trying to talk about the rights of gay people, you are
less likely to understand.

However, if your own heterosexual friend talks about the rights of gay people, you are more likely to
understand.

You have a sense of cohesion with your own group, hence their opinion makes you think
Status

Imagine the following. You are waiting to cross the road,

A person dressed in old torn clothes jaywalks, would you follow him?

Or are you more likely to follow a person whose carrying a suitcase and wearing a suit?
Prior Commitment

Imagine yourself in Asch’s experiment.

You are the first one to respond and you provide an answer, however everyone else disagrees.

The experimenter gives you a chance to reconsider

Do you think you'll change the answer you gave initially?

No, once a public commitment is made, people stick to it

Design

Right from the start, you’ll have access to beautiful,

widescreen themes that you can easily change to
match your style. Every theme comes with a variety
of color variants that you can mix and match.

New features like Merge Shapes and a color-

matching Eyedropper open up new possibilities for
your designs.

Line up your layouts, photos, and diagrams perfectly

in seconds with alignment guides and smart guides.
Impress

The improved Presenter View has new tools to keep you in

control. The new Auto-Extend instantly applies the right settings
for you, so you can focus on speaking instead of your display.

• Slide zoom – Help focus your audience on your ideas.  Just click
to zoom in and out on a specific diagram, chart or graphic.

• Slide Navigator – A feature that enables the user to visually

browse for and navigate to other slides without leaving Slide
Show view. Your audience only sees the slide you’re presenting.
Work Together

Edit with others from different PCs at the

same time and have conversations with
improved commenting.

Sharing online is simple. Even if your

audience doesn’t have PowerPoint, simply
project to their browser with Present Online.

Work together with others at the same time

from different locations, whether you are
using PowerPoint on your desktop or
PowerPoint Online.
 Intuitively design beautiful presentations,

PowerPoint 2013 easily share and work together with others

and give a professional performance with
advanced presenting tools.

Find out more at the PowerPoint Getting Started Center

(Click the arrow when in Slide Show mode)