ITPT - lecture 6

Social Psychology

The Psychology of how we view one another and are influenced by one another – Impressions of self/others – Social behaviour (cooperation) – Groups behavior

[note: diverse afbeeldingen uit het college zijn door de WorldSupporter redactie verwijderd wegens vermoedelijke inbreuk op het auteursrecht] 

Impression formation

• Other people’s appearances and behaviours are observable

• We infer their attitudes and personality traits based on their behaviours – Although, our cognitions are limited, and biased… ~~We base it on what we can see / observe. ~`E.g. you can see the way someone is taking care of themselves or other people. And when one is dominant we have a few things we link to that kind of behavior.

Forming impressions of other people

“Human beings are naive psychologists” Heider Consistent mistakes/ biases; beacause

§ not using full mental resources , working memory is limited

§ limited information about an event § unconscious motives for reaching particular conclusions, we want to be better ourself (we’re above average good drivers)

Attribution

• Why would he make this mistake? Wanting the child to shut up. He thinks his child could drink out of the bottle. Maybe he doesn’t care

• Why would YOU make this mistake? Excusing; the situation made me do it.

We human give too much weight to personality and not enough to the environmental situation when attribute others behavior.

Fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977): People attribute other people’s behavior to a trait, whereas they attribute their own behavior to the context

How fundamental is this really? Is this universal, can you apply it to all cultures. Individualistic cultures put less focus on the situation when they talk about their own successes, collectivistic cultures see more in the circumstances (see more trees than are in the forest)

Attribution Bias Actor/Observer discrepancy

Other people

– Bad thing • Characteristics of that person – e.g. bad attitude, careless, clumsy, not paying attention

– Good thing • Characteristics of the situation – e.g. right time right place, they got lucky

Ourselves

– Good thing • Characteristics of ourselves – e.g. careful, skilful, paying attention, etc.

– Bad thing • Characteristics of the situation – e.g. wrong place and wrong time, bad luck, it was slippery, etc.

Attractiveness bias

Attractive people are seen as: – Moral, Intelligent, Trustworthy, Competent, Sociable, etc. – Attribution of attractive people’s misbehavior to environmental circumstances rather than their personality. This is because they already have one positive attitude, we often think that they are also more positive on other personalities. True awereness is one way to eliminate this.

Impressions on the Internet

People who met initially on the Internet liked each other more than people who initially met face to face - less anxious - more intimate - freed from the biasing effects of physical appearance.  

Also… threatening problems– Deceit (trying new identities) – Anti-social behaviour

Self

• Self concept - a social product

Looking-glass self

• Pygmalion effect/self-fulfilling prophecy Due to change in attention, encouragement & self-concept others’ assumptions may become reality; knowing you are capable leads to people giving more attention to focus on the goal.

Self –esteem ‘Meter’ to inform us how accepted/rejected we are Self-esteem reflects the level of acceptance or rejection we believe we can expect from others Driven by a fundamental need to belong; we need to attach to others to survive.

Social comparison Self-concept varies depending on the reference group People identify themselves largely in terms of the ways in which they perceive themselves to be different (or similar) from those around them. This is how body image works; the dominant body image is something you want to reach.

Actively Constructing Our Self-Perceptions

Enhancing our views of ourselves

– Self-serving attributional bias • a tendency to attribute our successes to our own inner qualities and our failures to external circumstances

– Accepting praise at face value

– Remembering successes, forgetting failures

– Overinflated sense of self (that can backfire) • when one’s self-concept is far in excess of one’s accomplishments, the outcome may be maladaptive

Stereotypes • Beliefs, attitudes and attributions associated with members of particular groups – Can be • Explicit (e.g. gender sterotypes) • Implicit

Explicit Stereotypes The beliefs you consciously hold – Images and associations with a particular group (declarative memory) – Public or private level – Self-report measures of explicit stereotypes – An African American woman? – An Italian man ?

• They can change by deliberate learning and logic • Perspective taking and perspective giving. Contact with others can also be positive, but only in good circumstances, otherwise the stereotypes will only get more negative.

Implicit Stereotypes Mental associations with regard to members of specific groups These associations are unconscious (may contradict our conscious beliefs) ‘Short people’ less capable than tall people

Assessment

– Priming • Show words/images very shortly and then observe behaviour

Example: first show black vs. white faces and then measure characteristics of other people (lazy, hostile, musical, athletic, materialistic, intelligent, ambitious etc.)

Assessment – Implicit Association tests people can classify two concepts together more quickly if they are already strongly associated in their minds than if they are not strongly associated • Quick classification of concepts in certain categories (good vs bad)

Can you beat them? – Yes

– But only over time and repeated exposure

– Being aware they exist can help

– Classical conditioning helps in beating implicit stereotypes

Exposure to admirable characters in movies, literature etc. can increase positive associations with the ethnic group and reduce automatic negative attitudes

Stereotypes • The Good – Quick decision making • Identification & Response – Saves Effort • The Bad – Biased information – Discrimination, prejudice – Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat • Imagine you are a young woman who is about to take a math exam – On the way one of your ‘friends’ makes a joke about women being bad at math • Does this affect your performance on the exam? YES. You need all your memory on the test, when you are thinking about the negative stereotype, that will take away the whole focus.

Questions

As you slowly drive toward the intersection, you finally see the car accident that was slowing down traffic. Looking at the two drivers standing by their damaged cars, you think to yourself, “They probably had the accident because they’re careless drivers.” Which of the following concepts does your thinking reflect? a.social inhibition b.cognitive dissonance c.the fundamental attribution error

Which of the statements below are correct? • a. Baby-faced persons are viewed as more competent than mature-faced persons • b. Attractive persons are viewed as more trustworthy than less attractive persons • c. Attractive persons are viewed as more naïve compared to less attractive persons

Summary

• Our perceptions of ourselves and others are largely affected by others

• Stereotypes help to organize and simplify vast and complex social stimuli, but lead to biased perceptions and can result in discrimination

• Even when we are not aware of implicit attitudes and stereotypes, they can affect our behaviour

The power of groups

Humans (and other animals) often act differently when in groups than on their own

Mere presence is enough

Participants asked to change into an unfamiliar/familiar jacket and unfamiliar/familiar pair of shoes (measuring the time it took) `When the clothes are familiar we get them on sooner, and when they are unfimilliar we get them on more slowly; this has to do with what we think the people will think of us afterwards.

• Alone • With people watching • With someone changing a light bulb (not watching) (Markus, 1978)

Effects of being observed

• Other people = our behaviour is observed (and evaluated?)

• Social facilitation versus Social interference

– If a task is easy/familiar, and others are present • Increased performance (Facilitation)

– If a task is hard/unfamiliar, and others are present • Decreased performance (Interference)

Facilitation vs. Interference

• (Perceived) evaluation à anxiety

• Working Memory • Limited capability • Arousal vs Anxiety (fear of failure)

Obedience

• Why did you do that?

– Do you really think Psychology rules?

– Was it because I told you to?

– Authority figures • Problem for experimenters

Why conform to a group?

• Informational influence – Other people are doing it therefore they have information I don’t, and I should do it too

• Normative influence – Other people are doing it, and I don’t want to look different

Social loafing Diffusion of responsibility

When there are more people, then other people can be responsible – Lessens overall response

Bystander effect and Annonymity

Responsability decreases by increasing the number of people involved; others can help, why should I do it.

Obedience

Milgram’s experiments - How far would you go to obey an authority?

Why conform?

• We are social animals – Cooperation helps survival

• Breaking norms can lead to social exclusion – Regulatory function

• However, not so useful and even harmful when norms are out of date, inappropriate, or unfamiliar – Prejudice – Culture clash

Compliance

• The low-ball technique: increasing the price after commitment to buy

• Foot-in-the-door technique: making a small request to prepare the ground for a large one

• Door-in-the face: people are more likely to agree to a small request after rejecting a big one

Group polarization

Intergroup prejudice We have a tendency to categorize others as “us versus them” Social identification ↑ help ingroup members ↓ help outgroup members

How to reduce it? Robbers Cave experiment: divide two groups. Superordinate identity ‘We are Europeans’

Interpersonal attraction What make us attracted to other people?

Proximity Interactions with people who are physically close are less ‘costly’ (time, money and energy)

Similarity Byrne’s law: attraction to a stranger is a function of the proportion of similar attitudes

Physical Attractiveness Physical attractiveness - main predictor in intention to ask out again (for males & females!) • Sexually dimorphic features, e.g., facial width, neoteny in female faces • Symmetry • Averageness

Sexually dimorphic traits • Masculine/ dominant faces • Neoteny as a cue of youthfulness - retention of immature features

Symmetry

Averageness

Love

Passionate versus Companionate love 65 Passionate love associated with dopamine reward systems Companionate love based on trust, respect and intimacy Attachment theory Attachment style as an adult related to childhood attachment to parents

Questions

Which of the following is an example of social facilitation? a. A funny movie seems even more amusing when you watch it with a group of friends. b. People may be more likely to help if there is a large crowd watching. c. People are more likely to work much harder in a group than when they are alone.

The conformity observed in Asch’s experiments was largely caused by ____. • a. informational influences • b. group polarization • c. normative influences

Jane asks her colleague to quickly help out on a small project. After her colleague accepts the request, Jane reveals that the project is a quite demanding one that requires at least five days of intensive work. The colleague feels obliged to accept the request despite the difficulty it involves. Jane used ________ technique.                Low ball

Summary Social Psychology

• Our perceptions (of ourselves, others, and our environment) and our behaviour are largely affected by presence of others • Attribution bias means we are harsher to others than to ourselves (in failure: Situation > Person) • Stereotypes help to organize and simplify vast and complex social stimuli, but lead to biased perceptions and can result in discrimination • We may be biased without realizing it; implicit attitudes and stereotypes can affect our behavior • We have a tendency to conform to groups; or at least to socially loaf • We also tend to obey authority • We easily categorize us versus them, favor us and despise them • Proximity, familiarity, similarity and physical attractiveness influence attraction

Social Psychology

The Psychology of how we view one another and are influenced by one another – Impressions of self/others – Social behaviour (cooperation) – Groups behavior

Impression formation

• Other people’s appearances and behaviours are observable

• We infer their attitudes and personality traits based on their behaviours – Although, our cognitions are limited, and biased… ~~We base it on what we can see / observe. ~`E.g. you can see the way someone is taking care of themselves or other people. And when one is dominant we have a few things we link to that kind of behavior.

Forming impressions of other people

“Human beings are naive psychologists” Heider Consistent mistakes/ biases; beacause

§ not using full mental resources , working memory is limited

§ limited information about an event § unconscious motives for reaching particular conclusions, we want to be better ourself (we’re above average good drivers)

Attribution

• Why would he make this mistake? Wanting the child to shut up. He thinks his child could drink out of the bottle. Maybe he doesn’t care

• Why would YOU make this mistake? Excusing; the situation made me do it.

We human give too much weight to personality and not enough to the environmental situation when attribute others behavior.

Fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977): People attribute other people’s behavior to a trait, whereas they attribute their own behavior to the context

How fundamental is this really? Is this universal, can you apply it to all cultures. Individualistic cultures put less focus on the situation when they talk about their own successes, collectivistic cultures see more in the circumstances (see more trees than are in the forest)

Attribution Bias Actor/Observer discrepancy

Other people

– Bad thing • Characteristics of that person – e.g. bad attitude, careless, clumsy, not paying attention

– Good thing • Characteristics of the situation – e.g. right time right place, they got lucky

Ourselves

– Good thing • Characteristics of ourselves – e.g. careful, skilful, paying attention, etc.

– Bad thing • Characteristics of the situation – e.g. wrong place and wrong time, bad luck, it was slippery, etc.

Attractiveness bias

Attractive people are seen as: – Moral, Intelligent, Trustworthy, Competent, Sociable, etc. – Attribution of attractive people’s misbehavior to environmental circumstances rather than their personality. This is because they already have one positive attitude, we often think that they are also more positive on other personalities. True awereness is one way to eliminate this.

Impressions on the Internet

People who met initially on the Internet liked each other more than people who initially met face to face - less anxious - more intimate - freed from the biasing effects of physical appearance.  

Also… threatening problems– Deceit (trying new identities) – Anti-social behaviour

Self

• Self concept - a social product

Looking-glass self

• Pygmalion effect/self-fulfilling prophecy Due to change in attention, encouragement & self-concept others’ assumptions may become reality; knowing you are capable leads to people giving more attention to focus on the goal.

Self –esteem ‘Meter’ to inform us how accepted/rejected we are Self-esteem reflects the level of acceptance or rejection we believe we can expect from others Driven by a fundamental need to belong; we need to attach to others to survive.

Social comparison Self-concept varies depending on the reference group People identify themselves largely in terms of the ways in which they perceive themselves to be different (or similar) from those around them. This is how body image works; the dominant body image is something you want to reach.

Actively Constructing Our Self-Perceptions

Enhancing our views of ourselves

– Self-serving attributional bias • a tendency to attribute our successes to our own inner qualities and our failures to external circumstances

– Accepting praise at face value

– Remembering successes, forgetting failures

– Overinflated sense of self (that can backfire) • when one’s self-concept is far in excess of one’s accomplishments, the outcome may be maladaptive

Stereotypes • Beliefs, attitudes and attributions associated with members of particular groups – Can be • Explicit (e.g. gender sterotypes) • Implicit

Explicit Stereotypes The beliefs you consciously hold – Images and associations with a particular group (declarative memory) – Public or private level – Self-report measures of explicit stereotypes – An African American woman? – An Italian man ?

• They can change by deliberate learning and logic • Perspective taking and perspective giving. Contact with others can also be positive, but only in good circumstances, otherwise the stereotypes will only get more negative.

Implicit Stereotypes Mental associations with regard to members of specific groups These associations are unconscious (may contradict our conscious beliefs) ‘Short people’ less capable than tall people

Assessment

– Priming • Show words/images very shortly and then observe behaviour

Example: first show black vs. white faces and then measure characteristics of other people (lazy, hostile, musical, athletic, materialistic, intelligent, ambitious etc.)

Assessment – Implicit Association tests people can classify two concepts together more quickly if they are already strongly associated in their minds than if they are not strongly associated • Quick classification of concepts in certain categories (good vs bad)

Can you beat them? – Yes

– But only over time and repeated exposure

– Being aware they exist can help

– Classical conditioning helps in beating implicit stereotypes

Exposure to admirable characters in movies, literature etc. can increase positive associations with the ethnic group and reduce automatic negative attitudes

Stereotypes • The Good – Quick decision making • Identification & Response – Saves Effort • The Bad – Biased information – Discrimination, prejudice – Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat • Imagine you are a young woman who is about to take a math exam – On the way one of your ‘friends’ makes a joke about women being bad at math • Does this affect your performance on the exam? YES. You need all your memory on the test, when you are thinking about the negative stereotype, that will take away the whole focus.

Questions

As you slowly drive toward the intersection, you finally see the car accident that was slowing down traffic. Looking at the two drivers standing by their damaged cars, you think to yourself, “They probably had the accident because they’re careless drivers.” Which of the following concepts does your thinking reflect? a.social inhibition b.cognitive dissonance c.the fundamental attribution error

Which of the statements below are correct? • a. Baby-faced persons are viewed as more competent than mature-faced persons • b. Attractive persons are viewed as more trustworthy than less attractive persons • c. Attractive persons are viewed as more naïve compared to less attractive persons

Summary

• Our perceptions of ourselves and others are largely affected by others

• Stereotypes help to organize and simplify vast and complex social stimuli, but lead to biased perceptions and can result in discrimination

• Even when we are not aware of implicit attitudes and stereotypes, they can affect our behaviour

The power of groups

Humans (and other animals) often act differently when in groups than on their own

Mere presence is enough

Participants asked to change into an unfamiliar/familiar jacket and unfamiliar/familiar pair of shoes (measuring the time it took) `When the clothes are familiar we get them on sooner, and when they are unfimilliar we get them on more slowly; this has to do with what we think the people will think of us afterwards.

• Alone • With people watching • With someone changing a light bulb (not watching) (Markus, 1978)

Effects of being observed

• Other people = our behaviour is observed (and evaluated?)

• Social facilitation versus Social interference

– If a task is easy/familiar, and others are present • Increased performance (Facilitation)

– If a task is hard/unfamiliar, and others are present • Decreased performance (Interference)

Facilitation vs. Interference

• (Perceived) evaluation à anxiety

• Working Memory • Limited capability • Arousal vs Anxiety (fear of failure)

Obedience

• Why did you do that?

– Do you really think Psychology rules?

– Was it because I told you to?

– Authority figures • Problem for experimenters

Why conform to a group?

• Informational influence – Other people are doing it therefore they have information I don’t, and I should do it too

• Normative influence – Other people are doing it, and I don’t want to look different

Social loafing Diffusion of responsibility

When there are more people, then other people can be responsible – Lessens overall response

Bystander effect and Annonymity

Responsability decreases by increasing the number of people involved; others can help, why should I do it.

Obedience

Milgram’s experiments - How far would you go to obey an authority?

Why conform?

• We are social animals – Cooperation helps survival

• Breaking norms can lead to social exclusion – Regulatory function

• However, not so useful and even harmful when norms are out of date, inappropriate, or unfamiliar – Prejudice – Culture clash

Compliance

• The low-ball technique: increasing the price after commitment to buy

• Foot-in-the-door technique: making a small request to prepare the ground for a large one

• Door-in-the face: people are more likely to agree to a small request after rejecting a big one

Group polarization

Intergroup prejudice We have a tendency to categorize others as “us versus them” Social identification ↑ help ingroup members ↓ help outgroup members

How to reduce it? Robbers Cave experiment: divide two groups. Superordinate identity ‘We are Europeans’

Interpersonal attraction What make us attracted to other people?

Proximity Interactions with people who are physically close are less ‘costly’ (time, money and energy)

Similarity Byrne’s law: attraction to a stranger is a function of the proportion of similar attitudes

Physical Attractiveness Physical attractiveness - main predictor in intention to ask out again (for males & females!) • Sexually dimorphic features, e.g., facial width, neoteny in female faces • Symmetry • Averageness

Sexually dimorphic traits • Masculine/ dominant faces • Neoteny as a cue of youthfulness - retention of immature features

Symmetry

Averageness

Love

Passionate versus Companionate love 65 Passionate love associated with dopamine reward systems Companionate love based on trust, respect and intimacy Attachment theory Attachment style as an adult related to childhood attachment to parents

Questions

Which of the following is an example of social facilitation? a. A funny movie seems even more amusing when you watch it with a group of friends. b. People may be more likely to help if there is a large crowd watching. c. People are more likely to work much harder in a group than when they are alone.

The conformity observed in Asch’s experiments was largely caused by ____. • a. informational influences • b. group polarization • c. normative influences

Jane asks her colleague to quickly help out on a small project. After her colleague accepts the request, Jane reveals that the project is a quite demanding one that requires at least five days of intensive work. The colleague feels obliged to accept the request despite the difficulty it involves. Jane used ________ technique.                Low ball

Summary Social Psychology

• Our perceptions (of ourselves, others, and our environment) and our behaviour are largely affected by presence of others • Attribution bias means we are harsher to others than to ourselves (in failure: Situation > Person) • Stereotypes help to organize and simplify vast and complex social stimuli, but lead to biased perceptions and can result in discrimination • We may be biased without realizing it; implicit attitudes and stereotypes can affect our behavior • We have a tendency to conform to groups; or at least to socially loaf • We also tend to obey authority • We easily categorize us versus them, favor us and despise them • Proximity, familiarity, similarity and physical attractiveness influence attraction