Chapter 13
Social Psychology: study of how people influence others behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes
Need to belong theory- humans have a biologically based need for interpersonal connections
Mass hysteria: contagious outbreak of irrational behaviour that spreads much like a flu epidemic
- unidentified flying objects (UFOs) sightings shot up at times when societal consciousness
of space travel was heightened
Urban legends- false stories that have been repeated so many time people believe them to be true
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Attributions: process of assigning causes to behaviour
Fundamental attribution: tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences on other
people’s behaviour
- Such as personality traits, attitudes, and intelligence
- Were less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error if we have been in the same
situation ourselves
13.2 Social Influence: Conformity & Obedience
Conformity: Tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure
Social Influence on Conformity:
- Unanimity : If all confederates gave the wrong answer, the participant was more likely to
conform.
- Difference in the wrong answer:
- Size: The size of the majority made a difference, but only up to about five or six
confederates.
Deindividuation: the tendency of people to engage in atypical behaviour when stripped of their
usual identities
- Helps explain why crowd behaviours are so unpredictable: the actions of people in
crowds depend largely on whether others are acting prosocially or antisocially
Groupthink: emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking
- Everyone agrees with everyone else that they lose their capacity to evaluate issues
objectively
- Devils advocate: a person whose roles is to voice doubts about the wisdom of the groups
decisions
Cults: a groups that exhibits intense and unquestioning devotions to a single cause
- Ex: heaven's gates
Cults promate group thinking in four major ways
1. Having a persuasive leader who fosters loyalty
2. disconnection group members from the outside world
3. discouraging questions of the group’s assumptions
4. Establishing training practices that gradually indoctrinate members
Inoculation effect:approach to convincing people to change their mind about something by first
introducing reasons why the perspective might be correct and then debunking those reasons
, EX; if you want to persuade someone that sleep associated learning doesn’t work
Obedience: werake out marching orders from people who are above us in the hierarchy of
authority such as a teacher, parent, or boss
- EX;” I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That
was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women, and
children. They were all classified the same”
- authoritarianism are more likely to comply with the experimenters’ demands
The Milgram Paradigm
13.3 Helping and Harming others
Two major factors Bystander nonintervention
- Pluralistic ignorance: the error of assuming that no one in the group perceives things as
we do
- Recognize that the sition is really an emergency
- Diffusion of responsibility: the presence of others makes each person less respoq for the
outcome
- EX; in a crowded park who’s having a heart attack and that person dies, you can always
say to yourself, “Well, that’s a terrible tragedy, but it wasn’t really my fault. After all,
plenty of other people could have helped, too.”
- we can experience pluralistic ignorance, which prevents us from interpreting a situation
as an emergency, and we can experience diffusion of responsibility, which discourages us
from offering assistance in an emergency
Social loafing: a phenomenon in which people slack off in groups
- By guaranteeing that managers and bosses can evaluate each individuals performance
Altruism: that is helping others for unselfish reasons
- help others entirely for self-centred reasons, like relieving our own distress, experiencing
the joy of others we’ve helped or people we’ve helped will be more likely to reciprocate
by helping us later
- We seem to help not only to relieve our distress but also to relieve the distress of others
Enlightenment effect: learning about psychological research can change real world behaviours
for the better
Aggression: a behavior intended to harm others, either verbally or physically
Relational aggression: a form of indirect aggression marked by spreading rumours, gossiping,
social exclusion, and nonverbal putdown for the purpose of interpersonal manipulation
13.4 Attitudes And Persuasion
Attitude: belief that includes an emotional components
Cognitive dissonance: between two or more conflicting thoughts
-
Social Psychology: study of how people influence others behaviour, beliefs, and attitudes
Need to belong theory- humans have a biologically based need for interpersonal connections
Mass hysteria: contagious outbreak of irrational behaviour that spreads much like a flu epidemic
- unidentified flying objects (UFOs) sightings shot up at times when societal consciousness
of space travel was heightened
Urban legends- false stories that have been repeated so many time people believe them to be true
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Attributions: process of assigning causes to behaviour
Fundamental attribution: tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences on other
people’s behaviour
- Such as personality traits, attitudes, and intelligence
- Were less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error if we have been in the same
situation ourselves
13.2 Social Influence: Conformity & Obedience
Conformity: Tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure
Social Influence on Conformity:
- Unanimity : If all confederates gave the wrong answer, the participant was more likely to
conform.
- Difference in the wrong answer:
- Size: The size of the majority made a difference, but only up to about five or six
confederates.
Deindividuation: the tendency of people to engage in atypical behaviour when stripped of their
usual identities
- Helps explain why crowd behaviours are so unpredictable: the actions of people in
crowds depend largely on whether others are acting prosocially or antisocially
Groupthink: emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking
- Everyone agrees with everyone else that they lose their capacity to evaluate issues
objectively
- Devils advocate: a person whose roles is to voice doubts about the wisdom of the groups
decisions
Cults: a groups that exhibits intense and unquestioning devotions to a single cause
- Ex: heaven's gates
Cults promate group thinking in four major ways
1. Having a persuasive leader who fosters loyalty
2. disconnection group members from the outside world
3. discouraging questions of the group’s assumptions
4. Establishing training practices that gradually indoctrinate members
Inoculation effect:approach to convincing people to change their mind about something by first
introducing reasons why the perspective might be correct and then debunking those reasons
, EX; if you want to persuade someone that sleep associated learning doesn’t work
Obedience: werake out marching orders from people who are above us in the hierarchy of
authority such as a teacher, parent, or boss
- EX;” I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job that day. That
was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women, and
children. They were all classified the same”
- authoritarianism are more likely to comply with the experimenters’ demands
The Milgram Paradigm
13.3 Helping and Harming others
Two major factors Bystander nonintervention
- Pluralistic ignorance: the error of assuming that no one in the group perceives things as
we do
- Recognize that the sition is really an emergency
- Diffusion of responsibility: the presence of others makes each person less respoq for the
outcome
- EX; in a crowded park who’s having a heart attack and that person dies, you can always
say to yourself, “Well, that’s a terrible tragedy, but it wasn’t really my fault. After all,
plenty of other people could have helped, too.”
- we can experience pluralistic ignorance, which prevents us from interpreting a situation
as an emergency, and we can experience diffusion of responsibility, which discourages us
from offering assistance in an emergency
Social loafing: a phenomenon in which people slack off in groups
- By guaranteeing that managers and bosses can evaluate each individuals performance
Altruism: that is helping others for unselfish reasons
- help others entirely for self-centred reasons, like relieving our own distress, experiencing
the joy of others we’ve helped or people we’ve helped will be more likely to reciprocate
by helping us later
- We seem to help not only to relieve our distress but also to relieve the distress of others
Enlightenment effect: learning about psychological research can change real world behaviours
for the better
Aggression: a behavior intended to harm others, either verbally or physically
Relational aggression: a form of indirect aggression marked by spreading rumours, gossiping,
social exclusion, and nonverbal putdown for the purpose of interpersonal manipulation
13.4 Attitudes And Persuasion
Attitude: belief that includes an emotional components
Cognitive dissonance: between two or more conflicting thoughts
-
