3/27/18'1'Social Psychology PSYC 100 – Introduction to Psychology Class 18 Announcements • Final Exam is scheduled for: • Friday, May 4th from 7 to 9 PM • Room 2079 of the Natural History Building • Final Exam Review Session is scheduled for: • Wednesday, May 2nd from 5 to 5:50 PM • 21 Psychology Building Social Psychology Outline • What is social psychology? • Conformity & obedience • Stereotypes & prejudice • How to persuade anyone of anything • Helping behaviors What you’ll learn in the rest of this class • What is social psychology? • Conformity & obedience • Stereotypes & prejudice • How to persuade anyone of anything • Helping behaviors What is social psychology? Social psychology is the study of how people influence others’ behavior, beliefs, and attitudes What is social psychology? • Humans are a social species • We crave strong, stable social relationships • Being alone is painful3/27/18'2'What is social psychology? • Need-to-belong theory: Humans have a biologically-based need for interpersonal connections • Social contagion: We look to others for knowledge or for deciding how to act • Social facilitation: The presence of others can enhance our performance in certain situations • E.g., runners complete a mile faster when running with a partner (rather than vs. the clock) • Same results with cockroaches running a maze • Social disruption (“choking” can also occur) What is social psychology? • Social comparison theory: We seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them to others • You can engage in both “upward” and “downward” comparisons, and it turns out that both can benefit you psychologically Upward Comparison Downward Comparison What is social psychology? • One extremely well-replicated finding in social psychology: We tend to assume that the things people do are caused by dispositional factors (i.e., things about them, like their personality) rather than situational factors • This is called the fundamental attribution error or, more recently, the correspondence bias Situational Dispositional “He probably got caught in some bad traffic, and then he was late for a meeting.” “He’s such a careless driver. He never watches out for other cars.” The Fundamental Attribution Error [My video link] What is social psychology? • In one study, students watched their peers being randomly assigned to give a speech that’s either pro-Castro or anti-Castro • After watching the speech, they were asked to guess the speakers true attitudes toward Castro Results3/27/18'3'What is social psychology? • Cultural differences in the fundamental attribution error: • The “Gang Lu” example: • “Gang Lu was a Chinese physics student enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Iowa. On Friday, November 1, 1991, using a .38 caliber revolver and also carrying a .22 caliber handgun, he shot five people to death, seriously wounded another, and then committed suicide.” What is social psychology? • Cultural differences in the fundamental attribution error: • The “Gang Lu” example: • “Gang Lu was a Chinese physics student enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Iowa. On Friday, November 1, 1991, using a .38 caliber revolver and also carrying a .22 caliber handgun, he shot five people to death, seriously wounded another, and then committed suicide.” • U.S Newspapers: “mentally unstable”, “darkly disturbed”, “bad temper” (dispositional attributions) • Chinese Papers: “Isolated from the Chinese community”, “had a difficult relationship with his advisor” (situational attributions) What is social psychology? • The actor-observer difference: We only fall prey to the fundamental attribution error when explaining other’s behavior, but not our own What is social psychology? • Causes of the fundamental attribution error: • We may overlook or be unaware of situational forces on people’s behavior • We may underestimate the power of the situation, and may incorrectly guess that there’s no way we’d make the same mistake • We may be unwilling or unable to devote the cognitive resources necessary to think about the problem thoroughly What you’ll learn in the rest of this class • What is social psychology? • Conformity & obedience • Stereotypes & prejudice • How to persuade anyone of anything • Helping behaviors Conformity & Obedience Conformity in an elevator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgRoiTWkBHU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDD4IkVZWTM3/27/18'4'Conformity & Obedience • Conformity: Tendency for people to alter behavior in response to group pressures • Classic Asch (pronounced “ash”) study: • Subjects in a group asked to compare/match line lengths • Confederates (undercover experimenters) picked wrong • Participants conformed to the wrong answer 37% of the time across all 12 trials Note: Why do all the dead psychologists look so cool? Conformity & Obedience The Asch Experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIh4MkcfJA Conformity & Obedience • Deindividuation is the tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behavior when they are stripped of their usual identities Conformity & Obedience Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAX9b7agT9o Conformity & Obedience • What does the prison experiment teach us? • People conform to their roles, even when those roles are arbitrary • Good people can do bad things when they blindly conform • “I would never do anything like this” • Remember the FAE! Conformity & Obedience • Now what about obedience? • Obedience is adherence to instructions from those of a higher authority • In many instances, obedience is very useful • E.g., laws, hierarchies, organizations that keep society running smoothly • But, like conformity, blind obedience can be bad3/27/18'5'Conformity & Obedience • Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience study • Told participants they’re studying “the effects of punishment on memory” using a word pair memorization task • Pseudorandomly assigned the roles of… • “Teacher” (participant): Delivers painful shock to
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