Chapter 13 Social Psychology social psychology social cognition focuses on who people think about other people and interact in relationships and groups how people perceive the social world and how they attend to store remember and use info about other people and the social world the way we view the world effects the way we perceive it and what we remember ATTITUDES affect information processing and memory overall evaluation about some aspect of the world behavior affects attitudes it and makes the attitude more extreme repeated assertion of an attitude leads to behavior more consistent with 3 components affective behavioral cognitive emotional component how you feel about something predisposition to act in a certain way how we feel about something doesn t always match up with how we behave ex may dislike your boss but are still polite to them what you think you know about that person object issue event big difference between what you think you know and the truth temperament personality individual experiences and social etc how we shape our attitudes experiences cognitive dissonance can be positive negative or neutral an uncomfortable psychological state caused when behaviors and either emotions or thoughts are inconsistent think one way about something but have to act in a different way makes you uncomfortable to fix must change either behavior or thoughts feelings most people change the way they think or feel not their behavior when in cognitive dissonance you have an immediate urge to try dissonance theory to fix it example health fitness freak hated unhealthy food negative attitude got job surveying people company owned by sugary food towards it company forced to promote stuff he hated attitude changed to be more permissive of it started eating fast food himself attitude changed bc of his behavior example grand opening for restaurant in Miami bouncer says you re not on the list don t have reservations can t won t let people in but there s no one in the restaurant waited for hours over different days to get in food sucked but still told people it was good and still want to go get in examples persuasion changing attitudes central route reason playing hard to get hazing justifying immoral behavior forced discrimination laws cause prejudice any effort you take to change someone s attitude advertising and politics elaboration likelihood model 2 methods send a message to people that appeals to logic and present the facts of why better let consumer decide peripheral route nothing to do with logic reason or product politician involves non message factors appeal to emotions mere exposure effect the more familiar you come with something more positive your attitude is towards it buy products you re familiar with vote for politician you know ex use sex to sell product ex political campaigns appeal to fear persuasive people identity good looking famous people fast talking seems honest peripheral route more effective in short term don t want to have to think 5 on Major Concept Sheet Stereotypes Very specific to people Stereotypes a belief or set of beliefs about people in a particular Involves the cognitive portion of an attitude social category Serve as cognitive shortcuts Inaccuracies and errors o Likely to ignore or forget information not consistent with stereotypes you will only remember things about them that fit that stereotype o Deny information inconsistent with stereotypes o Overgeneralization and overuse Prejudice an attitude generally negative toward members of a 6 on Major Concept Sheet Prejudice and Discrimination group Two components o Cognitive o Emotional 7 on Major Concept Sheet Why Does Prejudice Exist Realistic Conflict Prejudice is an attitude while discrimination is a behavior Discrimination o Behavior generally negative based on prejudice Negative stereotypes can lead to prejudice o Competition for resources Robber s Cave study prejudice eliminated through cooperation toward larger goals mutual interdependence o Robber s Cave Study 10 12 year old boys that knew each other came down for a summer camp and psychologists randomly divided the boys into two groups Set up a series of competitions for everyday Whichever group won the competition that night would get a reward movies and deserts Took 4 days for violence to begin o Example The Native American tribes that lived close together were constantly at war because they competed for water and food Social Categorization Ingroup Arkansans Outgroup Any group that you re a member of Baptist U of A students You are almost never prejudice against the groups you belong to Any group you re not a member of More likely to engage in stereotyping about an outgroup More likely to be prejudice against an outgroup Social Learning Prejudice transmitted through culture from one generation to the next through simple modeling and learning Kid s actually learn what people think about them and what people think about others at age 1 8 on Major Concept Sheet Changing Prejudice Contact hypothesis Recategorization Not really effective Mutual interdependence goal Jigsaw classroom Based on the idea that if you have a prejudice against a group you need to go get to know them Increase awareness of similarities Information inconsistent with stereotypes Challenge view of outgroup homogeneity Groups have to work together to achieve a mutually beneficial 9 on Major Concept Sheet Attribution An explanation for the cause of an event or behavior What caused this behavior o Internal Dispositional attributions I did a good job because I m smart You re blaming the individual o External Situational attributions I did a good job because the task was easy You re blaming the circumstance or the environment Example I failed that test because the teacher is awful 10 on Major Concept Sheet Rules for the types of conclusions we jump to Attributional Biases Fundamental attribution error Occurs when you observe something happening to someone else Bias to attribute internal causes for other people s behavior Also called the correspondence bias Self serving bias Involves both what happens to you and what happens to other people Attribute external causes for your own failings So when something bad happens to us we blame the environment but when something good happens to us we take the credit for it we assume the exact opposite for everyone else If you get an A on the exam it s because you re smart if other people get an A we say they got lucky Leads to the belief in a