PSYCH 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Fear Appeal, Fundamental Attribution Error, Illusory Correlation
Schreier Fall 2016 PSYCH 111.060
Lecture 20 (Last Lecture)
Social Psychology
●Social Psychology: examines the influence of social processes on the way people think,
feel and behave.
●Attitudes: a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a person, object, or concept.
○Attitude Strength: the durability or impact of an attitude
■Durability: if it lasts over time
■Impact: if it impacts behavior or thoughts.
○Cognitive component: beliefs about the object
○Affective component: emotional feelings about the object
○Behavioral component: predisposition to act in a certain way toward an object
●Social Cognition
○Initial Impressions: initial perceptions make a difference; and have shown strong
effects
○Asch’s study found that a person presented with positive traits first was found to
be more sociable and happier
●Social Influence: the presence of others energizes performance (Triplett)
○Triplett studied this by looking at bicyclists. Found they had fastest time when
racing against others.
●Social Norms: shared expectations about thoughts, feelings and behavior; can vary by
time and place; culturally sensitive
●Social Role: a set of norms which characterize how people in specific social positions
should behave
○Role Conflict: norms accompanying different roles may clash
○We each have multiple roles
●Conformity: the adjustment of people’s behavior, attitudes and beliefs to a group.
●Informational social influence: follow the opinions of those we believe have accurate
knowledge and believe they are doing right, “others are buying this product.”
●Normative social influence: conform to obtain rewards that come from being accepted
by other people while trying to avoid rejection
●Situational Influence on behaviors: see others engaging in a behavior, likely to be
influenced by it.
○Situations such as being in a classroom or football game will call for certain
behaviors. If you do something you do in football game, you usually wouldn’t do
that in a store.
●Asch Conformity Study
○Has a stimulus line, and people are asked to choose one of three comparison lines
that would be the most similar to the stimulus line. Asch had 6/7 people that were
part of the research, while the 6th person is actually the subject.
○Results of Asch Study:
■When people were alone they got the answer correct
■When in a group, only ~25% appeared to remain completely independent
in their responses.
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Schreier Fall 2016 PSYCH 111.060
○Factors which affected conformity
■Group size: conformity increased from 5-35% as group size increased
■After size of 5 people this stabilized
■Presence of a dissenter: when someone else dissents he/she serves as a
model and it significantly reduces conformity.
○Cognitive Dissonance: an unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes
inconsistencies in actions, attitudes, and beliefs.
●LaPiere Study
○Attitudes do not necessarily determine or predict our behavior
○LaPiere travelled around the country with an Asian American couple. Went to
270 or so establishments, refused service by 1 or 2. LaPiere stated that most of the
establishments stated that they would refuse service, but majority didn’t. Shows
that attitudes don’t always predict behavior.
●Attitudes and Behavior are influenced by several factors
○Attitudes influence behavior more strongly
when the counteracting situational
factors are weak
■Ex: tells people to take clothes off. No one says they would. But with
increasing monetary rewards, more and more people say they would take
their clothes off.
○Attitudes have a greater influence
over our behaviors when we are aware of them
and when they are strongly held.
■Ex: choosing non-smoking section when you are adamantly against sitting
near smoke. People feel less strongly about smoking: waiting time for
non-smoking is 1 hour and smoking section is 5 minutes. Such people who
are less strongly against smoking would choose smoking section.
○General attitudes predict general behaviors and specific attitudes predict specific
behaviors.
■Ex: asking if you pray (general), but don’t know often you pray. If ask
how often do you pray and how strongly do you feel about prayers
(specific), then could have a better sense of how many times one prays.
●Group Effects on Decisions and Behavior
○Social Loafing: reduced effort that occurs when people work in groups
○Group Polarization: group discussions lead to more extreme positions
○Groupthink: groups may be less effective to keep agreement among members
■Significant in jury situations.
●Persuasion: the deliberate effort to change or impact one’s attitude
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Document Summary
Social psychology: examines the influence of social processes on the way people think, Attitudes : a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a person, object, or concept. feel and behave. Attitude strength: the durability or impact of an attitude. Impact: if it impacts behavior or thoughts. Affective component: emotional feelings about the object. Behavioral component: predisposition to act in a certain way toward an object. Initial impressions: initial perceptions make a difference; and have shown strong. Asch"s study found that a person presented with positive traits first was found to be more sociable and happier racing against others. Social influence : the presence of others energizes performance (triplett) Triplett studied this by looking at bicyclists. Social norms : shared expectations about thoughts, feelings and behavior; can vary by. Social role : a set of norms which characterize how people in specific social positions time and place; culturally sensitive should behave. Role conflict : norms accompanying different roles may clash.
