PSY 331 Chapter Notes - Chapter 18: Social Exchange Theory, Ingroups And Outgroups, Physical Attractiveness
CHAPTER 18
➢The goal of social psychologists is to study how we feel about, relate, and influence each other
SOCIAL THINKING
• Fritz Heider's Attribution Theory: people "attribute" (link) others' behaviors with their (internal) disposition
or (external) situations. (A person that always smiles at a party might give the impression to others that he is a
happy guy (dispositional attribution) or the party is making him happy (situational attribution).
• Fundamental Attribution Error: when someone attributes others' behavior as a reflection of their "real"
internal disposition not considering situational effects. That is, one makes the mistake of underestimating
situational influence and overestimating personality influence.
•(Observing a police officer at work will make you think that they are forceful, non-tolerating, and even
aggressive (overestimating personality influence) but this is so because their job demands such actions
(underestimating situation influence). However, catch them off duty in a pet shop and you might see
how caring and sincere they are.)
•Attitudes: Your feelings and beliefs that direct the way you respond to your surroundings. In turn, your
actions can also dictate your attitudes ……. so attitudes and actions exist in an enduring cycle.
•Foot-in-the-door-phenomenon: Tendency for people who have agreed on a small request to comply later to a
larger one. ( You are likely to agree to a small questionnaire from a salesman at first and then also to agree to
larger request; perhaps purchasing what he has to offer. )
•Role: Expectations on how one should behave in a certain social position. (Adults should be responsible,
professors should be intellectual, soldiers should be brave,. .etc.)
• In Philip Zimbardo' s 1972 prison study, students were randomly assigned to act as prisoners or guards.
In less than a week, the students became so absorbed into their "role playing" that they became their
roles. The guards adopted abusive attitudes and the prisoners became discouraged and even rebellious.
After the study, the students quickly returned back to their normal roles.
•Cognitive Dissonance Theory: States that if what we believe and what we do are inconsistent, we will feel
cognitive dissonance (discomforting tension) and we will reduce this tension by altering our attitudes. (If you
were made to write about the advantages of a topic you disagree on (say more homework), you'd feel uneasy
and start believing your words to comfort yourself.)
SOCIAL INFLUENCE
•Conformity: often due to group pressure, is the adjustment of your behavior or thinking to coincide with
others. (Laughing when others are laughing, going to a kiosk in the mall crowded with people, giving more to
charity baskets because there's lots of money inside them.)
•Norms: expected or proper behavior in a social context.
•Normative Social Influence: person conforms because they want to gain social approval/acceptance.
• (NORMative: following the social norm)
•Informative SociaI Influence: person conforms because they accept others' judgment on reality.
• (INFOrmative: accepting into/facts about reality)
•Stanley Milgram's Obedience Study: participants act as teachers who deliver electrical shocks to examinee's
that answer incorrectly. The magnitude of voltages increase as the number of questions answered incorrectly
increase. Even though screaming sounds of pain were heard from the examinee, 63% of the participants
delivered right up to the last 450-volts. The experiment showed that obedience was highest when the order
giver has high authority, the victim was far away or unseen, or when no one was seen disobeying.
•Social Facilitation: improved performance on well learned tasks in the presence of others (audience).
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