SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY - PART 2
CHAPTER 12
PSY101
WEEK 10
Attribution
• Attribution: the process of explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of
others. “To what you attribute that behavior?”
– E.g., you best friend did not celebrate your birthday?
▪ Your attribution: S/he may be sick and forgot about your birthday.
• Attribution theory: the theory of how people make attributions
– explaining why things happen and also why people choose the particular
explanations of behavior that they do
• The attribution can be based on internal and external causes
– Dispositional cause: cause is internal
– Situational cause: cause is external
Attribution
• Situational cause: cause of behavior attributed to external factors
"John is late”
Your attribute: because it rains heavily outside"
• Dispositional cause: cause of behavior attributed to internal factors (related
to the individual) such as personality
"John is late”
– You attribute: because he is careless or lazy"
Fundamental attribution error
• The tendency to overestimate the influence of internal factors and underestimate
situational factors when explaining other people's behavior
– You tend to attribute someone else's behaviour to internal factors
– E.g., John was late because he is lazy.
• When explaining our own behavior we tend to use the actor-observer bias: using
situational attributes to explain our behavior and not personal attributes
• You tend to attribute your own behaviour to external factors
• E.g., I was late because of the traffic.
Fundamental attribution error
• Minimizing Fundamental Attribution Error
• To notice how many other people are doing the same behavior.
• If one person is late, it is about him/her but if a lot of people are late, it is
probably caused by an outside factor.
• To think about what you would do in the same situation.
• If you think that you might behave in the same way, the cause of behavior is
probably situational.
Fundamental attribution error
– Cross-cultural differences: Americans (individualistic culture) are more
likely to do fundamental attribution error than other cultures (interdependent
or collectivistic cultures) like Japan
– Age: older people are more likely to attribute others' behaivor to internal
factors
– Motive: e.g., hatred among two groups
– Explain other side’s motivating force as hatred and explain themselves' as
love.
Social Interaction
• Social interactions include:
• The relationships between people, both casual and intimate
• Prejudice and discrimination
• Liking and loving
• Aggression and prosocial behavior
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice: negative attitude held by a person about the members of a
particular social group
• E.g., prejudice against black people, elderly, or overweight people
• Discrimination: treating people differently because of prejudice toward the
social group to which they belong
• E.g., you do not become friends with overweight people and prefer fit and
good-looking people for friendship
– You do not hire black people as an employer
Are Stereotypes and Prejudices Inevitable?
[Link]
ciccarelli6e_0135238307-are_stereotypes_and_prejudices_inevitable
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Examples of Types of prejudice
– ageism
– sexism
– racism
– overweight / underweight
– different sexual orientations
• In-groups: social groups with whom a person identifies; “us”
• E.g., “We are Turkish/American/Italian”, “We are supporters of Barcelona
Football Club”, “We are lawyers” ("This is us and other groups are different"
thinking)
• Out-groups: social groups with whom a person does not identify; “them”
• Members of the out-groups are usually going to become stereotyped according
to some superficial characteristic, such as skin color or hair color…etc.
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Scapegoating: a person or a group, typically a member or members of an out-
group, who serves as the target for the frustrations and negative emotions of
members of the in-group
• Often the group with the least power (e.g., the newest immigrants)
Prejudice and Discrimination
Jane Elliott “Blue Eyes - Brown Eyes” Experiment
[Link]
How People Learn and Overcome Prejudice
• Social cognitive theory: referring to the use of cognitive processes in relation to
understanding the social world.
• Prejudice is seen as an attitude that is formed like other attitudes are formed
• Realistic conflict theory: theory stating that prejudice and discrimination will be
increased between groups that are in conflict over a limited resource.
– E.g., land, employment opportunities, playground conflict in the book “The
Paul Street Boys”
How People Learn and Overcome Prejudice
• Social identity theory: the formation of a person’s identity within a particular social group
is explained by three processes:
1. Social categorization: people assign others to social categories (e.g., black, white,
student, teacher) to help organize information about them, people also assign
themselves to social categories to help determine how they should behave.
2. Identification/Social identity: the part of self-concept including one’s view of self
as a member of a particular social category
3. Social comparison: the comparison of oneself to others in ways that raise one’s
self-esteem. “Well, at least I’m better off than that person.”
• Social media provides multiple opportunities for social comparison.
• Prejudice may result from the need to increase one’s own self-esteem by looking
down on others (out-group members).
How People Learn and Overcome Prejudice
• Stereotype vulnerability: the effect that people’s awareness of the stereotypes
associated with their social group has on their behavior.
• E.g., you are overweight and you are aware of the stereotypes applied to
overweight people by others (out-group members)
• When people are aware of stereotypes that are normally applied to their own
group by others, they may feel anxious about behaving in ways that might support
that stereotype.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: the tendency of one’s expectations to affect one’s
behavior in such a way as to make the expectation more likely to occur, usually in
a negative way
• E.g., you think you will fail an incoming exam, and you become anxious and
your expectations shape your behavious such that you actually fail that exam
How People Learn and Overcome Prejudice
Stereotype threat: members of a stereotyped group are made anxious and
wary of any situation in which their behavior might confirm a stereotype.
• A difficult verbal test was given to both Caucasian and African American
participants. When participants were asked to select their race before the
test, African Americans performed worse and were anxious because of
stereotype threat.
• Because by selecting their race, African Americans were made aware of
their minority status.
Overcoming Prejudice
• The best way to overcome prejudice is education
• Direct contact with other people or groups -> intergroup contact
• College life is suitable for this contact
• Equal status contact reduce prejudice: contact between groups in which the
groups have equal status, with neither group having power over the other
• E.g., Robbers cave experiment
Overcoming Prejudice
• The Robbers Cave Experiment by Muzaffer Sherif
[Link]
• Intergroup contact must be cooperative and occur when all groups are equal in
terms of power or status to have a positive effect on reducing prejudice.
Overcoming Prejudice
• Jigsaw classroom: educational technique in which each individual is given
only part of the information needed to solve a problem, forcing individuals to
work together to find the solution
• Prejudice between people is most likely to be reduced when they
1. engage in sustained close contact,
2. have equal status,
3. work to achieve a common goal that requires cooperation,
4. supported by broader social norms
Interpersonal Attraction
• Interpersonal attraction: liking or having the desire for a relationship with
another person
• Factors affecting attraction
1. Physical attractiveness
2. Proximity: physical or geographical nearness like working at the same office
because it increases the chances of repeated exposure
– Mere exposure effect: the more people experience something the more
they like it, e.g., you will like people you see around more
3. Birds of a feather: people like people who are similar to themselves
▪ Similar intererst, beliefs etc
▪ Research supports similarity as a factor of drawing people together
Interpersonal Attraction
• Reciprocity of liking: tendency of people to like other people who like them
in return
• One study showed liking produces more liking (if you are told that the other
person likes you, you also like them)
• Exception is low self-worth. If the person has low self-worth, finding out
that someone likes you when you don’t even like yourself makes you
question his or her motives.
• This mistrust can cause you to act unfriendly to that person, and makes
that person to become unfriendly to you in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Online social networking sites often enhance already established relationships
• Different websites draw different crowds depending on culture or ethnicity
Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
• Love: a strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties,
sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests
• Sternberg’s three components of love:
1. Intimacy: the feelings of closeness that one has for another person or
the sense of having close emotional ties to another
2. Passion: the emotional and sexual arousal a person feels toward the
other person
3. Commitment: decisions about the length of a relationship
Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
• Romantic love: consists of intimacy and passion, often the basis for a more
lasting relationship.
• Companionate love: consists of intimacy and commitment.
• People like each other, feel emotionally close and understand one another’s
motives. They made a commitment to live together, usually in a marriage
relationship.
• Consummate love: ideal love, in which all three components are present.
.
Aggression
• Violence toward others is another form of social interaction.
• Aggression: behavior intended to hurt or destroy another person
• Remember! Frustration–aggression hypothesis: aggression is a reaction to
frustration
• Different sources of frustration can lead to aggressive behavior
– Pain, loud noise, excessive heat, awful smells like smoking
• Konrad Lorenz saw aggression as an instinct for fighting to promote the
survival of our species.
• From an evolutionary perspective, early humans who were most successful in
protecting their territory, resources, and offspring were probably more
aggressive and so they survived to pass on their genetic material
Aggression and Biology
• Aggression (at least partially) has a genetic basis.
• If one identical twin has a violent temper, other twin will most likely also have a
violent temper.
• Brain areas involved in aggression are the frontal lobes, amygdala, and other
structures of the limbic system
• High testosterone levels and low serotonin levels are also associated with
aggressive behavior.
• Alcohol decrease serotonin and through this mechanism may lead to
aggression.
Aggression
• Social learning theory bu Bandura suggests aggression can be learned by
watching and modeling
• Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment
The Brain: A Secret History - Emotions; Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment
[Link] (original)
[Link]
Aggression
• Social role: the pattern of behavior that is expected of a person who is in a
particular social position
Stanford Prison Experiment by Zimbardo
[Link]
Zimbardo’s experiment highlighted the importance of social roles on
behavior.
There is also a movie based on this experiment "Das Experiment (The
Experiment)"
Stanford Prison Experiment
• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment (SPE), as originally interpreted,
highlighted the potential influence of social roles
• Some replications of the SPE have supported the influence of the situation.
Others have not (e.g., the BBC Prison Study), and suggest people take on
roles after they come to identify with a particular group; social identity theory.
Aggression
• Violence in the media
• Research shows children exposed to high levels of violent media are more
aggressive than children who are not
• Violent video games may have the same affect on increasing aggressive
acts
Prosocial Behavior
• Prosocial behavior: socially desirable
behavior that benefits others
• Altruism: prosocial behavior that is done
with no expectation of reward and may
involve the risk of harm to oneself
– Temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in the
brain is larger in individuals who make
altruistic choices
Prosocial Behavior
Empathy-altruism hypothesis: altruism is produced by empathy—the ability to
put oneself in the place of another and to share what that person is experiencing.
Prosocial Behavior
• Case of Kitty Genovese: Kitty Genovese was stabbed, while neighbors were
watching from their apartments. Why no-one help her was explained by social
psychologists with bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility
• Bystander: someone observing an event and close enough to offer help
• Bystander effect: the effect that the presence of other people has on the
decision to help or not help to a victim in emergency situations
– Help becomes less likely as the number of bystanders increases
– Despite the impact of Kitty Genovese case, more recent investigations
suggest some of the details of the original report are not accurate
Bystander effect experiments
SHOCKING! - Bystander Effect | Kitty Genovese | Social Psychology
[Link]
The smoke filled room study
[Link]
Elements Involved in Bystander Response
▪ In a classic experiment, participants
were filling out surveys as the room
began to fill with smoke.
▪ The time taken to report smoke and the
percentage of people reporting smoke
both depended on how many people
were in the room at the time the smoke
was observed.
▪ If a person was alone, he or she was
far more likely to report the smoke and
report it more quickly than when there
were three people.
Source: Based On Latané, B., & Darley, J. M. (1969). Bystander “apathy.”
American Scientist, 57(2), 244–268.
Prosocial Behavior
• Diffusion of responsibility: a person fails to take responsibility for action or
for inaction because of the presence of other people who are seen to share the
responsibility
• Researchers Latané and Darley found that people who were alone were more
likely to help in an emergency than people who were with others
– One bystander cannot diffuse responsibility but multiple bystanders can
Whom do people help?
• Similarity: Whether in attitudes, nationality, or other characteristics,
perceiving that a person is similar to us increases our willingness to provide
help.
• Gender: Male bystanders are more likely to help a woman than a man in
need, whereas female bystanders are equally likely to help women and men.
• Perceived fairness and responsibility: Beliefs about fairness influence
people’s willingness to help others. For example, people are more likely to help
someone if they perceive that the person is not responsible for causing his or
her own misfortune.
Prosocial Behavior
• Five steps in making a decision to help
1. Noticing
2. Defining an emergency
3. Taking responsibility
4. Planning a course of action
5. Taking action
Help or Don’t Help: Five Decision Points
Decision Point Description Factors Influencing Decision
Noticing Realizing that there is a situation Hearing a loud crash or a cry for
that might be an emergency help.
Defining an Interpreting the cues as signaling an Loud crash if associated with a car
Emergency emergency accident, people are obviously hurt.
Taking Personally assuming the A single bystander is much more
Responsibility responsibility to act likely to act than when others are
present (Latané & Darley. 1969.)
Planning a Course Deciding how to help and what skills People who feel they have the
of Action might be needed necessary skills to help are more
likely to help.
Taking Action Actually helping Cost of helping (e.g. danger to self)
must not outweigh the rewards of
helping.
Deciding to Help Video
[Link]
ciccarelli_5e-2016_Deciding_to_Help