Social Psychology

What Is Social Psychology?

• how our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are affected by others.

The four “A”s

• Attitudes

• Attributions

• Attraction

• Authority and Aggression

Attitudes

• tendency to think, feel, or act positively or negatively toward object

• can drive behavior in absence of reward• “neat room, neat kids”

• Components:• cognitive• emotional• behavioral

When Is Behavior Consistent with Attitude?

• thoughts and feelings agree

• behavioral agrees with subjective norms

• can do something

• attitude acquired by direct experience with object

• argumentation• reinforcement• pairing• mere exposure• observation

• cognitive dissonance• baby steps

• latitudes of acceptance/rejection

• sequential• foot in door• door in face

• low reactance, no behavioral restrictions

Formation ChangeAttitudes

Next

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Attitude Change

Back

Cognitive Dissonance and Attitude

Change

Back

What Influences Attitude Change?

• Source• trusted• likable• authority

• Target• low ego-involvement• no threat to esteem• little experience in defending positions

• Message• fear attack• unsignalled• two-sided• rhetorical questions (“Don’t you think that”)• well organized• examples not statistics• redundancy

What Are Stereotypes?

• perceptions, beliefs, and expectations a person has about members in some group

• effects of stereotypes on behavior can be automatic and unconscious

Kinds of Stereotypes

• auto-stereotype (what the “out group” thinks about themselves)• 50% of blacks in USA have negative

stereotypes about themselves• stereotype threat

• meta-stereotype (what “in-group” believes the “out-group” is thinking about the “in-group”)

What Is Prejudice?

• attitude toward an individual based solely on the person’s group membership

• behavioral component is discrimination

• often not based on direct experience

Why?

• prejudice might serve to increases one’s sense of security

• prejudice linked with authoritarianism

Explicit Prejudice

• Blatant Prejudice Items• ‘Would you personally mind or not mind if a

suitably qualified aboriginal person was appointed as your boss?’

• “Subtle” Prejudice Items• ‘If aboriginals living would only try harder, they

could be as well off as other Canadians’.

Explicit and Implicit

• Explicit prejudice operates in a conscious mode• self-report• bogus pipeline

• Implicit stereotypes are automatic activation of negative traits in memory• priming• IAT

Studies of Implicit Stereotyping

• Is it a word or nonword?• Categories = black and white• Traits = positive and negative• White participants• Reaction times measured after prime (word ‘black’ vs

‘white’)

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Positive traits Negative traits

Trait valence

Reaction times to positive and negative traits following black and white primes

BlackWhite

Dovidio et al. (1986)

IAT

• https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

• “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love . . .”