Section 1 - Attitudes and Social Cognition
MAIN IDEA QUESTIONS
What are attitudes, and how are they formed, maintained, and changed?
How do people form impressions of what others are like and of the causes of their behavior?
What are the biases that influence the ways in which people view others' behavior?
VOCABULARY
attitudes - Evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief, or concept
central route processing - Message interpretation characterized by thoughtful consideration of the issues and arguments used to persuade
peripheral route processing - Message interpretation characterized by consideration of the source and related general information rather than of the message itself
cognitive dissonance - The conflict that occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts (referred to as cognitions)
social cognition - The cognitive processes by which people understand and make sense of others and themselves
schemas - Sets of cognitions about people and social experiences
central traits - The major traits considered in forming impression of others
attribution theory - The theory of personality that seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual's behavior, what the specific causes of that person's behavior are
situational causes (of behavior) - Perceived causes of behavior that are based on environmental factors
dispositional causes (of behavior) - Perceived causes of behavior that are based on internal traits or personality factors
halo effect - A phenomenon in which an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics
assumed-similarity bias - The tendency to think of people as being similar to oneself even when meeting them for the first time
self-serving bias - The tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors (skill, ability, or effort) and to attribute failure to factors outside oneself
fundamental attribution error - A tendency to overattribute others' behavior to dispositional causes and minimize of the importance of situational causes
PERSUASION: CHANGING ATTITUDES
Persuasion is the process of changing attitudes, one of the central concepts of social psychology. Attitudes are evaluations of a particular person, behavior, belief, or concept. For example, you probably hold attitudes toward the U.S. president (a person), abortion (a behavior), affirmative action (a belief), or architecture (a concept).
The ease with which we can change our attitudes depends on a number of factors, including:
Message source. The characteristics of a person who delivers a persuasive message, known as an attitude communicator, have a major impact on the effectiveness of that message. Communicators who are physically and socially attractive produce greater attitude change than those who are less attractive. Moreover, the communicator's expertise and trustworthiness are related to the impact of a message - except in situations in which the audience believes the communicator has an ulterior motive.
Characteristics of the message. It is not just who delivers a message but what the message is like that affects attitudes. Generally, two-sided messages - which include both the communicator's position and the one he or she is arguing against - are more effective than one-sided messages, given the assumption that the arguments for the other side can be effectively refuted and the audience is knowledgeable about the topic. In addition, fear-producing messages ("If you don't practice safer sex, you'll get AIDS") are generally effective when they provide the audience with a means for reducing the fear. However, if the fear that is aroused is too strong, messages may evoke people's defense mechanisms and be ignored.
Characteristics of the target. Once a communicator has delivered a message, characteristics of the target of the message may determine whether the message will be accepted. For example, intelligent people are more resistant to persuasion than those who are less intelligent. Gender differences in persuasibility also seem to exist. In public settings, women are somewhat more easily persuaded than men, particularly when they have less knowledge about the message's topic. However, they are as likely as men to change their private attitudes.
Routes To Persuasion
Social psychologists have discovered two primary information-processing routes to persuasion: central route and peripheral route processing. Central route processing occurs when the recipient thoughtfully considers the issues and arguments involved in persuasion. In central route processing, people are swayed in their judgments by the logic, merit, and strength of the arguments.
In contrast, peripheral route processing occurs when people are persuaded on the basis of factors unrelated to the nature or quality of the content of a persuasive message. Instead, factors that are irrelevant or extraneous to the issue, such as who is providing the message, how long the arguments are, or the emotional appeal of the arguments, influence them.
In general, people who are highly motivated and involved used central route processing to comprehend a message. However, if a person is uninvolved, unmotivated, bored, or distracted, the nature of the message becomes less important, and peripheral factors become more important.
People who have a high need for cognition, a person's habitual level of thoughtfulness and cognitive activity, are more likely to employ central route processing. These individuals enjoy thinking, philosophizing, and reflecting on the world.
The Link Between Attitudes And Behavior
Not surprisingly, attitudes influence behavior. Generally people strive for consistency between their attitudes and their behavior. In some cases, our behavior shapes our attitudes.
According to social psychologist Leon Festinger (1957), cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts (referred to as cognitions). We now know that dissonance explains many everyday events involving attitudes and behavior. For example, smokers who know that smoking leads to lung cancer hold contradictory cognitions: (1) I smoke, and (2) smoking leads to lung cancer. Smokers will then be motivated to reduce their dissonance by one of the following methods: (1) modifying one or both of the cognitions, (2) changing the perceived importance of one cognition, (3) adding cognitions, or (4) denying that the two cognitions are related to each other.
SOCIAL COGNITION: UNDERSTANDING OTHERS
One of the dominant areas in social psychology during the last few years has focused on learning how we come to understand what others are like and how we explain the reasons underlying others' behavior.
Understanding What Others Are Like
Considering the enormous amount of information about other people to which we are exposed, how can we decide what is important, what is not, and make judgments about the characteristics of others? To find the answer requires the study of social cognition - the way people understand and make sense of others and themselves. Individuals have highly developed schemas, sets of cognitions about people and social experiences. Those schemas organize information stored in memory; represent in our minds the way the social world operates; and give us a framework to recognize, categorize, and recall information relating to social stimuli such as people and groups.
EX: "Teacher" - knowledge of the subject matter he or she is teaching, a desire to impart that knowledge, and awareness of the student's needs to understand.
EX: "Mother" - warmth, nurturance, caring.
Regardless of accuracy, schemas are important because they organize the way in which we recall, recognize, and categorize information about others. We tend to fit people into schemas even when we do not have much concrete evidence to go on.
Impression Information
How do we decide that a girl is a flirt, a boy is obnoxious, or another boy is a really nice guy? The earliest work on social cognition examined impression formation, the process by which an individual organizes information about another person to form an overall impression of that person.
In a classic study, researchers told one group of students about to hear a lecture that the lecturer was "a rather warm person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined," and told a second group that he was "a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined."
The simple substitution of "cold" for "warm" caused drastic differences in the way the students in each group perceived the lecturer even though he gave the same talk in the same style in each condition. He was rated considerably higher by the students who were told he was warm.
Additional research was conducted on impression formation that focused on the way in which people pay particular attention to certain unusually important traits - known as central traits - to help them form an overall impression of others. "Warm" and "cold" in the above example were central traits, which altered the meaning of associated traits such as "industrious."
Information-processing approaches have researched impression formation. Generally, the results of this research suggest that in forming an overall judgment of a person, we use a psychological "average" of the individual traits we see just as we would find that mathematical average of several numbers.
We make impressions remarkably quickly. In just a few seconds, using what have been called "thin slices of behavior," we are able to make judgments of people that are accurate and that match those of people who make judgments based on longer samples of behavior.
As we gain more experience with people, our impressions of them become more complex. Because our knowledge has gaps, we still tend to fit individuals into personality schemas that represent particular "types" of people. For instance, we may hold a "gregarious person" schema made up of the traits of friendliness, aggressiveness, and openness. The presence of just one or two of those traits may be sufficient to make us assign a person to a particular schema.
Our schemas, of course, are susceptible to error. Mood affects how we perceive others. Happy people form more favorable impressions and make more positive judgments than people who are in a bad mood. Regardless of accuracy, schemas serve an important function: They allow us to develop expectations about how others will behave. Those expectations permit us to plan our interactions with others more easily and serve to simplify a complex social world.
Attribution Processes: Understanding The Causes Of Behavior
At one time or another, most of us have puzzled over the reasons behind someone's behavior. In contrast to theories of social cognition, which describe how people develop an overall impression of others' personality traits, attribution theory seeks to explain how we decide, on the basis of samples of an individual's behavior, what the specific causes of that person's behavior are.
After first noticing that something unusual has happened - for example, tennis star Roger Federer has played a terrible set of tennis - we try to interpret the meaning of the event. This leads us to formulate an initial explanation (maybe Federer stayed up late the night before the match). Depending on the time available, the cognitive resources on hand (such as the attention we can give to the matter), and out motivation (determined in part by how important the event is), we may choose to accept our initial explanation or seek to modify it (Federer was sick, perhaps). If we have the time, cognitive resources, and motivation, the event triggers deliberate problem solving as we seek a fuller explanation. During the problem formulation and resolution stage, we may try out several possibilities before we reach a final explanation that seems satisfactory to us.
In explaining behavior, we must answer one central question: Is the cause situational or dispositional? Situational causes are those brought about by something in the environment. If the behavior has a dispositional cause, it is prompted by the person's disposition (his or her internal traits or personality characteristics).
Attribution Biases: To Err Is Human
Unfortunately, although attribution theory generally makes accurate predictions, people do not always process information about others logically as the theory seems to suggest. In fact, research reveals consistent biases in the ways people make attributions. Typical biases include the following:
The halo effect. Harry is intelligent, kind, and loving. Is he also conscientious? If you were to guess, your most likely response probably would be yes. Your guess reflects the halo effect, a phenomenon in which an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics. The opposite would also hold true. Learning that Harry was unsociable and argumentative would probably lead you to assume that he was lazy as well. This effect creates misperceptions, since few people have either uniformly positive or negative traits.
Assumed-similarity bias. How similar to you - in terms of attitudes, opinions, likes, and dislikes - are your friends and acquaintances? Most people believe that their friends and acquaintances are fairly similar to themselves. But this feeling goes beyond just people we know to a general tendency - known as the assumed-similarity bias - to think of people as being similar to oneself even when meeting them for the first time. Given the range of people in the world, this assumption often reduces the accuracy of our judgments.
The self-serving bias. When their teams win, coaches usually feel that the success is due to their coaching. But when their teams lose, coaches may think it's due to their players' poor skills. Similarly, if you get an A on a test, you may think it's due to your hard work, but if you get a poor grade, it's due to the professor's inadequacies. The reason is the self-serving bias, the tendency to attribute success to personal factors (skill, ability, or effort) and attribute failure to factors outside oneself.
The fundamental attribution error. One of the more common attribution biases is the tendency to overattribute others' behavior to dispositional causes and the corresponding failure to recognize the importance of situational causes. Known as the fundamental attribution error, this tendency is prevalent in Western cultures. We tend to exaggerate the importance of personality characteristics (dispositional causes) in producing others' behavior and minimize the influence of the environment (situational factors). For example, we are more likely to jump to the conclusion that someone who is often late to work is too lazy to take an earlier bus (a dispositional cause) than to assume that the lateness is due to situational factors, such as the bus always running behind schedule.
Social psychologists' awareness of attribution biases has led, in part, to the development of a new branch of economics called behavioral economics. Behavioral economics is concerned with how individuals' biases can irrationally affect economic decisions. Rather than viewing people as rational, thoughtful decision makers who are impartially weighing choices to draw conclusions, behavioral economists focus on the irrationality of judgments.
Section 2 - Social Influence and Groups
MAIN IDEA QUESTION
What are the major sources and tactics of social influence?
VOCABULARY
social influence - The process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others
group - Two or more people who interact with one another, perceive themselves as part of a group, and are interdependent
conformity - A change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people
status - The social rank held within a group
social supporter - A group member whose dissenting views make nonconformity to the group easier
groupthink - A type of thinking in which group members share such a strong motivation to achieve consensus that they lose the ability to critically evaluate alternative points of view
compliance - Behavior that occurs in response to direct social pressure
industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology - The branch of psychology focusing on work- and job-related issues, including worker motivation, satisfaction, safety, and productivity
obedience - A change in behavior in response to the commands of others
On the basis of what research has told us about social influence, the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others, a person would almost always choose to follow the group. Pressures to conform can be painfully strong and can bring about changes in behavior that otherwise never would have occurred.
One reason pressures in groups are so strong is that other people generally play a central role in our lives. As defined by social psychologists, groups consist of two or more people who (1) interact with one another; (2) perceive themselves as part of a group; and (3) are interdependent - that is, the events that affect one group member affect other members, and the behavior of members has significant consequences for the success of the group in meeting its goals.
Groups develop and hold norms, expectations regarding behavior appropriate to the group. Furthermore, we understand that not adhering to group norms can result in retaliation from other group members, ranging from being ignored to being overtly derided or even being rejected or excluded by the group. We'll consider three types of social pressure: conformity, compliance, and obedience.
CONFORMITY: FOLLOWING WHAT OTHERS DO
Conformity is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of other people. Subtle or even unspoken social pressure results in conformity.
In the experiments carried out in the 1950s by Solomon Asch, participants thought they were taking a test of perceptual skills with six other people. The experimenter showed the participants one card with three lines of varying length and a second card that had a fourth line that matched one of the first three. The task was seemingly straightforward: Each of the participants had to announce aloud which of the first three lines was identical in length to the "standard" line on the second card. Because the correct answer was always obvious, the task seemed easy to the participants.
But then, something odd began to happen. From the perspective of the participant in the group who answered last on each trial, all the answers of the first six participants seemed to be wrong - in fact, unanimously wrong. This pattern persisted - over and over again the first six participants provided answers that contradicted what the last participant believed to be correct.
The first six participants were actually paid employees of the experimenter, who had been instructed to give unanimously erroneous answers in many of the trials. Asch found in about one-third of the trials, the participants conformed to the unanimous by erroneous group answer; about 75% of all participants conformed at least once. Some participants conformed all the time, whereas others never did.
Conformity Conclusions
Literally hundreds of studies since Asch's work have examined conformity, and we now know a great deal about the phenomenon.
The characteristics of the group. The more attractive a group appears to its members, the greater its ability to produce conformity. Furthermore, a person's relative status, the social rank held within a group, is critical: The lower a person's status in the group, the greater groups' power over that person's behavior.
The situation in which the individual is responding. Conformity is considerably higher when people must respond publicly than it is when they can do so privately, as the founders of the United States noted when they authorized secret ballots in voting.
The kind of task. People working on ambiguous tasks and questions (those with no clear answer) are more susceptible to social pressure. When asked to give an opinion on something, such as what type of clothing is fashionable, a person will more likely yield to conformist pressures than he or she will if asked a question of fact. In addition, tasks at which an individual is less competent than others in the group make conformity more likely. For example, a person who is an infrequent computer user may feel pressure to conform to an opinion about computer brands when in a group of experienced computer users.
Unanimity of the group. Groups that unanimously support a position show the most pronounced conformity pressures. But what about the case in which people with dissenting views have an ally in the group, known as a social supporter, who agrees with them? Having just one person present who shares the minority point of view is sufficient to reduce conformity pressures.
Groupthink: Caving In To Conformity
In some instances conformity pressures in organizations can lead to disastrous effects with long-term consequences. For instance, consider NASA'a determination that the falling foam that hit the space shuttle Columbia when it took off in 2003 would pose no significant danger when it was time for the Columbia to land. Despite some engineers' misgivings, a consensus formed that the foam was not dangerous to the shuttle. Ultimately, the consensus proved wrong: The shuttle came apart as it attempted to land, which killed all the astronauts on board.
How could such a poor decision have been made? A phenomenon known as groupthink may provide an explanation. Groupthink is a type of thinking in which group members share such a strong motivation to achieve consensus that they lose the ability to critically evaluate alternative points of view: Groupthink is most likely to occur when a popular or powerful leader is surrounded by people of lower status - which is obviously the case with any U.S. president and his or her advisers but is also true in a variety of other organizations.
Groupthink typically leads to poor decisions. Groups limit the list of possible solutions to just a few, and they spend relatively little time considering any alternatives once the leader seems to be leaning toward a particular solution. Because historical research suggests that many disastrous decisions reflect groupthink, it is important for groups to be on guard.
Conformity To Social Roles
Another way in which conformity influences behavior is through social rules. Social rules are the behaviors that are associated with people in a given position. For example, the role of "student" comprises behaviors such as studying, listening to an instructor, and attending class. Like a theatrical role, social rules tell us what behavior is associated with a given position.
In some cases, social rules influence us so profoundly that we engage in behavior in entirely atypical - and damaging - ways. In a major study by Philip Zimbardo, researchers set up a mock prison complete with cells, solitary confinement, cubicles, and a small recreation area. The researchers then advertised for participants who were willing to spend two weeks in a study of prison life. Once they identified the study participants, a flip of a coin designated who would be a prisoner and who would be a prison guard. Neither prisoners nor guards were told how to fulfill their roles.
After just a few days, the students assigned to be guards became abusive to the prisoners by waking them at odd hours and subjecting them to arbitrary punishment. They withheld food from the prisoners and forced them into hard labor. On the other hand, the students assigned to the prisoner role soon became docile and submissive to the guards. They became extremely demoralized, and one slipped into a depression so severe he was released after just a few days. After only 6 days of captivity, the remaining prisoners' reactions became so extreme that the study was ended.
The experiment provided a clear lesson: Conforming to a social role can have a powerful consequence on the behavior of even normal, well-adjusted people and induce them to change their behavior in sometimes undesirable ways.
COMPLIANCE: SUBMITTING TO DIRECT SOCIAL PRESSURE
In some situations social pressure is much more obvious with direct, explicit pressure to endorse a particular point of view or behave in a certain way. The type of behavior that occurs in response to direct social pressure is called compliance. Several specific techniques represent attempts to gain compliance, including:
Foot-in-the-door technique. A salesperson comes to your door and asks you to accept a small sample. You agree, thinking you have nothing to lose. A little later a larger request comes; because you already have agreed to the first one, you have a hard time turning it down. The salesperson in this case is using a tried-and-true strategy; you ask a person to agree to a small request and later ask that person to comply with a more important one. It turns out that compliance with the more important request increases significantly when the person first agrees to the smaller favor.
Door-in-the-face technique. A fund-raiser asks for a $500 contribution. You laughingly refuse and tell her that the amount is way out of your league. She then asks for a $10 contribution. What do you do? If you are like most people, you'll probably be a lot more compliant than you would be if she hadn't asked for the huge contribution first. This strategy has proved to be effective.
That's-not-all technique. A salesperson offers you a deal at an inflated price. But immediately after the initial offer, the salesperson offers an incentive, discount, or bonus to clinch the deal. Although it sounds transparent, the strategy is quite effective. In one study, the experimenters set up a booth and sold cupcakes for 75 cents each. In one condition, the experimenters directly told customers that the price was 75 cents. In another condition, they told customers that the price was originally $1 but had been reduced to 75 cents. More people bought cupcakes at the "reduced" price - even though it was identical to the price in another experimental condition.
Not-so-free sample. If you ever receive a free sample, keep in mind that it comes with a psychological cost. Although they may not couch it in these terms, salespeople who provide samples to potential customers do so to instigate the norm of reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity is the well accepted societal standard dictating that we should treat other people as they treat us. Receiving a not-so-free sample, then, suggests the need for reciprocation - in the form of a purchase, of course.
Companies seeking to sell their products to consumers often use the techniques identified by social psychologists for promoting compliance. But employers also use them to bring about compliance and raise employees' productivity in the workplace. In fact, industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology, a close cousin to social psychology, considers issues such as worker motivation, satisfaction, safety, and productivity. I/O psychologists also focus on the operation and design of organizations; they ask questions such as how decision making can be improved in large organizations and how the fit between workers and their jobs can be maximized.
OBEDIENCE: FOLLOWING DIRECT ORDERS
In some cases, requests of others aim to produce obedience, a change in behavior in response to the commands of others. Obedience is considerably less common than conformity and compliance, but it does occur in several specific kinds of relationships. We may show obedience to our bosses, teachers, or parents merely because of the power they hold to reward or punish us.
A classic experiment was conducted in the 1960s by Stanley Milgram. In the study, an experimenter told participants to give increasingly stronger shocks to another person as part of a study on learning. In reality, the study had nothing to do with learning; the real issue under consideration was the degree to which participants would comply with the experimenter's requests. The "learner" receiving the shocks was actually a confederate who never received any punishment.
Most people who hear about the experiment feel it is unlikely that any participant would give the maximum level of shock - or, for that matter, any shock at all. However, some 65% of the participants in the experiment eventually used the highest setting on the shock generator - 450 volts - to shock the learner.
Why did so many individuals comply with the experimenters demands? The participants said they obeyed primarily because they believed the experimenter would be responsible for any potential ill effects that befell the learner. They felt they personally could not be held accountable for their actions - they could always blame the experimenter.
The experiment received criticism over ethical issues, and undoubtedly would not be allowed to be conducted today. Other critics suggested Milgram's methods were ineffective in creating a situation that actually mirrored real-world obedience. Despite concerns, similar research yield similar results.
We need only consider actual instances of obedience to authority to witness some frightening real-life parallels. For instance, after World War II, the major defense that Nazi officers gave to excuse their participation in atrocities during the war was that they were "only following orders." Milgram's experiment, which was motivated in part by his desire to explain the behavior of everyday Germans during World War II, forces us to ask this question: Would we be able to withstand the intense power of authority?
Section 3 - Prejudice and Discrimination
MAIN IDEA QUESTIONS
How do stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination differ?
How can we reduce prejudice and discrimination?
VOCABULARY
stereotype - A set of generalized beliefs and expectations about a particular group and its members
prejudice - A negative (or positive) evaluation of a particular group and its members
discrimination - Behavior directed toward individuals on the basis of their membership in a particular group
social neuroscience - The subfield of social psychology that seeks to identify the neural basis of social behavior
If you're like most people, you'll probably automatically form some sort of impression of what each person is like. Most likely your impression is based on a stereotype, a set of generalized beliefs and expectations about a specific group and its members. Stereotypes, which may be negative or positive, grow out of our tendency to categorize and organize the vast amount of information we encounter in our everyday lives. All stereotypes share the common feature of oversimplifying the world: We view individuals not in terms of their unique, personal characteristics, but also in terms of characteristics we attribute to all the members of a particular group.
Stereotypes can lead to prejudice, a negative (or positive) evaluation of a group and its members. Social psychologists have focused on the roots of negative prejudice ("I hate immigrants"). Common stereotypes and forms of prejudice involve race, religion, ethnicity, and gender. While much progress has been made, stereotypes remain.
Even people who on the surface appear to be unprejudiced may harbor hidden prejudice. For example, when white participants in experiments are shown faces on a computer screen so rapidly that they cannot consciously perceive the faces, they react more negatively to black than to white faces - an example of what has been called modern racism.
Stereotypes can have negative consequences. Acting on negative stereotypes results in discrimination - behavior directed toward individuals on the basis of their membership in a particular group. Discrimination can lead to exclusion from jobs, neighborhoods, and educational opportunities, and it may result in lower salaries and benefits for members of specific groups. In reverse, it can result in favorable treatment to favored groups.
Overt stereotyping can lead stereotyped groups to behave in ways that reflect the stereotype through a phenomenon known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if people think that members of a certain group lack ambition, they may treat them in a way that actually brings about a lack of ambition.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF PREJUDICE
No one has ever been born disliking a specific racial, religious, or ethnic group. People learn to hate in much the same way that they learn the alphabet.
According to the observational learning approaches to stereotyping and prejudice, the behavior of parents, other adults, and peers shapes children's feelings about members of various groups. For instance, bigoted parents may commend their children for expressing prejudiced attitudes. Young children learn prejudice by imitating the behavior of adult models. Such learning starts at an early age. Children as young as 6 months of age judge others according to their skin color, and by 3 years they begin to show preference for members of their own race.
The mass media also provide information about stereotypes for both children and adults. Even today, some television shows and movies portray Italians as Mafia-like mobsters, Jews as greedy bankers, and African Americans as promiscuous or lazy. Such inaccurate portrayals can lead to the development and maintenance of unfavorable stereotypes.
According to social identity theory, we use group membership as a source of pride and self-worth. This theory suggests that people tend to be ethnocentric, viewing the world from their own perspective and judging others in terms of their group membership. Slogans such as "gay pride" and "Black is beautiful" illustrate that the groups to which we belong give us a sense of self-respect. A common unfortunate effect is that we tend to inflate the positive aspects of our ingroup - and, at the same time, devalue outgroups. The end result is prejudice towards members of groups of which we are not a part.
The most recent approach to understanding prejudice comes from an increasingly important area in social psychology: social neuroscience. Social neuroscience seeks to identify the neural basis of social behavior. It looks at how we can illuminate our understanding of groups, interpersonal relations, and emotions by understanding their neuroscientific underpinnings.
In the social neuroscience approach, as one example, researchers examind the activation of the amygdala, the structure in the brain related to emotion-evoking stimuli and situations, while viewing white and black faces. The amygdala is especially sensitive to threatening, unusual, or highly arousing stimuli. The researchers hypothesized greater activation of the amygdala during exposure to black faces due to negative cultural association to minorities. The hypothesis was confirmed during the experiment where participants saw black faces and white ones.
MEASURING PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION: THE IMPLICIT PERSONALITY TEST
Could you be prejudiced and not even know it? According to the researchers who developed the Implicit Association Test, the answer is yes. People often fool themselves, and they are very careful about revealing their true attitudes about members of various groups, not only to others but to themselves. Individuals routinely differentiate between people on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
The Implicit Association Test, or IAT, makes use of the fact that people's automatic reactions often provide the most valid indicator of what they actually believe. The test asks people a series of questions on a computerized survey that assess the degree to which people associate members of target groups (African Americans versus Whites) with positive stimuli (such as a puppy) versus negative stimuli (such as a funeral).
The results of the IAT show that almost 90% of test-takers have an implicit pro-white bias, and more than two-thirds of non-Arab, non-Muslim volunteers display implicit biases against Arab Muslims. Moreover, more than 80% of heterosexuals display an implicit bias against gays and lesbians.
Having an implicit bias does not mean that people will overtly discriminate, which is a criticism that has been made of the test. It does mean, however, that the cultural lessons to which we are exposed have a considerable unconscious influence on us.
REDUCING THE CONSEQUENCES OF PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION
Psychologists have developed several strategies that have proved effective in diminishing the effects of prejudice and discrimination.
Increasing contact between the target of stereotyping and the holder of the stereotype.
Making values and norms against prejudice more conspicuous. Sometimes just reminding people about the values they already hold regarding equality and fair treatment of others is enough to reduce discrimination.
Provide information about the targets of stereotyping. The most direct means of changing stereotypical and discriminatory attitudes is education.
Reducing stereotype threat. EX: African American students who receive instruction from teachers who may doubt their abilities and who set up special remedial programs to assist them may come to accept society's stereotypes and believe that they are prone to fail.
Section 4 - Positive and Negative Social Behavior
MAIN IDEA QUESTIONS
Why are we attracted to certain people, and what progression do social relationships follow?
What factors underlie aggression and prosocial behavior?
VOCABULARY
interpersonal attraction (or close relationship) - Positive feelings for others; liking and loving
reciprocity-of-liking effect - A tendency to like those who like us
passionate (or romantic) love - A state of intense absorption in someone that includes intense physiological arousal, psychological interest, and caring for the needs of another
companionate love - The strong affection we have for those with whom our lives are deeply involved
aggression - The intentional injury of, or harm to, another person
catharsis - The process of discharging built-up aggressive energy
prosocial behavior - Helping behavior
diffusion of responsibility - The tendency for people to feel that responsibility for acting is shared, or diffused, among those present
altruism - Helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-sacrifice
Are people basically good or bad? Social psychologists have pondered the basic nature of humanity. Is it represented mainly by the violence and cruelty we see throughout the world, or does something special about human nature permit loving, considerate, unselfish, and even noble behavior as well?
LIKING AND LOVING: INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS
Nothing is more important in most people's lives then their feelings for others. Consequently, it is not surprising that liking and loving have become a major focus of interest for social psychologists. Known more formally as the study of interpersonal attraction or close relationships, this area addresses the factors that lead to positive feelings for others.
How Do I Like Thee? Let Me Count The Ways
By far the greatest amount of research has focused on liking, probably because it is easier for investigators conducting short-term experiments to produce states of liking in strangers who have just met than to instigate and observe loving relationships over long periods. Consequently, research has given us a good deal of knowledge about the factors that initially attract two people to each other. The important factors social psychologists consider are the following:
Proximity. If you live in a dormitory or an apartment, consider the friends you made when you first moved in. Chances are that you became friendliest with those who lived geographically closest to you.
Mere exposure. Repeated exposure to a person is often sufficient to produce attraction. Repeated exposure to any stimulus - a person, picture, compact disc, or virtually anything - usually makes us like the stimulus more. Becoming familiar with a person can evoke positive feelings; we then transfer the positive feelings stemming from familiarity to the person him- or herself.
Similarity. We tend to like those who are similar to us. Discovering that others have similar attitudes, values, or traits promotes our liking for them. Furthermore, the more similar others are, the more we like them. One reason similarity increases the likelihood of interpersonal attraction is that we assume people with similar attitudes will evaluate us positively. Because we experience a strong reciprocity-of-liking effect (a tendency to like those who like us), knowing that someone evaluates us positively promotes our attraction to that person. In addition, we assume that when we like someone else, that person likes us in return.
Physical attractiveness. For most people, the equation beautiful = good is quite true. Physically attractive people are more popular than physically unattractive ones, if all other factors are equal. This finding, which contradicts the values most people say they hold, is apparent even in childhood - with children of nursery school age rating their peers' popularity on the basis of attractiveness - and continues into adulthood. Physical attractiveness may be the single most important element promoting initial liking in college dating situations, although its influence eventually decreases when people get to know each other better.
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways
Our understanding of love is more limited in scope and recently acquired. As a first step, researchers tried to identify the characteristics that distinguish between mere liking and full-blown love. They discovered that love is not simply a greater quantity of liking but a qualitatively different psychological state. For instance, at least in its early stages, love includes relatively intense physiological arousal, an all-encompassing interest in another individual, fantasizing about the other, and relatively rapid swings of emotion. Similarly, love, unlike liking, includes elements of passion, closeness, fascination, exclusiveness, sexual desire, and intense caring. We idealize partners by exaggerating their good qualities and minimizing their imperfections.
Others have maintained that there are two different types of love: passionate love and companionate love. Passionate (or romantic) love represents a state of intense absorption in someone. It includes intense physiological arousal, psychological interest, and caring for the needs of another. In contrast, companionate love is the strong affection we have for those with whom our lives are deeply involved. The love we feel for our parents, other family members, and even some close friends falls into the category of companionate love.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg makes an even finer differentiation between types of love. He proposes that love consists of three parts:
Decision/commitment - the initial thoughts that one loves someone and the longer-term feelings of commitment to maintain love.
Intimacy component - feelings of closeness and connection
Passion component - the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance.
According to Sternberg, these three components combine to produce the different types of love. He suggests that different combinations of the three components vary over the course of relationships. In strong, loving relationships, the level of commitment peaks and then remains stable. Passion, on the other hand, peaks quickly and then declines and levels off relatively early in most relationships. Relationships are happiest in which the strength of the various components are similar between the two partners.
Is love a necessary ingredient in a good marriage? Yes, if you live in the United States. In contrast, it's considerably less important in other cultures. Although mutual attraction and love are the two most important characteristics men and women in the U.S. desire in a mate, men in China rated good health as most important, and women there rated emotional stability and maturity as most important.
AGGRESSION AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR: HURTING AND HELPING OTHERS
Drive-by shootings, carjackings, and abductions are just a few examples of the violence that seems all too common today. Yet we also find examples of generous, unselfish, thoughtful behavior that suggest a more optimistic view of humankind. Consider, for instance, people such as Mother Teresa, who ministered to the poor in India. Or contemplate the simple kindness of life: lending a valued compact disc, stopping to help a child who has fallen off a bicycle, or merely sharing a candy bar with a friend. Such instances of helping are no less characteristic of human behavior than the distasteful examples of aggression.
Hurting Others: Aggression
We need look no further than the daily paper or the nightly news to be bombarded with examples of aggression both on a societal level (war, invasion, assassination) and on an individual level (crime, child abuse, and the many petty cruelties humans are capable of inflicting on one another). Is such aggression an inevitable part of the human condition? Or is aggression primarily a product of particular circumstances that, if changed, could lead to its reduction?
Depending on the way we define the term aggression, many examples of inflicted pain or injury may or may not qualify as aggression. For instance, a rapist is clearly acting with aggression toward his victim. On the other hand, it is less certain that a physician carrying out an emergency medical procedure without an anesthetic, thereby causing incredible pain to the patient, should be considered aggressive.
Most social psychologists define aggression in terms of the intent and the purpose behind the behavior. Aggression is intentional injury of or harm to another person. By this definition, the rapist is clearly acting aggressively, whereas the physician causing pain during a medical procedure is not.
Instinct Approaches: Aggression As A Release
Instinct theories, which note the prevalence of aggression not only in humans but in animals as well, propose that aggression is primarily the outcome of innate - or inborn - urges. EX: If you have ever punched an adversary in the nose, you may have experienced a certain satisfaction despite your better judgment.
Sigmund Freud was one of the first to suggest that aggression is primarily an instinctual drive. Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist (scientist who studies animal behavior), expanded Freud's notions by arguing that humans, along with members of other species, have a fighting instinct, which in earlier times ensured protection of food supplies and weeded out the weaker of the species. Lorenz's instinct approach led to the controversial notion that aggressive energy constantly builds up in an individual until the person finally discharges it in a process called catharsis. The longer the energy builds up, the greater the amount of the aggression displayed when it is discharged.
The most controversial idea to emerge from the instinct theories of aggression is Lorenz's proposal that society should provide acceptable ways of permitting catharsis. He suggested that participation in aggressive sports and games would prevent the discharge of aggression in less socially desirable ways. Little research has found evidence for the existence of a pent-up reservoir of aggression that needs to be released. In fact, some studies flatly contradict the notion of catharsis.
Frustration-Aggression Approaches: Aggression As A Reaction To Frustration
Frustration-aggression theory suggests that frustration (the reaction to the thwarting or blocking of goals) produces anger, which leads to a readiness to act aggressively. Whether actual aggression occurs depends on the presence of aggressive cues, stimuli that have been associated in the past with actual aggression or violence that will trigger aggression again.
What kinds of stimuli act as aggressive cues? They can range from the most explicit, such as the presence of weapons, to more subtle cues, such as the mere mention of the name of an individual who behaved violently in the past. For example, angered participants in experiments behave significantly more aggressively when in the presence of a gun than in a comparable situation in which no guns are present. Similarly, frustrated participants who view a violent movie are more physically aggressive toward a confederate with the same name as the star of the movie than they are toward a confederate with a different name. It appears, then, that frustration does lead to aggression - at least when aggressive cues are present.
Observational Learning Approaches: Learning To Hurt Others
Do we learn to be aggressive? The observational learning (sometimes called social learning) approach to aggression says that we do. Taking an almost opposite view from instinct theories, this theory emphasizes that social and environmental conditions can teach individuals to be aggressive. The theory sees aggression not as inevitable, but rather as a learned response that can be understood in terms of rewards and punishments.
Observational learning theory pays particular attention not only to direct rewards and punishments that individuals themselves receive, but also to the rewards and punishments that models - individuals who provide a guide to appropriate behavior - receive for their aggressive behavior. People observe the behavior of models and the subsequent consequences of that behavior. If the consequences are positive, the behavior is likely to be imitated when observers find themselves in a similar situation. The theory has received wide research support.
HELPING OTHERS: THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE
Helping behavior, or prosocial behavior, has been considered under many different conditions. The key question for psychologists has been... What are the factors that lead someone to help a person in need?
One critical factor is the number of others present. When more than one person witnesses an emergency situation, a sense of diffusion of responsibility can arise among bystanders. The more people who are present in an emergency, the less personally responsible each individual feels - and therefore the less help he or she provides.
Although most research on helping behavior supports the diffusion-of-responsibility explanation, other factors are clearly involved in helping behavior. According to a model of the helping process, the decision to give aid involves four basic steps...
Noticing a person, event, or situation that may require help
Interpreting the event as one that requires help
Assuming responsibility for helping
Deciding on and implementing the form of helping
A rewards-costs analysis suggests that we are most likely to use the least costly form of implementation. This is not always the case. In some situations, people behave altruistically. Altruism is helping behavior that is beneficial to others but clearly requires self-sacrifice.
People who intervene in emergency situations tend to possess certain personality characteristics that differentiate them from nonhelpers. Helpers are more self-assured, sympathetic, and emotionally understanding, and they have greater empathy (a personality trait in which someone observing another person experiences the emotions of that person) than are nonhelpers.
Still, most social psychologists agree that no single set of attributes differentiate helpers from nonhelpers. For the most part, temporary situational factors (such as the mood we're in) determine whether we will intervene in a situation requiring aid.
More generally, what leads people to make moral decisions? Clearly, situational factors make a difference. One study asked people to judge the morality of plane crash survivors cannibalizing an injured boy to avoid starvation. Participants in the study were more likely to condemn the behavior if they were placed in an emotional state than if they were less emotional.
Other psychologists, using a neuroscience perspective, believe that there's a kind of tug of war between emotion and rational thinking in the brain. If the rational side wins out, we're more likely to take a logical view of moral situations (if you're at risk of starving, go ahead and eat the injured boy). On the other hand, if the emotional side prevails, we're more likely to condemn the cannibalism, even if it means we may be harmed. In support of such reasoning, researchers have found that different areas of the brain are involved in honest and dishonest moral decisions.