Basic Concepts in Social Psychology

Social psychology is the branch of psychological science mainly concerned with understanding how the presence of others affects our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Just as clinical psychology focuses on mental disorders and their treatment, and developmental psychology investigates the way people change across their lifespan, social psychology has its own focus. As the name suggests, this science is all about investigating the ways groups function, the costs and benefits of social status, the influences of culture, and all the other psychological processes involving two or more people. Social psychology is such an exciting science precisely because it tackles issues that are so familiar and so relevant to our everyday life. Humans are “social animals.”

For instance, when we travel, we plan for how to fit in at the destination. For example, what clothes do people wear? Do we bring a gift for our hosts? How do we say “thank you” and “where’s the bathroom” in the language at our destination so that we can communicate effectively with our hosts about the most important issues? And those are just a few of the social psychological aspects we consider even before we leave!

How do we think about others?

Attitudes are opinions, feelings, and beliefs about a person, concept, or group. People hold attitudes about all types of things: the films they see, political issues, and what constitutes a good date. Social psychology researchers are interested in what attitudes people hold, where these attitudes come from, and how they change over time.  

Take, for example, the photograph below. What are your attitudes towards these people posing? Why? What do you think their neighbors back home would think of this photo? What do you think the people who live nearby this temple in Indonesia think of them?

Among the most studied topics in attitude research are stereotyping and prejudice. Although people often use these words interchangeably, they are actually different concepts. Stereotyping involves using quick mental shortcuts about a group to help us navigate social situations or make decisions. Sometimes these shortcuts are accurate, but not always. They can also be positive or negative. Everyone uses stereotypes because they're efficient ways to handle a lot of social information. But it's crucial to remember that even if stereotypes seem true for some, they usually don't apply to every individual in that group. This makes it unfair to judge someone solely based on assumptions about their group.

Prejudice is how we feel about an individual because of the group they belong to (which is influenced by the stereotypes we hold). Like stereotypes, prejudice can be good or bad. Discrimination happens when we treat someone unfairly just because they're part of a certain group. For instance, if you don't hire a qualified person for a job solely because of their group, that's discrimination. Understanding how problems like prejudice work in our minds can be the first step towards solving them.

See below, a photograph of Buddhist monks visiting the Red Square in Moscow. What stereotypes do you think the Russian people hold about Buddhist monks? What stereotypes do you think the Buddhist monks hold about Russian people? What’s an example of discrimination that could occur in this example?

Social cognition is the term for the way we think about the social world and how we perceive others. In some sense, we are continually telling a story in our own minds about the people around us. When we make educated guesses about the efforts or motives of others, this is called social attribution. Because the information we have regarding other people’s motives and behavior is not as complete as our insights into our own, we are likely to make unreliable judgments of them. The consistent way we attribute people’s actions to personality traits while overlooking situational influences is called the fundamental attribution error. Another bias that increases the likelihood of victim-blaming is termed the just world hypothesis, which is a tendency to make attributions based on the belief that the world is fundamentally just. In other words, that the outcomes people experience are fair.

How are we influenced by others?

None of us can escape social influence - when one person causes a change in attitude or behavior in another person, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The most famous social psychology studies deal with the ways that other people affect our behavior; they are studies on conformity—being persuaded to give up our own opinions and go along with the group—and obedience—following orders or requests from people in authority. Among the most researched topics is persuasion. Persuasion is the act of delivering a particular message so that it influences a person’s behavior in a desired way. 

In the context of travel, we can be influenced by many others. For example, advertisements for locations can target certain types of people depending on what messages they include in the ad. A recent phenomenon, capitalizing on the social media boom has been the rise of the travel influencer - an internet celebrity who creates social media content about their own travel experiences. In general, their content is considered a trusted source of knowledge and influences their readers’ opinions and perceptions of place and experiences. Unfamiliar with travel influencers? Check out Fodor’s Travel World’s Best Travel Influencers. We will talk about travel influencers much more as the course progresses.

How do we interact with others?

One aspect of interaction that social psychologists study is attraction - the psychological process of being sexually attracted to someone. This feeling raises several interesting questions: Where does attraction come from? Is it biological or learned? Why do someone’s standards for beauty differ somewhat from another person’s? The study of attraction covers a huge range of topics. It can begin with first impressions, then extend to courtship and commitment. It involves the concepts of beauty, sex, and evolution. Attraction researchers might study stalking behavior. They might research divorce or remarriage. They might study changing standards of beauty across decades.

Social psychologists are also interested in peace and conflict. They research conflicts ranging from the small—such as a spat between lovers—to the large—such as wars between nations. Researchers are interested in why people fight, how they fight, and what the possible costs and benefits of fighting are. In particular, social psychologists are interested in the mental processes associated with conflict and reconciliation. They want to understand how emotions, thoughts, and sense of identity play into conflicts, as well as making up afterward.

For decades researchers have studied the internal and external factors that influence aggression. Most social psychology researchers define aggression as any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed (Baron & Richardson, 1994). This definition includes three important features. First, aggression is a behavior—you can see it. Aggression is not an internal response, such as having angry feelings or aggressive thoughts (although such internal responses can increase the likelihood of actual aggression). Second, aggression is intentional rather than accidental. Third, the victim wants to avoid the harm. 

Unfortunately, there are several real-world examples of aggression during travel, including air rage. Air rage is aggressive or violent behavior on the part of passengers and crew of aircraft, especially during flight. Air rage generally covers both behavior of a passenger or crew member that is likely caused by physiological or psychological stresses associated with air travel and when a passenger or crew member becomes unruly, angry, or violent on an aircraft during a flight. Interestingly, DeCelles and Norton (2016) found that air rage is more common on planes when inequality is made more salient- for example, when everyone needs to enter through the front of the plane and walk through first class on the way to their economy seat. To learn more about this study, you can read the following article: Does First-Class Inequality Lead to Air-Rage Incidents?

On the other side of the coin from aggression are helping behaviors and altruism- helping that has as its ultimate goal the improvement of another’s welfare (with no benefit to the helper). The decision to help is not a simple yes/no proposition. In fact, a series of questions must be addressed before help is given—even in emergencies in which time may be of the essence. Social psychological research addresses many of these questions, including:

• Do I need to help at all? Researchers find that we are likely to look around at other people to decide if they also think it’s necessary to help.

• Do I have to be the one to help? Researchers have found that, the larger the group size, the less likely any individual person will be to help. This phenomenon is called diffusion of responsibility.

• Will people help when there’s no benefit to themselves? The meaning of altruism is that there is no benefit to the person helping. Some people argue that there is little that is true altruism because benefits include feeling good about themselves, getting praise for helping, or rewards. One recent travel phenomenon is voluntourism. We will examine this concept in more depth later, but if you’re interested you can read this article: Voluntourism Is On the Rise—But What Does It Actually Mean to Give Back on Vacation?