• Humans are social animals.

We long to
connect, to belong, and to be well thought of.
Relationships are a big part of being human.
• As social creatures, we respond to our
immediate contexts.
• Our culture helps define our situations
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Personal attitudes and dispositions also shape
• is a science that studies the influences of our
behavior.
situations, with special attention to how we
• Our inner attitudes affect our outer behavior.
view and affect one another.
• Personality dispositions affect our behavior.
• It is the scientific study of how people think
Different people facing the same situation
about, influence, and relate to one another.
may react differently to it.
• Focuses more on individuals and does more
SOCIAL RELATIONS
experimentation compared to Sociology.
• Prejudice
• It focuses less on individuals’ differences and
• Aggression
more on how people, in general, view and
• Attraction and intimacy
affect one another.
• Helping
• It studies our thinking, influences, and
Social behavior is biologically rooted
relationships by asking questions that have
• A combination of nature and nurture forms
intrigued us all.
who we are.
SOCIAL THINKING
• Our inherited human nature predisposes us to
• How we perceive ourselves and others
behave in ways that helped our ancestors
• What we believe
survive and reproduce.
• Judgements we make
• Nature endows us with an enormous capacity
• Our attitudes
to learn and to adapt to varied environments.
We construct our Social reality
We are sensitive and responsive to our social
• People would usually attribute behavior to
context.
some cause and make it seem orderly,
• Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field
predictable, and controllable.
stress that explores the neural bases of social and
• The objective reality is always out there, but hormones
affect how we emotional processes and behaviors, and how
we always view it through the lens of our feel and act.
these affect our brain and biology.
beliefs and values
• To understand behavior, we must consider
Our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes
biological and social influences.
perilous :full of danger or risk
• We are bio-psycho-social organisms that
• Instant intuitions shape fears, impressions,
reflect the interplay of our biological,
and relationships
psychological, and social influences.
• Thinking, memory, and attitude all operate
Social psychology’s principles are applicable in
on two levels—one conscious and deliberate,
everyday life.
the other unconscious and automatic. Social
Psychology is • It offers many ideas about how to know
• Social intuitions are noteworthy for both their about life -- your
life: your beliefs, ourselves better and how to win friends and
powers and perils. our attitudes, your
influence people.
SOCIAL INFLUENCE relationships
HUMAN VALUES INFLUENCE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• Culture
• Social psychology is less a collection of findings
• Pressures to conform
than a set of strategies for answering
• Persuasion
questions.
• Groups of people
• Values – are personal convictions about what
Social influences shape our behavior
is desirable and how people ought to behave.
 • Values enter psychology in obvious and in hidden within our cultural definitions of
subtle ways mental health, our psychological advice for
OBVIOUS living, our concepts, and our psychological
• Values enter when social psychologists choose labels. Whether we view wartime civilian deaths as “the loss of
innocent lives” or as “collateral damage” affects our
research topics. acceptance of such.
• It has been suggested that we can expect Despite having subjectivity and biases within science
future research to reflect today’s and itself, this realization is why we need researchers with
tomorrow’s issues, including immigration, varying biases to undertake scientific analysis. By
income inequality, and aging. constantly checking our beliefs against the facts, we
• Values differ across time and cultures restrain our biases.
• Values also influence the types of people who NEW INSIGHTS THROUGH SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
are attracted to various disciplines. • Social psychology faces two contradictory
• Values obviously enter the picture as the criticisms. It is trivial because it documents
object of social psychological analysis the obvious; and that it is dangerous because
its findings could be used to manipulate
SUBTLE people.
The subjective aspects of science to cause • One problem with common sense is that we
Science is not purely objective. Scientists do invoke it after we know the facts.
something to
• be used; bring
e.g: Social
representation not simply read the book of nature. Rather into effect: • In everyday life we often do not expect
of disability -
Elaborate and they interpret nature, using their own mental something to happen until it does. Then we
develop
images of the " categories. suddenly clearly see the forces that brought
Culture – refers to the enduring behaviors, the event about and feel unsurprised. We may
disabled" in
ways that elicit
•
pity. This ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a also misremember our earlier view.
serves to
maintain social large group of people and transmitted from • Hindsight bias – the tendency to exaggerate
inequalities
one generation to the next after learning the outcome, one’s ability to
Social
representation • Social representations – are a society’s widely have foreseen how something turned out. It is
of the family.
Mother, Father held ideas and values including assumptions also known as the I-knew-it-all-along
and cultural ideologies. Our social phenomenon.
and child. while
in modern day
there isa same representations help us make sense of our • Sometimes common sense is usually wrong,
sex couple
who built and world and at other times, conventional wisdom is
have their
Psychological concepts contain hidden values
famiy. This right.
challenge the
Traditional • Implicit in our understanding that psychology • Common sense is not predictably wrong.
is not objective is the realization that Rather, common sense usually is right— after
respresentation
of a family
psychologists’ own values may play an the fact.
important part in the theories and judgments
they support. RESEARCH METHODS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
• When it comes to Defining the good life, values FORMING AND TESTING HYPOTHESES
influence our idea of how best to live. • Theory – is an integrated set of principles
they are • Professional advice also reflects the advice that explain and predict observed events.
expressing
their giver’s values. Unaware of these hidden values, These are ideas that summarize and explain
personal
values many people defer to the “professional”. facts. A good theory:
• When it comes to forming concepts, hidden • Effectively summarizes many observations
values seep into psychology’s research-based • Makes clear predictions that can be used
concepts. Different labels may come from to confirm or modify the theory, generate
varying psychologists, although describing the new exploration, and suggest practical
same set of responses. applications.
• Labeling. Value judgments are often hidden • Hypotheses – testable predictions implied
within our psychological language. Values lie by theories. These allow us to test a theory
 by suggesting ho we might try to falsify it. Order of questions – we must also contend with other
It can give direction to research and sources of bias such as the order of questions in a
sometimes send investigators looking for survey.
things they might never have thought of. Response options – also consider the dramatic effects
Good theories are also practical. of response options
Wording of questions – the precise wording of
questions may also influence answers.
CORRELATIONAL RESEARCH: DETECTING EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH: SEARCHING FOR
NATURAL ASSOCIATIONS CAUSE AND EFFECT
• Understanding the logic of research can also • Social psychologists often create laboratory
help in thinking critically about everyday simulations of everyday processes whenever it
social events and better understand studies is feasible and ethical.
you see covered in the media. • Experiments have two major advantages over
• Field research – research done in natural correlational studies: random assignment and
real-life settings outside the laboratory control.
• Correlational research – the study of Random assignment
naturally occurring relationships among • A survey researcher might measure and
variables statistically extract other possibly pertinent
• Experimental research – studies that seek factors and see if the correlations survive. But
cues to cause-effect relationships by one can never control for all the factors that
manipulating one or more factors while might distinguish obese from non-obese, and
controlling others. viewers of violence from non-viewers.
Correlation and causation • Random assignment – eliminates all
• Correlations indicate a relationship, but that extraneous factors. With this, each person has
relationship is not necessarily one of cause and an equal chance of viewing the violence or the
effect. non-violence. Thus, the people in both groups
• Correlation research allows us to predict, but would average in every conceivable way.
it cannot tell us whether one variable causes
another. Experiments randomly assign people either to
• Advanced correlational techniques can suggest a condition that receives the experimental
cause-effect relationships treatment or to a control condition that does
• Time-lagged correlations reveal the not. This gives the researcher confidence that
sequence of events any later difference is somehow caused by the
Survey research treatment.
• We measure variables by surveying Control
representative samples of people. • Social psychologists experiment by
• A Random sample – one in which every constricting social situations that stimulate
person in the population being studied has an important features of our daily lives.
equal chance of inclusion • By varying one or two independent variables
• Polls do not literally predict voting outcomes. at a time, the experimenter pinpoints their
Instead, they describe public opinion at the influence.
moment they are taken. • Independent variable – is the experimental
• Framing – is the way a question or an issue is factor that a researcher manipulates.
posed. This can influence people’s decisions • By creating and controlling a miniature
and expressed opinions. reality, we can vary on factor and then
Unrepresentative samples - How closely the sample another and discover how those factors,
represents the population under study matters separately or in combination affect people.
greatly.
Replication
• A handful of unreliable findings, some from
researchers who committed fraud by faking
data, have raised concerns about the
reproducibility of medical and psychological
research.
• Researchers must precisely explain their
stimuli and procedures so that others can
SPOTLIGHTS AND ILLUSIONS
match them.
• Spotlight effect means seeing ourselves at
Ethics
center stage and thus intuitively
• Social experiments venture in between the
overestimating the extent to which others’
ethical and unethical when they design
attention is aimed at us. It is the belief that
experiments that engage intense thoughts and
others are paying more attention to our
emotions.
appearance and behavior than they really are.
• Mundane realism – degree to which an
• Illusion of transparency – is the illusion that
experiment is superficially similar to everyday
our concealed emotions leak out and can be
situations.
easily read by others.
• Experimental realism – degree to which an
• People also overestimate the visibility of social
experiment absorbs and involves its
blunders and public mental slips.
participants.
• Social surroundings affect our self-awareness
• Experiments do not need to have mundane
– when we are the only member of our race,
realism. Instead, the experiment should have
gender, or nationality in a group, we notice
experimental realism.
how we differ and how others are reacting to
• Deception – an effect by which participants
our difference.
are misinformed or misled about the study’s
• Self-interest colors our social judgement –
methods and purposes.
when problems arise in a close relationship,
• Demand characteristics – Cues in an
we usually attribute more responsibility to our
experiment that tell the participant what
partners than to ourselves.
behavior is expected.
• Self-concern motivates our social behavior –
• Informed consent – an ethical principle
we agonize our appearance in hopes of making
requiring that research participants be told
a positive impression. We monitor others’
enough to enable them to choose whether
behavior and expectations and adjust our
they wish to participate.
behavior accordingly.
• Debriefing – the post-experimental
• Social relationships help define our sense of self
explanation of a study to its participants. It
– we have varying selves in varying
usually discloses any deception and often
relationships and when relationships change,
queries participants regarding their
our self-concepts can change as well.
understandings and feelings.
• Although our actions are not consciously
controlled, the self does enable long-term
GENERALIZING FROM LABORATORY TO LIFE
planning, goal setting, and restraint.
• Social psychology mixes everyday experience
and laboratory analysis.
SELF-CONCEPT: WHO AM I?
• Social psychology displays a healthy interplay
OUR SENSE OF SELF
between laboratory research and everyday
• The most important aspect of yourself is your
life.
self.
• However, we need to be cautious in
generalizing from laboratory to life. After all,
it is still a simplified, controlled reality.
 • Studies suggest that the right hemisphere • Individualism – the concept of giving priority
plays an important role in the arising of one’s to one’s own goals over group goals and
self. defining one’s identity in terms of personal
• Medial prefrontal cortex – is a neuron path attributes rather than group identifications.
located in the cleft between the brain • Independent self – construing identity as an
hemispheres just behind the eyes. This
seemingly stitches together one’s sense of self.
This brain region becomes more active when
an individual thinks about itself.
• Schemas – are mental templates by which we
organize our worlds.
• Self-schemas – beliefs about self that organize
and guide the processing of self-relevant
information. These affect how we perceive,
remember, and evaluate other people and
ourselves.
Social comparisons autonomous self
• This refers to evaluating one’s abilities and • Collectivism – giving priority to the goals of
opinions by comparing oneself with others. one’s group and defining one’s identity
• Others help define the standard by which we accordingly.
define ourselves as rich or poor, smart or • In industrialized western cultures,
dumb, tall or short. individualism prevails. Western culture
• Schadenfreude - is the experience of pleasure, assumes that one’s life will be enriched by
joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from believing in your power of personal control.
learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, • Most cultures native to Asia, Africa, and
or humiliation of another. Central and South America place a greater
• Social comparisons can diminish our value on collectivism, by respecting and
satisfaction. We judge not just how much fun identifying with the group.
we are having—but how it measures up to the Growing individualism within cultures
fun everyone else is having. • Cultures can also change over time, and many
Other people’s judgements seem to be growing more individualistic.
• When people think well of us, we think well of • Words that represent individualism appeared
ourselves. to be used more often compared to the
• The looking glass self – is how Charles H. previous decades. Words implying collectivism
Cooley described how we think of others appears to be used less.
perceive us as a mirror for perceiving Culture and Cognition
ourselves. • Collectivism also results in different ways of
• We may, therefore, overestimate others’ thinking. Variations in perception are noted
appraisal, inflating our self-images. in a number of researches.
SELF AND CULTURE • When asked about the purpose of language,
American students were more likely to
explain that it allows self-expression, whereas
Korean students focused on how language
allows communication with others.
• Collectivistic cultures also promote a greater
sense of belonging and more integration
between the self and others.
 • Interdependent selves have not one self but • People often miswant. Studies reveal our
many selves: self-with-parents, self-at- vulnerability to impact bias—overestimating
work, self-with friends. the enduring impact of emotion-causing
• In a collectivistic culture, the goal of social life events. The emotional traces of such good
is to harmonize with and support one’s tidings evaporate faster than we expect.
communities, not—as it is in individualistic • We are especially prone to impact bias after
societies—to enhance one’s individual self and negative events. As we focus on the negative
make independent choices. events, we discount the importance of
Culture and self-esteem everything else that contributes to happiness
• In collectivist cultures, self-esteem tends to be and thus overpredict our enduring misery.
malleable and context-specific rather than • People neglect the speed and the power of
being stable and enduring across situations. their coping mechanisms, which include
• For individualistic cultures, self-esteem is rationalizing, discounting, forgiving, and
more personal and less relational. limiting emotional trauma. Because we are
• Culture can shape self-views even in short unaware of the speed and strength of our
periods of time coping, we adapt to disabilities, romantic
SELF-KNOWLEDGE breakups, exam failures, layoffs, and personal
• We certainly try to know our own selves and and team defeats more readily than we would
readily form beliefs about it. expect.
• The unavoidable conclusion of some • Major negative events can be less enduringly
fascinating research is that sometimes we distressing than minor irritations which don’t
think we know, but our inside information is activate our defenses.
wrong. Wisdom and illusions of self-analysis
Predicting our behavior • When the causes of our behavior are
• One of the most common errors in behavior conspicuous and the correct explanation fits
prediction is underestimating how long it will our intuition, our self-perceptions will be
take to complete a task. accurate.
• Planning fallacy – the tendency to • We are unaware of much that goes on in our
underestimate how long it will take to minds. Perception and memory studies show
complete a task. that we are more aware of the results of our
• The best way to improve your self-predictions thinking than of its process.
is to be more realistic how long tasks took in • Dual attitude system – differing implicit and
the past. People underestimate how long explicit attitudes toward the same object.
something will take because they Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with
misremember previous tasks as taking less education and persuasion; implicit attitudes
time than they actually did. change slowly, with practice that forms new
• Another useful strategy is to estimate how habits.
long each step in a project will take. • Self-reports are often untrustworthy. Errors
Predicting our feelings in self-understanding limit the scientific
• Sometimes we know how we will feel in usefulness of subjective personal reports.
various situations. We know what exhilarates • Personal testimonies are powerfully
us and what makes us anxious or bored. Other persuasive. But they may also be wrong.
times we may mispredict our responses. Keeping this potential for error in mind can
• Studies of Affective forecasting reveal that help us feel less intimidated by others and
people have the greatest difficulty predicting become less gullible.
the intensity and the duration of their future
emotions.
NATURE AND MOTIVATING POWER OF SELF-
ESTEEM
• Self-esteem – a person’s overall
evaluation or sense of self-worth.
• Specific self-perceptions do have
influence.
SELF ESTEEM MOTIVATION
• Most people are extremely motivated to
maintain their self-esteem.
• Among sibling relationships, the threat to
self-esteem is greatest for an older child with
a highly capable younger brother or sister
• Self-esteem threats also occur among friends,
whose success can be more threatening that
of strangers.
• High self-esteem people usually react to a
self-esteem threat by compensating for it.
These reactions help them preserve their
positive feelings about themselves.
• Low self-esteem people are more likely to
blame themselves or give up.
• Self-esteem is believed to be similar to a fuel
gauge. Relationships enable surviving and
thriving, so the self-esteem gauge alerts is to
threatened social rejection, motivating us to
act with greater sensitivity to
expectations.
Terror management theory – argues that humans
must find ways to manage their overwhelming fear
of death. Jeff Greenberg argues that the reality of
our own death motivates us to gain recognition from
our work and values. To feel our lives are not in
vain, Greenberg maintains, we must continually
pursue self-esteem by meeting the standards of our
societies.
• Actively pursuing self-esteem, however, can
backfire as students whose self-worth was
contingent on external sources experienced
more stress, anger, relationship problems,
drug and alcohol use, and eating disorders
than did those whose sense of self-worth mas
rooted more in internal sources such as
personal virtues.
• Ironically, those who pursue self-esteem may
lose sight of what really makes them feel good
about themselves.
• When we focus on boosting our self-esteem,
we become less open to criticism, less likely to
self- empathize with others, and more pressured
to succeed at activities rather than enjoy
some them.
• Self-compassion – leaving behind
comparisons with others and instead treating
ourselves with kindness.
LOW VS. HIGH SELF-ESTEEM
• People low in self-esteem are more vulnerable
to anxiety, loneliness, and eating disorders.
• People with low self-esteem are quick to
believe that their partners are criticizing or
rejecting them. They become less satisfied
with their relationships and are more likely to
leave those relationships.
• Those low in self-esteem also don’t want to
hear positive things about negative
experiences. Instead, they prefer
understanding responses even if they tend to
be negative.
• Longitudinal study – research in which the
same people are studied over an extended
period of time.
• It has been found that those who had low self-
others’ esteem as teens were more likely to later be
depressed, suggesting that low self-esteem
causes depression instead of the other way
around.
• When good things happen, people with high
self-esteem are more likely to savor and
sustain the good feelings.
• Self-serving perceptions can be useful. It may
be strategic to believe we are smarter,
stronger, and more socially successful than we
are.
• High self-esteem fosters initiative, resilience,
and pleasant feelings
Narcissism
• High self-esteem becomes especially
problematic if it crosses to narcissism.
• Narcissism – mean having an inflated sense of
self.
• Narcissists usually have high self-esteem, but
they are missing the piece about caring for
others.
 • Narcissism is among the “Dark Triad” of
negative traits, along with Machiavellianism
and antisocial psychopathy.
• Narcissists are especially likely to lash out
when the insult is delivered publicly—and thus
punctures their carefully constructed bubble
of superiority.
• A culture’s growing individualism
promotes narcissism.
• Narcissism correlates with materialism, the
desire to be famous, inflated expectations and
fewer committed relationships,
gambling and more cheating.
• It is also linked to a lack of empathy which
pertains to the ability to take someone else’s
perspective and be concerned about their
problems.
SELF-EFFICACY
• A sense that one is competent and effective,
distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s
sense of self-worth.
• Children and adults with strong feelings of
self-efficacy are more persistent, less anxious
and less depressed. Moreover, they
healthier lives and are more academically
successful.
SELF-SERVING BIAS
• Refers to the tendency to perceive oneself
favorably.
• Its potency is one of social psychology’s most
provocative yet firmly established conclusions.
EXPLAINING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EVENTS
• Dozens of experiments found that people
accept credit when they told they have
succeeded. They attribute success to their
ability and effort, but they attribute failure to
external factors such as bad luck or the
problem’s inherent “impossibility”.
• Self-serving attributions – a form of self-
serving bias. It is the tendency to attribute
positive outcomes to oneself and negative
outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to
other factors.
• We help maintain our positive self-images by
associating ourselves with a success
distancing ourselves from failure.
• People are even biased against seeing their
own bias. They claim they avoid self-serving
bias themselves but readily acknowledge that
others commit this bias.
• Self-serving bias also appears when people
compares themselves with others.
• On subjective, socially desirable, and common
dimensions, most people see themselves as
better than the average person.
also • Self-serving bias is also common in marriages
that 49% of men said they did half to most
of the child care while 31% of wives said their
husbands did this much. 70% of the women
more said they do most of the cooking but 56% of
men said they do most of the cooking.
• With these said, it can be said that group
members’ estimates of how much they
contribute to a joint task typically sum to
more than 100%.
UNREALISTIC OPTIMISM
• Studies of more than 90,000 people across
22 cultures reveal that most humans are
more disposed to optimism than pessimism.
• Partly because of relative pessimism about
others’ fates, students perceive themselves as
live far more likely than their classmates to get a
good job, draw a good salary, and own a
home.
• Unrealistic optimism appears to be on the rise
as we consider and compare the optimism of
students in the 1970s and 2012.
• Illusory optimism increases our vulnerability.
Believing ourselves immune to misfortune, we
do not take sensible precautions.
• This absurd presumption in their own good
fortune arises from the overweening conceit
which the greater part of men have their own
abilities.
• Optimism definitely beats pessimism in
promoting self-efficacy, health, and well-
being.
and
 • Defensive pessimism – the adaptive value of chances of success. Once we fail while
anticipating problems and harnessing one’s handicapped in some way, we can cling to a
anxiety to motivate effective action.
FALSE CONSENSUS AND UNIQUENESS
• False consensus – refers to the tendency to
overestimate the commonality of one’s
opinions and one’s undesirable or
unsuccessful behaviors.
• We have a curious tendency to enhance our
self-images by overestimating or
underestimating how much others think
and act as we do.
• When we behave badly or fail in a task, we
reassure ourselves by thinking that such lapses sense of competence that we could have
are also common. succeeded under certain conditions.
False consensus may occur because we generalize • Handicaps protect both self-esteem and
from a limited sample, which prominently includes public age by allowing us to attribute failures

ourselves. to something temporary or external.

• Self-handicapping – protecting one’s self-
• False uniqueness effect – the tendency to image with behaviors that create a handy
underestimate the commonality of one’s excuse for later failure.
abilities and one’s desirable or successful IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
behaviors. • We are continually managing the impressions
EXPLAINING SELF-SERVING BIAS we create. So great is the human desire for
• Self-serving bias may have always occurred social acceptance that it can lead to people
because of errors in how we process and risk harming themselves through smoking,
remember information about ourselves. binge eating, premature sex, or drug and
• Comparing ourselves with others requires us alcohol abuse.
to notice, assess, and recall their behavior and • Self-presentation – refers to the act of
ours. expressing oneself and behaving in ways
• Questing for self-knowledge, we assess our designed to create a favorable impression or
competence an impression that corresponds to one’s ideals.
• Questing for self-confirmation, we are • Just as we preserve our self-esteem, we also
motivated to verify our self-conceptions must make sure not to brag too much and
• Questing for self-affirmation, we are risk the disapproval of others.
especially motivated to enhance our self- • Social interaction is a careful balance of
image. looking good while not looking too good.
• Trying to enhance our self-esteem, then, • In familiar situations, self-presentation
helps power our self-serving bias. happens without conscious effort.
• In unfamiliar situations, we are acutely self-
SELF-PRESENTATION conscious of the impressions we are creating
SELF-HANDICAPPING and we are therefore less modest than when
• Sometimes people sabotage their chances for among friends who know us very well.
success by creating impediments that make • Social networking sites provide a new and
success less likely. Such behaviors typically intense venue for self-preservation.
have a self-protective aim. • Given the concern with status and
• Fearing failure, people might handicap attractiveness on social networking sites, it is
themselves by doing things that lessen their not surprising that people high in narcissistic
 traits thrive on Facebook, tallying up more
friends and choosing more attractive pictures
of themselves.
• Self-monitoring – refers to being attuned to
the way one presents oneself in
situations and adjusting one’s performance to
create the desired impression.
• Those who score high on a scale of self-
monitoring act like social chameleons as they
try to adjust their behavior to the situation.
• Those low on self-monitoring care less about
what others think, They are more internally
guided and thus more likely to talk and act
as they feel and believe.
SELF-CONTROL
• Self-control requires mental and physical
energy.
• Effortful self-control depletes our limited
willpower reserves.
• Self-control operates similarly to
strength. Both are weaker after exertion
replenished with rest, and strengthened by
exercise
LECTURE NOTES
THE SELF IN A SOCIAL WORLD
• There are constant interplay between our
sense of self and or social world
• Our ideas and feelings about ourselves affect
how we respond to others
• Others help shape our sense of self
• Spotlight effect – we tend to think people pay
attention to us more than they really do
• Illusion of transparency – we tend to believe
our concealed emotion can be easily read by
others.
• Social surroundings affect our self-awareness
• Self-interest colors our social judgement
• Self-concern motivates our behavior
• Social relationships help define our self
Self-concept
• Elements of self-concept
• Self-schemas – mental templates
which we organize our worlds
generalized knowledge about the physical
and social world. These are specific beliefs
by which you define yourself. They help us
organize and guide the processing of self-
relevant information
• Self-reference effect – when info is
relevant to our self-concept we process it
social quickly and remember it well. We tend to
remember things better if we somehow
relate them to ourselves.
• Possible selves – motivational function of
self-knowledge. Self-schemas that refer
to kinds of people we hope or dread to be
in the future.
• Self-discrepancy theory – actual self is
who we truly believe ourselves to be. Ideal
self refers to the selves we and others
would like us to be. Ought self refers to
the duties and external demands we feel
obligated to honor.
Development of the social self
• Roles we play
muscle • Social identities we form
• Social comparisons we make with others
• Our success and failures
• How others judge us
• Surrounding culture
INDIVIDUALISM VS. COLLECTIVISM
• Individualism gives priority to one’s own goals
over group
• Collectivism gives priority to the goals of one’s
groups.
Self-knowledge
• Our confidence in self-knowledge is not well
founded
• We dismiss some factors that matter and
inflate some that don’t
• Impact bias – we tend to overestimate the
enduring impact of emotion causing events.
• Planning fallacy – tendency to underestimate
the amount of time a certain task will take to
finish
Self-esteem
• Overall evaluation you have of yourself; your
sense of self-worth
by • We are motivated to engage in self-evaluation
and so that we can maintain our self-esteem and
see ourselves in a favorable light
• Upward social comparison – comparing
oneself to those someone better-off. Convince
 yourself that you are at the same general
range to those that are better-off than you
• Downward social comparison – comparing
oneself to those who are less fortunate than
oneself.
• Those ko have high self-esteem tend to be
more aggressive
• Low self-esteem tend to take a negative
view of everything
Self-serving bias
• Perceiving oneself favorably
• Self-serving attributions in explaining positive
and negative events
• Unrealistically positive views about the self
• Unrealistic optimism
• False consensus and uniqueness
• Exaggerated perceptions of control
• Self-serving attribution – attributing positive
outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to
other factors
• Defensive pessimism – the adaptive value of
anticipating problems and harnessing one’s
anxiety to motivate effective action.
• False uniqueness effect – the tendency to
underestimate the commonality of one’s
ability and desirable or successful behaviors
• False consensus effect – the tendency to
overestimate the commonality of one’s
opinions and desirable unsuccessful behavior.
Public self
• self-presentation and impression
management.
• Self-presentation – refers to presenting to
others we want them to think we are
• Impression management – refers to how we
attempt to control the beliefs other people
have of us
• False modesty – people present a different self
than they feel. Not self-praising but self-
disparaging
• Self-handicapping – protecting one’s self
image with behaviors that create a handy
excuse for later failure.
• Self-monitoring – refers to the extent to
which we actively monitor the situational
appropriateness of our behavior and adjust
our behavior to create certain impressions
Locus of control
• The extent to which people perceive outcomes
as internally controllable by their own efforts
and actions or as externally controlled by
chance or outside forces
Learned helplessness
• Hopelessness and resignation learned when a
human or animal perceives no control over
repeated bad events
Self-efficacy
• A sense that one is competent and effective,
distinguished from self-esteem, one’s self-
worth.
HOW DO WE JUDGE OUR SOCIAL WORLDS?
• Brain system 1 – Functions automatically and out
of our awareness. (intuition or gut-feeling)
• Brain system 2 – requires or conscious attention
and effort.
• Recent research suggests that system 1 influences
more of our actions than we realize
PRIMING
• Refers to the awakening or activation of
particular associations in memory
• Even without awareness, it can influence
thoughts and actions
• It effects surface even when the stimuli are
presented subliminally—too briefly to be
perceived consciously.
• Unnoticed events can also subtly prime our
thinking and behavior
• Most of a person’s daily life is determined not
by their conscious intentions and deliberate
choices but by metal processes that are put
into motion by features of the environment
that operate outside of conscious awareness
and guidance.
• Embodied cognition – the mutual influence of
bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and
social judgements
 • Our social cognition is embodied. The brain • Political overconfidence
systems that process our bodily sensations • Student overconfidence
communicate with the brain systems Confirmation bias
responsible for our social thinking. • Refers to the tendency to search for
INTUITIVE JUDGEMENTS information that confirms one’s perceptions
• Priming research hints that the unconscious • People tend not to seek information that
indeed controls much of our behavior might disprove what they believe
Powers of intuition • We are very eager to verify our beliefs but less
• We know more than we know we know inclined to seek evidence that might disprove
• Studies of our unconscious information hem.
processing confirm our limited access to • It appears to be a system 1 snap judgement,
what’s going on in our minds. where our default reaction is to look for
• Automatic processing – implicit thinking that information consistent with our
is effortless, habitual, and without awareness. presupposition.
It roughly corresponds with intuition and is • It helps explain why our self-images are so
also known as system 1 remarkably stable.
• Schemas – mental concepts or templates Remedies for overconfidence
that intuitively guide our perceptions and • Be wary of other people’s dogmatic
interpretations. statements.
• Emotional reactions – are often nearly • Receive prompt feedback
instantaneous, happening before there is • Get people to think of one good reason why
time for deliberate thinking. their judgements may be wrong
• Expertise – given sufficient expertise, HEURISTICS
people may intuitively know the answer • A thinking strategy that enables quick,
to a problem efficient judgements.
• Snap judgements – a judgement made • It enables us to make routine decisions with
with even just a fraction of a glance. minimal effort
• Controlled processing – explicit thinking that Representativeness heuristic
is deliberate, reflective, and conscious. It is also • The tendency to presume, sometimes despite
known as system 2. contrary odds, that someone or something
Limits of intuition belongs to a particular group if resembling a
• A general consensus that the unconscious may typical member
not be as smart as previously believed Availability heuristic
• Illusory intuition appears in how we take in, • A cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of
store, and retrieve social information things in terms of their availability in
• Demonstrations of how people create false memory. If instances of something come
beliefs do not prove that all beliefs are false. readily to mind, we presume it to be
OVERCONFIDENCE compliance.
• Refers to the tendency to be more confident • The more easily we remember something, the
than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of more likely it seems
one’s beliefs. COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING
• The overconfidence phenomenon is a result of • Refers to imagining scenarios and outcomes
biases and information processing that might have happened, but didn’t.
• Incompetence feeds overconfidence • Cognitively available events influences our
• It takes competence to recognize competence experience
• Ignorance of one’s incompetence occurs • It underlies our feeling of luck
mostly on relatively easy-seeming tasks • The more significant and unlikely the event,
• Stockbroker overconfidence the more intense the counterfactual thinking.
 • We construe the world through belief-tinted
ILLUSORY THINKING glasses
• Another influence on everyday thinking is our PERCEIVING AND INTERPRETING EVENTS
search for order in random events, a • Despite startling biases and logical flaws in
tendency that can lead us down all sorts of how we perceive and understand one another,
wrong paths we are mostly accurate.
Illusory correlation • Our first impressions of one another are more
• Perception of a relationship where none exists, often right than wrong.
or perception of a stronger relationship than • Our prejudgments err. The effects of
actually exists prejudgments and expectations are standard
• People easily misperceive random events as fare for psychology’s introductory course
confirming their beliefs. If we believe a • Political perceptions – even a simple stimulus
correlation exists, we are more likely to notice may strike two people quite differently.
and recall confirming instances People everywhere perceive mediators and
• Gambling – When playing a game of chance media as biased against their position. We
against an awkward and nervous person, they view our social worlds through the spectacles
bet significantly more than when playing of our beliefs, attitudes and values.
against a dapper, confident opponent. People BELIEF PERSEVERANCE
like feeling in control and so, when • Persistence of one’s initial conceptions, such as
experiencing a lack of control, will act to when the basis for one’s belief is discredited
create a sense of predictability. but an explanation of why the belief might be
• Regression toward the average – the true survives
statistical tendency for extreme scores or • It is surprisingly difficult to demolish a
extreme behavior to return towards one’s falsehood after the person conjures up a
average. rationale for it
MOODS AND JUDGEMENTS • Beliefs can grow their own legs and survive
• Social judgement involves efficient discrediting
information processing. • The more we examine our theories and
• Our moods infuse our judgements explain how they might be true, the more
• A depressed mood motivates intense closed we become to information that
thinking—a search for information that challenges our beliefs
makes one’s environment more memorable, • Our beliefs and expectations powerfully affect
understandable, and controllable. how we mentally construct events
• If people are made temporarily happy be
receiving a small gift while shopping, they will CONSTRUCTING MEMORIES OF OURSELVES AND
report, a few moments later on an unrelated OUR WORLDS
survey, that their cars and TV sets are • Our memories are not exact copies of
working beautifully experiences that remain on deposit in a
• Moods pervade our thinking memory bank. We construct memories at the
• Our moods color how we judge our worlds time of withdrawal
partly by bringing into mind past experiences • In its search for truth, the mind sometimes
associated with the mood. constructs a falsehood
• Mood-related thoughts may distract us from • Misinformation effect – refers to the
complex thinking about something else. incorporation of misinformation into one’s
memory of the event after witnessing an
HOW DO WE PERCEIVE OUR SOCIAL WORLDS? event and receiving misleading information
• Our preconceptions guide how we perceive and about it.
interpret information.
Reconstructing our past attitudes Inferring traits
• People whose attitudes have changed often • We often infer that other people’s actions are
insist that they have always felt much as they indicative of their intentions and dispositions
now feel • Spontaneous trait inference – refers to an
• Rosy retrospection – recalling mildly pleasant effortless, automatic inference of a trait after
events more favorable than they experienced exposure to someone’s behavior
them FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
• As our relationships change, we also revise our • Refers to the tendency for observers to
recollections of other people. underestimate situational influences and
• When memories are hazy, current feelings overestimate dispositional influences upon
guide our recall others’ behavior.
Reconstructing our past behavior Why do we make the attribution error
• Memory construction enables us to revise our • Perspective and situational awareness – we
own histories observe others from a different perspective
• It was necessary to remember events that than we observe ourselves
happened in a desired manner. We all have • When we act, the environment
totalitarian egos that revise the past to suit commands our attention
our present views. • When we watch others act, that person
• We underreport our bad behavior and occupies the center of our attention and
overreport good behavior the environment becomes relatively
• Our social judgements are a mix of invisible
observation and expectation, reason and • Cultural differences – cultures also influence
passion. attribution error. Some languages promote
ATTRIBUTING CAUSALITY: TO THE PERSON OR external attributions
SITUATION • The fundamental attribution error is
• We endlessly analyze and discuss why things fundamental because it colors our explanation
happen as they do, especially when we in basic and important ways.
experience something negative or unexpected • Those who attribute poverty and
• Misattribution – mistakenly attributing unemployment to personal dispositions tend
behavior to the wrong source to adopt political positions unsympathetic to
• Misattribution is particularly likely when men such people
are in positions of power • Those who make situational attributions tend
• Misattributions help explain the greater sexual to adopt political positions that offer more
assertiveness exhibited by men throughout the direct support to the poor.
world, and the greater tendency of men in Why we study attribution errors
various cultures, to justify rape by arguing • The purpose of the studies and experiments
that the victim consented or implied consent done is to reveal how we think about ourselves
• Attribution theory – is the theory of how and others
people explain others’ behavior—for example, • Focusing on thinking biases sch as the
by attributing it either to internal dispositions fundamental attribution error is
or external situations humanitarian. People should not always be
• Dispositional attribution – attributing blamed for their problems.
behavior to the person’s disposition and • We are mostly unaware of biases and we can
traits benefit from greater awareness of it.
• Situational attribution – attributing • Social psychology aims to expose us to fallacies
behavior to the environment in our thinking in the hope that we will
become more rational, more in touch with
 reality, and more receptive to critical includes him or her to be nice in return—thus
thinking disconfirming our expectations
HOW DO OUR SOCIAL BELIEFS MATTER? WHAT CAN WE CONCLUDE ABOUT SOCUAL
• Our social beliefs and judgements do matter and BELIEFS AND JUDGEMENTS
they influence how we feel and act, and by doing • Research on social beliefs and judgements
so may help generate their own reality reveals how we form and sustain beliefs that
• Self-fulfilling prophecies – refers to beliefs that usually serve us well but sometimes lead us
leads to its own fulfillment astray.
• Experimenter bias – participant sometimes live • A balanced social psychology will therefore
up to what they believe experimenters expect appreciate both powers and the perils of social
them thinking
• Pygmalion effect – the phenomenon whereby
higher expectations lead to higher performance
TEACHER EXPECTATIONS AND STUDENT
PERFORMANCE
• Teachers do have higher expectations for some
students than for others.
• Teachers accurately perceive their student’s In the beginning, social psychologists agreed that to

abilities and achievements. About 75 percent know people’s attitudes is to predict their actions. In

of the correlation between teacher 1964, Leon Festinger observed that changing people’s

expectations and student future achievement attitudes often hardly affects their behavior. He

reflects accuracy. believed that the attitude-behavior works the other

• High expectations do seem to boost low way around, with our behavior as the horse and

achievers, for whom a teacher’s positive attitudes as the cart.

attitude may be a hope-giving breath of fresh

air Attitudes – refers to beliefs and feelings related to a

• Expectations of students to their teachers person or an event that is often rooted in one’s beliefs

affect both the student and the teacher. and exhibited in one’s feelings and intended behavior.

GETTING FROM OTHERS WHAT WE EXPECT HOW WELL DO OUR ATTITUDES PREDICT
• The expectations of experimenters BEHAVIOR
occasionally act as self-fulfilling prophecies • Allan Wicker – reviewed several research studies
• Behavioral confirmation – a type of self- covering a variety of people, attitudes and
fulfilling prophecy whereby people’s social behaviors and offered a shocking conclusion that
expectations lead them to behave in ways that people’s expressed attitudes hardly predicted their
cause others to confirm their expectations varying behaviors
• Sometimes negative expectations of someone • The surprising finding that what people say often
leads us to be extra nice to that person, which differs from what they do sent social psychologists
to find out why.
 • Amygdala – the brain region known for
WHEN ATTRIBUTES PREDICT BEHAVIOR being a center for threat detection
• the reason why our behavior and our appears to be active as we automatically
expressed attitudes differ is that both are evaluate social stimuli
subject to many other influences. • The IAT is not reliable enough to assess
• Our attitudes do predict behavior when these and compare individuals.
other influences on what we say and do are • The existence of distinct explicit and implicit
minimal, when the attitude is specific to the attitudes confirms one of psychology’s biggest
behavior, and when the attitude is potent lessons: our dual processing capacity for both
When social influences on what we say are minimal automatic and controlled thinking
• Social psychologists measure expressed When other influences on behavior are minimal
attitudes. • Social influences can be enormous enough to
• Expressions are subject to outside influences, induce people to violate their deepest
• Implicit attitudes – our often convictions.
unacknowledged inner beliefs that may or • Principle of aggregation – the effects of an
may not correspond to our explicit or attitude become more apparent when we look
conscious attitudes. at a person’s aggregate or average behavior.
• Implicit association test – . It is a computer- When attitudes are specific to the behavior
driven assessment of implicit attitudes. It uses • Other conditions further improve the
reaction times to measure how quickly people predictive accuracy of attitudes
associate concepts. Report of studies that • When a measured attitude is a general one,
involve the IAT shown that: and the behavior is very specific, we should
• Implicit biases are pervasive – 80% of not expect a close correspondence between
people show more implicit dislike for the words and actions
elderly compared to the young • Theory of planned behavior – says that it is
• People differ in implicit bias – depending better to predict behavior by knowing people’s
on their group memberships, conscious intended behaviors and their perceived self-
attitudes, and the bias in their immediate efficacy and control
environment, some people exhibit more • To change habits through persuasion, we must
implicit bias than others alter people’s attitudes toward specific
• People are often unaware of their implicit practices
biases – despite thinking themselves When attitudes are potent
unprejudiced, even researchers themselves • Much of our behavior is automatic and we act
show implicit biases against some social out familiar scripts without reflecting on what
groups. we are doing.
• Both implicit and explicit attitudes help • This kind of mindlessness is adaptive and it
predict people’s behaviors and frees our minds to work on other things. For
judgements.
• For attitudes formed early in life—such
as racial and gender attitudes—implicit
and explicit attitudes frequently
diverge, with implicit attitudes often
predicting behavior better.
• For other attitudes such as those
related to consumer behavior and
support for political candidates, explicit
self-reports are the better predictor
 habitual behaviors, conscious intentions are
hardly activated.
• Alfred North Whitehead - “Civilization
advances by extending the number
operations which we can perform without
thinking them
Bringing attitudes to mind
• Our attitudes become potent when we
think about them.
• To induce people to focus on their inner
convictions, make them self-aware.
Forging strong attitudes through experience
• The attitudes that best predict behavior
are accessible as well as stable.
• When attitudes are forged by experience,
they are more accessible, more enduring,
and more likely to guide actions
WHEN DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT
ATTITUDES?
• Behavior determines attitudes.
• We stand up for what we believe, and we also
come to believe in what we stand up for
ROLE PLAYING
• Role – a set of norms that defines how people
in a given social position ought to behave
• When enacting new social roles, we may first
feel phony, but our unease seldom lasts.
• Role-playing studies concerns how what is
unreal can subtly morph into something real.
• When we act like those around us, we slightly
change our former selves into being more like
them
SAYING BECOMES BELIEVING
• People often adapt what they say to please
their listener. They are quicker to tell people
good news than bad, and they adjust their
message towards their listeners views
• When there is no compelling external
explanation for one’s words, saying becomes
believing.
EVIL AND MORAL ACTS
• The attitude-follow-behavior principle also
works with immoral acts. Evil sometimes
results from gradually escalating
commitments. A trifling evil erodes one’s
moral sensitivity, making it easier to perform
a worse act
• We tend not only to hurt those we dislike but
of also dislike those we hurt.
• Attitudes-follow-behavior phenomenon both
appears in wartime and peacetime.
• Actions and attitudes feed each other,
sometimes to the point of moral numbness.
The more one harms another and adjusts
one’s attitudes, the easier it becomes to do
harm, resulting for one’s conscience to erode
• Harmful acts and moral acts both shape the
self. Our character is reflected in what we do
when we think no one is looking
• Moral action, especially when chosen rather
than coerced, affects moral thinking
Interracial interaction and racial attitudes
• If moral action feeds moral attitudes, will
OUR positive interaction between people of
different races reduce racial prejudice?
• Though it opposes the assumption that “you
can’t legislate morality”, attitude change has
followed desegregation just as social
psychologists predicted.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• A danger lies in the possibility of employing
the same idea for political socialization on a
mass scale.
• The practice spans from totalitarian regimes
to political rituals which use public conformity
to build private patriotism
• Political and social movements may legislate
behavior designed to lead to attitude on a
mass scale.
WHY DOES OUR BEHAVIOR AFFECT OUR
ATTITUDES
• Self-presentation theory – assumes that for
strategic reasons we express attitudes that make
us appear consistent
• Cognitive dissonance theory – assumes that to
reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to
ourselves
• Self-perception theory – assumes that our actions
are self-revealing: when uncertain about our
feelings or beliefs, we look to our behavior as much
as anyone else would
SELF-PRESENTATION: IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT explained by external rewards or coercion, we
• We see making a good impression as a way to will experience dissonance, which we can
gain social and material rewards, to feel reduce by believing in what we have done.
better about ourselves, even to become more • Children were more likely to internalize a
secure in our social identities. request not to play with an attractive toy if
• To avoid seeming foolishly inconsistent, we they were given a mild threat that
express attitudes that match our actions insufficiently justified their compliance
• To appear consistent, we may automatically • Cognitive dissonance theory focuses on what
pretend attitudes. Even a little hypocrisy can induces a desired action. The theory predicts
pay off in managing the impression we are that authoritarian management will be
making effective only when the authority is present.
• Feigning consistency, to some extent, explain • Dissonance theory insists that encouragement
why expressed attitudes shift toward and inducement should be enough to elicit the
consistency with behavior. desired action.
SELF-JUSTIFICATION: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Dissonance after decisions
• Our attitudes change because we are • The emphasis on perceived choice and
motivated to maintain consistency among our responsibility implies that decisions produce
cognitions dissonance.
• Cognitive dissonance – tension that arises • When faced with an important decision, we
when one is simultaneously aware of two are sometimes torn between two equally
inconsistent cognitions attractive alternatives
• Cognitive dissonance theory – assumes that • After making important decisions, you can
we feel tension when two of our thoughts or reduce dissonance by upgrading the chosen
beliefs are inconsistent. To reduce this alternative and downgrading the unchosen
unpleasant arousal, we often adjust our option.
thinking • Our preferences influences our decisions,
• People whose confident beliefs are sake will which then sharpen our preferences. This
often respond by seeking to persuade others. choices-influence-preferences
• Selective exposure – refers to the tendency to • Decisions, once made, grow their own self-
seek information and media that agree with justifying legs of support.
one’s views and to avoid dissonant SELF PERCEPTION
information. We prefer news that affirms us • Self-perception theory – is the theory that
over news that informs us when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer
• To minimize dissonance, people’s belief steer them much as would someone observing us—
their reasoning and their evaluation of data by looking at our behavior and the
• Dissonance theory pertains mostly to circumstances under which it occurs.
discrepancies between behavior and attitudes. • The theory assumes that we make similar
We are aware of both and if we sense inferences when we observe our own
inconsistency or hypocrisy, we feel pressure behavior.
for change • William James – more than a century ago, he
• Cognitive dissonance theory offers an proposed a similar self-perception process for
explanation our experienced emotion.
Insufficient justification • We infer our emotions by observing our bodies
• Insufficient justification – refers to the and our behaviors.
reduction of dissonance by internally Expressions and attitude
justifying one’s behavior when external • Facial feedback effect – the tendency of facial
justification is insufficient. Dissonance theory expressions to trigger corresponding feelings
predicts that when our actions are not fully such as fear, anger, or happiness.
 • Our expressions influence our feelings and • We also have seen two explanations, though
imitating others’ expressions help is know contradicting each other, of why our actions
what they are feeling as well according
to a study.
• Acting out a person’s emotion enabled
the observers to feel more empathy.
• Our facial expressions also influence our
attitudes.
Overjustification and intrinsic motivations
• People explain their behavior by noting
the conditions under which it occurs. We
observe our uncoerced actions and infer
our attitude.
• Rewarding people for doing what they genuinely affect our attitudes. Self-perception
already enjoy may lead them to attribute theory assumes that we justify our behavior
their actions to the reward. This would to reduce our internal discomfort.
undermine their self-perception that they do • Self-perception theory assumes that we
it because they like it, observe our behavior and make reasonable
• Overjustification effect – the result of bringing inferences about our attitudes, much as we
people to do what they already like doing. observe other people and infer their attitudes.
They may then see their actions as externally • Daryl Bem – suggested it boils down to
controlled rather than intrinsically appealing. persona loyalties and preferences. This
• An unanticipated reward does not diminish illustrates the human element in scientific
intrinsic interest, because people can still theorizing. Neither dissonance theory nor self-
attribute their actions to their own perception theory has been handed to us by
motivation nature. Both are products of human
• The Overjustification effect occurs when imagination.
someone offers an unnecessary reward Dissonance as arousal
beforehand in an obvious effort to control • Strong support has emerged for dissonance
behavior theory.
• Rewards and praise that inform people of • Conditions that supposedly produce
their achievements boost intrinsic motivation. dissonance are indeed uncomfortably
Whereas rewards that seek to control people arousing, provided that the behavior has
and lead them to believe it was the reward unwanted consequences for which the person
that caused their effort diminish the intrinsic feels responsible
appeal of an enjoyable task. • Self-affirmation theory suggests that
• If students are provided with enough undesirable acts are embarrassing and make
justification to perform a learning task and us feel foolish. They threaten our sense of
use rewards and labels to help them feel personal competence and goodness.
competent, we may enhance their enjoyment • Justifying our actions and decisions is
and their eagerness to pursue the subject on therefore self-affirming. It protects and
their own. supports our sense if integrity and self-worth
COMPARING THEORIES Self-perceiving when not self-contradicting
• We have seen an explanation of why our • Dissonance is uncomfortably arousing. That
actions might only seem to affect our makes for self-persuasion after acting
attitudes, through the self-presentation contrary to one’s attitudes. But dissonance
theory theory cannot attitude changes that occur
without dissonance.
 • When people argue in a position that is in line • The offspring that survived and
with their opinion, although a step or two reproduced are more likely to pass their
beyond it, procedures that eliminate arousal genes to the next generation
do not eliminate the attitude change • Over time, population characteristics may
• Dissonance theory successfully explains what change
happens when we act contrary to clearly • Evolutionary psychology – the study of the
defined attitudes. evolution of cognition and behavior using
principles of natural selection.
• Studies how natural selection predisposes
physical traits suited to particular
contexts, psychological traits and social
behaviors, that enhance the preservation
and spread of one’s genes
• The evolutionary perspective highlights
HOW ARE WE INFLUENCED BY HUMAN NATURE
our universal human nature
AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY?
• Our emotional and behavioral answers to
• We humans are intensely social. We join groups,
social questions are the same answers that
conform, and recognize distinctions of social
worked for our ancestors
status.
CULTURE AND BEHAVIOR
• There are several hundred universal behavior and
• The hallmark of our species is our capacity to
language patterns. (Brown, D. 1991,2000)
learn and adapt
• Humans prefer living with others to living alone
• Our shared human biology enables cultural
• Our commonalities define our human nature.
diversity. It enables those in one culture to
Although differences draw our attention, we’re
value promptness, welcome frankness, or
more alike than different.
accept premarital sex, whereas those in
GENES, EVOLUTION, AND BEHAVIOR
another do not.
• Universal behaviors that define human nature
• Culture – the enduring behaviors, ideas,
arise from our biological similarity
attitudes, and traditions shared by a large
• If we trace our ancestors back 100,00 or
group of people and transmitted from one
more years, we are all Africans.
generation to the next.
• Due to climate change, early hominids
• Evolutionary psychology incorporates
migrated across Africa into Asia, Europe, the
environmental influences and recognizes that
Australian subcontinent, and the Americas.
nature and nurture interact in forming us
• As they adapt to their new environments,
• Epigenetics – a field of research exploring the
they are able to develop differences that are
expression of genes across different
recent and superficial in an anthropological
environments
scale
• Nature predisposes us to learn whatever
• Charles Darwin – a British naturalist that
culture we are born into. The cultural
proposed an evolutionary process, the natural
perspective highlights human adaptability
selection:
Cultural diversity
• Organisms have many varied offspring
• The diversity of our languages, customs, and
• Offspring compete for survival in the
expressive behaviors confirms that much of
environment
our behavior is socially programmed, not
• Biological and behavioral variations
hardwired.
increase chances of survival and
• Increasingly, cultural diversity surrounds us.
reproduction
More and more we live in a global village,
connected to our fellow villagers by electronic
social networks
 • Confronting another culture is sometimes a norms, so all cultures evaluate how well
startling experience others follow those norms
• As we work, paly, and live with people from • Universal social belief dimensions – there
diverse cultural backgrounds, it helps to are also five universal dimensions of social
understand how our cultures influence us and beliefs. Across 38 countries, people varied
how our cultures differ in:
Norms • cynicism
• Norms – standards for accepted and expected • social complexity
behavior. These prescribe proper behavior in a • reward for application
culture • spirituality
• All cultures have their accepted ideas about • fate control
appropriate behavior. • Universal status norms – wherever people
• Norms do restrain and control us form status hierarchies, they also talk to
• There is no better way to learn the norms of higher-status people in the respectful way
our native culture than to visit another they often talk to strangers. They, as well,
culture and see that its members do things talk to lower-status people in the more
that way, whereas we do them this way. familiar, first-name way they speak to
• To those who don’t accept these norms, it friends
may seem arbitrary and confining • most languages have two forms of the
• Cultures vary in their norms for English pronoun “you”; a respectful
expressiveness, punctuality, rule breaking, form and a familiar form
and personal space • People typically use the familiar form
• Individual choices – Cultures vary in how with intimates and subordinates.
much they emphasize the individual self • The first aspect of this universal
versus others and the society norm—that forms of address
• Expressiveness – to someone from a communicate not only social distance
relatively formal culture, a person whose but also social status—correlates with
roots are in an expressive culture may the second aspect: Advances in
seem “warm, charming, inefficient, and intimacy are usually suggested by the
time wasting” higher-status person.
• Punctuality – there are some cultures • The incest taboo – parents are not to
that tend to be more obsessed with have sexual relations with their children,
punctuality than others do. nor siblings with one another. Given the
• Personal space – the buffer zone we like biological penalties for inbreeding, it can
to maintain around our bodies. Its size be easily understood why people
depends on our familiarity with everywhere are predisposed against incest
whomever is near us. HOW ARE MALES AND FEMALES DIFFERENT AND
Cultural similarity ALIKE
• As members of one species, the processes that • The two dimensions that matter most—and that
underlie our differing behaviors are much the people first attune to—are race and gender
same everywhere • When an intersex child is born with a combination
• Universal Friendship norms – people of male and female sex organs, physicians and the
everywhere have some common norms for family traditionally have felt compelled to assign
friendship the child a gender by diminishing the ambiguity
• Universal trait dimensions – around the surgically.
world, people describe others with • Transgender – people whose sense of being male
between two and five universal or female differs from their birth sex
personality dimensions. All cultures have
GENDER AND GENES • When facing stress, men tend to
• Gender – the characteristics, whether respond with “fight or flight” while
biological or socially influenced, by which women “tend and befriend”
people define male and female • Vocations
• Despite the several gender similarities that • Females are less interested in math-
are evident between males and females, intensive careers than are males
differences do exist. • Men gravitate disproportionately to
• Compared to males, the average female: jobs that enhance inequalities, while
• Has 70% more fat women gravitate to jobs that
• Has 40% less muscle reduce inequalities
• Is 5 inches shorter • Men, more than women, value
• Compared to females, the average male is earnings, promotion, challenge, and
• Slower to enter puberty by about two power
years • Women, more than men, value good
• Quicker to die by four years worldwide hours, personal relationships, and
• Three times more likely to be diagnosed opportunities to help other people
with ADHD • Family relations
• Four times more likely to commit suicide • Women’s connections as mothers,
• Five times more likely to be killed by daughters, sisters, and grandmothers
lightning bind families
• More capable of wiggling his hears • Women spend about twice as much
• Most people rate their beliefs and feelings time caring for children than men
regarding women as more favorable than • Smiling
their feelings regarding men—a phenomenon • Women’s greater connectedness has
some have labeled the “women are been expressed in their generally
wonderful” effect. higher rate of smiling
INDEPENDENCE VERSUS CONNECTEDNESS • Boys learn not to smile by age 11
• Both men and women display outlooks and • Empathy
behavior that vary from fierce • Refers to the vicarious experience of
competitiveness to caring nurturance another’s feelings; putting oneself in
• Play another’s shoes
• girls talk more intimately and play • Women are more likely to describe
less aggressively. Girls also play in themselves as having empathy
smaller groups, often talking with one • Both men and women report
friend. friendships with women to be more
• Friendship intimate, enjoyable, and nurturing
• as adults women in individualistic • Women are generally superior at
cultures are more likely to than men decoding others’ emotional messages
to describe themselves in relational • Women are more skilled at expressing
terms, welcome help, experience emotions nonverbally
relationship-linked emotions, and be • Men were slightly more successful in
attuned to others’ relationships. conveying anger
• In conversation, men more often focus SOCIAL DOMINANCE
on tasks and on connections with • People rate men as more dominant, driven,
large groups, whereas women focus and aggressive
on personal relationships • Men more than women rate power and
• When in groups, women share more achievement as important
of their lives and offer more support.
 • Gender differences vary greatly by culture, • Gender differences fluctuates with context.
and gender differences are shrinking in many The gender gap shrinks when subjects are
industrialized societies as women assume provoked
more managerial and leadership positions. • Women are also slightly more likely to commit
However: indirect aggressive acts, such as spreading
• Women were but 22% of the world’s malicious gossip
legislators SEXUALITY
• Men are more likely to favor conservative • In their physiological and subjective responses
political candidates and programs that to sexual stimuli, women and men are more
preserve group inequality similar than different. The differences lie in
• Men are also the leaders of most ad hoc what happens beforehand
laboratory groups • Gender difference in sexual attitudes carries
• In Britain, men hold 77% of top 100 over to behavior. Males more likely than
board positions females to initiate sexual activity
• Women’s wages are between 70-90 • Cultures everywhere attribute to greater
percent of men’s wages in a majority of value to female than male sexuality, as
countries indicated in gender asymmetries in
• Across many studies, people perceive leaders prostitution and courtship
as having more culturally masculine traits • Sexual fantasies, too, differ between men and
• Men tend to excel as directive, task- women. In male-oriented erotica, women are
focused leaders unattached and lust driven. In romance
• Women excel more often in novels, primarily read by women, a tender
transformational or relational leadership male is emotionally consumed by his devoted
• Precarious manhood – a phenomenon passion for the heroine.
wherein men fear of losing their greater social Individual differences far exceed gender differences.
power. In many cultures, masculinity is seen Males and females are hardly opposite sexes. Rather,
as something that must be earned and they differ like two folded hands—similar but not the
defended same, fitting together yet differing as they grasp each
• Men are much more concerned about being other
identified as feminine than women are at EVOLUTION AND GENDER
being identified as masculine • There are certain salient biological sex differences
• Men act more impulsively and take more risks • Men’s hormones help build muscle mass to hunt
• In writing, women tend to use more game
communal prepositions, fewer quantitative • Women’s hormones allows the capability to
words, and more present tense breastfeed infants
• Men use more complex language and women GENDER AND MATING PREFERENCES
use more social words and pronouns • Evolutionary psychology predicts no sex
• In conversations, men’s style reflects their differences in domains where the sexes faced
concern for independence, women’s for similar adaptive challenges such as
connectedness homeostasis.
AGRESSION • Evolutionary psychology does predict sex
• Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt differences in behaviors relevant to mating
someone. In laboratory experiments, this and reproduction
might mean delivering electric shocks or • The average male produces many trillions of
saying something likely to hurt another’s sperm in his lifetime, making sperm cheap
feelings compared with eggs
 • Females invest their reproductive • By imagining things turning out otherwise,
opportunities carefully, by looking for signs of hindsight bias can be overcame.
resources and commitment. • Evolutionary psychologists argue that
• Men look for healthy and fertile soil to plant hindsight plays no less a role in cultural
their seeds at, while females want to find men explanations.
who will help them tend the garden • Evolutionary Psychology critics acknowledge
• Physically dominant males excelled in gaining that evolution helps explain both our
access to females, which over generations commonalities and our differences. But they
enhanced male aggression and dominance as contend that our common evolutionary
the less-aggressive males had fewer chances heritage does not, by itself, predict enormous
to reproduce cultural variation in human marriage
• Men are more aggressive toward other men patterns
when they are thinking about dating and GENDER AND HORMONES
mating • Testis-determining factor – a single gene that
• Nature selects traits that help send one’s directs the formation of the testicles, which
genes into the future begin to secrete testosterone.
• Little of these processes are conscious. • Girls exposed to excess testosterone during
Emotions execute evolution’s dispositions, fetal development tend to exhibit more
much as hunger executes the body’s need for tomboyish play behavior than other girls,
nutrients and resemble males in their career
• Humans are collections of mechanisms preferences
produced by prior selection pressures. This • The gender gap in aggression also seems
helps explain not only male aggression but also influenced by testosterone. Violent male
the differing sexual attitudes and behaviors of criminals have higher than normal
females and males testosterone levels.
• Evolutionary psychology also predicts that • Hormone changes are one possible explanation
men will strive to offer what women will for the shrinking gender differences.
desire. • Some speculate that during courtship
• Male achievement is ultimately a courtship and early parenthood, social expectations
display lead both sexes to emphasize traits that
• For females to attract men, they may want enhance their roles
to appear youthful and have a healthy • As men and women graduate from these
appearance which connotes fertility. early adult roles, they supposedly express
• Men everywhere tend to be most attracted to more of their restrained tendencies.
women whose age and features suggest peak • Androgynous – mixing of both masculine
fertility and feminine characteristics
• Monthly fertility also affects how females CULTURE AND GENDER
interact with the males around them • Like biological creatures, cultures vary and
• Our mating desires provide a window for compete for resources and thus evolve over time.
viewing the resources our ancestors needed Cultures evolve through a “culture cycle”
for reproduction. • People create the cultures to which they
REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY adapt
• Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start • Cultures shape people so that they act in
with a finding and then work backward to ways that perpetuate their cultures
construct and explanation for it. Evolutionary • Gender socialization has been said to give girls
theorists can hardly lose when employing “roots” and boys “wings”.
hindsight. • Gender roles – a set of behavior expectations for
males and females
• The variety of gender roles across cultures and • Everything social and psychological is
over time shows that culture indeed helps ultimately biological
construct our gender roles • Biology and culture may also interact.
GENDER ROLES VARY WITH CULTURE Advances in genetic science indicate how
• The majority of the world’s people would experience uses genes to change the brain.
ideally like to see more parallel male and • Environmental stimuli can activate genes that
female roles produce new brain cell branching receptors.
GENDER ROLES VARY OVER TIME Visual experience activates genes that develop
• In the past half-century, gender roles have the brain’s visual area. Parental tough
changed dramatically activates genes that help offspring cope with
• Behavioral changes accompanied this shift future stressful events.
• Role models may be a crucial catalyst for such • Diet, drugs, and stress, including child abuse,
shits in gender roles can all regulate gene expression
• Things have changed at home as well • Biology and experience also interact when
• The trends toward more gender equality biological traits influence how the
appear across many cultures environment reacts
PEER-TRANSMITTED CULTURE • Each sex tends to exhibit the behaviors of
• The nurture assumption – parental nurture, those who fill such roles and tend to have their
the way parents bring their children up, skills and beliefs shaped accordingly.
governs who their children become • In cultures with greater quality of gender
• Children do acquire many of their values, roles, the gender difference in mate
including their political affiliation and preferences is less.
religious faith, at home. However: • Although biology predisposes men to strength
• Two children in the same family are tasks and women to infant care, the behavior
different from one another as are pairs of of women and men is sufficiently malleable
children selected randomly from the that individuals of both sexes are fully capable
population of effectively carrying out organizational roles
• Genetic influences explain roughly 50% of at all levels
individual variations in personality traits. POWER OF THE SITUATION AND THE PERSON
• Shared environmental influences only • The situation would explain our behavior if we
account for 0-10% of their personality are passive. However, we respond and we get
differences responses.
• Children and youth learn their culture mostly • We can resist the social situation and
from peers sometimes even change it
• Parents have important influence, but it is • Social control and personal control no more
substantially indirect compete with each other than do biological
• Parents help define schools, and cultural explanations.
neighborhoods, and peers that directly • We may be the products of both the interplay
influence their children become of our genes and environment. But it is also
delinquent, use drugs, or get pregnant. true that the future is coming and it is our
• The links of influence from parental group to job to decide where it is going. Our choices
child group are loose enough that the cultural today determine our environment tomorrow
transmission is never perfect • Social situations and individuals interact. The
GENES, CULTURE, AND GENDER interaction occurs in at least three ways:
BIOLOGY AND CULTURE • A given social situation often affects
• Cultural norms subtly yet powerfully affect different people differently
our attitudes and behavior. But they don’t do • People choose their situations
so independently of biology. • People often create their situations
 • Message
Power resides both in persons and in situations. We • How the message is communicated
create and are created by our cultural worlds. • The audience
THE COMMUNICATOR
• Effective persuaders know how to convey a
message effectively

The power of persuasion enables us to promote health • Who is saying something does affect how an

or to sell addiction, to advance peace or stir up hate, audience receives

to enlighten or deceive. • People are more willing to agree with

Persuasion – is the process by which a message statements made by leaders in the political

induces a change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. party they identify with

Efforts to persuade are sometimes diabolical, Credibility

sometimes controversial, and sometimes beneficial. A • Pertains to believability. A credible

message’s purpose and content elicit judgements of communicator is perceived as both expert and

good or bad. trustworthy

Social psychologists seek to understand what leads to • Effects of perceived expertise and

effective, long-lasting attitude change. trustworthiness diminish after a month or so.

WHAT LEADS TO PERSUASION • If a person’s message is persuasive, its impact

• Persuasion entails clearing several hurdles. Any may fade as its source is forgotten or

factors that help people clear the persuasion dissociated from the message

hurdles will increase persuasion • Sleeper effect – a delayed impact of a

CENTRAL ROUTE message that occurs when an initially

• The central route to persuasion occurs when discounted message becomes effective

interested people focus on the arguments and Perceived expertise

respond with favorable thoughts • Say things that the audiences agrees with,

• Often swiftly explicit attitudes which makes you seem smart

• It can lead to more enduring change than the • People count someone as an expert whose

peripheral route. conclusion support their own preexisting

• When people think carefully, they rely not values and views

only on the strength of persuasive appeals but • It also helps to be seen as knowledgeable

on their own thoughts in response on the topic

• Any attitude change will more likely persist, • Celebrity communicators are more

resist attack, and influence behavior persuasive when they are perceived as

PERIPHERAL ROUTE expert users of the product. Otherwise,

• The peripheral route to persuasion occurs their appeals are very ineffective

when people are influenced by incidental cues. Speaking style

• Focusing on cues that trigger automatic • Speak confidently and fluently

acceptance without much thinking • A charismatic, energetic, confident-

• Slowly builds implicit attitudes through seeming person is often more convincing

repeated associations between an attitude Perceived trustworthiness

object and an emotion • We are more willing to listen to a

• Using simple rule-of-thumb heuristics. We all communicator we trust

make snap judgements using such heuristics • People who are primed with trust-related

• Advertisers have font that peripheral words were more likely to follow the

emotion-based appeals are more effective communicator’s recommendation

across a variety of products • We are more willing to believe that

WHAT ARE THE ELEMTS OF PERSUASION? negative comments are honest than

• Communicator positive ones

 • Trustworthiness is also
audience believes that the communicator
is not trying to persuade them
• If you want to persuade someone, start
with information, not arguments
• Another effective strategy is to have
someone else convey your expertise
• When we know in advance that a source
is credible, we think more favorable
thoughts in response to the message. If we
learn the source after a message generates
favorable thoughts, high
strengthens our confidence
thinking, which also
persuasive impact of the message
• Direct eye contact
communicator and audience does not
improve persuasion
Attractiveness and liking
• Attractiveness – refers to having qualities
that appeal to an audience, An appealing
communicator is most persuasive on matters
of subjective preference
• We are more likely to respond to those we
like, a phenomenon well-known to those
organizing charitable solicitations and candy
sales
• Our liking may open us up to communicator’s
arguments through the central route of
persuasion, or it may trigger
associations when we see the product later
through the peripheral route of persuasion
• Physical attractiveness – arguments,
especially emotional ones, are often more
influential when they come from people we
consider beautiful
• Similarity – we tend to like people who are
like us. We are influenced by those people.
People who act as we do, subtly mimicking
our postures are likewise more influential
• One experimentation found that consumer-
generated ads were more effective when the
ad creator was seen as similar
participant
MESSAGE CONTENT
• What a person says also matter
• Is a logical message more persuasive—or
one that arouses emotion
higher if the • How should you present your message
• Express your side only, or should it
acknowledge and refute the opposing
views
• If people are to present both sides—is
there and advantage to going first or last
• How much information should you include
Reason versus emotion
• Well-educated or analytical people are
responsive to rational appeal. Thoughtful
involved audiences often travel the central
credibility route to persuasion
in our • Uninterested audiences more often travel the
strengthens peripheral route as they are more affected by
their liking of the communicator
between • When people’s attitudes are formed primarily
through the peripheral route, they are more
persuaded later by peripheral
• When initial attitudes are formed primarily
though the central route, they are persuaded
by later information-based, central route
arguments
Effect of good feelings
• Messages also become more persuasive
through association with good feelings,
such as what often accompanies
munching food or hearing pleasant music
• Good feelings often enhance persuasion
partly by enhancing positive thinking and
positive partly by linking good feelings with the
message
• People who are in a good mood view the
world through rose colored glasses. But
they also make, faster, more impulsive
decisions
• If can’t make a strong case, you might
want to put your audience in a good
mood and hope they will feel good about
your message without thinking too much
about it
• Products associated with humor were
better liked, as measured by an implicit
to the attitude test, and were more often chosen
The effect of arousing fear
• Messages can also be effective by evoking
negative emotions. When persuading
people to cut down smoking, a fear-
arousing message can be potent
 • The more frightened and vulnerable • Experiments have found that this works
people feel, the more they respond only if people verbally commit to their
• However there are exceptions: choice
• People who read apocalyptic warning • The lowball technique works even when
about global warming reacted we are aware of a profit motive
defensively by denying the existence of • Door-in-the-face technique – a strategy for
global warming, Researchers conclude gaining a concession. After someone first
that the apocalyptic message went turns down a large request, the same
too far in challenging participant’s requester counteroffers with a more
belief that the world is stable, orderly, reasonable request
and just. One-sided versus two-sided appeals
• Fear-arousing communications have also • Acknowledging the opposing arguments
been used to increase breast cancer might confuse the audience and weaken the
detection behaviors, such as getting case. However, a message might seem fairer
mammograms or doing breast self-exams and be more disarming if it recognizes the
• Playing on fear works best if a message opposition’s arguments
leads people not to only fear the severity • A defense case becomes more credible when
and likelihood of a threatened event but the defense brings up damaging evidence
also to perceive a solution and feel capable before the prosecution does
of implementing it • If your audience will be exposed to opposing
• These types of appeals tell people not just views, offer a two-sided appeal
to be scared, but to do something about Primacy versus recency
it. • Primacy effect – Information presented early
• Humor can also mitigate some negative is most persuasive. Other things being equal,
effects of fear appeals information presented first usually has the
Message content most influence
• The context of your message can make a big • Recency effect – information presented last
difference in how persuasive it is sometimes has the most influence. Recency
• Other persuasion techniques rely on the size effects are less common than primacy effect
of the request being made • Forgetting creates recency effect when
• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon – the • Enough time separates the two messages
tendency for people who have first agreed to • The two messages are back to back,
a small request to comply later with a larger followed by a time gap
request • Use logic or emotion, depending on the
• Small requests can lead to bigger choices audience and message
• When people commit themselves to public • Ask a small favor before making a big request
behaviors and perceive those acts to be • Offer two-sided messages that challenge
their own doing, they come to believe arguments against your message
more strongly in what they have done • Go first or last for best results
• Lowball technique – a tactic for getting people CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION
to agree to something. People who agree to • Refers to the way the message is delivered
an initial request will often still comply when • For persuasion, there must be a
the requester ups the ante, People who receive communication, and for communication,
only the costly request are less likely to there must be a channel
comply with it Active experience or passive reception
• More lowballed customers now stick with • Written and visual appeals are both passive,
the higher-priced purchase than would and thus have smaller hurdles to overcome
have agreed to it at the outset
 • Mere repetition of a statement also serves to difficult to comprehend, persuasion l be
increase its fluency, which increases greatest when the message is written
believability because readers will be able to work
• Other factors such as rhyming further through the message at their own pace
increase fluency and believability The influence of adults on children
• The more familiar people are with an issue, • Communication flows from adults to
the less persuadable they are children—although as most parents and
• Active experience also strengthens with teachers can tell you, getting them to
attitudes. When we act, we amplify the idea listen is not always easy
behind what we’ve done, especially when we • When you are trying to get children to eat
feel responsible healthy food, just give it to them, and
• Experience-based attitudes are most forget about saying anything else, If you
confident, more stable, and less vulnerable to have to say something, say that it is
attack yummy, not healthy
Personal versus media influence
• The major influence on us is not the media THE AUDIENCE
but our contact with people How old are they?
• Modern selling strategies seek to harness of • People’s social and political attitudes correlate
the power of word-of-mouth personal with their age
influence through viral marketing • Life cycle explanation – attitudes change as
• Personal contact persuades people grow older
Media influence • Generational explanation – attitudes do not
• Do not underestimate the power of media change. Older people largely hold onto the
• Those who personally influence our attitudes they adopted when they were young
opinions must get their ideas from some • Attitudes of older people usually show less
source, and often their sources are the change than do those of young people
media • Young adulthood is also the time when people
• Two-step flow of communication – from are more susceptible to joining cults—entities
media to opinion leaders to everyone else. also influenced by several other elements of
This model reminds is that media persuasion
influences penetrate the culture in subtle • For many people, young adolescence is a
ways critical period for the formation of attitudes
• Opinion leaders are individuals perceived and values
as experts. They may include talk show • Adolescent and early adult experiences are
hosts and editorial columnist; doctors, formative partly because they make deep and
teachers, and scientists; and people in all lasting impressions
walks of life who have made it their • Resistance to attitude change peaks in midlife
business to absorb information and to because that’s when people tend to occupy
inform their friends and family higher power social roles, which all forth
• Doctors look to opinion leaders within resoluteness
their social network when deciding what What are they thinking?
drugs to favor • Our minds are not sponges that soak up
Comparing media whatever pours over them. If a message
• Studies comparing different media found summons favorable thoughts, it persuades us.
that the more lifelike the medium, the If it provokes us to think of contrary
more persuasive its message. arguments, we remain unpersuaded
• Messages are best comprehended and • Forewarned is forearmed—if your care
recalled when written. If a message is enough to counterargue. What
 circumstances breed counterargument? • Even weak arguments will prompt
One is knowing that someone is going to counterarguments which are then available
try to persuade you for a stronger attack
• Distraction disarms counterarguing. • Attitude inoculation – exposing people to
Persuasion is also enhanced by a weak attacks upon their attitudes so that
distraction that inhibits counterarguing. when stronger attacks come, they will have
• Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues. refutations available
Analytical people enjoy thinking carefully REAL-LIFE APPLICATION: INOCULATION
and prefer central routes while people PROGRAMS
who like to conserve their mental • Inoculation procedures, sometimes
resources are quicker to respond to such supplemented by other life-skill training,
peripheral cues as the communicator’s reduce teen smoking
attractiveness and the pleasantness of the • Most newer efforts emphasize strategies for
surroundings resisting social pressure
• Need for cognition – the motivation • Antismoking and drug education programs
to think and analyze. apply other persuasion principles, too.
• What we think in response to a message • They use attractive peers to communicate
is crucial, especially if we are motivated information
to think about it • They trigger the students’ own cognitive
• Ways to stimulate people’s thinking processing
include • They get students to make a public
• Using rhetorical questions commitment
• Presenting multiple speakers Inoculating children against the influence of
• Make people feel responsible for advertising
evaluating or passing along the • Children, especially those under age 8 years:
message • Have trouble distinguishing commercials
• By repeating the message from programs and fail to grasp their
• By getting people’s undistracted persuasive intent
attention • Trust television advertising rather
• Stimulating thinking makes strong messages indiscriminately
more persuasive and weak passages less • Desire and badger their parents for
persuasive advertised products
HOW CAN PERSUASION BE RESISTED • Inner-city seventh-graders who are able to
• It is easier to accept persuasive messages than to think critically about ads also better resist
doubt them peer pressure as eighth-graders and are less
• To understand an assertion is to believe it—at likely to drink alcohol as ninth-graders
least temporarily, until once actively undoes the IMPLICATIONS OF ATTITUDE INOCULATION
initial, automatic acceptance. • The best way to build resistance to
• If a distracting event prevents the undoing, the brainwashing probably is not just stronger
acceptance lingers indoctrination into one’s current beliefs. If
STRENGTHENING PERSONAL COMMITMENT parents are worried that their children might
• Before encountering others’ judgements, start smoking, they might better teach their
make a public commitment to your position. children how to counter persuasive appeals
Having stood up for your convictions, you will about smoking
become less susceptible to what others have to • Paradoxically, one way to strengthen existing
say attitudes is to challenge them, although the
challenge must not be so strong as to
Developing counterarguments overwhelm them.
 • Robert Zajonc – a social psychologist that
used various methods of research in order to
form a well-established experimental
Group interactions often have dramatic effects and psychology principle
Individuals themselves also influence their groups • Arousal enhances whatever response
WHAT IS A GROUP? tendency is dominant.
• Group – two or more people who, for longer than • Increased arousal enhances performance
a few moments interact with and influence one on easy tasks for which most likely
another and perceive one another as “us” response is correct
• One common thing about all groups is that their • On complex tasks, for which the correct
members interact answer is not dominant, increased arousal
• Different groups help us meet different human promotes incorrect responding
needs • If social arousal facilitates dominant
• The distinction between unrelated individuals in a responses, it should boost performance on
computer lab and interacting individuals easy tasks and hurt performance on difficult
sometimes blurs. People who are merely in one tasks
another’s presence do sometimes influence one • In others’ presence, students took less
another. time to learn a simple maze and more
SOCIAL FACILITATION time to learn a complex one
THE MERE PRESENCE OF OTHERS • Athletes, actors, and musicians perform
• The bodily presence of another serves to well-practiced skills, which helps explain
liberate latent energy why they often perform best when
• Co-actors – co-participants working energized by the responses of a supportive
individually in a non-competitive activity audience
• Social facilitation: • Officiating bias – the tendency of referees
• Original meaning – the tendency of to award less penalties to home teams
people to perform simple or well-learned and more penalties to away teams
tasks better when others are present • Travel fatigue – the tendency of the
• Current meaning – the strengthening of players to play better during away games
dominant responses in the presence of at certain times that are aligned with
others their time zones
• Others’ presence improves the speed with • Familiarity with the home context –
which people do simple multiplication players tend to play better when they are
problems and cross out designated letters in locales that they are familiar with, even
• Presence of others also improve accuracy on in the absence of an audience
simple motor tasks, such as keeping a metal • Crowd noise disruption – a factor that
stick in contact with a dime-sized disk on a may disrupt and affect performance of
moving turntable athletes in occasions such as free throws.
• Social facilitation effect also occurs with CROWDING
animals. • In times of stress, a supportive friend can be
• Other studies revealed that on some tasks, the comforting.
presence of others hinders performance • However, with others present, keep in mind
• This disruptive effect also occurs with that people perspire more, breathe faster,
people. tense their muscles more and have higher
• Presence of others diminishes efficiency at blood pressure and a faster heart rate
learning nonsense syllables, completing a • Sometimes the arousal and self-conscious
maze, and performing complex attention created by a large audience
multiplication problems
 interferes even with well-learned, automatic
behaviors, such as speaking
• Being in a crown also intensifies positive or
negative reactions
• When others are close by, we are more
likely to notice and join in laughter or
clapping
• Crowding also enhances arousal
• Crowding has a similar effect to being
observed by a crowd: it enhances arousal,
which facilitates dominant responses
WHY ARE WE AROUSED IN THE PRESENCE OF
OTHERS?
Evaluation Apprehension
• Observers make us apprehensive because we
wonder how they are evaluating us
• Evaluation apprehension – refers to the
concern for how others are evaluating us
• The enhancement of dominant responses is
strongest when people think they are being
evaluated
• The self-consciousness we feel when being
evaluated can also interfere with behaviors
that perform best automatically
• We perform some well-learned behaviors best
without overthinking them.
Driven by distraction
• When we wonder how co-actors are doing or
how an audience is reacting, we become
distracted.
• The conflict between paying attention to
others and paying attention to the task
overloads our cognitive system, causing
arousal
Mere presence
• Zajonc believed that the mere presence of
others produces some arousal even without
evaluation apprehension or arousing
distraction
• Facilitation effects also occur with nonhuman
animals. This hints at an innate social arousal
mechanism common to much of the zoological
world
SOCIAL LOAFING
• Social facilitation usually occurs when people work
toward individual goals and when their efforts
can be individually evaluated
• Social loafing – the tendency for people to exert
less effort when they pool their efforts toward a
common goal than when they are individually
accountable
MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK
• Effort of tug-of-war teams was but half the
sum of the individual efforts.
• Contrary to the presumption that “in unity
there is strength” this suggested that group
members may actually be less motivated
when performing additive tasks
• Free riders – refers to individuals who benefit
from the group but give little in return
• In social loafing experiments, individuals
believed they were evaluated only when they
acted alone
• When being observed increases evaluation
concerns, social facilitation occurs
• When being lost in a crowd decreases
evaluation concerns, social loafing occurs
SOCIAL LOAFING IN EVERYDAY LIFE
• Researchers have also found evidence of social
loafing in varied cultures, particularly by
assessing agricultural output in formerly
communist countries
• Collectivistic cultures exhibit less social loafing
than do people in individualistic cultures
• Women tend to be less individualistic than
men—and to exhibit less social loafing
• When rewards are divided equally, regardless
of how much one contributes to the group,
any individual gets more reward per unit of
effort by free-riding the group. This is why
many people are motivated to slack off when
their efforts are not individually monitored
and rewarded
• However, collective effort does not always lead
to slacking off. Sometimes the goal is so
compelling and maximum output from
everyone is so essential that team spirit
maintains or intensifies effort
• People in groups load less when the task is
challenging, appealing, or involving. On
challenging tasks, people may perceive their
efforts to be indispensable
• Groups also loaf less when their members are
friends or they feel identified with the group
 • When groups are given challenging objectives, thus their willingness to cheat or behave
when they are rewarded for group success, selfishly
and when there is a spirit of commitment to • The internet offers similar anonymity
the team, group members work hard • Anonymous nature of certain communities
• Keeping work groups small can help members only emboldens the meanness or callousness of
believe their contributions are indispensable the people on sites that may trigger such
DEINDIVIDUATION behavior
• Deindividuation – refers to a loss of self- • Cultures with depersonalized warriors were
awareness and evaluation apprehension. also the cultures that brutalized their enemies.
• It occurs in group situations that foster Compared with undisguised attackers, these
responsiveness to group norms, good or bad anonymous attackers inflicted more serious
DOING TOGETHER WHAT WE WOULD NOT DO injuries, attacked more people, and
ALONE committed more vandalism
• When arousal and diffused responsibility • Fortunately, being physically anonymous does
combine, and normal inhibitions diminish, the not always unleash our worst impulses. People
results may be startling just respond to social cues.
• Unrestrained behaviors have something in • Being anonymous make son less self-
common. They are somehow provokes by the conscious, more group-conscious, and more
power of a group. responsive to situational cues whether positive
• Groups can generate a sense of excitement of or negative
being caught up in something bigger than Arousing and distracting activities
one’s self • Activities such as throwing rocks and group
• It is in group situations that people are more singing can set the stage for more disinhibited
likely to abandon normal restraints, to forget behavior
their individual identity, and to become • There is a self-reinforcing pleasure in acting
responsive to group or crowd norms impulsively while seeing others do likewise.
Group size When we see others act as we are acting, we
• A group has the power not only to arouse its think they feel as we do, which reinforces our
members but also to render them own feelings
unidentifiable • At other times we seek deindividuating group
• One researcher analyzed 21 instances in experiences where we can enjoy intense
which crowds were present as someone positive feelings and closeness to others
threatened to jump from a building or a DIMINISHED SELF-AWARENESS
bridge • Group experiences that diminish self-
• When the crowd was small and exposed consciousness tend to disconnect behavior
to daylight, people usually did not try to from attitudes
bait the person with taunting cries • People that are not self-conscious and
• When a large crowd or the cover of the deindividuated are more likely to act without
night gave people anonymity, the crowd thinking about their own values and more
usually did bait and jeer responsive to the situation
• People’s attention is focused on the situation, • Self-awareness – a self-conscious state in
not on themselves. Because “everyone is doing which attention focuses on oneself. It makes
it” all can attribute their behavior to the people more sensitive to their own attitudes
situation rather than to their own choices and dispositions
Anonymity • Those made self-aware exhibit increased self-
• Even dimmed lighting or wearing sunglasses control, and their actions more clearly reflect
increases people’s perceived anonymity, and their minds
 • People who are made self-aware are less likely negativity and increases their willingness to
to cheat and exhibit greater consistency discriminate
between their words outside a situation and • When people share concern about an injustice,
their deeds in it discussion amplifies their moral concern
• Circumstances that decrease self-awareness Group polarization in everyday life
increase deindividuation • Self-segregation of boys into all-male groups
• Deindividuation decreases in circumstances and of girls into all-female groups increases
that increase self-awareness their initially modest gender differences
GROUP POLARIZATION • Boys become gradually become more
• Group polarization – refers to the group- competitive and action oriented in their
produced enhancement of member’s preexisting play and fictional fare
tendencies. It is a strengthening of the members’ • Girls with girls become more relationally
average tendency. oriented
• Many conflicts grow as people on both sides talk • Group polarization in schools
mostly with like-minded others • Accentuation effect – over time, initial
• Group discussion often strengthen members’ differences among groups become more
initial inclinations accentuated
THE RISKY SHIFT PHENOMENON • Group polarization in communities
• Studies of this phenomenon revealed that it • Polarization also occurs in communities as
occurs not only when a group decides by a people self-segregate
consensus; after a brief discussion, individuals • In laboratory studies, the competitive
too, will alter their decisions relationships and mistrust that
• It is not universal. We could write decision individuals often display when playing
dilemmas on which people become more games with one another often worsen
cautious about after discussion when the players are groups
• There is a strong tendency for discussion to • Group polarization on the internet
accentuate initial leanings. • With so many choices, we naturally
DO GROUPS INTENSIFY OPINIONS “selectively expose” ourselves to like-
• Discussion typically strengthens the average minded media. We enjoy media feeds that
inclination of group members support our views and slam those we
Group polarization experiments despise
• Discussion enhanced French students’ initially • Group polarization in terrorist organizations
positive attitude toward their president and • Terrorism arises among people whose
negative attitude toward Americans shared grievances bring them together
• Japanese university students gave more and fans their fire. As they interact in
pronounced judgements of guilty after isolation from moderating influences,
discussing a traffic case. When jury members they become progressively more extreme.
are include to award damages, the group This results to violent acts that the
award similarly tends to exceed that individuals apart from their group, would
preferred by the median jury member have never committed
• French student’s dislike for certain other EXPLAINING GROUP POLARIZATION
people was exacerbated after discussing their • Informational influence – influence that
shared negative impressions results from accepting evidence about reality
• Studies in Britain and Australia confirm that • When people hear relevant arguments
group discussion can magnify both negative without learning the specific stands other
and positive tendencies. When people share people assume, they still shift their
negative impressions of a group, such as an positions
immigrant group, discussion supports their
 • Active participation in discussion of their group and ignore ethical and moral
produces more attitude change than does issues
passive listening Group members also become close-minded
• Verbal commitment magnifies the impact • Rationalization – the groups discount
• Normative influence – influence based on a challenges by collectively justifying their
person’s desire to be accepted or admired by decisions
others • Stereotyped view of the opponent –
• Social comparison – evaluating one’s considering enemies to be too evil to negotiate
opinions and abilities by comparing with or too unintelligent to defend themselves
oneself with others against the planned initiative
• Pluralistic ignorance – a false impression Group suffers from pressures toward uniformity
of what most other people are thinking, • Conformity pressure – group members
or how they are responding rebuffed those who raised doubts about the
• Merely learning others’ choices also group’s assumptions and plans, at times by
contributes to the bandwagon effect that personal sarcasm
creates blockbuster songs, books, and • Self-censorship – to avoid uncomfortable
movies disagreements, members withheld or
• Group polarization research illustrates the discounted their misgivings
complexity of social-psychological inquiry • Illusion of unanimity – self-censorship and
• Because people are complex, more than one pressure not to puncture the consensus create
factor frequently influences an outcome this illusion
• Social comparison sways responses on value- • Mindguards – some members protect the
laden judgements group from information that would call into
GROUPTHINK question the effectiveness or morality of its
• Groupthink – the mode of thinking that persons decisions
engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so CRITIQUING GROUPTHINK
dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to • Directive leadership is indeed associated with
override realistic appraisal of alternative courses poorer decisions, because subordinates
of action sometimes feel too weak or insecure to speak
• It sprouts from: up
• An amiable cohesive group • Groups do prefer supporting over challenging
• Relative isolation from dissenting views information
• Directive leader • When members look to a group for
SYMPTOMS OF GROUPTHINK acceptance, they may suppress disagreeable
• The symptoms are a collective form of thoughts
dissonance reduction as group members, • Groups that make smart decisions have
when facing a threat, try to maintain their widely distributed conversations, with socially
positive group feeling attuned members who take turns speaking
• Groupthink symptoms can produce a failure • Groups with diverse perspectives outperform
to seek and discuss contrary information and groups of like-minded experts
alternative possibilities • Group success depends on both on what group
Overestimation of the group’s might and right members know and how effectively they can
• An illusion of invulnerability – excessive share that information
optimism that blinds people to warnings of • The norms of a cohesive group can favor
danger or similar situations either consensus, which can lead to
• Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality – groupthink, or critical analysis, which
group members assume the inherent morality prevents it
 • In a free-spirited atmosphere, cohesion can
enhance effective teamwork. However it is
good to keep in mind that even good group
procedures sometimes yield ill-fated decisions
PREVENTING GROUPTHINK
• Flawed group dynamics help explain many
failed decisions. However, given open
leadership, a cohesive team spirit can improve
decisions.
• Recommendations for preventing groupthink
• Be impartial – do not endorse any
position.
• Encourage critical evaluation – welcome
the input of a genuine dissenter
• Occasionally subdivide the group – later
on reunite to air differences
• Welcome critiques – which may involve
experts and associates
• Second chance meeting – call another
meeting before implementation to air any
lingering doubts
GROUP PROBLEM SOLVING
• In work settings such as operating rooms and
executive boardrooms, team decisions surpass
individual decisions when the discussion values
each person’s skills and knowledge and draws
out their varied information
• Interacting groups of eyewitnesses gave
accounts that were much more accurate than
those provided by the average isolated
individual
• Several heads critiquing one another can also
allow the group to avoid some forms of
cognitive bias and produce higher quality ideas
• Encouraging people to debate stimulates ideas
and extends creative thinking beyond the
brain storming session
• Large groups cause some individuals to free-
ride on others’ efforts. They cause others to
feel apprehensive about voicing oddball ideas.
• Production blocking – losing one’s ideas
while awaiting a turn to speak
• Too much talent effect – sometimes too many
talented people hurts team performance
• Ways to enhance group brainstorming:
• Combine group and solitary
brainstorming – group brainstorming is
most productive when it precedes solo
brainstorming. With new categories
primed by the group brainstorming,
individuals’ ideas can continue flowing
without being impeded by the group
context that allows only one person to
speak at a time
• Have group members interact by writing
– write and read instead of just listening.
When leaders urge people to generate lots
of ideas rather than just good ideas, they
generate both more ideas and more good
ideas
• Incorporate electronic brainstorming – let
individuals produce and read ideas on
networked computers
• When group members freely combine their
creative ideas and varied insights, the
frequent result is not groupthink but group
problem solving
• Weather forecasting – two forecasters will
come up with a forecast that is more
accurate than either would have come up
with working alone
• Google – google interprets a link to a page
as a vote for the said page, and weights
most heavily links from pages that are
themselves highly ranked
• Crowd within – the average of different
guesses from the same person tends to
surpass the person’s individual guess
• Prediction markets – taking everything
into account, people buy and sell shares in
candidates
• Combining expert predictions – when
information from many diverse people is
combined, all of us together can become
smarter than almost any of us alone
INFLUENCE OF THE MINORITY
• In most social events a small minority will sway,
and then eventually become, the majority
CONSISTENCY
• More influential than a minority that wavers
is a minority that sticks to its position
• Non-conformity, especially persistent
nonconformity, is often painful and that being
a minority in a group can be unpleasant.
 • Minority slowness effect – the tendency for keep the group’s attention and effort focused
people with minority views to express them on its mission
less quickly than do people in the majority • Social leaders generally have a democratic
• Minority influence stimulates a deeper style. One that delegates authority, welcomes
processing of arguments, often with input from team members, and helps prevent
increasing creativity groupthink
SELF-CONFIDENCE • many experiments reveal that social
• Consistency and persistence convey self- leadership is good from morale
confidence • Effective leaders represent, enhance, and
• Any behavior by a minority that conveys self- champion the group’s identity
confidence tends to raise self-doubts among • Effective leaders often exude a self-
the majority. confident charisma than kindles the
• By being firm and forceful, the minority’s allegiance of their followers
apparent self-assurance may prompt the • They also have an ability to communicate
majority to reconsider its position that vision to others in clear and simple
DEFECTIONS FROM THE MAJORITY language, and enough optimism and faith
• A persistent minority punctures any illusion in their group to inspire others to follow
of unanimity. • Transformational leaders motivate others to
• When a minority consistently doubts the identify with and commit themselves to the
majority wisdom, majority members become group’s mission.
freer to express their won doubts and may • These leaders tend to be charismatic,
even switch to the minority position energetic, and self-confident extraverts
• A minority person who had defected from the • Groups also influence their leaders.
majority was even more persuasive than a • Smart leaders usually remain with the
consistent minority voice. majority and spend their influence prudently.
• Once defections begin, others often soon • When an apt combination of intelligence, skill,
follow, initiating a snowball effect determination, self-confidence, and social
LEADERSHIP charisma meets a rare opportunity, the result
• Leadership – the process by which certain is sometimes a championship, a Nobel prize,
group members motivate and guide the group or a social revolution
• Task leadership – leadership that Food for thought…
organizes work, sets standards, and Great leaders are defined not only with their own set
focuses on goals of skills. They are, as well, defined by the people that
• Social leadership – leadership that builds they lead. A splendid leadership is the product of the
teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers efforts of numerous people converging and being
support amplified at a single point.
• Transformational leadership – motivates
others to identify with and commit
themselves to the group’s mission
• Some leaders are formally appointed or
elected; others emerge informally as the
group interacts. Prejudice comes in many forms—for our own group

• What makes for good leadership depends on and against some other group. Researchers have

the situation. explored race, gender, and sexual orientation

• Task leaders generally have a directive style. prejudice, but also prejudices involving religion,

One that can work well of the leader is bright obesity, age, and immigration.

enough to give good orders. Such leaders also

NATURE AND POWER OF PREJUDICE
• Prejudice – a preconceived negative judgement of
a group and its individual members
• An attitude—combination of feelings,
inclinations to act, and beliefs.
• A prejudiced person may dislike those
different from self and behave in a
discriminatory manner
• Stereotype – a belief about the personal attributes
of a group of people. These are sometimes
overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new
information. It is sometimes accurate as well
• a problem with stereotypes arises when
they are overgeneralized or just plain
wrong.
• Discrimination – unjustified negative behavior
toward a group or its members.
• Discriminatory behavior often has its
source in prejudicial attitudes
• Racism – an individual’s prejudicial
attitudes and discriminatory behavior
toward people of a given race. It may be
institutional practices that subordinate
people of a given race
• Sexism – an individual’s prejudicial
attitudes and discriminatory behavior
toward people of a given sex. It may be
institutional practices that subordinate
people of a given sex
IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT PREJUDICE
• Prejudice illustrates our dual attitude system
• We can have different explicit and implicit
attitudes toward the same target
• Implicit association test – a test that assesses
implicit cognition, what we know without
knowing that we know about it.
• Measures people’s speed of associations
• Explicit attitudes may change
dramatically with education
• Implicit attitudes may linger, changing
only as we form new habits through
practice
• Critics contend that it lacks sufficient
validity to assess or label individuals
• Prejudiced and stereotypic evaluations can
occur outside people’s awareness
RACIAL PREJUDICE
• Mobility and migration made the world’s
races now intermingle, in relations that are
sometimes hostile and sometimes amiable
Is racial prejudice disappearing?
• Explicit prejudicial attitudes can change very
quickly
• In the united states, whites have tended to
contrast the present with the oppressive past,
perceiving swift and radical progress
• Blacks have tended to contrast the present
with their ideal world, which has not yet been
realized
Subtle racial prejudice
• Most people support racial equality and
deplore discriminations, yet 3 in 4 people who
take the IAT display an automatic unconscious
white preference
• Modern prejudice also appears subtly in our
preferences for what is familiar, similar, and
comfortable
• Subtle prejudice may also be expressed as
microaggressions such as race-related traffic
stops or a reluctance to sit on a bus or train
next to a person of another race
• Prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory
behavior surface when they can hide behind
the screen of some other motive
• Subtle prejudice may be:
• Exaggerating ethnic differences
• Feeling less admiration and affection for
immigrant minorities
• Rejecting them for supposedly nonracial
reactions
• Modern prejudice even appears as a race
sensitivity that leads to exaggerated reactions
to isolated minority persons
• Modern prejudice may also appear as
patronization
Automatic racial prejudice
• Unconscious associations may only indicate
cultural assumptions, perhaps without
prejudice, as said by critics
• Some studies find that implicit bias can leak
into behavior
• Those who display implicit prejudice on the
IAT also have been observed to judge white job
applicants more favorably and recommend
 better treatment for white ER patients more
often than blacks
• Other studies have found that when primed
with a black rather than a white face, people
think guns
• The amygdala is involved in the facilitation of
automatic responding to stimulus
• Even social scientists who study prejudice
seem vulnerable to automatic prejudice
GENDER PREJUDICE
• Gender stereotypes – people’s beliefs about
how women and men do heave
• Norms are prescriptive
• Stereotypes are descriptive
Gender stereotypes
• Strong gender stereotypes exist, and, as often
happens, members of the stereotyped group
accept them
• Gender stereotypes were much stronger than
racial stereotypes
• Sometimes stereotypes exaggerate differences
but not always as there may be reasonable
approximations of actual gender differences
as well
Sexism
• Benevolent sexism – reflects evaluations of
women that are seemingly positive. Examples
of benevolently sexist attitudes include the
reverence of women in wife, mother, and
child caretaker roles, the romanticizing of
women as objects of heterosexual affection,
and the belief that men have a duty to
protect women.
• Hostile sexism – reflects misogyny (i.e., the
hatred of women by men) and is expressed
through blatant negative evaluations
women. Examples of hostile sexism include
beliefs about women as incompetent,
unintelligent, overly emotional, and sexually
manipulative.
Gender discrimination
• As with racial prejudice, blatant gender
prejudice is dying, but subtle bias lives
• In the world beyond democratic western
countries, gender discrimination is not subtle.
• Discriminatory and violent tendencies are
especially likely among men who objectify
women by implicitly associating them with
animals or objects
• The biggest violence against women may
occur prenatally as people around the world
tend to prefer having baby boys
• Overt prejudice against people of color and
against women is far less common today than
it was in the mid-20th century.
GAY-LESBIAN PREJUDICE
• In many countries, same sex relationships are
a criminal offense. But cultures vary
• In western countries, anti-gay prejudice is
diminishing but endures:
• Gay marriage support is mixed but
increasing
• Harassment hurts. Gay-lesbian adults
report being subject to slurs or jokes
• Rejection happens and this makes for
these people to live openly as who they are
• State policies predict gay folk’s health and
well-being
• Community attitudes also predict LGBT
health
• A quasi-experiment confirms the toxicity
of gay stigma
SOCIAL SOURCES OF PREJUDICE
• Prejudice springs from several sources
• People differing in social status
• May be learned from parents
• Social institutions may influence as well
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
• Unequal status breeds prejudice
• Prejudice helps justify economic and social
superiority of those who have wealth and
power
of