Psychology From Science to Practice

Social Thought and Social Behavior PSY 105

Objectives of the Lesson

Explain the role of nonverbal communication in social psychology Explain how attribution helps us understand the causes of others behavior Explain the two ways to process social information Discuss what an attitude is and how attitude can be changed Explain the nature of prejudice and ways to overcome it Explain the three tactics under social influence to change others behavior Discuss the four basic reasons for attraction Name the factors that cause love to last and love to fade

Overview
Social thought
Nonverbal Communication Attribution Social cognition Attitudes Prejudice Social influence Attraction Love

Social behavior

Nonverbal cues
Nonverbal cues - unspoken clues of moods and reactions Facial expressions
Anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust.

Eye contact
High level contact sign liking or positive feelings Low level contact sign disliking or negative feelings Staring sign anger or hostility

Body movements and postures

Large number of motions sign of uneasiness

Touching
Meaning depends on who touches whom, the pressure extended, and situation

Attribution

Process to determine causes behind others behavior To explain others behavior we use:

Consensus extent others behave in same way Consistency extent person behaves this way over time Distinctiveness extent person acts differently in other situations

Attribution Errors
Correspondence bias Also called fundamental attribution error
Tendency to overestimate internal causes of others behavior while ignoring external

Self-serving bias take credit for success and blame failures on external factors beyond our control

Social Cognition
Optimistic bias for task completion
People tend to underestimate time it takes to complete task

Counterfactual thinking
People tend to evaluate events by thinking about alternatives Imagining either better outcomes or worse ones

Attitudes
Attitudes: lasting evaluations of any and every aspect of social world Persuasion how attitudes are changed Cognitive dissonance - process through which we sometimes change attitudes

Persuasion
Systematic Processing
Central route to persuasion Careful consideration of message content and ideas Effortful Use almost all informationprocessing capacity

Heuristic Processing
Peripheral route to persuasion Use of simple rules of thumb or mental shortcuts Less effort React in automatic manner

Cognitive Dissonance
Unpleasant feelings experience when notice gap
Between two attitudes we hold Between attitudes and behavior

Attempt to reduce
1. Change our attitudes or behavior so more consistent 2. Acquire new information that supports our attitude or our behavior 3. Trivialize the behaviors and conclude attitudes or behaviors not important

Cognitive Dissonance
cont

Less-leads-to-more-effect small reward or insufficient justification increases dissonance and attitude is changed

Prejudice

1.

2.
3.

4.

Negative attitudes toward members of specific social groups Realistic conflict theory - prejudice stems from competition between social groups Social categorization theory world divided into us and them Social learning theory - prejudice learned from parents, peers, media Stereotypes - knowledge and beliefs about specific social groups

Reduce Prejudice
Socialize children to be tolerant Increase inter-group contact
Demonstrate similarities, exceptions

Recategorization - resetting the boundary between us and them.

Social Influence
Attempts by one or more persons to change our behavior Conformity - experiencing pressures toward thinking or acting like other people
Social norms unspoken rules Normative social influence - win approval and acceptance Informational social influence - be right on views, dress, style

Social Influence
cont
Compliance Techniques - getting people to say yes through direct requests
Tactics
Foot-in-the-door technique
small request followed by a larger one

Reciprocity or door-in-the-face technique

Large request followed by smaller one

Ingratiation
getting others to like you before making request

Obedience Techniques
One or more individuals changes behavior of others through direct orders

Social Influence Interpersonal Attraction

Propinquity or nearness
Frequency-of-exposure effect - familiarity increases liking

Similarity
Like others who share same attitudes and values

Affective states
Positive feelings toward another

Physical attractiveness

Love
Romantic love - involves feelings of strong attraction and sexual desire Companionate love - love a parent has for their children Triangular theory of love
Intimacy - closeness two people feel and strength of bond that holds them Passion - physical attraction and sexual feelings Decision/commitment -to love someone and maintain relationship

Love dies
Discover dissimilar in ways Boredom Jealousy Self defeating behaviors Work at maintaining and strengthening their relations Compromises Express positive feelings Consider wishes and preferences

Love endures

Summary Social Thought and Social Behavior

Nonverbal communication provided by facial expressions and body movements Attributions - what we believe cause behaviors of others
Draw conclusions by relating behavior to consensus, consistency and distinctiveness to others Fundamental attribution error- attribute the good results to external causes and bad result to internal causes

Attitudes - beliefs about social or physical worlds emotional or affective component

Persuasion change attitudes Cognitive dissonance - anxiety caused by having incompatible thoughts and feelings about behavior
less-leads-to-more effect -weak reason for engaging in attitude-discrepant behavior, dissonance is stronger and greater pressure to change the attitude

Prejudice individuals have negative attitude toward a social group Social influence changing others behavior in order to accomplish ones own ends
Conformity matching own behavior to behavior of group Compliance change behavior to conform to a request Obedience behavior results from command of another

Interpersonal attraction - close interaction, frequent interaction, similarity of interests, reciprocal exchanges, and physical attractiveness