INTRODUCTION

TO SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
 • The scientific study of how a person’s behavior, thoughts
Defining Social and feelings are influenced by the real, imagined or implied
Psychology presence of others
• The scientific study of how people
think about, influence and relate to
one another.
 What differentiates
Social Psychology from
other disciplines?
• Focus on social nature of
the individual person
Two assertions:
• Person is influenced by
social environment
• Individual actively construes social
situations – we do not respond to
environments as they are but as we
interpret them to be
Defining Social Psychology
Social Influence
• The ways in which a person’s
behavior can be affected by
the presence of others
Social Cognition
• The ways in which people
think about other people
Social Interaction
• The positive and negative
aspects of people relating to
others
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS . . .
 Social Influence
• Social influence is the
process by which
attitudes, perceptions and
behaviours can be
affected by the real or
implied presence of
others.

Is social influence negative?

What Are Social Psychology’s Big Ideas?

• Social Influences shape behavior

“We are social animal” – Aristole
• Dispositions shape behavior

SOCIAL INFLUENCE
What Are Social Psychology’s Big Ideas?

• We construct our social reality

• Our social intuitions are often powerful but sometimes
perilous
• Social influences shape our behavior

SOCIAL THINKING
 Categories of Social Influence
Social Norms
• Rules or standards that are
understood by a group and that
guide behavior without the force
of laws
Conformity
• Changing one’s behavior to match
the responses or actions of others
(no pressure necessarily)
Compliance
• Changing one’s behavior in
response to a direct request
Goals of Social Influence
People yield to social
influence to achieve
one or more of three
basic goals:
1. to choose correctly and
behave effectively (to be
right)
2. to gain social approval
(to be liked)
3. to manage self-image
Social Norms
Social norms – rules and
standards that are understood
by a group and that guide
behavior without the force of
laws
– Emerge out of interaction
with others
– May or may not be stated
explicitly
– Sanctions are not legal but
come from disapproval within
social networks
• Social psychology is a young science. The
first experiments were reported barely more
than a century ago (1898) and the first social
psychology texts did not appear until just
before and after 1900
• 1930 social psychology assume current form
 Social Psychology ways of
thinking and asking
• How much our social world is just in our
heads?

• Would people be cruel if ordered?

• To help or to help Oneself

What Are Social Psychology’s Big Ideas?

• Social behavior is also biological behavior

• Feelings and actions toward people are
sometimes negative and sometimes positive

SOCIAL RELATIONS
What Are Social Psychology’s Big Ideas?

• Social psychology’s principles are applicable

to everyday life

Applying social psychology

 Social Psychology is all about
life – your life: your beliefs, your
attitudes, your relationships.
 Social Psychology’s Big Ideas

• Social Behavior Is Biologically Rooted

– Evolutionary psychology
• Natural selection predisposes our actions and
reactions
– Social neuroscience
• We are bio-psycho-social organisms
Bio-psycho-social Organisms
 Is Social Psychology Simply
“Common Sense”?
• Hindsight bias
– The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an
outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen it
– The I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon
 Social Psychology and Human
Values
• Not-S0-Obvious Ways Values Enter
Psychology
– Subjective aspects of Science
• Culture
• Social representation
– Psychological concepts contain hidden values
• Defining the good life
• Professional advice
• Forming concepts
• Labeling
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Forming and Testing Hypotheses
– Theory
• Integrated set of principles that explain and predict
observed events
– Hypotheses
• Testable proposition that describes a relationship
that may exist between events
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Correlation Research: Detecting Natural
Associations
– Location
• Laboratory
– Controlled situation
• Field
– Everyday situations
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Correlation Research: Detecting Natural
Associations
– Method
• Correlational
– Naturally occurring relationships among variables
• Experimental
– Seeks clues to cause-effect relationships by manipulating
one or more variables while controlling others
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Correlation Research: Detecting Natural
Associations
– Correlation and causation
• Allows us to predict but not tell whether changing
one variable will cause changes in another
– Did pet ownership affect the 2008 presidential campaign?
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Correlation Research: Detecting Natural
Associations
– Survey research
• Random sample
• Unrepresentative samples
• Order of questions
• Response options
• Wording of questions
– Framing
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Experimental Research: Searching for Cause
and Effect
– Control: Manipulating variables
• Independent variable
– Experimental factor that a researcher manipulates
• Dependent variable
– Variable being measured; depends on manipulations of the
independent variable
Random Assignment
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Experimental Research: Searching for Cause
and Effect
– Random assignment: The great equalizer
• Process of assigning participants to the conditions of
an experiment such that all persons have the same
chance of being in a given condition
• Eliminates extraneous factors
 Research Methods: How We Do Social
Psychology
• Ethics of Experimentation
– Mundane realism
– Experimental realism
– Deception
– Demand characteristics
– Informed consent
– Debriefing
Generalizing from Laboratory to Life

• We can distinguish between the content of

people’s thinking and acting and the
process by which they think and act
What are examples of
social norms in the
Philippines?
Can norms be
maladaptive?
 Formation and Transmission of Norms
Formation
1. Value to society – importance
of reinforcement
e.g., dress code
2. Function – survival
e.g., sibling incest avoidance
Transmission
• Active instruction
• Demonstrations
• Storytelling, rituals
• Nonverbal behavior
Research on Social Norms
 Muzafer Sherif (1935)
Autokinetic paradigm/effect
(how groups form norms)
• “the group must be right”
• Contact with others influences
our immediate perceptions of
reality
 Conformity
• Change own position to
a contradictory position
because of presence of
others
• Perceived or real
pressure
Asch’s Research on Conformity
Which of the lines on the left most closely
matches line A on the right?

What would you say if

you were in a group
of 6 others, and all
agreed the answer
was 3?
1 2 3 A
Asch’s Research on Conformity
• When alone, 95% of
participants got all the
answers correct
• But 75% went against their
own eyes at least once if the
group gave a wrong answer
• People faced with strong
group consensus sometimes
go along even though they
think the others may be
wrong
 Why do people conform?
• To be right
– Consensus implies
correctness
• To be liked
– Easier to get along with
the group
• To clarify who we are
– Being different from
group makes us feel bad
about ourselves
Factors that influence Conformity
1.Unanimity of majority
2.Group cohesion (may lead
to groupthink)
3.Private responses
4.Prior commitment
5.Task difficulty
6.Size of group
 Groupthink
• Thinking that occurs
when people place
more importance on
maintaining group
cohesiveness than on
assessing the facts of
the problem with
which the group is
concerned
Characteristics of Groupthink
• Invulnerability
• Rationalization
• Lack of introspection
• Stereotyping
• Pressure
• Lack of disagreement
• Self-deception
• Insularity
 Compliance
• Particular kind of
response –
acquiescence - to a
request
• Changing one’s
behavior as a result of
other people directing
or asking for change
• May be implicit or
explicit
Principles that increase Compliance

1. Authority
2. Social validation and
Social Proof
3. Scarcity
4. Affiliation
5. Reciprocity
6. Consistency and
Commitment
 Milgram’s Authority-Obedience
Experiments
• Most published experiment
in obedience studies in
social psychology
• 65% of participants gave
maximum voltage (450
volts)
• Results demonstrate the
influence of orders from
authority
Increasing Compliance
• Authority Rule: one should be
more willing to comply to the
suggestions of a legitimate
authority
• Social Validation rule: one
should be more willing to
comply to a request if it is
consistent with what similar
others are thinking or doing.
– “List Technique”
 Increasing Compliance
• Scarcity Rule: One should try to
seek those opportunities that are
scarce or dwindling
– Psychological reactance
– Censorship
• Affiliation Rule: one should be
more willing to comply to a
request of friends or other liked
individuals
• Physical attractiveness,
similarity, liking, compliments,
cooperation
Increasing Compliance
• Reciprocity: effective societies
depend on the obligation of an
individual returning the form of
behavior that he or she has
received from another
– “That’s not all Technique”
• Consistency Rule: after making
a commitment to a position,
one should be more willing to
comply to a request that is
consistent with that position
 Choose a current issue in the
Philippines 
How is social influence played out
in this particular issue?
Cite negative and positive
consequences of social influence
in relation to this issue 
 Commitment Techniques
• The Foot-in-the-Door Technique
• The Low-Ball Technique
• The Bait and Switch Technique
• Labeling Technique
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND
STEP
Foot-in-the-
Door Gain Target’s
Compliance With a
Small Request

example:
“Would you sign a
petition to support
Gawad Kalinga
build homes?
 TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

Foot-in-the-
Door Make A
Gain Target’s
Compliance With Related,
a Small Request Larger
Request

“Would you
Would you sign
work for 2
a petition to
wks. For GK
support GK
to build
build homes?
homes?”
 TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND
STEP

Get an
Agreement to a
Specific
Low-Ball Arrangement

Get Customer to
Agree to Buy a
New Car for P
800,000
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

Get an
Agreement to a Change The
Specific Terms of The
Arrangement Arrangement
Low-Ball

Get Customer to “Oh, you

Agree to Buy a wanted tires
New Car for P and seats?
800,000 Then that’ll be
P 1 M.”
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

Advertise a Low
Price on a New
Cellphone

Bait and
Switch
Spur The Target
to Take a Course
of Action
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

“That cellphone
Advertise a Low is junk, but
Price on a New just P 9000
Cellphone more buys this
beauty!”

Bait and
Switch Describe
Spur The Target Course as
to Take a Course Unwise,
of Action Suggest
Alternative
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

“You Are A
Very Generous
Person!”

Assign The
Target a Trait
Label
Labeling
TACTIC FIRST STEP SECOND STEP

“Say, Can You

“You Are A Very Contribute to
Generous Gawad
Person!” Kalinga ?”

Seek
Assign The Compliance
Target a Trait With a Label-
Labeling Label Consistent
Request
Effects of Others on Task Performance
SOCIAL FACILITATION
• The tendency for the presence of
other people to have a positive
impact on the performance of an
easy task
– Social impairment: negative
influence
SOCIAL LOAFING
• The tendency for people to put less
effort into a simple task when
working with others on that task