FSH 217: Introduction To Psychology

Yeni Yüzyıl University, Fall Semester 2018

Social Psychology
Week 5 & 6

Ela Ural, M.Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist

Social Psychology – Fall2018 Ela Ural, M.Sc Instructor, Clinical

Psychologist
 Social Psychology
Week 4 &5

Social psychology

Attitudes

Persuasion- Behaviour

Cognitive Dissonance

Social Cognition- Attribution Theory

Prejudice, Discrimination (Stereotype – Prejudice- Discrimination)

Measuring Prejudice and Discrimination (IAT)

Reducing the Consequences of Prejudice and Discrimination

Social Influence (Conformity- Compliance- Obedience) and Groups

Positive (Loving & Liking& Helping Others) and Negative (Aggression &
Prosocial- Altruism) Social Behaviour

Strategies to Deal with Anger

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Psychology
The scientific study of
how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by
others.

Social psychologists consider

the kinds and causes of the individual’s behaviour in social
situations.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Attitude

The mental tendency of an individual with a relatively

permanent feeling, thought and behaviour in relation to
a psychological issue (object (abstract / concrete) -
person - status) or situation.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Elements of Attitude
• Cognitive Element - Information, opinions and thoughts

• Emotional Element – Like or dislike aspect

• Behavioural Element - Behavioural element. Verbal or non

verbal expressions
These three elements are interconnected, interact with each
other.
 consistency is expected.
 if inconsistent, attitude change can be observed.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Characteristics of Attitude
Direction of an Attitude – In positive attitudes person feels close and move
toward, in negative attitude person moves away.
Attitudes are learned tendencies- first 25 years
Parents, peers, media, social class, stereotypes, personal experiences-
being useful or not in solving problems, common sense.
Provides information - world becomes a familiar place
The need to adapt to the outside world – pleasure
Expression of the self
Protects ego

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Characteristics of Attitude
Attitudes can change.

If there is consistency between components/ elements,

change is generally not expected

Also, a consistency between different attitudes is

expected (not only among components)

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Attitude and Behaviour
Relationship
•Notion of that attitudes predict feelings and behaviour

•Attitude and Behavioural Inconsistency

R. LaPiere (1930s-USA)
This initial research showed that the relationship between
expressed attitude and actual behaviour is not a simple
relationship and that attitudes do not always lead to
certain behaviour.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Attitude and Behaviour
Relationship
Attitude leads to behaviour only under certain conditions
Equivalence Hypothesis
Strength of Attitude
Mental accessibility of Attitude (active and ready to be recalled)
Time between attitude measurement and behaviour observation
Planned Behaviour Theory
There are three factors that allow us to estimate the intention for
behaviour:
1. Attitude towards behaviour
2. Subjective norms
3. Perceived control over the behaviour
FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc
Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Persuasion : Changing
Attitudes
•First studies - Hovland et al. - 2. World War
•It is an individual's or individuals' effort to create an attitude
towards a particular individual, situation or opinion, or to create a
change in an attitude.
• People feels a need to be consistent.
Individuals' behaviour can be controlled by influencing their
attitudes.
• People also feel a need to be consistent among their attitudes.
Connected attitudes may also change when a particular attitude is
changed.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Persuasion : Changing
Attitudes
Persuasion is the process of changing attitudes.
Four Elements in Persuasion;
1- The Source/ Communicator : Who delivers the message
The characteristics of a person who delivers a persuasive message, credibility, trust, likability,
similarity to us.
2- Characteristics of the message : The persuasive message. What the message is?
Two-sided messages are more effective than one-sided messages
Medium Fear producing messages – provided with a means for reducing the fear, humour,
preventive,
3- Characteristics of the target/ The Audience : To whom? Who receives the message-
Individual Differences (intelligence, age, gender, type of information processing )
4- Way of Communication: Mass medium versus face to face

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Says Who? Says What? Says How? Says to
Whom?

• Forwarder • Content • Channel • Listener

• • Emotions vs logic • Active vs passive • Analytic vs

Credibility
• • Radical • Personal vs Media emotional
Expertise
• Age
• Trust • Two-sided vs one-
• Attractiveness sided
/ Charisma • Priority effect vs
postponement-impact

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc
Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Your money gains value. Trust us, deposit your money to us.

Your money gains value with us. Trust us, deposit your money to us.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Routes to Persuasion
Recipients’ receptiveness to persuasive messages relates to the type of
information processing they use.

1- Central Route Processing : When the recipient thoughtfully considers the

issues and arguments, people make their judgments by the logic, merit, and
strength of arguments.

Highly involved, stronger long lasting attitude change, higher need for cognition.
2- Peripheral Route Processing : When people are persuaded by unrelated
factors to the nature, quality or detail of the content- such as the fame or charisma
of the communicator.
Uninvolved, unmotivated, bored, impatient, distracted- content gets insignificant.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Routes to Persuasion

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc
Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Cognitive Contradiction

People strive for consistency- Attitude may also influence/
change the behaviour.
Leon Festinger (1957)

Cognitive Dissonance; psychological tension that occurs

when a person holds two contradictory attitudes, thoughts
or cognitions.
Tension between what we think and what we do.
It may create a pressure to change attitudes.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Cognitive Dissonance
The individual knows that smoking is harmful and continues to smoke.
Methods of reducing dissonance
o
Change behaviour (to quit smoking)
o
Change the cognition related to behaviour (to think that one do not
drinks that much)
o
Adds new cognitions to support one of the contradictory elements (to
think that there are no definitive research results for the damages of
smoking)
o
Adding cognition / deciding whether one of the cognitions is less
important (the harm of smoking is not important, it is better to live fast
and die young)

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition
The cognitive processes by which people understand and make sense of others and
themselves.
It examines what people pay attention to in their judgments about themselves and other
people, how they perceive, remember, and how different social states or contexts affect
such cognitive processes.
Social Cognition Schemes - Social cognition is the way of taking, interpreting, analysing
and remembering information about the social world, person-role-event – incident.
Schemas : Highly developed sets of cognitions about people and social experiences.
Regardless of their accuracy, schemas organize information stored in memory;
represent in our minds the way the social world operates; and give us a framework to
recognize, categorize, and recall information relating to social stimuli such as people
and groups.
Create expectation about other's behaviour- plan our interaction- simplify complex
social world.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition
Impression Formation : The process by which an individual organizes
information about another person to form an overall impression of that
person.
It is dynamic.
Physical (Facial Expression - Body Language) Social Category- Context-
Cognitive Occupation- Associations
Need for Impression

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition
Central Traits : The (unusually important) major traits considered in
forming impressions of others.
Kelley, 1950- Visiting Instructor Experiment
Group 1: clever-skilful-hardworking-warm-stable-practical
Group 2: clever-skilful-hardworking-cold-stable-practical
For an overall judgment of a person, we use a psychological “average”
of the individual traits we see just as we would find the mathematical
average of several numbers. Integrating the learned parts of information
about a person to form a complete image.
Error- Mood affects how we perceive others.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition and
Attribution Theory
Attribution Theory : The theory of personality that seeks to explain how we
decide, on the basis of samples of an individual’s behaviour, what the
specific causes of that person’s behaviour are.


One central question : Is the cause situational or dispositional?
Situational Causes (of behaviour) : Perceived causes of behaviour that are
based on environmental factors
Dispositional Causes (of behaviour) : Perceived causes of behaviour that
are based on internal traits or personality factors.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition and
Attribution Theory
Proceeds in several steps;
1- Noticing an event – something unusual
2- Interpreting the event – meaning of it, why?
3- Forming an initial explanation
4- Time, cognitive resources, motivation to change explanation?
If doesn’t have - Goes to conclusion from the first impressions.
5- Is the explanation satisfactory? (several possibilities) YES NO- Back to 4
If it Is satisfying - Event is explained – Process stops.
If it is not satisfying Formulate & Resolve problem (fuller explanation)

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Social Cognition & Attribution
(Installation) Theory
Bias in the Attribution / Installation Process
1- Fundamental Attribution Error - A tendency to over attribute others’ behaviour to dispositional causes and
minimize of the importance of situational causes.

2- Halo Effect / Horn Effect A phenomenon in which an initial understanding that a person has positive traits is used to
infer other uniformly positive characteristics.

When people perceive them, they tend to place them first in one of the good-bad categories, and then tend to deduct
all the features on the basis of this category. 3 - Actor Observer Effect - When we observe other people, we
tend to impose their behaviour on inner qualities. However, we explain our behaviour with more situational
factors.

3- Self- Serving Bias - The tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors (skill, ability, or effort)
and to attribute failure to factors outside oneself.

4- External factors affect our perception; weather-mood

5- Assumed- Similarity Bias - The tendency to think of people as being similar to oneself even when meeting
them for the first time.

6-Stereotypes & Prejudices

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Kelley- Attribution Theorem
(Cube Model)
People rely on three types of knowledge.
In the behaviour of the person;

1. Consistency (Is it always the same in other situations and

times?)
2. Consensus (others behave like this in the same situation?)
3. Distinctiveness (is he acting like that only in this
situation?)

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Stereotypes & Prejudice
Stereotype : A set of (positive or negative) generalized beliefs and expectations about a
particular group and its members.
Automatically formed impressions that grow out of our tendency to categorize,
organize and oversimplify the vast amount of information we encounter in our
everyday lives.
Pictures in our head;
1. Occurs at young age
2. Affected by political, historical, economic, religious and cultural factors
3. Not enough unbiased information
4. Emotional rather than rational
5. It shows a fixed feature that does not change easily.
6. Consists of generalizations
7. Stereotypes can lead to prejudice.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc
Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Stereotypes & Prejudice
Prejudice : A negative (or positive) attitude as a result of an evaluation of a
particular group and its members.
Exp : Racial group is evaluated in terms of race and not because of his or her
own characteristics or abilities.

Modern Racism – hidden prejudice

Stereotypes can be seen as a source of prejudice.
pre + judicium - advance + judgement (peşin- hüküm)
The person is perceived and evaluated by the characteristics of the group
that is believed to belong- language / religion / gender / sexual orientation
We and Them

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Stereotypes & Prejudice

Prejudice is an attitude.
It is based on a non-flexible and leads to incorrect
generalization.
Prejudice is a judgement given in advance.
Resistant to change and solid.

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist
 Syllabus

•
Developmental Psychology - Module 17 & 18

•
Social Psychology - Module 25

•
Cognitive Psychology (Perception, Sensation, Memory) - Module 5- 6- 11-12

•
Personality Theories- Module 19

•
Learning-Module 9- 10

•
Psychopathology, Clinical Psychology and Eating Disorders - Module 22-23-24

FSH 207 Introduction to Psychology Ela Ural, M. Sc

Instructor, Clinical Psychologist