Psychology - Behaviour in A Social Context

1
Chapter 13
Behaviour
In A Social
Context
Anastasia Bake
St. Clair College
© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited

Chapter 13 Outline
1. Social Thinking and

Perception
2. Social Influence
3. Social Relations
© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 2

Attribution:
Perceiving the Causes of Behaviour
• Attributions
– Judgments about causes of our own and other
people’s behaviour and outcomes
– React with understanding or anger ?

Kelly’s Theory

Kelly’s Theory
• Situational attribution = all 3 high

• Personal attribution = consistency high,
consensus & distinctiveness low

Attributional Biases
• Fundamental Attribution Error

– Explaining others’ behaviour:
• Underestimate impact of situational factors
• Overestimate role of personal factors
• Even when informed role was assigned
• Situational information was ignored

Fundamental Attribution Error

• Applies to others not ourselves

– Have more information about ourselves
– Others are ‘figure’
– We are ‘background’ - situation stands out
• Is error inevitable?
– With time to reflect - error is reduced

• Unlike Mr. Spock,

the logical and
emotionless Vulcan
from the series Star
Trek,
• Actor Leonard
Nimoy
– Has feelings just like
the rest of us
Attributional Biases
• Explaining own behaviour

• Self-serving bias
– More personal attributions for successes
– More situational attributions for failures
– Strength depends on psychological state & culture
• Depressed people = more personal attributions
for failures

Culture and Attribution
• Individualistic Cultures
– More personal attributions
• ‘western bias’?
• Collectivist Cultures
– More responsibility for failures
– East Asians - more complex, holistic views of
behavioural causes

Forming and Maintaining Impressions
• Primacy versus Recency: Are First

Impressions More Important?
• Primacy effect: First impressions
– Attach more importance to initial information
– Tend to be most alert to information received first
– Initial information may shape how we perceive
subsequent information

Forming and Maintaining Impressions
• Primacy versus Recency: Are First

Impressions More Important?
• Recency effect
– Greater weight to most recent information
• Recency effects may increase when:
– Avoid making snap judgments
– Reminded to consider information carefully
– Feel accountable for judgments

Mental Sets and Schemas:
Seeing What We Expect to See
• Mental set
– Perceive world in particular way
• Schemas
– Mental frameworks that organize & interpret
information
• Stereotypes
– Generalized belief about group or category
– Powerful type of schema

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies:
Creating What We Expect to See
• Creating what you
expect!
• Self-fulfilling
prophecies
– Expectations affect
behaviour toward
others, causing
expected behaviors
that confirm
expectations
Attitudes and Attitude Change
• Attitudes
• Positive or negative
evaluative
reactions toward a
stimulus
• Supported by
personal beliefs &
values

Do Our Attitudes Influence
Our Behaviour?
• Three factors
• Attitude-behaviour relationship strongest
when:
1. Situational factors are weak

Our Behaviour?
• Theory of Planned Behaviour
– Intention to engage in behaviour is strongest
when:
– Positive attitude toward behaviour
– Subjective norms (perceptions) support attitudes
– Belief that behaviour is under personal control

Our Behaviour?
• Attitude-behaviour relationship strongest
when:
2. Are aware of attitudes & they are strongly
held
– Think about attitudes before acting
3. Attitudes predict general rather than specific
classes of behaviour

Does Our Behaviour Influence
Our Attitudes?
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
– Strive for consistency in cognitions
– Two inconsistent cognitions = cognitive dissonance
– Dissonance leads to motivation to change one
cognition or add new cognitions

Cognitive Dissonance
• Counterattitudinal behaviour
– Inconsistent with one’s attitude
– Produces dissonance if freely chosen
– ‘I chose to do this -- does that mean I actually
believe --’
• Does not always lead to attitude change
– E.g., Rationalize behaviour - external justifications

Self-Perception Theory
• Make inferences about own attitudes by observing own

behaviour
– Infer how we must feel from how we act
• Which theory best explains attitude change?

• Cognitive dissonance theory
– Behave in ways that contradict clearly defined attitudes
• Self-perception theory
– Behaviour does not threaten self-worth & attitudes
weakly held
Persuasion
• Communicator credibility
– How believable the communicator is
– Often is the key to effective persuasion
• Communicator - message - channel - audience
- context
• Three Aspects of Persuasion Process
1. Communicator
2. Message
3. Audience
Persuasion
• The Message
– Two-sided refutational approaches most effective
– Perceived as less biased
• Extreme or moderate arguments
– If audience disagrees moderate degree of
discrepancy with their view is best
– Fear arousal works best when message invokes
moderate-strong fear and low-cost ways to reduce
threat
Persuasion
• Audience
• Central route to persuasion
– Think carefully about message and find arguments
compelling
• Peripheral route to persuasion
– Influenced by other factors than message
arguments

Which is Better?
• Central Route to Persuasion

– Attitudes last longer
– Predict future behaviour more successfully
• Relevance
– High personal relevance & high involvement
usually results in central processing
• Need for cognition
– High need for cognition people follow central
route
Social Influence
• The Mere Presence of Others

– Enhance or hinder performance
– Depends upon the task
• Social Facilitation
– Increased tendency to perform one’s dominant
response in presence of others
– Typically correct when task is easy
– Typically incorrect when task is hard

Social Norms: The Rules of the Game
• Social Norms
– Shared expectations about how people should
think, feel, and behave
– Regulate daily behaviour without conscious
awareness

Social Norms: The Rules of the Game
• Social Roles
– Consists of a set of norms that characterize how
people in a social position ought to behave
– Role conflict = norms for different roles clash
• Norms & Roles
– Can cause uncharacteristic behaviour

Culture and Norm Formation
• Social customs are arbitrary

– Change with time
– Women in certain ‘roles’
– Greetings in different cultures
• Have need for common standards for
behaviour & judgment
– Both in cultures & small groups

Conformity and Obedience
• Conformity
– Essential for norms to influence people
• Adjustment of:
– Individual behaviours
– Attitudes
– Beliefs
– To a group standard

The Evolution of Norms
Across Time and Cultures
• The Million Dollar
Baby
• Portrayed an aspiring
professional female
boxer—an activity that
women would be
barred from in many
countries and women
were barred from
decades ago in the
United States
• Why Do People Conform?

• Informational social influence
– Conformity because we believe others have
accurate knowledge & are “right”
• Normative Social Influence
– Conforming to obtain rewards & avoid rejection

• Which line is the

same length as
‘A’?
• What if everyone
else said #1?

Factors That Affect Conformity
• Group size
– At least 5
• Presence of a dissenter
– At least one reduces conformity
• Type of culture
– Greater in collectivist cultures
• Gender
– No differences in conformity

Minority Influence
• Strongest When
– Commit to point of view
– Consistent, independent in face pressure
– Open mind

Obedience to Authority
• Milgram’s experiment
– Deliver a shock when a
mistake was made
– Mistakes deliberately
made - no shocks
actually delivered but
– Participant did not know
this!
– How far would they go?

Obedience to Authority
• 65% obeyed to
highest level of
shock value!
• No gender
differences

Factors That Influence Destructive
Obedience
• Remoteness of victim
• Closeness & legitimacy of authority figure
• Cog in a wheel
– Someone else doing ‘dirty work’
• Personal characteristics
– Political orientation, occupation, religious beliefs
etc

Factors That Influence Destructive
Obedience
• Lessons Learned: From the Holocaust to
Airline Safety
• Lessons learned
– Situation is a powerful influence
– Increased sensitivity to power of pressures

Detecting and Resisting
Compliance Techniques
• Compliance
techniques
• Norm of
Reciprocity
– Expectation that
when others treat
us well, we
should respond in
kind

Compliance Techniques
• Compliance techniques
• Door-in-the-face-technique
– Persuader makes a large request
– Expectation of refusal
– Persuader then makes a smaller request

• Compliance techniques
• Foot-in-the-door-technique
– Persuader obtains compliance with a small
request
– Persuader later presents a larger request
• Lowballing
– Persuader gets person to commit to some action
– Before action is performed, persuader increases
“cost” of the action
Crowd Behaviour and Deindividuation
• Much of human behaviour occurs in crowds

• Do we behave differently in crowds?
• Deindividuation
– Loss of individuality that leads to disinhibited
behaviour
• Riots, acts of genocide etc
• Key = anonymity to outsiders
– Reduce feelings of accountability
– Increased responsiveness to ‘group’ norms
Group Influences on Performance and
Decision Making
• Social loafing: Culture & Gender
– Occurs more in all-male than in all-female or
mixed groups
– Occurs more in individualistic cultures
• Social Compensation
– Working harder in a group than alone to
compensate for other’s lower output

Group Influences

Social Loafing:
Failing to Pull Your Own Weight
• Social loafing
– ‘Failing to pull your weight’
– Expend less individual effort when working in
group
• Causes - belief that:
– Individual performance is not being monitored
– Goal or task has little value / meaning
– Task is simple & person’s effort is redundant

Group Influences
• Social loafing: Culture & Gender

– Occurs more in all-male than in all-female or
mixed groups
– Occurs more in individualistic cultures
• Social Compensation
– Working harder in a group than alone to
compensate for other’s lower output

Group Polarization: Going to Extremes
Group Causes of Group

polarization Polarization
Normative social influence

‘going to extremes’ • Gain group’s approval
‘average’ opinion of Informational social influence

group becomes more • Information validates
extreme position

Groupthink: Suspending Critical Thinking
• Groupthink
– Tendency of group members to suspend critical
thinking because they are striving to seek
agreement
• Groupthink Causes
– High stress to make decision
– Insulation from outside input
– Directive leader who promotes his or her personal
agenda
– High group cohesion
Groupthink: Suspending
Critical Thinking
• Consequences of
groupthink can be
serious
• Can it be avoided?
– Critical thinking,
outsiders,
subgroups

Social Relations
Affiliation and Attraction
• Why do we affiliate
• Evolutionary theorists
– Biologically predisposed to affiliate = more likely to
survive & reproduce
• Socially oriented lifestyle = adaptive value
– Protection
– Division of labour
– Passing on of knowledge

Affiliation
• Affiliation brings us companionship, intimacy, love,

and also basic social contact

Affiliation – Four Psychological Reasons
1. Obtain positive stimulation

2. Receive emotional support
3. Gain attention
4. Social comparison
– Comparison of beliefs, feelings, & behaviour to
others
– Determine if our responses are “normal”

Social Relations
• What affects our need for affiliation?

• High need for affiliation
– More friends
– More time spent thinking about being with others
• Sense of community
– Being part of group
• Fear
– Increase desire to be with others

Initial Attraction
• Physical proximity
– Best indicator of whom we will meet
• Mere exposure effect
– Repeated exposure to a stimulus increases our
liking for it
• Similarity: Birds of a feather

Physical attractiveness:
Spellbound by Beauty
• Attractiveness
– What is beautiful
is good’
– Assume positive
characteristics

Attraction: Similar and Beautiful
• Matching Effect
– Have partner whose
physical
attractiveness is
similar to our own
• Similarity-attraction
– Attracted to people
who are similar to
us
Facial attractiveness:
Is “average” beautiful?
• Moderately feminized faces perceived as most attractive

As Attraction Deepens:
Close Relationships
• Relationships progress as interactions
between people become broader and deeper
– Broader = more areas of lives
– Deeper = more intimate

Close Relationships
• Importance of Self-Disclosure
– Key role in fostering close relationships
– Sharing of innermost thoughts and feelings
– Fosters intimacy & trust, which in turn foster more
self-disclosure

Close Relationships
• Social exchange theory
– Course of a relationship is governed by rewards
and costs that the partners experience
• Outcomes evaluated against two standards:
– Comparison level
• Outcome one has come to expect in
relationship

Close Relationships
• Comparison level for alternatives
– Focus is on potential alternatives
– Influences commitment

Close Relationships
• Rewards minus costs = outcomes
• Comparisons determine satisfaction & commitment

Sociocultural and Evolutionary Views
• There are also consistent sex differences in

mate preferences across cultures
• Men tend to
– Place greater value on a potential mate’s physical
attractiveness and domestic skills
– Desire a mate who is a few years younger
• More likely to desire and pursue a greater
number of short-term romantic encounters
than are women
Sociocultural and Evolutionary Views
• Women place greater value on

– A potential mate’s earning potential, status, and
ambitiousness
– Young and middle-aged women tend to desire a
mate who is a few years older

Love
• Types of Love
• Passionate
– Intense emotion, arousal, & yearning
• Companionate
– Affection & deep caring for others’ well-being

Love
• Triangular theory of love

• Intimacy
– Closeness, sharing, valuing one’s partner
• Passion
– Feelings of romance, physical attraction, sexual
desire
• Commitment
– Decision to remain in relationship

Love
7 Types of Love
• Consummate
love = Intimacy,
Passion &
Commitment

The Cognitive-Arousal Model:
Why Does My Heart Pound?
• High physiological arousal + attributions of
that arousal to another person = love
• Transfer of excitation
– Arousal due to one source is misattributed to
another
– Misinterpreted as ‘love’

Making Close Relationships Work
• Need more than passion!

– Intimacy, self-disclosure, commitment
• Amount of anger expressed in lab
interactions
– Did not predict stability or happiness

Making Close Relationships Work
• Unhappy couples
– Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling
• Happy couples
– Do not allow negativity to get out of control
– Make ‘repair attempts’

Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice
• Negative attitude toward people based on their
membership in a group

• Discrimination
– Treating people
unfairly based on
group to which they
belong
• People may
honesty believe
they are not
prejudiced

• Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

• Categorization - “us-them” thinking
– Perception of in-groups & out-groups
– In-group favouritism & out-group derogation
• More negative qualities to out-group

– Out-group homogeneity bias
– ‘They’ are more similar; all alike

Stereotypes and Attributional Distortions
• Categorization & in-group biases

• Make quick responses based on stereotypes
• When individuals contradict our stereotypes,
we can:
– Change the stereotype
– Explain person as an exceptional case
– Explain behavior using situational causes

Motivational Roots of Prejudice
• Realistic Conflict Theory

– Competition for limited resources fosters
prejudice
• Social Identity Theory
– Prejudice stems from a need to enhance self-
esteem

How Prejudice Confirms Itself
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Discriminatory behaviour causes others to
behave in a way that confirms our stereotypes
• Stereotype threat
– Stereotypes create self-consciousness and a fear
that they will live up to others’ stereotypes

Reducing Discrimination
• Equal status contact

– Sustained close contact
– Equal status of both groups
– Work to achieve a common goal that requires
cooperation
– Supported by broader social norms

Prosocial Behaviour: Helping Others
• Evolutionary Approaches
– Kin Selection
• Most likely to help others with which we share
the most genes
– Reciprocal Altruism
• Helping others increases the likelihood that
they will help us in future

• Social Learning & Cultural Influences

– Norm of Reciprocity
• Should help when others help us
– Norm of Social Responsibility
• Should help others and contribute to
society’s welfare

• Socialization
– Children act more pro-socially if taught empathy
• Cultural influences
– India - is moral obligation to help regardless of size
of need
– America - need for assistance is mild = less
obligated, helping is a choice

Empathy and Altruism
• Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
– Empathy = ability to share another’s experience
– Empathy produces altruism
• Negative state relief model
– Self-focused goal not altruistic one
– High empathy causes distress when others suffer
– Reduced personal feelings of distress

When Do We Help?

When Do We Help?
• Bystander intervention
• 5 step process
• If ‘yes’ at each step =
help given

Bystander intervention:
Issues in the 5 step process
• Decide if it’s an emergency
– Use of social comparison
– Do others think this is an emergency
• Assume responsibility to intervene
– Multiple bystanders may inhibit tendency to help
– Diffusion of responsibility
• Act or not - depends on self-efficacy
– Confidence in dealing with situation

Whom Do We Help?
• Similarity of person to ourselves

– Easier to identify with person
– Gender
– Person not responsible for causing own
misfortune
• Just-world hypothesis
– Want to perceive world as fair
– Can lead us to perceive that some people ‘get
what they deserve’
Increasing Pro-Social Behaviour
• Exposing people to pro-social models

• Encouraging feelings of empathy &
connectedness to others
• Learning about factors that hinder bystander
intervention

Aggression: Harming Others
• Aggression
– Behaviour that is
intended to harm
another
• Biological factors
– Heredity
• Identical twins
more similar than
fraternal twins

• Amygdala & deficient frontal lobe activity

– Stimulating hypothalamus = aggressive behaviours
– Destruction = decrease in aggression
• No single structure ‘turns on’ / ‘turns off’
aggression

• Biological factors
• Frontal lobes
– Impulsive murderers show lower activity
• Lower levels of serotonin
– No ‘aggression chemical’
• Higher levels of testosterone
– Associated with greater ‘social aggression’

Aversive Environmental Stimuli:
Beyond Frustration
• Frustration-aggression hypothesis
– Frustration leads to aggression
– Aggression is result of frustration
– No longer accepted

Aversive Environmental Stimuli:
Beyond Frustration
• Do not always
respond to
frustration with
aggression
• Aggression can
result from
multiple stimuli
• Provocation,
crowding, heat
Learning to Aggress:
Reinforcement and Modelling
• Reinforcement
– Aggression increases when behaviour produced
positive outcome for individual
• Modeling
– Positive correlation between aggressive children &
parents who model aggressive behaviour

Psychological Factors in Aggression
• Perceived intent, empathy, and emotional

regulation
• Self-justification
– Blame victim
– Minimize seriousness
– Dehumanize victim

Psychological Factors in Aggression
• Perceived intent, empathy, and emotional

regulation
• Attribution of intentionality
– Perceive others as having hostile intent
• Degree of empathy
– How well do we understand others viewpoint
– Ability to regulate emotions

Psychodynamic Processes
• Principle of Catharsis
– Aggressive behaviour discharges aggressive energy
– Behaviour temporarily reduces impulses to
aggress
– Channel aggressive impulses into socially
acceptable behaviours

Psychodynamic Processes
• Overcontrolled Hostility
– Little immediate reaction
– After provocations accumulate, can suddenly
erupt into violence

Media Violence:
Catharsis versus Social Learning
• Social Learning
– Exposure to
movie & TV
violence is
related to
tendency to
behave
aggressively

Effects of Media Violence
• Learn behaviours
through modelling
• Believe aggression is
usually rewarded
• Desensitized to sight
& sound of violence
& to victim

Effects of Media Violence
• Do violent video games promote aggression?

• Weak positive relation between play and
aggressive behaviour
• Strongest relationship for games that involve
violent fantasy action
• Catharsis hypothesis not supported

Chapter 13 Summary and Evaluation
• Personal versus Situational Attributions

• Personal (internal) attributions
– Infer that people’s behaviour is caused by their
characteristics:
• My A on an exam reflects my high ability
• Situational (external) attributions
– Infer that aspects of the situation cause a
behaviour
• I received an A because the test was easy
• Social Influence
– The Mere Presence of Others
– Social Norms: The Rules of the Game
– Conformity and Obedience
– Crowd Behaviour and Deindividuation
– Group Influences on Performance and Decision
Making

• Social Relations
– Affiliation and Interpersonal Attraction
– Love
– Prejudice and Discrimination
– Prosocial Behaviour: Helping Others
– Aggression: Harming Others

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1

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited

1. Social Thinking and

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 2

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 3

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 4

• Situational attribution = all 3 high

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 5

• Fundamental Attribution Error

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© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 7

• Applies to others not ourselves

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• Unlike Mr. Spock,

• Explaining own behaviour

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© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 11

• Primacy versus Recency: Are First

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• Primacy versus Recency: Are First

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• Make inferences about own attitudes by observing own

• Which theory best explains attitude change?

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• Central Route to Persuasion

• The Mere Presence of Others

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• Social customs are arbitrary

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• Why Do People Conform?

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• Which line is the

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• Much of human behaviour occurs in crowds

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• Social loafing: Culture & Gender

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Group Causes of Group

Normative social influence

‘average’ opinion of Informational social influence

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© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 51

© 2020 McGraw-Hill Education Limited 52