Aggression is the delivery of an aversive stimulus from one person to another with an expectation of causing such harm when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid the stimulus. Conflict refers to a perceived incompatibility of goals between two or more parties. There are two types of aggression. Instrumental aggression (cold) refers to aggression serving mastery needs and aggression used to achieve goals. Hostile aggression (warm) refers to aggression that is driven by emotion.Lorenz states that it’s human nature to be aggressive and aggression is inevitable. Aggression is one means of asserting dominance and is not necessary. Aggression can be measured by the hot sauce paradigm. Research in aggression has to be confirmed both in the lab and outside of the lab. Construct validity is very important. Aggression is usually triggered by perceptions and interpretations of the situation.People who believe that aggression leads to rewards are more aggressive. People tend to make a cost-benefit equation of aggression. Interpersonal aggression frequently occurs in response to threats to self-esteem or connectedness. Reminders of one’s mortality makes a person more aggressive. There are also individual differences in the interpretation of situations and the way to act on aggressiveness. The frustration-aggression theory states that any frustration inevitably triggers aggression. Frustration is any act (of another person) that blocks an important goal. Berkowitz states that aggression doesn’t occur because of frustration, but because of the negative feelings that result. Not all negative emotions result in aggression, disgust does not.Exposure to aggressive models makes violent behaviour seem more appropriate because it stimulates aggressive thoughts and feelings. Some cues make aggression more intense and more likely, such as seeing a weapon. When people are thinking superficially, angry feelings and negative thoughts are likely to lead to...
Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 1
Social psychology is the scientific study of the effects on social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others. Social processes are the ways in which input from the people and groups around us affect our thoughts, feelings and actions. Cognitive processes are the ways in which our memories, perceptions, thoughts, emotions and motives influence our understanding of the world and guide our action. Social processes affect us, even when other individuals are not present. The social processes that affect us when other individuals are present depend on we interpret others, thus, including cognitive processes. Social psychology seeks an understanding of the reasons people act the way they do in social situations.
The presence of others often facilitates performance when individual contributions are easily identified, but it reduces performance when this is not the case. Early social psychology rejected the behaviourist view that thoughts, emotions and attitudes did not have to be taken into account when trying to explain behaviour. Social psychology focusses on how external stimuli are interpreted by the individual and how this influences behaviour.
Nazism in Europe influenced social psychology because many gestalt psychologists fled to North America, where a mix between gestalt psychologists and behaviourists was created. The aftermath of the second world war also led to many questions which social psychology had to answer.
Europe’s and North America’s social psychology research integrated with each other and the field started to expand. There was also an integration of cognitive and social processes in the field of social psychology and integration with other research trends. Social psychology research can be applied in education, law, the environment, business and health.
There are two fundamental axioms in social psychology:
There are three motivational principles:
There are three processing principles:
Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 3A mental representation is a body of knowledge that an individual has stored in memory. Mental representations influence social beliefs and behaviours. The raw materials of first impressions are appearance, behaviour and choices. There are several ways in which we form impressions:
Attractiveness is helpful for men when applying for both masculine and feminine jobs and only helpful for women when applying for feminine jobs. It may be harmful to women when applying for masculine jobs. People use the wrong cues when trying to spot deception. People should look at body language, instead of verbal communication and the face.
Rarity or uniqueness is what makes a characteristic stand out. Salience refers to the ability of a cue to attract attention in its context. Salience is highly dependent on the context. Salient cues dominate impressions. Cues have no meaning in itself, but our interpretations of those cues, using mental representations have meaning. Associations and our current thoughts help us interpret cues.
Members of different cultures have different associations and therefore arrive at different interpretations for the same behaviour. Accessibility is the ease and speed with which information comes to mind and is used. Accessibility highly influences our interpretations. Knowledge becomes accessible and can influence our interpretations in three ways:
A correspondent inference is a process of characterizing someone as having a personality trait that
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 4Self-concept refers to all of an individual’s knowledge about his or her personal qualities. People construct the self-concept by interpreting various types of cues. There are several cues we use when learning about our self:
The self-perception theory states that we judge ourselves on the behaviours we show when the internal cues are almost non-existent. The over-justification effect states that we lose a part of our intrinsic motivation when we receive extrinsic motivation. The social comparison theory states that people learn about and evaluate their personal qualities to others. The contrast effect occurs when people compare themselves with someone whose skill is very different than theirs at something and their self-concept of that skill with either be extremely good or extremely bad. People see the contrast of what they compare themselves with if the skill level is not similar. The assimilation effect occurs when we compare ourselves with someone with a similar skill level and see ourselves as slightly better. The attributes that distinguish us most from others often become defining features of the self.
People characterise the self and close others as flexible and variable. We see others as different because of differences in cues and knowledge (e.g: we don’t have access to inner thoughts) (1) and differences in inferences (2). The actor-observer effect is the idea that we attribute our own behaviours to situational causes while seeing other’s acts as due to their inner characteristics. The actor-observer effect operates differently depending on whether the to-be-explained action is positive or negative.
Self-aspects are summaries of a person’s beliefs about the self in specific domains, roles or activities. The way we see ourselves changes over situations and roles and depends on the self-aspect. Self-schema are core characteristics that a person believes characterizes him or her across situations. People believe that they have a coherent and stable self. Looking for confirmation of self-schemas help with this. People also don’t notice the contradiction between their different selves, because there is only one self there at the time. People also tend to remember the memories that are coherent with the idea they have about their self. The construction of the self differs across cultures. People in individualistic cultures tend to see themselves as stable, while people in collectivistic cultures tend to see themselves as changing. People in collectivistic cultures also
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 5Discrimination refers to positive or negative behaviour directed toward a social group and its members. Prejudice is a positive or negative evaluation of a social group and its members. Stereotypes are a mental representation or impression of a social group that people form by associating particular characteristics and emotions with the group. A social group refers to two or more people who share some common characteristic that is socially meaningful for themselves or for others. Social categorization is the process of identifying individual people as members of a social group because they share certain features that are typical of the group. People focus om similarities and this causes us to overestimate the uniformity and underestimate the diversity. Social categorization makes people more seem different or more similar.
Stereotypes include many types of characteristics, such as physical appearance, behaviour and personality traits. Positive stereotypes can also have negative consequences. People sort themselves into groups and this creates real group differences that may be reflected in stereotypes. Some stereotypes are accurate, although exaggerated.
At first, people thought hatred for groups had its roots in the inner conflicts of those with authoritarian personalities, those who cannot accept their own hostility and see their own inadequacies in others. A single group member’s negative act can activate negative thoughts about the entire group. Trying to summarize the information we receive about group members during interactions lead to bias and exaggeration. This has several reasons:
Stereotypes also serve our desire to establish connections with similar others. Our desire to connect with others may be a motive to accept stereotypes. Social norms are generally accepted ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that people in a group agree on and endorse as right and proper. Stereotypes may become stronger through the process of social communication. Second-hand impressions are more stereotypical than first-hand impressions. Stereotypes also serve the function of justifying existing roles of social groups. People who believe that the world naturally just tends
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 6Being member of a group influences our thoughts, feelings and actions. Self-categorization is the process of seeing oneself as a member of a social group. It is flexible and can readily shift depending on the social context. Social identity refers to the way we feel about group memberships that we share with others. People learn about their own group in the same way they learn stereotypes of other groups. Group membership can influence who someone is.
There are several ways through which we feel like a group member:
Seeing oneself as a group member means that the group’s typical characteristics become norms or standards for one’s own behaviour. Bask in reflected glory (BIRG) is a way of boosting self-esteem by identifying oneself with the accomplishment or good qualities of fellow in-group members (e.g: being happy when a football team has won). People experience emotions in response to events that affect their group because identification with a group makes the group part of our self. We experience emotions as group members, which influences how we feel about and behave toward out-groups. Perceiving differences with other groups makes us feel unique, while similarities with our own group make us feel connected. Relatively small groups seem to provide the best balance between similarity and uniqueness.
A social identity links the individual to others and therefore influences the way the person thinks, feels, and acts toward other in-group members. People mostly perceive similarities between themselves and in-group members, which results in seeing our own group as more similar to ourselves. Anything that increases the accessibility of group membership enhances the assumed similarity. Learning about the personal qualities of others in the group helps us find our own place in the group. People tend to like in-group members more than out-group members. In-group members are sometimes not liked as individuals, but as representatives of the liked group (the in-group). Groups prosper when their members are willing to subordinate personal interests to the group. People treat in-group members with more fairness and show more altruism than they do towards out-group members.
Categorization into an out-group has a range of negative consequences. The out-group homogeneity effect refers to the tendency to see the out-group as relatively more homogeneous and less diverse than the
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 7An attitude is a mental representation that summarizes an individual’s evaluation of a particular person, group, thing, action or idea. Attitude change is the process by which attitudes form and change by the association of positive or negative information with the attitude object. Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to bring about attitude change by communication.
Attitudes can be inferred by checking how people react to attitude objects. Attitude direction (e.g: negative, positive) and attitude intensity are important. With self-report, the alternatives to the question influence how people portray their attitude. Explicit attitudes are attitudes that people openly express and implicit attitudes are automatic and uncontrollable attitudes. People’s explicit attitudes can differ from their implicit attitudes.
Attitudes have four functions:
Once an attitude is formed, it is associated with the attitude object. People form an attitude by associating cognitive, affective and behavioural information linked with or related to the object. Cognitive information includes facts, affective information includes emotions and behavioural information includes behaviour. Genetic predispositions influence attitude formation. Important information (anything that matters to a person) is more influential in forming an attitude than unimportant information (1). Negative information is often more salient and weighted heavier than positive information. Information that is easily accessible or salient dominates attitudes judgements (2). The intensity of the attitude depends on how much information is available. A strong attitude is a confidently-held extremely positive or negative attitude that is persistent and resistant and influences information processing and behaviour. An ambivalent attitude is an attitude based on conflicting negative and positive information. Attitudes that are more easily accessible are often more extreme.
Attitudes can change by encountering different associations when people use superficial processing. A persuasion heuristic is a cue that can make people like or dislike an attitude object without thinking about it in any depth. Forming attitudes based on persuasion heuristics are described as taking a peripheral route to persuasion. Evaluative conditioning is the process of forming attitudes or changing attitudes using association with other negative or positive objects. There are several heuristics people use when superficially processing information in order to either adjust or form attitudes:
The familiarity heuristic describes that familiarity serves as a persuasion cue. The mere exposure effect refers to people’s increased liking when they are exposed to something often. The mere exposure effect is stronger if people are unaware of the number of times they see something. Familiar stimuli can be more persuasive. If people hear that something they heard before isn’t true, the part that they’ve heard before will become more familiar.
The attractiveness heuristic describes that
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 8Attitudes change depending on the role a person has. Behaviour also affects attitudes and behaviour depends on attitudes. The shown behaviour can be very subtle (e.g: eyebrow movements) or very clear. Actions only guide attitudes if the actions are voluntary. People often make inferences from their actions to attitudes, because actions and attitudes are associated. The theory of self-perception states that people infer attitudes from their own behaviour and the situations in which those actions occur.
The foot-in-the-door technique refers to first asking people to go along with a smaller request and if they comply, they will be more likely to go along with a bigger request later. The performance of the smaller request triggers self-perception processes and people want to be consistent with their attitudes and since their attitude is based on the first small request, they are more likely to go along with the big request. The first small request has to be voluntary and distinctly enough to infer attitudes from it. Foot-in-the-door effects are strongest when people’s cognitive resources have been exhausted. Action-to-attitudes inferences are most likely when attitudes are unformed or unimportant.
Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state caused by people’s awareness of inconsistency among important beliefs, attitudes or actions. People’s motivation to reduce cognitive dissonance often induces a change in attitudes, beliefs or behaviour. There are four steps necessary for actions to produce cognitive dissonance and attitude change.
People realize their action is inconsistent with their attitude (1) and that their action is freely chosen (2). This leads to uncomfortable physiological arousal (3) and people then attribute this uncomfortable arousal to the inconsistency in action and attitude (4). Cognitive dissonance is eliminated if the inconsistency is resolved.
There are different justification processes that produce attitude change:
Attitude change brought about by dissonance reduction can be long-lasting. Alternatives to cognitive dissonance are reducing the dissonance at any of the four steps by attributing the behaviour to different causes. Alcohol and drug use may be ways in which some people avoid or reduce the tension cognitive dissonance creates. People can also reduce dissonance by reaffirming their positive sense of self-worth and integrity. Changing behaviour is also a good way to reduce dissonance. The hypocrisy effect refers to the change in
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 9Thoughts, emotions and behaviour of people become more similar if they interact with each other. A social norm is a generally accepted way of thinking, feeling or behaving that most people in a group agree on. There are two types of social norms. Descriptive social norms are norms that serve the connectedness motive and refers to what people feel, think and do. Injunctive social norms serve the mastery motive and refer to what people should feel, think and do. Group conformity occurs if there is an ambiguous stimulus, but also if there is an objective stimulus (e.g: Asch’s experiment).
Conformity refers to the convergence of individual’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviour toward a social norm. There are two types of conformity. Private conformity occurs when people are truly persuaded that the group is right and willingly and privately accept group norms as their own beliefs. Public conformity occurs when people respond to real or imagined pressure and behave consistently with the norms that they do not privately accept as correct. People publicly conform because they fear ridicule and rejection. Social influence impacts early unconscious visual perceptual processing and thus changes what an individual sees.
People conform because they expect everyone to see the world the same way and they expect to see the world the same way as others do. The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate other’s agreement with one’s own opinions, characteristics and behaviour. The more important the connection to others, the stronger the false consensus effect.
Norms fulfil mastery motives. Norms help us understand the world and predict it better. Consensus tells us something about reality. Descriptive norms are powerful guides to reality. Norms have an informational influence. This is the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain mastery of reality. The amount of influence the group exerted increased as the size of the group increased, but only up to a point. The presence of someone that deviates from the norm decreases conformity.
Norms fulfil connectedness motives. Norms have a normative influence. This is the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain connectedness and valued social identity. Normative influences satisfy our need for connectedness because consensus provides and expresses our identity and values. People tend to accept group norms whenever they are reminded of their membership in a group that’s important to them.
Norms fulfil me and mine motives. People tend to conform to the in-group rather than the out-group. In-group messages receive more systematic processing than out-group messages. People want to see themselves in a positive light and thus see their in-group as right and conform to them and see the out-group as wrong and don’t conform to them. People adopt the group consensus to feel positive about the self and the valued in-group.
A reference group refers to those people accepted as an appropriate source of information for judgement because they
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 10Norms can only influence behaviour if the norm is activated and thus the most activated norm is often followed. There are several things that can activate norms. Norms can be activated by direct reminders (1), environments (2) and groups (3).
If we encounter an environment repeatedly we make mental associations between the environment and norms that apply there (e.g: people are quiet in a library). When these mental connections are so well learned the environment itself can activate the appropriate behaviour.
People are likely to follow in-group norms. The thing that makes groups salient activates the group’s norms. The more group members who are present, the more accessible and effective the group norm is. Out-group comparisons can change the perception of a norm and change behaviour. The more accessible the in-group norm, the more likely we are to use it to guide our behaviour.
Deindividuation refers to the psychological state in which group or social identity completely dominates personal or individual identity so that group norms become maximally accessible. Deindividuation should maximally increase the tendency of individual members to join in whatever behaviour the group is performing. Deindividuation increases whatever behaviour is typical of the group.
Descriptive norms are norms that describe what people think, feel or do. Injunctive norms describe what group members believe people should think, feel or do. Both norms guide behaviour. Biased estimates can lead us to follow the crowd although the estimate about what the crowd is doing is false. The perception of what others are doing can guide our behaviour. Injunctive norms can also guide behaviour, although people often misperceive injunctive norms. If descriptive and injunctive norms mismatch, behavioural intentions are low. The type of norms people use to guide behaviour depends on the motivation and ability to think about it. If someone does not have the motivation and/or ability to think about it, descriptive norms are used, otherwise, injunctive norms are used. Injunctive norm information has stronger effects on behavioural intentions.
Social norms are accepted because people accept group consensus as truly reflecting reality and expressing the kind of people they are. Surveillance undermines group identity and decreases conformity. Norms can be enforced by reward and punishment. People have automatic readiness to perceive norm-relevant information.
The norm of reciprocity is the shared view that people are obligated to return to others the goods, services and concessions they offer to us. Adherence to this norm builds trust, strengthening the bonds that hold the group together. Even after paying back favour, so there is no need for reciprocation, people are more likely to accept another request.
The door-in-the-face technique is a technique in which the influencer makes an initial request so large that it will be rejected, and follows it with a smaller request that looks like a concession, making it more likely that the other person will concede in turn. This technique will activate the norm of reciprocity when
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 12Studying attraction, relationships and love can be a challenge because it is not always possible to make use of an experimental design. A lot of research is been done using speed dating sessions, but there is a lack of cross-cultural research.
Attraction is based on an alluring face, a pleasant interaction or the perception of similarity. Attractive people are rated better on other characteristics. Physical attractiveness is a powerful first cue to who we might like.
Faces and bodies that are symmetrical are judged to be more attractive and likeable. A clear rosy skin, average weight and shiny hair also seem to signal good health and are thus rated as more attractive. People that look like they have access to adequate resources (e.g: money) are deemed more attractive. Men living in a culture with scarce resources find heavier women more attractive. There are also strong individual differences in what we deem attractive because judgements of attractiveness are influenced by our experience and expectations. Liking increases perceived physical attractiveness and perceived physical attractiveness increases liking.
The more similar people are, the more they like each other. It is greater if the qualities we share are important to us and salient. Similarity helps us move from attraction to liking for several reasons:
People are attracted to those with whom they have positive interactions. Physical proximity promotes frequent interaction. There are several reasons why interaction leads to increased liking:
If interaction fails to meet our needs or harms us it leads to disliking. Acquaintanceship will progress toward friendship when liking, attractiveness, similarity and interaction become mutually reinforcing processes.
Friendship develops through interactions that fulfil mastery and connectedness needs. The rewards that each partner gets from interaction are key in determining the course of the relationship. Exchange relationships refer to relationships in which people offer rewards in order to receive benefits in return. Uncertainty and anxiety may cloud both partners’
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 13Aggression is the delivery of an aversive stimulus from one person to another with an expectation of causing such harm when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid the stimulus. Conflict refers to a perceived incompatibility of goals between two or more parties. There are two types of aggression. Instrumental aggression (cold) refers to aggression serving mastery needs and aggression used to achieve goals. Hostile aggression (warm) refers to aggression that is driven by emotion.
Lorenz states that it’s human nature to be aggressive and aggression is inevitable. Aggression is one means of asserting dominance and is not necessary. Aggression can be measured by the hot sauce paradigm. Research in aggression has to be confirmed both in the lab and outside of the lab. Construct validity is very important. Aggression is usually triggered by perceptions and interpretations of the situation.
People who believe that aggression leads to rewards are more aggressive. People tend to make a cost-benefit equation of aggression. Interpersonal aggression frequently occurs in response to threats to self-esteem or connectedness. Reminders of one’s mortality makes a person more aggressive. There are also individual differences in the interpretation of situations and the way to act on aggressiveness.
The frustration-aggression theory states that any frustration inevitably triggers aggression. Frustration is any act (of another person) that blocks an important goal. Berkowitz states that aggression doesn’t occur because of frustration, but because of the negative feelings that result. Not all negative emotions result in aggression, disgust does not.
Exposure to aggressive models makes violent behaviour seem more appropriate because it stimulates aggressive thoughts and feelings. Some cues make aggression more intense and more likely, such as seeing a weapon.
When people are thinking superficially, angry feelings and negative thoughts are likely to lead to aggression. There are several factors that can limit someone’s capacity to process deeply and increasing the odds of aggression:
People can be habituated to aggression and change someone’s perception of aggression. It makes it more likely that people find aggression viable. Alcohol causes people to assess the consequences of the situation less well.
The general aggression model states that person and situation factors influence people’s cognition, emotions, and arousal, which in turn influence interpretations of the situations and decisions about aggression.
Many of the factors that promote interpersonal aggression can promote intergroup aggression. Groups are more competitive than individuals. Reminders of group membership increase competitiveness.
Individuals and groups turn to aggression for valued material resources (scarce resources/mastery) or respect and esteem (connectedness). The realistic conflict theory states that intergroup hostility arises from competition among groups for scarce but valued material resources. Liking for the in-group increases with competition. The relative deprivation theory states that feelings of discontent arise from the belief that other individuals or other groups are better off. It is checking how much worse you’re doing than
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 14Prosocial behaviour is behaviour intended to help someone else. Cooperation refers to two or more people working together toward a common goal that will benefit all involved. Altruism refers to behaviour intended to help others without any prospect of personal reward for the helper. Egoism refers to behaviour motivated by the desire to obtain personal rewards.
There are three factors that determine when we help:
The norm of social responsibility states that those able to take care of themselves have a duty and obligation to assist those who cannot. The diffusion of responsibility refers to when others are present, responsibility is divided and each person feels less responsible for helping than when alone. The bystander effect states that the presence of more bystanders consistently decreases the likelihood of any person giving help. The bystander effect does not occur when the situation is perceived as dangerous. Norms can also determine whether helping is appropriate or not. Role models can influence the norm of whether to help or not. The religious principle describes whether you associate yourself with a religious group. The supernatural principle describes belief in a god. The supernatural principle (when activated) leads to more prosocial behaviour.
Prosocial behaviour might enhance the likelihood that genes will survive. If individuals help relatives who share their genes, the genes have a better chance of survival. Reciprocal helping can also occur, thus making prosocial behaviour evolutionary useful. Entire groups can also prosper when members act pro-socially. Prosocial behaviour can also produce more indirect rewards such as a good reputation and that’s good for one’s reproduction chances.
The desire to help often depends on perceptions of the potential rewards and costs of helping. People with relevant skills for helping are more likely to help because the costs for helping are lower to them. Perceived ability (e.g: skills or self-efficacy) influences helping. Emotions also influence helping. Positive people and people who feel guilty are more inclined to help. People in a positive mood are less inclined to help if helping would result in a more negative mood. People in a negative mood are more likely to help if they are motivated to improve their mood. Intense emotional arousal makes individuals more likely to help regardless of rewards or costs.
The negative-state relief model of helping states that people help others to reduce their own distress because people hate to see others suffer. According to this model, helping is egoistic.
The empathy-altruism model states
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 9Thoughts, emotions and behaviour of people become more similar if they interact with each other. A social norm is a generally accepted way of thinking, feeling or behaving that most people in a group agree on. There are two types of social norms. Descriptive social norms are norms that serve the connectedness motive and refers to what people feel, think and do. Injunctive social norms serve the mastery motive and refer to what people should feel, think and do. Group conformity occurs if there is an ambiguous stimulus, but also if there is an objective stimulus (e.g: Asch’s experiment).
Conformity refers to the convergence of individual’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviour toward a social norm. There are two types of conformity. Private conformity occurs when people are truly persuaded that the group is right and willingly and privately accept group norms as their own beliefs. Public conformity occurs when people respond to real or imagined pressure and behave consistently with the norms that they do not privately accept as correct. People publicly conform because they fear ridicule and rejection. Social influence impacts early unconscious visual perceptual processing and thus changes what an individual sees.
People conform because they expect everyone to see the world the same way and they expect to see the world the same way as others do. The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate other’s agreement with one’s own opinions, characteristics and behaviour. The more important the connection to others, the stronger the false consensus effect.
Norms fulfil mastery motives. Norms help us understand the world and predict it better. Consensus tells us something about reality. Descriptive norms are powerful guides to reality. Norms have an informational influence. This is the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain mastery of reality. The amount of influence the group exerted increased as the size of the group increased, but only up to a point. The presence of someone that deviates from the norm decreases conformity.
Norms fulfil connectedness motives. Norms have a normative influence. This is the process by which group norms are privately accepted to achieve or maintain connectedness and valued social identity. Normative influences satisfy our need for connectedness because consensus provides and expresses our identity and values. People tend to accept group norms whenever they are reminded of their membership in a group that’s important to them.
Norms fulfil me and mine motives. People tend to conform to the in-group rather than the out-group. In-group messages receive more systematic processing than out-group messages. People want to see themselves in a positive light and thus see their in-group as right and conform to them and see the out-group as wrong and don’t conform to them. People adopt the group consensus to feel positive about the self and the valued in-group.
A reference group refers to those people accepted as an appropriate source of information for judgement because they
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 10Norms can only influence behaviour if the norm is activated and thus the most activated norm is often followed. There are several things that can activate norms. Norms can be activated by direct reminders (1), environments (2) and groups (3).
If we encounter an environment repeatedly we make mental associations between the environment and norms that apply there (e.g: people are quiet in a library). When these mental connections are so well learned the environment itself can activate the appropriate behaviour.
People are likely to follow in-group norms. The thing that makes groups salient activates the group’s norms. The more group members who are present, the more accessible and effective the group norm is. Out-group comparisons can change the perception of a norm and change behaviour. The more accessible the in-group norm, the more likely we are to use it to guide our behaviour.
Deindividuation refers to the psychological state in which group or social identity completely dominates personal or individual identity so that group norms become maximally accessible. Deindividuation should maximally increase the tendency of individual members to join in whatever behaviour the group is performing. Deindividuation increases whatever behaviour is typical of the group.
Descriptive norms are norms that describe what people think, feel or do. Injunctive norms describe what group members believe people should think, feel or do. Both norms guide behaviour. Biased estimates can lead us to follow the crowd although the estimate about what the crowd is doing is false. The perception of what others are doing can guide our behaviour. Injunctive norms can also guide behaviour, although people often misperceive injunctive norms. If descriptive and injunctive norms mismatch, behavioural intentions are low. The type of norms people use to guide behaviour depends on the motivation and ability to think about it. If someone does not have the motivation and/or ability to think about it, descriptive norms are used, otherwise, injunctive norms are used. Injunctive norm information has stronger effects on behavioural intentions.
Social norms are accepted because people accept group consensus as truly reflecting reality and expressing the kind of people they are. Surveillance undermines group identity and decreases conformity. Norms can be enforced by reward and punishment. People have automatic readiness to perceive norm-relevant information.
The norm of reciprocity is the shared view that people are obligated to return to others the goods, services and concessions they offer to us. Adherence to this norm builds trust, strengthening the bonds that hold the group together. Even after paying back favour, so there is no need for reciprocation, people are more likely to accept another request.
The door-in-the-face technique is a technique in which the influencer makes an initial request so large that it will be rejected, and follows it with a smaller request that looks like a concession, making it more likely that the other person will concede in turn. This technique will activate the norm of reciprocity when
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 13Aggression is the delivery of an aversive stimulus from one person to another with an expectation of causing such harm when the other person is motivated to escape or avoid the stimulus. Conflict refers to a perceived incompatibility of goals between two or more parties. There are two types of aggression. Instrumental aggression (cold) refers to aggression serving mastery needs and aggression used to achieve goals. Hostile aggression (warm) refers to aggression that is driven by emotion.
Lorenz states that it’s human nature to be aggressive and aggression is inevitable. Aggression is one means of asserting dominance and is not necessary. Aggression can be measured by the hot sauce paradigm. Research in aggression has to be confirmed both in the lab and outside of the lab. Construct validity is very important. Aggression is usually triggered by perceptions and interpretations of the situation.
People who believe that aggression leads to rewards are more aggressive. People tend to make a cost-benefit equation of aggression. Interpersonal aggression frequently occurs in response to threats to self-esteem or connectedness. Reminders of one’s mortality makes a person more aggressive. There are also individual differences in the interpretation of situations and the way to act on aggressiveness.
The frustration-aggression theory states that any frustration inevitably triggers aggression. Frustration is any act (of another person) that blocks an important goal. Berkowitz states that aggression doesn’t occur because of frustration, but because of the negative feelings that result. Not all negative emotions result in aggression, disgust does not.
Exposure to aggressive models makes violent behaviour seem more appropriate because it stimulates aggressive thoughts and feelings. Some cues make aggression more intense and more likely, such as seeing a weapon.
When people are thinking superficially, angry feelings and negative thoughts are likely to lead to aggression. There are several factors that can limit someone’s capacity to process deeply and increasing the odds of aggression:
People can be habituated to aggression and change someone’s perception of aggression. It makes it more likely that people find aggression viable. Alcohol causes people to assess the consequences of the situation less well.
The general aggression model states that person and situation factors influence people’s cognition, emotions, and arousal, which in turn influence interpretations of the situations and decisions about aggression.
Many of the factors that promote interpersonal aggression can promote intergroup aggression. Groups are more competitive than individuals. Reminders of group membership increase competitiveness.
Individuals and groups turn to aggression for valued material resources (scarce resources/mastery) or respect and esteem (connectedness). The realistic conflict theory states that intergroup hostility arises from competition among groups for scarce but valued material resources. Liking for the in-group increases with competition. The relative deprivation theory states that feelings of discontent arise from the belief that other individuals or other groups are better off. It is checking how much worse you’re doing than
.....read more Social Psychology by R. Smith, M. Mackie, and M. Claypool (fourth edition) – Summary chapter 14Prosocial behaviour is behaviour intended to help someone else. Cooperation refers to two or more people working together toward a common goal that will benefit all involved. Altruism refers to behaviour intended to help others without any prospect of personal reward for the helper. Egoism refers to behaviour motivated by the desire to obtain personal rewards.
There are three factors that determine when we help:
The norm of social responsibility states that those able to take care of themselves have a duty and obligation to assist those who cannot. The diffusion of responsibility refers to when others are present, responsibility is divided and each person feels less responsible for helping than when alone. The bystander effect states that the presence of more bystanders consistently decreases the likelihood of any person giving help. The bystander effect does not occur when the situation is perceived as dangerous. Norms can also determine whether helping is appropriate or not. Role models can influence the norm of whether to help or not. The religious principle describes whether you associate yourself with a religious group. The supernatural principle describes belief in a god. The supernatural principle (when activated) leads to more prosocial behaviour.
Prosocial behaviour might enhance the likelihood that genes will survive. If individuals help relatives who share their genes, the genes have a better chance of survival. Reciprocal helping can also occur, thus making prosocial behaviour evolutionary useful. Entire groups can also prosper when members act pro-socially. Prosocial behaviour can also produce more indirect rewards such as a good reputation and that’s good for one’s reproduction chances.
The desire to help often depends on perceptions of the potential rewards and costs of helping. People with relevant skills for helping are more likely to help because the costs for helping are lower to them. Perceived ability (e.g: skills or self-efficacy) influences helping. Emotions also influence helping. Positive people and people who feel guilty are more inclined to help. People in a positive mood are less inclined to help if helping would result in a more negative mood. People in a negative mood are more likely to help if they are motivated to improve their mood. Intense emotional arousal makes individuals more likely to help regardless of rewards or costs.
The negative-state relief model of helping states that people help others to reduce their own distress because people hate to see others suffer. According to this model, helping is egoistic.
The empathy-altruism model states
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