Lecture 1: An introduction to Social Psychology

This course on social psychology provides a more in-depth look at topics that have been introduced in Introduction to Psychology and Psychology, History, and Application.

What is social psychology?

Social psychology seeks to understand the motivation behind people's behaviours in a social context. It aims to uncover the interactions between people in a given society and how and to what extent the environment (including other people) influences the actions of an individual. An official definition is thus: the study of people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people.

One example is the Bystander Effect, where in traumatic situations, many witnesses and bystanders do nothing to help the victim, while simultaneously holding the belief that they would. This occurs due to complex networks of relationships between the bystanders, resulting in a general non-response. In fact, the larger the number of bystanders, the less likely anybody is going to help. This is applicable in a number of situations.

The main reason for this effect is diffusion of responsibility - that is, the more people there are, the more helping the victim becomes a shared responsibility, and the less responsibility an individual feels towards helping in the situation. Another reason is the 'nothing has happened ' assumption. If no one is taking action, it is plausible to assume that nothing has actually happened, which may lead to fear of embarrassment for jumping in on a situation that did not need help in the first place.

In order to avoid the bystander effect, several measures can be taken, including assigning specific responsibilities to specific people, and making it clear that help is required.

An example of the application of social psychology is in the Earthquake issue in Groningen. Gas companies initially denied responsibility for these earthquakes and the problem has posed a huge problem to the government, as reparation costs would be a toll on government income. This made for a good study on collective injustice, which falls under the realm of social psychology. When people perceive that they are being treated unjustly and that they have the power to change something, they tend to take action in the form of protests. In the case of the Groningen Earthquakes, however, very few protests have taken place. Instead, people have become more informed about the issue and help each other, increasing the sense of solidarity. This is an example of how a theory in social psychology can be studied in order to improve existing theories and discovering new areas that require research.

Cross-cultural psychology is the study of culture; where it comes from, what it is, how it can be measured, and how that influences people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It focuses on whether people from different cultures differ in their perceptions of social behaviour, for example, that it might be disrespectful to be late for an appointment in one culture, while not in another.

Culture is the totality of learned meanings maintained by a human population or a identifiable segments of a populations, transmitted from one generation to the next. Previously, culture was conceptualised along 4 main points:

• Power distance: Are differences in power accepted?

• Individualism-collectivism: individual or group?

• Masculinity/femininity: gender roles differentiated (masculinity) or similar (femininity)

• Uncertainty avoidance: Is uncertainty threatening and avoided?

These concepts, however, are rather outdated, and today, a much broader view on culture is applied.

Theory of Basic Individual Values

Shalom Schwartz posited that values relate to 3 basic problems:

1. Survival as an individual (How can I, personally advance in life?)

2. Coordination of social interaction (How do I interact with other people so that it works?)

3. Welfare and survival of groups (How do we run a country successfully?)

What causes cultural variation?

Several aspects of life shape the type of interactions and relationships people have. These include ecological context, institutions, societal pressures, socialisation processes, and psychological outcomes. One example is the relation between climate, affluence, and culture, as studied by Van de Vliert. In his studies, he had two assumptions:

• Deviance from ideal temperatures (22 degrees) requires more cultural adaptation

• Adaptation is also dependent on financial resources.

Through these assumptions, he defined three types of culture:

• Survival cultures (harsh climate/poor): unhappy, physical/economic security, extrinsic work motivation, discrimination, distrust

• Self-expression cultures (harsh climate/rich): happy, self actualization, quality of life, intrinsic work motivation, tolerance, trust

• Easygoing cultures (moderate climates/poor or rich): average position, traditional, religious

This is just another example of how culture can be categorised and defined. It is important to remember that in research, many other definitions and views are used.

Lecture 2: Theories on Social Perception

Social Perception

One of the most important things studied in social psychology is how people perceive others. We first form initial impressions of people’s external characteristics, called a person perception. Then, we seek explanations for their behaviour, otherwise known as the process of attribution. Additionally, we interpret their non-verbal behaviour, such as body language and emotions.

One thing that happens almost immediately and subconsciously is that we take note of first impressions people leave, often based on shortcuts, called schemas, and implicit theories on personality. These first impressions are based on central characteristics, such as warmness/coldness. In fact, one study by Asch (1846) showed that certain traits (more central traits) are more important than others when it comes to first impressions.

Additionally, we tend to have implicit theories on personalities, and we often characterise people based on these theories. Once we know one trait about a person, we often associate it with other traits and form a “package” of preconceptions about the person. For example, if you perceive someone as warm, you might also associate the traits of “extraverted” and “moral” with them.

After we form impressions of people, these impressions often guide the way we interact with them. A self-fulfilling prophecy is when an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfillment. For example, Rosenthal (1968) observed that if a teacher believed a student to be intelligent, that student performed better in class.

Heider's Attribution Theory

Heider and Simmel (1944) developed a set of ideas on how inferences about the causes of actions are made when observing or hearing about a person’s actions. In these instances, there is often an observer explaining an actor’s behaviour towards a human or non-human object (entity.) Self-attribution is when the observer and actor are the same people.

There are two types of attributions:

1. Internal attributions are when we make “the inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character or personality.” They are used for diagnostic purposes.
2. External attributions are when we make “the inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in” These attributions do not say much about the person being described.

Correspondent Inference Theory

This theory is based on the idea that people pay particular attention to intentional behaviour, as opposed to accidental or unthinking behaviour. It is assumed that we infer intentions from consequences, and that consequences correspond to intentions when the behaviour is out of free choice, with “non-common effects,” and unexpected. This theory is, however, criticised on several points; namely, that it assumes that all of our actions are intentional, and that we are always aware of the consequences of our actions. Unfortunately, neither of these are true in real-world situations.

Kelly's Covariation Theory (1967)

This is a more complete theory of attributions, based on the idea that we use 3 types of information to help us decide whether an event was caused by internal or external factors:

Consensus: The extent to which other people behave in the same way as the person under consideration. For example, it is not “normal” for men to wear skirts, so we might make negative attributions to a man who wears skirts.

Consistency: The extent to which this person has acted that way in the past. For example, if you have a male friend who regularly wear skirts, your attributions towards him may be less harsh than if you saw another man (whose habits in fashion choice you don't know) wearing a skirt.

Distinctiveness: The extent to which this person acts the same way under different circumstances or in response to other people or stimuli. For example, if your male skirt-wearing friend wears skirts both to school and to parties, you might associate skirt-wearing with him, rather than the situation.

Shortcomings in Attribution

We often make mistakes in assigning attributions to people:

Schemas: As discussed above, and will be discussed in Lecture 3, we often have preconceptions that guide our interpretation of behaviour outside of our awareness

Naïve scientist: We hold the belief that we are thinkers and often disregard our own motivations and biases. Each person has a different perspective, and not taking that into account often leads to misattribution.

Fundamental attribution error: Also known as correspondence bias, this bias refers to our tendency to attribute behaviour of others to their personality. We often overestimate the importance of the person and underestimate the role the situation plays in a person's behaviour.

Cross-cultural Issues

In examining attribution, it is also important to take cultural differences into account Western cultures often have an analytical thinking style, focusing on properties of objects without considering surrounding context, while East Asian cultures use a more holistic thinking style, focusing on overall context and ways in which objects relate to one another. Therefore, people from East Asia are less likely to fall prey to the fundamental attribution error because they pay more attention to the situation surrounding a behaviour.

Lecture 3: Research Methods and perception

Today's lecture will talk about the processes underlying our perceptions, as well as the research methods used in social psychology.

Research Methods

Research in social psychology is generally theory-driven.  A theory is an idea about a construct, as well as the expectations we have about the construct.  A theory helps us conduct research; we must first operationalise the construct being measured, run an experiment, and compare the results to the expectations you had.  There are several methods used in social psychology:

• Survey: variables are measured and a correlation between the variables is calculated

• Experiment: manipulation of an independent variable and measurement of a dependent variable. 

• Qualitative: study of texts and archives, or open interviews + coding. 

Types of Experiments

There are different types of experiments, each with their own advantages and disadvantages:

Randomised: Random allocation of participants to conditions. This kind of study allows the researcher to have complete control over stimuli.

Quasi-experimental:  Natural allocation of participants to conditions (eg: gender.) This kind of experiment usually takes place in a natural setting. In this way, it is possible to gain insights that might be missed in a laboratory setting, however the research then has less control and the groups are not randomly assigned. Traditional frequentist statistical methods must, therefore, be applied carefully.

Field experiment:  Random allocation to conditions in a natural setting. Since these experiments take place in a natural setting, they boast a high level of external validity; however, it is difficult to control for confounding factors in a non-laboratory setting

Criticism 

As with every field of science, experiments in social psychology are scrutinised on a few points:

Cultural embeddedness, which will be discussed in Lecture 11, refers to the extent to which results apply across cultures. If something is true in one culture, it might not necessarily be true in another culture, making the issue of applicability a topic of discussion.

Additionally, as society changes, the laws and principles in social psychology may also be subject to change, meaning that laws that were once applicable may not necessarily be applicable under current or future conditions.

Finally, values, motives, and behaviours of researchers influence the research process – we investigate topics because they strike us as odd or interesting, giving the entire field a biased view of what researchers find interesting.

Shortcuts of Social Cognition

Form the mid-1950's onward, the cognitive revolution (end of behaviourism) took place.  After 1970, social cognition became a hot topic within social psychology. 

Social cognition entails the mental processes that underlie human behaviour, or the processes that people go through when thinking about others.  We have a limited processing capacity to interpret social processes.  As such, scientists came up with a dual process model of social cognition.  Automatic thinking does not interfere with concurrent processes and does not require intention, effort, or awareness.  Controlled thinking is intentional and is under the individual's volitional control.  This sort of thinking takes effort, time, awareness, and focus. 

 There are several short cuts that our brains use in everyday interactions:

Social ategorisation acts very fast and makes knowledge that already exists very salient.  They influence what we think and feel, because as we gain new information, we group it together with information we already have. The process of social categorisation can be defined as the tendency to group objects (including people) into discrete groups based on shared characteristics common to them, and while useful, may result in negative consequences, such as stereotyping.

Schemas are another cognitive shortcut we use to organise categories of information. They describe organised patterns of thoughts and behaviours that help us in categorisation and determining the relationships among these categories. They help us understand what to expect of certain objects or groups, as well as what defines them. For example, you may have never seen a labrador retriever before, but you know that it's a dog because of your past experiences with other dogs.

Heuristics are decision rules that largely apply when we are not thinking systematically.  Examples of heuristics are “rules of thumb,” common sense, and making “educated guesses.” Another example is the availability heuristic, taking information that is most readily available and generalising it. For example, if your grandmother drove a motorcycle regularly and lived until the age of 94, you might conclude that motorcycles are not dangerous.

*Lecturer ran out of time – please see slides for further information on priming, automatic processes, and motivation.

Lecture 4: Self Concept

The self encompasses all characteristics of a person, including self-concept, self-esteem, and self-understanding. When talking about the concept of the self, there are two key things people usually address. One is personality, while the other is identity.

Personality refers to a single cognitive structure with a set content that develops as we age. Here, we're referring to enduring personal characteristics of individuals. Personality is partially genetically determined and is formed early in youth. It is of the person and can be generalised across multiple situations.

Identity, on the other hand, refers to multiple interactive and motivated parts of the self. These parts respond to situational cues and are easily changeable. Identity refers to who a person is, and is shared with others.

The Nature of the Self

When discussing the nature of the self, there are several key concepts that must first be defined:

Self-construals are a person's views, knowledge, and beliefs about him- or herself. They are the grounds of self-definition and the extent to which the self is defined. These construals are shaped through an active construal process that is influenced by the social environment and are motivated by how one would like to see oneself.

Self-concept is the cognitive representation of our self-knowledge. Self-concept refers to our sense that we are separate and distinct from others and our own awareness of the constancy of the self. It includes all the beliefs we have about ourselves and gives meaning to our experiences. Additionally, social interactions and relationships are given meaning by our self-concept.

How do we know who we are?

An important part of self-regulation and knowing yourself is self-observation. By examining our own behaviours, thoughts, and emotions, we learn about who we are, as people. A part of self-observation is introspection, as discussed in previous courses. According to self-perception theory, people determine their own preferences and attitudes by observing their behaviours and interpreting the meaning behind these behaviours.

Another way we find out who we are is through the help of others. Friends may directly point peculiar behaviours out to us, or think along as we process any self-observation. As children, we develop with the help of our parents and guardians, who influence, to an extent, who we become.

Lecture 5: The influence of attitudes on behaviour

What are attitudes?

When you're considering purchasing a car, there are several things you might consider, for example, the price, brand, condition, how people might perceive you because of the car, how you feel when you sit in the car, etc. All of these aspects determine whether you have a positive or negative attitude toward the car. An attitude, is thus a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with favour or disfavour. There are three components to attitude:

A – the affective component: how the object makes you feel

B – the behavioural component: how you might behave with regard to an attitude object

C – the cognitive component: the beliefs and thoughts we have, associated with an attitude object

There are two basic perspectives of how attitudes are usually structured: The one-dimensional view and the two-dimensional view.

1. In the one-dimensional view, the simpler one that we would like to perceive the world through, there is only a single axis of attitude: you are either for or against something.
2. The two-dimensional view, however, has two axes: a positive and a negative axis. This is because we often experience attitudinal ambivalence; that is, we both like and dislike an attitude object simultaneously.

Attitudes can be either explicit or implicit; but often times, they are the same. Explicit attitudes are easy to report, consciously accessible, and can be assessed by a self-report measure. It is, however, questionable, whether explicit attitudes reflect what people are actually thinking.

Implicit attitudes, on the other hand, are not easily reportable. We may not necessarily be aware of our implicit attitudes, and are thus, unable to communicate these attitudes when asked.

In 1998, Greenwald et al. developed an implicit association task to test this question. Implicit association tasks require that users rapidly categorize two target concepts with an attribute (e.g. the concepts 'male' and 'female' with the attribute 'logical'), such that easier pairings (faster responses) are interpreted as more strongly associated in memory than more difficult pairings (slower responses). This sheds light on implicit associations that may not be detected through self-report studies.

Why do we have attitudes?

Attitudes help us in decision-making and in forming shortcuts to use, for example, shopping, classifying people, etc. They are particularly useful when they are strong and highly accessible. Attitudes allow us to skip steps in mental processing; we do not always have to start from scratch when confronted with new information, and this saves a lot of time and energy.

Attitudes and Behaviour

When people form negative attitudes towards something, it often provokes change in behaviour. In line with that, companies, political parties, and the government, among many other organisations, invest in advertising campaigns that target peoples' attitudes. But how well do people's attitudes actually predict behaviour? LaPierre (1934) conducted a study by travelling through California with a Chinese couple, during a time that there was great prejudice against the Chinese. Before going to various hotels and restaurants, LaPierre called each venue ahead of time to ask whether they would serve a Chinese couple - many said they would not; however, in actuality, many of these restaurants and hotels ended up serving the couple anyway. Thus, there was a huge discrepancy between people's predicted and actual behaviour.

Later, further inconsistencies between attitude and behaviour were reported. The mean correlation between attitudes and behaviour was a mere 0.15 – did 20 years of research amount to nothing? Not exactly. The question we should ask ourselves is not whether attitudes are related to behaviour; but rather, when are attitudes good indicators of behaviours?

When do Attitudes Predict Behaviour? In deciding when attitudes may predict behaviour, past research has focused on these four factors:

1. Correspondence

2. Domains of Behaviour

3. Strength of Attitude

4. Person Variables

However, in addition to these four factors, the theory of planned behaviour must also be considered. According to Fishbein and Ajzen, behaviours are preceded by a specific intention to perform the behaviours. This intention comes form a belief that performing a specific action will lead to a specific result. Other factors that play a role in someone's intention and behaviour is the subjective norm, for example, the opinions of people you care about. Perceptions of control and self-efficacy also play a role; if you do not believe you can achieve something, the intention you have reflects that doubt.

Persuasion

Classical research in persuasion has focused on who says what to whom. For example, studies have investigated whether messages from experts differ from messages from non-experts; whether there's a difference in emotional vs. Rational messages, and various demographic factors of the audience.

According to McGuire's (1969, 1985) information processing model of persuasion, other factors must also be considered:

• Attention

• Comprehension

• Yielding

• Retention

• Behaviour

In truth, attitude change can be motivated. As discussed in previous courses, we seek to reduce cognitive dissonance, a state where our behaviours do not match our attitudes. Dissonance leads to changes in attitude when people invest a lot of energy into something. Additionally, attitudes change when people believe they have control over their own behaviour. Attitude change, in this case, becomes a choice, and supporting a person's sense of autonomy often leads to attitude change. Another important thing to consider is that attitudes tend to change when a behaviour cannot be ascribed to external factors. If a behaviour is associated with a person, rather than a situation, that person's attitude is more likely to change because s/he is the only person responsible for perpetuating that attitude.

Lecture 6: Pro Social Behaviour

Prosocial Behaviour

Prosocial behaviours are actions that have been defined by society as beneficial to other people. This includes behaviour motivated by professional demands and actions that are intended to help or improve the well-being of others.

One school of thought regards people as social egoists, as people who are really only capable of caring for themselves. We essentially view other people as instruments that help us achieve our goals – we care for the welfare of others to the extent that it has an impact on our own welfare. While we may think and act socially, there are clear indications that we are all out there to serve ourselves.

Altruism, on the other hand, is the unselfish concern for the welfare of others. It is the source of our motivation to help others in cases where we may not receive any benefit. Many believe that true altruism does not exist.

Empathy

So are we truly social creatures? Do we truly care about others, even when that does not reap any benefits for ourselves?

In short – yes, due to the fact that we express empathetic concern or sympathy for others. Empathy refers to the act of tuning into another person's thoughts and feelings. There are two main components to consider in empathy:

• Cognitive component: The cognitive component refers to the ability to understand where another's feelings are coming from and to look at a situation from their perspective. For example, if a child falls and scrapes his knee, you may try to put yourself in his shoes, thinking that, perhaps, it's extremely scary to see one's own blood and quite shocking to have hurt oneself

• Affective component: The affective component refers to having an appropriate emotional response to another person's emotional state. For example, responding with care and compassion, rather than laughter and ridicule to the child who scraped his knee.

The operational definition of empathy refers to being compassionate, sympathetic, soft-hearted, and tender.

While empathy may explain why we help others, there are several other theories that go against the concept of altruism:

• Aversive arousal reduction: When we see others suffer, we suffer too. In helping others we seek to relieve our own pain

• Punishment avoidance: We help because we fear other’s will judge us if we don’t (or we may judge ourselves). We seek to avoid feeling shame or guilt at not helping.

• Reward seeking: We help because we hope for social rewards or self rewards

In fact, studies have shown that egotistically motivated people will help anyone with anything after feeling aversive arousal from witnessing someone in need. This is in order to make them feel better, rather than helping out of altruism. In sum, prosocial behaviour can be altruistically motivated, but only if empathy is felt by the observer.

In-Groups and Out-Groups

Now that we have covered why we help others, it is important to focus on who we are helping. Group membership has been shown to be important in deciding who, and to what extent we are willing to help. People are more likely to help others who belong to the same because of a share in-group identity. We may also help in order to gain power with another group, create a favourable impression, or protect our group's social identity.

The Downsides of Helping

Helping, of course, comes at a price. Power relations are often strengthened or reinforced through helping behaviours. People who give help are perceived as more competent, having control over valuable resources, and superior, while the opposite is true for those being helped. This may influence the way we interact with others in helping situations, as well as feed into our attitudes about particular groups.

According to Nadler, help can be dependency-oriented or autonomy-oriented:

Dependency-oriented help is when the helper provides a full solution tot he problem at hand. This usually reinforces the status of the groups and reflects the helper's view that the needy cannot help themselves.

Autonomy-oriented help, on the other hand, is used as a tool for the less powerful group to improve its position. This kind of help includes hiring a consultant, or two groups working together to solve a problem.

Lecture 7: Social influence on behaviour

Social Influence

Social influence can be seen all around us. It can be defined as the process whereby people directly or indirectly affect each other’s thoughts, feelings and actions, and can induce the formation of social norms. Social norms reflect generally accepted way of thinking, feeling and acting, and we are often influenced by others, causing us to move towards being more alike the others that are influencing us.

Norm Development and Conformity

This has been illustrated through Asch's line judgement task and Sherif's study on the autokinetic effect, as described in the textbook. People conformed to the group norms in this task due to their own uncertainty and the ambiguity of the task. In such cases, we often depend on others and make social comparisons to see if we're “on the right track.” Additionally, in interviews following Asch's line experiment, participants reported the need to conform because agreeing felt more pleasant than disagreeing. Further respondents indicated that it is difficult to be in the minority, causing them to succumb to group pressure.

In fact, in a repeat of the autokinetic experiment, participants were asked first, to write down their individual answers, participate in a group discussion, and then re-evaluate their answers and write them down (individually). The results show that even in the second individual answer submission, participants' answers reflected answers closer to a group norm than to their original individual answers. This is just one example of how we are socially influenced.

In sum, conformity occurs for one of two reasons:

1. Informational Social Influence refers to situations where we agree with the group because we think the group is correct
2. Normative Social influence is when we agree with a group because we want the group to accept and approve of us.

Awareness of Norms

Do we need to be aware of a norm in order to conform to it? In short, no, we do not. As previously discussed, much of person-to-person communication is conducted through non-verbal behaviour. We, as humans, have a tendency to mimic this non-verbal behaviour and as such, do not necessarily need to be cognitively aware of norms in order to follow them. We often look to others for cues on how to behave, and their influence does not necessarily have to be verbal.

Obedience

One of the most famous experiments in obedience was a set of studies known as the Milgram Studies. Here, Milgram identified several situational determinants that affect obedience.

In the presence of an authority figure, participants were more likely to comply with administering electric shocks to another study participant. However, these participants were less likely to comply if the authority figure was not directly present in the room.

Additionally, distance from the”victim” also showed to play a role in whether or not the participants complied. In instances where participants had to administer electric shocks to other participants in the same room, they were less likely to continue with the experiment as the shocks became more intense.

A post-hoc analysis of the study's findings also found that disobedience was more likely in participants who objected to the experiment earlier in the experiment showing that once committed, participants are more likely to follow through with the entire experiment.

Minority Influences

Lecturer ran out of time; however, minority influences as covered in the book are testable material for the exam.

Lecture 8: Relationships

Interpersonal Relations

Humans are social beings – we require human interaction in order to stay healthy and sane. Studies that have investigated the effects of solitary confinement in high security prisons have found some interesting results:

In prisons where inmates are confined 23 hours per day with electronic surveillance, no contact with others, and no interaction, increased apathy, fear, depression, worry, and paranoia were found. Additionally, these inmates begin to lose a sense of self, engage in self-mutilation, and commit more acts of aggression.

In another study, patients recovering from a heart condition did better when they shared a room with another heart patient than without a room mate at all. Heart patients who had room mates that were not heart patients fare in between these two groups. This shows our fundamental need for human connection and relatedness.

Affiliation is the basic need to seek out and maintain interpersonal relationships. We are naturally inclined to avoid loneliness and social exclusion; so by seeking others out and maintaining relationships, we fulfil this need and avoid our basic human fears. It is an underlying need that we all have, a need to belong. Studies have found this to be true across genders, socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures. Another study found that the pain from being excluded shows up as an activation of the same regions of the brain that are associated with physical pain. Research has also found this to be true regarding groups that study participants did not view as meaningful.

Relationships with Others

Interpersonal relations are formed in 5 stages. The initial attraction consists of proximity, familiarity, and physical attractiveness, while relationships are formed in the later two stages, similarity and reciprocity. In short, one can say that interpersonal relations start at first impressions and evolve into friendship and love. The five stages of forming interpersonal relations will be explained below:

• Proximity: People generally have relationships with people they live close to, work together with, sit close to in a classroom with, and interact with on a frequent and regular basis. This factor is particularly important because it is simply easier to maintain a relationship if neither person needs to go through great efforts to have contract with the other. Think about long-distance relationships: while both parties in a long-distance relationship may love each other and be devoted to each other, the mere act of travelling in order to see each other or having to spend great amounts of time apart is stressful on the relationship.

• Familiarity and mere exposure: The better we know someone, the more attractive we find them. This is due to repeated exposure, and is not only true about people, but also about Chinese characters, cars, and abstract paintings. Our opinions of people, places, and things often change between forming a first impression and getting to know the person or object. Think, for example, of how strongly and widely criticised the Eiffel Tower was immediately after its construction versus how it is loved today. Habituation effects, that is, getting used to a new stimulus, takes time and often changes our opinions.

• Physical attractiveness: People have been found to be more attracted to symmetry and flawless skin. We go for people who look more average, because evolutionarily speaking, being average-looking signifies good health. Extremely beautiful faces, however, are not average. We often believe that beauty is correlated with goodness; however this stereotype may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, otherwise known as behavioural confirmation. Think, for example, of your interactions with people you consider outwardly beautiful. Studies have found that we are more likely to treat someone we find attractive with a higher level of niceness. Niceness often leads the recipient of our treatment to act nicely, leaving us with the impression that they, themselves, are nice.

• Similarity: On many levels, we are attracted to people whoa re similar to us, in experience, attitudes, personality traits, physical characteristics, and self concept descriptions. The saying that “opposites attract,” however, is true in some cases. It all depends on the perceived level of commitment each partner has for each other. As perceived commitment increases, the level of dissimilarity that is acceptable for a relationship to form also increases.

• Reciprocity: We enter relationships with people who give us what we need, and who get what they need from us. According to Social Exchange Theory, the choice of staying in a relationship is determined by the rewards-costs analysis, expectancy comparison levels, and comparison levels to alternative situations.

Investment Model of Commitment Processes

According to Rusbult, the probability of the persistence of a relationship is determined by one's commitment level, which is affected by three key factors:

• Satisfaction: How happy are you with your partner?

• Alternatives: Is the grass greener somewhere else?

• Investment: How long have you already been in a relationship together? Are you working towards mutual goals?

In the case of abusive relationships, one might ask what it is that makes people return to or stay in abusive relationships. According to this model, people in abusive relationships remain in or return to the relationship because they still have some positive feelings about their partner (satisfaction). Additionally, they often do not have many alternatives. People in abusive relationships are also more likely to come from a lower socioeconomic background and have lower levels of education, which prevent them from having viable alternatives to their relationship. Furthermore, without a social support network, they may not have even seriously considered the prospect of leaving. To top it off, they may already have investments with their abusive partner, including share property, children, and time invested into the relationship.

Lecture 9: What is the definition of a Group?

Group Processes

Today's lecture will answer the questions of what a group is, how groups develop, and the extent to which groups are more than the sum of its individuals. The definition of group is quite simple: a group exists when two or more people define themselves as a group. Groups often differ among several characteristics:

• Degree of interaction: Do group members interact closely? Do they share space? How often do the group members interact with each other?

• Similarity of members: This can be in personality traits, interests, hobbies, or other attributes. It can even be about preferences or life situations, such as a group for single parents.

• Shared goals, outcomes, and opinions: Groups may also be working together to achieve something or share the same view on social and/or political issues, among other things.

• Entitativity: This refers to how much the group is actually considered a group. According to Campbell (1958), this refers to the degree to which a collection of people is perceived as being bonded together in a coherent unit. Here, the aspect of feeling connected to the group is also important.

Groups can also be classified based on the types of connections and backgrounds of the people in them:

• Intimate groups: family and friends; people who provide a social support system for you

• Task groups: colleagues, classmates, and a jury; people who come together and form a group in order to complete a certain task. These people may not otherwise have been grouped together on their own volition

• Social categories: race, gender, nationality, and social class, among other social categories also define people and split them into groups. These people have a common experience or background and connect on those points.

• Loose associations: public cinema, people in your neighbourhood

We join and form groups because of our human need to belong (as discussed int he previous lecture.) Group membership also gives us a sense of identity; and furthermore, allows us to connect and validate ourselves with people who share similarities. Because of common backgrounds, experiences, opinions, interests, etc, groups provide us with a means of knowledge exchange, support, and understanding.

Socialising in Groups

Groups are a part of the overall picture of socialisation. Within a group, members learn how to best behave in the group setting, adapting to group norms and filling specific roles. There are certain methods used in order to make sure new members belong; for example, initiation and hazing within student groups. Proving yourself in order to join a gang, and ceremonies, such as baptism, in religious groups. These practices serve several purposes:

• Public display of newcomer: a newcomer is welcomed into the group and is openly shown in association with the group by taking part in these rituals.

• Demonstrating group norms: through these practices, new members come to learn how a group operates

• Power relations: In many groups, for example, newcomes begin at the bottom of the seniority chain. Through participating in these practices, new members learn quickly, who the “man in charge' is, and are able to gain insight on the power dynamics that exist within the group.

Initiation may also serve to reduce cognitive dissonance in its members. If a new member undergoes a terrible initiation and still stays a member of the group, he or she may be led to conclude that he/she is still a member of the group because they really like that group.

Group Development

So how do groups develop? Groups, like many other phenomena we've learned about, develop in stages:

• Forming: Group members get to know each other, accompanied by high levels of uncertainty

• Storming: Group members resist influence. This is a phase full of conflict and disagreement as members “test the waters” and see where each member stands.

• Norming: Group members find a common purpose and other points of connection. This phase is characterised by friendship and cohesion

• Performing: Group members work towards their common goal. Relations are very performance-oriented.

• Adjourning: Group member leave the group. This phase is sometimes with with grief or relief, along with feelings of accomplishment and/or failure.

Groups share certain characteristics:

• Social norms: Norms organise group behaviour and are essentially a group consensus of how members should act. They may reflect group goals, and are shared between all members of the group. For example, in the film, Mean Girls, one social group had the rule that they wear pink on Fridays. If a group member chooses to deviate from these norms, they are often derogated

• Social roles: These are shared expectations in a group about how peopel are supposed to behave. They serve to differentiate people within a group and often provide clear expectations regarding responsibilities and tasks. Think back to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, it was accepted that the guards were abusive, due to group expectations.

• Status: Status differs form roles because while roles tell you what you do within a group, status tells you how good you are in a group. Status is gained by making valuable contributions to the group and allow members to gain more influence with the group.

• Cohesion: Cohesion refers to the qualities of a group that bind members together. Good cohesion means that members are more likely to stay with the group, and groups often try to find like-minded individuals to join their group.

Working in Groups

Instinctively, you would associate many advantages with working in groups; and while some groups can exceed individual performance, often times, groups perform worse than the individuals in the group. In studying group performance, researchers have looked at several tasks:

• Additive tasks are tasks where the performance of the group is the sum of each members' contribution

• Disjunctive tasks are tasks where groups have to choose one of several proposals

• Conjunctive tasks are tasks where all group members need to be successful in order to complete the task

Group potential refers to the performance that would have occurred if the members had performed individually. Please consult table 13.1 in the textbook.

The Ringelmann Effect

In the past, it was commonly believed that people would perform better in groups than as individuals. However, Eric Ringelmann, a agrarian engineer found different results. In his experiments, he found that groups would not perform better under certain conditions:

• Coordination loss: the performance of a group diminishes if it fails to coordinate the contributions of its individual members in an optimal manner

• Motivation loss: this refers to a decrease in group members’ motivation to contribute to a group task

Motivation loss occurs due to several factors:

• Social loafing: Individuals int he group put in a reduced amount of effort if individual efforts are not recognisable

• Dispensability effect: If an individual perceives that his or her individual contribution does not affect group results, motivation is lost

• Sucker effect: If a group member thinks that everyone else int he group is putting in less effort, he or she will also put in less effort in an attempt to avoid exploitation

However, working in groups is not all bad. In some cases, groups provide an added boost to motivation:

• Social competition: when group members want to outperform each other. This is particularly evident in tasks where individual performance is recognisable and may allow a group member to gain status within the group.

• Social compensation: in some cases, stronger group members may increase their effort to compensate for weaker members.

• Köhler effect: weaker group members work harder than usual, in order to avoid being called out on “not pulling their weight”

Lecture 10: Relationships between groups

Intergroup Relations

Today's lecture will be talking about conflice between groups and how groups interact with each other. Across history, there are many examples of intergroup relations, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, the G20 Protests, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Intergroup behaviour refers to how different groups have issues or conflicts with each other. Intergroup behaviour also refers to positive experiences, such as collaborations between groups and multi-national government initiatives. Intergroup relations can be studied in various ways. All of the international conflicts mentioned about are examples of “Us vs. Them” scenarios; however intergroup relations can also be studied with regard to prejudice, racism, and other social issues within a country.

The field of Intergroup Relations was first studied in the context of the Second World War and colonialism. After these two instances in history, researchers became more and more interested in studying intergroup relations, particularly in studying situations such as racial segregation and prejudice in the United States. One way to look at prejudice is that everyone has prejudice and forms stereotypes – what we are interested in investigating is how they form, what kinds of effects they have on behaviour, and how they can be reduced.

Important Definitions

To begin, there are several definitions that need to be kept straight. They are quite easy to confuse, so it is important that the correct terms are used to describe the right things:

• Stereotypes are the characteristics we associate with a group. They fall under the realm of cognition, and are some of the heuristics we use. One example of a stereotype is that all Dutch people are cheap.

• Prejudices are evaluative in nature and refer to an affective (emotional) response a group elicits in us. One example is feeling disgust when you see a homosexual couple.

• Discrimination occurs on a behavioural level and refers to differential r\treatment based on one's group membership. For example, that black people had to sit in the back of the bus in the United States during times of slavery is a form of discrimination.

How are all of these concepts related? It turns out that stereotypes and prejudice are only slightly correlated to discrimination. Why is that? There is a key difference between implicit and explicit thoughts and behaviours. That is, knowledge of a stereotype and endorsement of that same stereotype might not be congruent; therefore stereotypes and prejudice does not necessarily predict discrimination. For instance, you may know of a stereotype, but based on your own perception and experiences, you may not necessarily apply it. So how is discrimination controlled? Social norms and laws in some countries prohibit discrimination. Initiatives such as Affirmative Action have attempted to reverse the effects of discrimination; however often times, the attitudes still remain with some of the people. Laws and social norms do not necessarily lead to cognitive and emotional change.

Why are we prejudiced?

One blatant example of discrimination in history is the Holocaust. Many of us might ask “Who could do such a thing?” However, what we fail to realise is that many actually have a preference for authoritarianism, often times, without explicitly knowing it. People who have an authoritarian personality often place great importance on authority and status – authorities should be respected, no matter what. They also have a sense of rigidity and dislike uncertainty. Therefore, an authoritarian leader would seem rather comforting to them, as these leaders often eliminate uncertainty (sometimes through brute force) and can offer a sense of stability. Furthermore, people with an authoritarian personality often have difficulties with intimacy, probably because intimacy involves a lot of flexibility and uncertainty. The concept of authoritarianism and implicit preference for authoritarian leaders can explain why Donald Trump is gaining so much power within the Republicans, despite his less-than-desireable characteristics. While personality explanations may provide some answers as to why prejudice occurs, there is a general lack of scientific evidence for this theory. As shown by Milgram (1963), perpetrators are often “norma;” people, and other studies have found that leaders do not have distinct personalities.

Another approach to studying prejudice is looking at the social context in which it takes place. For example, during the Ferguson shooting in the United States, there was also a great deal of racial tension, economic instability, and other pressures that must be included int he study of why the shooting occurred. Beginning with Sherif (1953, 1961), researcher begain taking social context into account when investigating prejudice.

In his early studies, Sherif split a group of summer camp children into two groups – the Rattlers and the Eagles. He then introduced competition by getting people (teams) to compete against each other in sports and other contexts. Here, he observed that competition caused other behaviours, such as flag-burning and throwing insults. In a later stage of the study, Sherif looked at what would reduce intergroup hostility – finding that group activities that involved both groups putting in a team effort reduced hostility. However, while hostility was lowered, these groups still had strong intergroup feelings. His Realistic Group Conflict Theory posits that when groups have common goals (positive interdependence), they will co-operate and co-exist in harmony, while the opposite is true when groups have conflicting goals (negative interdependence).

Another explanation for the origins of prejudice is the Social Identity Theory, which boils down to the idea that we seek positive distinctiveness. The only thing we need in order to induce prejudice is to categorise people. People, even when split into meaningless groups, have been found to favour groups of which they are members (in-group) and competition, while bias-enhancing, is not necessary to create prejudice. Why does categorisation matter? We often distinguish between a personal identity and a social identity. A social identity is a part of your self-concept, and says something about who we are. What's important, particularly when we are members of a low-status group, is whether of not the group is permeable, that is, whether or not we can transition in and out of the group. In these cases, people are mobile and will move groups appropriately. In cases where groups are impermeable, people must then consider group stability (will this group always stay the same?) and legitimacy (is the way I'm living legitimate?) If low-status group members are satisfied with the conditions of their group, they can invest their energy into social creativity. If low-status group members feel that their position is not legitimate, out-group conflict usually ensues.

Reducing Intergroup Conflict

Naturally, one of the most interesting things to study is how intergroup conflict can be reduced.

One method by which conflict between groups can be reduced is Intergroup contact. Contact between different groups often improves intergroup relations; however this contact must have four necessary features:

• Acquaintence potential:

• Equal status within contact situation

• Co-operation towards a common goal

• Supportive context: authorities, laws, norms

One example of where this works is in the army. In the army, people of many races and religions fight for a common goal and share equal status within the organisation. By working together, racial prejudice within soldiers often improves through this kind of teamwork.

Another way to reduce conflict is modifying categorisation.

Decategorisation refers to removing the group identity from a group completely. Individuals are seen only through their personal identities and connect on a personal level. The problems with this is that many people may not necessarily want to decategorise, and that positive contact does not change intergroup attitudes.

Recategorisation involves replacing original categorisations with a single, higher-order categorisation, so that everyone is a member of the new higher-order group. This may, however, cause resistance, as minority groups tend to lose power.

Dual categorisation involves taking on two identities and making them salient. For example, one may be a woman (which may be a group that is discriminated against) but also a doctor (a profession of high status), and as such, is seen as members of both groups.  

Lecture 11: Culture and Social Psychology

Culture

One important aspect to consider in psychological research is the impact of culture on the things we study. To begin, we must first define culture:

Culture refers to different aspects of our environment and behaviour. It can be defined as “a social system that is characterised by the shared meanings that are attributed to people and events by its members,” or in short, the extent to which we have common experiences with other people.

Culture is important because it changes a person's perspective, way of thinking, and often times, responses to psychological tests.

Cross-cultural psychology was first studied using a systematic approach to cross-cultural psychology, and included a factor analysis at the national level. A factor was anything that correlated strongly and differentiated countries from each other. In these studies, the mean of whatever was being studied was calculated per country and correlations between factors were found. Some notable studies included those of Hofstede, who measured things like power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. Some drawbacks to studying cross-cultural study in this manner include assuming that culture belongs to a nation. People of different countries may share the same or similar cultures; thus, studies must look beyond the geographical confines of national borders. Furthermore, culture is to be seen asa relational concept; different segments of the population express different cultural values because they experience different things. Therefore, measuring culture by country-based averages does not necessarily provide an accurate view of what's really going on.

Culture has also been studied in how it relates to peoples' behaviour and attitudes. People from different cultures often have differences in cognitive styles. One example is in collectivist societies, who think ore holistically. They tend to view the overall picture, draw connections between various parts, and think quite differently than more individualistic societies.

Culture also has an influence on one's self-concept. Depending on the culture one grew up in, he or she may have a more independent or interdependent self concept. The independent self is one where self-concept is determined by the differences with regard to others, while the interdependent self is a self concept that is determined by the relationships and commonalities with others. It is important to note that this does not have to be black or white: people usually form a self-concept based on a combination of the two; but some cultures may emphasise one more than the other.

Some studies have also shown further differences between collectivist and non-collectivist societies. Collectivistic societies often show more group conformity and less social loafing than individualistic societies. They also tend to display more respect for elders and a greater sense of social hierarchy. Thus, these societies find more satisfaction with an authoritarian leader.

Individualistic societies, such as in Western Europe and North America, have different perspectives and preferences. They tend to value autonomy and independence, therefore finding more satisfaction with a democratic leader.

People who come from two different cultures tend to adapt according to the situations they face. One example is a change of the spoken language. Someone who was raised in a French-English family may switch language (and by extension, modes of thinking and behavioural norms) depending on who they are talking to, and where they are.

Culture and Emotions

Paul Ekman proposed that there exists a set of universal emotions: emotions for which all cultures have a word. In his studies, he found that the facial expressions corresponding to these emotions were recognisable in all cultures and that they emerge in children at about the same time, cross-culturally. The 6 emotions that are considered universal are:

• Happiness

• Fear

• Disgust

• Surprise

• Sadness

• Anger

Studies asking participants to describe the emotion, given a face, have been conducted in many countries and provide strong support for the theory of universal emotions.

In some cases, however, more complicated emotions are difficult to recognise. One example is pride. From facial expressions alone, it is difficult to tell that someone is expressing pride; however, if posture is also taken into account, people generally are able to tell what emotion is being expressed. Therefore, emotion-recognition studies may have to go beyond faces alone, looking at posture and body language as well.

Other studies have looked at the expression of pride, whether or not people from different cultures express pride in the same situations. These studies looked at peoples' responses to winning or losing at an important sports event. What was expected was that winning would cause peopel to express pride, while losing would make people express shame. This study looked at both people with normal vision and people who are congenitally blind. This is interesting because the blind participants had never seen anyone express pride or shame, and thus, they would express only the emotions. What they found was that everybody expresses pride when they win. Pride is, thus, universally recognised and expressed.

However, as far as shame (from a loss) is concerned, the results are different. Individualistic seeing individuals expressed less shame from a loss than individualistic blind, collectivistic seeing and collectivistic blind people. Thus, shame is not universally expressed.

This finding may be explained by Cultural Display Rules. These are rules that dictate social appropriateness. They are learned early in life and are automatic or unconscious practices. Sighted people from individualistic cultures may not want to appear weak or shameful, given that their cultures focus on more individual outcomes.

Source

Lecture notes from the course in 2015/2016.