The Big Picture: Chapter Overview

Social psychology is the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people. The areas of study in social psychology may be classified into social thinking, social influence, intergroup relations, social interaction, and relationships.

Social thinking or social cognition involves how we encode, store, retrieve and use information about other people. How we think about social stimuli (e.g., a friend) is different in some ways to how we think about other stimuli (e.g., a chair). Three areas that distinguish social thinking are attributions, social perception, and attitudes. People are motivated to make sense of their world and attribution theorists suggest that as part of that effort we continuously explain why people do the things they do. Attributions vary along three dimensions: internal versus external, stable versus unstable, and controllable versus uncontrollable. Weiner argues that the types of attributions we make impact our emotions and motivations. For example, if a bad thing happens and we make an internal, stable and/or uncontrollable attribution, that is likely to have a negative impact on our self-esteem. Making attributions is not a completely rational process, as we are subject to a variety of cognitive biases such as the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the importance of traits and to underestimate the importance of the situation in explaining another's behavior. The self-serving bias involves attributing our success to internal factors and attributing our failures to external factors.

Social perception involves the process of perceiving others, perceiving ourselves, and presenting ourselves to others. When we meet another person for the first time we tend to be influenced by the primacy effect, which in social psychology refers to the tendency for first impressions to have a long-lasting effect. We also have an implicit personality theory, which is our conception of how personality traits go together in an individual. This implicit theory leads us to make assumptions and arrive at conclusions about other people based on a few pieces of information. Another social perception phenomenon is the classification of people into groups as a way of simplifying social information. One of the ways in which we perceive ourselves, or think about ourselves, is by comparing ourselves to others in a process called social comparison. One of the interesting tendencies in social comparison is that we are more likely to compare ourselves with people who are similar to us than to people that are different from us, possibly because it is more informative to do so. Another area of social perception is impression management or self-presentation, which is the process of individuals striving to present themselves as a certain sort of person. Effective impression management involves using the right nonverbal cues, conforming to situational norms, showing appreciation for others, and matching the behaviors of others. Some people are more concerned about the impressions they give to others; these individuals are high in self-monitoring.

The last topic on social thinking discussed in the chapter is attitudes. Attitudes are beliefs and opinions about a people, objects, and ideas. Attitudes can predict how a person will act when the attitudes are strong, when the person is aware of his or her attitudes, and when attitudes are relevant to the behavior. Behaviors can also influence attitudes, as suggested in the theory of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance refers to a person's motivation to reduce the dissonance or discomfort caused by two inconsistent thoughts or inconsistent thoughts and behaviors. For example, if a person smokes and has a negative attitude about smoking (e.g., smoking is bad for the health), the person is likely to experience dissonance, an uncomfortable experience resulting from the inconsistent thought and behavior. In such a situation, the behavior could prompt a change in the attitude. Since the behavior is harder to change, the person is more likely to modify the attitude. We also have a strong need to justify our actions, particularly if we put effort into what we do and our self-esteem is involved. This process is called effort justification. Another approach to the issue of the effect of behavior on attitudes is the self-perception theory of Daryl Bem. Bem suggests that people look at their own actions to figure out what their attitudes are. To change attitudes, we must consider the four main elements of the communication process: characteristics of the communicator, characteristics of the message, the medium of the message, and the characteristics of the audience. Communicators who are credible, powerful, attractive, likeable, and similar to the audience tend to be persuasive. Messages that include emotional appeals can be persuasive, especially if the audience is not well informed. The elaboration likelihood model proposes that there are two ways to persuade: the central route (using data and relevant information) and the peripheral route (using superficial cues such as the attractiveness of the communicator). The central route is persuasive if the audience is informed, interested, and motivated to pay attention to the facts, while the peripheral route is persuasive if the audience is paying close attention to the message. The order in which arguments are presented in a message also influences the extent to which it may be persuasive. For example, the foot-in-the-door strategy involves asking for a small request followed by a large request. The door-in-the-face strategy also works and it involves asking for an extreme request first followed by a large but in comparison lesser request. Regarding the communication medium, it has been found that television exposure enhances persuasion. Finally, two characteristics of the audience that play a role in persuasion are age and strength of attitude.

Conformity, obedience, group influence, and cultural and ethnic influences are all instances of social influence. Conformity is a change in an individual's behavior to coincide more with a group standard. Solomon Asch found that the pressure to conform is strong even when individuals conform to something that they objectively know is wrong. Among the factors that contribute to conformity are normative social influence (social influence because we seek approval) and informational social influence (social influence because we want to be right). Conformity increases if there is unanimity in the group, if there is no prior commitment to an attitude inconsistent with the group's position, if the person has low self-esteem, if the group members are perceived as experts and attractive, and if the culture is collectivistic. Obedience is behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority. Milgram's experiments demonstrated the power of obedience. In the famous shock study, Milgram found that close to two-thirds of the participants delivered the highest level of shock. The research procedure used by Milgram has raised questions about the ethics of psychological research. Social influence in groups involves structure, performance, interaction and decision making, and leadership. Two aspects of group structure are norms (rules specific to the group) and roles (define how different people in the group should behave). Performance in a group is different to performance in isolation, as shown by the research on social facilitation, social loafing, and deindividuation. When making decisions in groups, a risky shift tends to emerge, such that the decisions of the group tend to be riskier than the average decision made by individual group members. This is consistent with group polarization, which occurs when the group members are already biased in a direction. Group polarization involves the further strengthening of the position the members share. Groupthink is the impaired decision making that takes place in groups that overestimate their power, think of themselves as morally superior, are close-minded, and are pressured toward uniformity. Various strategies may be used to avoid groupthink, including involving people outside the group in the decision-making process and having impartial leadership. In groups, the minority can still have influence through informational pressure. Two theories that attempt to explain effective leadership are the great-person theory (certain personality traits are associated with effective leadership) and the contingency model of leadership (personality and situational factors will determine who is an effective leader).

Conflicts among ethnic and cultural groups are common around the world. Social psychology studies these conflicts by researching group identity, prejudice, and ways to improve interethnic relations. Social identity is how we define ourselves in terms of our group memberships. According to Tajfel's social identity theory, we are motivated to feel good about ourselves and feel good about the groups that we belong to. Tajfel found that we engage in in-group/out-group thinking even when people are divided into groups based on meaningless criteria, such as overestimating the number of dots on a screen. As soon as participants were assigned to a group, they engaged in favoring the members of the in-group. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to favor one's own group over other groups. While ethnocentrism can foster a sense of pride in the in-group, it can also encourage the in-group/out-group thinking. Studying prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination helps in understanding why groups become so antagonized. Prejudice is an unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual's membership in a group. Adorno argued that people with the authoritarian personality are more likely to be prejudiced. Prejudice may also be caused by competition between groups. Based on social identity theory, it can also be argued that people engage in prejudice to enhance their self-esteem. Our social cognitive processes also contribute to prejudice, as we have a tendency to categorize people into groups to simplify social information. Social learning may also contribute to prejudice as we learn our beliefs from family, friends, and social structures. The cognitive root of prejudice is the stereotype, a generalization about a group's characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to the next. We tend to perceive the out-group as more homogeneous than the in-group. Once stereotypes are acquired, they influence our social cognition such that we are less likely to modify them. Emotions can influence the intensity of our stereotypes. Discrimination is an unjustifiable negative or harmful act toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group. While in America overt discrimination is not acceptable, a number of subtle forms of discrimination have emerged. Two approaches have been effective in improving intergroup and interethnic relations: task-oriented cooperation and intimate contact. Sherif found that task-oriented cooperation is effective in bringing groups of people together to cooperate in reaching some goal. A strategy devised by psychologists to encourage cooperation instead of conflict between groups is called the jigsaw classroom. An example of intimate contact is living in integrated housing, which can diminish in-group/out-group distinctions.

Two extremes of social interaction are aggression and altruism. Aggression has been extensively explained in terms of biological influences including evolutionary views, instinctual explanations, genetic basis, and neurobiological factors. Among the neurobiological factors, stimulation of the limbic system has been associated with aggression and levels of serotonin have been found to be low in aggressors. The frustration-aggression hypothesis states that frustration leads to aggression; the hypothesis was later revised to show that other responses to frustration do occur. Aversive circumstances can lead to aggression, and may include environmental variables (e.g., noise, weather). The cognitive factors of expectations, equity, intentions, and responsibility influence whether we respond aggressively. Aggression can also be learned through observational learning and reinforcement; consistent with the learning hypothesis is the observation that different cultures have different levels of aggression. A number of studies have demonstrated the negative effects of children viewing violence and aggression on television. In terms of gender, males tend to be more aggressive than females; however, both biological and cultural factors influence the male-female differences in aggression. According to psychodynamic and ethological theories, catharsis is an effective way to reduce aggression, but social cognitive theorists argue that acting aggressively only fosters more aggression. Teaching conflict management skills and serving as peer counselors are some of the aggression reduction strategies used in schools.

Altruism refers to an unselfish interest in helping someone else. The evolutionary psychologists view some forms of altruism as being important in perpetuating our genes. Some psychologists have suggested that altruism has never been demonstrated among humans. Others suggest an important distinction between altruism and egoism. In social psychology, the bystander effect occurs when individuals who observe an emergency are less likely to help or are delayed in helping when others are present than when they are alone. While in the past several decades college students showed a decreased concern for the well-being of others, in recent years there seems to be a shift toward more interest in altruism. In terms of gender differences, females and males are both likely to show altruism; however, the context will also influence who will help, as females are more likely to help when the context involves nurturing but men are more likely to help if the situation seems dangerous.

Psychologists have studied the factors that are involved in our attractions to each other. Familiarity, similarity, and physical attraction have been implicated in interpersonal attractions. Love can take the form of romantic love, affectionate love, or consummate love. Sternberg's triangular theory of love proposes the following three elements: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Studies on gender differences show that females tend to have stronger interest in relationships than males. Males tend to prefer report talk, while females prefer rapport talk. Loneliness is more likely during life's transitions; this is why college students are especially prone to loneliness. The increased use of television and internet technology also contribute to isolation and loneliness.