Mrs. Perl
AP Psychology
Unit 14: Social Psychology:Introduction
Social Psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.
Questions to consider:
A. Social Thinking: How do we form our beliefs and attitudes? How does what we think affect what we do?
1. Attribution Process-How and why do we make inferences about the causes of behavior?
a. Attribution Theory
b. Fundamental Attribution Error
c. Effects of attribution
2. Attitudes-How are attitudes formed? How are they changed? How do they impact people’s behavior?
a. Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
b. Action-Attitude spiral: Attitudes follow actions
i. Low ball technique-Get someone to agree to something at a "low price" and then change it for some reason and people most likely will still agree.
ii. Brainwashing-Captors write letters against the US government and over time their attitudes about hte government change
c. Impact of role-playing on attitude:
Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/2)
d. Cognitive Dissonance:Leon Festinger
Suppose you had volunteered to participate in a psychology
experiment on campus. Upon arrival, you were seated
at a table and asked to undertake a series of dull,
meaningless tasks for about an hour. Afterward, the
experimenter convinced you to extol the virtues of the
tasks you had performed by describing them to other
potential participants as highly worthwhile, interesting,
and educational. You were paid either $1 or $20 to do
this. Suppose you were then asked to privately rate your
enjoyment of the tasks on a questionnaire. After which
amount do you believe your actual enjoyment rating of
the tasks would be higher—$1 or $20?
http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html#sthash.oSc25w86.dpbs
B. Social Influence: How do we influence each other? How are we affected by pressures to conform and obey? How are we influenced by group interaction?
1. Conformity and obedience-What factors influence conformity? Can people be coaxed into doing things that contradict their values?
a. Chameleon Effect
b. Solomon Asch
c. Reasons for conformity
a. One is made to feel incompetent or insecure
b. Group has at least three people
c. Group is unanimous
d. One admires the group’s status
e. One has made no prior commitment
f. Others in group observe one’s behavior
g. One’s culture strongly encourages respect for social standards
d. Normative Social Influence
e. Informational Social Influence
f. Obedience-Stanley Milgram
http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html#sthash.xTxsj9w1.dpbs
2. Behavior in groups-Do people act differently when they are in groups than when they are alone?
Look at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-social-facilitation.htm to try to come up with a definition and an example for each of these phenomenon
a. Social Facilitation
b. Social Loafing
c. Deindividuation
d. Group Polarization
e. Groupthink
f. Social Control vs. Personal Control
C. Social Relations and Behaviors: How do we relate to one another? How does this impact our behavior towards others?
Fill in the attached chart and then jigsaw with a person from another group (I will assign you to a jigsaw) to complete the activity.
1. Person Perception-To what degree do our expectations and stereotypes color our impressions of people?
a. Prejudice
b. Stereotypes
c. Social roots of prejudice
a. Social inequalities
b. Ingroup and outgroup and Ingroup bias
c. Scapegoat theory
d. Cognitive Roots
a. Categorization
b. Vivid Cases
c. Just-world phenomenon
2. Aggression: What are the roots of aggressive behavior?
a. Biology of aggression
b. Genetic influences
c. Biochemical influences
d. Psychology of aggression
a. Frustration-aggression principle
3. Conflict: What causes conflict?
a. Social Traps
b. Mirror-Image perceptions
c. Approach-Approach, Approach-Avoidance
http://online.sfsu.edu/psych200/unit10/101.htm Read through this section to get a better sense for what is being described in this scenario.
4. Interpersonal Attraction-What causes attraction between people? How does that relate to forming social groups?
a. Proximity
b. Mere exposure effect
c. Physical attractiveness
d. Similarity
e. Romantic love
a. Passionate love
b. Companionate love
c.
f. Equity
g. Self-disclosure
h. Altruism
i. Bystander Intervention and the bystander effect
j. Social-exchange theory
k. Peacemaking