SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Social psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others. The text focuses on six broad
topics in social psychology: person perception, attribution processes, interpersonal
attraction, attitudes, conformity and obedience, and behavior in groups.
Perceptions of others can be influenced by a variety of factors, including physical
appearance. People tend to attribute desirable characteristics such as sociable, friendly,
poised, warm, competent, and well adjusted to those who are good looking. For example,
research on physical variables in person perception indicate that facial features that are
similar to infant features influence perceptions of honesty (baby-faced people being
viewed as more honest).
Stereotyping is a normal cognitive process involving widely held social schemas that
lead people to expect that others will have certain characteristics because of their
membership in a specific group.
Prejudice is a negative attitude toward a person because of group membership, while
discrimination is the action of behaving differently towards members of a group.
There are three potential components of prejudice: a cognitive component, an affective
component, and a behavioral component.
In this example, prejudice towards women is shown as a breakdown of its components;
the cognitive component consists of the belief that women should not be leaders, the
affective component consists of an angry reaction to a woman doing a mans job, and a
discriminatory readiness to not hire a woman is an example of the behavioral component.
An ingroup is the group that one associates and identifies with, while an outgroup is the
opposite - a group one does not identify with. Ingroup favoritism and outgroup
derogation are reactions that, according to the social identity perspective, occur because
ones social identity or pride in belonging to a group is being threatened.
Attributions = inferences about causes of events and behaviors
Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits,
abilities, and feelings, such as believing your friend turned down your invitation due to
being bad with money.
External attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and
environmental constraints, such as believing your friends house went into foreclosure
due to the economic climate.

The fundamental attribution error is an observers bias in favor of internal attributions

in explaining others behavior. In general, we are likely to attribute our own behavior to
situational causes and others behavior to dispositional causes.
The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute ones success to personal factors and
ones failure to situational factors.
The matching hypothesis proposes that males and females of approximately equal
physical attractiveness are likely to select each other as partners. Couples tend to be
similar in age, race, religion, social class, personality, education, intelligence, physical
attractiveness, and attitudes.
Reciprocity involves liking those who show that they like you. When a partner helps
one feel good about oneself, a phenomenon called self-enhancement occurs. Studies
suggest that people seek feedback that matches and supports their self-concepts, as well,
a process known as self-verification.
Explicit attitudes are attitudes that we hold consciously and can readily describe. For the
most part, these overt attitudes are what social psychologists have always studied until
fairly recently.
Implicit attitudes are covert attitudes that are expressed in subtle automatic responses
that people have little conscious control over.
How are implicit attitudes measured? A number of techniques have been developed, but
the most widely used is the Implicit Association Test (IAT). This computer-administered
test measures how quickly people associate carefully chosen pairs of concepts.
The process of persuasion includes four basic elements: source, receiver, message, and
channel.
The source is the person who sends a communication. The receiver is the person to
whom the message is sent. The message is the information transmitted by the source. The
channel is the medium through which the message is sent.
Leon Festingers Dissonance theory assumes that inconsistency among attitudes fosters
attitude change.
The elaboration likelihood model asserts that there are two basic routes to persuasion
- the central route is taken when persuasion is based on the content and logic of a
message, and the peripheral route is taken when persuasion is based on non-message
factors, such as the attractiveness and credibility of the source.
Conformity involves yielding to social pressure.
The bystander effect is the phenomenon that people are less likely to provide needed
help when they are in groups than when they are alone.

A group consists of two or more individuals who interact and are interdependent.
Group polarization occurs when group discussion strengthens a groups dominant point
of view and produces a shift toward a more extreme decision in that direction. In this
example, the group starts out somewhat opposed to an idea, and has a stronger sentiment
against it after discussion.
Groupthink occurs when members of a cohesive group emphasize concurrence at the
expense of critical thinking in arriving at a decision. Research indicates that cohesiveness
(strength of the liking relationships linking group members) is a significant contributor to
groupthink.