What does the science of social psychology entail? – Chapter 1

In this summary, the focus will be on the social side of life. Social psychology is a branch of psychology that examines all aspects of our social existence.

What is social psychology?

Social psychology is the branch of psychology that seeks to understand the nature and causes of behaviour and explains the thoughts of individuals in social situations in a scientific way.

Social psychology is scientific by nature

Social psychology applies scientific values and methods to research. Social behaviour and thoughts cannot effectively be explained with common sense or intuition, these factors are influenced by prejudice. Science refers to a range of values and multiple methods that can be used to research a wide range of topics. Four of the most important core values are:

• Accuracy: a commitment to the collection and evaluation of information about the world (including social behaviour and thinking) in a way that is as accurate, carefully, and error-free as possible.

• Objectivity: a commitment to the ac acquisition and evaluation of such information in a way that is free of bias and as humane as possible.

• Skepticism: a commitment to accept findings as accurate only if they have been repeatedly verified.

• Open-mindedness: a commitment to even change your vision, even when strongly adhered to, when existing evidence suggests this vision to be inaccurate.

These values are important because humans are not perfect information processing machines. For example, a common mistake or illusion is the planning fallacy: the strong tendency to believe that plans will take less time than they actually do.

Social psychology focuses on the behaviour of individuals

In social psychology, we mainly look at the behaviour of individuals and how this behaviour is influenced by various factors. For example, it is important to look at individual behaviour and to what extend it is influenced by a group, by culture and by emotions and mood. More and more attention is being paid to how factors such as culture and ethnicity influence the formation of an individual’s behaviour.

Social psychology seeks to understand the causes of social behaviour

As previously indicated, social psychologists are interested in the causes that influence the social behaviour and thinking of an individual in response to a social environment. The following characteristics play a role: actions and characteristics of other people; cognitive processes (such as memories and interpretations); environmental variables (i.e. the weather, a certain odor); the cultural context and its associated norms and values’ and finally biological and genetic factors. Biological factors are particularly emphasized by psychologists who focus on evolutionary psychology, a branch of psychology that states that species are subject to biological evolution. Interesting here, is the distinction between the effects that evolution has on men and women.

The search for basic principles in a changing social world

A core goal of science is to develop basic principles that are accurate regardless of where or when they are tested or applied. Social psychologist to do not develop mathematical formulas, instead they look for the basic principles that guide social life. Although they acknowledge that cultures are very different and that the social world is constantly changing, they are looking for basic principles that apply over time and across different cultures.

What are the characteristics of modern social psychology?

Social psychology is constantly evolving and changing. A number of developments that have arisen over time are described below.

Cognition and behaviour: two sides of the same social coin

Nowadays, social psychologists are convinced that social behaviour cannot be viewed separately from social thoughts (cognition). Behaviour (how people behave in social situations) and thoughts (how people think about themselves and others) constantly influence each other in a complex way.

The role of emotion in the social side of life

Social psychologists are always interested in emotions and states of mind because they are known to play an important role in several aspects of social life. For example, research has demonstrated that positive moods increase our tendency to help others.

The importance of social relationships for well-being

The influence of relationships on our social life is great, hence the great interest of social psychologists in understanding the social nature of relationships. Relationships are our social ties with other people, they can range from superficial acquaintances to intense long-term relationships such as marriage, or lifelong friendships.

Social neuroscience: the intersection of social psychology and brain research

Modern social psychology is eclectic in nature today and that is reflected in its use of very different research methods. This is how social psychologists in recent years have become more interested in neurosciences as a way to explain social behaviour and thoughts. In social neuroscience, neural and biological causes for social processes are researched and investigated. For example, neuroscientists study brain events, other neural activities and even changes in the immune system to determine how they relate to important social processes. MRI and other brain scans are used for this studies.

The role of implicit (nonconscious) processes

Another important new theme of modern social psychology is research in the role of implicit (unconscious) processes on social behaviour and thinking. Often behaviours and thoughts are influenced by factors of which the person is not aware. An important comment here is that research into implicit processes finds itself on the border of social psychology.

Taking full account of social diversity

Today, people researching social psychology are convinced of the fact that cultural and ethnic factors have a major influence on social behaviour and thoughts. This multicultural perspective has led to important changes in the focus of social psychological research. Cultures, including different social classes within cultures, can both enable and encourage people to experience the social world differently and increased recognition of this is a hallmark of modern social psychology – i.e. recognizing these differences is very important.

Which research methods are used in social psychology?

Social psychologists try to get answers to questions about behaviour and thinking by using different research methods.

Systematic observation: describing the world around us

An important research method for studying social behaviour is systematic observation, where behaviour is systematically observed and recorded. In naturalistic observation behaviour is investigated in the environment where it would occur naturally (i.e. no interference/manipulation) another method is to give out questionnaires to a large number of people, asking about their attitude and behaviour (survey method). The people interviewed must be a good representation of the larger population group to which they belong, the population group that the researcher is investigating and ultimately wants to be able to conclude/infer results about.

Correlation: the search for relationships

In the correlational method, two or more variables are systematically observed in order to determine whether a change in one variable will result in a change in the other variable. It is therefore investigated whether the variables are related to each other. The method of research in which correlations are investigated is useful when it comes to being able to make accurate predictions. However, the existence of correlations between variables does not automatically imply that a causal link is also present. This is a shortcoming of this method of investigation. This method also fails to provide an explanation. Therefore, many researchers prefer other forms of research such as the experimental method, where researchers also hope to provide explanations for certain relationships.

The experimental method: knowledge through systematic intervention

In the experimental method knowledge is acquired through systematic intervention. In this method one or more factors (the independent variables) become systematic to determine whether changes in those factors have an effect on certain aspects of behaviour (dependent variable). The independent variable is the variable that is manipulated throughout the experiment. The dependent variable is the variable that is measured in the experiment. In social psychology, the presence or power of a variable, which is suspected to be on social behaviour or thinking, has been systematically changed. Next, the effects of these changes (if there are any) are carefully measured. An important condition for obtaining valid data is that the participants must be randomly allocated to the experimental conditions (they must all have the same chance of ending up in a certain condition). Another important condition for successful research results is keeping all other variables constant (everything except for the independent variables), as they may be confounding variables influencing your dependent variable without your knowledge. The external validity is also a point of attention in the experimental method. Because research takes place in an unnatural setting (research area like a lab), it begs the question whether the findings can be generalized to situations in real life and whether they can be generalized also to people who did not participate in the study. Furthermore, the experimental method can sometimes not be used for practical or ethical reasons.

Further thoughts on causality: the role of mediating variables

A mediating variable is an indirect variable, it is influenced by an independent variable and in turn also affects the dependent variable. Mediating variables help explain why or how specific variables influence social behaviour or thoughts in a certain way.

Meta-analysis: assessing a body of knowledge

It is important that research can be repeated and replicated. Only when research results are confirmed across multiple replications and studies (by different researchers in different research situations) can one really trust those results. Meta-analyses combining research data from independent investigations, to determine whether specific variables (or interactions between variables) have significant effects throughout all studies.

What is the role of theory in social psychology?

In social psychology people don’t just want certain things described, they are looking for explanations just like in other sciences. To be able to give explanations, theories are posed. Theories are statements outlining possible explanations for certain events or processes. Theories play an important role in social psychology. the procedure for setting up a theory is as follows: first of all, a theory is proposed based on already existing evidence. This theory helps to organize existing data and makes predictions about observable events. These predictions that are made are called hypotheses, this is the subject of investigation. If results show evidence supporting the hypothesis, confidence in the theory grows. Eventually the theory is accepted or rejected. Finding evidence for a theory never means research can be completely conclude it. It is always open to further investigation and can be always be built upon or more or less substantiated. To conclude, research never seeks to prove a theory, but to find evidence relevant to a theory.

How is balance found between the search for knowledge and the rights for individuals?

Social psychologists are often reluctant to tell the real reason for research to participants, as this could influence the behaviour of the participants (resulting in biased results). This is called deception. Deception raises ethical questions. Two procedures must be followed to reduce the dangers of deception:

1. First of all, the procedure of informed consent. This implies that participants receive as much information as possible about the research before the decide to participate or not. They can make an informed decision about whether to give their consent of participation.
2. Secondly, debriefing is of great importance. This means that the purpose of the research is made clear afterwards and that any deceptions or withheld information is revealed.

What do we think about the social world? – Chapter 2

Social cognition is an important field of research in social psychology. Social cognition is an umbrella term for the way in which we interpret, analyze, and store information from the social world and how we use it. We try to do this in the most efficient way possible as our cognitive abilities are limited. The most important aspects of social cognition are discussed in this chapter.

How do we use simple rules in social cognition?

Heuristics are simple rules of thumb that we use to solve problems fast, make efficient decisions, provide answers to questions or draw conclusions. Information overloads are cases where our ability to process information is exceeded. Heuristic rules are used to prevent this from happening. Due to our limited capacity to process all information we can be flooded by too much of it. However, these heuristic rules are not always reliable or accurate. These rules are mainly used in ‘conditions of uncertainty’, when it is difficult to know the correct answer or it takes a lot of effort to determine the correct answer.

Representativeness: Judging by resemblance

Different rules can be distinguished. The prototype is a list of attributes commonly possessed by members of a certain category. The representativeness heuristics is the belief that the more someone exhibits similar characteristics that are typical of members of a certain group, the greater the chance that the person also belongs to that group.

Availability: “If I can recall many instances, they must be frequent?”

The availability heuristics depend on the memory. It’s a strategy for making assessments based on the ease specific information comes to mind. Memories that come to mind quickly and with relative ease are seen as important and have an influence on social assessments and decisions. However, they aren’t always correct. An example is overestimating the chance of a certain dramatic event due to the fact that the memory of such an event comes up quite quickly. Research suggests that the amount of information that we can recall also determines whether or not we use a heuristic. The more information we can think of, the greater the impact on our judgement. This is especially the case when it comes to an assessment concerning facts or an inherently difficult task. When it comes to an assessment about emotions or feelings, there is talk of strategy on the basis of convenience instead of on the basis of quantity.

Anchoring and adjustment: where you begin makes a difference

anchoring and adjustment is a heuristic that refers to the tendency to use a certain value or number as a starting point (anchor), and make adjustments afterwards depending on that value. Anchoring and adjusting is not only applied to money or numbers. There may be situations in which our behaviour can be subtly affected by an anchor (e.g. in making donations, portion size effect – tendency to eat more when a larger portion of food is received)

Status quo heuristic: “What is good, is good”

Objects and options that are more easily retrieved from the memory may be judged in a heuristic fashion as ‘good’. They are often judged to be better than ones that are new or rarely encountered or represent a change from the status quo. Edielman, Pattershall and Crandall (2010) conducted a study in which they addressed the question whether people heuristically favour ‘old’ over ‘new’ or the opposite. Participants were asked to taste a piece of chocolate. One group was told that the chocolate was first sold in their region in 1937, the other group was told 2003. The participants were then asked to rate how much they enjoyed the taste of chocolate, whether they were impressed by it and whether they would purchase it. Afterwards they were asked about their reasons for their assessment. Participants rated the chocolate from 1937 overall as tastier than the chocolate from 2003. The participants were not aware that how ‘old’ the chocolate was had influenced their evaluation, in their reasons for assessment most of them rated brand age as the least important factor to influence their evaluation. This is in contrast to reality as people do seem to heuristically use the length of time a product or practice has existed as a cue to its quality. Although judgements of all products are unlikely to be biased in favour of age and occasionally novelty may win, tradition and longevity often seem to imply heuristically that the ‘tried and true’ is better than the new.

How are schemas used in social cognition?

In social psychology, cognitive structures known as schemas are mental frameworks that have been developed on a specific theme. They are based on previous experiences and help organize large amounts of social information. Once formed, they are often persistent. They have a major effect on social thinking.

The impact of schemas on social cognition: attention, coding, and retrieval

Research shows that schemas influence three basic processes of social cognition: attention, encoding, and retrieval.

• Attention refers to the information we notice. Schemas work as a filter here: information consistent with them is more likely to be noticed and enter our consciousness. We tend to rely on schemas when experiencing cognitive load, when we are trying to handle a lot of information at one time.

• Encoding refers to the process of storing information in memory. Data that match the schema are encoded. Information that becomes the focus of our attention is much more likely to be stored in longterm memory. Information that is inconsistent with our schemas (or expectations for a given situation) may be encoded in a separate memory location and marked with a unique ‘tag’.

• Retrieval refers to the process by which information is retrieved from the memory. We cannot simply say that information that is consistent with our schemas are better recalled than inconsistent information. It is a complex question that has been investigated in many different studies. Research has generally found that it depends on the memory measure employed whether we remember inconsistent or consistent information better. Generally, people report information consistent with their schemas, but inconsistent information may be strongly present in memory as well.

Priming: which schema guides our thought?

Priming is the quicker recognition of or reaction to a certain stimulus if one has previously observed it. It is the temporary increase in the accessibility of specific schemas. Unpriming is the process in which thoughts are actions primed by a recent experience dissipate once they find expression. Unpriming effects have been clearly demonstrated in a study by Sparrow and Wegner (2006). The participants were given a series of easy yes-no-questions. One group was asked to answer the questions randomly, not correctly. The other group was asked the questions twice, the first time they had to answer questions correctly, the second time they had to try and give random answers. It appeared, as predicted, that the first group was unable to randomly answer the questions, their schemas for ‘correct answers’ were activated, making them reply with the correct answer. The second group that had to answer twice was better at giving random answers. Their first answer activates their ‘correct answers’ schema, enabling them to be in a state to answer randomly the second time. These findings therefore suggesting that unpriming occurs and the influenced of primed schemas disappear when schemas are expressed in one way or another. If primed schemas are not expressed however, their effects may persist for long periods of time.

Schema persistence: why even discredited schemas can influence thought and behaviour

Schemas help make sense out of a vast array of social information. But a disadvantage is that they are resistant to change. They show a strong perseverance effect, remaining unchanged even in the face of contradictory information. Schemas can sometimes be self-fulfilling, they influence our responses to the social world in ways that make our expectations come true, consistent with the schemas.

Reasoning by metaphor: how social attitudes and behaviour are affected by figures of speech

A metaphor is a linguistic device that relates or compares a typically abstract concept to another unrelated concept by suggesting a similarity between them. Because metaphors can activate different kinds of social knowledge, they can influence how we interpret events. They facilitate the understanding of what is being communicated. Research suggests that the use of metaphors has consequences for social assessment and behaviour. Research by Landau, Sullivan, and Greenberg (2009), where participants had to read primed metaphors, showed how we talk (metaphorically, the pictures we paint with our words) can affect how we interpret and respond to the social world.

What is the role of automatic and controlled processes in social cognition?

in a sense, heuristics represent aspects of a general trend, namely that of automatic data processing. Controlled processing is the processing of information in a systematic, logical and highly effortful manner. Automatic processing refers to the process where social information is processed in a fast, relatively effortless and intuitive manner. This is achieved after extensive experience with an assignment or with certain information so that performance of the assignment or processing of the information is then ‘thoughtless’. Certain schemas, such as stereotypes, can be automatically and unconciously, whether the person wants it or not. From a neuro-scientific perspective it has been shown that different regions of the brain are involved in these two information processing systems.

Automatic processing and automatic social behaviour

Once a concept is activated, it can exert important effects on social thought and behaviour. Often people behave in ways that are consistent with their schemas, even if they do not intend to do so. The effects of automatic processes go even further than that. There are also effects on the future behaviour of people.

Benefits of automatic processing: beyond mere efficiency

One type of automatic processing familiar to most people occurs when we try to remember something, but we aren’t able to. When that happens, we often turn to doing something else while the search for the information we want goes on automatically, without our conscious awareness. What is surprising is that recent evidence indicates that sometimes automatic processing may be superior to careful, conscious thought in terms of making excellent decisions.

What are possible sources for errors in social cognition?

Although we think we are very rational and able to think logically, our social cognition often falls short. We make mistakes in our attempt to understand the social world because we are subject to a wide range of tendencies that, together, can lead us into error. While these aspects of social thoughts do sometimes result in errors, they can also be adaptive. These tendencies often reduce the effort required for navigating the social world.

Our powerful tendency to be overly optimistic

Optimistic bias: a powerful predisposition to overlook risks and expect things to turn out well (seeing the world through ‘rose-colored glasses’). Similarly, we often have greater confidence in our beliefs or judgements than is justified, this is known as the overconfidence bias. For example, people tend to view the past as heavy and difficult and the future as hopeful. This can affect our work. The planning fallacy is our tendency to believe that we can get more done in a given period of time than we actually can, or that a given job will take less time than it really will. Various factors may play a role in this type of bias, a big one being our motivation to complete a task – we tend to predict what is desired. In addition, we focus on planning for the future and how they will perform the task, preventing them from looking back in time and remembering how long similar tasks took them in the past.

Situation-specific sources of errors in social cognition: counterfactual thinking and magical thinking

Counterfactual thinking occurs in a wide range of situations and are thoughts about ‘what might have been’. Other options are being considered rather than the actual outcome in a given situation. These thoughts affect our feelings and judgments about other people or events. We feel better when we consider that it could have ended worse. Or we get strong regrets when we think about our missed opportunities or we feel more sympathy for a victim of a situation. Thinking in contrast to the facts seems to happen automatically and can be suppressed with difficulty. Magical thinking is the tendency to make assumptions that we know can’t be true, they don’t hold up to rational scrutiny but feel compelling nonetheless. Terror management is the effort to come to terms with the certainty of death and its unsettling implications. Research has shown that one kind of thinking that helps with terror management is the belief that supernatural powers outside our understanding and control can influence our lives. Research indicates that when we are reminded of our own mortality, beliefs in the supernatural are strengthened.

What is the relation between affect and cognition?

There is a complex interplay between our feelings/affect and our cognition (the way we process, store, and remember social information). Our feelings influence our thinking and vice versa.

The influence of affect on cognition

Our current mood can have a major impact on our perception of the world around us. We think much more positively about new stimuli (people or objects) when we are in a good mood. This effect can have major implications. In job interviews for example. It has been proven that even experienced interviewers cannot prevent themselves from being influenced by their mood. Feelings can also affect memory. Mood-dependent memory reflects what specific information is retrieved from memory, when experiencing a particular current mood, people are more likely to remember information they acquired in the past while in a similar mood. Mood congruence effects refers to the fact that current moods strongly determine which information in a given situation is noticed and then entered into memory – your current mood serves as a kind of filter, primarily permitting information that is consistent with your moods to be stored in long-term memory. Affect can also influence our creativity, with a good mood increasing our creativity. Research also shows that emotionally charged information is processed differently and that it has a major influence on our opinion and decisions, even if we try to prevent this by ignoring the information or suppress it.

The influence of cognition on affect

Often you’re not immediately aware of the feelings and attitudes you have. By means of cognition you can give meaning to the unclear feelings on the basis of the external world – two-factor theory of emotion. Affective forecasts are predictions of how we would feel about an event we have not experienced (they are often inaccurate). Learning certain thought processes to give a place to our affective feelings and give meaning to them is very important, in this way our thoughts and feelings can be regulated.

Affect and cognition: social neuroscience evidence for two separate systems

Existing evidence suggests that feelings and cognition go together and influence each other. There are also investigations based on neuroscientific techniques, showing evidence that there really are two separate systems, located at various places in the brain.

Social cognition is an important field of research in social psychology. Social cognition is an umbrella term for the way in which we interpret, analyze, and store information from the social world and how we use it. We try to do this in the most efficient way possible as our cognitive abilities are limited. The most important aspects of social cognition are discussed in this chapter.

What are important research findings about social perception? - Chapter 3

Social perception is the process in which we seek to know other people. This process involves understanding the ways we gather and analyze information about people. We often make many mistakes because we cannot read others’ thoughts and have to rely only on appearance and open behaviour.

What is meant by nonverbal conversation?

To find out more about a person’s real feelings or thoughts, it is wise not to only rely on what is being said but to also pay attention to the non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication is information conveyed by cues other than the content of spoken language, as well as our efforts to interpret it, this includes facial expressions, eye contact and body language.

Basic channels of nonverbal communication

How do differences in inner states like emotions, feelings, and moods show up in our behaviour? This question relates to the basic channels through which nonverbal communication takes place. There are five basic channels: facial expressions, eye contact, body movements, posture, and touching.

• Facial expressions: six basic emotions are clearly visible to be read on the human face. They are anger, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, and horror. However, recent research shows that surprise may not be as clearly represented in facial expressions as previously thought. Having these six basic emotions does not implie that man has only six facial expressions. Emotions are expressed in many different combinations and strengths. Yet they provide a lot of information about the emotional state of the person. People interpret facial expressions partly on the basis of context. The environment therefore also gives cues about which explanation one should give to a facial expression.

• Eye contact: the eyes give many clues to the feelings of another. From avoiding eye contact one can conclude that one is unfriendly, they don’t like us or they are simply shy. Having a lot of eye contact may convey the opposite, a sign of friendliness. However too much eye contact ( staring) can be interpreted negatively like anger or hostility. Most people find this nonverbal cue (cold stare) disturbing.

• Body language and posture: body language, or position, posture, and movement of the body provides us with important information about the person. Also large patterns of movement that are associated with the whole body can provide information about others. Take a threatening attitude or receiving someone with open arms as an example of this. More specific information about someone’s feelings is obtained by small gestures.

• Touching: if touching is appropriate, it is often explained positively. In most cultures it’s accepted to touch strangers by shaking hands. The handshake gives information about the other. A firm handshake often leaves a positive first impression. How you react to another person’s touch or what it tells you about them depends on factors such as the nature of your relationship to that person, how and where you are touched and the context for example. Depending on the combination of these factors touch can suggest friendliness, affection, sexual interest, dominance, caring or aggression. Generally, research shows that when touching is appropriate it can elicit positive reactions, however if viewed inappropriately, the person doing the touching is viewed negatively.

Non-verbal cues in social life

Paralanguage is a type of nonverbal communication involving vocal effects other than speech, such as tone (an attitude or feeling conveyed through sound) and pitch (highness or lowness of sound). When we interact with others, they often express emotions through the quality or specific sound of their voices that is independent of the worlds they’re using. It is often said that there is a ‘look of love’ where people show external signs of affection nonverbally. Research shows that when people are in love there are indeed non-verbal cues present that people in a ‘non-love’ status don't show.

The facial feedback hypothesis

It is said that facial expressions can actually trigger emotions. We don’t just show what we feel on our faces, we sometimes feel inside what we show. Female participants were asked to think of a positive or negative event while either enhancing or suppressing two groups of facial muscles (the one that is active when we smile or view happy scenes, and the other that is active when we frown or view unhappy scenes). When asked to use the facial muscles used when we smile, they reported more joy. If they had to use the facial muscles for frowning, they reported less joy. However, it’s also possible that participants’ emotional experience was influenced by the instructions they were given. Another study tried to avoid this problem. They compared the facial expressions and emotional reactions of two groups of people who received different types of anti-wrinkle drug injections and they had to rate how they felt after viewing certain video clips. The group that received Botox injections (drug paralyzing muscles involved in facial expression) reported weaker emotional reactions to both positive and negative video clips compared to the group receiving Restylane (drug that simply fills in wrinkles without paralyzing facial muscles). This supports the facial feedback hypothesis.

Recognizing deception

We are more prone to deception than we’d probably like to admit. Deceptive communication (lying) happens more often that you’d think. This may be to avoid hurting other’s feelings or to get ourselves out of ‘trouble’ with somebody. It may also be due to our lack of attention to non-verbal cues that we are exposed to deception. Various non-verbal information is useful for uncovering deceptive communication. Micro-expressions, for example, are fleeting facial expressions that last even less than a second. These reactions appear on a face after an emotion provoking event and are difficult to suppress. Useful for discovering deception are also possible discrepancies between the non-verbal cues of the basic channels (interchannel discrepancies) among themselves. These are caused by the fact that a person is not able to keep all channels under control (when they lie). Eye contact also often betrays deception through blinking fast, prolonged eye contact, or little eye contact. Finally, exaggerated facial expressions can be an indication of cheating such as smiling more or showing more grief than appropriate. Certain aspects of speech may also demonstrate deception, particularly speaking style, when people lie, their voice often goes up. In addition, people respond less quickly to a question or find it more difficult to describe something when they’re lying. People use different words than normal when constructing a lie, the story may be less related to the person themselves (fewer words like ‘me’ or ‘we’ in the story), story contains fewer word that make the story more complex or specific. Effects of deception on social relationships are largely negative. Recent findings show that people have an aversion/distrust towards a liar and cheater. The more a stranger will lie, the more distrustful the recipient will be.

What is the role of attribution in social perception?

Knowledge about the state of mind of a person is useful. The traits of a person and the intentions behind their behaviour are also important to know when it comes to social cognition. Attribution refers to the process through which we seek information and draw inferences. This process concerns our efforts to understand the causes behind others’ behaviours as well as causes behind our own behaviour.

Theories of attribution: how we attempt to make sense of the social world

Because the attribution process is complex, many theories have been proposed to explain its operation, when, why and how we do so. The theories discussed here are the theory of correspondent inference and the covariation theory.

• Theory of correspondent inference: asks how we use information about other’s behaviour as a basis for inferring their traits. Because a lot of behaviour is caused by external factors, identifying traits based on behaviour is not easy. To solve this problem, we first focus on behaviour that is (1) freely chosen and not forced by circumstances. We also focus on (2) noncommon effects. Conditions that can be caused by one specific factors and not by others. Finally, we pay more attention to (3) less socially desirable actions.

• Covariation theory: according to Kelley’s theory, we pay attention to three types of information.

  1. Consensus: the extent to which other people react to a given stimulus or event in the same manner as the person we are evaluating. The higher the proportion of people who react the same way, the higher the consensus.
  2. Consistency: the extent to which the person in question reacts to the stimulus or event in the same way on other occasions, over time.
  3. Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person reacts in the same manner to other, different stimuli or events.

According to Kelley, we are most likely to attribute another’s behaviour to internal causes under conditions in which consensus and distinctiveness are low, but consistency is high. Conversely attribution will be to external causes when consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high. In addition to investigating internal and external causes, there are two other points of interest. Firstly, people want to know whether causal factors influencing behaviour are stable or likely to change, and secondly whether or not these factors are controllable (can individuals change or influence them). Thinking about these factors strongly influences our conclusions regarding important matters such as whether we are personally responsible for some of our actions.

Basic sources of error in attribution

Our efforts to understand other people and ourselves are subject to several types of biases. Attribution errors can lead us to false conclusions about why others acted as they did and also influence our predictions of how they will act in the future.

• Correspondence bias: the tendency to explain others’ actions as stemming from (corresponding to) their dispositions, even in presence of clear situational causes. Correspondence bias has been observed so frequently that social psychologists refer to it as the fundamental attribution error. We tend to perceive others as acting as they do because they are ‘that kind of person’ rather than because of the many external factors that may influence their behaviour. This error tends to occur more often in individualistic cultures. This attribution error is specific to behaviour of others and not that of ourselves.

• Actorobserver effect: the tendency to attribute our own behaviour to situational (external) causes, but the behaviour of others to dispositional (internal) causes.

• Selfserving bias: the tendency to attribute our own positive outcomes to internal causes but negative outcomes to external factors. Cultural differences are also present in this type of bias; this tendency is more common in Western Societies than in Eastern/Asian cultures.

Applications of attribution theory: interventions and insights

Attributions and making mistakes are often applied to practical problems. Depressed people often tend to attribute negative outcomes to internal characteristics and positive outcomes to external ones. This attribution pattern is the opposite of the self-serving bias. Therapy to break this pattern appears to be very effective. In addition, attribution theory helps to understand why terrorists find their own actions justified and why powerful nations find it justified to engage in military interventions.

What is the role of impression in social perception?

Most people believe that a first impression is the most important because it will last the longest. We will explore how these impressions develop and what we do to maintain favourable impressions.

Impression formation

Impression formation is the process by which we develop our views of others, it is an important aspect of social perception. According to research by Asch, impression formation shows that the impression of others is more than just a sum of their traits. Thin slices are small amounts of information about others that we use to first form impressions of this. Impressions based on this can be somewhat accurate. However, this accuracy is not closely related to the confidence in the impression. When our confidence in our impression is low, so is our accuracy. When our confidence rises, so does our accuracy, up to a certain point. You can trust your first impression to a certain degree, but you must do this with a warning.

Impression management

The desire to make a favourable impression on others is a strong one, so most of us do our best to ‘look good’ to others when we meet them for the first time. Social psychologists use the term impression management or self-presentation to describe these efforts to make a good impression on others. It’s been found that people who apply impression management greatly benefit from it. People use different techniques to improve their image. Most techniques can be subdivided into two categories: self-enhancement (efforts to increase our appeal to others) and other-enhancement (efforts to make the target person feel good in various ways). Self-enhancement has to do with looking good, dressing well, being positive etc. whereas other-enhancement has more to do with flattering, showing interest in another, asking for advice etc. These techniques can be effective if not overdone.

Social perception is the process through which we seek to know other people. This process involves understanding the ways we gather and analyze information about people. We often make many mistakes because we cannot read others’ thoughts and have to rely only on appearance and open behaviour.

What influences the Self, and how is the Self influenced? - Chapter 4

'The self', or the personal identity is something that has been researched a lot. How we think about ourselves not only influences our choices and behaviour but also how we see others.

How is the self manifested in different social contexts?

Each of us must present ourselve in different situations and for different audiences. In addition, we can take on roles in different contexts. We need to make a choice on how we want to present ourselves. Nowadays, these choices are most evident on social networking sites like Facebook. How can we control what others do? What they learn about us and what conclusions others draw?

Self-other accuracy in predicting our behaviour

We all have access to our own feelings, thoughts, aspirations and intentions. Other’s don’t have this. That is why it seems logical that we know ourselves best. However, investigation of Chamber, Epley, Savitsky and Windschitl (2008) states that observers sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. Knowing our own intentions sometimes doesn’t make us accurate about ourselves. For example, think about the person in your life who is always late. You can’t trust that they will be on time if you meet them. But does the person feel the same way? Probably not. The person knows his own intentions. The intention and effort to arrive on time is certainly there and so that person doesn’t consider themselve unreliable. Other research has shown that people who strongly believe that they know themselves better than others believe that they know others better than others know themselves. Investigating who’s right, ourselves or others close to us, is difficult. Self-reports about your own behaviour are rarely objective. Research by Vazire and Mehl (2008) among others solves this problem by collecting both self-perception and behavioural frequencies from the same person. Participants had to carry audio recording equipment with them for four days. Every 12.5 minutes it recorded the environmental sounds of the participants. Later these sounds coded in accordance to certain behavioural categories. Furthermore, the participants had to judge themselves by the same categories. For each participant, three others close to the participants also had to judge the behaviour of the participant on those categories. Sometimes it was indeed the case that the self-assessment coincided strongly to the actual behaviour. However, sometimes the assessment of others was more related to the actual behaviour. So sometimes others actually know us better than we know ourselves and can predict our behaviour better.

Self-presentation tactics

Self-promotion is the effort of people to try and ensure that others form impressions of them based on their more favourable self-aspects. In general, we want others to agree with our self-image. Even when it’s harmful. We present ourselves in a way that matches our self-image. Self-verification perspective is a theory based on the processes we use to lead others to agree with our own self views. Research on this perspective suggests that negotiation occurs in attempts to get others to agree with our self-claims. Ingratiation is a tactic to convince others that we like them through praise or flattery, this tactic can backfire if over exaggerated as it can convey insincerity or excessiveness but it isusually effective. Self-deprecating is to imply that we are not as good as the other person by communicating admiration or by simply lowering an audience’s expectations of our abilities. This can achieve the same effect as ingratiation.

How is self-knowledge gathered?

This section looks at ways in which people gains elf-knowledge. The first way is directly analyzing ourselves, the second way is to think of how other people see us.

Introspection: looking inward to discover the causes of our own behaviour

Introspection is privately thinking about the factors that made us who we are. People often assume that it’s a useful way to learn about the self. Substantial social psychological research, however, has shown that we don’t always have conscious access to the reason for our actions. This can often lead to false conclusions. Another way introspection can be misleading is when predicting the future. Making a statement about the future can often be inaccurate as we are often not yet in that situation at the time of introspection. It’s difficult to empathize emotionally and take into account all aspects of a future situation.

The self from the observer’s standpoint

Given that there is deception involved in acquiring knowledge, the perspective of another is important. Others differ in the focus of their attention and know less about our intentions, so they may have better insight into our future behaviour. However, introspection isn’t necessarily always misleading. It depends on what we introspect about. When the behaviour in question is actually based on a conscious decision-making process and is not based on unconscious emotional factors, thinking about those reasons might well lead to accurate self-judgments. But if we fail to take into account factors that really do influence how we feel, introspection is unlikely to lead to accurate self-inferences.

What is the relationship between personal and social identity?

According to social identity theory we can perceive ourselves differently at any given moment in time, depending where we are on the personal-versus-social identity continuum. On one side we have personal identity, where we primarily describe ourselves as individuals. On the other side, social identity, we see ourselves as members of social groups. We cannot experience all aspects of our identity at the same item. Where we place ourselves on this continuum at any given moment will influence how we think about ourselves. This momentary salience – the part of our identity that is the focus of our attention – can affect much in terms of how we perceive ourselves, and respond to others. When our personal identity is salient and we think of ourselves as unique individuals, this results in self-descriptions emphasizing how we differ from others. Personal identity self-description can be thought of as an intragroup comparison – involving comparisons with other individuals who share our group membership. When our social identity is salient we perceive ourselves as members of a group, emphasizing what we share with other group members. These are intergroup comparisons, involving contrasts between groups.

Who I think I am depends on the social context

The context, the situation in which we find ourselves, also influences our identity and which aspect comes up. There are multiple aspects present in our self-complexity. Failure on a domain will have less effect on how we think about ourselves. When two aspects of ourselves come up that conflict with each other, identity mixing, then feelings of stress are often experienced. The self-concepts (self-construal – how we characterize ourselves) of people can depend on cultural context. In western culture, individualism is considered important and we like to see ourselves as independent. In, for example, Asian cultures, socialism is more emphasized and a more dependent self-concept is likely to develop.

Who I am depends on others’ treatment

How we see ourselves also depends on how we are treated. If we expect that others will reject certain aspects of ourselves then we can do a number of things. We can try to change that aspect or we can change that aspect in the presence of those others. We can also emphasize the aspect (e.g. self-concept of a rebel) against those who reject us for it. Not all aspects of ourselves can be changed, like race or gender.

The self across time: past and future selves

Images of the possible self in the future can inspire us to make difficult changes in the present to reach the idealized self. Role models can inspire us to initiate those changes. Studies have revealed that by strategically comparing our present selves with our past selves, we can feel good about ourselves by perceiving improvement over time.

Why self-control can be difficult to achieve

Self-control can be obtained by not engaging in actions that you enjoy but engaging to keep up with actions that will help you achieve long-term goals (though they may not be necessarily fun). Self-control is not an infinite source. Research on chronic diets showed that self-monitoring is more than just difficult in the first place but after doing so successfully it can impair our ability to do so again. To the extent that self-control is a finite resource, ego depletion (the diminished capacity to exert subsequent selfcontrol after previously doing so) might be expected in many domains requiring self-regulation.

How do we evaluate ourselves?

According to social comparison theory suggests that we compare ourselves to others because for many domains and attributes, there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against; other people are therefore highly informative. How we feel and think about ourselves depends on the standard we compare ourselves to.

• Downward social comparison: where your own performance is compared with someone who is less capable than yourself, tend to make us feel good.

• Upward social comparisons: where your own comparison is compared with someone who is more capable than yourself, tend to be threatening to our selfimage.

We can also make comparisons at the personal and social level. How we feel with personal comparison depends on the social category in which we place ourselves and to which social group the person with whom we compare belongs. There are two theories relevant to this:

• The selfevaluation maintenance model: applies when we categorize the self at the personal level, and we compare ourselves as an individual to another individual. Suggests we want to distance ourselves from a person who performs better than us, and approach someone underperforming. B doing this, we feel better and our selfimage is not affected.

• Social identity theory: applies when we categorize ourselves at the group level, and the comparison other is categorized as sharing the same category as ourselves. Here we want to approach a wellperforming person as someone who is underperforming will damage the group reputation – black sheep effect – person will be rejected to protect the group identity.

Self-serving biases and unrealistic optimism

Most people want to feel positively about themselves, and there are a number of strategies that can be used to ensure we see ourselves favourably much of the time. Many of show the above average effect. We think we are better than the average person on almost every dimension imaginable.

How is self-esteem affected?

Self-esteem has, for the most part, been conceptualized by social psychologists as the overall attitude people hold toward themselves. Self-esteem can be influenced by specific situations. Our self-esteem increases when we have achieved a certain goal or decrease if we do not achieve this goal. Self-esteem can be temporarily increased by for example wearing nice clothes or by thinking of something nice.

The measurement of self-esteem

Self-esteem can be measured explicitly and implicitly. The self-rating scale of Rosenberg s a commonly used explicit method for measuring self-esteem. From the implicit methods, the Implicit Association Test is the most important. The results of these tests, should, however, be seen in light of a specific situation or context.

How migration affects self-esteem

In the first instance, migrant people have lower self-esteem and less capacity for themselves to adapt to the environment. However, this changes over time, using the following two factors:

• Selfefficacy: this is the belief that you can get things done by yourself.

• Social support: this support can come from those at home as well as positive interactions with peers at the new location.

When you move to a country where your ethnic group is the minority, this has a great effect on self-esteem. If the goal is to relocate permanently, it can take a while before self-esteem comes back into balance.

Do women and men differ in their level of self-esteem?

The degree of self-esteem depends on the roles men and women play in society. Women who are expected to act as housemothers/wives and not work, are likely to have a more negative self-concept. This perhaps has more to do with a less valued role of a group rather than gender itself in regards to self-esteem.

How can the self be a target of prejudice?

Although the experience of not getting what you want is generally negative, how you explain such undesirable outcomes has important implications for how people feel about themselves, and by extension, how people cope. We now consider the consequences of concealing or not concealing one’s identity for a person’s self-esteem and in turn the behavioural consequences of perceiving the self as a target of prejudice.

Concealing our identity: how well-being can suffer

For some identities that we might possess, negative treatment is widely and routinely experienced. For example, gay men and lesbian women often face violence because of their sexual orientation and those with disabilities may experience public shaming. To prevent conviction, people with these identities may try to hide it. This can have negative effects on well-being because it is accompanied by a lower self-esteem and less self-confidence.

Overcoming the effects of stereotype threat

Stereotype threat is a particular kind of social identity threat, that occurs when people believe they might be judged in light of a negative stereotype about their social identity or that they may inadvertently act in some way to confirm a negative stereotype of their group. The effects of stereotype threat are difficult to control and can easily evoke certain consequences. The effects mainly occur on dimensions relevant to the stereotype. If people experience stereotype threats, they can distance themselves from the task domain on which they are performing or they can distance themselves from the group as a whole. These two options can have an emotional adverse effect in the long term.

A lot of research has been done into ‘the self’, the personal identity. How we think about ourselves not only influences our choices and behaviour but also how we see others.

What is the role of attitudes in social psychology? - Chapter 5

In social psychology, the term attitude is used to refer to people’s evaluation of almost any aspect of the world. Attitudes can be positive or negative but also a mix of both. Ambivalent attitudes are easier to influence than more pronounced positive or negative attitudes. Strongly pronounced attitudes are better predictors of behaviour.

• Explicit attitudes: conscious and reportable.

• Implicit attitudes: less controllable and potentially not consciously accessible to us.

In social psychology, the study of attitudes plays a central role because attitudes influence our thoughts and behaviour. This chapter provides an overview of current knowledge about attitudes.

How are attitudes formed?

Almost all psychologists believe that attitudes are developed through social learning in situations where we interact with others or observe others’ behaviour.

Classical conditioning: learning based on association

Classical conditioning is an important process in shaping attitudes. It is a basic principle of psychology that when a stimulus that is capable of evoking a response (the unconditioned stimulus) regularly precedes another neutral stimulus, the one that occurs first can become a signal for the second: the conditioned response. Attitude formation can also be influenced by stimuli we are not aware of:

• Subliminal conditioning: classical conditioning that occurs in the absence of conscious awareness of the stimuli involved.

• Mere exposure: having seen an object before, but too rapidly to remember having seen it, can also result in attitude formation.

It is also the case that even when we can remember being exposed to information, its mere repetition creates a sense of familiarity and results in more positive attitudes, this is known as the illusion of truth effect.

Instrumental conditioning: rewards for the ‘right’ views

Another way in which attitudes are acquired is through instrumental conditioning, differential rewards and punishments. In instrumental conditioning attitudes are reinforced by positive responses such as compliments and punished by negative responses. Attitudes can change when you are confronted with a different context such as new environment e.g. school. In addition, the new social networks have a lot of influence on the adjustment of attitudes.

Observational learning: learning by exposure to others

Observational learning is a process that occurs when individuals acquire attitudes or behaviours simply by observing others. Why do people often adopt the attitudes that they her others express or acquire the behaviours they observe in others? One answer involves the mechanism of social comparison, the tendency to compare ourselves with others in order to determine whether our view of social reality is correct or not. People often adjust their attitudes so as to hold views closer to those of others who they value and identify with (their reference groups).

When and why do attitudes influence behaviour?

Having attitudes doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be reflected in behaviour. The social context plays an important role in this. A lot of research focuses on the factors that determine when attitudes influence behaviour and why that influence takes place.

Role of the social context in the link between attitudes and behaviour

There are situational circumstances that prevent us from expressing our attitudes. For example, we do not want to offend others. We prefer to keep our opinion to ourselves if we think that others have a different opinion from ours. Pluralistic ignorance is when we erroneously believe others have attitudes different than ourselves. A study on college students found that a pattern of wanting to express attitudes in the direction of campus norm but not when our attitudes go against the norm was especially strong for students who highly identified with their student group.

Strength of attitudes

The strength of an attitude is also a determinant of behaviour. Whether attitudes will predict sustained and potentially costly behaviour depends on the strength of the attitudes. The term strength captures the extremity of an attitude, the degree of certainty with which an attitude is held as well as the extent to which the attitude is based on personal experience with the attitude object. These three factors can affect attitude accessibility (how easily the attitude comes to mind in various situations) ultimately determining the extent to which attitudes drive our behaviour.

Attitude extremity: role of vested interests

One of the key determinants of attitude extremity is vested interest, the extent to which the attitude is relevant to the concerns of the individual who holes it. We are mainly committed to extreme attitudes for which we have strong arguments. This often predicts behaviour. People also tend to mainly look at arguments that support their own attitude. The effects of these attitudes may only come to light in concrete, direct situations. More abstract attitudes have more of an effect on thinking about the future, rather than direct behaviour.

Attitude certainty: importance of clarity and correctness

Research has identified two important components of attitude certainty:

• Attitude clarity: being clear about what one’s attitude is.

• Attitude correctness: feeling one’s attitude is the valid or proper one to hold.

The effects of these two concepts depends on the social context. High clarity will be more predictive of behaviour in private but not public contexts where correctness concerns are likely to be greater. In general, attitudes that are both clear and correct tend to be good predictors of behaviour.

Role of personal experience

Depending on how attitudes are formed initially, the link between attitudes and behaviour can differ. Attitudes that are formed on the basis of personal experiences have a stronger effect on behaviour than attitudes that are indirectly formed. When we have a direct experience with an attitude object it is likely to be quite personally relevant and strong, and our attitude toward it is likely to predict our future behaviour. The strength of the link between attitudes and behaviour is determined strongly by a number of factors.

• Situational constraints may not permit us to overtly express our attitudes.

• Attitude extremity, which is a function of whether we have a vested interest in the issue or not, influences whether our attitudes translate into behaviour.

• Attitudes that are clear and experienced as correct are more likely to affect behaviour.

• Whether we have personal experience with the attitude object or perceive it as relevant to our important values can affect the accessibility of the attitude. More accessible attitudes more likely to determine behaviour.

How do attitudes guide behaviour?

To look at how attitudes give direction to behaviour, it’s important to distinguish between behaviour based on reasoning and behaviour based on spontaneity.

Attitudes arrived at through reasoned thought

In some situations we give careful, deliberate thought to our attitudes and their implications for our behaviour. Insight into the nature of this process is provided by the theory of reasoned action later refined and termed the theory of planned behaviour. It argues that behaviour can be better predicted if the attitudes are very consciously formed, that is, if one has thought carefully about the attitude and the well considered the consequences of the behaviour. The implementation plan is a plan on how our intentions are implemented to carry out our actions.

Attitudes and spontaneous behavioural reactions

In many situations people don’t have the time to think about their attitude and they have to react spontaneously. Here, attitudes influence behaviour in a direct, automatic way, whereby intentions play a less important role. According to Fazio’s attitude-to-behaviour process model, some events activates our attitude. That attitude, once activated, influences how we perceive the attitude object. Our knowledge about what’s appropriate in a given situation is also activated, together the attitude and previously stored information about norms shape our definition of the event. This perception then influences our behaviour.

How can attitudes change?

Persuasion are efforts to change our attitudes through the use of various kinds of messages. There are several factors that determine whether persuasion is successful.

Persuasion: communicators, messages, and audiences

The factors that determine whether persuasion is successful include the following:

• Communicators who are credible who seem to know what they are talking about or who are expert with respect to the topics or issues they are presenting are more persuasive than those who are seen as lacking expertise.

  • Communicator’s credibility can be reduced by, for example, learning that the communicator has a personal stake in persuading you to a certain position.

• Communicators who are physically attractive or more persuasive than those who aren’t.

• Communicators who we feel we already know, that is those win our own social networks, are likely to be more persuasive.

• Facebook, twitter and other internet forums have become means by which the transmission of word-of-mouth communications is accomplished. Marketers know that ‘recommendations’ from friends will be highly persuasive – an online message that is rated well by people we know will be more persuasive.

• Messages that don’t appear to be designed to change our attitudes are often more successful than those that seem to be designed to achieve this goal.

• Fear appeals are messages that are intended to arouse fear in the recipient, making them feel threatened. But this is likely to make the recipient argue against the threat, dismiss its applicability to themselves, or generally allocate their attention away from the message when it is selfrelevant.

Though there’s much research into these factors, it’s not yet known exactly how persuasion works as a whole and what combination of factors it consists of.

The cognitive processes underlying persuasion

When we wonder how persuasion works, we actually wonder how we get the information from cognitive processing of a persuasive message. There is a systematic way of processing as well as a simple way.

First type of processing is known as:

• First type of processing is known as systematic processing or the central route to persuasion, it involves careful consideration of message content and the ideas it contains. It absorbs much of our informationprocessing capacity.

• The second approach is heuristic processing or the peripheral route to persuasion, which involves the use of mental shortcuts. It requires less effort and allows us to react to persuasive messages in an automatic manner.

When do we engage in each of these distinct modes of thought? Modern theories of persuasion such as the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) and the heuristic-systematic model provide the following answer. We engage in the most effortful processing when our motivation and capacity to process information relating to the persuasive message is high. Also when our knowledge about the topic is vast and we have a lot of time to engage in careful thought, or if the issue is very important to us. If we do not have the motivation or capacity for an issue then we will process information heuristically, and arguments will have no influence. This gives an explanation for why people are more easily persuaded when they are distracted, because they cannot properly process the information being given.

How are persuasion attempts weathered?

Some people are persuaded quicker than others. This difference is in one combination of various factors that determine our ability to defend persuasion.

Reactance: protecting our personal freedom

Reactance is known as a negative reaction to efforts by others to reduce our freedom by getting us to believe of do what they want. This can lead to resistance, causing the us to often change our attitudes and behaviour in the opposite direction from what we are being urged to believe or do.

Forewarning: prior knowledge of persuasive intent

Does the fact that we know in advance about persuasive intent behind certain messages help us resist them? Research on the effects of such advance knowledge, known as forewarning, indicates that it does. It offers us the opportunity to resist and come up with counter-arguments.

Selective avoidance of persuasion attempts

Another way in which we resist attempts at persuasion is through selective avoidance – a tendency to direct our attention away from information that challenges our existing attitudes. This is a defensive way to resist persuasion. An active way of resistance is to come up with counter-arguments and start a discussion.

Actively defending our attitudes: counter-arguing against the competition

If we hear arguments against our beliefs and can immediately come up with arguments to refute them then our resistance to persuasion will become greater. One reason we are good at resisting persuasion is that we not only ignore information that is inconsistent with our current views, but we also carefully process counter-attitudinal input and argue actively against it. Exposure to arguments opposing our attitudes can serve to strengthen the views we already hold, making us more resistant to subsequent efforts to change them.

Individual differences in resistance to persuasion

People also differ in their vulnerability to persuasion. Some people may be resistant because they’re motivated to engage in counter-arguing. Some may be resistant because they attempt to bolster their own beliefs when encountering counter-attitudinal messages. Individual differences also affect people’s ability to recognize that they are being persuaded.

Ego-depletion can undermine resistance

Your ability to resist persuasion can result from successful counterarguing against a persuasive message or consciously considering why your initial attitude is better than the position you’re being asked to adopt. Factors that make either of these strategies more difficult – because they undermine our ability to engage in self-regulation – could certainly undermine our ability to resist persuasion. When people are tired, have failed to self-regulate on a prior task, or otherwise are in a state of ego-depletion, they may simply acquiesce when confronted with a counter-attitudinal message – that is, they will show attitude change.

What is meant by Cognitive Dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant state that occurs when we notice that our attitudes and our behaviour are inconsistent. We cannot justify our attitude-inconsistent behaviour, we may end up changing our own attitudes. Cognitive dissonance can sometimes lead us to change our attitudes – to shift them so that they are consistent with our over behaviour, even in the absence of any strong external pressure to do so.

Dissonance and attitude change: the effects of induced compliance

Dissonance often occurs in situations where we are forced to adapt, in which we say things or behave in opposition to our attitudes. Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that dissonance will be stronger when we have few reasons for engaging in attitude-discrepant behaviour – insufficient justification for your behaviour. The less-leads-to-more-effect proposes that less reasons or rewards for an action often leads to greater attitude change. We experience less dissonance if we have reasons/justification for the discrepancy.

Alternative strategies for resolving dissonance

We can also reduce the dissonance by changing our attitudes or behaviour to reach an ‘agreement’ between the two. We can also look for new information that will support our behaviour or attitude, this is called self-affirmation – resorting positive self-evaluations that are threatened by dissonance. We can also engage in trivialization – concluding that either the attitudes or behaviours in question are not important so any inconsistency between them is of no importance.

When dissonance is a tool for beneficial changes in behaviour

Can dissonance be used to promote beneficial behavioural changes? Evidence suggests it can, especially when it’s used to generate feelings of hypocrisy, publicly advocating some attitude and then making salient to the person that they have acted in a way that is inconsistent with their own attitudes.

In social psychology, the term attitude is used to refer to people’s evaluation of almost any aspect of the world. Attitudes can be positive or negative, but also a mix of both. Ambivalent attitudes are easier to influence than more pronounced positive or negative attitudes. Strongly pronounced attitudes are better predictors of behaviour.

What is the relation between stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination? - Chapter 6

Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination are concepts that are all used interchangeably. Social psychologists make a clear distinction between the concepts.

• Stereotypes are beliefs about what members of a social group are like. They are the cognitive components of attitudes towards one social group.

• Prejudice refers to the negative emotional responses or dislike towards people based on group membership, the affective component.

• Discrimination refers to the differential treatment of people based on group membership, the component of behaviour and actions that we display.

How do members of different groups perceive inequality?

There are differences between groups when it comes to the subjective perception of inequality (specifically concerning stereotyping, prejudices, and discrimination). Perception of inequality is different for a low-status group than a high-status group. Differences in skin colour and socio-economic status cause a difference in subjective perception. According to ‘prospect theory’, people are risk averse. They tend to weigh possible losses more heavily than equivalent potential gains. This theory can also be applied to perceptions of (in)equality. Whites will respond to additional movement toward equality more negatively and suppose that more change has already occurred, than blacks. In contrast, we assume that blacks are likely to see greater equality as a potential gain for them compared to their historically disadvantaged position, then change toward increased equality will be experienced as positive. Prospect theory poses that potential loss is experienced more intensely than potential gain.

The nature and origins of stereotyping

Stereotypes are often used as cognitive schemas and work as theories. The social information that is relevant to an active stereotype is often processed faster and more easily retrieved than information not related to a stereotype. This saves cognitive efforts in information processing. People therefore pay more attention to the information contained in a stereotype. As a result, stereotypes cannot be easily or quickly changed or adjusted. People belonging to the majority often overestimate the negative behaviours of people from one minority group.

Stereotyping: beliefs about social groups

Gender stereotypes are beliefs concerning the characteristics of men and women consist of both positive and negative traits. Stereotypes of each gender are typically the converse of one another and play an important role in what men and women achieve. On the positive side of the gender stereotype for women, they are viewed as being kind, nurturing and considerate. On the negative side, they are viewed as being dependent, weak and overly emotional. Men are viewed as decisive, assertive, and accomplished but also as aggressive, insensitive, and arrogant.

Stereotypes and the ‘glass ceiling’

Gender stereotypes have a number of negative consequences for women. An important negative consequence is the glass ceiling, a final barrier that prevents women from reaching top positions.

Gender stereotypes and the ‘glass cliff’

Women are more likely to acquire a leadership position if a crisis has occurred. The position is therefore more vulnerable and there is a greater risk of failure. This is referred to as the glass cliff effect.

Consequences of token women in high places

A number of experiments has confirmed that tokenism, where only a few members of a previously excluded group are admitted, can be a highly effective strategy for deterring collective protest in disadvantaged groups. It can have at least two adverse effects. First of all, the appearance can be that there is no discrimination. Second, it can be damaging to the self-esteem of the person and how they are viewed.

Responses to those who speak out about discrimination

What happens when tokens or other targets of discrimination complain about their treatment? Complaining about unjust circumstances can serve a useful function. It draws people’s attention to unfairness, which can ultimately bring about improvement. But complaining can be also construed as attempting to escape personal responsibility and that is one reason that observers might be suspicious of it.

Is stereotyping absent if members of different groups are rated the same?

The standards and norms which we use to evaluate others can be objective or subjective. Biernat’s work on shifting standards indicates that although the same evaluation ratings can be given to members of different groups, stereotypes may have influenced those ratings.

• Objective scales are measures or norms with units of measurement that mean the same thing regardless of the membership category.

• Subjective scales are standards or norms that can be interpreted. These can be, for example, scales ranging from good to bad or from weak to strong.

The meaning of the benchmark differs depending on the group membership of the person being evaluated.

Can we be victims of stereotyping and not even recognize it: the case of single people

Singlism is the negative stereotyping and discrimination that is directed toward people who are single. Why is this inequality not salient (and protested) by its victims? One reason is that single people fail to recognize it. When singles are asked if they are members of any groups that might be targets of discrimination, DePaulo and Morris (2006) found that only 4% spontaneously mention ‘single’ as such a category. Only 30% of singles said they might be stigmatized.

Why do people form and use stereotypes?

Stereotypes often function as schemas, cognitive frameworks for organizing, interpreting and recalling information. It is efficient for people to categorize other people based on group characteristics. Stereotypes are then mostly based on ethnicity and gender. When we come across people who we think belong to a certain group, but actually don’t meet the characteristics of the stereotype, they are seen as a subtype. The purpose of this is to protect the general stereotype. Stereotypes are resistant to change.

How do prejudices arise?

Prejudice has been traditionally considered the feeling component of attitudes toward social groups. Discrimination has been traditionally defined as less favourable treatment or negative actions directed toward members of disliked groups. Those who are high in prejudice toward a particular social group are very concerned with learning the group membership of a person (when that is ambiguous). This is because they believe the group shave underlying essences, often some biologically based feature that distinguishes that group from other groups, which can serve as justification for differential treatment. Minimal groups are the categorization of people into groups based on few ‘minimum’ criteria. We tend to prefer those who are in the same group as we are. There may be incidental feelings of anger, those caused by factors other than the outgroup per se which can generate automatic prejudice toward members of groups to which we do not belong. Such implicit associations between group membership and evaluative responses can be triggered in a seemingly automatic manner as a result of in group and outgroup categorization.

The origins of prejudice: contrasting perspectives

There are different perspectives on the origin of prejudices. Generally, bias often comes up when we feel threatened.

Threats to self-esteem

It’s true that prejudice cannot be understood unless threat and how it affects people is taken into account. When an event threatens people’s perceptions of their groups value, they may retaliate by derogating the source of the threat to maintain feelings of superiority.

Competition for resources as a source of prejudice

Also when group interests are at stake and when there is a struggle for scarce sources, prejudices can arise. Quite frequently there are zero-sum outcomes, if one group gets them (the resource) the other group cannot, examples could be jobs and territory. It becomes clear in realistic conflict theory that a simple struggle for a certain resource can lead to an escalation of the conflict with emotionally charged prejudices. A solution for competitions or struggle between groups is working on superordinate goals, the ones they both desire but neither group can achieve alone, the groups must cooperate.

Cognitive effects of social categorization: the us-vs-them effect

Social identity theory suggests that individuals seek to feel positively about the groups to which they belong, and part of our self-esteem is derived from our social group memberships. The theory states that group members identify with the social group and divide the world into ‘us’ vs ‘them’. When individuals feel secure in a group then they can have a tolerant attitude towards other groups. But if individuals fear that their sense of superiority or their social identity will be compromised, it will lead to emphasizing the differences between the groups and creating more prejudices. These findings suggest that attempts to reduce prejudices can only succeed if the groups do not feel threatened in their unique identity or feelings of superiority. Identity fusion is the extent to which a person sees the self and their group as overlapping.

What is discrimination?

Discrimination are negative actions toward the objects of racial, ethnic and gender prejudice. Attitudes are not always reflected in overt actions. In many cases, people with negative attitudes toward various groups cannot express their views directly. Laws, social pressure and fear of retaliation all serve to deter them from putting their prejudiced views into practice. Despite some extreme incidents, however, prejudice in general often finds expression in subtler forms of behaviour.

Modern racism: more subtle, but just as harmful

Many social psychologists believe that ‘old-fashioned racism’, encompassing blatant feelings of superiority, has been replaced by subtler forms which they call modern racism. Here prejudices are hidden from others in public but voiced in ‘safe’ environments such as with friends or family. With this form of discrimination people have the idea that the minority groups receive or seek more favours and deny being disadvantaged.

Measuring implicit racial attitudes: finding a ‘bona fide pipeline’

Research into prejudices is complicated since many people aren’t willing to admit holding prejudiced views. A direct, open way of collecting information is therefore not useful. Social psychologists have recognized that many attitudes people hold are implicit, they exist and can influence behaviour but the people holding them may not be aware of their impact. Most methods of testing are based on priming, where exposure to certain stimuli or events ‘prime’ information held in memory making it easier to come to mind or more available to influence our current reactions. One technique that makes use of priming to study implicit racial attitudes is known as the bona fide pipeline. Participants see various adjectives and are asked to indicate whether they have a good or bad meaning but right before are briefly exposed to faces of people belonging to various racial groups. it’s reasoned that implicit racial attitudes will be revealed by how quickly participants respond to the words that have a negative meaning and vice versa for slow responses on positive words after being primed with a minority race.

How prejudiced people maintain an ‘unprejudiced’ self-image

Many people believed they’re unbiased, they compare themselves to extreme examples.

When we confront what our group has done to another group

Exposure to how one’s group has acted in in a prejudiced fashion toward other groups can evoke defenses in order to avoid the aversive feelings of collective guilt, an emotional response that people can experience when they perceive their group as responsible for illegitimate wrongdoings. Research has shown that there are several ways to deal with the harmful actions of our own in-group. When moral disengagement arises, sanctions don’t become necessary as a consequence of causing harm. There are other ways that people can deal with their group’s harm doing – such as motivated forgetting. Sahdra and Ross (2007) demonstrated that people’s memory for harmful behaviours committed by their ingroup si not equivalent to their memory of instances where their ingroup was victimized by another group. People have different motivated mental strategies to improve their positive attitude towards the group, despite the disadvantage of others.

How can prejudices be prevented?

Social psychologists believe that prejudices are not inevitable and that they can be reduced by various techniques.

On learning not to hate

According to the social learning view, children acquire negative attitudes toward various social groups because they hear such views expressed by significant others, and because they are directly rewarded for adopting these views. Social-learning insight about prejudice means that they are obtained by children through significant others and are immediately rewarded if they take over the ideas. To prevent children from taking over prejudices, they should not be in presence of views being voiced.

The potential benefits of contact

Can racial prejudice be reduced by increasing the degree of contact between different groups? The idea that it can do so is known as the contact hypothesis and there are several good reasons for predicting that such a strategy can be effective. Increased contact between people from different groups can lead to a growing recognition of similarities between them, which can change the categorizations that people employ. Also by making people more aware of their prejudices, their effects and consequences, people may express them less.

Recategorization: changing the boundaries

Recategorization arises as the differences between the in group and the out group are taken away. According to the common ingroup identity model prejudices can be pushed back by recategorization. The attitude of a person will change positively as the person starts to see himself as a member of a separate social entity. This can be achieved, for example, by allowing individuals from different groups to work together to achieve a specific goal. A new group will emerge and hostile feelings will diminish.

The benefits of guilt for prejudice reduction

Considerable research has now revealed that people can feel collective guilt based on the actions of other members of their group. These feelings of guilt can be used to prevent prejudice and possible discrimination in the future.

Can we learn to ‘just say no’ to stereotyping and biased attributions?

Another method of overcoming prejudices is to reject them and say ‘no’ against the associations between stereotype and specific social groups. This is only effective once you’ve trained yourself to repeatedly say ‘no’ to prejudices.

Social influence as a means of reducing prejudice

Finally, prejudices are also determined by prevailing social norm. The attitude of people can be influenced by important people. Attitudes that individuals hold are influenced not only by their early experience but also by current peer members of the group. If people can be induced to believe that their prejudiced views are out of line with those of most other people, especially those they respect, they may be inclined to change their views to a less prejudiced position.

Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are concepts that are all used interchangeably. Social psychologists make a clear distinction between the concepts.

• Stereotyping are beliefs about what members of a social group are like, they are the cognitive components of attitudes towards one social group.

• Prejudice refers to the negative emotional responses or dislike towards people based on group membership, the affective component.

• Discrimination refers to the differential treatment of people based on group membership, the component of behaviour and actions that we display.

How do liking, love and other close relationships work? - Chapter 7

Interpersonal attraction is defined as the positive or negative attitude we develop about other people. They explain why we like or dislike a person. They are not to be confused with physical attractiveness which is only one factor in liking others.

What are internal determinants of attraction?

Our first feelings about whether or not to like a person are partly caused by internal sources, our basic needs, motives, and emotions.

The importance of affiliation in human existence: the need to belong

Much of our life is spent interacting with other people. The need for affiliation with others and to be accepted by them may just be as basic to our psychological well-being as hunger and thirst are to our physical wellbeing.

Individual differences in the need to affiliate

How strong this affiliation requirement is is different for everyone. Due to circumstances the need for affiliation could temporarily increase, for example when people are afraid of something. Through contact with others people have the opportunity to make comparisons and seek support from each other.

Are there people who don’t need other people?

Some individuals claim that they have little to no need for affiliation. Recent research however shows that even these people have a need for affiliation. Like everyone else, these people will have a mood boost and a boosted self-esteem once they are accepted and feel needed by others.

Situational influences on the need to affiliate

External circumstances can temporarily increase or decrease the need for affiliation. For example, when one is reminded of one’s mortality after a traumatic event. People want to communicate with others for social reasons and to make decisions. We often seek emotional and cognitive clarity through contact with others.

The role of affect: do our moods play a role in liking others?

Affect also plays a role in interpersonal attraction. Affect is known as the emotional state that someone is in, that is, the positive and negative feelings and moods of a person. The presence of positive affects leads to positive evaluations from other people and negative affects to negative evaluations. Important characteristics of affect are the intensity and direction of the emotion. Positive and negative emotions influence attraction both in a direct and indirect way. A direct effect on attraction arises when another person is responsible for provoking an emotion. An indirect (or associated) effect arises if the provoked emotion comes from unrelated events or people in your life.

What are external sources of attraction?

Once proximity (physical nearness to others) brings about contact, additional factors play an important role. One of these is outward appearance, others’ physical attractiveness. Another is to which extend two people find similarities between them.

The power of proximity: unplanned contacts

The smaller the physical distance, the greater the chance that people will meet repeatedly. The more often we are exposed to a new stimulus such as a new person, a new idea or a new product the more favourable we tend to evaluate it. This is known as repeated exposure effect. There is however an exception. When initial reactions to another person are negative, repeated contact leads to reduced rather than increased attraction. Social media may have an effect on the way our first reactions of people are shaped.

Physical beauty: its role in interpersonal attraction

A persistent factor that influences the first response to others is the physical attraction. Physical appearance has a major influence on interpersonal attraction and evaluations of others.

Beauty may be only skin deep, but we pay a lot of attention to it

For example, attractive suspects are found guilty less often than unattractive suspects. Attractive people are also seen as more intelligent, healthy, and reliable. There are more socially desirable characteristics attributed to attractive people. Attractive children also tend to evoke more positive responses from others than unattractive children.

The ‘what is beautiful is good’ effect

Attractive people are often attributed more positive characteristics. These stereotypes are often incorrect. Very handsome people aren’t always nice. Another explanation for the ‘what is beautiful is good’ effect has been suggested by Lemay et al. (2010). They propose that three steps are involved. First is that we desire to form relationships with attractive people. The second step is that this strong desire leads us to perceive them as interpersonally responsive in return. Lastly it is this projection that generates very positive perceptions of them.

What makes a person physically attractive?

There are two procedures to look at which factors make someone attractive.

• Identify a group of individuals who are considered attractive, then see what those individuals have in common.

• Combining photos of faces into a photo of one face. You would think that this face would then be seen as average, yet respondents think the final face is more beautiful than the individual faces.

Red really is sexy and attractive

In many cultures the idea is accepted that red on lips, on the face and in clothing can increase the attractiveness of a woman. Recent research by social psychologists suggest that there is a substantial core of truth in this belief. Other research has shown that when men turn a female stranger against a red background she was considered more attractive than when the background was white. This effect didn’t happen for women who were assessing attractiveness. For them background colour made no difference.

Other aspects of appearance that influence attraction

In addition to physical beauty, other observable characteristics also play a role such as physique, weight, manners, eating habits, first names and other superficial characteristics.

What are sources of attraction based on social interaction?

In addition, there are other important factors influencing attraction that only emerge when we interact with others. These are for example the similarities we have with others and the degree to which others like us.

Similarity: birds of a feather actually do flock together

It was clear very early on that people who resemble each other in many respects will look for each other. This goes against the principle that opposites attract. This is known as the similarity hypothesis.

Similarity-dissimilarity effect: a consistent predictor of attraction

It has been demonstrated that people like each other more when they have similarities and like each other less if they show more differences. This is known as the similarity-dissimilarity effect. Attitude similarity is the extent to which two individuals share the same ways of thinking or feeling toward something or someone. Attraction is also determined by the proportion of similarity – when the number of topics on which two people express similar views is divided by the total number of topics on which they have communicated, the resulting proportion can be inserted in a simple formula allowing us to predict attraction.

Do we seek similarity even with respect to physical attractiveness?

The matching hypothesis is the idea that though we prefer to have attractive romantic partners, we generally focus more on finding someone with a physical beauty similar to ours.

Do even trivial similarities generate attraction?

Small things such as the same later in our names can also cause attraction through implicit egotism, meaning that positive associations with something about ourselves indeed increase attraction towards others who share whatever these are.

Why do we like others who are similar to ourselves but dislike those who are different?

An explanation for the similarity-dissimilarity effect is given by the balance theory, which describes that if people like each other and show similarity, this feeling gives balance that is emotionally pleasant. If people like each other but they have different opinions it can cause a feeling of imbalance. Why agreement matters is made clear through Festinger’s social comparison theory. This states that we compare our attitudes and ideas with those of others to find out if they are accurate and normal.

Reciprocal liking or disliking: liking those who like us

When we like or dislike a person it is often mutual. We like people who show in words or actions that they like us and we dislike those that act in the opposite way towards us.

Social skills: liking people who are good at interacting with others

Social skills are a combination of aptitudes that help individuals who possess them to interact effectively with others. Examples of social skills are:

• Social perception/astuteness: the ability to properly understand another.

• Interpersonal influence: the ability to change another’s behaviour or attitudes.

• Social adaptability: the ability to adapt to many different social situations.

• Expressivity: the ability to express emotions in an open and constructive way.

Personality and liking: why people with certain traits are more attractive than others

Certain personality traits make people more likeable. Narcissism is an example of a characteristic that people generally don’t like. Narcissistic people have a good self-image and focus primarily on themselves. Initially these people may seem very nice because they are charming and outgoing.

What do we desire in others? Gender differences and changes over stages of a relationship

The characteristics we find important in our partners depend on the gender and phase of the relationship we are in. There are characteristics that are important to both men and women such as reliability. Other characteristics are valued differently depending on the nature of the relationship. Women value characteristics associated with a stable relationship more.

How do close relationships form the basis of life?

Relationships play a central role in our lives. The most important and close relationships are romantic relationships, familiar relationships and close friendships.

Romantic relationships and the (partially solved) mystery of love

What is love? Love goes beyond mere attraction. It is described as a combination of emotions, cognitions and behaviours that play a crucial role in close relationships. Love suggests a much stronger and often much more lasting relationship and isn’t always necessarily romantic.

Love: its basic nature

Love is an emotional response like anger and fear. It’s also good for psychological adjustment. But until recently, it hasn’t been systematically investigated.

What is the origin of love?

Where the essence of love comes from is unknown. Two characteristics of love, desire and dedication, have become conditions under which love comes into being.

Components of love

Sternberg’s triangular model of love is an important framework for understanding various components of love. It suggests that each love relationship is made up of three basic components that are present in varying degrees in different couples.

• Intimacy: the closeness two people feel and the strength of the bond that holds them together.

• Passion: based on romance, physical attraction and sexuality. The sexual motives and excitement are associated with a couple’s relationship.

• Decision/commitment: represents cognitive factors like the decision to love and be with a person, plus a commitment to maintain the relationship long-term.

When all three angles of the triangle are equally strong and balanced, the result is what Sternberg describes as consummate love.

Companionate love

Companionate love is the combination of intimacy plus commitment in the model. It’s based on friendship, mutual attraction, shared, interests, respect and care for each other’s wellbeing.

The role of passionate love in romantic relationships

Passionate love is an intense and often unrealistic response to another person and usually hard to sustain. Unrequited love is love experienced by one person for another, but the other does not feel the same and cannot return it.

What do we seek in romantic partners?

Research shows that partner selection depends on what role we expect the partner to play in the future, e.g. house wife/husband, someone to provide us with what we need for example. Partner selection often entails competition for the most wanted partner. New research shows that men and women often work together with their friends. Friends of women often help each other avoid contact with unwanted partners. Friends of men often help each other to gain access to sought after partners.

Relationships with family members: our first – and most lasting – close relationships

The structure of family has changed considerably since the 1950s/60s but relationships with family members remain important.

Relationships with parents

Attachment style is the degree of security an individual feels in interpersonal relationships. Different styles develop in interactions between child and caregiver as the child acquires basic attitudes about self-worth and interpersonal trust. Interpersonal trust is an attitude dimension underlying the attachment styles, it’s based largely on whether the caregiver is perceived by the infant as trustworthy, dependable, and reliable. This is the most successful and desired attachment style. The four contrasting styles are as followed:

• Secure attachment style: someone with a safe attachment style has high self-esteem and high interpersonal trust.

• Fearful-avoidant attachment style: low self-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is the most uncertain style.

• Preoccupied attachment style: low self-esteem and high interpersonal trust. This is in conflict with each other and therefore a somewhat uncertain style. They expect to be rejected because they deem themselves unworthy but still seek closeness.

• Dismissing attachment style: high self-esteem and low interpersonal trust. This is in conflict with each other and therefore a somewhat uncertain style. The person feels that they deserve a close bond but is frustrated by the distrust of potential partners.

Relationships with other adult family members

Other adult family members, like grandparents, also have contact with children. These interactions are also important. They take place in a period in which children’s attitudes are still forming.

Relationships with siblings

Relationships with siblings contribute to what we have learnt about interpersonal behaviour. This specific relationship is often characterized by both love and rivalry.

Friendships: relationships beyond the family

Friendships made during childhood are mainly based on proximity. Sometimes strong social ties are developed.

Close friendships

A close friendship is a relationship in which two people spend a lot of time together, their interaction happens across various situations and the give each other emotional support. People show more modesty towards their friends than to strangers. People lie less to their friends, unless it is a lie to make the friend feel better.

Gender and friendships

Women tend to place greater emphasis on intimacy, expecting to share and discuss emotions and experiences with their friends and receive emotional support from them. Conversely, men tend to form friendships on the basis of activities like playing sports, working on joint projects and sharing hobbies.

Is similarity the basis for friendship?

Recent research showed that actual similarity didn’t predict who would become friends, instead perceived similarity predicted this outcome very well. Perception appears to be more important than underlying reality when first getting acquainted.

Interpersonal attraction is defined as the positive or negative attitudes we develop about other people. They are why we like or dislike a person. Not to be confused with physical attractiveness which is only one factor in liking others.

What are the causes and effects of social influence? - Chapter 8

Many topics social psychologists focus on have to do with social influence. Social influence is the effort by one or more people to change the behaviour, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others. This chapter focuses on three important forms of social influence: conformity, compliance, and obedience. It will also discuss unintentional social influence – when others change our behaviour without intending to do so.

How do groups and norms influence our behavior?

People have a tendency to adapt. Conformity is an aspect of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behaviours to adhere to the existing social norms. A social norm is a rule indicating how individuals are meant to behave in certain situations. A norm is usually clear, but social standards can be explicit or implicit.

Social pressure: the irresistible force?

Conformity has been systematically investigated by Solomon Asch. Asch created a compelling dilemma for his participants whose task was ostensibly to simply respond to a series of perceptual problems. In the line judgement task, they had to determine which line corresponded to the standard line (standard line on the left, three lines on the right). To test their compliance, they had to say their answers out loud. However, only one person in the group was a participant, the rest were confederates. When all confederates would answer incorrectly, the participant would be pressured into agreement. Many collapsed under pressure and went along with a wrong answer. But when the answer was written on paper instead of spoken aloud, there was a decrease in the degree of agreement.

How social norms emerge

The effects of social influence are strong and penetrating but tend to be magnified in situations where we are uncertain about our own assessment and what is correct. Sherif investigated how social norms arose in a research situation.

Factors affecting conformity

Various factors influence conformity. The most important ones are discussed here.

Cohesiveness and conformity: being influenced by those we like

Cohesiveness is important. Cohesiveness is the extent to which we are attracted to a particular social group and want to belong to it. When cohesiveness is great, pressure to conform to norms is greater.

Conformity and group size: why more exerts greater social pressure

Another factor is the group size. Consistency increases with the size of the group; the larger the group, the more inclined we are to adjust our opinions.

Conformity and status within a group

Older members of a group feel less of a need to adapt to the rest of the group. They have a different status than, for example, newer members of a group.

Descriptive and injunctive social norms: how norms affect behaviour

Social norms can be formal or informal in nature. Another way they can be distinguished is between descriptive and injunctive norms. Descriptive norms are ones that simply describe what most people do in a given situation. They influence behaviour by informing us about what is generally seen as appropriate or effective. Injunctive norms specify how people ought to be have – what is approved or disapproved behaviour in a given situation. According to normative focus theory, norms only influence behaviour to the extent that they are salient (e.g. relevant) to the people involved at the time the behaviour occurs.

Social foundations of conformity: why we often choose to ‘go along’

Why do people choose to go along with social rules? The answer seems to involve two powerful motives possessed by all human beings: desire to be liked/accepted by others and the desire to be right.

Normative influence: the desire to be liked

One important reason we conform is because we have learned that doing so can help us with the approval/acceptance we crave. The source of conformity is known as normative social influence, since it involves altering our behaviour to meet others’ expectations.

The desire to be right: informational social influence

Other people’s actions and opinions define social reality for us, and we use them as a guide for our own actions and opinions. This basis for conformity is known as informational social influence since it’s based on our tendency to depend on others as a source of information about many aspects of the social world.

The downside of conformity

Due to normative and informational social influence, the pressure to conform is great. Nevertheless, there are [groups of] people who don’t want to adapt. There are two factors underlying this: firstly, the need to preserve individuality and secondly, the need to maintain control over one’s own life. Social norms can be challenged under favourable conditions.

Reasons for nonconformity: why we sometimes choose ‘not to go along’

There are many factors that play a role in whether or not to opt for resisting social norms. This is necessary, for example, if someone has unpopular political ideas. You will then often go against social standards.

The actor-observer effect revisited: its role in resisting pressures to conform

Recall the actor-observer effect, which refers to the fact that we tend to attribute our own behaviour to external causes, but the actions of others to internal causes. Is this effect relevant to conformity? Researchers studied synchronous behaviour – behaviour in which individuals match their actions to those of others. We may engage in or observe synchronous behaviour. They reasoned further that observers may experience reactance – the feeling that our personal freedom is being restricted, and that we should resist strong pressure to conform to maintain our individuality.

Power as a shield against conformity

Power can help resist conformity, especially if the power is acquired through situational control. This makes people relatively resistant to social pressure to conform. Powerful people are less dependent on others for obtaining resources, and they may be less likely to take the perspective of other people and so be less influenced by them.

The desire to be unique and nonconformity

Many people believe that they conform less than others, because everyone likes to think of themselves as a unique individual. This desire can be a factor in resisting social pressure to conform.

The benefits of nonconforming

Nonconforming individuals are seen as high in personal autonomy, while those who conform are seen as lower in autonomy, these perceptions translate into perceiving nonconformists as higher in status.

Minority influence: does the majority always rule?

There are instances in which minorities actually turn the tables on the majority and exert rather than merely receive social influence. This happens when three factors are present:

• Minority members must be consistent in their opposition to the majority

• Members of the minority mustn’t appear rigid or dogmatic

• Their views must fit into the social context

Because opinions of a minority group are threatened, often members overestimate the number of people that agree with their views.

Compliance: to ask – sometimes – is to receive

Compliance is an aspect of social influence where one person directs another person, making requests in the hopes of a positive response.

The underlying principles of compliance

Individuals apply many tactics to persuade others to say ‘yes’ to certain requests. These tactics are well known to social psychologists. People are inclined to meet requests if there is:

• Friendship and/or liking

• Commitment or consistency

• Scarcity

• Reciprocity

• Social validation

• Authority

Tactics based on friendship or liking

A technique based on friendship is ingratiation – getting others to like us so that they’ll be more willing to agree to our requests. This could be in the form of changing your behaviour, giving compliments, pointing out similarities etc.

Tactics based on commitment or consistency

A basic idea behind an approach for gaining compliance is known as the foot-in-the-door technique – involves presenting target people with a small request (something that’s hard to refuse) and then following up with a larger request (the one desired all along). This technique rests on the principle of consistency. Another technique based on commitment is the lowball procedure – often used by salespeople, a very good deal is offered to a customer. After the customer accepts, something happens making it necessary for the salesperson to change the deal and make it less advantageous for the customer (e.g. sales manager rejects the deal). The rational response would be to walk away. Yet, often they agree to the changes and accept the less desirable (usually more expensive) arrangement. Initial commitment seems to make it harder for people to say no even when the conditions have worsened. Lastly there’s the lure effect – the intended target of a request is first asked to agree to do something they find appealing. Once they’ve agreed, targets are told they don’t need to do it anymore and instead perform a boring task. They should refuse after the ‘deal’ changes, but many people will agree to continue as they feel a commitment to the initial request.

Tactics based on reciprocity

A tactic based on reciprocity is the door-in-the-face technique. Here a too large request is first made, and if this is refused a smaller one is offered (which is the one they wanted all along). Another example is the that’s-not-all technique, where an initial request is followed, before the target person can say yes or no, by something that sweetens the deal – a small extra incentive (e.g. reduction in price, then ‘throwing in’ something additional for the same price).

Tactics based on scarcity

The deadline technique is when you make things scarce by, for example, indicating that they will no longer be available for a certain time. Customers are persuaded and must take advantage of a certain product before it is scarce.

Do compliance tactics work?

There are many tactics used for compliance, a large body of evidence indicates that they’re often successful. But research findings reported by Flynn and Lake indicate that we tend to underestimate their effectiveness. Participants thought they’d have to ask twice as many people to help them as they actually did.

When do people obey authority?

Obedience is another form of social influence, in which one person directly orders one or more others to behave in specific ways. Obedience is used less than conformity or compliance because, even though one has more authority, people prefer a more sympathetic method.

Obedience in the laboratory

Milgram did research into obedience. His research asked a subject to help another participant with a memory task. The test subject was then instructed to give the other person a shock if they made a mistake. From the results we see that many people will obey the requests of a researcher (authoritive figure) even if instructed to hurt another person. Milgram’s research shows parallels with reality in which innocent people can do horrible things.

Why destructive obedience occurs

Why do people obey such destructive orders? Many factors play a role:

• First of all, people who obey someone else feel no responsibility for their actions as they are following someone else’s orders. The authority is therefore responsible.

• Secondly, people radiate authority by wearing visible signs of their status to remind individuals of the social norm ‘obey people in charge’. Because we don’t want to do anything wrong, and usually following an authority can prevent us from making mistakes.

• Third, obedience can be gradually increased by the authority. Because people may not want to cooperate, at first a small request is made, and orders gradually increase in intensity to ensure commitment. (footin-the-door technique).

• Finally, obedience increases if there’s no time for reflection. In many situations, events follow each other at a rapid pace. In these, sometimes unclear, situations, one has not time for reflection and systematic processing and will be more incline to blindly follow rules.

Resisting the effects of destructive obedience

There are different strategies to resist destructive obedience. Firstly, people can be reminded that they are responsible for their own actions. Furthermore, people can more easily resist obedience if it’s been indicated earlier than total obedience to destructive commands is undesirable. Third, people may find it easier to resist authority when the doubt the authority’s skills and motives. Finally, by informing people about the mechanisms involved in obedience, they may resist it.

How does nunintentional social influence work?

This chapter described all kinds of intentional social influence. But there is also nonintentional social influence, when a person does not intend to exert social influence on another person. It is very common.

Emotional contagion

It can happen that when someone is experiencing a certain mood/emotion, another person feels infected with the same mood/emotion. This is called social contagion. This doesn’t happen automatically and doesn’t apply to every situation. Emotional contagion is, however, a very basic and pervasive form of social influence.

Symbolic social influence

Sometimes in a situation, you’ll ask yourself in advance how people will react. This is called symbolic social influence, where others (in this case, their potential reactions) influence us without trying to do so. Two mechanisms are important here:

• The extent to which other people play a role in our thoughts.

• The psychological presence of others may trigger goals with which that person is associated – goals they want us to achieve.

Modeling: learning from observing others

Learning by observing others is a general process that plays a major role in the development of people. People imitate the behaviour of others. This is another form of nonintentional social influence.

Many topics social psychologists focus on have to do with social influence. Social influence is the effort by one or more people to change the behaviour, attitudes, or feelings of one or more others. This chapter focuses on three important forms of social influence: conformity, compliance, and obedience. It will also discuss unintentional social influence – when others change our behaviour without intending to do so.

Which factors are important in prosocial behavior? - Chapter 9

Pro-social behaviour are actions by individuals that help others, often with no immediate benefit to the helpers. Behaviour does not provide anything for the person carrying it out and may even entail certain risk. Prosocial behaviour shouldn’t be confused with altruism. Altruism is behaviour that is a selfish commitment to the well-being of others.

What are the motives for prosocial behavior?

To look at specific factors that increase prosocial behaviour we must first look at the underlying motives of prosocial behaviour.

Empathy-altruism: it feels good to help others

Empathy is the capacity to be able to experience others’ emotional states, feel sympathetic toward them, and take the perspective. The empathy-altruism hypothesis suggests that at least some prosocial acts are motivated solely by the desire to help someone in need.

Mirror neurons: a biological foundation for empathy – and helping others

A lot of research has been done into whether empathy is part of our personality. It is indeed the case that a certain part of the brain is explicitly involved. With empathy, mirror neurons play an important role. There seems to be a neural basis in our brains for empathy.

Negative-state relief: helping can reduce unpleasant feelings

The negative-state relief model proposes that prosocial behaviour is motivated by the wish of bystanders to be less bothered by their emotional unpleasant feelings.

Empathic joy: feeling good by helping others

The empathic joy hypothesis suggests that helpers enjoy the positive reactions shown by others whom they help.

Competitive altruism: why nice people sometimes finish first

Previous theories indicate that the affective state of a person is important to whether they show prosocial behaviour or not. The competitive altruism approach states that people help other people because it has major advantages for them, for example, a higher status.

Kin selection theory

A different, evolutionary, perspective to understanding prosocial behaviour is offered by kin selection theory, which suggests that a core goal for all organisms is getting our genes into the next generation. A way to achieve this is by helping others, as in general we are more likely to help others who we are closely related to.

Defensive helping: helping outgroups to reduce their threat to our ingroup

Helping members of an outgroup reduces the threat to status or the distinctive character of the ingroup. Defensive helping is a way of helping an outgroup member as a means of defusing status threats from them. They are performed not primarily to help the recipients but rather to ‘put them down’ in subtle ways and reduce their threat to the ingroup’s status.

Responding to an emergency: will bystanders help?

People react different to states of emergency. One may come to the rescue, another will not. There are large differences between people which we will now discuss.

Helping in emergencies: apathy or action?

A great deal of research has gone into whether people intervene in an emergency and what the conditions influencing this are. Common sense reasoning suggest that the more people that are present during an emergency, the greater the chance that someone will help.

Is there safety in numbers? Sometimes, but not always

In some situations, people won’t intervene in an emergency. The bystander effect is a phenomenon that, when assistance is required, the chance that someone will help is smaller when there are more people present. The more people that are present, the more people expect someone else to step in. this is known as diffusion of responsibility.

Key steps in deciding to help – or not

When people are confronted with a state of emergency, before they can decide whether to help or not they have to find out what is going on, and decide whether they can do something or not. Different steps follow this decision process. The decision of whether or not to respond to an emergency depends on decisions made during five steps:

1. Noticing or failing to notice, that something unusual is happening. If a person is too busy, they will be less aware of their surroundings and may not even notice the emergency situation. The bystander must be aware of the emergency to be able to help.

2. Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency. The bystander must view the situation as an emergency. People often don’t know what exactly is going to help and whether their help is required. People prefer to wait a while to be sure. When other bystanders are also present, people rely on social comparison to test interpretations. If others do nothing, then it is better to do nothing – this is known as pluralistic ignorance.

3. Deciding that it is your responsibility to provide help. If there is only one bystander present, they will feel a greater responsibility to help than if there are several others present.

4. Deciding that you have the knowledge and/or skills to act.

5. Making the final decision to provide help. Anxiety can restrain someone. All positive and negative aspects of prosocial behaviour are considered here.

The decision-making process makes it clear that if someone doesn’t come to the rescue, they won’t always blame you. The person may have good reasons for not helping. Offering help during an emergency can be influenced by external factors (e.g. number of bystanders) and internal factors during the decision process.

What are factors that help increase or decrease the tendency to help?

There are several factors that can influence a person’s tendency to help and behave in a prosocial manner. These can be internal and external.

Factors that increase prosocial behaviour

Are all people who need help equally likely to receive it?

Helping people similar to ourselves

One of the factors influencing helping could, for example, be the attractiveness of the victim. People like to offer help to people they find attractive or who look like them. This leads to a decrease in helping people outside their own social group.

Exposure to prosocial models – live or electronic

People are more likely to offer help if they have recently witnessed helpful behaviour and want to imitate/model after it. This is known as a social model.

Playing prosocial video games

The chance of helping can increase by watching prosocial models but also by playing prosocial video games. The increase arises because prosocial thoughts are being primed during the games, thereby building related cognitive frameworks to help.

Feelings that reduce our focus on ourselves

When people are in awe of something, they focus less on themselves and pay more attention to what is happening around them. In an awesome situation, people are more likely to exhibit prosocial behaviour.

Social class: do people who have less give more?

Research shows that people from lower social classes attach more value to helping others and displaying prosocial behaviour. This becomes a negative relationship between status and kindness.

Factors that reduce helping

There are many situations where people will choose not to help. The question is, what are those reasons for not helping.

Social exclusion: being ‘left out’ hurts – and may reduce the tendency to help others

To a certain extent, prosocial behaviour depends on a sense of togetherness. If you do not feel you belong to a certain group, there is social exclusion, which tends to have negative effects and elicit less prosocial behaviour. People will have less empathy for the members of groups that they feel excluded from.

Darkness: feelings of anonymity reduce the tendency to help others

If people feel that they have no identity and are anonymous, they display behaviour that they wouldn’t display otherwise. This is because they think that others don’t like their actions and will condemn them. Research by Zhong and colleagues shows that darkness ensures that people will ignore many social norms.

Putting an economic value on our time reduces prosocial behaviour

A cognitive factor that influences our tendency to help someone is to what extent we view our time as precious. If people think prosocial behaviour is costly, they will be less likely to display it.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a process in which entrepreneurs ask for money form contributors and donors, the money contributed is used to set up and run their companies. The investors get nothing back, except maybe a small reward.

Emotion and prosocial behaviour: mood, feelings of elevation, and helping

The emotional state of a person is determined by internal and external factors. The emotional state, positive or negative, influences prosocial behaviour. Research has shown that this influence can be more complicated than expected.

Positive emotions and prosocial behaviour

Prosocial behaviour is expected from a positive emotion. That’s often true, but in certain circumstances, helpfulness decreases. A bystander can be in a good mood and misunderstand a situation, thinking there is no emergency. People can also refuse help because they have to do something that is difficult or unpleasant. A good mood makes people independent and therefore they can turn their backs on a problem.

Negative emotions and prosocial behaviour

One would expect negative emotions to be a less helpful conduct. This is true, but some circumstances here too show the opposite. When the deed to be done elicits a better feeling they will be more likely to help.

Feelings of elation and helping others

When we see someone helping a person, this can create feelings of euphoria/elation. We will be inspired and more optimistic about the nature of people, which can increase the likelihood of us engaging in prosocial behaviour.

Gender and prosocial behaviour: do women and men differ?

The suggestion is that we don’t expect differences in prosocial behaviour between men and women. A lot of research supports this suggestion. Men are more helpful in specific situations, and women in others. The question should therefore be about in which contexts men or women are more likely to exhibit helpful behaviour, rather than the gender differences in general.

Final thoughts: are prosocial behaviour and aggression opposites?

Although it is plausible to contrast aggression and help directly, research shows that this isn’t the case. The motives for help and aggression can match. Thereby the specific actions in prosocial and aggressive behaviour may resemble each other more than initially expected. The effects of aggression and prosocial behaviour are also sometimes similar. Finally, research shows that they are both used by people wanting to increase their status.

Pro-social behaviour are actions by individuals that help others, often with no immediate benefit to the helpers. Behaviour does not provide anything for the person carrying it out and may even entail certain risk. Prosocial behaviour shouldn’t be confused with altruism. Altruism is behaviour that is a selfish commitment to the well-being of others.

What are the origin and causes of aggression? - Chapter 10

Aggression is behaviour aimed at another person with the intention of hurting them. In this chapter causes of aggression at different levels are discussed, attention is paid to bullying and how aggression can be managed.

What are perspectives on the causes of aggression and violence?

There are various theoretical perspectives on aggression. These are sometimes contrasting insights about its nature and origin. Expressions of violence and aggression are never caused by a single factor, often it is a combination of factors.

The role of biological factors: are we programmed for violence?

The best known explanation for aggression is that it is determined by genetic factors, meaning that it’s innate. For example, it was assumed that aggression stems from an innate fighting instinct. Although nowadays this explanation is insufficient, many are convinced by the evolutionary perspective which states that biological factors do play a certain role.

Drive theories: the motive to harm others

Drive theories of aggression propose that external conditions, especially those that create frustration, arouse a strong motive to harm others. A well-known motivation theory is the frustration-aggression hypothesis, which implies that frustration leads to aggression and that conversely aggressive behaviour is an indication for quicker triggered frustration. However, it’s been found that the role of frustration plays a smaller role than suspected. Though most social psychologists have rejected this theory, it is still used in daily life.

Modern theories of aggression

Unlike others, modern theories don’t focus on a single factor as the primary cause of aggression, but a combination of factors. According to the social learning perspective, aggressive behaviour is acquired and learned through direct experiences or through observations of the behaviour of others (e.g. social models on television, films, games). the general aggression model (GAM) is also based on the social learning perspective, it explains that aggression has been learned and that a distinction must be made between situation and personal factors that can lead to aggressive behaviour. These factors have an impact on three basic processes: excitement, affective state, and cognitions. Depending on how a certain situation is interpreted, the person may or may not engage in aggressive behaviour.

What are the social, cultural, personal and situational causes of aggression?

Different determinants play a role in human aggression. The aggressive behaviour can be caused by social, cultural, personal, and situational factors.

Basic sources of aggression: frustration and provocation

Often the words or actions of others can be a cause of aggression. Research into situational causes show that frustration and provocation are important here.

Frustration: why not getting what you want can sometimes lead to aggression

Frustration is an important social cause for aggression. This negative emotional state is caused by someone not receiving something that is desirable because they think they’re being hindered by something or someone. Although frustration doesn’t always lead to aggression it can be said that frustration is one of its many causes. This is known as the frustration-aggression hypothesis.

Direct provocation: when aggression (or even teasing) breeds aggression

Another situational factor is direct provocation. These are actions from others that incite aggression at the recipient. Physical and verbal provocations are considered as strong causes of aggression. Examples of provocations are arrogance or contempt, harsh and unjust criticism and insulting family members. Teasing consists of provoking statements that call attention to an individual’s flaws and imperfections but can be sometimes playful in nature. To conclude, actions from others, especially if interpreted as coming from hostile motives, can be a strong cause of aggression.

Social causes of aggression

Social exclusion can result in a hostile institution. Rejection by others is a strong predictor of aggressive behaviour. It gives us the idea that others want to harm us and causes emotional pain.

Media violence: the potentially harmful effects of films, television, and video games

An important question in research in violence is whether exposure to films, television and games can result in aggressive behaviour. Important conclusions that have been reached in this area are:

• Exposure to violent media can increase the chance of aggressive behaviour.
• The exposure has both short-term and cumulative long-term effects on aggression.
• These effects are so great that they’re seen as important by psychologists.

There is a specific focus in this area of research on violent computer games. Why do so many people actually enjoy playing these games? According to cognitive evaluation theory this isn’t because of the violence itself, but rather because people feel a sense of autonomy and power when they play these games. It could be argued that these games generate these feelings but don’t contain violence could be just as popular.

The effects of media violence: neuroscience evidence for why they occur

Desensitization is an important factor in media violence. This is when people become less sensitive to violence and the consequences of violence as they’re heavily exposed to it in the media. It first reduces emotional responses of individuals to violent events, making them to be considered ‘normal’. It also strengthens beliefs that aggression is appropriate in certain situations. People develop knowledge structures for aggression and violence because of their frequent exposure to it in the media.

Why some people are more aggressive than others

A lot of research has also been done on the role of personal factors in the development of aggression. Here too, a number of important causes emerge.

Hostile attribution bias

If people experience aggression with others, they themselves will respond more aggressively. This is known as hostile attribution bias. People that have a larger bias will perceive even innocent behaviour as aggressive.

Narcissism: why inflated positive views of oneself often leads to aggression

Narcissism is also a personality trait related to aggression. If the inflated self-image of a narcissistic person is threatened they will have an overly aggressive response. Narcissistic rage happens when other people question a narcissist’s positive self-image. In response, narcissists often display aggressive behaviour.

Gender and aggression: are men more aggressive than women?

There are differences between men and women with regard to aggression. Firstly, men are more likely to show aggression without being provoked first. If there is provocation, the gender differences are smaller. Secondly, men show more direct aggression whereas women more often use an indirect form of aggression. Examples of indirect forms of aggression are spreading rumors and gossiping as a way to conceal one’s identity. In conclusion, men and women differ a lot when it comes to physical aggression but it’s good to point out that the differences aren’t clear cut.

Situational determinants of aggression: the effects of heat, alcohol, and gun availability

There are various situational factors that can influence aggression. Three mentioned here are high temperatures, alcohol and the availability of weapons.

In the heat of anger: temperature and aggression

Research shows there’s a relationship between heat and aggression. If people are hot, they are more easily irritated and therefore more likely to fall out against other people. But there are limitations on this relationship, when the heat is unbearable people may focus less on aggressive and more on restoring their comfort.

Alcohol and aggression: a dangerous combination

Alcohol causes people to show more aggressive behaviour. There are many statements about how this relationship works. Research has shown that alcohol reduces cognitive processes leading to aggression.

Gun availability: how weapons enable violence

The availability of weapons can on one hand, increase the intention to commit violence, and on another hand, increase the chance that violence actually succeeds. Research shows people to behave more aggressively weapons are present. in addition, many people believe that weapons can protect them but often they have the opposite effect and lead to an increased chance of murder or suicide.

What are the types and causes of aggression in the classroom or workplace?

Bullying is very common. In different age groups there’s a high chance that people have been bullied or have bullied others. There’s evidence about why bullying happens, who the victims and the bullies are, the effects of it, and how it can be reduced.

What is bullying?

Bullying is usually defined as a form of interpersonal aggression in which one individual, a bully, intentionally and repeatedly aggresses against another and does so, in part, because the bully has more power or status than the person they seek to harm. Bullying is common among children and teenagers but also within adults in the workplace or prison. Bullying arises due to various factors, including personal factors. Victims are often people who feel unhappy and unsafe. In addition, bullying and victimhood is strongly influenced by contextual factors.

Cyberbullying: electronic means of harm doing

Cyberbullying is often defined as the use of information and communication technologies like email, cell phones, instant messaging, and social media as a means of engaging in deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour that’s intended to harm others. The difference between bullying and cyberbullying is that cyberbullies feel that they are anonymous, but the effects of it are just as intense as ‘physical’ bullying.

Can bullying be reduced?

Bullying is an important problem, so an important question is whether it can be reduced. A lot of research has been done on this, and effective programs have the following characteristics:

• Monitoring children’s behaviour at school
• Training teachers
• Involving parents in the program and providing them with information about bullying
• Involving witnesses of bullying so they know what to do
• Using a program that focuses on multiple components
• Adapting to reflect children’s initial reactions to prevention techniques
• Providing resources for victims to deal with the consequences of bullying

Bullying can also happen at the workplace. Workplace aggression can have many negative consequences.

What are useful techniques to prevent and control aggression?

Aggression isn’t a form of behaviour that can never be changed. It’s about complex collaboration between cognitions, personal, and situational characteristics.

Punishment: revenge or deterrence?

Punishment is the delivery of aversive consequences, a major technique for reducing aggression. It’s used to make clear to people who have committed an aggressive act that what they do is wrong. Secondly, punishment can be applied to serve as a deterrent. Thirdly, prison sentences are administered to society to protect against very dangerous people. Punishment can help if it is delivered immediately after the act and if it is severe enough.

Self-regulation: internal mechanisms for restraining aggression

The degree of self-regulation determines the degree of control you have over your own behaviour. However, this requires complex cognitive processes, and therefore it’s not surprising that it doesn’t always work perfectly. By teaching aggressive people to have positive thoughts and pay a lot of attention to helping others, these processes can be changed and aggression can be reduced. This is a way to tackle the internal mechanisms at play in aggression.

Catharsis: does ‘blowing off steam’ really help?

The catharsis hypothesis doesn’t seem to hold. The catharsis hypothesis states that aggression can be reduced by participating in certain activities (e.g. reading about or watching aggressive actions, participate in safe forms of aggression like boxing). It appears that this decrease in aggression is only temporary.

Reducing aggression by thinking nonaggressive thoughts

Counting to ten before you respond to something and lose your temper is an easy cognitive technique to change the focus of your thoughts. This can sometimes be enough to directly address and reduce your tendency towards aggression. It’s not the case that aggression is part of our nature.

Aggression is behaviour aimed at another person with the intention of hurting them. In this chapter, causes of aggression at different levels are discussed, attention is paid to bullying and how aggression can be managed.

What are the consequences of being part of a group? - Chapter 11

We humans are members of many different groups. some groups are formally organized, others more informal. Good communication is required in these groups. A cohesive group is characterized by strong ties between the group members. This chapter first looks at whether there are different groups and why we want to belong to them. Secondly, we look at the effect of the presence of others in a group. attention is then paid to the nature of cooperation and conflict within a group. Finally, we look at how decisions are made.

Why do we join a group and when do we leave?

A group consists of people who feel that they are part of a coherent unit that is different from another group. Common-bond groups have members who are connected to each other through face to face interaction. Common identity groups have members who are connected through the category of the group as a whole. Groups also differ in the extent of entitativity, the extent to which they are perceived as a coherent whole.

Groups: their key components

The components present in all groups are: status, roles, norms, and cohesion.

Status: hierarchy in groups

Many groups have hierarchies, meaning there’s a structure in which members have different status. Status is the rank in the group. that status can be acquired in various ways. Once someone has a high status, that person may behave differently than someone with a lower status.

Roles: variations of functions in groups

In a group, people have different tasks they perform. The different tasks and expectations are linked to the different roles group members plays. Having a role can internally affect the way you see yourself.

Standards: the rules of the game

Groups can exert a lot of influence on the behaviour of group members through the use of standards. Standards are implicit rules that let group members know what’s expected of them. Feeling rules are expectations about what are appropriate emotions to express within the group. Standards tend to have cultural differences. In collectivist cultures, the most important norm is cohesion between the group members. In individualistic cultures, it’s important to stand out in the group and focus on individual goals.

Cohesion: the power that connects

Cohesion is holistic force that ensures people remain members of a group. Cohesive groups see themselves as homogenous. Group members also work together a lot. In addition, the distinction of a group comes from comparison between another coherent group.

The benefits – and costs – of joining

You’re a member of more groups than you think. Psychologists have done a lot of research into why we feel the need to be a part of a group, and when we decide to leave a certain group.

The benefits of being part of a group: what groups do for us

It can sometimes be difficult to become part of a group, but we still find it important and will put a lot of effort into being included. Here are some reasons for that:

• By being a part of different groups, we increase our selfknowledge
• Being part of a group can give you the feeling that you can cope with stress better. It gives the illusion of more selfcontrol.
• Groups can help you achieve your goals. The more you are looking for selfenrichment, the more important the group is in achieving this.
• Being part of a group also ensures that you have bigger goals than just your own. Thus groups can share a collective identity.

Because there are so many benefits, it’s therefore logically harmful for someone to be rejected by a group they’d like to belong to.

Disadvantages of being accepted in a group

Many groups selectively choose their members. This can ensure that people belonging a group have a high psychological and material ‘price’.

The disadvantages of membership: why groups sometimes fall apart

Groups can help individuals with many things, but they can also ensure that personal freedom of members is reduced. Being part of a group often requires a lot of time, energy, and resources of a member. One reason for leaving a group can be that a member develops an ideology that s no longer consistent with their group, but may be consistent with another group. it may also be that the group – which is constantly changing- no longer fits a specific member.

What is the effect of the presence of others?

People are strongly influenced by the presence of other people alone. These effects take various forms, such as effects on our performance and effects on being in a large crowd.

Social facilitation: performing in the presence of others

You often have to perform a task in the presence of others. Zajonc and colleagues found a phenomenon known as social facilitation. This term stands for the effects the presence of others has on someone’s performance. Motivation theory of social facilitation states that due to the presence of others, certain motives or excitement become activated, influencing performance. The evaluation anxiety idea implies that performance is reduced because people are afraid of being evaluated by others.

Can the presence of an audience distract us?

Some studies show that the presence of an audience can be distracting. This is known as distraction conflict theory.

Social loafing: letting others do the work

In a group where there are mainly additive tasks, in which the contributions of several members are combined towards a single achievement, the phenomenon occurs that certain people will work harder than others. This is known as social loafing, which is very common in the context of school assignments. To counter this, it’s important that all group members feel indispensable.

Reducing social loafers: useful techniques

The clearest way to reduce social loafing is to make clear which output was the result of which group members. If group members feel that their contribution is important, they will do their best. In addition, emphasis can be placed on the hard work itself, regardless of the result.

Effects of being in a crowd

Different stereotypes apply to people who are in a crowd, for example hooligans at sports events. In crowds, people tend to behave wilder because they feel less individual and more part of a crowd. This is called individualization. It doesn’t necessarily have to lead to negative or harmful behaviour. The most important implication of joining a crowd is that the chances are greater that individuals will act according to group norms.

How do collaboration and conflict work out in groups?

Helping in a reciprocal way that benefits both sides is known as cooperation. Conflict occurs when people feel that others are carrying out actions that don’t match their interests. If there is social embeddedness, there is a sense of knowing the reputation of other parties involved, often by knowing someone else who knows them. Cooperation that happens at a distance can make things complicated.

Cooperation: working with others to achieve shared goals

It’s advantageous to work together, but this isn’t always obvious. For example, when there is only one reward, or if there is only an individual goal to be achieved. A situation of negative interdependence is a situation where if one person obtains a desired outcome, others cannot. There are more situations in which cooperation cannot take place properly because of certain conflicts.

Social dilemmas: where cooperation could occur but does not

A situation where all people can represent their individual interests by doing something, but the outcome decreases for everyone as a whole if they were to pursue their interest is known as a social dilemma. Sanctions can help to create cooperation, but not in the long term, then opposite effects appear.

Responding and resolving conflicts

Sometimes a conflict arises when people think they don’t have the same interests even when they do. You may then feel that your intentions or actions were interpreted incorrectly. Group conflicts often arise when there are scarce resources and group members must compete with each other to attain them. There are various ways to resolve these conflicts.

Bargaining: the universal process

When negotiating or bargaining, involved parties look at how the conflict can be solved. The success of this method is determined by the specific tactics used by the negotiators and their intentions. For example, those looking for a win-win situation often have more success (as opposed to those looking to degrade the other side).

Superordinate goals: we all do this together

The differences between groups or group members can be reduced by emphasizing the superordinate goals, goals that both parties want to achieve and in which joint interests and collaboration can be found.

What are the nature and effects of perceived honesty in groups?

With perceived unfairness or injustice two questions are important. The first is what causes people to believe that they’re being treated unfairly. The second is what people do to deal with this perceived unfairness.

Rules for judging fairness: distributive, procedural, and transactional justice

Ito judge whether we are being treated fairly in a situation we must gather all relevant information. There are three different types of justice:

• Distributive justice: this looks at the outcomes that we and others receive. The reward should always be distributed according to the principle of proportional contributions from different group members.
• Procedural justice: this looks at the way (procedures through which) rewards are distributed and if its fair. Whether the distributer does not have their own interests in mind.
• Transactional justice: the extent to which we are given clear and rational reasons for why rewards were divided as they were, and the courtesy or respect with which we are informed about these divisions.

How emotions affect interactions within the group

When groups merge, this can have consequences for the emotions and perceived status of group members. People are very sensitive to evaluation by others and emotions can play a major role in this.

How does decision making work in groups?

Decision making is choosing an option out of many alternatives. It’s important to pay attention to how decisions are made, how group decision making differs from individual decision making, and what can cause groups to sometimes make good or bad decisions.

The decision-making process: how groups attain consensus

When the process starts, it’s rarely the case that all group members are on the same page. After a period of considering all different perspectives, usually they come to a consensus.

The quality of group decisions: less or more extreme?

Groups are more likely to make an extreme decision that an individual is. Group polarization is the process in which groups tend to be more inclined to choose the extreme option during a decision-making process. This is usually because group decisions tend to be about larger more sensitive topics regarding more extreme views that concern more than one person.

The downside of group decision making

The chance of group polarization is a big problem in the decision-making process of groups. other possible problems are groupthink and not being able to share information to certain members.

Groupthink: if cohesion is dangerous

Groupthink is the tendency in group decision-making to assume that the group is always right. Other information is then ignored and rejected. If there is groupthink, a group is reluctant to change their viewpoint on a decision. Groupthink arises initially when there is a strong sense of cohesion with the group.

Failure to share information unique to a member

Not all groups use the same unique resources that are linked to specific members. As a result, a decision reflects shared knowledge, rather than total knowledge.

Brainstorming: generating ideas in groups

The process by which people come together to generate new ideas is known as brainstorming. The intention is to provide creative output, but research shows that output of a group is not more creative than that of an individual.

What is the role of leadership in groups?

Leadership is influencing others in a group by determining a direction and encourage group activities that achieve goals in this direction. Research focuses on why some individuals become leaders and others do not, how performance in a group is influenced by leadership, and how non-traditional leaders often come into power. Leadership cannot exist without followers, so the followers in leadership research are also very important. Non-traditional leaders are most common when there is a glass cliff, meaning there is a lot of risk for the leader.

We humans are members of many different groups. some groups are formally organized, others more informal. Good communication is required in these groups. a cohesive group is characterized by strong ties between the group members. This chapter first looks at whether there are different groups, and why we want to belong to them. Secondly, we look at the effect of the presence of others in a group. attention is then paid to the nature of cooperation and conflict within a group. Finally, we look at how decisions are made.

How do you deal with adversity and achieve a happy life? - Chapter 12

Life isn’t always easy, various setbacks may come your way. This chapter focuses on how adversity is overcome and how people ensure a happy life for themselves.

What are social sources of stress and what are the effects on personal well-being?

Our response to events that threaten our physical and psychological well-being is called stress. It seems impossible to completely prevent stress in a lifetime but there is a lot of research in the causes and how you can deal with them.

The impact of social relationships on health

Stress is a contributing factor psychological and physical health problems. There are many sources of stress. Events add up to each other until it becomes too much, then stress arises. In addition to important life events, stress can also be caused by minor irritations, or hassles. When people experience more stress, however, these daily irritations can lead to a reduction in their psychological well-being.

How does stress affect health?

Research is clear about the fact that stress affect health. However, there’s no consensus on how this happens. Certain studies say that stress influences functioning in the immune system, which affects your health. Both direct and indirect effects have been found. Stress also has a negative influence on factors that protect against bad health, like sleeping well.

Why relationships are important: the benefits of social support

A way to deal with stress involves looking for social support. This means that you lean on the emotional resources provided by friends, family members, and colleagues. It gives you the feeling that you’re being cared for. Research shows that social support is very effective in protecting our health against the effects of stress. The same applies in the case of pets for example. Pets can also offer social support and prevent the onset of stress.

Consequences of being lonely

Loneliness occurs when a person has fewer and less satisfying relationships than desired. The lack of social connections that produces loneliness can be temporary and following a life change or more chronic. Loneliness is often associated with depression, anxiety, pessimism, and shyness.

How self-views affect outcomes

The way you see yourself can affect the way you perceive stressful events. Attitudes about change are also important in our choices and well-being.

The importance of believing that we can change

If you are often rejected and lonely, it can affect the way you look at yourself. People differ in the extent to which they believe they can change, both in skills and personality alike. People who believe they can change and develop experience fewer negative emotions. They do not close themselves off after rejection, but view it as an opportunity to grow.

Beliefs about self-change can help us to overcome adversity

People who are in a transition period in their lives are more likely to feel lonely. Interventions that focus on convincing people they can change can help prevent depressive feelings in such a phase of life. These kinds of interventions also help to increase self-confidence and reduce negative moods.

The struggle to ‘belong’

Because loneliness can have negative effects, it’s important for people to find and form sustainable social relationships. These relationships must meet the needs of people to belong.

Belonging to groups that are the target of discrimination

Perceived discrimination through membership in a stigmatized group is harmful to the psychological well-being of people. But these people can find support in groups of people that are similar to themselves.

Consequences of weight discrimination

More and more people are overweight. The acceptance of this, however, doesn’t grow, and has different implications for psychological and physical well-being. First, social norms say that being thin is ‘in’. research has been done into whether being overweight itself, or the stigmatization are more harmful towards overweight people. People who feel discriminated against because of their weight have a shorter life expectancy.

What are social tactics to reduce the harmful effects of stress?

Methods of dealing with stress and improving mental and physical health include exercise, social identification, among others. It’s also important for us to accept ourselves for who we are in order to effectively deal with stress.

Using social groups to improve health

Regular physical exercise is an important means of reducing stress. It improves both mental and physical health. Yet, adherence is difficult without social support so sporting together with someone can be more effective. Technology such as Fitbit can link people with others monitoring their exercise, and help people stay motivated by creating a shared identity with others using the device.

Social identification as a means for managing stress

People with stressful occupations can get a lot of support from other people in the same situations. Social identification ensures that you don’t think about ‘me’, but about ‘us’. If there is a lot of identification, this can cause people to feel that they’re okay with the stress, this would not have bene possible if they had been ‘alone’. Good examples are veterans who served in the army during war time. They often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and tend to show improvement when they receive social support from family members or people who have experienced something similar.

Accepting ourselves

Many people – especially when entering a new environment – are not sure about who they are and whether they belong in a certain context. If people accept themselves, they experience less stress and can handle stress better.

Practicing self-forgiveness

Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes even mistakes in which we ignore our own moral principles. The question is whether being able to forgive yourself is important for well-being. An investigation by Wohl, Pychyl, and Bennett shows that self-forgiveness can indeed improve performance, lower the risk of depression, and encourage us not to make the same mistake next time.

Adjusting our self-image

Many people make lists of things they want to improve in their lives at the start of the year. This can help to adjust and achieve certain personal goals. Seeing an intention to start again can make people feel more disconnected from their negative pasts.

How do we make the justice system more fair and effective?

Realistically, it’s very difficult to enforce a fair and just legal system. To achieve this in the future, according to scientists, we must first be aware of the current mistakes in the system.

Social influence in the legal process

Most legal proceedings have to deal with an element of social influence. Important here, for example, are the manner in which the police select suspects based on previous legal information.

Line arrangement: how social pressure can lead to mistakes

Lineups are a widely used technique used to identify criminal suspects, but they are subject to bias, depending on how they are conducted. Sequential lineups (suspects shown separately) requiring absolute judgments produce greater accuracy than simultaneous lineups (all suspects shown at the same time) that result in comparative judgments. The degree of feedback on the choice made by the witness can be a form of social influence.

Effects of earlier conviction or acquittal

If the jury or judge has seen information about the criminal past of a suspect, this can influence the subsequent choice that is made. Research shows that jury members that had access to previous convictions of a suspect more quickly found them guilty than those that were not informed about previous convictions.

The influence of prejudice and stereotypes in the legal system

If the case law was really the same, factors such as race, gender, and ethnic background would not play a part in the assessment. Nevertheless, these factors certainly play a role at the moment in the legal system.

The importance of jury members of different races

Before jury members are selected, they must undergo a process of looking at whether they can judge objectively and fairly enough. The decision-making of the jury can, however, be influenced by racial differences. Research by Sommers shows that a jury with a diverse composition is more effective than a homogenous jury.

How characteristics of suspects and jury members can influence legal procedures

The characteristics of suspects influence the decision of the jury and other legal outcomes. These characteristics can be race, attractiveness, gender, and social economic status. The gender of the jury members can also have an influence on proceedings. This is especially the case in sexual offenses.

How prejudices influence the jury’s explanation

The effects mentioned above can be counteracted by certain aspects of the legal system. For example, it’s stated that the effects mainly apply to individuals, but that a group is less likely to suffer from these effects. This means that prejudices can partially be reduced.

How do we get happiness in our lives?

Everyone seeks happiness, often referred to as subjective well-being with four basic components:

• Global life satisfaction.

• Satisfaction with specific life domains.

• High level of positive feelings.

• Minimum of negative feelings.

Happiness with life therefore consists of different, interrelated factors. The extent to which these factors are present in our lives, determines our degree of happiness.

How happy are people, in general?

There are many differences between the extent wo which people feel happy. This can also depend on the country in which they live, for example. Seven variables are distinguished that determine the average perceptions of happiness. These variables consist of social aspects and the structure of life that people lead.

Factors that influence happiness

Happy people report a higher frequency of positive emotions and a lower frequency of negative emotions than people who aren’t happy. In addition, good social relationships are important for happiness. Finally, happiness is influenced by other factors, like having goals and the means to achieve those goals.

How does monetary wealth create happiness?

An important question is whether having more money means being happier. Research shows that there is at least a small relationship between these two factors, but that the relationship is not as strong as you think. The extent wo chi people are satisfied with their daily experiences with public and communal goods is an important factor for positive feelings. Personal wealth should be seen as relative; when people have the idea that they do better than others, it makes for more happiness.

Is happiness getting what you want or enjoying what you have?

Once you have things, it can diminish your sense of happiness. Research shows, for example, that having a lot of money can ensure that you enjoy everything you already have less. Research from Larsen and McKibban shows that happiness is the combination of getting what you want and enjoying what you already have.

Differences between happy and unhappy people

Happy people are more focused on the environment and more concerned about others, showing more prosocial behaviour. In addition, happy and unhappy people react differently to the same social information. Happy people are less likely to regret the choices they make and less often to experience cognitive dissonance. Another difference is that happy people interpret certain events more positively. Finally, the self-reflection of happy and unhappy people is very different.

Benefits of happiness

People naturally want to be happy. The benefits of happiness, for examples, are better health and less unpleasant physical complaints. Happy people are able to cope better with illnesses, for example. However, the most striking finding is that happy people tend to live longer than unhappy people.

Is it possible to be too happy?

There are several reasons to believe that it’s possible to be too happy. The optimum level of well-being theory states that there’s an optimal level of well-being for every task. If the level rises above this optimum point, the performance in the task decreases. In addition, high levels of happiness are related to cognitive errors, like over-optimism. Finally, people can get the feeling that they can get away with everything, even if they do things that are dangerous for their health.

Increasing the degree of happiness

The first investigation into happiness stated that happiness is a given. A corresponding perspective states that emotions can vary, but always around a certain line. There is, however, increasing support for the fact that emotions are temporary and are variable to change. The steps you can undertake to increase your happiness include the following:

• Start an upward spiral.

• Develop close relationships or join groups that you value.

• Invest in experiences, rather than material goods.

• Work on personal skills that contribute to happiness.

• Stop doing nonproductive things.

Entrepreneurship as a means of seeking happiness

Many of the characteristics needed to be a successful entrepreneur are the same ones that contribute to happiness levels. By starting new businesses or working for themselves, they gain meaning in their lives and feel greater personal freedom. Entrepreneurs are also high in self-efficacy, social skills, and use their social networks to help themselves succeed. Self-determination theory (SDT) helps to explain why entrepreneurs typically have strong intrinsic motivation’ they want to perform work or activities that they enjoy. Whereas extrinsic motivation to obtain rewards does not bring the same level of happiness.

Life isn’t always easy, various setbacks may come your way. This chapter focuses on how adversity is overcome, and how people ensure a happy life for themselves.