PSY Chapter 14

Psychology in Our
Social Lives
C H A P T E R 14
 In Utah in November 2021, a man was fast asleep in
his home when his garage caught fire. Sarah
Maughan who lived a couple blocks away saw the
flames. She drove to the house to see if she could be
of help. When she arrived, she immediately hopped
out of her vehicle, ran to the door of the house, and
started banging on it. When the sleepy home owner
came to the door, she said, “Your house is on fire.”
With the fire spreading to the main part of the house,
Maughan’s action likely saved the man’s life.
 Mayur Shelkhe, and Sarah Maughan were strangers to
the people they saved. Why were they willing to risk
their own lives for others?
Social Psychology
The scientific study of how
we feel about, think about,
and behave toward the
other people around us,
and how those people
influence our thoughts,
feelings, and behavior.
Social situation
The people with whom
we
are interacting.
SOCIAL COGNITION: MAKING SENSE OF OURSELVES
AND OTHERS
 The principles of social cognition—the part of human
thinking that helps us understand and predict the
behavior of ourselves and others—and consider the
ways that our judgments about other people guide our
behaviors toward them.
Perceiving Others
 Our initial judgments of others are based in large part
on what we see ----
 We often emphasis our attention on physical features
of other people.
 Preferences for youthful, symmetrical, and average
faces have been observed cross-culturally, and thus
appear to be common human preferences. However,
different cultures may also have unique beliefs about
what is attractive.
Forming Judgments on the Basis of Appearance:
Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination
 We frequently use people’s appearances
to form our judgments about them and
to determine our responses to them
 Stereotypes lead us to treat people
differently—the physically attractive are
given better grades on essay exams, are
more successful on job interviews, and
receive lighter sentences in court
judgments than their less attractive
counterparts
 Stereotyping is closely related to Prejudice and

Discrimination
 Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination
work together.
 We may avoid people from other race/ethnic
background/religions or those with mental
illness because of our prejudices.
(discrimination)
 Research has found, for instance, that
attractive people are actually more sociable,
more popular, and less lonely than less
attractive individuals.
 Group differences in personality

traits may occur in part because
people act toward others on the
basis of their stereotypes, creating a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
 Stereotyping and prejudice are
always unfair and often inaccurate.
 Furthermore, many of our
stereotypes and prejudices occur out
of our awareness, such that we do
not even know that we are using
 We may be evolutionarily disposed to

stereotyping. Because our primitive ancestors
needed to accurately separate members of their
own kin group from those of others, categorizing
people into “us” (the ingroup) and “them” (the
outgroup) was useful and even necessary.
 We may gain social identity as members of our
university, our sports teams, our religious and
racial groups, and many other groups.
 Social psychologists believe that we should work
to get past our prejudices, stereotypes through
practice, avoiding them.
Causal Attribution: Forming Judgments by Observing
Behavior
 Making causal attributions is a bit like conducting an
experiment
 Sometimes we may decide that the behavior was caused
primarily by the person; a person attribution. At other
times, the behavior was caused primarily by the situation;
a situation attribution or both.
 The fundamental attribution error occurs in part because
other people are so salient in our social environments.
 We are more likely to commit the fundamental attribution
error—quickly jumping to the conclusion that behavior is
caused by underlying personality—when we are tired,
distracted, or busy doing other things.
 We should not be too quick to judge other people.
Attitudes and Behavior
 Attitude refer to our relatively enduring evaluations of
people and things (Albarracín, Johnson, & Zanna, 2005).
 Attitudes are important because they frequently (but not
always) predict behavior
 People who wish to change behavior frequently try to
change attitudes through the use of persuasive
communications.
 Attitudes predict behavior better for some people than for
others. People who are high in self-monitoring— the tendency
to regulate behavior to meet the demands of social situations—
tend to change their behaviors to match the social situation
and thus do not always act on their attitudes.
 Behaviors influence attitudes in part through the process of
self-perception. Self-perception occurs when we use our own
behavior as a guide to help us determine our own thoughts and
feelings.
 Behavior also influences our attitudes through a more
emotional process known as cognitive dissonance. Cognitive
dissonance refers to the discomfort we experience when we
choose to behave in ways that we see as inappropriate.
INTERACTING WITH OTHERS: HELPING, HURTING, AND
CONFORMING
 The tendency to help others in need is in part a

functional evolutionary adaptation. We help
others to benefit ourselves and to benefit the
others.
Helping Others: Altruism Helps Create Harmonious
Relationships
Altruism
Any behavior that is designed to
increase another person’s
welfare, and particularly those
actions that do not seem to
provide a direct reward to the
person who performs them.
Helping Others: Altruism Helps Create Harmonious
Relationships
 Why Are We Altruistic?
 The tendency to help others in need is in part a functional
evolutionary adaptation.
 Why would we help people to whom we are not related?
 One explanation for such behavior is based on the principle of
reciprocal altruism.
 The reciprocity norm reminds us that we should follow the principles
of reciprocal altruism.
 the social responsibility norm
How the Presence of Others Can Reduce Helping
Latané and Darley’s model of helping proposes that the presence of others can reduce
noticing, interpreting, and responding to emergencies.
How the Presence of Others Can Reduce
Helping
 Even if we have noticed the emergency and interpret it as being
one we still need to decide that it is our responsibility to do
something.
 The problem is that when we see others around, it is easy to
assume that they are going to do something, and that we don’t
need to do anything ourselves.
 Diffusion of responsibility occurs when we assume that others
will take action and therefore we do not take action ourselves.
 Markey (2000) found that people received help more quickly (in about 37
seconds) when they asked for help by specifying a participant’s name than
when no name was specified (51 seconds).
Human Aggression: An Adaptive yet Potentially
Damaging Behavior
 Aggression is behavior that is intended to harm
another individual
 The Ability to Aggress Is Part of Human Nature
 Negative Experiences Increase Aggression
 Viewing Violent Media Increases Aggression
Conformity and Obedience: How Social Influence
Creates Social Norms
 We conform not only because we believe that other people have
accurate information and we want to have knowledge (informational
conformity) but also because we want to be liked by others (normative
conformity).
 The typical outcome of conformity is that our beliefs and behaviors
become more similar to those of others around us.
 The tendency to conform to those in authority, known as obedience,
was demonstrated in a remarkable set of studies performed by
Stanley Milgram (1974).
 Solomon Asch (1955) Research

Obedience to Authority: Stanley Milgram’s Experiment (1974)
If an
experimenter
instructed a
participant to
hurt another
person, under
what conditions
will the
participant
obey?
Obedience to Authority: Stanley Milgram’s Experiment
(1974)
 Experiment Design:
- 40 males
- Aged 20 - 50 yrs.
- From local area
- Volunteers
- Range of occupation
- Range of education
- Paid $4 an hour
Do We Always Conform?
 Minority influence
 Psychological reactance
WORKING WITH
OTHERS: THE
COSTS AND
BENEFITS OF
SOCIAL GROUPS
Working Together in Groups
Working in groups involves both costs and benefits. When the
outcome of group performance is better than we would
expect given the individuals who form the group, we call the
outcome a group process gain, and when the group outcome
is worse that we would have expected given the individuals
who form the group, we call the outcome a group process
loss.
Process losses are observed in phenomena such as social
loafing, groupthink. Process losses can be reduced by better
motivation and coordination among the group members, by
keeping contribution identifiable, and by providing difficult but
attainable goals.
Psychological theories at a glance
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Psychology in Our

 Stereotyping is closely related to Prejudice and

 Group differences in personality

 We may be evolutionarily disposed to

 The tendency to help others in need is in part a

 Solomon Asch (1955) Research

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