Social Psychology
Social Cognition
Demonstration
What is Social Psychology?
•	Social psychologists attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others (Allport).
•	Intrapersonal & interpersonal.
Social Cognition
•	What mechanisms underlie the formation of attitudes?
•	How can attitudes be changed?
•	How do we attribute causes to our own and other’s behavior?
Attitudes
•	An attitude is a learned, stable, and relatively enduring evaluation of a person, object or idea that can influence an individual’s behavior.
•	Cognitive, affective, and behavioral components.
Attitude Formation
•	Classical conditioning
•	Garcia effect; advertising
•	Instrumental conditioning
•	Parents; conversations with others
•	Observational learning
•	Political beliefs; adolescence.

Attitude Change
•	Applications: Prejudice, health, financial responsibility, politics, etc.
•	Two primary mechanisms: 
•	Persuasion 
•	Maintaining cognitive consistency
Central Route to Persuasion
•	Thoughtful arguments related to topic.
•	Works for motivated recipients.
•	Results in stable, long-lasting attitudes.
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
•	Physical appearance of communicator, superficial contents of message.
•	Works when people are unable or unmotivated to process a message deeply.
•	Results in less stable attitudes.
“Memory” Route to Persuasion
•	Repeat something enough, and eventually people will believe it.
•	Repetition priming & attitudes
•	Mere exposure effect (Zajonc)
•	Repeated faces & words were liked better
•	Validity effect (Arkes)
•	Repeated statements were judged to be more valid.
Maintaining Cognitive Consistency
•	Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
•	Subjects engaged in boring task for 1 hour.
•	Subjects in exp’l groups were told, and were asked to tell others, that the task was interesting.
•	Paid $1 or $20 to do so.
•	Afterwards, the subjects rated how enjoyable the task was.

Cognitive Dissonance
•	The tension produced by acting in a way that is inconsistent with your attitudes.
•	Attitude change may be a result of reducing cognitive dissonance.
•	Cognitive dissonance occurs when the action is freely chosen, commitment to behavior is firm, and behavior has consequences for others.
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
•	When we are not sure what we believe, we infer our beliefs from our behavior.
•	Analysis of Festinger & Carlsmith’s experiment.
Synthesis
•	Cognitive dissonance theory applies to attitude change.
•	Self-perception theory applies to attitude formation.
•	Death penalty vs. brussel sprouts
Attributing Causes to Behavior
•	Attributions are inferences people make about the causes of behavior.
•	Two major types: Internal, or personal, attributions and external, or situational, attributions.
Kelley’s Covariation Model
•	People search for causes of behavior in events that happen at the same time and place as the behavior.
•	The locus of causality--internal vs. external--is determined by consistency, distinctiveness, & consensus.
Consistency
•	Do the cause and the behavior occur together consistently?
Distinctiveness
•	Does the behavior occur even though the cause doesn’t?  Does the behavior occur uniquely with the cause?
Consensus
•	Would other people behave similarly in the presence of the cause?
Internal vs. External Attributions
•	Internal attributions tend to be made when consistency is high, but distinctiveness and consensus are low.
•	External attributions tend to be made when consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus are high.
•	Examples.
Attribution Biases
•	Fundamental attribution error: When people try to understand someone else’s behavior, they overestimate internal factors and underestimate external factors.
•	Self-serving bias: We tend to be generous in interpreting our own behaviors, emphasizing internal factors when outcomes are positive, and external factors when outcomes are negative.
Back to demo . . .
•	How many times did you circle “it depends” for the description of yourself?
•	How many times did you circle “it depends” for the description of me?
Summary
•	Attitudes are learned and affect behavior.
•	Attitudes are changed by persuasion and by the drive for cognitive consistency.
•	People are eclectic in attributing causes to behavior, but often make attributions in a biased and self-serving manner.