Social psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the way individual’s thoughts,

feelings, and behaviours are influenced by others.

Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that people have certain characteris- tics
because of their membership in a particular group.

Illusory correlation occurs when people estimate that they have

encountered more confirmations of an association between social traits
than they have actually seen.

Attribution theory considers how we decide, on the basis of samples of a person’s behavior,
what the specific causes of that behavior are. Attributions are inferences that people
draw about the causes of events, others’ behavior, and their own behavior.

TYPES OF ATTRIBUTION:

Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions,

traits, abilities, and feelings.

External attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands

and environmental constraints.
In seeking an explanation for behavior, we must answer one central question: Is the cause situational or
dispositional? Situational causes are causes of behavior that are external to a person. For instance, someone
who knocks over a quart of milk and then cleans it up probably does the cleaning not because he or she is
necessarily a neat person but because the situation requires it. In contrast, a person who spends hours shining the
kitchen floor probably does so because he or she is an unusually neat person. Hence, the behavior has a
dispositional cause. Dispositional causes are causes of behavior brought about by a person’s traits or
personality characteristics.

The halo effect. Harry is intelligent, kind, and loving. Is he also conscientious? If you were to guess, your most
likely response probably would be yes. Your guess reflects the halo effect, a phenomenon in which an initial
understanding that a person has positive traits is used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics. The
opposite would also hold true. Learning that Harry was unsociable and argumentative would probably lead you
to assume that he was lazy as well. However, few people have either uniformly positive or uniformly negative
traits, so the halo effect leads to misperceptions of others

• The fundamental attribution error. One of the more common attribution biases is the fundamental attribution
error, which is the tendency to overattribute others’ behavior to dispositional causes and the corresponding
failure to recognize the importance of situational causes. The fundamental attribution error is prevalent in
Western cultures.
Defensive attribution is a tendency to blame victims for their misfortune, so that one feels less likely to be victimized in
a similar way.

The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal fac- tors and one’s failures to situational
factors.

Individualism involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal
attributes rather than group member- ships. In contrast, collectivism involves putting group goals ahead of personal
goals and defining one’s identity in terms of the groups one belongs to (such as one’s family, tribe, work group, social
class, and so on).

We begin with a look at how our attitudes shape our behavior and how we form judgments about others. We’ll
discuss how we are influenced by others, and we will consider prejudice and discrimination by focusing on their
roots and the ways we can reduce them.

• Social psychology defined

1. Attitude

• Attitude formation
• Attitude change
• Theories of attitude
• Measurement of attitude

2. Prejudice
3. Group Dynamics

4. Leadership

• Attitudes are one of the central concepts of social psychology. Attitudes are evaluations of people,
objects, ideas, and behaviour. We have all sorts of attitudes, ranging from those about others (“I think
the president is great”), to attitudes about behaviour (“I hate it when people are late for appointments”),
to attitudes toward more abstract concepts (“I support affirmative action”)

• In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviours toward

a particular object, person, thing, or event (Cherry, 2023)

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE

The components of attitudes are sometimes referred to as the ABC's of attitude.

1. Affective Component: How the object, person, issue, or event makes you feel (Emotional component)

2. Behavioural Component: How attitude influences your behavior

3. Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject

ATTITUDE FORMATION (HOW ATTITUDES ARE FORMED)

Several factors can influence how and why attitudes form, including:

1. Experience

• Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may emerge due to direct personal
experience, or they may result from observation.
2. Social Factors

• Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to
how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve
society's rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate.

3. Learning

• Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Consider how advertisers use classical
conditioning to influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television
commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun on a tropical beach while enjoying a
sports drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you to develop a positive
association with this particular beverage.

4. Conditioning

• Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes develop. Imagine a young
man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights up a cigarette, people complain,
chastise him, and ask him to leave their vicinity. This negative feedback from those around
him eventually causes him to develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to
give up the habit.

5. Observational learning

• Finally, people also learn attitudes by observing people around them. When someone you
admire greatly espouses a particular attitude, you are more likely to develop the same beliefs.
For example, children spend a great deal of time observing the attitudes of their parents and
usually begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.

Recap

• Attitudes can form through direct experience, social influence, formal education,
conditioning processes, and observation.
THEORIES OF ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE

While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same
influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change.

1. Learning Theory

Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can be used to bring
about attitude change.

• Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object,

person, or event by associating positive feelings with the target object. Example: advertisers
use this type of conditioning by pairing their products with stimuli eliciting pleasant
emotional reactions (extremely attractive models or likable spokespersons)

• Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable
ones. For instance, you openly express an attitude, and some people get agreed (it will serve
as a reinforce strengthening your attitude), some disagree with you will serve as punishment
which may gradually weaken your viewpoint.

• Observational Learning: People can also change their attitudes after observing the
behavior of others. Example: the opinions of coaches, teachers, co-workers, talk-show hosts,
rock stars are likely to sway people’s attitudes through observational learning.
2. Persuasion Theory (also known as Elaboration Likelihood Model) This theory of
persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. Central route, people can
be motivated to listen and think about the message (content), thus leading to an attitude shift .
Second is peripheral route, people might be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker,
leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and
that appeal to logic (central route) are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.

Persuasion: Changing Attitudes

• Persuasion involves changing attitudes. The ease with which attitudes can be changed depends on a
number of factors, including:

The source is the person who sends a communication, and the receiver is the person to whom the message is
sent

The message is the information transmitted by the source, and the channel is the medium through which the message
is sent.

ROUTES TO PERSUASION
Recipients’ receptiveness to persuasive messages relates to the type of information-processing they use.
Social psychologists have discovered two primary information-processing Page 559 routes to persuasion:
central route and peripheral route processing. Central route processing occurs when the recipient
thoughtfully considers the issues and arguments involved in persuasion. In central route processing,
people are swayed in their judgments by the logic, merit, and strength of arguments.
In contrast, peripheral route processing occurs when people are persuaded on the basis of factors
unrelated to the nature or quality of the content of a persuasive message. Instead, factors that are
irrelevant or extraneous to the issue, such as who is providing the message, how long the arguments
are, or the emotional appeal of the arguments, influence them
In general, people who are highly involved and motivated use central route processing to comprehend a
message. However, if a person is disinterested, unmotivated, bored, or distracted, the characteristics of
the message become less important, and peripheral factors become more influential
 •
• Central route processing involves the content of the message; peripheral route processing involves how
the message is provided.

3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory (vvv imp by mam)

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts.

• People can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about
a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs,
people often shift their attitudes.

One of the most popular cognitive approaches to the study of social

behaviour has been the theory of cognitive dissonance, first
systematically studied by the American psychologist Leon Festinger.
“Cognitive dissonance is a motivating state of affairs. Just as hunger impels a person to eat,
so does dissonance impel a person to change his opinions or his behavior.” Leon Festinger

❖ This theory proposed that people attempt to maintain consistency

among their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

❖ Denotes an imbalance between what we believe in(cognitive) and

what we do(conation)

❖ May create psychological discomfort

You’ve just spent what you feel is the most boring hour of your life turning
pegs for a psychology experiment. Just as you finally finish and are about to
leave, the experimenter asks you to do him a favor. He tells you that he needs a
helper for future experimental sessions to introduce subsequent participants to
the peg-turning task. Your specific job will be to tell them that turning the pegs
is an interesting, fascinating experience. Each time you tell this tale to another
participant, you’ll be paid $1.

If you agree to help the experimenter, you may be setting yourself up for a state
of psychological tension called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance
occurs when a person holds two contradictory attitudes or thoughts

If you participate in the situation just described, you are left with two
contradictory thoughts: (1) I believe the task is boring, but (2) I said it was
interesting with little justification ($1). These two thoughts should arouse
cognitive dissonance.
For instance:
The information regarding smoking with cancer and heart disease create
dissonance in chain smokers. They cant resist the temptation of smoking yet,
knowing smoking is injurious to health. There is an imbalance between the
beliefs and smoking behaviour. The remedy lies in a goal directed behavior
that is aimed to reduce the imbalance either by stopping excessive smoking
or by refusing to believe the information about its danger.

As a solution, we are motivated to set the imbalance

either by changing our beliefs or our behaviour
There are four ways to reduce the dissonance in this case:
• Modifying one or both of the cognitions (e.g., “I really don’t smoke that
much.”)
• Changing the perceived importance of one cognition (“The link between
cancer and smoking is weak.”)
• Adding cognitions (“I exercise so much that I’m really a healthy person.”)
• Denying that the two cognitions are related to each other (“There’s no
compelling evidence linking smoking and cancer.”)

SELF PERCEPTION THEORY

According to Bem’s self-perception theory, people often infer their attitudes from their
behavior. Thus, Bem argued that in the study by Festinger and Carl- smith (1959), the
subjects paid $1 probably thought to themselves, “A dollar isn’t enough money to get me to
lie, so I must have found the task enjoyable.
SCALES TO MEASURE ATTITUDE :

Scaling is a technique used for measuring responses of respondents such

as those related to their feelings, perception, likes, dislikes, interests and
preferences.

Mostly used rating scales in psychology are as under:

• Thurston scale
• Likert Scale
• Guttmann Scale

• Bogardus Scale

Prejudice and Discrimination

Definition

Prejudice is defined as a negative attitude held towards members of a group.

It may lead to Discrimination which involves behaving differently, usually unfairly,

towards the members of a group.

Components

Like other attitudes, it has three components:

1. Beliefs are cognitive component based on thinking.

Example “Indians are mostly alcoholics”

2. Emotions are affective components based on feelings.

Example “I despise Indians/jews”

3. Behavioral dispositions are objective and observable in nature Example “I wouldn’t

hire an indian/ maxican/ jew”

FACTORS LEADING TO PREJUDICE

1. Stereotyping in person perception: when we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the
group to which he or she belongs., we are using the shortcut called stereotyping. stereotype, a set of
generalized beliefs and expectations about a specific group and its members.

2. Subjectivity in person perception: People will see what they want to see in others

3. Memory bias are titled in favor of conforming people’s prejudices. Example: if a man
believes that “women are not cut out for leadership roles,” he may dwell with delight on his
female supervisor’s mistakes and quickly forget about her achievements.

4. Forming & preserving prejudicial attitudes: This type of prejudice appears as a

legacy from parents. These prejudicial attitudes are found in children as young as ages 4 or 5.
(Observational learning plays the role here).
5. Making biased attribution: The tendency to assume that other’s behavior reflects their
dispositions , can contribute to prejudice. Example: Men’s successes tend to be attributed to
their ability & intelligence, whereas women’s successes tend to be attributed to hard work,
good luck, or low task difficulty.

The Implicit Association Test, or IAT, is an ingenious measure of prejudice that permits
a more accurate assessment of people’s discrimination between members of different
groups.

ELIMINATION OR REMEDY OF PREJUDICE

1. Evaluating credibility
The critical thinker understands that credibility and bias are central to determining the quality
of information and looks at factors such as vested interests, credentials, and appropriate
expertise.

2. Recognizing Social Influence Strategies

The critical thinker is aware of manipulative tactics, such as the foot-in-the-door and
lowball technique, misuse of the reciprocity norm, and feigned scarcity.

Foot-in-the-door technique: It involves getting people to agree to a small

request to increase the chances that they’ll agree to a larger request later.

Lowball technique: It involves getting someone to commit to a seemingly

attractive proposition before its hidden costs and revealed.

Reciprocity Norm: The rule that we should pay back in kind what we
receive from others.

Social influence is the process by which social groups and individuals exert
pressure on an individual, either deliberately or unintentionally.

Groups consist of two or more people who (1) interact with one another; (2) perceive
themselves as part of a group; and (3) are interdependent—that is, the events that affect one
group member affect other members, and the behavior of members has significant
consequences for the success of the group in meeting its goals.
(Idk this graph was given in book with a huge theory for group size so if u want u can ignore it )

Group cohesiveness refers to the strength of the liking relationships linking group
members to each other and to the group itself.

Groupthink is a type of thinking in which group members share such a strong motivation to achieve consensus
that they lose the ability to critically evaluate alternative points of view. Groupthink is most likely to occur when
a popular or powerful leader is surrounded by people of lower status—which is obviously the case with any U.S.
president and his advisers but is also true for leaders in a variety of other organizations.

Compliance: Submitting to Direct Social Pressure

Conformity is a change in behavior or attitudes brought about by a desire to follow the beliefs or standards of
other people. Subtle or even unspoken social pressure results in conformity.

CONCLUSIONS FOR CONFORMITY :

Since Asch’s pioneering work, literally hundreds of studies have examined conformity, and we now know a
great deal about the phenomenon. Significant findings focus on:

• The characteristics of the group: The more attractive a group appears to its members, the greater its ability
to produce conformity. Furthermore, a person’s relative status, the social standing of someone within a group,
is critical: The lower a person’s status in the group, the greater groups’ power over that person’s behavior

• The situation in which the individual is responding: Conformity is considerably higher when people must
respond publicly than it is when they can do so privately, as the founders of the United States noted when they
authorized secret ballots in voting.
• The kind of task: People working on ambiguous tasks and questions (those with no clear answer) are more
susceptible to social pressure. When asked to give an opinion on something, such as what type of clothing is
fashionable, a person will more likely yield to conformist pressures than he or she will if asked a question of
fact. In addition, tasks at which an individual is less competent than others in the group make conformity more
likely. For example, a person who is an infrequent computer user may feel pressure to conform to an opinion
about computer brands when in a group of experienced computer users.
• Unanimity of the group: Groups that unanimously support a position show the most pronounced conformity
pressures. But what about the case in which people with dissenting views have an ally in the group, known as a
social supporter, who agrees with them? Having just one person present who shares the minority point of
view is sufficient to reduce conformity pressures

Compliance: Submitting to Direct Social Pressure

When we refer to conformity, we usually mean a phenomenon in which the social pressure is subtle or indirect.
But in some situations, social pressure is much more obvious with direct, explicit pressure to endorse a
particular point of view or behave in a certain way. Compliance is behavior that occurs in response to direct
social pressure.

Several specific techniques represent attempts to gain compliance. Those frequently employed include: • Foot-
in-the-door technique. The use of the foot-in-the-door technique begins when someone asks a target to comply
with a small, trivial request. Because such a request is easy to fulfill, the likelihood that the target of the request
will comply is high.

• Door-in-the-face technique. (p.s: these techniques are not in slides but in book zyada imp nhi lag rhin
jiska dil kre prh le kafi lmbi hain)

• That’s-not-all technique

• Not-so-free sample.

The norm of reciprocity is the social standard that we should treat other people as they treat us. (It’s a variant
of the Golden Rule we learn as kids: “Do unto others as they will do unto you.”)

Obedience: Following Direct Orders

Obedience is a change in behavior in response to the commands of others. Although obedience is considerably
less common than conformity and compliance, it does occur in several specific kinds of relationships. For
example, we may show obedience to our bosses, teachers, or parents merely because of the power they hold to
reward or punish us.
LEADERSHIP ( didnt find in book but in course outline)
(as no part in book for leadership, so pasted the slides here.)

Liking and Loving: Interpersonal Attraction and the Development

of Relationships
Interpersonal attraction refers to positive feelings toward another.

Reciprocity Effects

Reciprocity involves liking those who show that they like you,knowing that someone
evaluates us positively promotes our attraction to that person. In addition, if we like someone
else, we tend to assume that person likes us in return.

Passionate and
Companionate Love (some definitions)

Passionate love is a complete absorption in another that includes tender sexual feelings and the agony and ecstasy of
intense emotion.
Companionate love is warm, trusting, tolerant affection for another whose life is deeply intertwined with one’s own.

Intimacy refers to warmth, closeness, and sharing in a relationship. Commitment is an intent to maintain a
relationship in spite of the difficulties and costs that may arise.

Over all analysis of chapter