Summary for Social Psychology
What Is Social Psychology?
Social psychology is the subfield of psychology that studies the power of the situation to influence individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Psychologists categorize the causes of human behaviour as those due to internal factors, such as personality, or those due to external factors, such as cultural and other social influences. Behaviour is better explained, however, by using both approaches. Lay people tend to over-rely on dispositional explanations for behaviour and ignore the power of situational influences, a perspective called the fundamental attribution error. People from individualistic cultures are more likely to display this bias versus people from collectivistic cultures. Our explanations for our own and others behaviours can be biased due to not having enough information about others’ motivations for behaviours and by providing explanations that bolster our self-esteem.
Self-presentation
Human behaviour is largely influenced by our social roles, norms, and scripts. In order to know how to act in a given situation, we have shared cultural knowledge of how to behave depending on our role in society. Social norms dictate the behaviour that is appropriate or inappropriate for each role. Each social role has scripts that help humans learn the sequence of appropriate behaviours in a given setting. The famous Stanford prison experiment is an example of how the power of the situation can dictate the social roles, norms, and scripts we follow in a given situation, even if this behaviour is contrary to our typical behaviour.
Attitudes and Persuasion
Attitudes are our evaluations or feelings toward a person, idea, or object and typically are positive or negative. Our attitudes and beliefs are influenced not only by external forces, but also by internal influences that we control. An internal form of attitude change is cognitive dissonance or the tension we experience when our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are in conflict. In order to reduce dissonance, individuals can change their behaviour, attitudes, or cognitions, or add a new cognition. External forces of persuasion include advertising; the features of advertising that influence our behaviours include the source, message, and audience. There are two primary routes to persuasion. The central route to persuasion uses facts and information to persuade potential consumers. The peripheral route uses positive association with cues such as beauty, fame, and positive emotions.
Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
The power of the situation can lead people to conform, or go along with the group, even in the face of inaccurate information. Conformity to group norms is driven by two motivations, the desire to fit in and be liked and the desire to be accurate and gain information from the group. Authority figures also have influence over our behaviours, and many people become obedient and follow orders even if the orders are contrary to their personal values. Conformity to group pressures can also result in groupthink, or the faulty decision-making process that results from cohesive group members trying to maintain group harmony. Group situations can improve human behaviour through facilitating performance on easy tasks, but inhibiting performance on difficult tasks. The presence of others can also lead to social loafing when individual efforts cannot be evaluated.
Prejudice and Discrimination
As diverse individuals, humans can experience conflict when interacting with people who are different from each other. Prejudice, or negative feelings and evaluations, is common when people are from a different social group (i.e., out-group). Negative attitudes toward out-groups can lead to discrimination. Prejudice and discrimination against others can be based on gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, or a variety of other social identities. In-group’s who feel threatened may blame the out-groups for their plight, thus using the out-group as a scapegoat for their frustration.
Aggression
Aggression is seeking to cause another person harm or pain. Hostile aggression is motivated by feelings of anger with intent to cause pain, and instrumental aggression is motivated by achieving a goal and does not necessarily involve intent to cause pain Bullying is an international public health concern that largely affects the adolescent population. Bullying is repeated behaviours that are intended to inflict harm on the victim and can take the form of physical, psychological, emotional, or social abuse. Bullying has negative mental health consequences for youth including suicide. Cyberbullying is a newer form of bullying that takes place in an online environment where bullies can remain anonymous and victims are helpless to address the harassment. Despite the social norm of helping others in need, when there are many bystanders witnessing an emergency, diffusion of responsibility will lead to a lower likelihood of any one person helping.
Prosocial Behaviour
Altruism is a pure form of helping others out of empathy, which can be contrasted with egoistic motivations for helping. Forming relationships with others is a necessity for social beings. We typically form relationships with people who are close to us in proximity and people with whom we share similarities. We expect reciprocity and self-disclosure in our relationships. We also want to form relationships with people who are physically attractive, though standards for attractiveness vary. There are many types of love that are determined by various combinations of intimacy, passion, and commitment; consummate love, which is the ideal form of love, contains all three components. When determining satisfaction and whether to maintain a relationship, individuals often use a social exchange approach and weigh the costs and benefits of forming and maintaining a relationship.
Here at MUN
There are many social psychologists in MUN’s Psychology Department. Dr. Martin Day runs the Societal Cognition Laboratory where he and his students research topics such as economic inequality and its connection to negative physical and mental health outcomes. Dr. Stéphane Dandeneau’s research focuses on how social psychological concepts like attributional styles can affect a person’s resiliency – or their ability to respond adaptively in a variety of situations.
MUN’s psychology undergraduate program offers many undergraduate courses covering topics on social psychology (e.g., Psyc 2020, Psyc 2100, Psyc 3100, Psyc 4150, Psyc 4151, Psyc 4170) and graduate level programs (e.g., MSc and MAPS).