1. 12.10 to 12.15 - Social interaction
1.1. 12.10 - Prejudice and discrimination
1.1.1. Prejudice is a negative attitude that a person holds about the members of a particular social group. Discrimination occurs when members of a social group are treated differently because of prejudice toward that group
1.1.2. In-groups are the people with whom a person identifies, whereas outgroups are everyone else at whom prejudice tend to be directed
1.1.3. Scapegoating refers to the tendency to direct prejudice and discrimination at out-group members who have little social power or influence. New immigrants are often the scapegoats for the frustration and anger of the in-group
1.2. 12.11 - How people learn and overcome prejudice
1.2.1. Social cognitive theory views prejudice as an attitude acquired through direct instruction, modeling, and other social influences
1.2.2. Conflict between groups increases prejudice and discrimination according to the realistic conflict theory
1.2.3. Social identity theory sees a person's formation of a social sense of self within a particular group as being due to three things:
1.2.3.1. Social categorization: the process of splitting up people into different groups in social settings
1.2.3.2. Social identification: the part of the self-concept including one's view of self as a member of a particular social category
1.2.3.3. Social comparison: the comparison of oneself to others in ways that raise one's self-esteem
1.2.4. Stereotype vulnerability (threat): the effect that people's awareness of the stereotypes associated with their social group has on their behavior
1.2.5. People who are aware of stereotypes may unintentionally come to behave in a way that makes the stereotype real in a self-fulfilling prophecy
1.2.6. Reducing prejudice
1.2.6.1. Intergroup contract is more effective in reducing prejudice if the groups have equal status
1.2.6.2. Prejudice and discrimination can also be reduced when a superordinate goal that is large enough to override all other goals needs to be achieved by all groups
1.2.6.3. Prejudice and discrimination are reduced when people must work together to solve a problem because each person has an important key to solving the problem, creating a mutual interdependence. This technique used in education is called the "jigsaw classroom"
1.3. 12.12 - Interpersonal attraction
1.3.1. Interpersonal attraction refers to liking or having the desire for a relationship with another person
1.3.2. Factors involved in interpersonal attraction
1.3.2.1. Physical attractiveness
1.3.2.2. Proximity (physically being near someone else)
1.3.2.3. Similarity
1.3.2.4. Reciprocity of liking: tendency of people to like other people who like them in return
1.3.2.4.1. The only time this does not work is if someone suffers from low self-esteem
1.4. 12.13 - Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love
1.4.1. Love is a strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests
1.4.2. Sternberg states that the three components of love are:
1.4.2.1. Intimacy: feelings of closeness that one has for another person or the sense of having close emotional ties to each other
1.4.2.1.1. Consummate love contains all three components
1.4.2.2. Passion: the emotional and sexual arousal a person feels toward another person
1.4.2.2.1. Romantic love is intimacy with passion
1.4.2.3. Commitment: the decisions one makes about a relationship
1.4.2.3.1. Companionate love is intimacy with commitment
1.5. 12.14 - Aggression
1.5.1. Aggression is behavior intended to physically or psychologically harm. Frustration is a major source of aggression
1.5.2. Biological influences on aggression may include genetics, the amygdala and limbic system, and testosterone and serotonin levels
1.5.3. Social roles are powerful influences on the expression of aggression. Social learning theory states that aggression can be learned through direct reinforcement and through the imitation of successful aggression by a model
1.5.4. Studies have concluded that violent television, movies, and video games stimulate aggressive behavior, both by increasing aggressive tendencies and by providing models of aggressive behavior
1.6. 12.15 - Prosocial behavior
1.6.1. Prosocial behavior is behavior that is socially desirable and benefits others
1.6.2. Altruism is prosocial behavior in which a person helps someone else without expectation of reward or recognition, often without fear for his or her own safety
1.6.3. Bystander effect: people are more likely to get help from others of there are one or only a few people nearby rather than a larger number. The more people nearby, the less likely it is that help will be offered
1.6.4. Diffusion of responsibility: occurring when a person fails to take responsibility for actions or for inaction because of the presence of other people who are seen to share the responsibility
1.6.5. The fives steps in making a decision to help are:
1.6.5.1. Noticing
1.6.5.2. Defining an emergency
1.6.5.3. Taking responsibility
1.6.5.4. Planning a course of action
1.6.5.5. Taking action
2. 12.1 to 12.4 - Social influence
2.1. 12.1 - Conformity
2.1.1. Asch used a set of comparison lines and a standard line to experiment with conformity, finding that subjects conformed to group opinion about 1/3rd of the time
2.1.1.1. This number increased as the number of confederates rose to four and decreasing if just one confederate gave the correct answer
2.1.1.2. Cross-cultural research has found that collectivistic cultures show more conformity than individualistic cultures. Gender differences do not exist in conformity unless the response is not private, in which case women are more conforming than men
2.2. 12.2 - Group behavior
2.2.1. Groupthink occurs when a decision-making group feels that it is more important to maintain group unanimity and cohesiveness than to consider the facts realistically. Minimizing groupthink involves holding the group members responsible for the decisions made by the group
2.2.2. Group polarization occurs when members take somewhat more extreme positions and take greater risks as compared to those made by individuals
2.2.3. When the performance of an individual on a relatively easy task is improved by the presence of others, it is called social facilitation. When the performance of an individual on a relatively difficult task is negatively affected by the presence of others, it is called social impairment
2.2.4. When a person who is lazy is able to work in a group of people, that person often performs less well than if the person were working alone, in a phenomenon called social loafing
2.2.5. Deindividuation occurs when group members feel anonymous and personally less responsible for their actions
2.3. 12.3 - Compliance
2.3.1. Compliance occurs when a person changes behavior as a result of another person asking or directing that person to change
2.3.2. Three common ways of getting compliance from others are:
2.3.2.1. Foot-in-the-door technique: this works by asking for a small commitment and after gaining compliance, asking for a bigger commitment
2.3.2.2. Door-in-the-face technique: this works by first asking a very large commitment which you expect to be turned down and asking for a smaller commitment
2.3.2.3. Lowball technique: works by getting a commitment from a person and then raising the cost of that commitment
2.4. 12.4 - Obedience
2.4.1. Obedience involves changing one's behavior at the direct order of an authority figure
2.4.2. Milgram did experiments in which he found that up to 65% of people obeyed an authority figure even if they believed they were hurting or possibly killing another person with electric shock
2.4.2.1. There have been serious ethical concerns about the experiment and some researchers suggest that the study doesn't actually examine obedience, but rather social identity
2.4.3. People will usually far underestimate their level of obedience, even when informed about this fact
3. 12.5 to 12.9 - Social cognition
3.1. 12.5 - Attitudes
3.1.1. Attitudes are tendencies to respond positively or negatively toward ideas, persons, objects or situations
3.1.2. The three components of an attitude are:
3.1.2.1. Affective: the way a person feels toward the thing in question
3.1.2.2. Behavior: the action a person takes in regard toward the thing in question
3.1.2.3. Cognitive: the way a person thinks about the thing in question
3.1.3. Attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior unless the attitude is very specific or very strong
3.1.4. Attitudes can be formed in several different ways:
3.1.4.1. Direct contact
3.1.4.2. Direct instruction
3.1.4.3. Interacting with others
3.1.4.4. Vicarious learning
3.2. 12.6 - Attitude change
3.2.1. Persuasion is the process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, position, or course of action of another person through argument, pleading, or explanation
3.2.2. Key elements in persuasion
3.2.2.1. The source of the message
3.2.2.2. The message itself
3.2.2.3. The target audience
3.2.3. In the elaboration likelihood model, central-route processing involves attending to the content of the message itself, whereas peripheral-route processing involves attending to factors not involved in the message, such as the appearance of the source of the message, the length of the message, and other noncontent factors
3.3. 12.7 - Cognitive dissonance
3.3.1. Cognitive dissonance: sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when a person's behavior does not correspond to that person's attitude
3.3.2. Cognitive dissonance is lessened by changing the conflicting behavior, changing the conflicting attitude, or forming a new attitude to justify the behavior
3.3.2.1. Cognitive dissonance theory has been challenged by for example self-perception theory, which states that instead of experiencing negative tension, people look at their own actions and then infer their attitudes from those actions
3.4. 12.8 - Impression formation
3.4.1. Impression formation is the forming of the first knowledge a person has about another person
3.4.2. The primacy effect in impression formation means that the very first impression one has about a person tends to persist even in the face of evidence to the contrary
3.4.3. Impression formation is part of social cognition, or the mental processes that people use to make sense out of the world around them
3.4.4. Social categorization is a process of social cognition in which a person, upon meeting someone new, assigns that person to a category or group
3.4.4.1. One form of a social category is the stereotype, in which the characteristics used to assign a person to a category are superficial and believed to be true of all members of the category
3.4.5. An implicit personality theory is a form of social cognition in which a person has sets of assumptions about different types of people, personality traits and actions that are assumed to be related to each other
3.5. 12.9 - Attribution
3.5.1. Attribution is the process of explaining one's own behavior as well as the behavior of others
3.5.1.1. A situational cause is an explanation of behavior based on factors in the surrounding environment or situation
3.5.1.2. A dispositional cause is an explanation of behavior based on the internal personality characteristics of the person being observed
3.5.1.3. Fundamental attribution error: the tendency to overestimate the influence of internal factors in determining behavior while underestimating the influence of the situation
3.5.1.3.1. Actor-observer bias: the tendency to use situational attributions instead of dispositional to explain our own behavior
3.5.1.3.2. Not universal and more prevalent in Western cultures