Social Psychology
Social psychology studies how individuals are affected by society and analyses the
interactions between individuals within a group. It is an inductive science. It believes that
friendship depends on similarities and proximity.
The Bobo doll experiment
This is an experiment on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated
that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment
was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable
doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour
of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.
The Attribution theory
This explores how individuals interpret events and ascribe causes to behaviours or
outcomes, affecting their perceptions and reactions. It suggests people attribute causes to
situations either internally (personal factors like abilities or effort) or externally (situational
factors like luck or others' actions). This theory helps understand how people make sense of
the world and interact with others based on these attributions. The question of why are they
behaving that way? For instance: you see a car crash and immediately think that the driver
was driving recklessly.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
It refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviours. For example:
people who continue to smoke but know it is bad. This produces a feeling of mental
discomfort like guilt etc... It leads to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or
behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. Cognitive dissonance was first
investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult that
believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its
members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs
to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.
Cognitive dissonance affected the Stanford prison experiment because guards and prisoners
encountered a conflict in their beliefs due to their assigned roles and perceived authority.
Participants in the experiment were assigned to be a guard or prisoner.
Asch: Conformity
Bandura: Bobo
Milgram: Obedience
Zimbardo: Prison Experiment
Social Identity Theory
This was proposed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s, posits that individuals
derive a portion of their self-concept from their membership in social groups. We choose
our groups by identifying with something, like similarity and proximity. We see other people
behaviour and model it. They proposed that social identity groups can give you a sense of
belonging, purpose, self-worth, and identity.
,Solomon Asch in Conformity
He experimented with investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority
group could affect a person to conform. From his line experiment study, he deducted that
people conform for two main reasons:
normative influence: because they want to fit in with the group.
informational influence: because they believe the group is better informed than they
are.
PERSON PERCEPTION
How we see other depends on how we see ourselves. Our self-concept depends on how
others see us. These are influenced by your personality traits. Genetic makeup and
experiences also play a part. The nature and nurture debate is involved. This is a two-way
process in which one influences the other- self-concept and person perception.
The Looking-Glass Self Theory
Charles Horton Cooley introduced the Looking-glass self-theory which
describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of self on how they
believe others view them.
it uses social interaction as a type of mirror,
In essence, people use the judgement they receive from others to measure their own
self-worth, behaviour and values.
We change our self-perception based on how we guess other perceive us, not how
they actually perceive us. We only guess rather than checking how others see us.
Thus, our self-concept is based on guesses.
This is often a sub-conscious process.
The process of evaluating others is on occasions carried below the level of our
explicit awareness. Regardless of the degree of skill which we may have in appraising
others, we engage in the process most of the time without paying much attention to
how we do it or even that we actually do it.
Physical and Social Perception
There is a difference between physical and social perception.
Social perception
such as the perception of other people, differs from the perception of physical
objects in 2 ways which are likely to be biased.
o Perception of objects is mainly directed towards immediately directed
observable surface characteristics such as size, weight, colour etc…
o perception of people is predominantly concerned with characteristics which
are not immediately observable but must be inferred such as intelligence,
personality, attitudes etc…
This is therefore more complex thus more likely to make mistakes.
First Impressions
First impressions are affected by:
non-verbal cues,
what we have heard or read about a person,
similarity to self and self-esteem.
,The Primacy Effect is the notion that the first things we perceive about a person
(appearance, things we heard about them etc) carry greater weight than other things we
come to know later on. The idea that first impressions have a strong effect on our
perception of the other person.
The primacy effect is a cognitive bias and refers to an individual's tendency to better
remember the first piece of information they encounter than the information they receive
later on.
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
“Those messages expressed by other than linguistic means”.
The characteristics of this
are conscious and unconscious,
control,
congruency,
culture bound,
ambiguous.
Non-verbal communication functions to
regulate (in conversation),
accenting (putting an emphasis on something),
complementing (making a messages clearer by using ex. Using ur hands to
speak),
contradicting (claiming you are not angry in an angry voice),
substituting (waving goodbye instead of saying it).
Non-verbal Cues related to Physical Appearance
height,
sex,
age,
body smell,
body shape,
skin colour
Early research on non-verbal communication:
Wells and Siegel (1961)- fat people are more likely to be related with attributes such
as jolly, warm-hearted, sympathetic.
Berscheld and Walster (1978)- physically attractive persons are consistently judged
more favourable in initial interactions.
Knapp (1977)
Artefacts: jewellery, cosmetics, eyeglasses- all these communicate something
about us.
Clothes communicate: Socioeconomic Status, interests, values, gender, etc
(Adler, 1984)
, Facial Expressions:
The face is the most expressive part of the body. Ekman and Friesman (1975) have
identified 6 basic emotions expressed by the face and identified by many if not all
cultures face:
surprise,
anger,
disgust,
fear,
happiness,
and sadness.
Some may be a mixture of more than one emotion and hence may be difficult to
identify correctly.
Gaze and Eye Contact:
Eye contact and gazing:
provide information,
regulate interaction,
express intimacy,
exercise social control.
facilitate accomplishment of a task.
Posture
Posture in which body movement communicate affective states.
The way we move toward or away from a person,
the way we sit,
the way we walk,
the way we hold our head and shoulder;
All these are communicative messages.
Openness is seen in the relaxed position of the hands and feet.
A closed posture is seen when a person turns away from others, covers part of the
face or the eyes with the hand, or crosses both arms and legs.
By our posture, we may indicate our perception of status.
o we tend to relax around people of equal or lower status and tense up around
people whom we perceive as being of a higher status (Myers and Myers,
1988)
Gestures
Ekman and Friesan (1975) explain that because most of us know that the face is the most
obvious channel of expressing emotions, we are especially careful to control our facial
expression when hiding our feelings, but we are less aware of our hands and feet which
might give us away.
Paralanguage
Paralanguage is vocal non-verbal behaviour. It is not just the words we say but how we tell
them that gives meaning to other words. "This is great" could mean this is the best news l've
Social psychology studies how individuals are affected by society and analyses the
interactions between individuals within a group. It is an inductive science. It believes that
friendship depends on similarities and proximity.
The Bobo doll experiment
This is an experiment on aggression led by psychologist Albert Bandura that demonstrated
that children are able to learn through the observation of adult behaviour. The experiment
was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable
doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour
of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.
The Attribution theory
This explores how individuals interpret events and ascribe causes to behaviours or
outcomes, affecting their perceptions and reactions. It suggests people attribute causes to
situations either internally (personal factors like abilities or effort) or externally (situational
factors like luck or others' actions). This theory helps understand how people make sense of
the world and interact with others based on these attributions. The question of why are they
behaving that way? For instance: you see a car crash and immediately think that the driver
was driving recklessly.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
It refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviours. For example:
people who continue to smoke but know it is bad. This produces a feeling of mental
discomfort like guilt etc... It leads to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or
behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. Cognitive dissonance was first
investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult that
believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its
members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs
to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.
Cognitive dissonance affected the Stanford prison experiment because guards and prisoners
encountered a conflict in their beliefs due to their assigned roles and perceived authority.
Participants in the experiment were assigned to be a guard or prisoner.
Asch: Conformity
Bandura: Bobo
Milgram: Obedience
Zimbardo: Prison Experiment
Social Identity Theory
This was proposed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s, posits that individuals
derive a portion of their self-concept from their membership in social groups. We choose
our groups by identifying with something, like similarity and proximity. We see other people
behaviour and model it. They proposed that social identity groups can give you a sense of
belonging, purpose, self-worth, and identity.
,Solomon Asch in Conformity
He experimented with investigating the extent to which social pressure from a majority
group could affect a person to conform. From his line experiment study, he deducted that
people conform for two main reasons:
normative influence: because they want to fit in with the group.
informational influence: because they believe the group is better informed than they
are.
PERSON PERCEPTION
How we see other depends on how we see ourselves. Our self-concept depends on how
others see us. These are influenced by your personality traits. Genetic makeup and
experiences also play a part. The nature and nurture debate is involved. This is a two-way
process in which one influences the other- self-concept and person perception.
The Looking-Glass Self Theory
Charles Horton Cooley introduced the Looking-glass self-theory which
describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of self on how they
believe others view them.
it uses social interaction as a type of mirror,
In essence, people use the judgement they receive from others to measure their own
self-worth, behaviour and values.
We change our self-perception based on how we guess other perceive us, not how
they actually perceive us. We only guess rather than checking how others see us.
Thus, our self-concept is based on guesses.
This is often a sub-conscious process.
The process of evaluating others is on occasions carried below the level of our
explicit awareness. Regardless of the degree of skill which we may have in appraising
others, we engage in the process most of the time without paying much attention to
how we do it or even that we actually do it.
Physical and Social Perception
There is a difference between physical and social perception.
Social perception
such as the perception of other people, differs from the perception of physical
objects in 2 ways which are likely to be biased.
o Perception of objects is mainly directed towards immediately directed
observable surface characteristics such as size, weight, colour etc…
o perception of people is predominantly concerned with characteristics which
are not immediately observable but must be inferred such as intelligence,
personality, attitudes etc…
This is therefore more complex thus more likely to make mistakes.
First Impressions
First impressions are affected by:
non-verbal cues,
what we have heard or read about a person,
similarity to self and self-esteem.
,The Primacy Effect is the notion that the first things we perceive about a person
(appearance, things we heard about them etc) carry greater weight than other things we
come to know later on. The idea that first impressions have a strong effect on our
perception of the other person.
The primacy effect is a cognitive bias and refers to an individual's tendency to better
remember the first piece of information they encounter than the information they receive
later on.
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION
“Those messages expressed by other than linguistic means”.
The characteristics of this
are conscious and unconscious,
control,
congruency,
culture bound,
ambiguous.
Non-verbal communication functions to
regulate (in conversation),
accenting (putting an emphasis on something),
complementing (making a messages clearer by using ex. Using ur hands to
speak),
contradicting (claiming you are not angry in an angry voice),
substituting (waving goodbye instead of saying it).
Non-verbal Cues related to Physical Appearance
height,
sex,
age,
body smell,
body shape,
skin colour
Early research on non-verbal communication:
Wells and Siegel (1961)- fat people are more likely to be related with attributes such
as jolly, warm-hearted, sympathetic.
Berscheld and Walster (1978)- physically attractive persons are consistently judged
more favourable in initial interactions.
Knapp (1977)
Artefacts: jewellery, cosmetics, eyeglasses- all these communicate something
about us.
Clothes communicate: Socioeconomic Status, interests, values, gender, etc
(Adler, 1984)
, Facial Expressions:
The face is the most expressive part of the body. Ekman and Friesman (1975) have
identified 6 basic emotions expressed by the face and identified by many if not all
cultures face:
surprise,
anger,
disgust,
fear,
happiness,
and sadness.
Some may be a mixture of more than one emotion and hence may be difficult to
identify correctly.
Gaze and Eye Contact:
Eye contact and gazing:
provide information,
regulate interaction,
express intimacy,
exercise social control.
facilitate accomplishment of a task.
Posture
Posture in which body movement communicate affective states.
The way we move toward or away from a person,
the way we sit,
the way we walk,
the way we hold our head and shoulder;
All these are communicative messages.
Openness is seen in the relaxed position of the hands and feet.
A closed posture is seen when a person turns away from others, covers part of the
face or the eyes with the hand, or crosses both arms and legs.
By our posture, we may indicate our perception of status.
o we tend to relax around people of equal or lower status and tense up around
people whom we perceive as being of a higher status (Myers and Myers,
1988)
Gestures
Ekman and Friesan (1975) explain that because most of us know that the face is the most
obvious channel of expressing emotions, we are especially careful to control our facial
expression when hiding our feelings, but we are less aware of our hands and feet which
might give us away.
Paralanguage
Paralanguage is vocal non-verbal behaviour. It is not just the words we say but how we tell
them that gives meaning to other words. "This is great" could mean this is the best news l've
