WHS AP Psychology
Unit 12: Social Pyschology
Essential Task 12-1:Apply attribution theory to
explain the behavior of others with specific
attention to the fundamental attribution error,
self-serving bias, just-world hypothesis and
differences between collectivistic and
individualistic cultures
Fundamental
Attribution
Error
Self-Serving
Bias
Attribution
Individualistic
vs.
Collectivistic
Culture
Cognitive
Dissonance
Attitudes
and
Persuasion
Routes to
Persuasion
We are
here
Just-World
Hypothesis
Unit 12:
Social
Psychology
Impact
of Others
on You
Conformity
Schema
Attraction
InGroup/OutGroup
Group
Behavior
Compliance
Group
Polarization
Group
Think
Social Psychology
• Social Psychology – The scientific study
of the ways in which the thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors of one
individual are influenced by the real,
imagined, or inferred behavior or
characteristics of other people
Culture, Norms, & Deviance
• Culture enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes,
values, and traditions shared by a group of people
and transmitted from one generation to another
– Subculture—a cultural group within a larger culture,
often having beliefs or interests at variance with those
of the larger culture.
• Social norms are the rules of behavior that are
considered acceptable in a group or society.
• Deviance refers to any action or behavior that
violates social norms
– Sexual acts, Personal space, and anything not accepted
in a group
Roles
• Social role – Patterns of behavior expected of
people in various social position
• Ascribed role – Roles assigned to a person,
without any effort or choice
– Your gender, your parents, your caste
• Achieved role – Roles attained voluntarily by
special effort
– Honor roll, Bachelors Degree, hired as a teacher
• Role conflict – When two or more roles lead to
conflicting demands or behavior.
– What kind of roles do you have as a student?
Are we all equals in our groups? In our
society?
Stanford Prison Study
• Phillip Zimbardo
• College students were given either the
role of playing prisoners or prison
guards.
– guards enforced authoritarian measures and
ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to
psychological torture.
– prisoners passively accepted psychological
abuse and, at the request of the guards
– Experiment was forced to end in 6 days
OA
Take notes from watching the video on
Stanford Prison experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ
wfNs1pqG0
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=sZwfNs1pqG0
Iraqi Prison Abu Ghraib prison
Groups
• Group Structure – Network of roles, communication,
pathways, and power in a group
• Group Cohesiveness – Degree of attraction among
group members or their commitment to remaining in
the group.
– Do you get along with your group? Do you like
them?
• In group – group with which an individual identifies
with
– Perceived as being special
• Out group – group with which an individual doesn’t
identify with
– Perceived as being normal and average
OA
1. What is an in-group and outgroup?
(669)
2. What is the in-group bias?
3. Explain Attribution theory (664)
4. What is the attribution error?
In-group bias
Outline
• In Group bias is a simple, but powerful concept. It is
the tendency to favor one’s own group. Not one
particular group, but whatever group you are
associated with at that particular time.
– If we believe someone else is in the same group
to which we belong, we will have positive views
of them.
– We build our self esteem through belonging,
and the presence of someone from the same
group reminds of us belonging.
• Ex: You side with the sports team that you like.
Out-group bias
• We view members of the out-group as less similar
causing us to have biases against them. Therefore,
the out-group bias includes negative views about
people that aren't in our in-group.
• Example: Celtics fans hate Lebron, because he is
not on the Celtics.
Attribution: Why did he do that?
• Attribution Theory: tries to explain
how people make judgments about the
causes of other people’s behavior
• Three criteria used to judge behavior
– Distinctiveness: Is this how the person
treats everyone or are you different?
– Consistency: Has the person always
treated you this way or is this different?
– Consensus: Do other people do this
same thing or is this really different?
Attribution: Why did he do that?
• Bob walks past you without saying hi.
– Distinctiveness: Your explanation as to why Bob
did this will be different if he does this to
everyone in the hall or just you
– Consistency: Your explanation as to why Bob
did this will be different if he always says hi to
you or if you don’t really know each other.
– Consensus: Whether you’re in New York vs. a
college of 600 will change how you explain
Bob’s behavior.
Attribution
• Dispositional Attribution – assumes
that the cause of a behavior or
outcome is internal
• Situational Attribution – assumes that
the cause of a behavior is due to
environmental or external conditions
Attribution
Similar
(Or we like them)
Successful / Positive
Outcomes
Unsuccessful/ Negative
Outcomes
Dispositional
(Personal Traits)
External / Situational Factors
• He is a hard worker
• She is strong person
Different
(Or we dislike them)
• It was bad timing
• It was bad luck
External / Situational Factors
Dispositional
• He got lucky
• She cheated
• Lazy
• Untalented
• Stupid
Examples
• Sports Team
– if our team wins (we are the best!)
– If our team loses (the other team
cheated! The other team was lucky!)
• Parents
– Child is doing well (My Jonny is a genius!)
– Child is not doing well (It’s the friends
and teachers! They are awful!)
Effects of Attribution
How we explain someone’s behavior affects
how we react to it.
Biases in Attribution: The errors to
which your guesses will succumb
• Actor-Observer Effect: attribute actions of
others to internal factors and the actions of
yourself to external factors
• Fundamental attribution error: the
tendency to overemphasize personal
(internal) causes for others’ behavior and
underemphasize personal causes for our
own behavior
Biases in Attribution: The errors to
which your guesses will succumb
• Defensive attribution
– Self-Serving Bias: Tendency to attribute
our successes to our own efforts and our
failures to external factors
– Just-world hypothesis: Assumption bad
things happen to bad people and good
things happen Attribution across cultures
varies dramatically
– to good people
Collectivistic vs. Individualistic