Section 1: People Perception
Ref: pp.656-659, 690-693

Person perception is the process of forming impressions of others.

Physical Appearance
· People tend to ascribe desirable personality traits to attractive people.
· People tend to believe attractive people are more skilled and competent.
· People tend to assume people with baby-faced features are honest and trustworthy.
· People tend to make fairly accurate judgements very quickly.
· Chameleon Effect: People sometimes unintentionally mimic the mannerisms of others.

Schemas
· Social schemas are organized clusters of knowledge about social events and people.
· People rely on social schemas to help them efficiently process and store information about people and social events.
Ref: Diagram p. 658

Stereotypes
· Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a particular group.
· Gender stereotypes, for example, may assume that women are more emotional, submissive, and illogical while men are more unemotional, aggressive, and logical.
· Age stereotypes, for example, may assume that old people are slow, forgetful, rigid in their beliefs, and feeble.
· Ethnic stereotypes, for example, may assume that Jews are greedy, blacks have more rhythm, Latinos are passionate, or that Irish tend to drink and fight.
· Occupational stereotypes, for example, may assume that lawyers are manipulative or that artists are moody.
· Stereotyping is a normal and automatic cognitive process which can make information processing more efficient. However, this is often speed at the sake of accuracy. Stereotypes are broad overgeneralizations which ignore diversity within a group and which tend to create inaccurate perceptions of individuals.

Subjectivity in Person Perception
· Illusory correlation occurs when people estimate that they have encountered more confirmation of an association between social traits than they have actually seen.
· People tend to use stereotypes to interpret behavior. A highly assertive woman might be "emotional" while a pushy man might be "aggressive."
· People tend to selectively recall facts which fit their schemas and stereotypes.

Evolutionary Psychology & Person Perception
· The tendency to associate positive attributes with attractive people was probably a result of physical attractiveness being associated with reproductive potential.
· The tendency to use stereotypes and categorize others was probably a useful adaptive trait which helped our ancestors separate friend (in-group) from foe (out-group).
· An in-group is the group to which one belongs or with which one identifies.
· An out-group is a group to which one does not belong or with which one does not identify.

Section 2: Attribution
Ref: pp.659-664

· Attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of events and behavior (their own and others').
· People make attributions out of a desire to understand events and behavior.

Internal vs External Attributions
· Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to personal dispositions, traits, and abilities (e.g., he failed the test because he didn't study enough).
· External attributions ascribe the causes of behavior to situational demands and environmental constraints (e.g., he failed the test because it was too hard).

Kelley's Covariation Model
· Harold Kelley identified factors people use when deciding between internal or external attribution.
· Consistency: is the person's behavior consistent in a variety of situations?
· Distinctiveness: is the person's behavior different with different people?
· Consensus: do other people behave like this person.
· For example, if a student rarely did homework (high consistency) in any class (low distinctiveness) while other students did the work (low consensus), one would tend to attribute the behavior to the student (internal attribution).
· However, if a student usually did homework (high consistency) except in one class (high distinctiveness) in which few students ever did homework (high consensus), one would tend to attribute the behavior to the course or the teacher (external attribution).
Ref: Diagram p. 660

Bias in Attribution
Actor-Observer Bias
· The fundamental attribution error refers to the observer's bias in favor of internal attributions in explaining someone's behavior. ("He was rude because he's always cranky" or "he passed the test because he's smart.")
· Actors, however, are more likely to bias in favor of external attributions for behavior. ("I was rude because the situation was frustrating" or "I passed the test because it was easy.")

Defensive Attribution
· Defensive attribution is the tendency to blame victims for their misfortune.
· For example, a woman who is sexually assaulted "shouldn't have dressed like that" or "shouldn't have gone with that guy"; a person who is robbed "shouldn't have been in that part of town" or "should have been more careful."
· Hindsight bias contributes to this ("he should have known better").
· Defensive attribution makes the individual feel better by identifying a difference (real or imaginary) between the that person and the victim.

Self-Serving Bias
· Self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one's success to personal factors and failure to situational factors.
· The fundamental attribution error is clear in these cases. The actor will tend to ascribe his failure to circumstances beyond his control ("the test was unfair" or "I didn't have time to study") while the observer will attribute the failure to the actor ("he didn't study" or "he's not very smart").
Ref: Diagram p. 662

Culture & Attribution
· Individualist cultures tend to put personal goals ahead of group goals and define one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships.
· Collectivist cultures tend to put group goals ahead of personal goals and define one's identity in terms of group memberships.
· Individualistic cultures include the USA, Australia, the UK, and Canada (mostly western European and North American nations). Collectivist cultures include China, Korea, Indonesia, and Columbia (mostly Asian and Central & South American nations).
· Collectivist and individualist cultures vary greatly, especially in social mobility, child rearing, education, and urbanization.
· People from collective cultures are less prone to the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias.
Ref: Diagram p. 664

Section 3: Love and Relationships
Ref: pp. 665-670

Factors in Attraction

Physical Attractiveness
· People tend to be attracted to people who are physically attractive, especially in romantic relationships.
· Men tend to find physical attractiveness to be a more important factor than women.
· Matching Hypothesis: people tend to select partners of equal physical attractiveness.

Similarity Effects
· Couples tend to be similar in age, ethnic background, religion, intelligence, physical attractiveness, and attitudes. The same pattern is seen in friendships.
· "Opposites attract" is a maxim which is not supported by research.

Reciprocity Effects
· People tend to like other people who show that they like them.

In happy relationships, people tend to have positive illusions of their partners. A husband, for example, will tend to minimize his wife's faults and emphasize her virtues.

Love

Passion and Compassion
· Passionate love includes intense emotion and sexual feeling towards another person.
· Compassionate love is trusting, tolerant affection for another person.
· Intimacy is the closeness and sharing in a relationship.
· Commitment is the intent to maintain the relationship despite difficulties.
· Commitment is correlated with long-term relationships.
· Research into long term relationships indicates that passion decreases with time while compassion (intimacy and commitment) increase with time.

Attachment
· Attachment patterns in infancy are correlated to love relationships in adulthood.
· Secure attachment leads to secure adult relationships (easy to develop meaningful relationships). Approximately 55% of adults are in this category.
· Avoidant attachment leads to avoidant adult relationships (uncomfortable developing secure relationships). Approximately 25% of adults.
· Anxious-ambivalent attachment leads to anxious-ambivalent relationships (desire to be as close as possible in a relationship and worry that the relationship will fail). Approximately 20 % of adults.
· Avoidant and anxious-ambivalent patterns are associated with lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, and failed or less satisfying relationships.
Ref: Diagram p. 667

Culture & Evolutionary Psychology
· Passionate love as a basis for marriage is a Western (individualist) idea. Arranged marriages or marriages based on other than passionate love are common in collectivist societies.
· Buss's research indicates that gender differences in mating priorities and principles of attraction are the same in all cultures.
Ref: Diagram p. 669

Section 4: Attitudes
Ref: pp.670-678

Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations of "objects of thought", which include institutions, people, and issues.

Components and Dimensions of Attitudes
· There are three components of attitudes.
· Cognitive Component: made up of beliefs about the object of thought
· Affective Component: emotions associated with the object of thought
· Behavioral Component: predisposition to act in certain ways towards the object of thought.
· There are three dimensions of attitudes.
· Strength: how firmly held a belief is.
· Accessibility: how often one thinks of the object of thought.
· Ambivalence: how much of a mixture of positive & negative feelings
· There are two other important factors.
· Vested Interest: how does the object relate to the person
· Knowledge: how much does the person know about the object
Ref: Diagram p. 671

Attitudes & Behavior
· Attitude is not always a good indicator of behavior.
· This is a result of the strength of the attitude and situational constraints.

Persuasion
· Source (the person who sends the message). Source factors are:
· credibility,
· trustworthiness, and
· likability, including physical attractiveness and similarity to the receiver.
· Message (the information). Message factors include:
· two-sided arguments (ones which present both sides of the argument),
· strong arguments (one strong argument is more convincing than several weak arguments, and a strong argument alone is better than combined with weak ones),
· validity effect (if you keep repeating a statement, people will believe it), and
· appeal to fear (if you scare them, they will believe you).
· Receiver. Receiver factors are:
· Forewarning (the more notice the receiver has, the more resistance to the argument),
· strength of attitude (the stronger the attitude, the greater the resistance to change),
· disconfirmation bias (arguments which conflict with one's beliefs will be examined more closely than ones with which one agrees), and
· prior knowledge (the more knowledge, the greater the resistance to change).
Ref: Diagrams pp. 673, 674

Attitude Formation & Change

Learning Theory
· Classical conditioning can create the affective/emotional aspect of an attitude.
· Operant conditioning can reinforce/strengthen or punish/weaken attitudes.
· Observational learning can pass an attitude from one person to another.
Ref: Diagram p.675

Cognitive Dissonance Theory
· Dissonance theory was developed by Leon Festinger.
· Cognitive dissonance occurs when related cognitions/thoughts contradict each other. This creates anxiety/discomfort, thus causing people to change their cognitions/ thoughts to reduce anxiety/discomfort.
· Dissonance theory holds that inconsistency in one's attitude causes change. For example, when Festinger had people engage in counterattitudinal behavior (behavior that was inconsistent with their initial attitude), it resulted in a change in their attitude.
· Effort justification occurs when a person values a result more simply because it was difficult to obtain (e.g., a person may judge a mediocre meal in an exclusive restaurant to be better simply because it was difficult to get reservations).
Ref: Diagram p. 676

Self-Perception Theory
· According to self-perception theory, people often judge their attitudes by their behavior ("Come to think of it, I always vote Conservative. I guess I don't like Liberals.").
Ref: Diagram p. 677

Elaboration Likelihood Model
· There are two "routes" to persuasion.
· Central Route: considers the content of the message.
· For example, a politician tries to get you to vote for her by presenting carefully considered arguments and plans; the marketers of a smoking cessation product explain the benefits of quitting
· Peripheral Route: does not consider the content of the message; instead factors such as the attractiveness/credibility of the source or conditioned emotional responses
· For example, a politician tries to get you to vote for her by relying on celebrity endorsements and appeals to patriotism; the marketers of a smoking cessation product have an actor playing a doctor present images of happy ex-smokers using the product
· The central route results in mores stable attitude changes and is a better predictor of behavior than the peripheral route.
Ref: Diagram p. 678

Section 5: Conformity and Obedience
Ref: pp. 678-682

Conformity
· Conformity occurs when people yield to real or imagined social pressure.
· For example, say Columbia jackets are very popular. If you wear one to fit in or because everyone else is wearing one, then you are conforming. If you wear one because you genuinely like the style, then you are not conforming.
· Factors in conformity include:
· Group size increases conformity up to a point.
· Group unanimity increases conformity, though even one dissenter can make people less likely to conform.
· The more important the judgement, the greater the conformity.
· The more ambiguous the situation, the greater the conformity.
· In-groups exert more pressure on people than out-groups.
· Consider a jury. One juror may believe the accused in not guilty, but vote "guilty" because of the group size (usually 12), group unanimity (everyone else is voting "guilty"), the importance of the decision (criminal conviction and a prison sentence), in-grouping (the juror wants to fit in with the others), and perhaps even because of ambiguity in the situation (the juror my be unaccustomed to making decisions in groups).
· Solomon Asch did the pioneering studies on conformity.

Obedience
· Obedience occurs when people follow direct commands from an authority figure.
· Stanley Milgram's famous study of obedience revealed that 65% of people would cause harm to another individual simply because an authority figure told them too.
· Conformity has a great influence on obedience. Milgram's study revealed that only 10% of people finished the experiment when a confederate of the experiment refused to proceed.
· Milgram was criticized for the ethics of this research. However, most psychologists agree that his results are accurate and reflect the population in general.
Ref: Picture & Diagram p.681

Culture, Conformity, and Obedience
· Most Western cultures demonstrate conformity and obedience to higher levels than Milgram's and Asch's experiments in the USA.
· The more collectivist the culture, the greater the conformity and obedience.

Section 6: Behavior in Groups
Ref: pp. 683-688

The Bystander Effect
· The bystander effect occurs because people are less likely to provide help when they are in groups than when they are alone. The probability that someone will help you decreases with group size.
· There are two factors influencing the bystander effect.
· The more ambiguous the situation, the less likely people will help.
· The more people present, the more diffusion of responsibility occurs. Everyone thinks it's someone else's responsibility.
Ref: Diagram p. 684

Group Productivity & Social Loafing
· An individual's productivity often declines in groups.
· There are two factors influencing this effect.
· Reduced efficiency occurs when workers are not properly coordinated.
· Social loafing is the reduction of individual effort when people work in groups.
· Social loafing decreases when each member of the team believes his or her individual effort is important.
· Social loafing is less prevalent in collectivist cultures.
Ref: Diagram p. 686

Decision Making in Groups
· Group polarlization occurs when group discussions strengthens the group's dominant view, making it more extreme.
· Group polarization is more common when the decision is important.
· Groups tend to make riskier decisions than individuals.
· Group polarization occurs because one point of view is repeated and because dissenting points of view are not shared (because of factors like in-grouping and conformity).
· Groupthink occurs when members of a group emphasize concurrence, rather than critical thinking.
· Members of a group can even become mind guards, preventing dissenting information from being considering.
· Groupthink occurs because of in-grouping, overestimation of consensus, conformity, and lack of information (because of dissenting viewpoints not being shared, confirmation bias, etc.).
· Group cohesiveness, or the strength of the relationships within the group or to the group, can contribute to groupthink.
Ref: Diagram p. 287