1.1.

The Concepts and Definition of Social psychology

.
What do you understand from the name ―social psychology?‖ Why do people make
relationships, and what make relationships sustainable or last? What are the best ways of
changing people‘s attitude or behavior? Why do various mass media provide a countless of
persuasive messages for us?
These questions, and hundreds like them, form the core of social psychology.
Social psychology is a science that studies the influences of our situations, with special attention
to how we view and affect one another. It aims to illuminate the many thousand invisible threads
that connect our lives. It does so by asking questions that have intrigued us all. Consider the
following issues.
How much of our Social World is just in our Heads? Social behavior varies not just with the
objective situation, but with how people construct it. We may attribute a certain happening
(behavior) to something external; or we may attribute the some remark to a mean disposition and
may therefore respond with a counterattack.
Are our social beliefs self-fulfilling? Would you be cruel if you were ordered to be? Studies
confirmed that most people engage in evil acts as ordered to do by authority figures. For
example, over six million Jews were slaughtered by thousands of Nazi German as Hitler ordered
the killing. What cause these people to engage in such cruel acts? Would you have done the same
thing if you were or would you resist?

A common thread runs through these questions: They all deal with how people view and affect
one another. And that is what social psychology is about.
Despite their diverse interests, however, most social psychologists seem to focus their attention
on understanding how and why individuals behave, think, and feel as they do in situations
involving other persons. Reflecting this fact, Baron and Byrne (1997) defined social psychology
as ―The scientific filed that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and
thought in social situations.‖
According to psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline that uses scientific
methods ―to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are
influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.‖

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Social psychology is regarded as scientific in nature because it employs scientific procedures
and techniques to study the social side of human life. In such scientific fields, data are gathered
systematically and all hypotheses are carefully tested before being accepted as accurate.

Social psychologists are principally concerned with understanding the wide range of conditions
that shape the social behavior and thought of individuals their actions, feelings, beliefs,
memories and inferences with respect to other persons, although a number of different factors
affect social interaction, most of them fall into the following major categories:
1. The actions and characteristics of others– what others say and do. For instance; if one of
your friend insult/cheat you, what do you feel and how do you react? What do you feel when you
see a physically impaired or old person while begging n a street? Do you ever behave
differently /the same toward a beautiful young girl than toward an ugly woman.
2. Cognitive Processes– memory and reasoning processes that underline our thoughts, beliefs,
ideas, and judgments about others.
Dear learner, suppose that your boy/girls friend arrived 30 minutes late on your appointment.
How will you react if he/she says: ―Sorry … meeting you is just slipped my mind!‖ Or ―sorry…
there was accident, and the traffic was tied up.‖ What about if he/she is habitually late, or has
never been late before? The answer is it all depends on the information you have. These show
that people act in such a way that thy process the information available in their mind.
3. Ecological variables– influences of the physical environment for example, how do you
behave in hot/cool weather? Does exposure to high levels of noise/silent, darkness, air pollution,
or excessive levels of crowding have any impact on your behavior or performance of various
tasks? The answers are definitely yes!
4. Cultural context– the situation in which social behavior and though accrue. It consists of
cultural norms, attitudes, or beliefs concerning how people should behave in specific situation.
The rules may be related with age, sex, religion, or other bases.
5. Biological factors– certain aspects of our genetic inheritance. These are the evolutionary
processes in which patterns of behavior that contribute to reproduction.

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1.2. Social Psychology and Other Related Disciplines
? Dear learner, what elements do you think social psychology and sociology share in common?
To clarify what social psychology is about, let us compare it with other related disciplines
Social psychology shares with psychology and its branches in the unit of analysis both focus on
the individual. In particular, there is a considerable overlap in the interests of social psychology
and the study of personality. However, the study of personality focuses on private internal
functioning (factors within individuals), and individual differences in the way people think, feel
or act. For example; why some individuals are more aggressive (or kind, or cruel or honest) than
others?
Social psychology by contrast focuses on specific situational factors and psychological processes
which cause people in general to behave in certain ways. For instance, how social situations lead
most individuals to act aggressively (or kindly or cruelly or honestly)? Of course, behavior is
determined by both person and environment, and you must understand both types of variables.

Social psychology also shares many areas of interest with other social sciences, especially
sociology (the study of society and social institutions) and anthropology (the study of human
custom). Both disciplines study about human behavior and have some commonality in their
methods of research (e.g. survey and absenting). Perhaps, the major differences are found in each
discipline‘s basic unit of analysis and level of explanation. The usual focus of study in these
other social science is large group, institution, or custom (e.g. school, family, social norms,
social class structure. By contrast, social psychology focuses on the individual or, at most a small
group.

Sociologists and anthropologists explain phenomena in terms of external characteristics such as

social mobility, custom of parental discipline, social status, and power distribution in a society,
they may in quire the differences in racial attitudes between higher class people as a group and
the lower-income people, or the friends in marriage divorce or conniption rates. Whereas, social
psychologists may be interested on how the racial attitudes develop within any individuals, or on
how certain individuals become attracted one another and form a relationship, and then get
married and live together.

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 Historical Development of Social Psychology

I. Its Emergence (1908-1924)

Social psychology evolved over several decades, marked by several key events, perhaps the
years between 1908 and 1924 qualify as the period during which social psychology first attained
status as an independent entity. In 1908 two important texts bearing the title ―social psychology‖
in the absence of a significant body of research were published.

II. The coming of age (1930s)

It was not until 1924 that F. Allport published the first text book based on empirical research.
This influential book presented social psychology as a science of how behavior is influenced by
the presence and reactions of other people. And not until the 1930‘s did social psychology
assume its current form.
In this decade, studies conducted by M. Sheriff (1935) about the nature and impact of social
norms and by K. Lewin and his colleagues (1939) about the nature of leadership and group
processes, certainly qualify as the cornerstone of social psychology. Two events that had the
greatest impact were the 1929 Great Depression in the US, and the social and political upheaval
in Europe that lead to the rise of fascism thereby migration of many scientists to America. In
America the migrant scientists obtained the opportunity to conduct research that helped to the
development of social psychology.

III. The Youth field (1950s and 60s)

After the pause resulting from World War II (1945), social psychology continued its growth
during 1950s and 60s. For example, Fistinger (1957) developed ―the theory of cognitive
dissonance.‖ In an important sense, the 1960s can be viewed as the time when social psychology
came of age because of the rapid social change, which increased the number of social
psychologists, and the field‘s expansion to include every practical aspect of social interaction
such as interpersonal attraction, impression formation, attribution.
IV. The maturing field (1970s, 80s and 90s)
In this period of social psychology, many lines of research begun during the 1960s were
expanded, and several new directions rose to prominence. Among these one is an interest in

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social cognition, which has been influenced by research on cognitive processes such as memory,
reasoning, attention and problem–solving. A second trend uses a growing interest in applying
social psychology to areas of daily living. Social psychology may now be found working in the
fields of medicine, law, business, management, the environment, or counseling.
1.4 Theories of Social Psychology

Dear learner, we hope that now you are familiar with the concepts of social psychology. Now let
us examine the scientific approaches of social psychology by relating with theories. In choosing
the topics of their research and planning specific studies, social psychologists are often guided by
formal theories. A theory is a logical framework or a coherent set of interrelated ideas that helps
to conceptualize and understand a problem generate hypotheses (specific assumptions), make
predictions and explain various aspects of social behavior and thought.

Various mini-theories or models have been developed to account for phenomenon, such as social
influence, attitude change leadership, attribution, personality aggressive behavior, etc. Since the
various theories will appear again in different parts of this module, we will limit ourselves to a
brief description of five major orientations and some theories.

1. The socio cultural perspective– view the causes of social behavior in influence from larger
social groups
2. The social learning perspective– focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a
person‘s social behavior.
3. The social cognitive perspective– focuses on the mental processes involved in paying
attention, interpreting, judging, and remembering social experiences
4. The phenomenological perspective– view that social behavior is driven by a person‘s
subjective interpretations of events in the environment
5. The evolutionary perspective– view the causes of social behavior in the physical and
psychological disposition that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Social behavior is
affected by ―natural selections‖ tendencies toward behaviors that are most adaptive and often
increase in strength over time within a given population.
While there are considerable varieties among these theories two major orientations have
dominate: the behaviorist and cognitive perspectives:

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1.4.1 Behavioral Perspective
This perspective is based on the premise that behavior is governed by external reinforcement.
Behaviorists‘ segment behavior into units called response and they divide the environment into
units called stimuli. They assert that a particular stimulus and a particular response are
―associated‖ with one another, producing a functional relationship between them. Reinforcement
refers to any event that strengthens the probability of a particular response. Behaviorism forms
the basis of a number of theories in social psychology, including the following.

Social modeling– which states that we imitate what we see others do and learn by the
consequences of what they do.
Equity theory– is a state of interactive equilibrium which is achieved when people in an
interaction are allocated outcomes proportional to their inputs and evaluate the ―fairness‖ of the
distribution.
Social Exchange Theory– states that people enter into exchange relationships because they
derive rewards from doing so. Social exchange theorists broaden the economist‘s concept of
exchange of commodities to include the exchange of social approval, love, gratitude, security,
recognition, and soon. They broaden the behaviorist‘s theory of learning to include the process
by which people satisfy one another‘s needs and by which they reward and punish one another.
In Social exchange theory, people are viewed as being engaged in a sort of mental book keeping
that involves a ledger of rewards, costs, and profits. Thus social behavior consists of an
exchange of activity between at least two people that is perceived as being more or less
rewarding or costly to one or the other.
Role theory– portrays social interaction in terms of actors who play their assigned parts
according to the script written by a culture. Viewed in this manner, role expectations are shared
understandings that tell us what actions we can anticipate from one another as we go about our
daily activities. By virtue of roles, we mentally classify people in terms their common attributes,
their common behavior, of common reactions they elicit. In sum, roles specify the social
expectations that apply to the behavior of specific categories of people in particular situational
contexts. Role expectations are the givens of interaction grounded in values that are shared
widely by the members of a community or society.

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1.4.2 Cognitive Perspective
Behaviorists view organisms as passive receiver of stimuli In contrast, cognitive psychologists
see organisms as active agents in receiving, using, manipulating, and transforming information.
They depict people as thinking planning, problem solving, and decision making–as mentally
manipulating images, symbols, and ideas, cognition is a term referring to all mental processes
that transform sensory input in some meaning full fashion that code, elaborate, store, retrieve,
and use it. Cognitive theorists believe that thoughts are causal factors in behavior and say that
people are capable of intervening in the course of their affairs with conscious deliberation. Many
contemporary theories in social psychology have developed with in cognitive perspective.
Social comparison theory– is based on the premise that we have a need to evaluate ourselves.
Since no one is grading us on our daily activities, we often compare our actions, beliefs, or
attitudes with other people in order to see how we are doing or if we are ―right.‖
The theory of cognitive dissonance– is based on the assumption that we need to feel consistent
in our attitudes and actions, and are often motivated to change in order to feel consistent.
Attribution theories– are concerned with how we explain why people act as they do, how we
―make sense‖ of how people behave in everyday life.
Research Methods in Social Psychology

Science is an effective method of gaining knowledge and understanding about nature and human
behavior. It consists of formulating hypotheses, testing them through systematic observation, and
building theory from the findings, organizing observations and make explanation possible.
In conducting their research, social psychologists often employ experimentation and the co
relational method. They also employ observational method, archival approach, case studies and
survey method. All methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the
researcher has to decide what method should be used based on the nature of the problem.

2.1.1 Experimentation
Using the experimental method, the researcher deliberately assigns subjects randomly to two or
more groups (experimental and control groups) and applies a treatment variable (independent
variable) to one group and not the other. Then the researcher measures the effect of the treatment
by comparing the two groups with regard to some behavioral or thought variable interest
(dependent variable), while controlling other factors (extraneous variables), which might
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interfere with the outcome. This method enables the researcher to draw inferences about how
variables influence one another.
Independent variable–is the factor in an experiment that is systematically manipulated by the
researcher and that is assumed to be the cause of change in dependent variable.
Dependent variable– is the variable that is measured in an experiment and that tend to be
changed as a result of the independent variable influence.
Extraneous variable–is a factor that is not included in the design of a study which influences the
study‘s outcome.

2.1.2 Correlational method

This is a research method in which a researcher systematically measures two or more mutually
occurring variables to determine whether changes in one are accompanied by changes in the
other, Correlation is a statistical measure of the degree tow which two variables ―go together.‖
To describe the extent tow which two variables co vary, statisticians have developed.
Correlation coefficient is a number which can be any value between -1.00 and +1.00. This
indicates us both the direction and strength of the relationship between the measured variables, If
the calculated correlation coefficient is at are near to+1.00, we would know that as the values of
one variable increase, so do the values of the other, i.e., positive correlation, conversely, a
coefficient of -1.00 would indicate that as the values of one variable increase, those of the other
decrease, i.e., negative correlation. A coefficient of zero would indicate that there is no
relationship at all between the two variables. In contrast to experimentation we should not
conclude, even on the basis of strong correlation, that one of the variables is the cause of
variation in the other. E.g., amount of salary and years of experience; aggressiveness and
watching violent films.

2.1.3. Observational method

This method involves direct observation of a group of people in a natural setting. It can take one
of two forms: participant observation, in which a researcher live with the group as unobtrusive a
way as possible or non-participant observation, in which he/she remains all of and observes.
Data may be recorded by means of audiotape or film, or manually recording various behaviors
by short hand.

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2.1.4. The archival method
It is an approach that the data have been collected by someone other than the researcher, for
some purpose other than that of the researcher. For example, rate of crime towards women for a
certain period of time might be examined by collecting data from police or court office.

2.1.5. Case Studies

Case study is an in depth investigation and analysis of a single phenomenon. Such a study which
might focus on a single person, group of people, or specific event, is often the only way of
studying a phenomenon which is rate and which cannot be duplicated in the laboratory. For
example, the effects of sexual literature towards women‘s behavior might be examined by using
this method.
2.1.6. Survey Method
This method involves asking questions about the phenomenon of interest. It is especially useful
for collecting data from a large number of people and is often the only way of obtaining data
about thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and private behavior not open to direct observation. The data
can be collected through interview or questionnaire (open or close-ended). For example, in an
attempt to study about the relationship between pornography and antisocial behavior towards
women, we could ask people about pornography and violence, posing questions about
pornography consumption and attitudes to rape.

2.2 Ethical Considerations in Social Psychological Research

As a researcher anticipates conducting a research, he/she should have to follow certain ethical
principles. According to APA, some important ethical concerns in social psychological research
include:
Deception– technique where by researchers withholds information about the purpose or
procedures of a study from the participants.
Informed consent– is a procedure in which research participants are provided with as much
information as possible about a research project before deciding to participate in a study.
Confidentiality– ensuring that any information provided by participants should not be exposed
to others.
Safety– is to protect participants from both physical psychological and social harm.

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Debriefing– is procedure at the conclusion of a research session in which participants are given
full information about the results of a study.

SOCIAL THINKING

Social Perception and Cognition

Social Perception
Organisms including human beings recognize and understand any physical object and social
object around them through the process of sensation, perception and cognition. Since our main
concern human behavior, we will make our attention more an examining the social aspects of
these processes.
In order to derive information from your environment, interprets the information, and act up on
it; you find yourself immersed in a world of sensation. Then you must give meanings to your
sensations, i.e. sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches (pressure, temperature); a process
termed perception your brain receives such information from the sense organs and then organize
and interpret them.
Social perception refers to those processes by which we come to know and think about others-
their characteristics, qualities, and inner states. It is the sorting out, interpretation, analyses, and
integration of stimuli involving our sense organs and brain. We construct images of others in
ways that serve to stabilize, make predictable, and render manageable our view of social life. To
do this, we can employ one or more of the following efforts.
1. Trying to understand a person‘s current feelings , moods, and emotions often provided by
nonverbal cues involving facial expressions, eye contact, body posture, and movement
2. Impression formation― the process through which we form impressions of others, e.g., what
is this person looks like?
3. Attribution― observing others‘ behavior and then attempting to infer the cause behind it,
e.g., why does this person act or say in this way?

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 Impression formation
Impression formation is the process through which we form impressions of others. One of the
basic ways we process information about people and form impressions of them is through
categories. A category is an abstract representation of conceptually related information. For
example, we commonly categorize people in terms of their roles such as child, husband, teacher,
etc, or their personalities like cheerful, greedy, talkative, etc.
We acquire many of our categories through socialization or cognitive processes of our
experiences categories afford many advantages. For one thing, they allow us to sort individuals
into meaningful and manageable classes and assign labels to these classes. Thus categories assist
us in finding our way about a world of highly diverse people.
Dear learner, what kinds of impressions have you made while encountered with a new
individual? Or when you are going to make an interview for a new job?
In forming overall impressions of people we have a bias toward forming negative or positive
information and to be influenced by certain central traits. In recent years, the concepts prototype
and implicit personality theories have been used to describe the influences of schemata a person
perception and memory. A prototype is a category that we mentally employ to represent a loose
set of features that seem to belong together. In like fashion, the implicit personality theories
imply that we commonly assume that a number of tactics cluster to form an organized set of
relationships. We employ prototypes or implicit personality theories as fuzzy guides in sizing up
people. The process allows us to make inferences about a person‘s characteristics and behavior
beyond the information that is immediately available to us. Apparently, we arrive at such
inferences spontaneously in order to make sense of information are possess about people. A rich
source of impressions of others can literally be found on your school or college walls. Students
often write about different issues on their classroom, or dormitory, or toilet walls, which are
known as graffiti.
Under anonymous conditions of graffiti-writing, people reveal their biases and stereotypes about
certain person, object, religion, ethnic group, or political party to which a graffiti author belongs.
Attribution
Human begins are curious to understand the cause and effect relationships that exist in the social
world and often involve in explaining other people‘s behavior. We often extract meaning and

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draw conclusions about what people said and did we do not only want to know how others have
acted but also why they have done so – through a process known as attribution.
Attribution refers to our efforts to identity and understand the causes behind others behavior and
so gain knowledge of their stable traits. On the other hand, social psychologists make it their
business to explain people‘s explanations. So, how and how accurately do people explain others
behavior? Attribution theory suggests some answers. It analyses how we explain people‘s
behavior.
A. Causality: Internal versus External
In our daily lives, we are force d by our experiences to act as ―intuitive psychologists‖ and judge
the cause and implications of our own and others behavior. This derives from the fact that
perception is not simply a piece of sensation but also a process of interpretation. An important
concept for making sense of the world of sensation is our attribution of causality. Causality
involves our attribution of a cause-and-effect relationship to two parried events that recur in
accession.
Fritz Heider (cited in Myers and Spencer, 2001) analyzed the ―commonsense psychology ―by
which people explain everyday events. He concludes that people tend to attribute someone‘s
behavior to internal causes (e.g., traits, motives, attitudes) or external causes (e.g., a person‘s
physical or social situations).
B. Commonsense attributions
Regarding commonsense psychology, Harold Kelley (cited in Baron and Byrne, 1997) described
how we use information about ―consistency‖ distinctiveness,‖ and ―consensus‖ dimensions in
testimony to the reasonable ways in which people explain a behavior.
Consistency is the extent to which a person responds to a given stimulus or event in the same
way in different occasions, i.e. across time.
Distinctiveness refers to the extent to which a person reacts to different stimuli or situations.
Consensus is the extent to which reaction by one person is also shown by many others in the
same manner.

Attribution Error (Bias) – some basic sources

At any moment, our behavior can be affected by our social environment or our internal state, and
therefore, what we say and do depends on the situation as well as on what we bring to the

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situation. Attribution researchers have found that we often fail to appreciate this important
lesson. That is, attribution is subject to several forms of errors or biases― tendencies that can
lead us into serious mistakes when we explain the causes of others‘ behavior.

In fact, many factors play role in how we assign attributes to behavior, some basic sources of
these errors are presented as follows.

A. The fundamental attribution error

We mostly commit the fundamental attribution error when we explain other people‘s behavior.
You may conclude that this person is disorganized, clumsy, and careless. Perhaps, but it is also
possible that he was late because of a traffic jam, car accident, or physical illness; dropped his
notes because they were printed on slick paper; and skilled the coffee because the cup was too
hot to hold. The fact that you would be less likely to consider such potential external causes
illustrates what social psychologist termed the fundamental attributing error.
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for observers to underestimate situational
influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others behavior. This tendency seems
to arise from the fact that when we observe another person‘s behavior we tend to focus on his/her
actions; the context in which it occurs, often fades in to the back ground. As a result, the
potential impact of situational causes receives les attention. The other possibility is that we do
notice such situational factors by tend to assign them less weight.
B. An actor-observer difference
When we act the environment commands our attention conversely, when we watch another
person act, that person occupies the center of our attention and the situation becomes relatively
invisible. The actor-observer effect is the tendency to attribute our own behavior mainly to
situational causes but the behavior of others mainly to internal (dispositional) causes.

C. The self-serving bias: “I can do no wrong, but you can do no right”

This is the tendency to attribute our own positive outcomes to internal causes but negative
outcomes to external causes. Whatever the precise origins self-serving bias can be the cause of

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much interpersonal friction. It leads people to perceive that while their own success stem from
internal causes and are well deserved, the success of others stem from external factors and are
less merited.

Functions of Attributions
Mostly, we are unaware of the biases that invade our thinking. Hence, we will find more
surprise, more challenges and more benefits in an analysis of errors and biases than we would in
a string of testimonies to human capacity for logic and intellectual achievement
 Attributions provide us with explanations for what takes place in our physical and social
worlds
 Attributions permit us to predict various happenings
 Attributions serve us to protect , maintain, or extend various beliefs that we have about
ourselves
 Attributions assist us in formulation of our behavior we can present ourselves to others as
certain kind of person in hopes of gaining certain outcomes
2.1 Social Cognition
We do not simply absorb information and apply logic, but we are active in processing
information. Despite our tendencies to take ―cognitive shortcuts,‖ we seem to carry on
effectively in our daily lives. Social cognition is the way in which we interpret, analyze,
remember and use information in making judgment about the social world.

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 ATTITUDES
The Nature, Components and Functions of Attitudes

The concepts and Definition of Attitude

The works of attitudes is a core topic in social psychology. Attitudes are involved in virtually
every other area of the discipline including conformity, social perception, interpersonal
attraction, and prejudice. In social psychology, attitudes are defined as learned and a relatively
stable predispositions to perceive feel, believe, behave, and/or react in a certain way toward a
person, group, an object, instruction or an issue.
Put more simply, your answers to all of the above questions suggest that attitudes are basic
expressions of approval or disapproval, or tendencies to respond positively or negatively toward
stimulus. Social psychologists have studied the components of attitudes, their functions, how
attitudes are formed and changed, and the relationships between attitudes and behavior.

Components of Attitudes
The traditional view has been that attitudes consist of a relatively enduring organization of three
components: an affective, a behavioral, and a cognitive
1. Affective component- consists of the feeling or emotions that the object, event, or situation
evokes with in an individual. E.g. Hate, love, fear, anger, envy, contempt.
2. Cognitive- the way we perceive, think, and believe about an object person, event or situation.
3. Behavioral- the tendency to act or behave in certain ways with reference to some object,
person, event or situation.

Function of Attitudes
Importance of attitudes to social psychologists stems from two major features:
1. Attitudes strongly influence our social thoughts processing of social information
2. Attitudes influence our behavior; hence help us to predict behavior in various ways and
situations. But, why do we have attitudes? In fact, there is an important reason why people hold
their attitudes: attitudes are functional in the sense that they satisfy important needs.

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First, attitudes may serve a utilitarian or instrumental function, helping us to maximize rewards
and minimize costs. Holding specific attitudes may help us gain approval and acceptance from
others, hence, may enable us to adjust in our society.
Second. Attitudes can serve a knowledge function, enabling to make sense of our world and to
feel that we do understand. That is, they serve as schemata helping to avoid uncomfortable
feelings, guiding our reactions and interpretations of events.
Attitudes also serve an ego-defensive function-protecting people from becoming aware of harsh,
uncomfortable truths about themselves or their world.
Finally, attitudes can serve a value-expressive function. Value-expressive attitudes enable us to
demonstrate our uniqueness, and what is important to us such as religion, art, clothing etc. In
order to transmit our values, we translate our moral beliefs, standards of conduct or other aspects
of values in to actions via our attitudes.
Attitudes can take two forms; symbolic and instrumental. Symbolic attitude - attitudes formed
through the influence of long standing values internalized early in life. Instrumental attitudes-
attitudes formed on the basis of direct benefit and cost of attitude object.

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Attitude Formation and Its Relationship with Behavior

Attitude Formation
Attitude formation is the process through which we develop or hold the views we do or behave.
It is creating new attitude about something in which we had no previously. Attitudes can be
acquired in several ways, some of these include:
1. Mere exposure― direct and repeated exposure of an object /event/.
2. Classical conditioning― associating neutral stimulus with unconditioned stimulus; for
example, a child‘s racial attitude though conditioning of parents‘ emotional expression to certain
group.
3. Operant conditioning― reward/punishment enhancing the outcome; for example, by
rewarding smiles approval, or hugs for stating the ―right‖ views parents and other elders play an
active role in shaping youngsters‘ attitude.
4. Observation, imitation, and vicarious learning; for instance, parents who smoke often worn
their children against this habit, however, thy often learn to as their parents‘ do, not as they told.
5. Social comparison – by comparing our selves with others we like or admire, we often accept
the attitudes they hold and behave in a similar way with them.
6. Self-perception – attitudes from the information what we have bout ourselves.

The Relationship between Attitudes and Behavior

When do Attitudes Determine Behavior?
Our attitudes relate to our behaviors each feeding one another. However, each may relate or
predict one another poorly. Moreover changing attitudes typically fails to produce much change
in behavior. This is because our expressions of attitudes and our behaviors are each subject to
many influences. Scholars have long speculated about the connection between though and action,
character and conduct, private world and public deed.

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Variables which influence attitude-behavior relationship
1. Aspects of the situation― preference of situation that allow us to express our attitudes in
our behavior. Situational constraints moderate the relationship between attitudes and behavior;
they prevent attitudes from being expressed in overt behavior, or enhance the other way. Some
situational factors include:
 The real or implied presence of others,
 Social norms.
 Absence of acceptable alternatives, and
 Unforeseen extraneous events.
2. Personal factors including:
 Holding other relevant attitudes.
 Motivation to satisfy other needs, and
 Not seeing the relevancy of one‘s action and behavior
3. Time factors – the time interval between measurements of attitudes and behavior. In
addition, shortage of time for careful though influence action (behavior) in a more direct and
automatic manner.

4. Aspects of attitudes themselves:

A. Attitude origins― direct versus indirect experiencing of influence direct experience exert
strong effect on behavior than through hearsay, just as Ethiopian proverb says ―seeing is
believing.‖
B. Attitude strength― the extent of the attitude the stronger the attitudes, the greater their
impact on behavior. Strength includes several components: intensity of an attitude (how strong)
knowledge (how much an individual knows): and importance (how much an individual cares).
The stronger the attitudes are, the greater their impaction behavior.
C. Level of attitude― behavior specificity. Specific and relevant attitudes are more predictor of
behavior than general behavior.
5. Attitude accessibility― the frequency and speed of involvement or experience.

When do Behavior Determine Attitudes?

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We are likely not only to think ourselves into a way of acting but also to act ourselves into a way
of thinking. It is true that we sometimes stand up for what we believe, but is also true that we
come to believe in what we stand up for. The mental aftereffects of our behavior indeed appear
in a rich variety of social situations: our attitudes follow our behavior. The following examples
illustrate the poser of self-persuasion.

 Role playing
It concerns how what is universal (an artificial role) can evolve into what is real. When stepping
into a new social role. We may have been supersensitive to our new social situation and tried
valiantly to act appropriately. Then after a day or a week our behavior no longer feels forced
since our role begun to fit us comfortably, for in stance, in new career, as a teacher, soldier, or
business person, we act a role that shapes our attitudes.

 Saying becomes believing

This assumes that we are prone to adjust our messages to our listeners, and having done so, to
believe the altered message. The falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time
depraves all its good dispositions. Mostly, people begin to believe what they are saying-provided
they were not bribed or coerced into doing so.
 The foot-in-the-door-phenomenon
Commitment of oneself to public behaviors and perceiving these acts to be his/her owns doing;
he/she come to believe more strongly in what he/she has done. In foot-in-the-door phenomenon,
we first do a certain act and gradually increase, and finally tend to acquire a positive attitude
toward our own act.

 Evil/good acts and attitude

Character, it is said, is reflected in what we do when we think no one is looking Evil sometimes
results from gradually escalating commitments. Evil acts grow at the moral sensitivity of the
actor. When we voluntarily agree to do a deed, we take more responsibility for it, e.g. soldiers‘
actions and attitudes to their captives.
Similarly, good acts and attitudes also tend to happen in a similar manner. Hitler‘s political
socialization, the daily flag salute by school children, singing the national anthem, and the like
are some illustrations when attitudes follow behavior.

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 Self-presentation: Impression management
We probably spend countless birr on clothes, shoes, diet, cosmetics, mobile apparatus, and other
materials– because we worry about what other think of us. To make a good impression is often to
gain social and material reward, to feel better about our selves, even to become more secure in
our social identities. Having attuned our behavior to the social situation, we are more likely to
espouse on attitude we don‘t really hold.

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 SOCIAL INFLUENCE
Conformity, Compliance and Obedience
Conformity
Social influence is the efforts made by one or more persons to change the attitude or behavior of
one or more others. Unfortunately, the efforts made at social influence are extremely common
part of life in today‘s world most of us practice many forms of social influence each day.
In the course of social interaction we human beings almost always affect and influence one
another‘s attitudes and behavior. We often attempt to influence others and others still involve
influencing us too. Studies on social influence helps to illuminate the invisible forces by which
our social world move us about, hence, it has long been a central focus of social psychology.
Each topic about social influence teaches two great truths:
1. The power of social situation, and
2. The power of the person
The great truth about the power of external (social) pressure would sufficiently explain our
behavior if we were passive. Of course, social situation do profoundly influence individuals. But
individuals also influence the social situation .Thus we are both the creatures and creators of our
social world. Each of the following topic deals with the preceding two great truths. Among
which conformity, compliance, obedience, and persuasion are included.

Conformity is the most common and pervasive form of social influence. It is generally defined
as a change in behavior or belief as a result of imagined group pressure to much their actions. It
is a type of social influence in which individuals change their attitudes or behavior in order to
adhere to exiting social norms.

The Basis Of Conformity: - Why Do People Conform?

Most often, we go along with others due to various reasons. Generally speaking, there are two
important motives seem to underlie our tendency to conform: Normative influence, and
informational influence. Normative influence is conformity based on a person‘s desire to fulfill
others‘ expectation, often to gain acceptance. It is ―going along with others‖ to avoid rejection

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and liked by those we liked or respected, to stay in people‘s good graces, or to gain their
approval. Informational influence is conformity that results from accepting evidence about
reality provided by other people. This occurs when people desire to be right or accurate and so
that they obtain others‘ acceptance. Therefore, when reality is ambiguous, we tend to use others‘
opinions and actins as a guide for our behavior are right and accepted by others.
Factors Affecting Conformity
Many variables determine whether, and to what extant, conformity occurs, however, the
following have been considered as important ones.
Types of social norms
Social norms
Social norms are rules indicating how individuals are expected to behave in specific social
situations. Social norms can be formal or informal in nature. Besides, another important
distinction is that between descriptive norms and injective norms. Most people obey and conform
to the norms of their groups or societies most of the time.
Descriptive norms are ones simply indicate what most people do in a given situation. They
influence behavior by informing us about what is generally seen as effective or adaptive behavior
in that situation. In contrast, injective norms specify what ought to be done; what is approved or
disapproved behavior in a given situation.

The difficulty or ambiguity of the task: Researchers have discovered that conformity did grow
if the judgments were difficult or if the subjects felt incompetent. If a task is difficult or
ambiguous for the members may perceive that they are not competent, hence, tend to conform to
those they assumed well-informed.
Relative perceive status of the group and the subject : as you might suspect, higher status
people tend to have more impact, Sometimes people may actually avoid agreeing with low status
or stigmatized people.
Group cohesiveness: is a ―we feeling‖-the extent to which members of a group are bound
together, such as by attraction for one another. The more cohesive a group is, the more power it
gains over its members
Group size and unanimity: social impact theory assumes that social influence increases with
group‘s immediacy and size. But there are diminishing increments with increasing numbers i.e.

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increasing the number of people beyond yields diminishing returns conformity is highest when
the group 3-5 people. Moreover, the puncture on a group‘s unanimity deflates social poser
observing someone else‘s dissent-even when it is wrong-can increase our own independence.
Public responses: people conform more when they must respond publicly in from of others
rather than writing their ideas privately.
No prior commitment: once having made a public commitment, people stick to it because they
are more accepting after commitment they hate to appear indecisive.

Compliance
Compliance is a form of social influence in which one or more persons attempt to influence one
or more others through direct requests or direct demands. Although compliance techniques take
many different forms, studies confirmed that they a rest to some degree on six basic principles.
These include liking/friendship, commitment/consistency, scarcity, reciprocity, social validation,
and authority.

Tactics of compliances
These basic principles underline many techniques that professionals― and we ourselves― use
for gaining compliance from others. Based on these principles, the specific compliance
techniques are discussed as follows:
A. Tactics based on liking: Using impression management
Most of us engage in active efforts to regulate how we appear to others in order to appear in the
most favorable light possible. Impression management may take other-enhancement; efforts to
make a target person feel good in our presence, and self-enhancement; efforts to boost our
image.
B. Tactics based on commitment or consistency
Have you ever been approached at your local market a salesperson who offered you free samples
of various items? Actually, this person hopes that once you have accepted the gift, you will like
the taste of the food and will be more willing to buy more. This is known as foot-in-the-door
technique; procedures for gaining compliance in which requesters begin with a small request and
then, granted rise to a larger one.
C Tactic based on reciprocity

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Reciprocity is a basic rule of social life we usually do unto others as they have done unto us. One
of these is the door-in-the-face technique; a procedure for gaining compliance in which
requesters begin with a larger request and then, when this is reused, retreat to a smaller one.
―That-is-not-all‖ and ―foot-in-the-mouth‖ techniques are also other variations of reciprocity
tactic. That-is-not-all is a technique for gaining compliance in which requesters offer additional
benefits to target persons have deceived whether to comply with or reject specific requests.
Whereas, foot-in-the-mouth technique is a procedure for gaining compliance in which the
requester establishes some kind of relationship, thereby increasing feeling of obligation to
comply.
D Tactic based in scarcity:- it is a general rules of life that things that are scare, rare, or
difficult to obtain are viewed as being more valuable at than those that are plentiful or easy to
obtain. One of the most common of these is playing hard to get. It is a technique used for
increasing compliance by suggesting that a person, object item, place or outcome is scarce and
hard to obtain. A related technique based on the same principle is one frequently used by
retailers.
E. putting others in good mood― infusion of affect makes people to feel happy and puts them
in a better mood, and as a result, can increase our tendency to like and say yes to various
requests.
Obedience
Obedience is a response to demand or command of someone who is perceived as having some
form of authority. It is a form of social influence in which or person simply orders one or more
other to perform some actions. It is a very similar phenomenon to conformity but it can be
distinguished by an emphasis on the impact of legitimacy (as opposed to other social pressures);
and it usually involves a single person ― the authority. For instance; the influence of a teacher
on his/her students, a manger on other workers, a commander on soldiers, a sports‘ coach on
players; to name just a few, seek to influence others though order to do something.

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Persuasion

The Concepts of Persuasion

The topics of persuasion have received a great deal of attention in recent years, because it is a
pervasive component of our daily life. Everyday we are confronted by a countless persuasive
messages; for example, food makers, movie studios, insurances, banks, clothes, ornaments,
cosmetics, and so on.
Persuasion is a deliberate attempt on the part of one party to influence and change the attitude or
behavior of another party to that to achieve some predetermined end. It is an active method of
influence that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of attitude, idea, or behavior by
rational or emotional means. It is the art and science of changing people‘s attitude and behavior.
Persuasion is every where-at the heart of politics, marketing, courtship parenting, negotiation,
loving affiliation, and religion indoctrination. Many social psychologist indicate that persuasion
is neither inherently good not bad. They describe that it is usually the content of the message that
elicits judgments, of good or bad, According to them, the bad we call ―propaganda.‖ And the
good we call ―education.‖
The Routes of Persuasion
The cognitive perspective of persuasion is a modern approach that rests firmly on understanding
of the nature of social though-how people process the information continued in persuasive
messages. The most influence theory from this perspective s the elaboration likelihood model
(ELM). This theory suggests that two different cognitive routs to persuasion are possible, central
route and peripheral route.
The central route-Occurs when interested people systematically and deeply process the
message content or ideas it contains, such processing focuses on favorable thoughts, and hence
quite effortful and absorbs much of information.
A. The peripheral route- On the other hand, involves heuristics processing the use of simple
routes of thimble or mental shortcuts. It is the one that provides cues that trigger acceptance
without much thinking. Thus it is a superficial processing that makes shapes judgments based on
the surface features of the message.

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The Elements of Persuasion
Persuasion relies on appeals rather than strong pressure or coercion. Numerous variables have
been found to influence the persuasion process, and these are normally presented in four major
categories. Let us discuss each of categories.
The communicator–– who says? Who is transmitting the message?
It concerns about the one (person) who sends some type of message to a target to evoke a
particular response. It deals with the various qualities of the communicator that influence the
effectiveness of persuasion. The qualities of the communicator include credibility, Attractiveness
or likeability, similarity, and prestige of the communicator.
Credibility believability of the communicator it matters about whether the audiences believe
the communicator or not it has been found that perceived expertise .perceived trustworthiness
popularity honesty sincerity, sped of speech. Sound and the like determine the credibility of the
communicator
Attractiveness––Most often people who argue against their value and effective on matters of
taste and personal values are attractive. Moreover people who have athletic physique skillful in
body language (emotional expression and body movements) and talk fast tend to be like able and
most persuasive
The message-what is said?
People often want know the tricks to persuasion or whether the massage influences their
reasoning or emotion or in debating or none debating or it is better to go first or second. The
answer, unfortunately is, ―it depends‖
Emotion appeal
Depending on the nature of the audience effective presentation of the message has to consider
whether to follow emotional or reasoning approach. However, most advertising research reveals
that the most effective ads invoke both approaches
Messages become more persuasive if appeals rational reasoning enhances good feeling and/or
arising fear. But playing on fear won‘t always make a message more potent. For example many
people who have been made afraid of AIDS are not abstain or using condoms and many people
who have been made to fear an early death from smoking continue to smoke . Because when the
fear pertains to pleasurable activity, the result often is not behavioral change but denial.
Therefore, they have to be told how to avoid danger to offer an effective protective strategy.

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Reason appeal
Another question is whether it is better to make the message One-sided or to include an
opponent‘s arguments. Commonsense dictates that multiple-sided arguments might see
acknowledging the opposing arguments and might confuse the listener by weakening the case.
On the other hand, the message might seem fairer and more disarming the opposition‘s
arguments. However, studies revealed that if people are away of opposing arguments, they think
intently about the message consequently, they typically generate more positive and wise thoughts
about the position than they do. Besides, a two-sided presentation is more persuasive and
enduring if our audiences have opposing views.
Order of message
The order of messages presented can influence their persuasiveness. When two sides of an issue
are presented the advantage of doing the arguments first or second depend on different factors
such as people‘s preconceptions beliefs and the time gap that separates the presentations. In
order to predict whether to speak first or second our reasoning lies on a primacy or recency
effect. Primacy effect is the tendency that early information colors our perception and form a
favorable impression than the subsequent message. Recency effect is the tendency that latter
(last) message influence our perception and form favorable impression than the earlier (first)
message. This effect occurs if we are already familiar with an issue, or if the subjects are warned
not to be misleading by the first message.
Generally, when two persuasive messages are back to back and the audience then responds at
some later time. the first message has the advantage (primary effect) And when the two messages
are separated in time and the audience responds soon after second message the second massage,
the second message has the advantage (recency effect).
The channel of communication–– how is it said?
Channel of communication concerns about the way the message is delivered whether face to
face, in writing, on radio, on film, or in some other way. To elicit action, a persuasive message
must clear several hurdles repeatedly persuasive message should also be experience based
understandable, convincing, memorable, and compelling.
The audience–– to whom it is said?
The matter of who receives the message (target person) has also been associated with a variety of
variables, in particular their age. What they are thinking self-esteem commitment to their present

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beliefs and prior experience with contents of the message. The surveying groups of younger ad
older people over several years the attitudes of older people usually changes les than do those of
young people. In addition the age gap might be related with the access or lack of experience to
the message. If we are too young we may have never had to define a particular belief or
experience before and hence we may have hand time doing it. This in turn might influence
audience‘s degree of importance to hold his/her present beliefs. Another important consideration
is about the audience. It is the respect or trust that the audience has to him/her and whether
he/she is motivated to think about the message; or not influences the understanding of several
findings.
2.4. Resistance to persuasion
A persuasion attempt that relies on the mass media frequently result in failure. This is because
people‘s attitudes and behaviors are often established habits that tend to resist changing. Despite
many efforts, people‘s attitudes tend to remain quite, stable and resist change. Several factors
contribute to failure of attitude change including the following:
 Reactance –– people‘s attitudes tend to remain quite to maintain heir personal freedom
 Asserting uniqueness –– to act in ways that perceive our sense of uniqueness and
individuality.
 Forewarning –– advance knowledge that one is about to become the target of an attempt at
persuasion.
 Selective avoidance- is a tendency to direct one‘s attention away from information that
challenges existing beliefs or attitudes.
In such cases mentioned above resistance to persuasion often increase. Therefore, the efforts
made to change attitudes may fail and people‘s beliefs and behavior remain stable.

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 PREJUDICE, STEREOTYPES AND DISCRIMINATION

The Nature and Forms of Prejudice, Stereotypes and Discrimination

Nature and Types of Prejudice

The word prejudice refers to prejudgment: making a decision about, before becoming aware of
the relevant facts of, a case or event. The word has commonly been used in certain restricted
contexts, in the expression "racial prejudice". Initially this referred to making a judgment of a
person based on that person's race, religion, class, etcetera, before receiving information relevant
to the particular issue on which the judgment is being made; it came, however, to be widely used
to refer to any hostile attitude towards or judgment of people based on their race.

Subsequently the word has come to be widely so interpreted in contexts other than those relating
to race. Social psychologists now use the term to refer to any unreasonable attitude that is
unusually resistant to rational influence.

Forms of prejudice

Prejudice has three categories:

 Cognitive Prejudice refers to what people believe to be true: for example, in adherence to
a particular metaphysical or methodological philosophy at the expense of other
philosophies which may offer a more complete theoretical explanation.
 Affective Prejudice refers to what people like and dislike: for example, in attitudes
toward members of particular classes such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or creed.
 Conative Prejudice refers to how people are inclined to behave. It is regarded as an
attitude because people do not act on their feelings. An example of conative prejudice
may be found in expressions of what should be done if the opportunity presents itself.

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These three types of prejudice are correlated, but all need not be present in a particular
individual. Someone may believe that a particular group possesses low levels of intelligence, but
harbor no ill feeling towards that group. A group may be disliked because of intense competition
for resource, but still recognize no differences between groups.

Definition and Types of Stereotypes

In the previous part of this section we discussed that prejudice has three components, and one of
which is the cognitive component. Beliefs which make up this cognitive component of prejudice
are stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalized images that we have about groups of people,
particularly about their underlying psychological characteristics or personality traits. Common,
everyday parlance suggests that stereotypes are ―bad.‖ But the situation is not that simple.
First, stereotypes can be either positive or negative. For example, a common positive stereotype
is that "Gurage's are hardworking." Another positive stereotype is that "females are wise."
Second, stereotypes can be generally true or completely false. Stereotypes based on some degree
of ―factual‖ observation are called sociotypes. But stereotypes can also be totally baseless.
Because stereotypes can be perpetuated without direct observation of the behaviors of others,
some stereotypes have no factual connection to the target group. Even when we convince
ourselves that a stereotype is based on direct observations, we have to question the validity of
those observations and the interpretations based on them because of the cultural and
psychological biases inherent in those processes.
Third, stereotypes may be idiosyncratic in that they are held only by a single person or they may
be general and believed by many people (cultural stereotypes). No one can go through life
without being aware of stereotypes and no one is completely free of them. In one sense,
stereotypes serve a useful purpose in that they can help us deal more efficiently with our
environment.
Finally, people hold stereotypes about their own groups as well as about other groups.
Stereotypes about one‘s own group are called autostereotypes; stereotypes about other groups are
called heterostereotypes. In fact, there is often a considerable degree of overlap between a
group‘s autostereotypes and the heterostereotypes that others hold about that group.

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Thus, stereotypes can be positive or negative, generally true or totally false, held by single
individual as well as by many people, and held about one‘s own group as well as about other
groups.

Nature and Categories of Discrimination

Social psychologists make a distinction between prejudice and discrimination. Whereas

prejudice involves stereotypic cognitions and/or feelings about groups of people, discrimination
typically refers to a behavior (an action), with reference to unequal treatment of people because
they are members of a particular group. The difference between prejudice and discrimination is
the difference between thinking/feeling (prejudice) and doing (discrimination). Like stereotypes
and prejudice, discrimination can include preferential or positive treatment as well as deferred or
negative treatment. If one harbors positive stereotypes about a group of people and is prejudiced
in their favor, for example, one may engage in behaviors that actively promote or enhance
individual members of that group solely on the basis of their group membership. Discrimination
is often negative, resulting in unfair, less favorable treatment of others. The important issue in
defining discrimination revolves around the concept of fairness and treatment based on group
membership.
Discrimination can be classified into three categories:
 Personal / Individual Discrimination is directed toward a specific individual and refers
to any act that leads to unequal treatment because of the individual's real or perceived
group membership.
 Legal Discrimination refers to "unequal treatment, on the grounds of group membership,
that is upheld by law." Apartheid is an example of legal discrimination, which legally
disadvantaged Black South Africans with respect to property rights, employment rights
and the exercise of constitutional rights.
 Institutional Discrimination refers to unequal treatment that is entrenched in basic social
institutions resulting in advantaging one group over another. The Indian caste system is a
historical example of institutional discrimination.
As with prejudice generally, these three types of discrimination are correlated and may be found
to varying degrees in individuals and society at large. Many forms of discrimination based upon
prejudice are outwardly acceptable in most societies.
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The Origins of Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination
Prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination have been researched extensively, and psychologists
generally proposed many different explanations. Let's have a look at of some of the especially
influential explanations.

Selective attention

The amount of stimulation we receive through our senses is too much for us to process and make
sense of in our everyday lives. There is no way in which we can attend to all the signals and
stimuli we receive from the world. Because our sensation and perceptual systems have limited
capacities, we must learn ways to limit the amount of information we actually receive and
process. Thus, we pick and choose which stimuli to attend to (for example, the words on this
page, and the voice of someone talking to you) and the sensory modalities or channels through
which we will attend to them (for example, sight or hearing). This process is called selective
attention. Generally studied by psychologists interested in perception, selective attention refers

32
to the process by which we filter out many of the stimuli that bombard our senses, thus receiving
a more meaningful, finite amount of information that we can then process.
Inherent in this selection process is a certain degree of bias. The cocktail party phenomenon
illustrates this selection process: People can often hear their own names across the room at a
party even though myriad other sounds are occurring at the same time. Some research has
examined the role of attention in the development and maintenance of prejudice, stereotypic
beliefs and discriminatory behavior and found that people who believe an individual‘s
characteristics are relatively fixed traits tend to pay more attention to stereotypic-consistent
information than do people who believe an individual‘s characteristics are flexible, which may
work to reinforce stereotypic thinking in the former group and hinder revising their stereotypes.

Appraisal

When we witness events or situations or engage with others, we are constantly appraising those
stimuli. Appraisal refers to the process by which we evaluate the relevance of stimuli in terms of
their meaning to our lives. On the basis of the appraisal process, we have emotional reactions,
then make decisions concerning appropriate behavioral responses, which Lazarus (1991), cited in
Sadava S.W. et al (1988), refer to as coping. The process of appraisal is relevant to prejudice,
stereotypes and discrimination because it provides a psychological mechanism by which we
actively operate on incoming stimuli and process them in terms of their meaning to us.

Concept formation and categorization

In our everyday lives, we encounter a multitude of stimuli—objects in the environment, people

we meet, things we hear or say—and it is literally impossible for us to keep track of them all.
That is, as our minds create mental representations of all of the people, places, events, situations,
and activities with which we engage, it is impossible to represent all of these stimuli as single,
independent units of information. Thus, we develop concepts by which we can mentally
represent these events, situations, places, and people so that our minds can deal with them. A
concept is a mental category we use to classify events, objects, situations, behaviors, or even
people with respect to what we perceive as common properties. We use these common properties

33
to aid us in classification or categorization, which refers to the process by which psychological
concepts are grouped together. We form concepts so that we can evaluate information, make
decisions, and act accordingly. It is far easier and more efficient to create concepts or categories
of information and to evaluate and act on those categories than it is to process each individual
item. In psychology, the study of concept formation involves examining how people classify or
categorize events, objects, situations, and people into concepts.
Concept formation and categorization provide us with a way to organize the diversity of the
world around us into a finite number of categories. Those categories, in turn, are based on
particular properties of the objects that we perceive or deem to be similar in some
psychologically meaningful way. For example, we may classify all objects of a certain color
together, all types of facial expressions representing a particular emotion together, and so on.
Once such concepts have formed, we can access the individual stimulus through the category and
gather information about that stimulus based on that category. There are a variety of theories
about how concept formation occurs. However, what is most germane to our discussion here is
recognition of the existence of concepts and categorizations and their general utility in
organizing the world around us and resulting in prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination.

Social identity theory

Social identity theory, developed by Tajfel & Turner, is also helpful in understanding
stereotyping and prejudice. According to this theory, we categorize people into social groups and
place ourselves within a category. We are motivated to positively evaluate our own social group
(ingroup) in comparison to other groups (outgroups) in order to maintain a positive social
identity. Thus, according to this perspective, stereotyping and prejudice may grow out of the
desire to attain or maintain a positive social identity.

Memory
Memory refers to our ability to remember past events, actions, people, objects, situations, learned
skills, and so forth. It also refers to how we store such information. Psychologists generally
differentiate among three sub-types of memory and memory-related processes: sensory memory,
the initial coding of memory-related stimuli; short-term memory, the ―working‖ memory that
serves as an intermediary between sensory and long-term memory; and long-term memory, the
storage and retrieval of information over long, sometimes indefinite, periods of time.

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They also differentiate among different types of memory. Semantic memory is a special type of
long-term memory for rules, ideas, and general concepts about the world, including other people;
it is usually based on generalizations or images about events, experiences, and learned
knowledge. Semantic memory can also be based on verbal knowledge communicated from one
person to the next without any basis in actual experience or interaction with the target of the
memory. It refers to knowledge that is gathered over a long period of time and continually
modified or reinforced as the individual engages with related facts, events, or experiences. These
properties of semantic memory make it especially relevant to our understanding of stereotypes.
Exactly what we choose to remember reflects our social beliefs, attitudes, and expectations,
including stereotypes and prejudices. For example, in a study of 103 school-age children in USA,
those with the most stereotyped views of gender-appropriate behavior recalled seeing more
pictures of traditional (for example, female secretary) as opposed to nontraditional (male
secretary) activities (Signorella & Liben, 1984, cited in Baron, R.A., 1998) than did their less
stereotyped peers. In addition, the children sometimes even reconstructed the pictures—for
example, recalling that a secretary was female when in fact the person was male.

Exposure

Prejudices and stereotypes may be formed through limited exposure to members of the target
group or to exposure based on a ―biased‖ sample. Thus, stereotypes can be formed and
reinforced in a person on the basis of very limited exposure, or no exposure at all, to the target
group and result in discrimination. The complex interplay of these external factors with our own
cultural and psychological processes make stereotypes a difficult problem to deal with.

Arousal approach

Following the psychodynamic perspective, some traditional psychologists described prejudice a

result of frustration. Psychodynamics theory assumed that human mind contains psychic energy,
which serves as a tool for psychological activities and can only be discharged through cathartic –
the completion of the activities – to maintain equilibrium. Impediment of dissipation results in
frustration, which can only be corrected through aggression. Prejudice is an occasion in which a
group of people is frustrated by a stronger group which is too powerful or remote to be aggressed
against; thus the group displaces its aggressive impulse onto weaker groups, which serve as

35
scapegoats. When a boy is scolded by his parent, for example, he may choose to displace the
frustration onto his weaker sister since he is unable to fight back against his parent.

Personality approach

Another classical explanation on prejudice and discrimination concerns the personalities which
create tendency on prejudice against members of out group. Historically, psychologists
suggested various personalities contributing to discrimination, including authoritarianism,
dogmatism, closed-mindedness, dominant orientation, etc. The most popular research concerns
authoritarian personality. In 1950 Theodore Adorno and his associates identified prejudice as
being incorporated in a belief and value system which forms a personality pattern. These
researchers started out by studying anti-Semitism as a means of understanding the social climate
that existed in Germany during World War II, but later broadened their perspective to include
attitudes toward ethnic groups in general. As part of their study, they constructed a number of
scales to measure anti-semantic attitudes, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism. However, it was
the concept of the "authoritarian personality" which attracted the most attention and which
stimulated numerous subsequent research projects. In the process they found that people who are
prejudiced against one group tend to be prejudiced against all out-groups, having the
authoritarian personality. Authoritarian personality can be described as a collection of personal
attitudes and values marked by rigidity, inhibition, and oversimplification. Authoritarians tend to
be very Ethnocentric- they consider only members of their own national, ethnic, or religious
group acceptable. They are also overwhelmingly concerned with power, authority, and
obedience. Moreover, these individuals are usually highly conventional and cynical.

Learning approach

Learning theories provide a way of understanding how behavior develops and propagates among
generations. Dominant learning theories concern learning and responding to conditioning. As
discussed in unit 2, modeling, which is also known as learning by vicarious experience in social
learning theory, refers to learning a behavior through observing another individual engaging in
that behaviors. Since observation is already enough for learning the behaviour, the individual
does not need to participate in the behaviour. According this theory, people can acquire
prejudiced thinking by merely observing others' discriminative behaviour. For example, children

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may acquire a gender stereotype by observing their parents treating males and females
differently. This effect would be especially amplified when the model is rewarded for the
behaviour.
People can also learn to prejudice and discriminate through association learning including
classical and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, a subject is instructed with flawed
reasoning when an attribute is presented (e.g. greedy) with a specific group (e.g. merchants)
repeatedly. The subject then links the attribute to the group, resulting in prejudice. Operant
conditioning refers to alteration of behaviour by regulating the consequences following it.
Reinforcement in operant conditioning is a kind of consequence or a procedure that specifically
leads to an increase in frequency of the behaviour immediately preceding it. If an individual
gains acceptance to his/her reference group by discriminating towards other groups or
individuals, he/she is then be motivated to continue this discrimination due to the reinforcement
following it.
Socio-cultural theory

Other factors have also been suggested as contributing to the origin and maintenance of prejudice
and discrimination. Some theories focus on social and cultural factors, suggesting that society
promotes ideological prejudice and institutional discrimination in order to impose inferior status
on some groups. This inferior status, in turn, reinforces the ideological prejudice and institutional
discrimination, which they further reinforce the inferior status. Children growing up in such
societies, whether as members of the ―inferior‖ or the ―superior‖ group, become enculturated in
these ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, which become a part of their own operating culture,
thus ensuring the reenactment of this cycle of exploitation.

Contemporary theories
Contemporary theories of intergroup bias (prejudice) and discrimination tend to explain
intergroup bias in terms of various social psychological motivations. The most popular ones are
socio-biological, terror management, and subjective uncertainty reduction theory.

Socio-biological theory
Another argument that has gained attention in recent history is that prejudice and discrimination
are inevitable outcomes of social biology and evolution. This argument suggests that sentiments
about ethnicity and race are logical extensions of kinship sentiment— that is, the favoring of kin

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over nonkin. Kinship sentiments are biologically and evolutionarily functional, increasing the
likelihood of one‘s own genes‘ being transmitted to future generations. Because racial and ethnic
groups can be viewed as extensions of kin, these sentiments may predispose people to behave
more favorably to such kin. If kinship sentiments do apply to ethnicity and race, this argument
continues, prejudice and discrimination may indeed be fundamental and inevitable.
Terror management theory
Terror management theory proposed that people have a need for self-preservation which is raised
and frustrated by their awareness of the inevitability of their own death. To deal with their
mortality, people adopt a cultural world view that imbues subjective reality with stability and
permanence and provides standards of value against which judgments of self-esteem can be
made. According to this theory, people evaluate in-group members positively because similar
others are assumed to support, and therefore validate, their own cultural world view; in contrast,
they evaluate out-group members negatively because dissimilar others are assumed to threaten
their world view. There is extensive evidence that people show greater intergroup bias when they
are made aware of their own mortality.
Subjective uncertainty reduction theory
Subjective uncertainty reduction theory states that people are motivated to reduce subjective
uncertainty by identifying with social groups, which provide clear normative prescriptions for
behaviours and thus imbues people with a positive valence. Some evidence shows that
manipulations of subjective uncertainty influence levels of both in-group identification and
intergroup bias. For example, a positive relationship has been found between the need for closure
and both in-group identification and intergroup bias

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Reducing Prejudice, Stereotypes and Discrimination

The Contact hypothesis

One of the first ways explored was the contact hypothesis theory. According to this theory,
direct contact between members of various groups helps to reduce prejudice, stereotypes and
discrimination.

Dear learner, do you think simple contact between groups reduces prejudice and discrimination?

Not just any contact will do. Prejudice and discrimination will be reduced only under certain
conditions. With decades of research, social psychologists have discovered some of these
conditions.

 The contact needs to occur between people of relatively

equal status. Frequent contacts can occur in employer-worker and teacher-student

relationships. However, these contacts are not likely to reduce prejudices. For example, a
group of students studying together to pass an exam would fit the equal status
requirement. Still that is not enough.

 To be successful in reducing prejudice and discrimination, the contact must be

close and personal. If the people don‘t talk with each other to form some psychological
intimacy, prejudices and discriminations will not be reduced. For example, studying
together will not reduce prejudices; if conversation is limited to the subject they are
studying. They need to share personal information.

 The goals that they are seeking must be

common goals/superoridinate goals. Superordinate goals are goals that can be achieved
only though cooperation. This means that achieving the goal requires the resources of all
involved. In addition, once the goal is obtained, it is shared by all who worked to gain it.
Suppose students are studying together for to be examined for a scholarship that only one

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 person can obtain. That would not be a common goal. However, in most classes, all
students scoring above a certain level will pass the exam. Under these conditions, passing
could be a common goal. Likewise, working together on a committee to improve the
community could be a common goal.

Why are these situations successful? First, people who have prejudices tend to stereotype the
objects of their prejudice. A stereotype is an oversimplified image of people in a particular
group. We tend to divide people into categories of "us" and "them". Stereotypes tend to isolate
the others as different from "us". We assume that all members of a particular group fit that
category. We insult and limit them by forcing them into a small, distorted little "box". Even
though the overall stereotype may be demeaning, those who are stereotyped find it is easiest to
conform to these expectations of others. On the other hand, if we interact with "them" on an
equal status basis to achieve common goals, we are more likely to see that they are very much
like "us". The more we perceive them to be like "us", the more difficult it is to be prejudiced
against them.

Equal status and common goals have been used with the jigsaw method in classrooms. It is like a
jigsaw puzzle, but each child only has a few parts of the puzzle. To complete the puzzle, each
child has to share what s/he has with the others.

In the jigsaw classroom, children are formed into working groups to learn about a particular
topic. Each child in the group is given a different portion of information about the topic. They
need to teach their information to others in the group, so it forms a meaningful whole. This
enables the group to understand the whole lesson. While this is happening, the children start to
see others as capable and worthwhile people. Not only does this reduce prejudice, it increases
interaction and develops both empathy for others and increased self-esteem.

Education

Prejudice and discrimination are also reduced when people know about equality and freedom of
people and showing them how these values conflict with stereotyping others. In some
psychological studies, people were forced to confront the inconsistency between the positive
values of equality and freedom that they hold and their negative perceptions of outgroup

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members. When their inconsistencies were shown by their contradictory statements on a
questionnaire, this often reduced their prejudices.

Strongly condemning prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination

Prejudice and discrimination are more likely to be reduced, when people strongly condemn
prejudices and discrimination. When public norms against various forms of prejudice are more
prominent, this can reduce discrimination.

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 PROSOCIAL AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

Prosocial Behavior
The Nature of Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial behavior and altruism are terms used to describe actions which are voluntarily carried
out for the sole purpose of helping others, with out expectation of reward from external sources.
The term prosocial behavior is a term invented by social psychologists to avoid some of the
connotations historically associated with altruism. Theologians and philosophers have
traditionally defined altruism as behavior which is intended to help others not only without
anticipation of external reward but without anticipation of self reward as well. Self-reward could
be in the form of enhancement of self-esteem or avoidance of guilt or shame (possible effect of
not helping) or to feel pleasant (possible effect of helping). From a philosophical point of view,
then, it could be argued that an act which brings pleasure, satisfaction, or relief (internal self-
reward) to the actor is not different in principle from one which brings praise or profit, or escape
from punishment (external rewards). There has been some debate across the centuries about
whether any act can ever be "truly" altruistic in that sense.
However, from the point of view of the social psychologists, it is difficult, if not impossible, to
ascertain whether a given behavior was carried out without any anticipation of self-reward.
Moreover, as far as people who need help are concerned, perhaps even as far as society is
concerned, it makes little difference whether people help because it makes them feel good or
whether they help selflessly to benefit others. Therefore, in keeping with the norm of
contemporary social psychology, the terms altruism and prosocial behavior are used
interchangeably in this section to describe behavior which was performed to help others without
expectation of external reward.

Bases of Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior is crucial both for the functioning of the social group and for the welfare of its
individual members. At its most fundamental level, human society is based on the willingness of
people to work with one another and share the benefits of their mutual labor. It is questionable

42
whether a society could long endure unless people were willing to assume responsibility for one
another's welfare and to behave in positive helpful ways.
Social psychologists have answered this question and provide bodies of theories and evidence to
the subject of prosocial behavior. Let's examine some of them.
Social Learning

Social learning theory suggests that if you want to know why people act prosocially, you should
consider their learning history. You should consider not only the rewards and punishments
received following helping (or not), but also the relative rewards—the benefits minus the costs.
You should consider observational learning or modeling that comes from watching the actions of
others. You should consider self-rewards.
Mood Effects

Building on the idea that helping can be a basis for self-reward, a negative-state relief hypothesis
was developed: that people are more likely to help when they feel bad. The reason is that people
have learned that they can reward themselves for helping and so feel better. Not only does
helping have reward value for people who feel bad, but it also seems rewarding for people who
feel good. Indeed, the effect is even clearer for good mood. Across a range of studies, people
induced to feel good have been more likely to give help to good causes.
What accounts for this pervasive reward value of helping for people in a good mood? One
possibility is a desire to maintain the good mood. Seeing another person in need can throw a wet
blanket on a good mood, so one may help in order to shed this blanket and maintain the mood. A
second possibility is: Being in a good mood may bias one‘s memories about and attention to the
positive and negative aspects of various activities, including helping. When in a good mood, a
person is more likely to recall and attend to positive rather than negative aspects of life. Applied
to helping, a good mood makes people more likely to remember and attend to the positive,
rewarding features and less likely to attend to the negative features, such as the costs involved.
Tension Reduction
Tension reduction has long been a popular explanation of why people help others in need,
especially others in obvious pain or distress. The general idea is that people find it upsetting to
see another person suffer and that preferring not to be upset, they relieve the other‘s suffering.

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Why should the suffering of others upset someone? Most straightforward is that witnessing
another‘s distress evokes vicarious distress that has much the same character as the victim‘s
distress, and the witness is motivated to escape his or her own distress. One way to escape is to
help because helping terminates the stimulus causing the distress. Of course, running away may
enable the witness to escape just as well and at less cost, as long as the old age ―out of sight, out
of mind‖ works. The other explanation is, when certain others are in need— specifically, those
whom one cognitively links to self as ―us‖ and ―we‖ rather than ―them‖ and ―they‖—one
experiences a state of promotive tension in which one is ―aroused by another’s needs almost as if
they were one‘s own‖. Once so aroused, one is motivated to reduce this tension by aiding the
fellow ―we-grouper.‖ Moreover, a just-world hypothesis suggests that most people believe in a
just world—a world in which people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The
existence of a victim of innocent suffering is inconsistent with this belief. In order to reduce the
arousal produced by this inconsistency, a person may help another in need. Alternatively, the
person may derogate the innocent victim, making the suffering appear deserved.
Norms and Roles
Theories that seek to explain prosocial behavior in terms of norms and roles often make heavy
use of social learning principles. Yet norm and role theories are not direct descendants of classic
learning theory and behaviorism. Instead, they trace their ancestry to symbolic interactionism
and its analysis of social behavior using a dramaturgical metaphor. Within this metaphor, norms
provide the script of the social drama, specifying what should be done and said when; roles are
the parts to be played. (More formally, norms are a group‘s written or unwritten rules of
appropriate behavior for those occupying particular roles; roles are behavior patterns that are
characteristic, and expected, of a person who occupies a particular position in a social structure.)
In social psychology, norms and roles have been adopted into the social learning family; it is
assumed that people learn the norms and roles appropriate to a given situation through social
reinforcement and modeling. At the same time that people are learning that acting prosocially
can bring rewards, they are also learning the norms for prosocial behaviors that should be
performed by individuals in various roles in different social situations. These norms dictate that
one should help people in need—at least some people under some circumstances—to avoid
social or self-administered sanctions. Let‘s examine some of the norms that lead to prosocial
behavior

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Reciprocity
One prosocial norm that has been studied extensively is reciprocity. This norm tells people both
that they should help people who help them and that they should not injure these people.
Researchers believed that this norm was universal, an important part of the moral code of every
culture. The pressure on a person to comply with the norm of reciprocity depends on the
circumstances under which the initial help was given—including (a) how badly one needed help,
(b) one‘s perception of how much the other person gave relative to his or her total resources, (c)
one‘s perception of the other person‘s motives for helping (was it a bribe?), and (d) whether the
other person helped voluntarily or was pressured into it. Much evidence supports the claim that
people are motivated to comply with the norm of reciprocity.
Social Responsibility
A second norm that psychologists have suggested motivates helping is social responsibility. This
norm dictates that one person should help another in need when the latter is dependent on the
former—that is, when others are not available to help and thus the second person is counting
specifically on the first.
Effects of Ethnicity and Sex
Exceptions to and conflicts among norms may account for the highly inconsistent effects on
prosocial behavior of demographic variables such as ethnic and sex. It has sometimes been found
that same-ethnic helping is more frequent, sometimes that cross-ethnic helping is more frequent,
and sometimes that the ethnic background of the victim or helper makes no difference .
Similarly, sometimes men help more than women, sometimes women help more than men, and
sometimes the sex of the helper makes no difference. It does appear, however, that women are
generally more likely to be helped than are men.
How can we account for these seemingly contradictory findings? One possibility is that given
their different social roles in different situations, coming from different ethnic background or
race—and men and women—may feel more or less obligated to help a dependent other. Helping
may be more normative for men than for women in one situation—for example, intervening in a
potentially dangerous emergency. Helping may be more normative for women than for men in
another situation—for example, providing sympathy and support after a friend‘s breakup with
her fiancé.

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Norm Salience
Some researchers have suggested that the problem with social norms lies in norm salience and
focus of attention. Only when attention is focused on the norm as a standard for behavior is
concern about violating it likely to affect behavior. If normative standards of helpfulness were
salient and thus a focus of attention, then focusing on oneself increased helping. Presumably,
being self-focused when the norm was salient highlighted the threat of sanctions for failing to act
in line with personal standards. In the absence of salient standards for helpfulness, however, self-
focus led to less helping; it seemed to inhibit attention to others‘ needs.

Personal Norms
Because broad social norms like social responsibility have limited ability to predict whether a
person will help, researchers proposed a change of focus in thinking about norms. Rather than
thinking about social norms, they suggested that we should think of more specific, personal
norms. By personal norms they meant internalized rules of conduct that are socially learned, that
vary among individuals within the same society, and that direct behavior in particular situations.
Applied to helping, a personal norm involves a sense of obligation to perform a specific helping
act. For example, people may say (either publicly or to themselves), ―I ought to give a pint of
blood in the blood drive.‖ Such statements appear to be far more predictive of whether a person
will give blood than are statements of agreement with broad social norms like the norm of social
responsibility—at least if the person in question is one who believes in acting responsibly.
Specific statements like this are particularly powerful as predictors when one also takes into
account mitigating circumstances, such as whether an individual was in town during the blood
drive, had no major scheduling conflicts, and was physically able to give blood. At this level of
specificity, however, it is not clear whether the statement about giving blood reflects a sense of
personal obligation stemming from an internalized rule of conduct (i.e., a personal norm) or
simply an intention to act in a particular way.

Exchange or Equity
Perhaps the most direct extension of social learning principles into interpersonal relations is
exchange or equity theory. When developing exchange theory, Homans (1961), cited in Franzoi
(2001), explicitly and proudly declared his agenda to be the reduction of social relations—
including cooperation, helping, and other prosocial behaviors—to reinforcement principles

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operating within the individual. He considered social relations to have emergent properties that
were irreducible to the benefits and costs for the individuals involved. In his view, social
learning teaches one to value equitable relations, in which the ratio of outcomes to inputs is equal
for the relating individuals. Homans pointed out that if a recipient of help cannot return the favor
in a tangible way, then he or she must return esteem and deference. Otherwise, the relationship
will not remain beneficial to both parties and thus will not continue. Acting prosocially to
redistribute resources more fairly is one way to restore equity—but only one. Equity may also be
restored psychologically by enhancing the perceived inputs of the advantaged or devaluing the
inputs of the disadvantaged, thereby justifying the difference in outcomes.
Attribution
Attribution theory concerns inferences drawn about the causes of events. Attributions can affect
prosocial behavior in two major ways. First, attributions about why a person is in need are made
not only by potential helpers and bystanders but also by the person in need, with consequences
for each. Second, attributions about the character of a person who helps are made not only by the
helpers themselves but also by the persons helped, again with consequences for each.
Attributing the Cause of Others’ Needs
People are far more likely to help innocent victims than to help those who bring their troubles on
themselves. Although this relationship is no surprise, the reason for it is not entirely clear.
Perhaps causing one‘s own need (or not working to prevent it) violates ingrained standards for
self-sufficiency and care; perhaps causing one‘s own need but not suffering the consequences
violates our sense of justice; perhaps it seems inequitable to those who perceive themselves to
have exerted effort to avoid need. In any case, people are less likely to help those who bring their
troubles on themselves, even though the explanation for this behavior has never been carefully
explored.
Attributing the Cause of One’s Own Need
People in need may be predisposed to attribute their need to situational causes, as something
thrust upon them by unavoidable circumstances and carrying no implications about personal
ability or worth. This attribution may, however, be hard to sustain when the need is produced by
failure on a task that one expected to perform successfully, especially when comparable peers
succeed. To avoid an esteem-damaging dispositional attribution, the person in need may attempt
to deny the failure and not seek or appreciate help.

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Attributing the Cause of Help

Helpers make attributions about the nature and cause not only of others‘ needs but also of their
own helping. A helper may ask, ―Why did I help in this situation?‖ Possible answers include the
following: (a) because I am a kind, caring, helpful person—a dispositional attribution likely to be
self-rewarding and encourage one to help in a range of situations in the future; (b) because I am
the kind of person who helps in this particular situation (e.g., I am a blood donor)—a
dispositional attribution likely to encourage one to help again in this situation; (c) because of
situational pressure—a situational attribution not likely to increase helping in the future, at least
not when situational pressure is absent; and (d) because I am a compliant and a pushover who
cannot say no—a dispositional attribution likely to be self-punishing and to discourage future
helping.

Esteem Enhancement/Maintenance
Models of esteem enhancement/maintenance have been both popular and numerous in social
psychology since about 1980. As an explanation for prosocial behavior, these models generally
assume that people act prosocially to enhance or recover self-esteem. The esteem-enhancing
potential of helping has three-step developmental sequence. For the young child, gaining
material rewards for doing good enhances esteem; for the middle child, social approval enhances
esteem; by adolescence, self-directed and uncoerced—even anonymous—help may be necessary
to feel good about oneself.
Not only benefactors, but also recipients, may act and react with an eye to their self-esteem.
Researchers proposed an esteem-loss explanation for recipients‘ negative reactions to receiving
aid. When individuals are having trouble on a task that reflected on their abilities, receipt of help
from a friend produces more negative self-evaluation than did receipt of help from a stranger.
Concern over loss of esteem both in others‘ and in one‘s own eyes may go a long way toward
explaining relectance to seek help when in need. To seek help is to admit that you lack the
competence, knowledge, or other valuable resources necessary to cope and, moreover, that the
person from whom you seek help has these resources. Consistent with this analysis, people are
less likely to seek help to the degree that they hold themselves in high esteem and do not
anticipate a chance to reciprocate the help.

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1.3 Providing Help in Emergency Situations

Darley and Latané developed the model of helping in emergency situations, which attempted to
explain the critical processes bystanders go through before helping occurs. The model suggests
there are five steps to helping: notice of the event, interpret the need for help, take personal
responsibility, decide what kind of help to give, and provide help. If individuals go through all
these processes help will not be provided

Step 1. Notice the Event

Before a bystander can do anything, he must first notice that something is wrong. Some types of
events will be more noticeable than others. Furthermore, the context may have a profound effect
on the clarity of the situation. People are generally less helpful in urban environments—
presumably the result of stimulus overload, which forces individuals to notice only important
events among the hundreds of stimuli that could attract their attention in an urban environment.
Moreover, the mood of the helper may play a role in noticing the event; people in good moods
are often more attentive to their environments and more sensitive to other people‘s needs.
Step 2: Interpret the Need for Help
The second step in the model involves determining whether or not the perceived event is an
emergency. There are certain characteristics that indicate a need for intervention. For example,
screaming is a clear sign that there is an emergency and that someone is in need of outside help.
However, if an individual desires help, but suffers in silence, people often do not help because
they fail to perceive the situation as an emergency
Step 3: Take Personal Responsibility
After the bystander understands the emergency state of the situation, he or she must decide
whether or not to take personal responsibility and to intervene. However, interpreting an event as
an emergency may still yet not be enough for a bystander to intervene; a number of factors could
hinder actions to help. Identified as the bystander effect, individuals are less likely to help in an
emergency situation when there are others present due to two possible explanations: pluralistic
ignorance and diffusion of responsibility. Pluralistic ignorance states that people often look to
others to determine what to do without realizing that others are looking to them for the same
purpose. Therefore, when people do not act in an emergency setting others might interpret this as
a non-emergency situation and follow suit—in the end, no one helps the individual because they

49
look to one another in determining what action to take. The bystander effect seems to also be
influenced by the notion of the diffusion of responsibility. The concept dictates that the more
bystanders are present, the less responsibility each bystander feels and the less likely it is that
any one of them will help.
Step 4: Decide What Kind of Help to Give
Sometimes personal responsibility alone is not enough for an individual to take action; if a
bystander has difficulty in determining the appropriate kind of help to give, he or she will be less
likely to intervene. Those who may have had training in certain emergency situations (e.g.
emergency medical technicians) may be better able to decide what kind of help to give. The lack
of confidence in how to help may cause an individual to either not help or to aid indirectly by
calling the police or contacting someone who will know how to give help.
Step 5: Provide Help
Finally, a bystander decides to help. As previously mentioned, bystanders can act quickly and
effectively if they have had prior training in the particular medical situation. Bystanders who
decide to help can also attract other bystanders to the situation by focusing responsibility on one
individual. For example, the helper may call on an individual nearby to perform a specific task
such as calling for an ambulance.

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Aggressive Behavior

Definition of Aggression
Aggression has different meanings that focus our attention on different aspects of behavior and
lead to the creation of different approaches to its understanding. However, the definition that
encompasses the ideas of these approaches explains aggression as a behavior intended to hurt
another, whether this intent is motivated emotionally (as by anger, pain, frustration, or fear) or
instrumentally, as a means to an end (as in punishing misbehavior or intimidating another to
attain one‘s end.) There are two caveats to this definition. First, the intention to hurt may be
embedded in larger intentions that have quite different meanings. Although the definition
succeeds in avoiding the inclusion of hurting that is accidental or an unavoidable aspect of
helping (as in washing a wound that needs to be cleaned), it does include behaviors as disparate
as a swat on the bottom to correct a child and the dropping of a nuclear bomb to win a war.
Second, the other who is hurt may be the self (as in suicide) and may include other people,
animals, objects.
Traditionally, social psychologists have distinguished between two types of aggression; namely
instrumental aggression and hostile aggression. Instrumental aggression is the intentional use of
harmful behavior so that one can achieve some other goal. As a general rule, aggressive acts
carried out with the objective of gaining material, psychological, or social benefits all fit this
definition of instrumental aggression. On the other hand, hostile aggression is the intentional use
of harmful behavior, triggered by anger, in which the goal is simply to cause injury or death to
the victim.
Theories of Aggression

There are various social psychological theories that give explanation about the causes of
aggression. Following are some of the major ones.

Social Learning Theories

Focusing on aggression as behavior that result in personal injury or property destruction,

Bandura showed how people may learn such behavior by modeling the aggressive behavior of
others. People observe the behavior of others and learn the observed pattern of behavior. The

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pattern is then encouraged or inhibited by what happens to the model. If the behavior is
rewarded, the model is liked and chosen for imitation. Even when people are critical of the
aggressive means that are used, the amount of their aggression increases. If the model is
punished, individual‘s subsequent aggression decreases. Models also function by suggesting the
social acceptability of some forms of behavior, thus facilitating patterns of behavior that have
already been learned. Since the direct punishment of aggression is itself aggressive, it models
aggression at the same time that it discourages it. Thus, although small amounts of nonabusive
spanking can be beneficial in disciplining children between the ages of 2 and 6 years, physical
punishment generally promotes aggression.
The modeling of aggression may occur in families, neighbors, or on TV/movies, and in each of
these cases numerous studies show that children exposed to aggressive models are more apt to
engage in aggressive behavior. Children growing up in abusive families are apt to assault their
own children; the general aggressiveness of teenagers is correlated to the amount of violence that
they watched on TV/movies when they were children.
From the perspective of social learning theory, aggression is neither instinctive nor produced by
frustration. It is a pattern of learned behavior that has been rewarded so that it is efficient within
a given society. Aggressive cultures assume that aggression is innate and natural, without
realizing that there are other cultures where aggressive patterns of behavior do not occur or occur
with far less frequency. Although emotional conditions often precede aggression, numerous
studies have shown that loss, frustration, or anger lead to aggression only when an aggressive
pattern of behavior has been learned and reinforced.

Biological Perspectives
From a biological perspective, many species of animals exhibit aggressive behavior, and we may
consider a good deal of this to be instinctually based. In as much as this is so, there are
constraints on the ease with which we can modify aggressive behavior. The concept of instinct
can be approached from the view of contemporary behavioral evolutionary theory or from its
original conception as used by Freud.

Behavioral Evolution
Rather than viewing aggressive behavior as a learned response, we may conceptualize aggression
as the product of evolutionary processes, that is, behavior patterns based on genetic influences

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that have persisted because they have been adaptive, helping members of a species survive in
specific environments. Thus, we may find aggressive patterns of behavior programmed into the
nervous system because the genes that served as the basis for these programs were selected by
the reproduction of the organisms that possessed them. In its original conception, instinctual
behavior was viewed as a sort of drive that, like hunger, was directed toward a goal, building if it
were not satisfied and becoming less and less particular about the ideal goal object until it could
be satisfied by something that would not ordinarily be chosen.

Freudian Theory
Freud‘s psychoanalytic theory is written from a biological perspective that is based on the older
idea of instincts as drives or needs. Working in the manner of evolutionary biologists today,
Freud assumed that early humans lived in small groups. He postulated that these groups were
initially dominated by the compelling aggression of the strongest male. This dominance could
eventually be overcome by an aggressive union of weaker males. However, such a union had to
be maintained by the growth of law and feelings of unity. As Freud put it, ―Here, I believe we
have all the essentials: violence overcome by the transference of power to a larger unity, which is
held together by emotional ties between its members.‖ As Freud surveyed history, he was not
encouraged by what he saw. Although aggression within groups is contained by laws that are
enforced by group union, there is no way to contain aggression between groups. Some propose
the ideal of a union between groups, but a mere ideal is not sufficient to overcome the aggressive
drive of independent groups, and powerful groups are unwilling to grant sufficient power to a
superordinate body.
2.2.3 Gender
When we examine the human species, we find that societies vary widely in the amount of
aggression. However, within any given society males always appear more aggressive than
females. Observational studies in various societies find males more aggressive than females;
males are more apt to offer more violent solutions; and violent crimes are more apt to be
committed by men. However, within-family aggression may be as prevalent in females.

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Conflict Theories

Rather than focusing on aggression as the response of individuals, we may examine the role it
plays in the relations between people, as a way of wining conflicts, establishing dominance, or
managing impression. This approach may be linked to both emotion and biology. Regarding
emotion, anger is best regarded as a response to a challenge to what a person asserts ought to
exist. When persons become angry, they are attempting to remove a challenge in a way that is
analogous to an animal defending territory. Learned aggressive responses are recruited to serve
this end. Considering aggression as an aspect of conflict is close to the biological perspective in
that it considers the function of aggression in a specific cultural environment. Usually people
prefer a competitive or mistrustful, rather than cooperative, strategy that may involve aggression
that benefits the self without regard for injury to the other. Research shows how many situations
seduce persons to play aggressively even when this is not in their best interest

2.2.5Frustration-aggression Hypothesis
According to this hypothesis, when we are blocked from achieving our goal, this leads to
frustration. Frustration can then lead to aggression. However, sometimes this frustration can be
displaced and lead to something else, eg depression. Frustration can be increased when it is
unexpected, or when we are nearer to our goal when it is blocked - you are more likely to get
angry at someone for pushing in front of you if you are second in a queue than if you are 50th in
the queue. Frustration is likely to be less keenly felt when it is understandable, legitimate or
unintentional.

Relative Deprivation Theory

When people feel that they deserve more than they have got, this can lead to frustration, which
can, then, lead to aggression. This does not always happen in the poorest areas like Ethiopia, as
you might expect, as it is about what people feel they deserve. It occurs when people compare
what they have to what others around them have. It often occurs when conditions are improving
and expectations are rising but are not met.

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Cue-arousal Theory
According to this theory, although frustration leads to anger, it doesn't necessarily lead to
aggression. There needs to be some associated stimulus to spark the aggression. For example, if
you were carrying a pile of heavy books and couldn't get the door open, this would cause you to
feel frustration, but not aggression. However, if someone then laughed at you, this may be the
cue to aggression.
This was shown by an experiment called the Weapons Effect. Participants were given a task to
do and were verbally criticized for their performance of the task, leading to frustration. They
were then given the chance to give electric shocks to the people who had criticized them. Half of
the participants did this while there was a gun present. These people gave significantly more
shocks than the other half, suggesting that the gun acted as a cue to aggression. However, one
criticism of this study is that there may be cultural differences. For example, some people may
have given less shock as the other person had the gun. Do you think this holds true in Ethiopian
culture?
Excitation-transfer Theory
This theory suggests that arousal from one situation can be transferred to another situation. For
example, a number of participants were provoked by verbal abuse. Half then went and did some
exercise and half did nothing. All of the participants then had the chance to give electric shocks
to the people that had abused them. The people that did the exercise gave more shocks than the
others. This showed that the arousal from the exercise was transferred into aggression.
The Excitation-transfer theory was criticized for assuming that aggressive acts are committed
without thinking, which does not account for acts that are planned in a cold, calculating way. It
was later revised to include cognitive processes. When we attribute the frustration to a person,
we are more likely to feel aggression. When we attribute the frustration to the situation, we are
less likely to feel aggression.

Alcohol consumption
Alcohol impairs judgment, making people much less cautious than they usually are. It also
disrupts the way information is processed. A drunken person is much more likely to view an
accidental event as a purposeful one, and therefore act more aggressively.

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Social Interaction Theory
Social interaction theory interprets aggressive behavior as social influence behavior, i.e., an actor
uses coercive actions to produce some change in the target's behavior. Aggressive actions can be
used by an actor to obtain something of value (e.g., information, money, goods, sex, services,
safety), to exact justice for perceived wrongs, or to bring about desired social and self identities
(e.g., toughness, competence). According to this theory, the actor is a decision-maker whose
choices are directed by the expected rewards, costs, and probabilities of obtaining different
outcomes. Social interaction theory provides an explanation of aggressive acts motivated by
higher level (or ultimate) goals. Even hostile aggression might have some rational goal behind it,
such as punishing the provocateur in order to reduce the likelihood of future provocations. This
theory provides an excellent way to understand recent findings that aggression is often the result
of threats to high self-esteem, especially to unwarranted high self-esteem.

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 GROUP AND COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR

Group processes

Definition of Group

The issue of ‗what is a group‘ continues to simmer as an important, and unresolved,

metatheoretical debate in social psychology. Many researchers adhere to one view or the other,
for example, perspectives that focus on the interdependence of individuals in small face-to-face
aggregates vs. perspectives that focus on the collective self-concept that derives from
membership of groups of all sizes. Others opt out of the formal controversy—this is particularly
true of an increasing number of scholars who research group processes from more applied
perspectives. In recent years, however, there have been promising attempts to integrate these
perspectives.
Generally, several criteria need be met in order for there to be a group. First, there must be two
or more people involved in an interaction in which they are aware of each other and mutually
influence each other. Without mutual influence, there is no group. In a family, for example, each
individual has some influence on every other individual. Mutual influence is not enough to
define a group, however. Otherwise, a pedestrian who is splashed and the driver of the car that
does the splashing would constitute a group, provided that each was aware of the other. The
driver‘s action certainly influence the pedestrian, and the pedestrian‘s reactions are likely to have
some influence on the driver.
But lacking in the pedestrian-driver interaction is continuity within a stable framework. The
driver and the pedestrian may never encounter each other again, or if they do, the situation be
quite different: both may be drivers or both may be pedestrians. When we think of groups,
however, we think of enduring relationships that occur within a relatively stable framework. For
example, a family and football club involves continuing relationships among members, stability
of the roles assumed by each member and stability of the unwritten rules, or norms, which
govern the members‘ interaction.
This developing description of what constitutes a group is still incomplete, however. To stop
here would suggest that a prisoner and a guard in a prison would constitute a group. They
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mutually influence each other and they may certainly have an enduring relationship within a very
stable framework, but we would hardly view them as belonging to the same group. They stand in
opposition to one another, while group members typically share a common goal – whether to
accomplish something tangible or simply to have fun. Thus another characteristic of a group is
that its members share a sense of purpose.
But still something is missing. Suppose that every morning on your way to work you share a taxi
with the same set of people. There is likely to be at least some minimal mutual influence, and the
relationship, minimal as it is, endures over time in a relatively stable way. Moreover, all fo the
individuals share a common goal – to get on the taxi. Yet no one is likely to consider him or
herself part of a ―group‖. In the final analysis, a crucial characteristic of a group is the belief held
by the individual members that they are part of the group.
The definition of a group must include all the points above, and can be summarized in this way:
A group involves tow or more people, who are aware of each other, who both influence and are
influenced by one another, who are engaged in an ongoing and relatively stable relationship,
who share common goals, and who view themselves as belonging to a group.
There are, of course, various kinds of groups. Some are formal, with a clearly specified structure,
and providing clearly delineated roles for members. Others are informal, e.g. a group of friends
who regularly get together for poet reading. Some groups begin in an informal way but gradually
grow into more formal organization. Groups can also be differentiated on the basis of whether or
not they are task-oriented or social-oriented. Task oriented groups serve to accomplish some
specific job, while social groups function to provide pleasure and social interaction.

Group Formation and Development

A central concept in the study of group processes is ‗group cohesiveness,‘ which refers to the
overall solidarity of groups, their ‗groupness,‘ and the process that transforms an aggregate of
unrelated individuals in to a psychological group. Through cooperative interdependence in the
pursuit of shared goals, people become attracted to one another, to the group, and to the group‘s
goals. In this way a group forms, and its overall cohesiveness is an arithmetic combination of
individual members‘ attraction to one another and the group. This attraction-to-group—or

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interpersonal attraction—analysis has not gone unchallenged, and recent perspectives place an
emphasis on some form of commitment to group, or self-definition in terms of group
membership. For instance, social identity theory does not consider attraction-to-group to be the
basic process of group formation, but rather one of a range of consequences of a process of
identification with the group (i.e., self-categorization in terms of the group‘s defining features.
Commitment is also considered the most basic process. People become committed to a group,
and a group to its members, through bilateral cost-benefit analyses of membership in this group
relative to other groups. As mutual commitment rises, members move in and out of different
general roles within the group (e.g., new member)—a process characterized by role transitions
that are quite marked, and which can involve public rites of passage.
Group Influence
Groups influence the attitudes and behaviors of their members in different ways. Let‘s examine
some of these influences.
Direct Influence and Persuasion
Direct influence attempts involve individuals, subgroups, or the group as a whole trying to
persuade members (e.g., deviants, dissenters) to go along with or come into line with the group.
Persuasion attempts may range from relatively polite requests all the way to direct orders.
Backed up by threats and ultimately force. Persuasion is generally more effective if the source of
influence has a degree of legitimate authority and power within the group. Direct influence
generally produces behavioral compliance which is not necessarily matched by underlying
cognitive or attitudinal change—people go along with the group for instrumental reasons which
may include a desire to be evaluated favorably or to avoid disapproval or punishment.
Indirect Influence and Group Norms
Groups can also influence members indirectly through the power of social norms that describe
and prescribe appropriate behavior for group members in that context. In the absence of direct
social pressure people conform to group norms. This may happen through ‗normative influence,‘
in which peoples imply publicly comply in order to obtain social approval or avoid disapproval
from others—there is no underlying cognitive change. Another process is ‗informational
influence‘ which produces true conformity—underlying cognitive change which may go along
with behavioral change. Informational influence is effective where people are uncertain about the
objective correctness of their beliefs, and in the absence of objective criteria they use group

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members‘ behaviors as social criteria. A third process is ‗referent informational influence‘ in
which people who identify with a group construct a contextually appropriate norm that defines
the ingroup, incontrast to relevant outgroups, and then enact the norm as an automatic
consequence of self-categorization.

Group Structure
Whereas norms and social influence processes tend to produce uniformity within groups, other
factors introduce unevenness and variability across the group that structures the group into
different regions. Aspects of group structure can surface through intragroup patterns of who
prefers or likes whom, known as ‗sociometric choice‘.

Roles
Groups usually embrace a number of different roles that can be occupied by different people, or
by subgroups of people. Roles prescribe behavior, and they emerge to assist the group to
function better as an integrated entity. According to group socialization model, the group
socialization process involves people moving in and out of quite distinct general roles within the
group as a function of commitment to the group. Roles are rarely equal—some are more
desirable than others, and have more power, prestige, and status attached to them. In this way,
groups are often internally structured into role hierarchies. High status roles tend to be occupied
by people who have specific status characteristics (abilities and skills directly related to the
group‘s function) and/or diffuse status characteristics (they are members of social categories that
have high status in society at large).
Communication Structures
Another feature of group structure is the ease with which members or role occupants can
communicate with one another. Depending on the group‘s task, different communication
structures can emerge—highly centralized structures channel all communication through a single
communication hub (often the leader), while less centralized networks allow freer
communication among all members. The nature of the communication network affects group
functioning, task performance, member satisfaction, and group solidarity. For instance, highly
centralized networks can, under certain circumstances, reduce efficiency, cause peripheral
members to feel excluded and dissatisfied, and even reduce group cohesion.

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Group Performance
Since groups often exist to perform specific tasks, an important question to ask is whether groups
perform better or worse than individuals. This is an extension of an even more fundamental
question about how individual task performance is affected by the presence of others. Coactors
or a passive audience tend to improve performance of a well-learned or easy task, but impede
performance of a poorly learned or difficult task. In general, however, groups are interactive
entities, and the question becomes one of whether the task is better accomplished by interaction
in a group, or simply by individuals working alone. The answer to this question is that it depends
on the specific nature of the task—for instance; more chairs can be produced by a group effort
based on a coordinated division of labor, than by individuals building them from scratch.

Social Loafing, Free Riding, and Social Dilemmas

Groups often perform less well than would be suggested by the sum of the abilities or
performances of individual members. This can be because of coordination losses, that is,
interference between individuals trying to coordinate their actions within the group. Coordination
losses may be one explanation of why group brainstorming is often a suboptimal way to generate
novel ideas in a group. Groups can also perform less well because of motivation losses, that is,
people in groups put in less effort because they are less motivated. This latter ‗social loafing‘
effect seems to be partly due to a reduction in perceived personal identifiability and
responsibility in the group. Social loafing can be reduced by, among other things, task
importance, enjoyment, and relevance, and increased group cohesiveness and personal
identifiability. Related to loafing is a tendency for individuals in a group confronted by a scarce
resource to free ride, that is, maximize their own short-term gains with little regard for the group
as a whole and thus their long-term gains- refered as social dilemma. Many of the environmental
problems faced by the world today are examples of social dilemmas. Social dilemmas can be
(partly) avoided by having a leader manage a resource rather than letting the members compete
directly, or by having members identify strongly with the group that accesses the resource.

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Deindividuation
A common assumption about groups is that they cause people to lose their sense of individuality
and that this leads to low motivation, lack of responsibility, and antisocial conduct—all captured
by the notion of ‗deindividuation‘. Deindividuation, as described by Leon Festinger and
colleagues in 1952, is the situation where anti-normative behavior is released in groups in which
individuals are not seen or paid attention to as individuals. Simply put, deindividuation is
immersion in a group to the point of which the individual ceases to be seen as such.

Perspectives on Deindividuation
There are three widely-held perspectives as to how deindividuation affects the group dynamic:
1. Deindividuation weakens people against performing harmful or socially disapproved actions.
Essentially, when a person is in the group and deindividuation occurs, the person is no longer
acting as the individual. Therefore, what would normally inhibit the actions of a single person
acting in a social setting and conforming to social norms is removed. The result is uninhibited
behavior which may be harmful or socially disapproved actions (e.g.: vandalism, gang assaults,
etc.)
2. Deindividuation heightens peoples’ responsiveness to external cues, which may be either
positive or negative. This responsiveness refers to the situation. In the case of looting, you may
see others stealing desirable items and not receiving any punishment or negative outcomes. This
may make you more compelled to join the group and engage in the behavior because you see
others getting away with it and you believe you won‘t be singled out just like they haven‘t. This
type of responsiveness may also be positive. For instance, you may walk into a invitation and see
that others are sitting around, and having a drink. You will probably feel compelled to follow the
group by taking a seat and grabbing a drink yourself. This makes you feel more at ease because
you stand out less from the group.

3. Deindividuation increases people’s adherence to norms that emerge with the group. When
deindividuation occurs, new norms are set as the standard for the group. This standard pushes
people to conform to the social influence of the group instead of thinking individually about how
to comply with social norms.

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Collective Behavior
Nature and Forms of Collective Behavior
Definition of Collective Behavior
Collective behavior can be defined as action which is neither conforming (in which actors follow
prevailing norms) nor deviant (in which actors violate those norms). Collective behavior, a third
form of action, takes place when norms are absent or unclear, or when they contradict each other.
Scholars have devoted far less attention to collective behavior than they have to either
conformity or deviance.
Forms of collective behavior
There are various forms of collective behavior. Let‘s examine some of them.
The crowd
Scholars differ about what classes of social events fall under the rubric of collective behavior. In
fact, the only class of events which all authors include is crowds. Crowd is differentiated from
other forms of collective behavior in relation to its involvement of emotion. Some psychologists
have claimed that there are three fundamental human emotions: fear, joy, and anger. In relation
to this social psychologists have proposed three corresponding forms of the crowd: the panic (an
expression of fear), the craze (an expression of joy), and the hostile outburst (an expression of
anger).

Social scientists have developed theories to explain crowd behavior.

1. Contagion Theory - According to this theory, crowds exert a hypnotic influence over
their members. Shielded by their anonymity, large numbers of people abandon personal
responsibility and surrender to the contagious emotions of the crowd. A crowd thus
assumes a life of its own, stirring up emotions, and driving people toward irrational, even
violent action.
2. Convergence Theory - whereas the Contagion Theory states that crowds cause people to
act in a certain way, Convergence theory states that people who want to act in a certain
way come together to form crowds. It asserts that people with similar attributes find other
like-minded persons with whom they can release underlying tendencies. People
sometimes do things in a crowd that they would not have the courage to do alone because

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 crowds can diffuse responsibility. Crowds, in addition, can intensify a sentiment simply
by creating a critical mass of like-minded people.
3. Emergent-Norm Theory - according to this theory, crowds begin as collectivities
composed of people with mixed interests and motives. Especially in the case of less
stable crowds—expressive, acting and protest crowds—norms may be vague and
changing, as when one person decides to break the glass windows of a store and others
join in and begin looting merchandise. In short, people in crowds make their own rules as
they go along.

The Public

Scholars distinguish the crowd, which expresses a common emotion, from a public, which
discusses a single issue. Thus, a public is not equivalent to all of the members of a society.
Obviously, this is not the usual use of the word, "public." For scholars there are as many publics
as there are issues. A public comes into being when discussion of an issue begins, and ceases to
be when it reaches a decision on it. The use of sample surveys, which purportedly measure
public opinion, now almost constitutes an academic discipline in itself.

The Mass
The mass differs from both the crowd and the public in that it is defined not by a form of
interaction but by the efforts of those who use the mass media to address an audience. The first
mass medium was printing. After many years, other mass media were invented, and the rate of
invention has accelerated over the years. The impact of the mass on society has become greater
and greater, so that in our time the mass has enormous social impact. The study of mass
communications, like public opinion polling, has almost become an academic field.

Group Decision Making

One of the most common tasks that groups perform is decision making. Group decision making
is potentially superior to individual decision making because in a group there is a larger pool of
expertise, viewpoints, and so forth. Groups may come to decisions slowly, but this may be a
good thing, particularly for complex issues, because it indicates proper consideration of all facets

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of the issue. However, groups are also subject to an array of group processes that may impair
decision making. Let us discuss some of these processes that cause impairment in making
decision.

Groupthink
Irving Janis, who did extensive work on the subject, defined it as:
A mode of thinking that people engage in, when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group
and the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise
alternative courses of action.
In the above sense groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to
minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas.
Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group
cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might
normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group
avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of
motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid
embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make
hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group‘s
balance. The term is frequently used pejoratively, with hindsight.
Causes of groupthink
Highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink, because their
cohesiveness often correlates with unspoken understanding and the ability to work together with
minimal explanations. Although Janis sees group cohesion as the most important antecedent to
groupthink, he states that it will not invariably lead to groupthink: It is a necessary condition, but
not a sufficient condition. According to Janis, group cohesion will only lead to groupthink if one
of the following two antecedent conditions is present:
 Structural faults in the organization: insulation of the group, lack of tradition of impartial
leadership, lack of norms requiring methodological procedures, homogeneity of
members' social background and ideology.
 Provocative situational context: high stress from external threats, recent failures,
excessive difficulties on the decision-making task, moral dilemmas.

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Symptoms of groupthink
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink.
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the
consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful,
disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in
terms of "disloyalty".
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting
information.

Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That
is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking.
1. Incomplete survey of alternatives
2. Incomplete survey of objectives
3. Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
4. Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
5. Poor information search
6. Selection bias in collecting information
7. Failure to work out contingency plans.

Preventing groupthink
According to Irving Janis, decision making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He
devised seven ways of preventing groupthink:

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 1. Leaders should assign each member the role of ―critical evaluator‖. This allows each
member to freely air objections and doubts.
2. Higher-ups should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
3. The organization should set up several independent groups, working on the same
problem.
4. All effective alternatives should be examined.
5. Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
6. The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be
allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
7. At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil's advocate- one that
identifies faults. This should be a different person for each meeting.

Group Polarization
Another potential bias in group decision making is ‗group polarization‘. This is a tendency for
group discussion to cause groups to come to a decision that is more extreme than the mean of the
individual members‘ prediscussion opinions. Polarization occurs only when the prediscussion
mean already tends to favor one pole of the decision-making dimension—the group decision is
then more extreme in this direction.

Mechanisms of polarization
Almost as soon as the phenomenon of group polarization was discovered, a variety of hypotheses
was suggested for the mechanisms for its action. These explanations were gradually winnowed
down and grouped together until two primary mechanisms remained; social comparison and
influence. Social comparison approaches, sometimes called interpersonal comparison, were
based on social psychological views of self-perception and the drive of individuals to appear
socially desirable. The second major mechanism is informational influence, which is also
sometimes referred to as persuasive argument theory, or PAT. PAT holds that individual choices
are determined by individuals weighing remembered pro and con arguments. These arguments
are then applied to possible choices, and the most positive is selected. As a mechanism for
polarization, group discussion shifts the weight of evidence as each individual exposes their pro
and con arguments, giving each other new arguments and increasing the stock of pro arguments

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in favor of the group tendency, and con arguments against the group tendency. The
persuasiveness of an argument depends on two factors – originality and its validity. According to
PAT, a valid argument would hold more persuasive weight than a non-valid one. Originality has
come to be understood in terms of the novelty of an argument. A more novel argument would
increase the likelihood that it is an addition to the other group members‘ pool of pro and con
arguments, rather than a simple repetition.
Group Remembering
Group decision making usually involves collaborative recall of information, or group
remembering. Group remembering is not simply a retrieval activity in the pursuit of veridical
recall, rather it is a constructive process where social comparisons among group members shape
the resultant group memory. As such, group remembering may be subject to implicit or even
intentional bias. Another feature of group remembering is ‗transactive memory.‘ Groups often
need to bring a large amount of information to bear upon a decision, and thus they develop a
differentiated memory structure where individuals or subgroups specialize in different memory
domains. Where this occurs people not only have to remember their own part of the puzzle, but
they also need to know who specializes in what memories—they develop a transactive memory
structure. Research studies show that group functioning and decision-making is compromised
where people have not acquired a transactive memory, or where such a system has not developed
in the group.

Intergroup Decision Making

Decision-making groups can contain factional rifts, or can be considered to be interactive
decision-making contexts in which opposing groups or their representatives come together to
reach an agreement. Under these circumstances the group provides a context for intergroup
decision making. Because individuals are acting as group representatives rather than individuals,
face-to-face intergroup bargaining has a relatively low probability of success—inflexibility and
stalemate is more likely. Third party mediation can help, and as a last resort, so can arbitration
(in which a settlement is imposed by a third party).

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