SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Hello guys! So, today we meet again in ... Psychology! In the previous weeks, we have been going through a lot about psychology, where everything is about single person, or individualism. But, today, let us discuss something a bit different:

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

So, let us start with the definition first. Social means people, interactions and such. Psychology means... you should know.  Alright, when we combine social and psychology, it means a scientific study of how a person’s behaviour, thoughts and feelings influence and influenced by social groups.

            In the real world, we never live alone because there are always people around us. Even for someone who choose a solitary life, that solitary life itself also influences other people. This is what we call as social influence. For me, it is undoubtedly that people around me like my family, friends, teachers, and many more, they have a strong influence in whatever happens in my life. For example, now, I am a student. Since i was at a very young age, my parents taught me to be a good boy, sent me to school, and etc. Everything that they did were what make my character right now, although I am not a really good boy. Haha!

            So, there are three big terms used this week: Conformity, Complience and Obedience.

Let us start with Conformity.

           

      By definition, Conformity means changing one’s own behaviour to more closely match the actions of others. In other words, this is what we call the power of majority. Believe it or not, conformity ALWAYS happen in everyone’s life. Let us take a very simple example that we always do unconsciously. Imagine a situation when you are attending a talk about technology. The speaker, who is a Professor speaks with all his sophisticated words about technology, and you are so amazed by his talk. For 30 moniutes, you agree with everything he said, because you can clearly see that he is undenialbly credible to talk about technology. But, suddenly, after 30 minutes, the professor suddenly change his presentation, and talk about nonsense: “today, my phone is my girl, she always there for me. and in fact, my cat loves to eat chicken. You wont believe me if I say that I started to learn to cook when I was 2 years old because that is a lie. Hahaha! But, this fact is real, it is not a lie- I have been changing my glass aquarium for 6 times because my little tortoise, Barney keeps on chewing its aquarium.” For the next 1 hour, the professor keeps on talking all the nonsense, and of course, you will say, “ what is this? Some kind of a joke show, or something? I am going to get out of this hall now.” But, you will never leave the hall and keep on listening to the nonsense. And when the talk is finally over, where the professor says, “ thank you for listening to my great technology.” And you will say, “oh, thanks God.” Then someone stands up and give him a big clap because he is exited about the professor’s foolness. Followed by everyone else, and finally you will stand up and clap for him too. Without you realizing it, you are actually influenced by all the crowds. Although the professor deserves a “boo”, but he ends up by receiving a huge applause from the crowds. So, although you don’t want to clap for him, then you change your mind because everyone else are clapping and you don’t want to be the only one who sit down.

            So, basically, that is how conformity works. People tend to change their behaviour, thoughts and feelings about something when the majority group act differently from their thought. This is because they believe that that group is right and most people always want to be in a group. This will lead to changing your own behaviour into something is not you.

Groupthink and Compliance

Groupthink - a phenomenon when a group of people get together and start to think collectively with one mind. The group is more concerned with unity than objectively evaluating the situation. This group will tend to take irrational actions or overestimate their positions or moral rightness.

As an example, there is a group of employees at a company. Their product which was once very popular, is starting to become outdated. The group of employees are unwilling to accept that their product isn't popular anymore, and refuses to consider new alternatives to advance in the industry.

As you can see, the employees are losing sight of what is best for them when they think as one and do not think critically.

Compliance - changing one's behavior as a result of other people directing or asking for the change.

Have you ever complied before? Of course you have, although you might not have noticed it. Whenever a salesperson tries to sell you a product, and you buy it, that is compliance. Or when your friend asks, "Can you do me a favor?" and you say yes, you are complying to your friend's request.

Four Ways to Gain Compliance

1. Door-in-the-face technique
Using this approach, marketeers would first ask for a large commitment. When you refuse, they would then ask for a smaller one. For example, your mother asks you to clean the whole house. You are too lazy so you refuse. Your mother than asks you to at least clean your room. After refusing the first task, you might feel the need to comply with your mother's request.

2. Foot-in-the-door technique
Marketeers would first ask you for a small commitment and then, when you fulfill their request, they will ask you for another even bigger request. As an example, your friend asks you for a ride to school for just one day, but then after that, he might ask you to give him a ride for a whole week.

3. The "lowball" technique
The lowball technique requires the marketeer to get the customer to make a commitment and then after that, raising the stakes of the commitment. For example, if you were to subscribe for a new phone plan, the salesperson might tell you that you only have to pay RM50 a month. But then! After you have agreed to subscribe, he might say, "With the taxes, you will have to pay RM70 a month." And you will be in this very awkward position. :( #truestorybro

4. That's-not-all technique
The that's-not-all technique involves the marketeer making an offer before the customer makes a decision. For example, if you were to buy a laptop, and before you decide which brand you wanted to buy from, the salesperson might say, "Hey! If you buy a Samsung laptop, you'll get a free bag, powerbank, AND a personalized mousepad!"

Obedience

While compliance is the change of one's behaviour because of someone directing or asking for it, obedience is the change of one's behavior at the command of an authority figure.

In a study by Stanley Milgram, we are surprised to find that many are willing to hurt and even kill another human being if they were ordered to by a legitimate authority figure or if they recognize their authority as morally right.

A real life example would be a man named Adolf Eichmann who was executed in 162 for his part n the Holocaust. When faced with the wrath of the Jewish people, Eichmenn was surprised. He said that he was merely following orders and that was a good thing.

Task Performance

Social facilitation is the tendency for the presence of other people to have a positive impact on the performance of an easy task.

In a study, cyclists were timed when they were racing alone versus when they were racing with other cyclists. The cyclists showed faster racing time when they were in the presence of other teammates.

Social impairment is a negative influence from others that affect performance. For example, Alex is a very shy person in class. One day, the teachers asks him to give a presentation in front of the whole class while his classmates review him. During the presentation, Alex stuttered and paused so much. He is experiencing social impairment because of the concern that others will evaluate his performance.

Social loafing is the tendency for people to put less effort into a simple task when working with others on that task. It is probably because there is less chance for the individual to be evaluated alone so it is easy to hide his laziness. This is very common in school and college. *slams fist on table

There is almost always that one group member that has a lot of excuses as to why he or she can't do work and when they do do the work, its always half-hearted.

An example of social loafing is when you walk into a restaurant and some of the staff lounging about glued to their phones, while others are eagerly waiting for your order.

So now, let me tell you guys about social cognition. Social cognition includes attitude, impression formation, and attribution. 

So what is social cognition? Social cognition is focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. Social cognition also shows the importance of cognitive process in our social interactions. The way we think about others play a major role in how we think, feel, and interact with the world around us. And how we think about others can make our attitude change.

Basically, social cognition helps us understand those questions above.

Now, let us move on to the first area of social cognition, the attitudes.  Attitude can be defined as a tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain idea, person, object, or situation. (Triandis,1971). According to Eagly, & Chaiken ( 1993,p.1), attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. Actually, attitudes influence the way people view these things before they have actually been exposed to them.

Attitudes are actually made up of three different parts, or components, known as the ABC model of attitudes. The three components of attitudes are:

1.       Feelings

Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings or emotions toward the object, person, or situation.

2.       Actions

Behavioral component: the action that a person takes towards the object, person, or situation.

3.       Thoughts

Cognitive component: this involves a person’s thinking, beliefs, and ideas toward the object, person, or situation.

Now, we move on to the attitude formation. Attitude formation is the result of a number of different influences with only one thing in common: They are all forms of learning. There are four ways of attitude formation.

Sometimes people learn attitudes that aren’t necessarily good. Why? How come attitudes change? Actually it’s all about the art of persuasion, the process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, position, or course of action of another person through argument, pleading or explanation. To persuade people is not easy. Therefore the factors of successful persuasion are:

Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time.

Things to prevent Cognitive Dissonanse:

People can reduce cognitive dissonance by changing their belief, change their action and also change their action perception(taking in other cognitions).

Impression formation refers to the process by which individual pieces of information about another person are integrated to form a global impression of the individual.

Attribution is the process by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events.

Prejudice and Discrimination

In addition to this, scapegoating is a the practice or tendency to direct the prejudice and discrimination towards out-groups who do not have a large social power.

Love is a Triangle

What is love?

Love is a strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests.

Based on Sternberg's Triangular Theory of love, there are tree components of love which are:

1.Intimacy (feelings of closeness, psychologically not physically)

2. Passion ( physical aspect of love emotional and sexual arousal a person feels to other such as holding hands, hug, loving looks)

3. Commitment ( decisions one makes about a relationship)

Types of love:

Romantic love- Type of love consisting of intimacy and passion
Companionate love- Type of love consisting of intimacy and commitment