SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

 

     " An attempt to understand how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of an individual are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others" (Allport, 1924)

 

Social Psychology is the study of social influences; the influences that people have upon the beliefs and behaviors of others (p.6, Aronson). The questions are: what variables increase or decrease social influence; why and how are we influences; are the effects of the influence permanent?

 

          There are many different ways or theories that try to explain social influence:

 

      To explain what happens in life, we construct theories of behavior. These theories help us to predict and control events in our world. Our personal theories of behavior are called IMPLICIT THEORIES. Social psy. studies implicit theories of behavior but it uses more formal theories of behavior.

 

      Psychologists construct FORMAL THEORIES of behavior based on scientific observation, suppositions, data collection, experimentation, and analysis. Social Psychologists construct Social Psychological Theories of social behavior that emerge from the broader psychological theories.

 

The MAJOR PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES may be broken down into three categories:

      1. PERSON CENTERED

      2. SITUATION CENTERED

      3. INTERACTIONIST

 

1. PERSON CENTERED THEORIES

 

    A. PSYCHOANALYTIC (Freud)

   

         Model of personality - a biological or survival model based on the Darwinian perspective of HEDONISM (pleasure principle), humans strive to reduce inner tensions and to maintain a psychological balance (HOMEOSTASIS) and to survive regardless of the costs.
        A historical approach emphasizing your past. Freud submitted that the personality is developed by age 6.                     

       

        Focus- unconscious motivation

 

Human behavior arises from the struggle that takes place between the instinctual drives (LIBIDO and MORTIDO) and societal prohibitions. As a result of societal mores our forbidden desires are driven into our unconsciousness (skeletons in your closet). However, these drive continue to affect our behavior finding expression in : slips of the tongue; dreams (the royal road to the unconscious); bizarre symptoms (psychopathy); neuroses (anxiety disorders); religion; art; myth; literature; etc.. (Leonardo DaVinci- painted madonnas because he had an unconscious desire to have sex with his mother).

 

      Three components of the personality: ID: EGO: SUPEREGO

 

      ID - related to the biological inheritance of sexual and aggressive instincts. The unconscious reservoir of psychic energy. Responds directly to biological needs to reduce tension. Operates on the principle of hedonism and immediate gratification.

 

      EGO - governed by the REALITY principle or the principle of delayed gratification. Serves the ID in its pursuit of pleasure but takes into account the demands of reality. Characterized by logic, time orientation, rationality. Conscious.

 

      SUPEREGO - rewards you for acceptable behavior and punishes you for unacceptable behavior (creates guilt). Represents the internalization of moral codes (CONSCIENCE)

 

A social psy. application of psychoanalytic theory:

     Adorno's work on the AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY

     A large scale post WWII study profiling the personality of a fascist (followers of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, etc.) To what could we apply it today?

 

     Findings: submissiveness to authority; cruelty to those lower; prejudiced; rigid in thinking (black and white); intolerance for ambiguity; represses own impulses; strong adherence to conventional values. "The future authoritarian was raised in a home where his expressions of basic passions were limited and frustrated particularly by his father. He responded to this frustration by both identifying with his father to ward off hostility and by repressing his feelings of hostility toward his father. He bottles up these repressed feeling to be expressed later toward minority groups and disliked authority figures" (Projection and displacement). Notice the social influences on the development of the personality. Even though Freud was a strong believer in instincts, he also believed in the effects of the environment and , in particular, social influences.

 

Why do you think that this is called a person centered theory?

 

2. SITUATION CENTERED THEORIES

 

   BEHAVIORAL THEORIES

      

     A. CLASSICAL CONDITONING and OPERANT CONDITIONING

     

      The Behavioral theories are concerned with the scientific study of behavior through objective methods. The only valid information is that obtained through observing and manipulating behavior that can be objectively measured.

 

      FOCUS - the analysis of the stimulus and the response, internal and external events that change a person's behavior (STIMULUS); the change in behavior is the RESPONSE.
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM - we are shaped by our environments.

 

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (Pavlov) (Watson)

 

     US  ---   UR

 

CS + US  ---   UR

 

     CS  ---   CR

 

   CER = conditioned emotional response
 Example:
   Interpersonal attraction - the "way to a man's heart is through his stomach". We become attracted to others through classical conditioning.

 

          Social influence is entirely environmentally determined. We become the people we are because we were raised that way, rewarded for some behaviors and punished for others, thus we associate some things with good feelings and others with bad feelings. Why do you like school, certain kinds of movies, etc.?

 

OPERANT CONDITIONING (Skinner)

 

     Reward or reinforcement is the basis for continued behavior. Bringing the organism under stimulus control

.

LAW OF EFFECT (Thorndike) a response that results in a pleasant effect will be repeated; a response that results in an unpleasant effect will not be repeated.

 

   General Reward Theory of interpersonal attraction - we like people who give us rewards. Later turned into Social Exchange Theory or distributive justice; if I give you something then you give me something in return. Reward should be proportional to one's investment.

 

    Basic tenets of OPERANT CONDITONING:

     

      we tend to approach rewarding stimuli and avoid punishing stimuli; we learn to behave in a manner through which we can obtain a reward or avoid a punishment.

        reinforcement arouses positive feelings; punishment  negative (classical conditioning - CER)

        Through the process of classical conditioning, any neutral           stimulus that is associated with a reward or a punishment will acquire the capacity to evoke either positive or negative feelings (e.g. dentist).

 

          SHAPING - reinforcing successive approximations to a goal                    response

 

 

 

B. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM and ROLE THEORY

 

          Wm. James and John Dewey and Geo. Herbert Meade - pragmatic philosophers - the meaning of ideas is in their practical application. The function of thought is to guide activity and truth is tested by the practical consequences of belief.

 

We live  in a world of symbols. Through these symbols we define situations and interpret behavior .

 

Impression management - we engage in mental rehearsal of our actions before we act. We are audiences for our own behaviors.

 

   ROLE theory - Irving Goffman and Kenneth Burke - the Dramaturgical Tradition

 

    " all the world is a stage and all the men and women  merely players. They have their exits and entrances and one man in his time plays many parts"

 

     We all play many roles - for example?
     We place people into categories according to activities and act toward them according to their role.

         

 Role - the function a person performs when occupying a particular position within a particular social context

 

          Role expectations - obligations, norms attached to a role

 

          Role reciprocity - give and take between roles

 

          Role conflict - interrole (between roles) and intrarole (within a role) conflict

 

 

          Leiberman study - workers' attitudes toward management were taken; one year later following the promotion of some of  these individuals to foremen, attitudes were retaken. Attitudes shifted according to the new roles.

 

 

3. INTERACTIONIST THEORIES

 

          A. COGNITIVE THEORY / GESTALT THEORY

 

             the cognitive processes include all the higher mental processes: thinking, perception, memory, reasoning, problem solving, attention, etc. Special interest in social psy. is how we encode, store, and retrieve social information.

 

                    We encode or interpret information in terms of our schema (past knowledge) and in terms of the context in which the information occurs

                    Cognitive theory emerged from Gestalt theory, a perceptual theory the major tenet of which was: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Experience and behavior are integrated and organized.

 

                    In Social Cognition we look at how the individual views her/his world and how s/he interprets the world based on that perception.

                   

         

 

B. FIELD THEORY (Kurt Lewin)

 

 Focus - the environment as the person perceives it now e.g. an adult reciting the Lord's Prayer " our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name" and a child "Harold be thy name"

 

B = f(P,E) the environment is defined psychobiologically. The effects that it has on the individual at that given moment. Psychobiological factors include: goals, barriers, everything affecting the individual

 

LIFE SPACE - includes the total psychological field, the person and the environment. Behavior is a function of the life space. The life space is a whole with interdependent parts (each affected by and affecting the other; a change in one affects all the other parts to some extent) e.g. divorce, a new job etc.

                    Includes both conscious and unconscious influences and present and past influences

 

INTERDEPENDENCY is critical to understanding behavior. Must understand a person's past experiences (memories as they affect the present); present attitudes and feelings; present capabilities; and context

 

MOTIVATION behavior operates on the basis of perceived tension and equilibrium. Tension - a state of readiness, set for action, dynamic. Equilibrium - relaxed, balanced. Any intention to perform an act sets up a tension that persists until that activity is completed and a state of equilibrium is restored . Blocking of goal directed behavior creates tension inducing an individual to strive for closure (completing an unfinished task)

 

VALANCE a motivational construct. A valance is a force of either attraction or repulsion. + valances attract; - valances repel

        Valance Conflicts:

two +  approach - approach conflict (wanting to do two                  attractive things at the same time)

 

  two -  avoidance - avoidance (not wanting to do something but also wanting to avoid the consequences of not doing it)

 

                    + and -  approach  - avoidance (want to do something but are afraid)

 

                    e.g. Cognitive Dissonance Theory of attitude change