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nt, rational, good people can be led to behave in
ways that are foolish, compliant, irrational, and evil
2. Human nature follows a situational script to the letter
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II.Constructing Social Reality
A. Social Reality
1. Two individuals, observing the same event, may interpret it in very
different ways. Each constructs social reality in a unique way, bringing
his or her personal knowledge and experience to bear in interpreting
the situation
2. There is no objective social reality; there are only the individual’s
construction and interpretation of it
3. Social Perception is the process by which people come to understand
and categorize the behaviors of others
B. The Origins of Attribution Theory
1. Attribution theory is a general approach to describe the ways the
social perceiver uses information to generate causal explanations
a) Heider suggested people are all intuitive psychologists,
attempting to discern what people are like and what causes
their behavior
b) Heider suggested that questions dominating most
attributional analyses are whether the cause of the behavior
is dispositional (internal) or situational (external)
2. Kelley observed that people most often make causal attributions for
events under conditions of uncertainty using the covariation principle
a) Covariation principle: People attribute behavior to a causal
factor if that factor was present when the behavior occurred,
but was absent whenever the behavior didn’t occur
b) Covariation is assessed using three dimensions of
information
(i) Distinctiveness refers to whether the behavior is
specific to a particular situation
(ii) Consistency refers to whether the behavior occurs
repeatedly in response to this situation
(iii) Consensus refers to whether other people also
produce the same behavior in the same situation
C. The Fundamental Attribution Error
1. The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) represents the dual
tendency for people to overestimate dispositional factors and to
underestimate situational ones when searching for the cause of some
behavior of outcome
a) The FAE may be due in part to cultural sources
D. Self-serving bias leads people to take credit for their successes while denying
responsibility for their failures
E. Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
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1. Self-fulfilling prophecies are predictions made about some future
behavior or event that modifies interactions to produce what is
expected
2. Expectations are powerful and self-fulfilling prophecies are most
likely to occur when the individual has not had an opportunity to
develop accurate expectations before judgments must be made
F. Behaviors that Confirm Expectations
1. Behavioral confirmation is the process by which someone’s
expectations about another person actually influence the second
person to behave in ways that confirm the original hypothesis
a) Behavior confirmation depends on the availability of
accurate information from the environment
b) Expectations have their greatest effect when the actual state
of the world is uncertain
III. Attitudes, Attitude Change, and Action
A. Attitudes and Behaviors
1. An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, or
ideas
2. Three types of experiences give rise to attitudes:
a) Cognitive
b) Affective
c) Behavioral
3. One property of attitudes that predicts behavior is accessibility, the
strength of the association between an attitude object and a person’s
evaluation of that object
a) Attitudes are more accessible when they are based on direct
experience
4. Attitudes are more predictive of behavior when the attitudes and
behaviors are measured at the same level of specificity
B. Processes of Persuasion
1. Persuasion refers to deliberate efforts to change attitude
2. The Elaboration Likelihood Model suggests that there are two routes to
persuasion:
a) The Central Route represents circumstances in which people
think carefully about a persuasive communication so that
attitude change depends on the logical strength of the
arguments. Central route arguments depend on facts,
features, and objective qualities.
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b) The Peripheral Route represents circumstances in which
people do not focus critically on the message, but respond to
superficial cues in the situation. Peripheral route messages
depend on sex appeal, image, prestige, and subjective
qualities.
3. The route that people take depends on their motivation to process
and critically analyze the message
C. Persuasion by Your Own Actions
1. Dissonance Theory
a) Cognitive dissonance is the state of conflict someone
experiences after making a decision, taking an action, or
being exposed to information that is contrary to prior beliefs,
feelings, or values
(i) Dissonance-reducing activities modify the
unpleasant state and achieve consonance among
cognitions
(ii) Dissonance has motivational force and impels the
individual to act to reduce the unpleasant feeling
(iii) The greater the dissonance, the greater the
motivation to reduce it
b) Under conditions of high dissonance, the individual acts to
justify his or her behavior after the fact, engages in self-
persuasion, and often becomes a convincing communicator
c) Recently researchers have begun to question whether
dissonance effects generalize to cultures in which
individuals have an interdependent conception of self, such
as in Japan
2. Self-Perception theory
a) Given that in Western culture, people are quick to make
dispositional attributions about the behavior of others, it
should not be surprising that they have the same bias
toward themselves
(i) Internal states are inferred by perceiving how one is
acting now and recalling how one was active in a
given situation in the past
(ii) Self-knowledge allows the individual to reason
backward to the most likely causes or determinants
of behavior
b) Self-perception theory lacks the motivational components of
dissonance theory
D. Compliance
1. Often people want to change not only your attitudes, but your
behavior so that you comply with their requests. Compliance
techniques include the following:
2. Reciprocity
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a) The Reciprocity Norm states that when someone else does
something for you, you should do something for them
b) The Door-in-the-Face Technique works because when people
say “no” to a large request, they will often say “yes” to a
more moderate request; it arises from the reciprocity norm
3. Commitment
a) The commitment principle states that if you make a small
commitment, you will be more likely to commit to
something larger in the future
b) Use of the commitment strategy in compliance attempts is
often called the Foot-in-the-Door Technique
4. Scarcity
a) The scarcity principle states that people dislike feeling that
they can’t have something; thus, people desire the scare
object more
b) The countdown timer on home shopping networks is a good
example of the scarcity principle in action
5. Modeling
a) People can bring about compliance and behavior change by
modeling the desired behavior
b) This technique draws on the principle of conformity
IV. Social Relationships
A. Liking
1. People tend to become attracted to people with whom they are in
close proximity, by virtue of mere exposure
2. Physical attractiveness often plays a role in development of
friendships.
3. Similarity: Individuals similar to oneself provide a sense of personal
validation, because a similar individual makes one feel that the
attitudes one holds dear are the right ones. Conversely, dissimilarity
often leads to strong repulsion
4. Reciprocity: As individuals, we tend to like other individuals who
like us.
B. Loving
1. In most cases, we first liked the person we come to love
2. The Experience of Love
a) Conceptualizations of love cluster into three dimensions:
(i) Passion: sexual passion and desire
(ii) Intimacy: honesty and understanding
(iii) Commitment: devotion and sacrifice
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b) People’s ability to sustain loving relationships also depends
on adult attachment style
(iii) Secure attachment (55 %)
(iv) Avoidant attachment (25 %)
(v) Anxious-ambivalent attachment (20 %)
c) Distinctions between types of love in relationships as they
evolve over time:
(i) Passionate love: a period of great intensity and
absorption
(ii) Compassionate love: a migration toward a state of
lesser intensity, but greater intimacy
3. Factors that Allow a Relationship to Last
a) One theory suggests that having a feeling that the “other” is
included in one’s “self’ helps relationships last
b) The Dependence Model suggests that likelihood to remain
together is based on a series of judgments:
(i) The degree to which intimacy, sex, emotional
involvement, companionship, and intellectual
involvement are important in the individual’s
relationship
(ii) The degree to which each of those needs is satisfied
in the relationship
(iii) For each need, whether there is anyone other than
the current partner with whom the individual has an
important relationship
(iv) The degree to which each need is satisfied by the
alternative relationship
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. While colleges have historically been thought of as centers of divergent thought and
intellectual freedom, many political conservatives feel that in recent years many colleges and
universities have become centers of “political correctness” and liberal intellectual rigidity.
While these people may be overstating the case somewhat, certainly there are many
pressures on college students to conform to certain “norms” that exist on every college
campus. These norms may be more social than political, but they still exist. You might
explore with your students what pressures they have felt to conform while in college, in
terms of political thought, dress norms, social mores, and social attitudes. Depending on
where your class is taught, this could turn into a very interesting discussion. (From Koss)
2. In discussing Milgram’s studies with your class, you might want to discuss the sociological
implications. Do students believe that people’s willingness to obey an authority figure in
Milgram’s studies is linked to why national populations will sometimes willingly follow
tyrants like Adolf Hitler?