Module 53: Social Thinking

MODULE 53: SOCIAL THINKING

outline of resources

I. Introducing Social Psychology (These items apply to Modules 53–55)

Student Project/Web Site: Social Psychology Web Sites (p. 2)

Videocassettes: Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: The Power of the Situation (p. 2)
Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: Constructing Social Reality (p. 2)

Film: Invitation to Social Psychology (p. 2)

II. Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations

Lecture/Discussion Topic: Attribution and Models of Helping (p. 4)

Classroom Exercises: The Fundamental Attribution Error (p. 3)
Students’ Perceptions of You (p. 3)

Videocassette: Psychology:The Human Experience, Module 30: Social Cognition and Person Perception:The Blind Date (p. 4)

III. Attitudes and Actions

Lecture/Discussion Topics: The Looking Glass Effect (p. 5)
The Theory of Reasoned Action (p. 5)
Actions Influence Attitudes (p. 6)
The Justification of Effort (p. 7)
Self-Persuasion (p. 7)

Classroom Exercise: Introducing Cognitive Dissonance Theory (p. 7)

Web Site/Student Project: The Zimbardo Prison Experiment (p. 6)

Videocassette: Quiet Rage—The Stanford Prison Experiment (p. 6)

MODULE OBJECTIVES

After completing their study of this module, students should be able to:

1. Describe the importance of attribution in social behavior and the dangers of the fundamental attribution error.

2. Identify the conditions under which attitudes have a strong impact on actions.

3. Explain the foot-in-the-door phenomenon and the effect of role playing on attitudes in terms of cognitive
dissonance theory.

MODULE OUTLINE

I. Introducing Social Psychology (p. 695)

Student Project/Web Site: Social Psychology Web Sites

Social Psychology Network (http://www.
socialpsychology.org), maintained by Scott Plous of Wesleyan University, is a comprehensive source of information for students interested in exploring almost any topic discussed in Modules 53–55. Perhaps of greatest use for students preparing writing assignments are links to other sites organized by topic such as social influence, cultural influences, prejudice, and aggression. Students can also participate in online social psychology studies from around the world, visit social
psychology research groups and journals, browse through a list of social psychology textbooks, and visit the homepages of individual social psychologists.

Resources for the Teaching of Social Psychology (http://www.noctrl.edu/~ajomuel/crow) is part of the CROW project, Course Resources on the Web, and is sponsored by the Associated Colleges of Illinois. Prepared by Jon Mueller, the site includes activities and exercises, online studies and demonstrations, class assignments, Web projects, topic resources, online lectures, and student resources. At the site, you may also sign up to receive Jon Mueller’s periodic newsletter.

Prejudice, an important topic in Module 55, assumes its most blatant expression in “hate talk” and “hate crimes.” For a particularly interesting out-of-class
project (suggested by Richard Barnes), have students prepare a one- to two-page profile of a hate group described by tolerance watch at http://www.tolerance. org/maps/hate/index.html.

A discussion group (LISTSERV©UGA.CC.UGA. EDU) is available for use by instructors. It provides a forum for individuals to discuss current theory and research in social psychology as well as the teaching of social psychology. To join the list, send an e-mail message to the above address with the body of the message as follows:
subscribe socpsy-L your firstname yourlastname.

Barnes, R. (January 19, 1997). Social psychology projects. Teaching in the psychological sciences (TIPS-Online Discussion Group).

Videocassette: Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: The Power of the Situation (Annenberg/CPB Project, 30 minutes)

The social context shapes our behavior for good and for ill. This program traces contemporary social psychology back to Kurt Lewin’s thesis that behavior is a function of both the person and the environment. Beginning with Lewin’s early work on autocratic, laissez-faire, and democratic leadership styles, the program covers research on conformity, the fundamental attribution error, and obedience. Original footage from Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies and Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison simulation are highlighted. The prison study showed how the boundary between social role and personal identity can be erased. Both the obedience and prison studies also raise questions regarding the ethics of experimentation. Today’s stricter ethical guidelines would likely prevent any attempt at
replication.

The program concludes with an example of positive social influence—Ellen Langer’s study of visual acuity. ROTC cadets treated as pilots demonstrated significantly better perception than those given an alternative role assignment. This program is particularly strong in showing how psychological research helps us understand significant social events.

Videocassette: Discovering Psychology, Updated Edition: Constructing Social Reality (Annenberg/CPB Project, 30 minutes)

This program explores the power of our beliefs to shape reality. An opening interview with Steven Hassan, a former member of the Moonies, conveys the strategies that cults use to control thoughts. Three studies involving young students are used to illustrate the importance of our beliefs in shaping our social behavior. In 1968, Jane Elliot, a third-grade schoolteacher in Riceville, Iowa, used eye color as the basis for discriminating among her students and dramatically altered relationships among them (see the film description Module 55 of these resources). The program shows the students, now adults, revisiting their experience 15 years later. Robert Rosenthal demonstrated how teachers’ expectations shape their students’ academic performance. Rosenthal identifies four factors that seem to mediate the effect. Finally, Elliot Aronson and Alex Gonzalez describe how the jigsaw classroom can foster cooperation when students come to see themselves as interdependent.

This program also explores the ways in which television commercials attempt to shape our perception of reality. Robert Cialdini explains how agents of influence elicit our compliance using six different principles: reciprocation, scarcity, authority, commitment, liking, and consensus.

Film: Invitation to Social Psychology (MTI, 25
minutes)

This film, narrated by Stanley Milgram, provides an excellent overview of the issues addressed by social psychologists, including conformity and obedience, the relationship between attitudes and behavior, social perception, attraction, aggression, and altruism. The film begins by emphasizing the importance of social
influence in everyday life and then uses short vignettes to review the major findings of this field. Included are convincing reenactments of the Asch and Milgram studies. Basic principles of cognitive dissonance and attribution theory are vividly applied to events in the typical college student’s life. For example, the frustration-aggression hypothesis is used to explain a fight that erupts between two students over loud music being played on a radio. Albert Bandura’s famous Bobo doll experiment is shown in an introduction to social learning theory. The ethics of using deception is raised in the context of field research on altruism, and role playing, a possible alternative to the use of deception, is demonstrated through a reenactment of the fascinating Zimbardo prison experiment.

II. Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations (pp. 706–708)

Classroom Exercise: The Fundamental Attribution Error

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency of observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of a situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition. You can introduce this error by replicating the findings of Richard Nisbett and his colleagues, who discovered that people often attribute other people’s behavior to their dispositions while giving environmental reasons for their own behavior.

Distribute two copies of Handout 53–1 to each student. Have students complete the scale twice, once for a former teacher (or some prominent public figure, say, Rush Limbaugh) and once for themselves. After they have completed both forms, have them count the number of times they circled “depends on the situation” on each rating sheet. A show of hands will demonstrate a greater tendency to attribute the other person’s behavior to personal disposition, while attributing their own behavior to the environment. Ask students why this may be the case.

We tend to attribute causation to the focus of our attention, which is different when we are observing than when we are acting. When another person acts, our focus is on that person, who thus seems to cause whatever happens. When we act, however, the environment commands our attention and thus seems to explain our behavior. Michael Storms demonstrated that if perspectives can be reversed, attributions also change. In a clever experiment, students were told to talk with each other while television cameras, placed next to each, recorded the conversation. In addition, observers sat beside the students. Afterward, each observer and each subject were asked to estimate whether the subject’s behavior was caused more by personal characteristics or by the situation. As expected, the observer attributed less importance to the situation than did the subject. But what if perspectives were reversed by having each watch the videotape recorded from the other’s point of view? Attributions were also now reversed. The observer attributed behavior more to the situation, the subject more to personal characteristics.

Conclude your discussion with the following example of the actor-observer difference in perception. In 1979, rock fans were waiting to get into Riverfront Coliseum for a concert by The Who. When the Coliseum doors were finally opened, people stampeded and several were trampled to death. Time magazine, which had reported the tragedy, later received a letter from an outside observer and one from an actor participant. To whom does each attribute the cause?

The observer:

The violently destructive message that The Who and other rock groups deliver leaves me little surprised that they attract a mob that will trample human beings to death to gain better seats. Of greater concern is a respected news magazine’s adulation of this sick phenomenon.

The actor:

While standing in the crowd at Riverfront Coliseum, I distinctly remember feeling that I was being punished for being a rock fan. My sister and I joked about this, unaware of the horror happening around us. Later, those jokes came back to us grimly as we watched the news. How many lives will be lost before the punitive and inhuman policy of festival seating at rock concerts is outlawed?

Nisbett, R. E., Caputo, C., Legant, P., & Marecek, J. (1973). Behavior as seen by the actor and as seen by the observer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 154–164.

Storms, M. D. (1973). Videotape and the attribution process: Reversing actors’ and observers’ points of view. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 165–175.

NOTE: Read the next exercise for an alternative use of Handout 53–1.

Classroom Exercise: Students’ Perceptions of You

If you are feeling courageous, ask students to use Handout 53–1 to give their impressions of you. Also ask them to judge such characteristics as your age and marital status; favorite kind of music, food, and color; ideal vacation and hobbies; state of birth; and number of siblings. Have your students anonymously turn in their judgments; prepare a summary tally and use the next class period to discuss the results.

Robin Lashley suggests that you use the exercise to illustrate the following principles of person perception.

1. Students’ responses often reveal strongly stereotyped thinking, specifically the “teacher stereotype.” Lashley notes that students judge the typical teacher to be a married, conservative, introverted individual who prefers dark colors, sedentary hobbies, and structured vacations. Other stereotypes surface as well—for example, those based on age, gender, and physical attractiveness.

2. First impressions are often important. In justifying their judgments, students will often refer to events occurring early in the semester. In fact, students may have already formed impressions from your reputation on campus. Furthermore, students may have selectively perceived and recalled your behavior to fit their initial impressions.

3. Responses to Handout 53–1 may be used to demonstrate the actor-observer difference in perception. To illustrate, you will need to disclose your self-ratings on these characteristics. You probably will most frequently report, “It depends on the situation.” Differences between your ratings and those of your students may be examples of the fundamental attribution error (they are wrong) or, if your perceptions are more favorable, examples of a self-serving bias (you are wrong).

4. Agreements between you and your students’ judgments serve as instances of successful perception. Many of these reflect inferences made from physical appearance (a wedding ring to infer marital status, facial wrinkles to infer age, clothing to infer favorite color, to name a few).

5. One result of this exercise is that students will become aware of their implicit personality theories. We all have theories about which traits are correlated; which traits characterize persons of a particular age, gender, or occupation; and what causes
specific behaviors. Most generally, person perception is an active process in which we go beyond the information given.

Lashley notes several benefits of this exercise. Students acquire a better understanding of person perception, they come to appreciate the relevance of this process to their own social interactions, and, last but not least, they get to know their instructor better.

Lashley, R. (1987). Using students’ perceptions of their instructor to illustrate principles of person perception. Teaching of Psychology, 14, 179–180.

Videocassette: Psychology: The Human Experience, Module 30: Social Cognition and Person Perception:The Blind Date

See the Faculty Guide that accompanies the Psychology:The Human Experience teaching modules by Coast Learning Systems for a description.

Lecture/Discussion Topic: Attribution and Models of Helping

In discussing the effects of attribution, the text suggests that finding dispositional versus situational causes for poverty and unemployment can have important consequences for our attitudes and actions. You can reinforce and extend this discussion by introducing Philip Brickman’s models of helping and coping. Brickman and his colleagues have suggested that whether we help as well as how we help someone in need depend largely on our answers to two important questions: Who is responsible for the problem? Who is responsible for the solution?

In Brickman’s moral model, actors are held responsible for both problems and solutions. They are most in need of proper motivation. Traditionally, we have viewed criminality and alcoholism in this way: “You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out.” Helpers simply exhort people to assume responsibility for their problems and to work their own way out.

In the compensatory model, people are not seen as responsible for problems, but they are responsible for solutions. Jesse Jackson once stated, “You are not responsible for being down, but you are responsible for getting up.” People need the resources or opportunities that the helper may provide. Nonetheless, the responsibility for using this assistance rests with the recipient.