Full transcript
0:04in this video
0:05we'll kick off a series of videos all
0:07about social psychology
0:09we'll discuss what the study of social
0:11psychology involves and we'll learn
0:12about several major
0:13theories and ideas that stem from it
0:16humans are inherently a social species
0:19we crave strong stable social
0:21relationships
0:22and for most of us being alone is
0:24painful the need to belong theory for
0:26example
0:27posits that humans have a biologically
0:29based need for
0:30interpersonal connections social
0:33psychologists are interested in learning
0:35about how people
0:36influence one another and about the
0:38power of situational forces on behavior
0:41let's discuss a few social psychological
0:43concepts then that
0:44illustrate how people influence one
0:46another and that illustrate
0:48the power of the situation social
0:51contagion refers to the idea that we
0:53look to others for
0:54knowledge or to decide how to act social
0:58comparison theory for example posits
1:00that we seek to evaluate our abilities
1:03and beliefs
1:04by comparing them to others according to
1:07the theory you can make
1:08downward social comparisons and upward
1:10social comparisons
1:12and both can be beneficial a downward
1:15social comparison refers to comparing
1:17yourself to someone who is beneath you
1:19who sort of
1:20performed more poorly than you or is
1:22otherwise worse off than you
1:24say for example that you receive a c
1:26minus on an exam so you're a little bit
1:28upset
1:29so you go out and you ask your not so
1:31intelligent friend what they got on the
1:33exam and find out they got a d minus and
1:35you feel much better
1:37an upward social comparison and contrast
1:40refers to comparing yourself to someone
1:42who performed
1:42better than you or who is otherwise
1:45better off than you
1:46for example maybe you're working hard to
1:48get in shape for
1:49for the summer or something but you're
1:51feeling too tired to go to the gym
1:54you might browse fitness pages on social
1:56media
1:57because seeing people in great shape
1:59motivates you to follow your training
2:00plan
2:01this is an upward social comparison
2:05your social environment doesn't just
2:07influence how you feel however
2:09it can also influence how you actually
2:11perform so not just your emotion but
2:13also your behavior
2:14for example social facilitation refers
2:17to the phenomenon
2:18in which simply the presence of others
2:20can enhance or facilitate
2:23our performance one study for example
2:26showed that runners complete a mile
2:28significantly faster
2:29when running with a partner compared to
2:31when they simply run
2:32against the clock in a similar vein a
2:35fascinating and in my opinion quite
2:37funny study of cockroaches found that
2:40cockroaches were significantly faster at
2:43finding their way out of a maze when
2:44they were being observed
2:46by sort of an observation box filled
2:48with other cockroaches
2:50as compared to when they ran the maze
2:52alone
2:54at the same time however social
2:57disruption can occur
2:58the presence of others can disrupt our
3:00performance in certain situations
3:03social facilitation tends to occur for
3:06easier tasks
3:07where as a social disruption can occur
3:10for more difficult tasks
3:12or in situations where the stakes are
3:14very high
3:15for example a baseball player at the end
3:18of a very important game
3:19they might strike out if they're being
3:21watched by many many people
3:23in this case the social pressure might
3:26cause this baseball player to sort of
3:28choke this is
3:28social disruption clearly
3:32the situation is a strong determinant of
3:34behavior
3:35at the same time however social
3:37psychological research shows that people
3:39consistently
3:40underestimate the power of situational
3:43forces
3:43on behavior and this error is known as
3:46the
3:46fundamental attribution error
3:50the fundamental attribution error is a
3:52cognitive bias that is
3:54a bias in how we think in which we
3:56assume that the things people do
3:58are caused by dispositional factors
4:01internal things about them such as their
4:03personality
4:04rather than situational ones external
4:07forces such as
4:08social pressures or circumstances which
4:10as we've already seen
4:11can be very powerful for example what do
4:15you think of when you
4:16observe someone causing a car accident
4:19most people's immediate assumption is
4:20that this person is a careless person or
4:22perhaps a bad
4:23driver in this case we're explaining the
4:26person's behavior causing the car crash
4:28using only dispositional factors now
4:31it's quite possible that this person is
4:33actually a great driver but
4:35maybe he was in a rush because he just
4:37found out that i don't know his wife is
4:39in the hospital for example
4:41this would be a situational explanation
4:43of the driver's behavior
4:44but our minds don't tend to go there
4:46right away
4:48also note by the way that the
4:49fundamental attribution error goes by
4:51another name
4:52which is the correspondence bias since
4:55people assume
4:56that an observed behavior corresponds to
4:58some
4:59internal quality of the person so
5:01something to keep in mind
5:02two different names really referring to
5:04the same psychological construct
5:07in a classic demonstration of the
5:09fundamental attribution error
5:11students were given an essay written by
5:13a peer after being told that the essay
5:15writer was
5:16randomly assigned to write either an
5:19essay that's procastro
5:21or an essay that's anti-castro and after
5:24reading the essay the students were
5:26asked to guess the essay writer's true
5:28attitudes
5:29toward castro now thinking about this
5:31objectively we can't really infer
5:33anything about the essay writer's true
5:35attitudes because they were required to
5:37defend
5:38the position they were assigned so what
5:40they wrote doesn't really tell us
5:41anything because they had no choice
5:43but let's take a look at what the
5:45students who participated in the study
5:47actually thought
5:49let's start by going over the choice
5:51condition here
5:52maybe i'll make the color the same there
5:54we go let's start by uh going over this
5:56condition so this is when
5:58the essay writer was given a choice they
6:01were allowed to write a procastro or
6:03anti-castro essay so in that case
6:06obviously
6:07people are going to write about what
6:08they believe most likely and so it does
6:10tell us something about
6:12the true attitude and this is how
6:13participants responded
6:15you can see that when they were writing
6:18a pro-castro essay
6:20the people in the study assumed that
6:22they're pro-castro so a very high value
6:24there
6:25in contrast when they were writing an
6:26anti-castro essay
6:28people assumed they're pretty
6:30anti-castro
6:31but more interesting is this no choice
6:33condition which is what i've described
6:35so far
6:36you can see that these lines are very
6:38fairly similar the trends
6:39are fairly similar when they wrote a pro
6:43castro essay most of the participants in
6:45the study assumed they were pretty
6:46pro-castro
6:48even though again they weren't given a
6:49choice and so we don't really know
6:50anything about their true attitudes
6:52but people underestimate this power of
6:54the situation and assume
6:56if they wrote a pro-castro essay they
6:58must be pro-castro
6:59and similarly reading an anti-castro
7:02essay led participants to believe that
7:04the essay writer was anti-castro
7:06even though again they weren't given a
7:08choice
7:10this paradigm has since been replicated
7:12with all kinds of different tasks
7:14including for example writing essays
7:17defending political positions as we've
7:19seen
7:20but also giving speeches about important
7:22topics
7:23hot topics like marijuana usage things
7:25like that
7:27now interestingly though when we have to
7:30explain our own behavior
7:32we're much more likely to appeal to
7:34these situational forces
7:36likely because we feel the power that
7:38they exert over us
7:39we don't always know what circumstances
7:41a stranger is going through and we
7:43usually don't try to guess
7:45this is known as the actor observer bias
7:48when we're explaining other people's
7:50behavior we appeal to
7:51their disposition he's a careless driver
7:54right this is the fundamental
7:55attribution error that we've seen
7:57already
7:57but when we're explaining our own
7:59behavior we appeal to the situation
8:01i was just in a rush i'm not a careless
8:03driver right it was the situation for me
8:07now we only do this though when we're
8:08explaining our failures
8:10or when we're explaining the mistakes
8:12that we've made when we're explaining
8:14our successes in contrast
8:16we say that it's all about us it's our
8:18disposition right
8:20i earned a great grade on this exam
8:22because i'm intelligent
8:23my disposition not because the exam was
8:26extremely easy for example
8:28this is called the self-serving bias
8:30because it is self-serving
8:33now i want to end by noting that there
8:35are important cultural differences
8:37when it comes to attribution explaining
8:39things right
8:40the findings i've described so far come
8:43from research studies that recruited
8:45participants from primarily western
8:47countries
8:48that is participants from
8:49individualistic cultures such as the
8:51united states
8:52canada and united kingdom
8:55research suggests however that people
8:57from eastern countries from collect
8:59collectivistic cultures such as china
9:00and japan are less likely to fall prey
9:03to the
9:04fundamental attribution error and this
9:05is important to consider
9:07this might be because individualistic
9:09cultures focus on the individual
9:11so dispositional factors about the
9:14individual
9:14might be more salient collectivistic
9:18cultures in contrast
9:19focus more on the group or the
9:21collective right
9:23so in that context social and
9:25situational pressures
9:26might be more salient instead in any
9:29case
9:29the theories and terms i've reviewed in
9:31this video are just a small sample of
9:33what the field of social psychology has
9:35told us
9:36about how people influence one another
9:38in the next few videos we'll delve into
9:40other important topics such as
9:42conformity and obedience
9:44stereotypes prejudice and discrimination
9:46as well as helping
9:47and intervention so stay tuned for that