1. Introduction to
Social Psychology
Modified by:
Elizabeth T. Santosa, M.Psi, psi.

2. Introduction
When we talked about personality we talked about
similarities in behaviour between and within
individuals
Most social psychologists don’t dispute these
individual differences but they realize the
importance of the situation

3. Introduction
Social psychologists are concerned with how we
explains others’ behaviour and how others’
behaviour affects us
May be as important as the individual

4. Characterizing Social Psychology
Social Psychology
The scientific study of the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of individuals in
social situations
Explaining Behavior
• What social psychologists study:
- how people are influenced by others
- how people make decisions
- inferences we make about others attitudes &
personalities
- influence of situational variables on behavior
- how we make sense of our world

5. Characterizing Social Psychology
Comparing Social Psychology to Related Disciplines
a. Personality psychology - stresses individual
differences in behavior
b. Cognitive psychology - study of how people
think about, perceive, and remember aspects of the
world
c. Sociology - study of behavior of people in the
aggregate (population level issues)

6. Attribution Theory
Fritz Hieder (1958)
Attribution is a concept in social psychology addressing
the processes by which individuals explain the causes of
behavior and events.
Heider subsequently extended his ideas to the question
of how people perceive each other, and in particular
how they account for each other's behaviour, person
perception. Three important roles in someone behavior
is motives, intentions, sentiments.

7. Attribution Theory
Two types of attribution:
1. Explanatory attribution
to understand the information; to find cause-effect of a
situation
ex: Your grandmother got tripped on the street and
hospitalized; by making attribution too poor condition
of the road. What if in reality because of her cataract
and unclear vision?
2. Interpersonal attribution
two or more individuals
ex: A and B have arguments. A said she try to avoid, B
started. Others think that B provokes the arguments,
while A is victim

8. Attribution Theory
Two categories of attribution to explains human behavior:
1. Locus of control Internal (personal) :
ability, personality, mood, efforts, attitudes, or disposition
2. Locus of control external (situational) attributions :
task, other people, or luck.

9. Attribution Theory
We tend perceive ourselves as GOOD. so when
we do something we often blame the situation
Attributions have negative effect
When we blame a person or the situation,
we often generalize it to next coming event
that similar.

10. Attitude
Can we change the way people think?
Attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a
person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object).
How to measure Attitude?
Self-report
Bipolar scales: (good-bad, favorable-nonfavorable, etc)
Open ended q’s : “ i feel...”
Likert scales

11. Attitude Change
Factors that affect persuasion (process of guiding oneself or
another toward the adoption of some attitude by some
rational or symbolic means)
1. Target Characteristics
Intelligence
Self-esteem (high – moderate- low)
Mood
2. Source Characteristics
Expertise, trustworthiness. ex: Journal vs magazine
Interpersonal attraction
“sleeper effect”

12. Attitude Change
Factors that affect persuasion
3. Message Characteristics
Pro’s and con’s are affective
4. Cognitive Routes
A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive evaluation
to help change an attitude.
Central route : self evaluation
Perpheral route : focus on source
Ex: expert, celebrities, etc.

13. Social Influence
Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or
behaviors are affected by others
Form of social influence: conformity, socialization, peer pressure
, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing.
Herbert Kelman (1958) 3 varieties of social influence:
1. Compliance when people appear to agree with others, but actually
keep their dissenting opinions private. xx: social acceptance or
expectancy
2. Identification when people are influenced by someone who is
liked and respected, such as a famous celebrity.
3. Internalization when people accept a belief or behavior and agree
both publicly and privately.

14. Social Influence
Conformity
type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior
in order to fit in with a group.
Minority influence
Minority influence takes place when a majority is influenced to
accept the beliefs of behaviors of a minority.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become
true, due to a positive feedback between belief and behavior.

15. Social Influence
Obedience
a form of social influence that derives from an authority
figure.
Milgram Experiment,
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment,
Hofling hospital experiment