Social Psychology

Social Psychology

Part 1 of 5 — Attitudes & Cognitive Dissonance

An attitude is a learned evaluation (favorable/unfavorable) of a person, object, or idea, with three components (the ABC model):

When Do Attitudes Predict Behavior?

Attitudes best predict behavior when they are: specific to the behavior, strong/stable, accessible (easily recalled), and formed by direct experience, and when situational pressures are weak.

Routes to Persuasion — Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

Motivation + ability to think → central route. Distraction or low involvement → peripheral route.

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger)

$\text{Conflicting cognitions} \to \text{psychological discomfort} \to \text{drive to reduce it}$

People resolve dissonance by: changing the attitude, changing the behavior, or adding a justification (rationalization).

Counterintuitive finding: SMALLER incentives produce MORE attitude change. With a small reward, there's no external justification for the behavior, so people change their internal attitude to reduce dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith $1 vs. $20 study).

Attitudes & Dissonance 🎯

Worked Examples — Attitudes & Dissonance

Question: Two groups argue a position they privately disagree with. Group A is paid $50; Group B is paid $2. Which group shifts its private attitude MORE toward the argued position, and why?

Solution:

1. Counterattitudinal behavior creates dissonance.
2. Group A has ample external justification ("I did it for $50") → little dissonance → little attitude change.
3. Group B lacks sufficient justification → strong dissonance → resolves it by shifting their PRIVATE attitude toward the position. ✓

MCAT key: Insufficient justification → greater internal attitude change. This is the signature dissonance result.

Question: An ad for a drug shows a famous doctor but gives no data; viewers are distracted by background music. A second ad lists clinical trial results to an attentive audience. Which route does each target, and which produces more lasting attitudes?

Solution:

1. Ad 1: celebrity cue + distraction (low ability to process) → peripheral route → temporary, easily reversed attitudes. ✓
2. Ad 2: substantive evidence + attentive audience → central route → durable, resistant attitudes. ✓

Why it matters: Distraction and low involvement push people to peripheral cues; motivation and ability enable central processing.

Question: A smoker who knows smoking causes cancer keeps smoking but says, "My grandfather smoked and lived to 90." Which dissonance-reduction strategy is this?

Solution:

1. The conflicting cognitions are "smoking is harmful" and "I smoke."
2. The smoker neither quits (behavior change) nor accepts the risk (attitude change).
3. Instead they ADD a consonant cognition to justify the behavior → rationalization / adding justification. ✓

Connection: Adding a justifying belief is the third classic route (besides changing attitude or behavior) to relieve dissonance.

Key Takeaways — Part 1

• Attitudes = affective + behavioral + cognitive (ABC); best predict behavior when specific, strong, direct-experience, weak situation.
• ELM: central route = argument quality, durable; peripheral route = surface cues, temporary.
• Cognitive dissonance: conflicting cognitions → discomfort → change attitude, change behavior, or add justification.
• Insufficient external justification (small incentive) → GREATER internal attitude change (Festinger & Carlsmith).

Social Psychology

Part 2 of 5 — Attribution Theory (Explaining Behavior)

Attribution is the process of inferring the causes of behavior — either dispositional (internal: personality, traits) or situational (external: circumstances).

Kelley's Covariation Model

We weigh three kinds of information to decide internal vs. external:

• High consistency + high distinctiveness + high consensus → situational attribution.
• High consistency + low distinctiveness + low consensus → dispositional attribution.

Major Attribution Biases

Cultural Modulation

• Individualist cultures (e.g., US) show STRONGER FAE — they emphasize personal agency.
• Collectivist cultures attend more to situational/contextual causes, weakening the FAE.

Attribution Theory 🎯

Worked Examples — Attribution

Question: Maria laughs at a particular comedian (consistency high). Almost everyone laughs at this comedian (consensus high), but Maria rarely laughs at other comedians (distinctiveness high). Internal or external attribution?

Solution:

1. High consistency → the response is stable, so an attribution is warranted.
2. High consensus (others laugh too) → points to the stimulus, not Maria.
3. High distinctiveness (only this comedian) → points to the stimulus.
4. Conclusion: situational/external — the comedian is funny, not "Maria laughs at everything." ✓

MCAT pattern: High-high-high → external; high consistency with low consensus & low distinctiveness → internal.

Question: Tom trips on a sidewalk. An onlooker thinks "He's clumsy." Tom thinks "That sidewalk is uneven." Name each attribution and the combined bias.

Solution:

1. Onlooker attributes Tom's trip to DISPOSITION (clumsy) → fundamental attribution error. ✓
2. Tom attributes his own trip to the SITUATION (bad sidewalk).
3. The mismatch — observer blames disposition, actor blames situation — is the actor–observer bias. ✓

Key: We have access to our own situational pressures but see others mainly as actors, so we over-attribute their behavior internally.

Question: Some people assume a patient with lung disease "must have smoked and brought it on themselves," even without evidence. What bias is this, and why is it relevant to medicine?

Solution:

1. Assuming people get the outcomes they deserve → just-world hypothesis → victim blaming. ✓
2. In medicine this fuels stigma (e.g., toward patients with addiction, obesity, or HIV), worsening care and adherence.

Connection: The MCAT links attribution biases to health disparities and the patient–provider relationship.

Key Takeaways — Part 2

• Attribution = inferring causes: dispositional (internal) vs. situational (external).
• Kelley's covariation: high consensus + high distinctiveness + high consistency → situational; low consensus + low distinctiveness → dispositional.
• FAE: overattribute OTHERS' behavior to disposition. Actor–observer: situation for self, disposition for others. Self-serving: success internal, failure external.
• Just-world hypothesis → victim blaming; individualist cultures show stronger FAE.

Social Psychology

Part 3 of 5 — Conformity, Compliance & Obedience

These three are distinguished by the SOURCE of social influence.

Two Motives for Conformity

Asch findings: ~33–37% conformity to an obviously wrong majority; conformity DROPS sharply with even ONE dissenting ally and rises with group size (up to ~3–5 members).

Milgram's Obedience Study

• ~65% delivered the maximum (450 V) "shock."
• Obedience FELL when: the authority was remote/absent, the victim was closer/visible, the experiment lacked institutional prestige, or peers rebelled.
• Lesson: obedience is situational, not merely a personality flaw.

Compliance Techniques (Cialdini)

Conformity & Obedience 🎯

Worked Examples — Social Influence

Question: (a) A nurse gives a drug because the attending ordered it. (b) A teen starts vaping because their friend group does. (c) A shopper buys an upgrade after a small "yes" earlier. Classify each.

Solution:

• (a) Explicit command from an AUTHORITY → obedience. ✓
• (b) Matching the GROUP's behavior (implicit norm) → conformity. ✓
• (c) Yielding to escalating REQUESTS → compliance (foot-in-the-door). ✓

MCAT key: Identify the source — authority (obedience), peer norm (conformity), or a request (compliance).

Question: Milgram's baseline obedience was ~65%. Predict the effect of (a) moving the experimenter to another room giving orders by phone and (b) placing the participant's hand on the victim's "shock plate."

Solution:

1. (a) Remote authority weakens the legitimacy/pressure of the command → obedience DROPS markedly. ✓
2. (b) Increasing the victim's proximity and the participant's direct involvement → obedience DROPS. ✓

Why it matters: Both manipulations change the SITUATION, not the person — reinforcing that obedience is largely situationally driven.

Question: In a clear, easy judgment task, a participant still goes along with a wrong unanimous group but privately knows the right answer. In an ambiguous task, a participant adopts the group's answer and believes it. Which is normative and which informational?

Solution:

1. Clear task, public agreement but private disagreement → normative (wants to fit in). ✓
2. Ambiguous task, genuine private acceptance → informational (wants to be correct). ✓

Connection: Ambiguity and importance of accuracy push toward informational influence; desire for acceptance pushes toward normative influence.

Key Takeaways — Part 3

• Conformity = group norms (Asch); compliance = direct request; obedience = authority (Milgram).
• Normative conformity = to be liked (public); informational = to be correct (private acceptance).
• Asch: ~⅓ conform; one ally collapses conformity. Milgram: ~65% max shock; obedience is situational.
• Compliance tricks: foot-in-the-door (small→large), door-in-the-face (large→small), lowball, that's-not-all.

Social Psychology

Part 4 of 5 — Prejudice, Stereotypes & Discrimination

Distinguish the three carefully — a classic MCAT trap:

You can hold a stereotype without prejudice, or feel prejudice without acting (no discrimination), though they often co-occur.

Mechanisms That Sustain Bias

Stereotype Threat (Steele & Aronson)

$\text{Salient negative stereotype} \to \text{anxiety / extra cognitive load} \to \downarrow \text{performance}$

The mere awareness that one's group is stereotyped as worse at a task can depress performance — even among capable, motivated individuals.

Reducing Prejudice — Contact Hypothesis (Allport)

Intergroup contact reduces prejudice ONLY under conditions:

1. Equal status between groups
2. Common goals
3. Intergroup cooperation (not competition)
4. Support of authorities/institutions

The jigsaw classroom is the canonical application (interdependent cooperation reduces bias).

Prejudice & Discrimination 🎯

Worked Examples — Prejudice & Discrimination

Question: A landlord (a) believes a certain ethnic group is "loud," (b) feels dislike toward them, and (c) refuses to rent to them. Label each part.

Solution:

• (a) Generalized belief → stereotype (cognitive). ✓
• (b) Negative feeling/attitude → prejudice (affective). ✓
• (c) Differential treatment (refusing to rent) → discrimination (behavioral). ✓

MCAT key: Cognition = stereotype, affect = prejudice, behavior = discrimination. Match the verb to the component.

Question: A hospital wants to reduce friction between two staff groups that distrust each other. Using the contact hypothesis, propose an intervention and predict why simple "mixer" events might fail.

Solution:

1. Effective design: assign mixed teams to a SHARED clinical goal requiring COOPERATION, with equal status and explicit leadership support (a jigsaw-style structure). ✓
2. A casual mixer may fail or backfire because it lacks interdependence and common goals; contact without those conditions can reinforce stereotypes (especially if competitive). ✓

Connection: Contact alone is insufficient — the Allport conditions are what make contact work.

Question: A teacher expects students from a stereotyped group to do poorly, gives them less attention, and they indeed score lower. Trace the mechanism and name it.

Solution:

1. The stereotype-based EXPECTATION changes the teacher's BEHAVIOR (less attention/encouragement).
2. The altered treatment depresses the students' performance, "confirming" the expectation.
3. The false belief produced its own confirmation → self-fulfilling prophecy. ✓

Why it matters: Self-fulfilling prophecies make stereotypes self-perpetuating, independent of any real group difference.

Key Takeaways — Part 4

• Stereotype = belief (cognitive); prejudice = attitude/feeling (affective); discrimination = action (behavioral).
• In-group bias, out-group homogeneity, ethnocentrism, and just-world beliefs sustain prejudice.
• Stereotype threat: fear of confirming a stereotype lowers performance in capable individuals.
• Contact hypothesis reduces prejudice only with equal status, common goals, cooperation, and institutional support (jigsaw classroom).

Social Psychology

Part 5 of 5 — Group Dynamics, Aggression & Prosocial Behavior

Group Process Phenomena

Group Decision-Making Cautions (Groupthink Symptoms)

Illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship, pressure on dissenters, illusion of unanimity. Remedies: assign a devil's advocate, invite outside experts, encourage open dissent.

Bystander Effect & Helping (Latané & Darley)

$\uparrow \text{Number of bystanders} \to \uparrow \text{diffusion of responsibility} \to \downarrow \text{probability any individual helps}$

The 5-step decision model: notice → interpret as emergency → assume responsibility → know how to help → decide to help. Failure at any step stops helping. Pluralistic ignorance (everyone looks calm, so each assumes it's not an emergency) blocks step 2.

Prosocial Behavior & Altruism

Aggression — Key Frameworks

• Frustration–aggression hypothesis: blocked goals → frustration → aggression (later: frustration creates readiness, cues trigger it).
• Social learning (Bandura, Bobo doll): aggression is learned by observation and modeling.

Group Dynamics & Helping 🎯

Worked Examples — Group Behavior & Helping

Question: (a) An expert sprinter runs faster with a crowd watching. (b) Workers on an anonymous group task each slack off. (c) A masked crowd at night vandalizes property. Classify each.

Solution:

• (a) Arousal from being evaluated boosts a well-learned task → social facilitation. ✓
• (b) Reduced effort when contributions are pooled/anonymous → social loafing. ✓
• (c) Anonymity + arousal → loss of self-awareness and restraint → deindividuation. ✓

MCAT key: Facilitation requires evaluation; loafing requires anonymity in a SHARED product; deindividuation is loss of individual identity in a group.

Question: At a party, someone slumps over. Others glance, see no one reacting, and continue. Identify where the helping process broke down.

Solution:

1. Step 1 (notice): people DID notice.
2. Step 2 (interpret as emergency): because everyone else looked calm, each assumed it was not serious → pluralistic ignorance blocked this step. ✓
3. Without interpreting it as an emergency, no one assumes responsibility or helps.

Why it matters: The 5-step model shows helping can fail at any stage; pluralistic ignorance commonly stalls it at interpretation.

Question: An animal will sacrifice itself if doing so saves enough relatives. Qualitatively, when does kin-selected altruism pay off, and why does it favor siblings over cousins?

Solution:

1. Hamilton's rule: altruism is favored when (relatedness × benefit to recipient) > (cost to actor). ✓
2. Siblings share ~50% of genes; cousins ~12.5%. The higher relatedness of siblings means fewer of them are needed for the inequality to hold.
3. Thus self-sacrifice is "worth it" for fewer siblings than cousins. ✓

Connection: Inclusive fitness reframes altruism as gene propagation, complementing reciprocal altruism (expecting return) and empathy-driven helping.

Key Takeaways — Part 5 (and Suite Review)

• Social facilitation (evaluated, simple task ↑), social loafing (anonymous pooled effort ↓), deindividuation (anonymity → impulsivity).
• Group polarization amplifies the initial leaning; groupthink sacrifices good decisions for harmony (use a devil's advocate).
• Bystander effect = diffusion of responsibility; helping requires notice → interpret → take responsibility → know how → act.
• Altruism explained by kin selection (Hamilton's rule), reciprocal altruism, empathy–altruism, and social exchange; aggression by frustration–aggression and social learning (Bandura).