Social Psychology — AI Study Guide

Mastering Social Psychology

Social psychology examines how social contexts influence individual behavior, thought, and emotion. Three core areas: social cognition (how we think about people and social situations), social influence (how others affect our behavior), and social relationships (how we form and maintain interpersonal connections). Classic experiments in social psychology have produced some of the most counterintuitive findings in all of science.

Social influence research reveals the powerful pull of conformity and obedience. Asch's conformity experiments showed that approximately 75% of participants conformed to an obviously wrong group answer at least once. Milgram's obedience experiments showed that approximately 65% of participants administered what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to another person when instructed by an authority figure. These findings reveal that situational factors strongly override individual moral convictions.

Attribution theory addresses how we explain the causes of behavior. The fundamental attribution error (FAE) is the pervasive tendency to overestimate dispositional causes and underestimate situational causes when explaining others' behavior. The actor-observer asymmetry occurs because we have more situational information about our own behavior than about others'. Self-serving bias leads people to attribute their successes to dispositional factors and failures to situational factors.

Interpersonal relationships are shaped by attraction principles (proximity, familiarity, similarity, physical attractiveness), relationship quality (commitment, satisfaction, investment, alternatives — Rusbult's investment model), and love styles. Sternberg's triangular theory of love identifies three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment, which combine into different forms of love. Research on implicit bias and prejudice reduction informs applied social psychology in organizational, clinical, and policy contexts.

Frequently Asked Questions: Social Psychology

What did Milgram's obedience study find?

Stanley Milgram's experiments (1960s) examined obedience to authority. Participants were instructed by an authority figure (experimenter in a lab coat) to administer increasing electric shocks to a learner (actually a confederate) when they gave wrong answers. No actual shocks were given, but 65% of participants went to the maximum level (450V, labeled 'Danger: Severe Shock') despite protests from the learner. Milgram concluded that situational factors — legitimate authority, incremental commitment, physical separation from the victim — explain extreme obedience, not a 'dispositional sadism' of the participants.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) is the psychological discomfort experienced when a person holds two conflicting beliefs, or when behavior contradicts beliefs. People are motivated to reduce dissonance by changing a belief, changing their behavior, or adding new cognitions to rationalize the inconsistency. Classic example: people who smoke but believe smoking causes cancer experience dissonance — they may downplay health risks (belief change), try to quit (behavior change), or rationalize ('I exercise, so it balances out').

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