02 - 12_Social_Psychology

01 - 1. Attitudes
1. Attitudes

02 - Functions of attitudes (Katz)
Functions of attitudes: (Katz)

03 - Why do attitudes change
Why do attitudes change?
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Attitudes
Attitudes are “learned predispositions to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable
way towards a given object, person or event” (Fishbein & Ajzen,1975).
An attitude is a combination of beliefs and values.
 Beliefs are based on our knowledge of the world and link an object to an attribute. They
are non-evaluative and objective e.g. ‘USA is a nation built on capitalism’.
 Values relate to the importance or desirability of the object. It is largely subjective and has
preferential patterns attached e.g. ‘I do not like capitalism’. Values can turn beliefs to
attitudes – ‘I dislike American people’.
Three-component model of attitudes:
Affective component: what the person feels about the object (favourable/ unfavourable
evaluations) – e.g. I love chocolate
Cognitive component: thoughts, beliefs, knowledge about the object – e.g. Chocolate
keeps me active
Behavioural component: actual or intended responses to the object e.g. I eat chocolate
every day
Functions of attitudes: (Katz)
 Knowledge function: attitudes are frames of reference that simplify the world, help make
quick appraisals of situations
 Value expressive function: reflect fundamental self-concepts – self-expressive and
maintains personal integrity e.g. vegetarianism
 Social adjustment function: help to function in a group setting, social acceptance
 Ego-defensive function protects from character or personal deficiencies – this function
makes attitudes very resistant to change
Why do attitudes change?
Cognitive dissonance theory: (Festinger)
People strive for consistency between thoughts, feelings and actions. If there is a discrepancy
between different attitudes (cognitive dissonance) or between attitudes and behaviours
(attitude-behaviour discrepancy), then this initiates and drives either a change in attitudes (more
common) or a change in behaviours.

04 - Measuring Attitudes
Measuring Attitudes
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For example, in smokers, discrepancy between cognitions (‘smoking is injurious’) and behaviour
(repeated smoking) may influence behaviour leading to a cut down, or alternatively, may alter
the cognitions (‘there is too little evidence available to link smoking to poor health’).
1-Dollar 20-Dollar experiment: All subjects in an experiment were asked to do a very boring
repetitive task for 30 minutes. The first group was a control group; the second group (called 1dollar group) was paid $1 to say that the task was fun and interesting, the third group (called 20dollar group) was paid $20 to say that the task was fun and interesting. All participants were
asked to rate how enjoyable they had found the task. Contrary to popular belief, the group,
which was paid more, did not appreciate the boring task. As they obtained a good incentive, they
did not develop a dissonance. They lied about its usefulness but in fact they did not change their
belief about the boring nature of this task. In contrast, the lowly paid group did experience a
cognitive dissonance between the two facts - ‘This task is boring’ and ‘I am doing this task
without much incentive’, hence they changed their initial attitude towards the task and, in fact,
started liking the task. This highlights the processes relating to counter-attitudinal behaviours.
How to reduce dissonance? Apart from modifying attitudes or behaviours, one can have
selective exposure to information to avoid or prevent dissonance; to reduce a dissonance one can
make a commitment after which primary attitudes get stronger e.g. after betting on a horse, the
belief that the horse will win strengthens!
Other methods are
Removal or denial of the dissonant cognition
Trivialising the dissonant cognition
3.Adding a new consonant cognition to counterbalance the dissonance
Self-perception theory: According to Bem, self-report of attitude after a behaviour is usually an
inference of one’s own behaviour and context. Dissonance cannot explain this adequately. In the
1 dollar/20 dollar experiment, the 20 dollar group made situational attribution (‘I did it for money,
it was boring) while 1 dollar group made dispositional attribution (‘There is not much incentive,
but I really liked it’). Hence, while cognitive dissonance explains both counter-attitudinal
behaviour and attitude-attitude discrepancy; self-perception applies better when attitude
congruent behaviour occurs, but it cannot explain attitude-attitude discrepancy.
Measuring Attitudes
Attitudes are largely subjective and so cannot be measured directly. Attitude measures usually
rely on self-report, assume that the same statement has the same meaning for all respondents and

05 - Attitude behaviour correlation
Attitude behaviour correlation
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assume that subjective attitudes can be quantified meaningfully. An alternative method of
measurement is to observe behaviours, but behaviours do not always reflect attitude.
 Thurstone scale: While constructing a Thurstone scale, hundreds of statements are
initially produced pertaining to a particular topic. These statements are presented to a
sample (similar to a panel of judges) who is asked to score the statements on an 11 point
scale. A set number of statements e.g. 10 each on both extremes (positive and negative
attitude) are chosen based on the consistency of scores given by the judges. Each of these
statements will carry a value, which is the average of 100 judgments on the 11 points scale.
These 20 statements are clubbed together in producing an attitude scale, which is
administered to the subject. The subject will then indicate what statements he agrees to. It
is not often used because the method is too tedious. The 11 points (used to rate each
statement) are assumed to be intervals and averages are used to obtain the value scores.
This is not entirely accurate as the 11 points scale is, in fact, ordinal.
 Likert scale includes graded ‘agree’ to ‘disagree’ measures. This is one of the most popular
and statistically more reliable measures. It is easy to construct, and no assumptions are
made about the equality of intervals.
 Sociometry is used to measure interpersonal attitudes in a repertory grid-like fashion i.e.
who like whom tables. These are called sociograms.
 Guttman introduced scalograms that include cumulative statements where accepting a
statement usually means accepting all that comes below a statement, in a step-wise
fashion.
 Osgood’s semantic differential scale is used to measure verbally expressed attitudes. It
allows different attitudes about a particular topic to be measured on the same scale. It
includes various factors constituting an attitude; e.g. while expressing one’s attitudes
regarding a politician, one can rate him using an evaluative component (good ---- bad),
activity component (active ----- inactive) and potency component (powerful ---- weak) etc.
With these bipolar adjectives being the two extremes, a 7 points scale is designed, and the
subject is asked to indicate a score for each factor. Osgood’s semantic differential assumes
that every concept can be represented in a hypothetical semantic space with two extremes.
Attitude behaviour correlation
Attitudes and behaviours are not correlated in simple linear fashion. Attitudes are only
predispositions; actual behaviours depend on:
Perceived consequences.
Social desirability.
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3. Habitual behaviours.
4. Situational factors
If attitudes are measured with specified assessment of target, action, context and time element,
however, then measured attitudes will be closer to actual behaviour e.g. if one wants to measure
public attitude on the issue of abortion, simply eliciting attitudes on abortion may not be
appropriate. Instead if we measure attitudes on legal abortion in a married woman after 3 months
of marriage, it may provide a more accurate measure of the actual behavior of the respondents
when the issue arises in their personal or family life. Single instances of behaviours are unreliable
indicators of attitudes. Various attitudes aggregate to result in behaviour; also the strength of an
attitude is proportional to its influence on behaviour.

06 - 2. Self psychology
2. Self psychology
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2. Self psychology
In self-psychology, various concepts are often used to describe the nature of self.
 Self-consciousness: Awareness of distinct self, compared to other objects in the
environment. Only humans are thought to possess full self-consciousness.
 Self-image: This refers to an answer one might give for the question ‘who are you?’ It
includes one’s description of social roles (social self), personality traits and physical
characters (bodily self).
 Self-esteem: This refers to a personal judgment of worthiness expressed in the attitudes
one holds towards oneself. Self-image is descriptive, but self-esteem is evaluative.
 Ideal self: This represents ‘what we would like ourselves to be’. One’s self-esteem
depends on the discrepancy between one’s ideal self and self-image.
We develop self-concept depending upon:
Reaction of others (Theory of looking glass self by Cooley suggests that like a mirror,
others around us reflect our self-image)
Comparison with others
Social roles we play
Identification with role models
Self-recognition could be demonstrated in a growing infant by using a mirror. Gallup conducted
the famous ‘touching the dot’ experiments to demonstrate self-recognition. It is noted that only
higher primates and humans older than 20 months successfully demonstrate ‘touching the dot’.
When a red dot is unknowingly placed on the face of a child, the child starts touching its face to
explore the dot when a mirror is shown. This ‘touching the dot’ phenomenon does not occur less
than 15 months of age. 5 to 25% infants touch the dot by 18 months while nearly 75% touch the
dot by age 20 months. It is thus concluded that self-recognition rapidly develops between 18 to 20
months. Object permanence is necessary for self-recognition. Mirror recognition by primates
may be a reflection of behavioural recognition i.e. ‘the one in the mirror is same as me’ rather
than self-recognition i.e. ‘the one in the mirror is me’.
Autobiographical memory in humans develops around age 3 ½ to 4 ½ yrs.

07 - 3. Interpersonal issues
3. Interpersonal issues

08 - Attribution
Attribution
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3. Interpersonal issues
Attribution
This is the process by which we make judgments about causes of behaviour. Heider (1958) was
the first to propose a psychological theory of attribution - he called this “naïve” or
“commonsense” psychology. In his view, people act like amateur scientists, trying to understand
other people’s behaviours by piecing together information until they arrive at a reasonable
explanation or cause. During this process, we make a distinction between intentional vs.
unintentional behaviours in others and make internal vs. external attribution of the cause of the
observed behaviour.
We tend to attribute behaviours to events that co-vary with those behaviours over time. e.g. if A
is an event that occurs when the behaviour B is observed, then we often assume A causes B
(Kelly’s co-variation model). When making such covariant related observations, three elements
are important to ensure validity of the inference.
Consider a student X, who arrives late for a physiology lecture. Another student wants to infer
the cause behind this. To make an appropriate attribution, he/she needs to consider
Consensus: Does everyone come late or is it only student X?
Distinctiveness: Does student X come late to other classes too?
Consistency: Does student X come late to physiology lecture every time?
Consistency is most used in attribution; consensus is least used.
Generally speaking if consensus is low, dispositional attribution is made (student X has a
problem). If consistency is low, situational attribution is made (something must have happened
to him today, perhaps, he missed his train). If distinctiveness is high, stimulus or target is
considered to be at fault (the physiology class is so boring that X always comes late).
Weiner developed a systematic attributional theory. Accordingly there are 3 dimensions
identified in the process of attributions
Locus: external/internal
Stability: transient/permanent
Controllability: controllable/uncontrollable
External stable and uncontrollable cause attributed to a negative event generates a sense of
failure with anger.
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Some consistent errors (attribution bias) are noted in making attributions.
 First impression effect: (primacy effect). Generally first impressions on people count more
unless specific instruction is given to attend or repeatedly observe. A positive first
impression is more likely to change than a negative first impression. Primacy is more
important in strangers; recency effect plays more in evaluating friends and others who will
come into repeated contacts.
 Halo effect is the tendency to perceive other persons as wholly good or bad based on few
observed traits (e.g. physical attractiveness); i.e.making inferences about people using
limited, superficial information. Thus a person's positive or negative traits "spill over"
from one area to influence the total perception of their personality. Investigators
evaluating crime suspects are susceptible to halo effect (to be accurate – reversed halo
effect or devil effect or association fallacy). For example, a policeman may conclude
someone is guilty by association with attributes he has previously seen in other criminals.
Mere similarity of a person to a suspect often causes the police to associate the innocent
wrongly with a guilty act.
Actor-observer effect: When one is involved as an agent in a specific behaviour then he/she attributes
external causality to the behaviour. For the same behaviour, others who are merely observers without
direct participation may invoke internal causality (intentional and dispositional).
Just world hypothesis refers to the idea that ‘I am a just person living in a just world; everyone here gets
what they really deserve’. ‘Bad things happen to bad people’, leading to blaming-the-victim culture.
Fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias: This refers to overestimating dispositional
factors and not situational factors while attributing causes for other’s behaviours. This allows a sense of
predictability to be developed about the other person. It is more pronounced if the attributed behaviour is
negative and undesirable.
Self-serving bias (SSB): the actor observer effect is most pronounced when judging negative behaviours
This may be absent or reversed for positive behaviours. Hence such self-serving bias offers selfenhancement and defense. In depression, an exception to SSB is seen - The patient takes excessive selfblame for personal failures.
False consensus effect and illusion of in group homogeneity: This refers to the tendency to view other
person’s behaviour to be representative of a group’s behaviour (culture or racial stereotypes are thus
formed).

09 - Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind
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 The term Barnum effect or Forer effect refers to the widespread predisposition to believe
that general and vague personality descriptions or predictions (often given by astrologers,
horoscopes, and palmistry) have specific relevance to certain individuals. This effect has
frequently contaminated research on personality assessment.
 Hawthorne effect refers to a short-term improvement caused by observing worker
performance.
 Pygmalion effect or Rosenthal effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy wherein students
with poor expectations from their teachers internalize their negative label and perform
poorly, and those with positive expectations internalise their positive labels and succeed
academically.
Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind (ToM) develops around age 3 ½ to 4 years. ToM refers to the understanding that
other persons do have mental processes similar to self; in this context it forms an essential part of
the social attribution process. Lack of development of the theory of mind (trait related) could
explain the apparent lack of empathy seen in autism. In acute psychosis, state related deficits in
ToM are noted i.e. the deficit is not pervasive but seen only when relapsing into positive
symptoms. Poor ToM in association with reduced empathic ability is also demonstrated in
conduct disorder and in antisocial personality disorder.
First-order false belief tasks
These tasks relate to the understanding that other people can have their own thoughts about a
given situation. First-order tests involve inferring one person’s mental state e.g. What Jim thinks.
Wimmer and Perner (1983) noted that three-year-olds tend to fail whereas four-year-olds tend to
succeed a false-belief task called Sally-Anne Test. Children are first shown the picture of Sally,
leaving a chocolate on the counter before departing the scene. Anne later comes in and moves the
object from the counter to a box. The children are then asked to predict where Sally will look for
the chocolate when she returns to the room. Children aged 4 and above generally grasp the
notion that Sally will hold a false belief and look at the place where she left the chocolate initially.
3-year-olds fail to ascribe this false belief to Sally.
In the deceptive container task, a child is shown a closed candy container and is asked, “What’s
in here?” When the child answers ‘candy’, the container is opened, revealing a pencil. Later when
the child is asked what she originally thought was in the container when she was first asked,
Three-year-olds incorrectly answer “a pencil,” demonstrating a lack of false belief whereas 4year-olds correctly say “candy.”

10 - Interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal relationships
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Flavell et al. (1986) noted that children older than 4 years old distinguish appearance from reality
and show an ability to discuss objects that have misleading appearances (‘it looks like an apple
but it is really a ball’).
Note that when task demands are reduced, even 15-month old show some signs of ToM.
Furthermore, many children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, can pass first order tests
albeit at a developmentally later age (average 5.5 years according to Happe et al., 1995)
Second-order false belief tasks
These tasks relate to the understanding that other people (a second person) can have their own
thoughts about another (third) person’s state of mind. Second-order tests involve inferring one
person’s thoughts about another person’s mental state e.g. What Jim thinks that Varun thinks.
These tests are usually passed by the age of 6 years in typically developing children. Children
with autistic spectrum disorders may never pass second-order false belief tasks or pass only by
teenagers.
Key neural regions for normal ToM are considered to be the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex,
inferior parietal and medial frontal cortex.
Interpersonal relationships
Following factors influence relationships:
Proximity: minimal requirement for most relationships.
Exposure refers to reciprocal disclosure – this may enhance the relationship. Females
do more self-disclosure than males.
Similarity – may increase self-esteem in a relationship as one gets validation for similar
interests.
Complementarity – not so important initially but increases in importance as a longterm relationship develops.
Compatibility is proportional to both similarity and complementarity.
Types of love:
 Companionate love: True or conjugal love where intimacy and commitment seen; passion
is not high.
 Passionate love: intimate and passionate but not much commitment – obsessive, romantic
and infatuated.
 Consummate love: intimacy, passion and commitment all well mixed.

11 - Linguistics of interpersonal communication
Linguistics of interpersonal communication

12 - Persuasive communication
Persuasive communication
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 Fatuous love: passion and commitment but no intimacy seen.
According to SVR theory, – relationships proceed from Stimulus (external attributes) to Values
to Role stage.
Linguistics of interpersonal communication
Some linguists view language as a “system of signs that have been developed to serve the
communicative needs of people living in a social context”. Thus language is a product of
sociocultural evolution. In this context, language serves 3 functions:
Ideational Function: enable people thinking with language to interpret experience.
Interpersonal Function: enable people acting with language to communicate experience
and thoughts
Textual Function: enable people organise of a message with language.
Fields of enquiry in linguistics
•
Phonology: The study of sound structure
•
Morphology: The study of sound structure
•
Syntax: The study of sentence structure
•
Phonetics: The study of physical act of speaking
•
Semantics: The study of the connection of language to meanings. Semanticists consider
that meanings are inherent in sentences; while communication-intentionists consider that
meaning is not inherent but comes from something that people do when using language
•
Pragmatics: The study of the connection of context to meanings.
•
Sociolinguistics: The study of the connection of language to social situations
•
Semiotics: The study of signs and symbols in relation to their form and content
Whorfian hypothesis or Sapir-Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis states that the semantics of
a language can affect the way in which its speakers perceive and conceptualize the world.
Language determines the basic categories of thought and that, as a consequence, speakers of
different languages think differently. This extreme position is also called linguistic determinism.
Noam Chomsky argues against this stance (see Language Development section in the notes on
Human Development).
Persuasive communication
Techniques of persuasive communication (e.g. used by sales representatives) include
Ingratiation: eliciting likeableness
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2. Reciprocity: doing a favour first, making one indebted.
3. Arousal of guilt
4. Scarcity: ‘offers valid only till stocks last; so hurry!’
5. Social validation: ‘everyone is going to Argos? What about you?’
6. Multiple requests
Foot in the door technique: if one agrees to small request this increases the
likelihood of saying yes again.
Door in the face technique (concession effect): when a larger request is turned
down initially this increases the likelihood of agreeing to a smaller subsequent
request.
Low-ball tactic: hiding the costs and disadvantages initially but revealing after
an agreement is reached.
When attempting to persuade others, one-sided arguments may strengthen existing beliefs but
two-sided arguments more effective in changing beliefs/attitudes. Similarly, highly fear-inducing
messages may increase anxiety but may not result in behaviour change (Jansis & Feshback 1953);
while moderately fear-inducing messages can produce greater behaviour change in some
instances. Thus, an inverted U-shaped curve relates fear and attitude/behaviour change. Feeling
vulnerable also increases behaviour change. The credibility of a perceived message has been
found to be a key factor affecting persuasive communication (Hovland & Weiss, 1951); if we read
a report about health in a professional medical journal, we are more easily persuaded than if we
read it from a tabloid.
Propaganda refers to mass suggestion or influence via emotional manipulation of an individual.
While educating an individual about an issue gives independence for making a judgment,
propaganda over an issue provides ready-made judgments to be adopted by the individual. This
may be done using
Induction of stereotypes
Substitution of names to facilitate scapegoating and scaremongering
Selected facts presentation
Repeating same messages in various forms
Presenting assertions instead of rational arguments
Pinpointing an enemy

13 - 4. Leadership, social influence, power and ob
4. Leadership, social influence, power and obedience

14 - Conformity & obedience
Conformity & obedience
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4. Leadership, social influence, power and obedience
Conformity & obedience
Conformity is a process where no explicit requirement is made to do a certain task, but peer
influence, and the need for acceptance pushes one to carry out the task. Obedience refers to
conditions where the individual is explicitly asked to do a task, and this instruction comes from
an authority.
Conformity can be either true internalisation of values or compliance externally without
changing one’s private beliefs. Men conform less than women; people with lower intelligence,
poorer ego strength, poor leadership abilities and having inferiority feelings conform more often.
Sherif used an autokinetic effect (the apparent, false perception of movement of a pinpoint of
light in a dark room, aka Phi Phenomenon) to study conformity. Individuals initially provided
idiosyncratic responses (individual norms) when asked about the distance moved by the light
source. But when
subjects were
grouped together,
individuals
compromised on
their assessments
and gave modified
answers, so as to conform to the rest (group norms emerged).
Asch used an unambiguous paradigm (length assessment test) to study conformity. It was noted
that the size of group majority up to 3 to 5 people influenced conformity; a much larger majority
did not influence individual decisions. Further, the more unanimous/consistent the majority was,
the more the conformity of the rest. Giving opinions privately reduced conformity. Collectivist
cultures showed more conformity than nuclear cultures.
Can minorities effectively influence the majority? This is possible if the minority is consistent,
perceived to
be
autonomous
and having
real interest in
the issue at
hand, appear
to have
CONFORMITY
OBEDIENCE
No explicit instruction given
Instructed explicitly
Peer influence is the source
Authorities are the source of pressure
Mutually a subject can influence
Mutuality absent as it is one
Need for acceptance
Need for compliance
Done by ‘example’
Done by ‘directions.'
Factors increasing obedience
Factors reducing obedience
Authority figure providing instructions
Administering by proxy
Relieving the subject from responsibility
for actions
Achieving ‘agentic state.'
Authoritarian personality of subjects
(they obey more!)
Proximity to shocked victim
Remoteness of authority
Peer rebellion against instructions
Increased sense of responsibility for
plight of the victim

15 - Group processes
Group processes

16 - Social power
Social power
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balanced flexibility, and if the minority appeared to have some similarity to the rest of the group.
Milgram’s experiments on obedience: Subjects were recruited by an authoritative university
faculty and were asked to administer electric shock to victims kept in a different room by
pressing buttons. The sham victim would make crying sounds in pain on increasing the dose of
electricity.
Group processes
There are various processes that influence individuals when making decisions as a part of a
group. The group can make more risky decisions than what an individual him/herself can. This is
called risky shift.
A group discussion process can strengthen average individual inclinations and polarise the
group in the direction where most individuals were heading already. This is called group
polarisation.
While making extreme decisions, the desire to agree with other members of a group can override
rational judgment applicable in individual decision-making. This is called groupthink.
Group processes, especially polarization, are considered to be due to three underlying
phenomena:
 Normative influence: People have a need not to appear odd or ‘stick out’ like a sore
thumb. So they say yes to what others in the group say.
 Informational influence: Having more information after group discussion can facilitate
decision-making
 Social identity: A group norm is established soon after a group is formed. This creates a
social identity and pressure to conform to maintain the belongingness.
Robert Bales made observations around small group communication in early 1950s. In small
groups, discussion initially tended to shift back and forth quickly between a task and its
relevance to the group members. This helped to balance task completion and group cohesion.
Later a linear phase emerged – the discussion moved from a mere exchange of opinions to
evaluating values underlying a decision and then to making a decision. He also noted that no
matter how large the group, the most talkative member spoke for 40-50% of the time, and second
most talkative 23-30% of the time – dominating the conversation to the detriment of the others.
Social power
French and Raven identified 6 sources of social (or organizational) power. They used the term
Bases of Social Power to describe these factors.

17 - Leadership
Leadership

18 - Social Influence
Social Influence
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Reward Power - based on the perceived ability to give positive consequences or remove
negative ones
Coercive Power - the perceived ability to punish those who not conform with your ideas
or demands
Legitimate Power - based on the perception that someone has the right to prescribe
behaviour due to election or appointment to a position of responsibility
Referent Power - through association with others who possess power
Expert Power - based on having distinctive knowledge, expertness, ability or skills
Information Power (Similar to 5) - based on controlling the information
Leadership
Lewin (1939) identified the following leadership styles.
 Autocratic – leader’s decision-making occurs without consultation from the others and
causes the most discontent. It works if no need for input on decision i.e. that motivation
would not be affected by not being consulted.
 Democratic – leader’s decision-making involves others though the decision may
ultimately made by the leader having facilitated group discussion and discussed opinions.
It is a well-regarded process but can be time-consuming.
 Laissez-Faire – leader’s involvement in decision-making is minimal, so others make their
own decision. It works well if those involved are capable and motivated, and no need for
central coordination.
Social Influence
Kelman described three psychological factors that underlie the process of influence of one person
on the other in social settings.
 Compliance – responding favourably to a request (implicit or explicit) from another. It is a
change of behavior rather than a change in attitude (i.e. one can hold private objections but
still comply). Satisfaction from compliance is due to the positive social effect (i.e. reward or
avoid punishment).
 Identification – change in attitude/behavior due to the influence of someone that is liked
e.g. celebrity endorsement. A resultant desired relationship the identifier relates is the
reward.
 Internalisation – process of acceptance of a set of norms established by a person/group
influential to the individual. The content of the influence is intrinsically rewarding.

19 - 5. Intergroup behaviour
5. Intergroup behaviour

20 - Prejudice
Prejudice
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5. Intergroup behaviour
Prejudice
Prejudice is essentially an attitude. It has
Cognitive component – stereotypes
Affective component – hostility
Behavioural component – which according to Allport can be
a. anti-locution
b. avoidance
c. discrimination
d. physical attack or
e. extermination in terms of increasing severity.
Prejudice can be positive or neutral as well as negative though the term is mostly used to describe
negative prejudice.
Theories of prejudice
 Adorno’s authoritarian personality theory: Authoritarians are prejudiced in a generalised
manner; difficult upbringing and disciplinarian rules in childhood may lead to a projection
of difficulties on minorities. But this theory does not explain the sudden surges of
prejudice that occur in history. It has no experimental proof either.An allied theory says
that ideological dogmatism in rigid, authoritarian people can explain prejudice.
 Scapegoating theory: It is related to the frustration-aggression model of Dollard. In
situations of extreme frustration when the source of such frustration is too powerful, we
may tend to displace aggression towards a soft target – the scapegoat. The choice of
scapegoat depends on the prevailing social mood. Hence, the society provides the content
of one’s prejudice though one’s personality may predispose to such prejudice according to
Adorno.
 Relative deprivation theory: This supplements scapegoating theory. The discrepancy
between actual attainments and expectations of a society is called relative deprivation.
Any acute changes can cause a sudden substantial relative deprivation, leading to unrest
and scapegoating follows. Note that the relative deprivation is subjective to individuals in
a group, and the competition may be within individuals (egoistic) or between groups
(fraternalistic).
 Realistic conflict theory: This asserts that the mere suggestion of competition is enough to
trigger prejudices. Famous Robber’s Cove experiments by Sherif supported this theory.
The mere perception of another group’s existence can spark discrimination. At a summer
camp at Robber’s Cove, two groups were created from unrelated individuals. Even when
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these groups were allowed to interact freely, they developed strong in-group preferences
and anti out-group ideas. When a competition was introduced, the groups exhibited a
high degree of aggression and hatred against each other. Sherif concluded that mere
competition is sufficient to create conflicts, and no real lack of resources or acute
deprivation is necessary.
 Social identity theory: An individual’s positive self-image depends on both personal and
social identities. So each individual strives to improve his group’s success to foster his own
image. This leads to prejudice against other groups.
How to reduce prejudice?
 Blue eyes and brown eyes experiment (Elliott): Prejudice exhibited by a person could be
lesser when he/she himself experienced such prejudice in the past. In a class room, blueeyed children were initially treated badly by instructing brown eyed pupils that blue eye
stood for inferiority and weakness. When the roles were reversed later, and opposite
information was now provided, supporting the supremacy of blue-eyed children, the
amount of aggression shown was lesser. This suggested that when one experiences
prejudice first hand, his own discriminatory behaviour reduces later.
 Contact hypothesis (Allport): When contact occurs between opposite group members
under equal status and in pursuit of common goals, this can reduce prejudice. Personal
friendship is not needed though. Due to lack of knowledge about what happens in the
other group a degree of autistic hostility exists. This reinforces negative stereotypes as
mirror image phenomenon i.e. ‘we are right, so they are wrong’, etc. Also, one group starts
believing that the members of the opposite groups all are alike – illusion of out-group
homogeneity.

21 - 6. Aggression
6. Aggression
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6. Aggression
There are several types of aggression as outlined below.
 Hostile aggression: aimed solely at hurting someone.
 Instrumental aggression: used as a means to an end – may be self-defense or to attain
something. Instrumental aggression is carried out for the purpose of achieving a particular
goal e.g. kidnapping for ransom. Hence, it is often planned and not impulsive. Hostile
(also called angry or affective) aggression is motivated by the need to express negative
feelings, such as anger.
 Positive aggression: combating prejudice, self-defense.
 Pathological aggression: violence for the sake of being violent- may be associated with
pathological personality.
 Overt aggression: This is readily observable, either reactive & impulsive or proactive,
planned aggression.
 Covert aggression is much more subtle, e.g. telling lies, spreading rumours, excluding a
child from a group of friends, etc. It is seen more in girls than boys.
Hydraulic or build up models
 Psychoanalysis Theory: Human aggression is due the death instinct Thanatos - an
instinctive biological destructive death related urge that gradually builds up in everyone
and must at some point be released.
 Evolutionary Theory: Through the process of natural selection, aggression ensures
survival of the aggressor’s genes passing from one generation to the other. It helps in the
fight for the survival of the fittest.
 Lorenz studied animal aggression and proposed that features such as territorial
imperative are linked to the survival benefits of aggression. According to him aggression
is a fixed action pattern elicited by specific sign stimuli. But he found non-human
aggression to be mostly constructive. Ritualisation refers to a series of stereotyped fight
scenes, carried out by animals without actual physical harm to both the victor and the
vanquished. Appeasement rituals or gestures form a part of such ritualisations in which
certain behaviours (e.g., lying down, dropping and tucking one’s tail) can reduce
aggression expression.
Non-hydraulic models
These models refute the notion of ‘building up’ and ‘release’.
© SPMM Course
 Genetic theory: It is controversial whether aggression is inherited; it is often the case in
animal species. But in humans however, people may not necessarily inherit the tendency
to be aggressive; instead they may inherit certain temperaments, such as impulsiveness,
that in turn make aggression more likely (Baron and Richardson, 1994).
 Social learning theory: Bandura’s ‘Bobo Doll’ experiments provide impressive
demonstrations of the power of observational learning. When children observe an
aggressive model, they often reproduce many of the model’s acts precisely, especially if
the model’s aggression was rewarded. Vicarious conditioning refers to a kind of
observational learning where learning is influenced by seeing or hearing about the
consequences of others’ behaviour. Observational learning can occur even when there are
no vicarious effects of reinforcement, but the performance of an aggressive behaviour is
more likely if vicarious reinforcement was observed instead of just seeing behaviour in
isolation without knowing its consequences.
 The frustration-aggression hypothesis was originally proposed by Dollard et al. (1939). It
holds that frustration always results in aggression and conversely aggression will not
occur unless a person is frustrated. But this is not true as sometimes frustration produces
depression or withdrawal instead of aggression. The modified frustration-aggression
hypothesis considers aggression to be one of the many possible products of frustration. In
a meta-analysis including 49 studies, Marcus-Newhall et al. (2000) found consistent
evidence that frustrated individuals show displacement of aggression from the source of
the frustration onto a less powerful or more accessible target.
 Berkowitz (1993) later modified Dollard’s proposal. This is called aggressive cue theory or
weapons effect: Frustration produces not aggression but a readiness to respond
aggressively; once this readiness exists, cues in the environment (e.g. knives, guns, etc.)
will often lead a frustrated person to behave aggressively; neither frustration nor cues
alone can trigger the aggressive behaviour.
 Generalised arousal theory maintains that arousal (e.g. physiological) from one source
may energise some other response. This is called transferred excitation (Zillman).
 Festinger’s deindividuation theory: According to this, people in-group context act
uncharacteristically more aggressive as a sense of identity and belongingness and
diffusion of responsibility occurs in groups. Similarly, uniforms can reduce individuality,
promoting expression of aggression (hence its use in Police and military forces). But
deindividuation does not always cause aggression.
Media influences on aggressive behaviour: TV can influence through modelling effects. In a
natural experiment at St Helena Island when TV was first introduced, some increase in prosocial
behaviour was recorded, surprisingly. Media influence is mediated via

22 - Stress and aggression among primates
Stress and aggression among primates
© SPMM Course
High arousal
Disinhibition – ‘this is happening everywhere; it is not uncommon.'
Imitation: e.g. copycat crimes and suicides – Shannon Matthews incident in UK (2008) is
speculated to be akin to a channel 4 drama episode (Shameless).
Desensitisation: due to repeated showing
Priming- enhancing automatic associations of certain stimuli with a crime.
Family background and aggression: Aggressive children tend to commit violent and non-violent
offences in adulthood. Antisocial behavior is much more common in men. Harsh and inconsistent
discipline and an absence of positive parenting may be an aetiological factor in aggression.
Note that cultural differences exist in expression of aggression; it is said to be much more
common in individualist than in collectivist cultures (Oatley, 1993)
Stress and aggression among primates
 In most species, dominance ranks influence the extent of sustaining stressors. It is too
simplistic to say higher / lower ranking individuals have the highest stress or aggression
levels. The actual amount of stress and aggression depends very much on group’s social
structure and dynamics.
 Ability to avoid confronting dominant individuals will reduce stress levels. When this is
lost in captivity (artificial environments) the subordinates show high-stress hormones. For
example dominant wolves have more cortisol in the wild; subordinates have higher levels
in captivity.
 The most frequent context in which aggression is seen is in defense of status. But the best
fighter does not become the highest-ranking individual in a group all the time (ability to
form coalition and source social support are important).
 In some species, aggression is a primary cause of mortality.
 The most important modulating influence on aggression is social dominance; once it is
established the rate of aggression drops substantially.
 Aggressive encounters are highest among adolescent males during group migrations.
Aggression is also higher under conditions of crowding.
 Males are generally more aggressive than females, but once dominance is stabilized, males
have a substantial drop leading to females showing higher aggression than or as high as
males.
 Mating competition can increase male-to-male aggression. The presence of children can
act as agonistic buffers to reduce aggression among both males and females in some
species.
© SPMM Course
 Socially living primates learn social cues of aggression and restraint from the early period
of development by observing their parents and older individuals; they later practice these
skills with their peers. In fact, parental control is essential for the development of cortical
areas involved in impulse control.
 Coping outlets for stress include social support (grooming, coalition formation and
physical contact). Reconcilative behaviour immediately after a competition may help the
loser to cope. Poor availability of this support with low presence of kin will increase stress
among subordinates.

23 - 7. Altruism
7. Altruism
© SPMM Course
7. Altruism
Any action that is intended to help others is called Prosocial Behaviour in psychology. Altruism
is often considered to be a motivation behind people’s prosocial acts. Altruism refers to the wish
to help others with no expectation of reward.
Bystander apathy: When alone, individuals will typically intervene if another person is in need
of help: this is called bystander intervention. But intervention becomes less likely to an extent
that no single person will intervene from a crowd or group of observers when someone is in need
of help. This is called bystander apathy or Genovese effect.
Pluralistic ignorance: This refers to members of a crowd looking at each other for signs of
distress but remaining calm themselves, leading to misappraisal of the situation being safe
leading to lack of intervention. Bystander competence is usually not required for intervention
except in ambiguous situations where technical help is required e.g. blood at the scene.
According to arousal/cost-reward model, emotional arousal on seeing a victim increases
motivation to act. But a cognitive appraisal of costs and rewards occurs before an intervention is
carried out. If the cost of helping is high, the bystander undertakes a cognitive reinterpretation -
calling the situation as non-urgent, blaming the victim or diffusing or dissolving responsibility.
Diffusion of responsibility: Similar to social loafing – ‘I have some responsibility, but so do
others; let someone else help.'
Dissolution of responsibility: Not knowing what others are doing, rationalizes that someone
would have helped the victim.
Males show higher agentic help and intervention while females show higher communal help and
empathy.
Social loafing: This is also called Ringelmann’s effect. It is seen in games such as tug-of-war and
in clapping hands after a performance. The larger a group is, the less the individual performance
as one thinks the others will do the job
© SPMM Course
Notes prepared using excerpts from
 Sapolsky, R. (2005) The Influence of Social Hierarchy on Primate Health Science, 648-652
 Thambirajah, MS. Psychological Basis of Psychiatry, Elsevier 2005
 Gross, R. Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour, Hodder Education; 6th Revised edition
 Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. J. (2011). Linguistic relativity. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive
Science, 2(3), 253-265.
 Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”?.
Cognition, 21(1), 37-46.
 J. French and B. Raven, The bases of social power in D. Cartwright and A. Zander (eds.), Group
dynamics (pp. 607-623). New York: Harper and Row, 1960
DISCLAIMER: This material is developed from various revision notes assembled while preparing
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These sources are cited and acknowledged wherever possible; due to the structure of this
material, acknowledgments have not been possible for every passage/fact that is common
knowledge in psychiatry. We do not check the accuracy of drug-related information using
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