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ASSIGNMENT REFERENCE MATERIAL (2020-21)

BPC – 006

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SECTION – A

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Q1. Explain the goals and experimental methods of research in social psychology.

Ans. Social psychology research methods allow psychologists to get a better look at what causes
people to engage in certain behaviours in social situations. In order to empirically study social

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behaviour, psychologists rely on a number of different scientific methods to conduct research on
social psychology topics. These methods allow researchers to test hypotheses and theories and look
for relationships between different variables.

Goals of Research in Social Psychology

a .
Following are the four goals of social psychological research:

(1) Description: A major goal is to provide careful and systematic descriptions of social
b
behaviour that permit social psychologists to make reliable generalisations about how people act in
various social settings. For example, Are men more aggressive than women? Are there typical

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reactions when a love affair ends? A thorough knowledge of how people behave is essential.
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a
(2) Causal analysis: Much research in psychology seeks to establish relationships between cause
and effect. Do expensive TV ad campaigns actually influence how people vote in elections? Does a
b

college education cause students to become more liberal in their social attitudes? Fundamental to all
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scientific inquiry is the search to identify cause-and-effect relation.
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Experimental methods
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The experimental method is usually taken to be the most scientific of all methods, the 'method of
choice'. The experimental method is a means of trying to overcome this problem. The key features are
control over variables, careful measurement, and establishing cause and effect relationships. An
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experiment is an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested. In an experiment, an

independent variable (the cause) is manipulated and the dependent variable (the effect) is measured;
any extraneous variables are controlled. To explain this, we describe an experiment conducted by
Scheier and Carver (1997) in which the independent variable ‘self awareness’ was manipulated by
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having participants either watch themselves in a mirror or not. These two levels of self-awareness
high self-awareness (mirror present) and low self-awareness (mirror not present) formed the two
experimental conditions. People show more extreme emotional responses in high self-awareness.
Participant’s self-reported emotions were measured. These emotions provided the dependent variable
in the experiment. The experimental method could be divided into two sub-categories, which are as
follows:

(1) Laboratory Method: This type of experiment is conducted in a well-controlled environment,

not necessarily a laboratory, and therefore, accurate measurements are possible. The researcher
decides where the experiment will take place, at what time, with which participants, in what

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circumstances and using a standardised procedure. In some studies, the laboratory is equipped with
television, video cameras, computer monitors, microphones and other experimental apparatuses. In
other cases, the laboratory is a simple room with a table and chair wherein a participant fills out a
questionnaire. The benefit of conducting a laboratory experiment is that conditions could be highly
controlled.

(2) Field Method: Sometimes, it is possible to carry out experiments in a more natural setting,
i.e. in ‘the field’. A famous example of this is the series of studies carried out by Piliavin et al (1969)
in which they arranged for a person to collapse on an underground train and waited to see how long it
was before the person was helped. One of the independent variables they used was the appearance of
the ‘victim’; whether he was carrying a walking stick or whether he appeared to be drunk.

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Q2. Explain the mechanisms of social perception.

Ans. Mechanisms of social perception include non-verbal channels of communications, internal and
external attributions, impressions and implicit theories about people. People use various techniques,

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methods and ways to know about others in order to get superficial or a deeper understanding of them.
The process of social perception sets the stage for much of social interactions. Our perceptions of the
way others feel, their motives and traits play an important role in shaping the nature of our interaction
with them. Knowing the other person involves the following two stages: understanding temporary
states of others, i.e. their emotions and feelings and understanding the most permanent or lasting
characteristics, i.e. their motives and intentions of traits.

a .
Understanding Temporary States: Temporary factors or causes like changing moods, fatigue,
illness and drugs affect our social behaviour–all these can influence the way in which we think and
behave. For example, one of our teachers used to behave in a ‘peculiar way’ and later we realised that
b
it was because she was used to take a strong drug for her illness. Because such temporary factors exert

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influence on social behaviours and thoughts, we try to find out how others are feeling. If we attempt
to ask the people about how they are feeling – we may not get genuine answers and people may look
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a
at us in a suspicious manner. So the next best alternative and a less direct method for gathering
information about others is to give careful attention, their body language and other non-verbal cues,
provided by changes in their facial expressions, eye contact, posture and body movement.
b
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Basic Channels of Non-verbal Communication: It is interesting to note that non-verbal

communication or body language accounts for more than 70 per cent of our communication while
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words account for just about 10 per cent. Thus, non-verbal communication is very important in human
interaction. Gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, posture and body orientation, distance are some
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of the non-verbal ways of communicating. Following are the basic non-verbal communication:
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(i) Facial expressions and eye contact: Although facial expressions and eye contact are not
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kinesics, and therefore, technically not body language, they are the types of non-verbal
communication that can have an effect on business relations. Researchers have found that people can
identify with great accuracy seven separate human emotions, even after seeing only facial and eye
expressions: sadness, happiness, anger, fear, surprise, contempt and interest. Therefore, without
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speaking a word, a facial expression can convey a great deal of information to others. Similarly, eye
contact or lack of eye contact can also indicate a person’s attitudes and emotions.

(ii) Body language (Gestures, postures and movement): Body language is non-verbal
communication that involves body movement and gestures, which communication researchers call
kinesics. There are hundreds of thousands of possible signs that can be communicated through body
movements and gestures. Every emotion has a relatively same set of psychological reactions which
have come to us by evolution.

Q3. Explain the theories regarding formation of attitudes.

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Ans. Attitude has to be inferred from statements or behaviour; it is intangible and not directly
observable. In other words, although we can observe and measure behaviour, we have to ask people
about their attitudes to various things, and hope that their replies are honest ones. This can cause
difficulties if we are researching a sensitive topic.

Attitude formation theories help us to understand how a person’s attitude takes shape and why a
person might have a particular attitude or how that attitude came to exist. A number of theories have
been used to identify what lead to formation and maintenance of attitudes.

Classical
Conditioning

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Genetic Formation of Instrumental
Factors Attitudes Conditioning

Observational
Learning a .
b
Fig: Perspectives/Theories to attitude formation

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There are several factors or theories that identify the formation and maintenance of attitudes. Such
a
important factors or theories are as follows:
b

(1) Classical Conditioning: The process of classical conditioning was first described by Pavlov. In his
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experiments on dogs, he found that after repeated pairings of an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. bell)
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with a conditioned stimulus (dog), the latter acquires the capacity to evoke a conditioned response
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(salivation), similar to the old, unconditioned response (salivation).

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(2) Instrumental Conditioning (operant conditioning): According to Solomon et al. (2010), an

attitude can also be formed through instrumental conditioning, in which consumption of the attitude
object is reinforced. Instrumental conditioning occurs as behaviour is reinforced when providing
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positive results or be avoided when generating negative outcomes (Solomon et al., 2010, p.248).
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According to this theory, we learn those responses that are rewarded and show an increased
probability of repeating such responses. However, we tend not to repeat responses that are punished.
Studies reveal that children develop attitudes maintained by their parents simply because holding such
attitudes is rewarding. Exhibition of attitudes and behaviour similar to parents is often met with
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reward and praise from parents and dissimilarities or deviation is met with punishment and
admonition. Thus, children soon learn that holding attitudes similar to that of parents is instrumental
in getting the desired results.

(3) Observational learning: In both classical and instrumental conditioning approaches to attitude
formation, the person has direct contact or experience (as in the case of Staats experiment) with the
attitudinal object. However, it is also true that people may acquire attitudes simply by observing the
rewards and punishments that others get for their espousal of those attitudes. The phenomenon by
which a person acquires new forms of behaviour or thought simply by observing others is called
observational learning. For example, you might develop a negative attitude towards the college

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canteen if you saw someone throwing up after having a meal there. Although your friend’s newly
formed dislike is due to instrumental conditioning, your negative attitude is a result of observational
learning.

SECTION – B

Q4. Discuss the theories of attributions.

Ans. Psychologists have also introduced a number of different theories to help further understand how
the attribution process works. Heider (1958) was the first to propose a psychological theory of
attribution, but Weiner and colleagues (e.g., Jones et al, 1972; Weiner, 1974, 1986) developed a
theoretical framework that has become a major research paradigm of social psychology. Heider

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discussed what he called “naïve” or “commonsense” psychology. In his view, people were like
amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behaviour by piecing together information until
they arrived at a reasonable explanation or cause.

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Correspondent Inference Theory: Jones and Davis (1965) thought that people pay particular
attention to intentional behaviour (as opposed to accidental or unthinking behaviour).

Jones and Davis’ theory helps us understand the process of making an internal attribution. They say
that we tend to do this when we see a correspondence between motive and behaviour. For example,

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when we see a correspondence between someone behaving in a friendly way and being a friendly
person.
a
The Co-variation Model: Kelley’s (1967) co-variation model is the best known attribution theory.
He developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some
b
characteristics (internal) of the person or the environment (external). The term co-variation simply

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means that a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and
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a
can perceive the co-variation of an observed effect and its causes. He argues that in trying to discover
the causes of behaviour people act like scientists. More specifically, they take into account three kinds
of evidences.
b
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Kelley believed that there were three types of causal information, which influenced our judgments.
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These are as follows:

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(1) Consensus: It is the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar
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situation. For example, Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her
friend smokes, her behaviour is high in consensus. If only Alison smokes, it is low.
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(2) Distinctiveness: It is the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar
situations. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, her behaviour is high in
distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, distinctiveness is low.
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Q5. Explain how do individuals differ in self presentation?

Ans. People strive to influence the images that others form of them during social interaction has been
found to be true even through research on self presentation. Although everyone engages in self-
presentation, people vary with respect to how concerned they are with their public image and with the
kinds of impressions they try to convey. Some people engage in such actions from time to time, there
are important differences in the extent to which they control their self-presentation and some people
engages in this tactics more often and with greater skill. People differ in exercising control over their
verbal and non-verbal cues of self-presentation and this is termed as self-monitoring of expressive
behaviour (Synder 1979). High self-monitoring persons are particularly sensitive to the expressions

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and the self-presentations of others in social situation and they use these as cues in monitoring, their
own self-presentation for purpose of impression management.

High self monitoring persons are good at learning what is socially appropriate in new situations, have
good control of their emotional expression and effectively use these abilities to create the impression
they want to display. In fact they can adapt themselves to any social situation, for example: they can
adopt the mannerism of a reserved, withdrawn and introverted person and then they can abruptly do
about face and portray themselves as equally convincing, friendly, outgoing and extroverted person.
In self-presentation situations, high self-monitoring persons are quite likely to seek out social
comparisons and information about the appropriate patterns of behaviour. They put in considerable
effort in attempting to read and understand others and behave accordingly and guide their self
presentation so as to gain approval or power of an interaction. However self presentation on

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impression management is not for deceptive purposes but is an adaptive skill in environments where
there is a complex mixture of people and policies.

Q6. Describe the properties of attitude.

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Ans. Attitudes have dynamic properties in addition to the somewhat static ones. Following are the
dynamic properties of attitudes:

(1) Attitude Strength: Strong attitudes are those that are firmly held and that highly influence
behaviour. Compared to weak attitudes, strong attitudes are more likely to remain stable over time,

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resist influence, affect thought and guide behaviour. Researchers have identified several attributes
related to attitude strength such as:

(i)
a
Certainty: Attitude certainty refers to the degree to which an individual is confident that
b
his/her attitude towards an object is correct. It has usually been measured by sking respondents how

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certain or sure they are of their attitudes, how easily their attitudes could be changes, or how confident
they are that their attitudes are correct.
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a
(ii) Intensity and extremity: Attitude extremity is the extent to which an individual likes or
b

dislikes an object. The more extreme the individual’s attitude is, the further it is from neutrality.
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However, some attitudes involve strong affective responses to objects, whereas others involve little or
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no emotional reaction.
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(2) Attitude Accessibility: Attitude accessibility is defined as the strength of the link in memory
between an object and an evaluation of it. It is presumably manifested as the ease with which an
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attitude comes to mind in the course of social perception. Accessibility has most often been measured
by the length of time it takes people to report their attitudes towards an object. It has also been
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measured by the likelihood that people will metion the object in answering an open-ended question,
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by people’s reports of how often they discuss the object with friends and family, or by reports of how
often people think about the object.

(3) Attitude Ambivalence: The accessibility of an attitude refers to the ease with which it comes
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to mind. Sometimes people simultaneously experience both positive and negative reactions towards
an object, producing an uncomfortable state of evaluative tension. Ambivalent attitudes tend to be
weaker than univalent attitudes, so assessing ambivalence towards an attitude object can be very
useful. Furthermore, on bipolar evaluative measures, people who have highly ambivalent attitudes
often select the scale mid-point, rendering them indistinguishable from people who are neutral
towards an object. Directly asking people how conflicted or how torn they feel about the attitude
object or asking people for separate reports of their positivity and negativity towards the attitude
object enable researchers to differentiate among these two groups of respondents.

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Q7. Describe the characteristic features of group.

Ans. Following are the characteristic features of a group:

(1) A sense of ‘We’ feeling: It refers to the tendency on the part of the members to identify
themselves with the group. They treat the members of their own group as friends and the members
belonging to other groups as outsiders. They cooperate with those who belong to their groups and all
of them protect their interests unitedly. We-feeling generates sympathy, loyalty and fosters co-
operation among members.

(2) Common interest: For the fulfilment of common interest, the members of a group behave in a
similar way. Social group represents collective behaviour. The-modes of behaviour of the members on

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a group are more or less similar.

(3) A feeling of unity: Each social group requires sense of unity and a feeling of sympathy for the
development of a feeling or sense of belongingness. The members of a social group develop common

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loyalty or feeling of sympathy among themselves in all matters because of this sense of unity.

(4) Relatedness to each other: It is true that members of the group are interrelated and this social
relation is called group. There is a reciprocal communication among the group members. Social
relations are the fundamentals of the group life.

(5)
a .
Affected by group characteristics: Each group possesses some social characteristics which
separate it from the similar and dissimilar groups. These characteristics affect the members
constituting the group. The effect may be of different nature for different persons, but still all the
members are affected by the group.
b
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(6) Common values: The social values of the members of a family are common and are
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a
traditionally respected and communicated to the succeeding generation. They are expressed by the
mutual behaviour of the members. Members of the social group are bound together by common
values.
b
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Q8. Define crowd psychology and describe its characteristics.
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Ans. Crowd psychology refers to studies and theories in connection with the behaviour of crowds and
of the people within them. It also studies the psychological causes and effects of crowd behaviour.
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Social psychologists have developed several theories for explaining the ways in which the psychology
of a crowd differs from and interacts with that of the individuals within it.
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The major characteristics of crowd psychology are as follows:

(1) Spontaneous: The most common myth about crowds is that they are spontaneous, or worse,
that they are hotbeds of violence, with complete chaos only a few ill-judged jostles away. Research
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into crowd violence does not support this. One study of riots shows that violence is normally related
to the presence of two opposing factions.

(2) Suggestible: The idea that people in crowds have heightened suggestibility is also a relatively
common myth. People are said to copy each other, looking for a leader, being open to others’
suggestion about how they should behave, perhaps resulting from a lack of social structure.
Schweingruber and Wohlstein simply find no research to back up this claim.

(3) Irrational: One type of irrationality frequently attributed to crowds is panic. Faced by
emergencies people are thought to suddenly behave like selfish animals, trampling others in the

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scramble to escape. A long line of research into the way people behave in real emergencies does not
support this idea. Two examples are studies on underground station evacuations and the rapid, orderly
way in which people evacuated the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

(4) Increase anonymity: A less common myth, but still popular is the idea that people become
more anonymous when they are in a crowd. This anonymity is said to feed into spontaneity and even
destructiveness, helping to make crowds violent, dangerous places in which society’s laws are
transgressed. Everyday experience, though, is that people usually travel in groups, with their family or
friends, and so are not anonymous at all.

(5) Emotional: Less widespread this myth–nevertheless crowds are thought by some to be
particularly emotional. It is argued that increased emotionality is linked to irrationality and perhaps

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violence. Modern psychological research, though, doesn’t see the emotions as separate to decision-
making, but rather as an integral part. To talk about an ‘emotional crowd’ as opposed to a ‘rational
crowd’, therefore, doesn’t make sense.

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SECTION – C

Q9. Archival method of research

Ans. Archival research is performed by analysing studies conducted by other researchers or by

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looking at historical patient records. This research first conducted by Hovland and Sears (1940). The
researcher examines the accumulated document or archives of a culture. For example, diaries, novels,

etc.

Q10. Informed consent

ba
suicide notes, television shows, movies, magazines, newspaper articles, advertising, sexual violence,

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a
Ans. Whenever possible, investigators should obtain the consent of participants. In practice, this
means it is not sufficient to simply get potential participants to say “Yes”. They also need to know
what it is that they are agreeing to. Before the study begins, the researcher must outline to the
b

participants what the research is about and then ask their consent to take part. However, it is not
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always possible to gain informed consent. This is acceptable as long as what happens to the
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participants is something that could easily happen to them in everyday life.

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Q11. Heuristics
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Ans. A heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us to make decisions and judgments quickly without
having to spend a lot of time researching and analysing information. According to Fiske and Taylor,
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our mental processing resources are highly valued, so we engage in numerous ways to save time and
effort when trying to understand the social world. People save time and effort in making judgments by
using heuristics. Heuristics are time saving mental shortcuts that reduce complex judgment to simple
rules of thumb.
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Q12. Attitudes and beliefs

Ans. Attitude refers to feelings, beliefs and behaviour predispositions directed towards people,
groups, ideas or objects. Attitudes will always have a positive and negative element and have a
tendency to behave in a certain way towards that person or object. Belief is a part of attitude and all
attitudes have relevant beliefs about that object. Attitudes are formed primarily based on underlying
values and beliefs. Beliefs are acquired through real experiences but the original experience related to
a particular belief is mostly forgotten.

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Q13. ABCs of attitude

Ans. Attitudes develop on the basis of evaluative responding. Individuals do not have an attitude until
they respond to an entity (person, object, situation, or issue) on an affective, cognitive or behavioural
basis. Attitude can be described as a tendency to react positively or negatively to a person or
circumstances. Thus, the two main elements of attitude are this tendency or predisposition and the
direction of this predisposition. It has been defined as a mental state of readiness, organise to thorough
experience, which exerts a directive or dynamic influence on the responses on an individual to all
objects and situations with which the individual is related.

Q14. Collective hysteria

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Ans. Collective hysteria is a phenomenon that transmits collective allusions of threats etc., whether
real or imaginary, through a population in society as a result of rumours and fear (memory
acknowledgment). Many cases of collective hysteria are controversial, as the supposed sufferers and
even some observers feel that the term does not fully explain the phenomenon; for example, in the

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case of an alleged religious miracle or demonic possession affecting a large group of people. In
addition, many people are reluctant to believe that intense physical symptoms they experienced were
“all in their head”.

Q15. Explicit vs. implicit norms

.
Ans. Many times, we have clear, detailed and explicitly stated rules of behaviour and usually cover
a
the written constitutions and laws. A general example is “No parking” or “No Horn” designated areas
and while traveling in public transport, it is explicitly prohibited to carry weapons, explosives or the
things which may be dangerous to the health and life of others.
b
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On the other hand, we also have norms which are unspoken or implicit which usually develop in
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a
informal manner. We usually go to the parties or social meetings late, because we apply our past
experiences to the specific situations and think (rather, know) that it would not start in time and others
would also have not yet arrived.
b
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Q16. Autokinetic effect
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Ans. The autokinetic effect is a phenomenon of visual perception in which a stationary, small point of
light in an otherwise dark or featureless environment appears to move. The autokinetic word is a
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combination of two words wherein auto means self and kinetic means motion and it is a phenomenon
of human visual perceptual illusion of movement. Here two words need further elaboration, i.e.
perception and illusion.
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Q17. Social loafing

Ans. Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of
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a group. Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each
member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible. Social
loafing is more likely to appear in large teams, where individual contributions are more difficult to
identify. Thus, social loafing is the reduction in motivation and effort when individuals work
collectively in a group compared to when they work individually or as independent co-actors.

Q18. Group mind

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Ans. According to Mc Dougall, every group has a mind of its own. The group-mind is not a mere
collection of the minds of all the individual members of group. He used the term “group mind” mainly
on the following factors:

(1) The members of the group must be aware of the origin of their group and its various
characteristic which indicates the continuity.

(2) Every member must feel that he is a part of the group which means self-consciousness.

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