31

S.Y.B.A.
SEMESTER III (CBCS)

PSYCHOLOGY PAPER - II
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SUBJECT CODE : UAPSY301

 © UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
Prof. Suhas Pednekar
Vice-Chancellor,
University of Mumbai,

Prof. Ravindra D. Kulkarni Prof. Prakash Mahanwar

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Director,
University of Mumbai, IDOL, University of Mumbai,

Programme Co-ordinator : Mr.Anil Bankar

Associate Professor of History and
Head Faculty of Arts,
IDOL, University of Mumbai

Course Co-ordinator : Dr. Naresh Tambe

Assistant Professor Psychology,
IDOL, University of Mumbai, Mumbai
Course Writer : Dr. Pooja Soni
Assistant Professor,
K.C. College, Dinshaw Vachha Road,
Churchgate, Mumbai

: Dr. Madhu Rai

Visiting Faculty,
VES and National College, 72 Carter Road,
Bandra (W), Mumbai

: Mr. Shailendra Pasi

Lecturer, MKLM's B. L. Amlani College of
Commerce & Economics,
M.R. Nathwani College of Arts,
JVPD Scheme, Juhu, Mumbai

: Ms. Aarti Shah

Visiting Faculty at Amity University, Panvel

Editor : Dr.Anita Kumar

Associate Professor (Retired),
Acharya and Marathi College,
Chembur, Mumbai

August 2021, Print - 1

Published by : Director,
Institute of Distance and Open Learning ,
University of Mumbai,
Vidyanagari, Mumbai - 400 098.

DTP Composed & : Mumbai University Press,

Printed by Vidyanagari, Santacruz (E), Mumbai
 CONTENTS
Unit No. Title Page No.

Module - I
1. Social Psychology : The Science of Social Side of Life - I 01
2. Social Psychology : The Science of Social Side of Life - II 16
Module - II
3. Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others-I 30
4. Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others-II 44
Module - III
5. Attitude: Evaluating and Responding to The Social World-I 57
6. Attitude: Evaluating and Responding to The Social World-II 72
Module - IV
7. Liking, Love and Other Close Relationships-I 90
8. Liking, Love and Other Close Relationships-II 109


 S.Y.B.A. Social Psychology
Semester - III (CBCS)
Syllabus to be implemented from 2021-2022
Social Psychology - Paper-II Part-I

Objectives: -
1. To help students in building knowledge of the basic concepts and
modern trends in Social Psychology.
2. To foster interest in Social Psychology as a field of study and research
among students.
3. To make the students aware of the applications of the various concepts
in Social Psychology in the Indian context.

Semester III Social Psychology: Part I

Module 1: Social Psychology: The Science of the Social Side of Life
a) Social Psychology: What it is and is not
b) Social psychology: Advances at the boundaries
c) How social psychologists answer the questions they ask: Research as
the route to increased knowledge
d) The role of theory in social psychology
e) The quest for knowledge and the rights of individuals: Seeking an
appropriate balance

Module 2: Social Perception: Seeking to Understand Others

a) Nonverbal communication: An unspoken language
b) Attribution: Understanding the causes of behavior
c) Impression formation and management: Combining information about
others
d) What research tells us about the role of nonverbal cues in job
interviews?
e) What research tells us about why some people conclude they are
superior to others?

Module 3: Attitudes: Evaluating and responding to the social world

a) Attitude formation: How attitudes develop
b) When and why do attitudes influence behavior?
c) How do attitudes guide behavior?
d) The science of persuasion: How attitudes are changed
e) Resisting persuasion attempts
f) Cognitive dissonance: What it is and how do we manage it?
g) What research tells us about culture and attitude processes?

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Module 4:Liking, Love and Other close relationships.
a) Internal sources of liking others: The role of needs and emotions
b) External sources of attraction: The effects of proximity, familiarity and
physical beauty
c) Sources of liking based on social interaction
d) Close relationships: Foundations of social life
e) What research tells us about dramatic differences in appearance
between partners: Is love really blind?
f) What research tells us about two factors that may destroy love—
jealousy and infidelity

Book for Study:

Branscombe, N. R. & Baron, R. A. Adapted by Preeti Kapur (2017),
Social Psychology, (14th Ed.), New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian
reprint 2017

Books for Reference-

 Aronson, E. Wilson, T. D. Akert, R. M. & Sommers, S.A. adapted by
Veena Tucker (2016), Social Psychology (9th Ed), New Jersey:
Pearson Education Prentice Hall, Indian subcontinent adaptation,
Pearson India Education Pvt. Ltd.

 Crisp, R. J. & Turner, R. N. (2014), Essential Social Psychology, Sage

Publication, South Asia adaptation (2017).

 Mercer, J. & Clayton, D. (2014), Social Psychology, New Delhi:

Dorling Kindersley India Pvt. Ltd. 8)

 Myers, D. G. Sahajpal, P. & Behera, P. (2017), Social psychology (10th

ed.), McGraw Hill Education.

 Taylor, S. E. Sears, D. O. & Peplau, L. A. (2017), Social psychology

(10th ed.), Pearson Education.



II
 1
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE SCIENCE
OF SOCIAL SIDE OF LI FE – I
Unit Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Social Psychology: What it is and is not
1.2.1 Social Psychology is scientific in nature
1.2.2 Social Psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals
1.2.3 Social Psychology seeks to understand the causes of social
behavior and thought
1.2.4 The search for basic principles in a changing social world
1.3 Social Psychology: Advances at the boundaries
1.3.1 Cognition and behavior: Two sides of the same social coin
1.3.2 The role of emotion in the social side of life
1.3.3 Social relationships: How important they are for well-being
1.3.4 Social Neuroscience: The intersection of Social Psychology and
brain research
1.3.5 The role of implicit (Neuroscience) processes
1.3.6 Taking full account of social diversity
1.4 Let’s sum up
1.5 Questions
1.6 References

1.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit you will be able to understand:

● Definition of Social Psychology
● Nature and scope of social psychology
● Major trends in social psychology

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Human beings are said to be social animals. Other human beings in

our life are significant to us. We like to connect and stay with others. We
don’t prefer staying aloof and isolated for a longer time. Our thoughts,
feelings and behavior are influenced by others around us. This influence is
not only because of presence of some individuals rather it can also be
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because of absence of other people. We are influenced by people we know
and also strangers. We are affected by social situations. As we get affected
by others, our behavior also affects other human beings.

Social psychology is one of the subfields of psychology which is

concerned with the study of the effect of group membership upon
individual behavior. It is different from other social sciences as it focuses
on explaining influences on the individual’s thought and behavior. It is
also different from the informal observations that people generally do as
the focus is on scientific approach. It tries to understand the various
aspects of human behavior in social contexts. Social psychologists also
study how groups influence us and our decision making potential. It also
covers how we explain our own and others actions. Social psychologists
study how people think about themselves at any given point of time or in a
given specific situation. In other words, how people think about their
identity, and how this identity develops through relationships with other
people and eventually guides our social behavior.

This unit will help in understanding the theoretical perspectives of

social psychology. It will help to describe the nature and scope of this
field. It will also explains the scientific nature of social psychology and
the four core values which help to understand the human social
psychology. The focus of social psychology is on individual behavior in a
social setting. It seeks to understand the causes of human social behavior.
It also puts forward the evolving principles of social world. This unit also
covers the recent major advances in the world of social psychology. This
includes understanding the role of cognition, emotions, social
relationships, social neuroscience, implicit processes and social diversity
in social behavior of individuals. These major advances in the field will
help you to update and understand the latest major trends in the field of
social psychology.

1.2 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT

Social psychologists cover a wide range of topics. It is a field

which tries to study why and how individuals think, feel or behave in
various social situations. It can be defined as the scientific field that seeks
to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior, feelings and
thoughts in social situations.

According to Gordon Allport (1954), social psychology is best

defined as the discipline that uses scientific method in “an attempt to
understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of
individuals are influenced by the real, imagined, or implied presence of
other human beings”. For example, suppose students are laughing and
chatting with each other in a class, but their behavior changes the moment
teacher comes to the class. The very presence of teacher has changed their
behavior. This is how our behavior is influenced by real people. On the
other hand, take the example of a student, who dresses up in the finest of
2
clothes, practices a thanks giving speech because he imagines that he is
going to be felicitated by the principal for being the topper his college.
This may not be true, but the imagined behavior of principal has
influenced his behavior. Let us take another example, suppose students see
an old lady entering the class who is dressed very poorly and looks more
like a beggar rather than a professor. Looking at her outward appearance,
they may continue with their laughing and chatting and may even question
her when stands at the podium. Their behavior is influenced by her
implied status. In reality, she may be the new professor. In other words,
social psychology identifies the ways in which our thoughts, feelings, and
actions are influenced by the social environments in which we live-by
other people or our thoughts about them.

According to Baron and Byrne, social psychology is the scientific

field that seeks to comprehend the nature and causes of individual
behavior in social situations.

1.2.1 Social Psychology is Scientific in Nature:

The term ‘science’ doesn’t imply only to the field of biology,

chemistry, physics or fields which use certain kinds of equipment rather it
refers to two important aspects: (1.) a set of values and (2.) methods that
can be used to study a wide range of topics. Social psychology follows the
principles of science. It uses various scientific methods to describe the
human behavior. Any scientific field has four most important core values
which are accuracy, objectivity, skepticism and open-mindedness.

 Accuracy as a core value focuses on collecting and evaluating

information about the social behavior of the people in careful, precise
and error-free manner. It is not simply ‘people watching’. A researcher
must carefully plan his research, so that the research is error free. For a
study to be scientific, it is necessary that it should be as accurate as
possible.

 Objectivity means gathering information in an unbiased manner. This

indicates that the casual ‘people watching’ may lack objectivity as
different people may observe differently in which their own biases
may hinder the gathering and reporting of observation. Plain
observation will have lot of subjectivity. People have a tendency to
watch what interests them and what they consider is important. They
decide which behavior to watch and what to ignore. Due to this
subjectivity, variety of errors will take place and it will be very
difficult for other researchers to replicate those observations for
verification.

 Skepticism refers to accepting the results of the study only when they
are verified again and again. The researcher should not accept any
findings on face value. He must ask himself, does the results of his
study indicate the real difference or real relationship between two
3
 things or is it just a chance occurrence. The replication of study is
another important way of verifying the results obtained in a study.
Replication of the research is done when different researchers
reproduce the same procedure used by others and arrive at the same
conceptual conclusions.

 Open-mindedness implies that accepting and changing one’s views

when recent studies does not support the previously, even strongly
held, findings. Social psychologists continuously study various aspects
of behavior which have provided surprises to the field as previously
held strong findings have been reconsidered. Thus, the various aspects
such as the role of groups in individual’s wellbeing, how conscious
and unconscious processes impact behavior, why and what makes
people happy, why and what makes people to like each other, what
makes people fall in love, etc. have suggested revisions in assumptions
about human nature.

Social psychology is dedicated to these four core values of science

and implements them in understanding human social behavior. Hence, we
can say that social psychology is scientific in nature. Though one may
argue that we can understand others and our own behavior by just using
common sense and there is no need to study it in scientific manner as
social psychology does. But it has been observed that common sense can
sometimes provide very confusing and inconsistent and therefore, very
unreliable picture of human behavior. This is so because individual’s own
experiences are unique and may not provide solid foundation for
answering general questions such as “whether first impressions are
important?’ Along with unique experiences of individuals, there are
various influences on them which indeed impact their findings of
observations. Individuals own biases may hinder even while generating
theories. One of the reasons may be that wishful thinking may influence
common sense beliefs.

Social psychological research needs to verify some of the widely

endorsed ideas about various aspects of social life that are inconsistent
with each other. For example, consider the following statement “Two
heads are better than one” and now consider this “Too many cooks spoil
the broth”. The first statement suggests that when people work together
they are productive. On the other hand, the second statement states that
when people work together they may actually harm the product e.g. they
may take worst decisions. Thus, when such contradictory statements are
presented, research helps in understanding how performance can be
improved. Systematic and careful research reveals that whether
performance will be better or worse depends on several factors such as –
the nature of the task, work allocation, personality and preferences of
group members and how well information is shared among the group
members. Hence, common sense can be confusing and inconsistent
presentation of human behavior.

4
 Along with inconsistent and confusing common sense, people are
also susceptible to several cognitive errors. For example, remember last
time you were involved in some major project and try to remember how
much time you thought you will require to complete the task and how
much time you actually required. There might be a gap between the two.
This is so because we fall victim to this error known as planning fallacy- it
is the strong tendency to believe that any given task will be accomplished
in less time than they actually do or we can accomplish more in a
particular period of time than reality. Research tries to explain this error.
Planning fallacy may occur due to our tendency to think about the future
when we are estimating the time required to complete a task. This prevents
us from actually thinking about past experiences and this in turn leads us
to underestimate the time required at present to accomplish test. This is
one of the many ways in which we do errors while thinking about social
world.

1.2.2 Social Psychology Focuses on the Behavior of Individuals:

Social psychology gives importance to the individuals in social

situations. It explains why and how individuals behave in certain ways in
certain situations. It studies various topics like aggression, helping
behavior, prejudice, discrimination, attitudes, etc. Individual behavior is
often a reflection of existing social and cultural norms. The basic
difference between sociology and social psychology is with respect to the
emphasis on individual behavior. Sociology studies larger social
institutions like, family, marriage, crowd, etc. on the other hand; social
psychology studies the impact of these larger social institutions on
individual. It also studies how individuals shape these institutions. It tries
to explain the influence of internal and external factors on an individual's
behavior. The internal factors includes personality, attitudes, perception of
others and self, emotions and mood and so on. External factors include
groups, culture, and other social and political factors.

1.2.3 Social Psychology Seeks to Understand the Causes of Social

Behavior and Thought:

As social psychology focuses on individual behavior in social

settings, it seeks to understand the reasons for individuals’ behavior and
thoughts behind it. Thus, social psychology explains the various causes of
social behavior. Social psychologists aim to understand them in detail by
conducting various researches. Some important causes are as follows:

Actions and Characteristics of Other Persons:

Human behavior is affected by actions and characteristics of other

people. For example, you met your best friend after a long time and you
noticed that he/she is constantly engaged on the phone. His/her behavior
will affect your thinking and behavior. Similarly, any actions of others
will have effect on your emotions, thoughts and behavior. Along with
5
actions and characteristics, appearance of others also affects us. We
behave differently towards attractive people as compared to less attractive
people. Despite the warnings to avoid “judging books by their cover”, we
are strongly influenced by the appearance of others and their membership
in any group. Research indicates that we cannot ignore others’ appearance
even when we are consciously trying to do so. We rely on others’
appearance to understand their characteristics. Research indicates that
relying on others appearance as a guide to understand others
characteristics can be relatively accurate and not always wrong especially
when we are observing someone’s spontaneous behavior as compared to
posed photographs.

Cognitive Process:

Cognitive process refers to our thinking process. It plays an

important role in human social behavior. It determines the way we make
sense of the world. Many times our social behavior in different situations
depends upon how we interpret a particular situation. Therefore, social
psychologists seek to study social cognition. Social cognition includes
thinking long and hard about other people, others’ likes and dislikes,
thinking of others’ reactions to our behavior and so on. Our cognitive
processes like perception, memory and thinking will determine our
reactions to others, e.g. your behavior can be interpreted in two ways
when somebody pushes you in a crowded train. Either you may think that
this person is doing it purposely or you may think that it has happened
accidently. In the first interpretation, your behavior will be different
(annoyance), whereas in the second interpretation, your behavior will be
different (ignore).

Environmental variables: Impact of the physical world:

Human behavior is influenced by various environmental variables.

Research studies have shown that people become irritated and aggressive
in hot weather as compared to when it is a cold weather. Crowding and
density also affect our social behavior. Smell also influences our behavior.
Pleasant smell makes people become helpful towards others. Research
suggests that various aspects of the environment influence our feelings,
thoughts and behavior. Therefore, these variables also fall within the area
of modern social psychology.

Biological Factors:

There is growing evidence which suggests that our behaviors,

emotional reactions, preferences, and attitudes are to some extent
determined by biological factors. Factors such as genes, hormones,
neurotransmitters, brain structure, etc. are the various biological factors. A
person’s social behavior is influenced by these factors. Evidence shows
that the operation of biology and social experience is not unidirectional.
That means biological factors can influence social behavior and social
6
behavior can lead to biological changes. For example, experiences of
stress during childhood and then exposure to some trauma including
political violence in adulthood can induce neurobiological changes which
eventually affect the psychological wellbeing. There is growing research
now which states that, through epigenetic processes – where the operation
of certain genes turns on or off environmental factors and social
experiences can influence behavior, sometimes this influence takes place
long after initial exposure. Evolutionary psychology perspective holds that
biological factors play an important role in social behavior. This branch of
psychology suggests that humans, like any other species, evolve
biologically throughout history and thus, we possess evolved
psychological mechanisms that aid us in problems related to survival.
Evolution involves three major components:
1. Variation: Organisms belonging to a given species vary in many
different ways e.g. humans vary with regard to shapes, sizes, physical
and mental traits.
2. Inheritance: Some of these variations can be passed from one
generation to the next.
3. Selection: Variations that have helped the species to survive or to
adapt to the environment are retained and transmitted to the next
generation.

This basic process of evolution is also applicable to the

development of some social behavior, e.g. selection of mate. Physical
attractiveness plays an important role in the selection of a mate. According
to the evolutionary perspective, it happens because physical attractiveness
also implies health and vigor, which in turn implied healthy offspring.

Along with mate selection, other topics have been covered from
the evolutionary perspective like aggression and helping others. However,
it is important to clear some facts of evolutionary perspective. This
perspective does not indicate that we inherit specific patterns of social
behavior; rather, it holds that we inherit tendencies or predispositions that
may be apparent in our overt actions.

1.2.4 The Search for Basic Principles in a Changing Social World:

Human social behavior is influenced by basic principles that will

be true across time and in various cultures. For example, factors
influencing helping, attraction, attitude, obedience, etc. Social
psychologists also understand the role of various cultures in human social
behavior and thought. Cultures change across time due to many factors
such as advances in technology, social media etc. Social psychology seeks
to study the influence of changing dynamics of social world on attitudes,
beliefs, perceptions and behavior of individuals.

7
Check your progress

1. Define social psychology and write a note on its scientific nature.

2. How do actions and characteristics of other people influence our

behavior? Write your answer with suitable examples.

3. Why an individual is given main attention in social psychology?

Explain in brief.

1.3 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: ADVANCES AT THE

BOUNDARIES

Social psychology is an ever-growing field as it takes into account

the changing dynamics of the society. Thus, there are advances in the
field. The major advances in the trends of social psychology are as
follows:

1.3.1 Cognition and Behavior: Two Sides of the Same Social Coin:

Social psychology seeks to explain why and how people think and
behave in different social situations. Thoughts imply how people make
sense of the social world and how they understand themselves and others.
Behavior refers to the way people act in social situations. Behavior is not
independent of thoughts.

Social psychologists are always interested in knowing how

individuals think about other people or social situations. Thus, modern
social psychology seeks to closely link thoughts and behavior. It considers
8
the role of various cognitive processes such as memory, attitudes and
beliefs in human social behavior. Social psychologists suggest that there is
a complex interplay between social thought and social behavior. Our
thoughts about others affect the way we behave with them and the
consequences of these actions then affect our emotions and social thought.
Cognitive psychology is reflected in social psychological research in many
ways. First, the basic knowledge about cognitive processes like memory,
reasoning, and decision making- now applied to study social behavior.
Secondly, there is growing emphasis in studying how we process social
information.

1.3.2 The Role of Emotions in the Social Side of Life:

Emotions play an important role in many aspects of social

psychology. Thus, social psychology seeks to understand the influence of
emotions and mood in social behavior. For example, research indicates
that positive moods increase our tendency to offer help to others.
Therefore, we are more likely to get help when others are in a positive
mood.

Suppose you are meeting someone for the first time, do you think
your current mood will influence your behavior towards that person? If
you answered ‘yes’ then you agree to the systematic research conducted
which suggests that our impressions and thoughts about others are
influenced by our current moods. Thus, recently social psychologists are
investigating the impact of specific emotions on wide range of social
behaviors.

1.3.3 Social Relationships: How important they are for Well-Being:

As humans are social beings, they don’t live in isolation. They

seek various kinds of relationships. These relationships play a key role in
our psychological health and well-being. A successful and satisfying
relationship leads to happiness and on the other hand, dissatisfying
relations can disrupt various aspects of our life and can have harmful
effects. As our relations to others are so important, social psychologists
seek to study the nature of social relations. The study includes how
various kinds of relations begin, change and strengthen overtime, how
some relations weaken and end overtime. Social psychology also strives to
study the factors responsible to like others, fall in love, to choose partners.
Many types of social relationships are important for the wellbeing of
people. For example, one researcher found that single people are as happy
as married people. The question arises if relationships are important to
people, then why single people are as happy as married people. The results
of this research revealed that single people are more involved in
community work and hence, are part of various social groups. Being
involved in a number of groups not only predicts psychological wellbeing
of the people who value those groups but also predicts longer life as
compared to people who do not belong to any groups.
9
1.3.4 Social Neuroscience: The Intersection of Social Psychology and
Brain Research:

Our feelings, thoughts, experiences, memories and actions are

reflected within our brain. Modern tools have been developed which help
to measure brain activities as human performs various functions such as
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission
tomography (PET) scans, and other techniques. Social neuroscience
research aids in providing intriguing answers. For example, a research was
conducted to study what happens in the brain when people encounter
consistent or inconsistent statements. These statements are aligned with
participants’ strongly held values and attitudes. For this purpose, the
researchers recruited two groups of participants known to hold opposite
views on many social issues. The first group was known to be against
issues like euthanasia, growing equality of women in society, abortion and
the use of drugs. Another group was the “nonreligious” were known to
hold opposite views on those issues. On a computer screen, participants of
both the groups were presented with statements related to these attitudes.
When the participants were viewing the statements, electrical activity in
their brains was carefully recorded. Participants were observed for their
quick response, in terms of their brain activity, after the statements with
which they disagree. They were also observed when they reacted quickly.
The reaction was quick when they encountered a single word that is
inconsistent with their views (e.g., “acceptable” in the statement “I think
euthanasia is acceptable.” if they are against this action) or the reaction
was given only after reading the complete statement. Previous research
suggested that certain patterns of activity occur very rapidly when
individuals encounter words inconsistent with their values- only 250
milliseconds after seeing them- and indicate that intensified processing of
this word is occurring. In case of other patterns, in contrast, occur
somewhat later and reflect negative reactions to the value-inconsistent
statement. Researchers predicted that each group would show stronger
N400( a kind of activity in brain) reactions to words that were inconsistent
with their values, for instance, the Christian group would show stronger
reactions to the word acceptable in connection with euthanasia, while the
other group would express stronger reactions to the word unacceptable
when linked to euthanasia. The obtained results of the research strongly
supported these predictions and suggest that we do indeed process
information that disagrees with our attitudes very quickly-long before we
can put such reactions into words. Thus, it can be said that attitudes and
values do indeed exert powerful and far reaching effects on activity within
our brains and on our overt actions.

Using these techniques helps us to know much more about the

complex relationships between neural events and psychological factors.
For example, there are neurons in the brain that are activated during the
observation and execution of actions, known as mirror neurons, and it has
been suggested that they play a key role in empathy- our capacity to
experience, vicariously, the emotions and feelings of other persons. Mirror
10
neurons are located in a portion of the brain known as the frontal
operculum. In an intriguing study, researchers suggested that perhaps
people who score high on a questionnaire measuring empathy would show
more activity in this area of their brains when they viewed facial
expressions of others. To test this prediction the researchers took two
groups of individuals – They were tested on a measure of empathy and
their scores indicating either high or low empathy (the capacity to take the
perspective of other persons) were recorded and kept aside. Then one
group was shown video clips of others’ facial expressions (e.g. smiling,
frowning) and the second group was shown video clips of faces that
showed nonsocial movements (i.e., movements not associated with
particular emotions). Activities in the brains of both groups of participants
were recorded through fMRI scans. Results were clearly as predicted,
participants high or moderate in empathy did indeed show greater activity
in the frontal operculum (where mirror neurons are located) than persons
low in empathy.

Social neuroscience is rapidly expanding field. However, it cannot

provide answers to every question we have about social thoughts or
behavior. There are many aspects of social thoughts that cannot easily be
related to activity in specific areas of the brain-including attributions,
group identities and reciprocity. In principle, all of these components of
social thoughts reflect activity in the brain, but this does not necessarily
mean that it is best to try to study them in this way. Just as all chemists
agree that ultimately, every chemical reaction can be explained in terms of
physics. However, but the principles of chemistry are still so useful that
chemists continue to use them in their research and do not rush out and
become physicists. The same may well be true for the field of social
psychology. It does not have to seek to understand all of its major topics in
terms of activities in the brain or nervous systems. Other approaches in
social psychology are more useful in terms of providing important new
insights.

1.3.5 The Role of Implicit (Non-conscious) Processes:

Human thoughts and behavior is also influenced by certain

processes which we are unaware of. Such processes are known as implicit
or non-conscious processes. These processes play a key role in various
social interactions. A growing trend of social psychology seeks to explain
the reasons behind implicit processes and various ways to measure them.
Research examines impact of implicit processes on social behavior such as
how our negative attitudes towards members of other social groups
influences our behavior towards them, though at conscious level we deny
having negative attitudes towards the other group. Non-conscious negative
attitude also influences our evaluation of another person when we come to
know that the target person belongs to a group that is different from the
group we belong to.

11
 Another example of the role of non-conscious processes is on first
impressions. Research indicates that we form first impressions incredibly
quickly often within mere seconds of meeting other people. Sometimes
these first impressions are accurate but sometimes we make errors.
Evidence reported by researchers indicated that we cannot intuit when
these impressions are likely to accurate and when they are not. So, non
conscious processes do influence our judgments and actions, but this
happens in ways that we often are unable to control, and they can lead us
astray.

1.3.6 Taking Full Account of Social Diversity:

We live in a society which includes people from diverse

backgrounds. There are differences in language, religion, caste, socio-
economic background and culture. All these factors play an important role
in the way people think, feel and act in social settings.

Continuous predominance of religion in everyday life was

indicated in a study of demographic profile of Indians. In India, separate
values sphere exists. Each of the spheres exerts pressure to conform or
exclude. The politics of partition in the year 1947 led to radical shift in
India. Due to this, sectarian identification paved the way which included-
Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. These discoveries led to differences in the
same people. Out of the total population of India, three-fourths are Hindus.
Muslims is still a minority faith in India. Out of 1,028 million population
of India, little over 827 million have identified themselves as followers of
Hinduism, 138 million of Islam, 24 million of Christianity, 19 million of
Sikhism, 8 million of Buddhism and 4 million of Jainism. However, over
6 million people have identified themselves from other religion and faiths,
including tribal religions, which are different from the six main religions
of India. Along with these main religions, there are other religions of the
world in India such as Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Jains, Jews and Bahai. The
different states of India vary greatly in religious majority. E.g. Nagaland,
Mizoram and Meghalaya have a Christian majority, Punjab has Sikh
majority, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim are dominated by Buddhist
whereas Jammu and Kashmir and Lakshadweep are Muslim majority
states. This diversity is reflected in peoples’ everyday behavior with others
in all social situations. This may lead to prejudices and discrimination
among people. This behavior would be present in an explicit manner or
subtle manner.

Thus, the latest trend in social psychology has been to consider

these factors and study its impact on human behavior. In other words,
social psychology adopts the multicultural perspective which carefully and
evidently recognizes the potential significance of gender, age, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, religious orientation,
and many other social and cultural dimensions. Past research in social
psychology included subjects of United States only. The obtained findings
of such research are limited and have limited applications as it cannot be
12
applied to other cultures. However, social psychologists have realized the
importance of cultural and gender diversity. That is why; they have
adopted a multicultural perspective.

Check your progress

1. Write in brief the role of emotion in social life. Write your answer with
suitable examples.

2. Enumerate the modern tools for assessing brain activities.

3. Does social diversity affects individual behavior? Explain in brief.

1.4 LET’S SUM UP

Social psychology is one of the subfields of psychology that is

concerned with the study of the effect of group membership upon
individual behavior. Social psychologists study how individuals behave in
groups. It includes how people are influenced by the group and how, in
turn, they influence the group. Social psychology is the scientific field that
seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and
thought in social conditions. It is scientific in nature as it uses the values
and methods of other scientific fields. Values are essential for any field to
be called as science. There are four core values of social psychology to
which it is committed- accuracy, objectivity, skepticism and open
mindedness. Accuracy refers to acquiring and evaluating information
about social behavior and thoughts in a careful, precise and error-free
manner. Objectivity means the information collected in objective in nature
i.e. it is free from any biases. Another value, skepticism, emphasizes on
13
verifying the inferences repeatedly and then accepting it. Open
mindedness is a willingness to change one’s views when it is proved that
the already held views are incorrect. Adopting scientific method is
necessary because “common sense” provides inconsistent and unreliable
information of human social behavior. Social psychology is called as a
scientific field because it makes use of scientific research methods to tests
different hypothesis and theories.

Social psychology gives importance to individuals and seeks to

understand social thoughts and behavior. It also seeks to understand the
causes of individual behavior in social setting. Social psychology
understands the role of others’ actions and characteristics. Individuals are
often affected by actions of other people. People are also affected by the
physical characteristics of others. It also covers the fact that our reaction to
others is strongly affected by their physical characteristics. Cognitive
processes also determine our thoughts and behavior to situations and other
people. This is based on our interpretations of various social situations.
Another factor that affects our affect feelings, thoughts and behavior is
environment related variables such as temperature, pollution, crowding,
architecture of building, landscape surrounding the building, and also
aroma in the air. Biological factors such as genes, hormones,
neurotransmitters, brain structure, etc. also influence our social thought
and behavior. This field also seeks to study the impact of the principles of
changing values and culture in the rapidly developing society on behavior
and thoughts of individuals in social settings.

There are advances in the field with respect to various recent

researches. Social psychologists seek to describe the interplay of cognition
and behavior. They seek to explicate the reasons and the way people think
and behave in different social situations. They also emphasize the
influence of emotions and mood in social behavior. They aim at
understanding the role played by various positive and negative emotions
on social behavior. As relationships are important in human life, social
psychology studies the role played by these relationships in our well-
being. These relations play an important role in our psychological health
and well-being. Latest trend of social psychology studies social
neuroscience-efforts to relate activity in the brain to key aspects of social
thought and behavior. Modern technology helps in measuring brain
activities when humans perform various functions such as functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET)
scans, etc. These techniques help to know about the complex relationships
between neural events and psychological factors. Another avenue of social
psychology is to study the role played by processes of which we are
unaware of-known as implicit processes- on thoughts and behavior in
social situations. Growing evidence in social psychology explains why and
how implicit processes work. Social psychology also takes the
multicultural perspective to take account of the diversity present in society
and study its impact on who we are and what we do.

14
1.5 QUESTIONS

1. Write the importance of social psychology. Explain what it is and what

it does.
2. Discuss in detail the causes of social behavior and thought.
3. a. Elaborate the role of implicit processes.
b. Describe social neuroscience.
4. Explain the relationship between cognition and behavior. Why they
have been called as two sides of the same social coin?
5. Write short notes on
a. Basic principles in changing social world
b. Social relationships
c. Biological factors
d. Skepticism.

1.6 REFERENCES

1) Branscombe, N. R. & Baron, R. A., Adapted by PreetiKapur (2017).

Social Psychology. (14th ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian
reprint 2017
2) Myers, D. G., Sahajpal, P., & Behera, P. (2017). Social psychology
(10th ed.). McGraw Hill Education.



15
 2
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE SCIENCE
OF SOCIAL SIDE OF LIFE – II
Unit Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 How Social Psychologists Answer the Questions They Ask:
Research as the Route to Increased Knowledge
2.2.1 Systematic Observation: Describing the World around Us
2.2.2 Correlation: The Search for Relationships
2.2.3 The Experimental Method: Knowledge through Systematic
Intervention
2.2.4 Further Thoughts on Causality: The Role of Mediating
Variables
2.2.5 Meta-Analysis: Assessing a Body of Knowledge
Check your progress
2.3 The Role of Theory in Social Psychology
2.4 The Quest for Knowledge and the Rights of Individuals: In Search of
an Appropriate Balance
Check your progress
2.5 Let’s sum up
2.6 Questions
2.7 Suggested reading

2.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit you will be able to understand:

● Understand the research methods used in social psychology along with
its advantages and disadvantages.
● Describe the role of theory in social psychology.
● Identify the role of deception and how the dilemma of deception is
addressed in social psychology.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

For scientifically studying human behavior, social psychology

adopts some research methods. These methods aid in systematic study to
answer questions about social thought and social behavior. Every research
16
method adopted has its own merits and demerits. It is the task of the social
psychologists to select one or more methods depending upon the various
factors of the area of research and research methods itself.

This unit provides an understanding of various research routes

social psychologists use to understand human social behavior and
thoughts. These include systematic observation, correlation and
experimentation. Each of these methods are emphasized in detail for
understanding its relevance in the field of social psychology. Systematic
observation includes careful and step by step observation of people’s
behavior. Correlation is helpful technique to understand the relationship
between two or more variables. When researchers’ want to study human
social behavior in a controlled setting, they adopt the method of
experimentation. This unit also uncovers the role of mediating variables
and the meaning and importance of meta-analysis in social psychology.

On the basis of research conducted, social psychologists propose a

theory to explain the behavior. Thus, the meaning, steps in the formation
of theories and importance of theories is explained in this unit. While
doing research, social psychologists need to be ethical and hence, the last
part of this unit focuses on various ethical issues and general principles
that need to be followed when conducting a social psychological research.
It also covers the use of deception in research and guiding principles in
social psychological research.

2.2 HOW SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS ANSWER THE

QUESTIONS THEY ASK: RESEARCH AS THE ROUTE
TO INCREASED KNOWLEDGE

In order to describe behavior, social psychologists adopt various methods

which are explained below.

2.2.1 Systematic Observation: Describing the World around Us

Systematic observation is an objective, careful and well-ordered

close examination of behavior as it occurs. It does not mean ‘people
watching’ rather it is a scientific method which involves careful and
accurate measurement of a particular behavior across people. When
behavior is systematically observed in a natural setting, it is known as
naturalistic

observation. Thus, observing behavior in a psychological

laboratory would not be considered as naturalistic observation. In this
method, researcher records the observed behavior without changing or
influencing the behavior of the person being observed. Thus, the
researcher takes great pain to hide behind natural barriers. The main goal
of naturalistic observation is to describe the behavior as it normally
occurs. It also aids to investigate the relationship among variables that are
17
present. The advantage of using naturalistic observation is to help in
generalizing laboratory findings. This method is especially useful and
important when experiment cannot be conducted due to ethical and moral
issues.

Survey method is another technique that comprises a form of

systematic observation. In this method, data is gathered by asking a
number of questions to a large number of people. These questions might
ask about the attitudes or behavior of people. Surveys are used for many
purposes such as to measure attitudes towards alcohol abuse or college or
university, to determine the feelings towards members of other social or
religious groups, etc. For example, researchers investigating helping
behavior might conduct a survey asking people to indicate their reasons
for not wanting to come forward to help another individual or one conduct
a survey to know attitude towards premarital sex. There are several
advantages of survey method. Data can be acquired from hundreds or
thousands of people. This method is cost effective and time-saving. Public
opinion on any current issue can be quickly assessed by conducting
survey.

There are certain disadvantages of survey method. People may

give inaccurate information because they don’t really remember or
because they don’t want to let the researcher know what they really
believe about a particular issue. People sometimes provide responses
which they think the researcher wants to hear.

While using survey method researcher needs to look at two

important aspects. One is sampling and the other is framing of questions.
Sample is the representative of the population being measured for the
purpose of the research study. Researchers need to carefully select
appropriate sample for the research. For example, if a survey is employed
to measure the attitude of voters towards a voting system in a country then
it will be appropriate if the research sample includes citizens of that
country and those who have the right to vote. Second important aspect is
wording and framing of survey questions. The questions should be simple
and understandable. The meaning of the question should be clear. This is
so because; the way the questions are worded can exert a strong influence
on the outcomes obtained.

There are four methods of obtaining survey data which include

mail surveys, personal interviews, telephone, and internet surveys. Though
there are four methods, there isn’t any one best way to fit in all
circumstances. Each of the four methods have their own advantages and
disadvantages.

Mail surveys are used for self-administered questionnaires. They

are relatively quick. As they are self- administered, they also avoid the
problems which occur due to interviewer bias. They are perceived as best
method when dealing with highly personal or embarrassing topics,
18
especially when anonymity of respondents is preserved. Though they are
convenient there are certain disadvantages of using this method. There
may be decline in the response rate when individuals fail to complete and
return the survey. Due to this, the final sample for this survey may not be a
representation of the population.

In case of personal interviews, data is collected by trained

interviewers. It allows greater flexibility in asking questions. This method
is costly. However, it allows a greater control over how the survey is
administered. Interviewer bias may also lead to inaccurate recording of
respondents’ responses.

Telephonic interviews are used frequently for brief surveys. This

method can be quick and cost effective. However, this method is only
limited to people who have telephones and are willing to stay on
telephones for a longer time.

Data can be obtained through online surveys. Internet surveys are

also efficient and cost effective. This method is used by social
psychologists for collecting data from large, potentially diverse and
underrepresented samples. There are also disadvantages of using this
method. Response rate bias and selection bias can occur. Along with this,
there is a lack of researchers’ control over the respondents’ environment.

2.2.2 Correlation: The Search for Relationships:

Another method used to describe human social behavior is

correlation. Correlation can be simply defined as obtaining a relationship
between two or more variables. Variables refer to the aspects of the world
that have a tendency to change. They can take different values. Correlation
method helps us to understand whether change in one variable is
associated with change in another variable.

It is one approach used to determine whether two or more variables

are related by engaging in careful observation of both. If changes in one
variable are found to be consistently associated with changes in the other,
evidence for a link between them is obtained.

Unlike experimental method, in correlation method, we do not

make any attempt to vary one of the factors in a systematic manner in
order to observe the effect of such variations on the other variable. In this
method, naturally occurring variations in both the variables are observed
to determine whether they tend to occur together in some fashion.

Correlation is of three types: Positive Correlation, Negative Correlation

and Zero Correlation. Positive correlation refers to the relationship
between two variables in which increase/ decrease in one variable is
associated with an increase/ decrease in another variable and vice-versa.
Negative correlation refers to the relationship between two variables in
19
which increase in one variable is associated with a decrease in another
variable and vice-versa. Zero correlation refers to no relationship
between the given variables.

The value of correlation analysis is known as correlation co-

efficient. It refers to a single number that tells us to what extend two
variables are related. This value can range from - 1.00 to +1.00, where
+1.00 means perfect positive correlation; 0.00 means no correlation and -
1.00 means perfect negative correlation. Positive value indicates a positive
correlation. Negative value indicates negative correlation while zero
represents zero correlation.

Correlation helps in prediction of behavior. The stronger

correlation between variables aids in more accurate prediction. The greater
the departure from 0, the stronger is the correlation. For example, a
researcher wants to find a correlation between donation to some natural
disaster relief camp (one variable) and happiness (another variable). The
obtained correlation co-efficient will help in predicting the behavior of
people. A strong positive correlation will denote that the more people
engage in the behavior of donation the more happy they feel. Thus, the
researcher finds whether the results support the hypothesis or not.
Hypothesis refers to yet unverified prediction of some aspect of social
thought or social behavior.

Correlation method has advantages and disadvantages. Correlation

helps us to study real life behavior in natural settings. It also helps to
collect huge amount of data in short period of time. It is economical as
well as efficient. It is mostly used in those situations where experimental
methods cannot be used due to ethical and practical limitations.

However, while using correlation method, the researcher needs to

understand that correlation is not causation, i.e. correlation does not
establish the cause and effect relationship between the variables. In other
words, correlation does not guarantee that whether the differences in the
intensity of one variable are caused by the other. On the contrary, the
relationship between the two variables may be due to the influence of a
third variable. In the above example, we cannot state that donating to
disaster camps leads to happiness. But we would just understand whether
difference in one variable is associated with differences in other variables.
Another limitation of correlation method is that strict control over
independent variable is not possible. This may lead to confounding of
variables.

2.2.3 The Experimental Method: Knowledge through Systematic

Intervention:

One of the goals of psychology is explanation which is attained by

experimental method. Every experiment is an attempt to discover

20
relationships among certain conditions or events that can change. The
essence of experimental method is that -
1) the experimenter varies or changes something.
2) s/he keeps the other factor constant and
3) s/he observes the effect of this change on behavior

In other words, one variable is systematically changed in this

method and the effects of these changes are carefully and systematically
measured on one or more other variables. If one variable lead to changes
in another variable, we can conclude with reasonable certainty that there is
a causal relationship between the two variables.

The first variable which is systematically manipulated is called

independent variable. It is the factor whose effect the experimenter
wishes to find our or in other words it is a condition selected by the
experimenter. This factor is increased, decreased or withdrawn by the
experimenter, e.g. stimulus presented; a drug administered and so on.
Another variable which is dependent on independent variable and which is
measured in the experiment is called dependent variable. It is the
dependent variable on which we want to see the effect of independent
variable. In other words, the changes that come about as a result of the
change in the independent variable is called as the dependent variable. A
dependent variable may be a subject’s response to a stimulus, a change in
the behavior after administration of a drug, a score on a test and so on.
In a simple experiment, different groups of people are randomly assigned
to be exposed to various levels of independent variable (e.g. low,
moderate, high, etc.). The characteristics of the group which are relevant
in most psychological experiments on human beings are intelligence, age,
sex, and personality of the subject. The researcher, then, carefully
measures the behavior (dependent variable) to understand whether it does
vary with these changes in the independent variable. If it does occur,
including if two other conditions are met, then the researcher may
tentatively conclude that the independent variable is causing changes in
the behavior being observed.

For example, if a social psychologist wants to study that whether

exposure to violent video games increase the likelihood that people will
aggress against others in various ways (e.g., verbally, physically,
spreading false rumors, or posting embarrassing photos of them on the
Internet.). Then the psychologist can use the experimentation method. In
this experiment, the type of video games played will be independent
variable and the level of aggression will be dependent variable. However,
we can conclude the findings only when two conditions are met. The first
condition is termed random assignment of participants to experimental
conditions. This condition means that all participants in an experiment
must have an equal chance of being exposed to each level of the
independent variable. If this is not done, then later, it will be impossible to
determine whether the differences are due to differences in their behavior,

21
or from the impact of the independent variable, or both. The second
condition which is necessary for successful experimentation is all factors
other than the independent variable that might also affect participants’
behavior must be held constant. For example, in the given experiment, the
participants’ age, socio-economic status, nationality, and culture should be
constant otherwise they may interfere in the results of the experiment. In
such case, the independent variable is said to be confounded with another
variable-one that is not under systematic investigation in the study. When
such confounding occurs, the findings of an experiment may be
inaccurate. Hence, besides independent and dependent variable, in any
experiment there is an important variable known as controlled variable. It
means that there are certain factors that the experimenter should hold
constant or uniform across all the different conditions. If these factors are
not held constant then, along with the independent variable they also
influence dependent variable. It is called confounding variable. If such
confounding variables interfere then, experimenter cannot confidently
establish the cause and effect relationship between the independent and
dependent variable. This also lowers the validity of the experiment.

There are several advantages to the experimental method. It is the

most scientific method. The cause and effect relationship established by an
experimental method is highly accurate provided the experimenter
adequately controls the other variables. Another advantage of
experimentation is that the experiments can be replicated and results can
be verified over and over again.

Laboratory situation is generally an artificial situation and poses

problem of generalizability i.e. external validity. External validity refers to
the extent to which the results obtained of the experiment can be
generalized in real-life social situations. Researchers seek to obtain high
external validity of their research. Another disadvantage of
experimentation is the ethical constraints which may prevent a researcher
from conducting a particular experiment.

2.2.4 Further Thoughts on Causality: The Role of Mediating

Variables:

Social psychologists often use experimentation to answer the

questions about causality i.e. to understand the cause and effect
relationship. They are concerned in asking the question ‘why’ to
understand why one variable produces changes in another. For instance,
returning to the video game study described above, psychologists might
ask why does playing such games increase aggression? Whether it induces
increased thoughts about harming others or is there any other cause of
this?

In order to understand the causes, social psychologists often

conduct studies in which they measure not just a single dependent
variable, but other factors that are influenced by the independent variable
22
and then, in turn, affect the dependent measures. For instance, in the above
study, psychologists could measure participants’ thoughts about harming
others and their beliefs about when and whether aggression is acceptable
social behavior. This will help to explain why playing violent video games
increases subsequent aggression. If they do intervene, then they are known
as mediating variables. Mediating variables are the ones that intervene
between an independent variable and changes in social behavior or
thought(dependent variable).

2.2.5 Meta-Analysis: Assessing a Body of Knowledge:

A large body of research is available for various topics in social

psychology. For example, lot of research has been done to study the
gender differences in helping behavior. In order to assess the outcomes of
several researches, psychologists conduct a meta-analysis of the studies.
Meta-analysis is a statistical technique of combining multiple studies to
assess whether the same pattern of results are obtained despite various
ways in which the studies were conducted. There are some factors that can
alter the effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable.
These are called moderators. They can also affect the strength of
relationship between two variables. Meta-analysis also helps in pointing
out the gaps and biases in the scientific literature itself.

Check your progress

1. How research is playing an important role in increasing knowledge for
social psychologist?

2. Explain the three types of correlation.

2.3 THE ROLE OF THEORY IN SOCIAL

PSYCHOLOGY

One of the important goals of psychology is to explain behavior.

This can be achieved when social psychologists want to explain ‘why’ of
any social behavior or social thought. For example, why do people use
impression management? To explain this, the researcher will construct a
theory. All branches of science involve the construction of theories.

23
Theories are the frameworks to explain various events and processes. The
following procedure is followed to construct a theory:
1. A theory is proposed based on existing evidence. It includes two main
parts: basic concepts and statements concerning relationship between
them.
2. This proposed theory helps in predicting observable behavior. These
predictions are known as hypotheses.
3. Hypotheses are then tested by conducting actual research.
4. If obtained results of the research are consistent with the theory,
confidence in its accuracy is increased. If not, the theory is modified
and further research is done.
5. The theory is either accepted as accurate or rejected as inaccurate.
Even if a theory is accepted as accurate, it remains open for further
refinements with the development of improved methods of research. It
also remains open for additional evidence relevant to the predictions of
the theory.

Confirmation bias is one of the dangers inherent in theories. This

phenomenon was suggested by Greenwald et. al. (1999). It is the tendency
on the part of the researchers to seek support or confirmation for their
beliefs. It is a tendency on the part of the researchers to become personally
involved with and committed to theories which they have developed or
which they support.

Confirmation bias is one of the hurdles in objective evaluation of a

theory. In this a researcher over emphasizes data supporting the theories
they favor and tend to ignore or downplay data which are inconsistent with
their views.

Social psychologists generally disagree with the issue of confirmation

bias. Some researchers say that confirmation bias is a serious danger in
social psychological research. However, some researchers opine that
confirmation bias poses far less a threat to scientific accuracy than what
Greenwald and his colleagues have suggested. This is due to following
reasons-
1) Leading journals in the field reject up to 90 percent of the papers they
receive, the review process provides an important safeguard against
operation of the confirmation bias.
2) Even after research reports offering support for specific theories are
published, they are subject to careful review and criticism by
colleagues who do not support those theories. Other researches may
attempt to replicate the findings reported and, if they fail to do so, they
will seek to publish papers that are critical of the earlier research and
the theories on which it was based.

24
3) Finally, virtually all researchers in social psychology are fully aware
of the potential impact of the confirmation bias and take steps to guard
against it. Thus, they often ask people who are not committed to a
given theory (or perhaps don’t even know that it exists) to collect
crucial data. Similarly, they take plans to consider alternative
hypotheses and explanations when planning their research. Recent
findings suggest that such steps can go a long way toward countering
the impact of tendencies toward theory confirmation.

Here, two important aspects need to be highlighted. First,

theories are never proven to be true in the ultimate sense. Theories are
open to test. Second, social psychologists do not conduct research to prove
or verify a theory rather; researches are conducted to obtain relevant
evidence to the theory.

2.4 THE QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE AND THE RIGHTS

OF INDIVIDUALS: IN SEARCH OF AN APPROPRIATE
BALANCE

Social psychological research is different from other types of

research as it involves the technique of deception. Researchers employ
this technique to withhold or conceal information about the purposes or
procedures of a study from people participating in it. Deception is used in
psychological research because if the participants are aware of the true
rationale of the study in question, their behavior will be changed. Thus,
without deception, the results of the study would be inaccurate. For
example, suppose a researcher wants to know what will be the reaction of
a female if a male stares at her for a long time? Will she be uncomfortable,
anxious, scared or not concerned? To conduct this experiment, if the
researcher tells a boy to stare at a girl and girl knows that the boy has been
instructed to stare at her, will she react in the same way as she would have
done, if she was not aware of boy being instructed. It might so happen that
when it is in her knowledge that boy has been instructed to stare at her, she
may start giggling when boy stares at her. This behavior may be totally
different from her natural reaction that she might have given when she was
unaware of boy being instructed to stare at her. So, in certain research
situations it becomes necessary to use deception. However, the use of
deception raises ethical issues which need to be considered.

The first issue worth considering is that deception may lead to

some kind of harm to the participants of the study. They may be upset /
disappointed by their own reactions / responses given during the
experimental study. A milder form of deception is used by researchers is
called passive deception. Researchers may also use another form of
deception which involves providing misleading information which may be
harmful to the research participants.

25
 Second issue is , participants may get the feeling of being ‘fooled’
during a study. Recent studies have reported that deception, to some
degree, can raise the feelings of suspiciousness in participants. This
eventually leads to a negative attitude towards the scientific research of
social psychology and psychology in general.

Thus, there is a dilemma in use of deception: it is important to

obtain accurate and genuine results and on the other hand, it also has
ethical issues. For this purpose, psychologists suggest some ways to
resolve this dilemma. First, they agree upon the opinion that deception
should never be used to persuade people to participate in a study;
withholding information about what will happen in an experiment or
providing misleading information in order to induce people to participate
in it is definitely not acceptable. Secondly, social psychologists agree to
two basic safeguards that help in temporary deception are informed
consent and debriefing.

Informed consent refers to providing participants as much

information as possible about the procedures to be followed before they
make their decision to participate. This is done prior to a participants’
decision to take part in a given study. When informed consent is
employed, subjects participate in the study only after learning what it will
involve. The second safeguard is careful debriefing in which researchers
provide participants with a full description of the true purposes of a study
after they have participated in it. It includes an explanation of deception,
and why it was necessary to employ it. It also includes explaining the
major hypotheses under investigation to the participants. During
debriefing, all questions raised by subjects are answered and any negative
reactions on their part are discussed and eliminated. The basic guideline to
be followed is this: participants should leave the session in at least as
favorable and positive state as when they arrived. Existing evidence
indicates that when both the safeguards are used together they can
considerably reduce the potential dangers of deception.

On the contrary, researchers who are planning to use deception

should follow the guiding principles: (1) Researchers should use deception
only when it is absolutely necessary for the research being conducted -
when no other means for conducting the research exists;(2) Researchers
should always proceed with caution; and (3) It becomes the responsibility
of the researcher to take precautions to safeguard the rights, security, and
well-being of research participants.

Along with above considerations, it is important that the data

gathered from the participants or the data obtained about them must be
held in a strictest confidence. Preferably, data should be coded, so that it
cannot be identified with participants’ names. But in any case, the
information gathered in a study should be used only for research purposes,
and must never be released to persons wishing to use it for some other
ends.
26
Check your progress
1. Write about two important aspects of theory in social psychology.

2. Write a detailed note on deception.

3. Enumerate the guiding principles for using deception.

2.5 LET’S SUM UP

There are various research methods used in social psychology to

study human social behavior and thought. The important research routes to
study social thought and behavior are systematic observation, survey
method, correlation and experimentation. Each of these methods has
advantages and disadvantages. Social psychologists select the method for
research based on the appropriateness in the study. Systematic observation
refers to an accurate and organized observation of people. When such
observation is done in a natural setting, it is called naturalistic observation.
In this method, researcher simply observes some naturally occurring
behavior and does not intervene in the situation. While the advantage of
observation is obvious i.e., we get a sample of what people do in their
natural habitat. There is also an important drawback: the inability to
control some variables.

Survey method involves asking a number of questions relating to

the perceptions, attitudes or behavior to a large number of people. This
method helps to gather data from a large number of individuals in a
limited time span. However, care should be taken while using this method
in social psychological research as people might give inaccurate responses
as they may not remember the information or they don’t want to reveal
their true responses. While conducting surveys two important precautions
would help reducing the errors in the research. First precaution is to avoid
sampling errors. People who participate in the survey must be
27
representative of the larger population. Second precaution should be taken
while developing items of the survey. Items of the survey should short and
self-explanatory so that the participants can accurately understand what is
asked.

Another method used in social psychological research is

correlation. It taps to assess the relationship between two or more
variables. The value of correlation is called correlation coefficient. This
value ranges from -1.00 to +1.00. A positive value indicates that as the
value of one variable increases/ decreases; the value of other factor will
also increase/ decrease. This is called a positive correlation. On the other
hand, a negative value indicates a negative correlation which means that as
the value of one variable increases, the value of other variable decreases. It
indicates an inverse relationship between two variables. When there is no
correlation between the two variables, it is called zero correlation and the
correlation coefficient is zero. Correlation helps in prediction. It is highly
efficient as large amount of information can be obtained in a short period
of time. However, even though strong correlations are obtained, it does not
indicate cause and effect relationship.

The only way in which psychologists can establish a cause and

effect relationship through research is by carrying out an experiment.
Experimental method involves systematically altering one or more
variables (independent variables) to determine its effect on some aspect of
behavior (dependent variable). The relationship between two factors or
variables is investigated by deliberately producing a change in one
variable in a situation. This change is deliberately produced in a situation
by an experimenter. Independent variable is the factor or variable which is
varied or manipulated by an experimenter. Experimenter wants to observe
its impact on subject’s behavior. Dependent variable is measured and is
expected to change as a result of experimenter manipulation or
independent variable.

Two important conditions are required to be met for successful use

of this method- random assignment of participants and avoiding
confounding variables. In random assignment, a group of subjects are
assigned to a different experimental manipulation or condition on the basis
of chance and chance alone. Factors that are not held constant influence
dependent variable along with independent variable are called
confounding variable. If these conditions are not met, then the
experimenter cannot confidently establish a cause and effect relationship
between independent and dependent variable which lead to decline in the
external validity. Researchers also attempt to study the mediating
variables to understand the influence of independent variables on social
thought or behavior.

Meta-analysis is a statistical technique used to combine various

studies to synthesize a body of knowledge. The relationship between two
variables can be influenced by moderators. Theories are important and
28
helpful in explaining various events and processes. It answers the why
aspect of any behavior. There is procedure which must be followed to
propose a theory. Confirmation bias is an obstacle in objective
development and evaluation of a theory and thus, care should be taken by
the researcher. Though evidence is obtained about accuracy of a theory, it
is open to further test.

Deception means concealing or hiding the information from the

participants-regarding the real purpose of the study. Psychologists do this
because they believe that if they reveal the real purpose, then they may not
get the valid results. There is a dilemma in the use of deception- on the
one hand, it is useful for research and on the other, and it gives rise to
ethical issues. Psychologists provide two important safeguards to address
this issue: informed consent and debriefing. Informed consent means
giving maximum information to the participants about search procedures,
before they decide to take part in the research. Debriefing means after the
research; participants are given full information about the real purpose of
the research. We can conclude that if researchers want to use deception in
their study, then participants’ safety, well-being should be well taken care
of.

2.6 QUESTIONS

1. Explain the different research methods in social psychology.

2. Discuss the role of theory in social psychology.
a. Write short note on independent variable.
b. Write in detail the role of mediating variable.
3. Describe survey method in detail. Write your answer with suitable
examples.
4. Write short notes on
a. Informed consent
b. Debriefing
c. Correlation
d. Meta-analysis

2.7 REFERENCES

1. Branscombe, N. R. & Baron, R. A., Adapted by Preeti Kapur (2017).

Social Psychology. (14th ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian
reprint 2017.
2. Myers, D. G., Sahajpal, P., & Behera, P. (2017). Social psychology
(10th ed.). McGraw Hill Education.



29
 3
SOCIAL PERCEPTION: SEEKING TO
UNDERSTAND OTHERS - I
Unit Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Defining Social Perception
3.3 Non-Verbal Communication: An unspoken Language
3.3.1 Basic Channels of Non-Verbal Communication
3.3.2 Non-Verbal Cues in Social Life
3.3.3 Recognizing Deception
3.4 What research tells us about the role of non verbal cues in job
interviews?
3.5 Let us sum up
3.7 Questions
3.6 Reference

3.0 OBJECTIVES

● Defining social cognition and social perception.

● Understanding non-verbal communication.
● Identification of various basic channels of communication.
● Analyzing and identifying nonverbal cues in social life.
● Being able to recognize deception and getting insight into deceptive
patterns.
● Learning the effect of deception on social relations.

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Social perception is the procedure through which one seeks

knowledge about others. It is a process through which one can get to know
and understand other people around them. We will also seek to understand
how social perception is different and how at times we are likely to get it
right. To understand others one has to rely on their own abilities and skills.
Since social perception is a complex phenomenon, it involves different
tasks. Most important parts of social perception are focused in this
module. Firstly, the Non-Verbal Communication - important information

30
about others’ present feelings and reactions gained through their eye
contact, body movements, postures and facial expressions.

The knowing and understanding about others can be done in two

ways mentioned below.

I. Through Non-verbal Communication:

Non-verbal communication, as we all know, involves making use

of body postures, movements, facial expressions and eye contact.
However, only temporary causes of one’s behavior can be understood
through non-verbal communication. It can only tell us about the current
feelings, emotions and affect of others.

II. Through the Process of Attribution:

In contrast to non-verbal communication, through the process of

attribution we get to know about the permanent causes of other’s behavior.
Attribution can helps us to know about other’s motives, traits and
intentions. Attribution is a complex process, in which one can observe
other’s behavior and later attempt to infer the causes behind it with the
help of that information.

Social perception plays an important role in our understanding regarding

others because of the following reasons:
● Our decisions and responses in a given situation are influenced by the
way we perceive other’s behaviors and themselves.
● The definite way in which we understand and perceive others, strongly
shapes not only our evaluation but also relations with these people.
● One of the important tasks of social relations is having knowledge
about others in order to have accurate predictions of their future
behavior.

3.2 DEFINING SOCIAL COGNITION AND SOCIAL

PERCEPTION

People are usually curious to know about other people apart from
themselves. Social cognition is the phenomenon of how people think
about other people. It is a broad concept which involves the perceiver
encoding, processing and remembering and making use of information
into social contexts to make sense of others' behavior. Hence, it becomes
an essential element in one’s understanding of groups and interpersonal
aspects of people's lives.

Social perception is the process through which we get to know

other people. It is a process which involves understanding ways in which
we gather and analyze information about people.

31
3.3 NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: AN
UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE

Any idea which is communicated from one person to another

without any usage of words is termed as non-verbal communication.
Cultural norms are important to keep in mind while defining non-verbal
communication. Various non-verbal tools signify various things in various
cultures such as eye-contact, touching and personal space etc. For
instance, in the United States it is considered to be polite to maintain an
eye-contact when speaking to someone superior while in Asian cultures,
this same gesture is viewed as disrespectful.

One of the most common phrases used while talking about non
verbal communication is ‘body language’. The term body language is
broad, it includes aspects like movements, gestures and postures that are
used to send messages about what one means as we will be seeing in this
unit. Sometimes body language may not fall in sync with what is being
said, so having an understanding of how to read the body language can be
very helpful in determining what the other person needs or wants.

Non-verbal communication can be defined as the communication

that does not involve spoken language content but instead relies on an
unspoken language of facial expression, body language and eye contact.
Non-verbal communication makes use of certain cues to recognize
temporary causes of one’s behaviors, feelings, emotions and their current
moods. As these are temporary factors or causes that influences one’s
behavior, we can study the temporary causes of others behaviors by either
asking them directly about how they feel or by observing their non-verbal
actions to understand what they are feeling. When individuals are asked
directly to tell something about their current affective states or moods,
they may not be willing to reveal their inner personal feelings. Some may
actively conceal emotions experienced at the given moment or they may
even deliberately deceive others about their true feelings. It is in these
kinds of instances where non-verbal expressions help understand them
better. For example:
● While negotiating negotiators may hide their reactions from their
opponents
● Students may not reveal their dislike openly towards their teachers.
● Salesman or waiters in restaurants showing more liking and
friendliness towards potential customers than they really feel.

Receiving information about others through the means of their

non-verbal expressions is a less direct method of investigation. In Non-
verbal behavior it is difficult to hide or control our feelings and behavior,
making it a behavior which is relatively irrepressible. In other words, these
are the feelings which one cannot control or conceal actively, they are
bound to get leaked through non-verbal cues.
32
Mechanisms of Social Perception :

Mechanisms of social perception are implied in order to have a

superficial or deeper understanding of people by making use of different
methods, techniques, methods and ways. These mechanisms of social
perception consist of non-verbal communication channels, external and
internal attribution, impressions and implicit theories regarding people.
Our social perception is found to be setting stages for social interactions.
To determine the nature of our interaction with others, our perceptions
about the way others feel, their traits and motives play an important role.
There are two stages to get to know about other people. First,
understanding their temporary states which consist of present feelings and
emotions. Second, understanding the most lasting and permanent
characteristics which consist of their intentions, motives or traits.

Understanding Temporary States:

Various factors can influence our temporary states. Temporary

states are those by which our behavior gets affected socially. These
temporary factors or causes may include fatigue, changing mood, illnesses
and drugs are found to be influencing the ways in which one thinks and
behaves. For instance, when one of our good friends started to behave in a
‘peculiar manner’ we realized that he was on a heavy dosage of medicine
for his illness. Such temporary factors exert an influence on one's thoughts
and social behaviors, while we try to find out how others are feeling. How
to go about with this process of understanding? We may not be able to get
a genuine answer when we attempt to ask people about how they are
feeling. The next less direct method for gathering information about others
is to give careful attention to others’ body language and other non-verbal
cues through changes in their eye-contact, posture, body movement and
facial expressions. Research suggests such non-verbal behavior is
relatively difficult or irresistible to take control of hence even when others
attempt to hide or conceal their inner feelings from us, these non-verbal
cues tend to spill out real feelings in many subtle ways towards those
whom these people are close would understand. When information is
conveyed by such cues and efforts involved to interpret are often named as
non-verbal communication that is through the language of tone, posture
(body language), eye contact and facial expressions.

3.3.1 Basic Channels of Non-Verbal Communication:

Most individuals differ in their behaviour when they experience

different emotional states. The ways in which these behavioral differences
in one’s inner state- emotions, mood, feelings are seen, are through these
below mentioned basic channels of non-verbal communication. There are
five basic channels: facial expressions, body movements, posture and
touching

33
1) Facial Expression:

Facial expressions are guides to inner feelings, emotions and

moods of others. Ancient scholars considered facial expressions as the
‘Face being an image of the Soul’. It means that human feelings and
emotions are often reflected in the face and can be specifically read.
Research suggests that one can learn a great deal about others present
mood and feelings from their facial expressions. This sums up for the
largest proportion of non-verbal communication. It has been found that
there are five basic emotions expressed by human face from an early age,
these facial expressions mount for happiness, sadness, anger, disgust and
fear are similar across cultures throughout the world. Surprise is also seen
as one of the commonly reflected facial expressions, however evidence for
this seems to be mixed hence it may not be found to be as basic as other
emotions. However, since there are only these five emotions, they may not
imply that people show only a small number of expressions, many
emotions may be expressed by combining these basic emotions. For
example, joy can be expressed with sadness or sorrow, anger combined
with fear and so on. These emotions vary greatly in terms of their strength.
These basic expressions are expressed universally, but there may be
cultural differences in terms of the way they are being expressed and the
meanings associated with it. For example, in India, there are various
connotations to the word 'lajja' it can be associated with shame, guilt,
shyness, bliss or happiness. But like verbal or spoken languages, facial
expressions do not need much of effort to translate what one intended to
express.

Eye Contact as A Nonverbal Cue:

Ancient wisdom described eyes as “windows to the soul”. This is

correct to a large extent. We do judge others’ feelings through their eyes.
For example, if another person avoids eye contact, we may conclude that
he is not trustworthy, he is unfriendly, does not like us or is simply shy.
On the other hand, if a person maintains lot of eye contact, we will
conclude that this person is very friendly, seems to be honest, truthful and
likes us.

Eye Gaze Looking, Staring, and Blinking are All Considered Types of
Eye Gaze

We can often learn a great deal about others internal states through
their eye-contact. Looking at another person can indicate a range of
emotions including hostility, interest, or attraction.

We often get to learn a lot from the eyes of others. There are two
types of eye contacts, namely,
A. Gaze: It is considered as a high level of eye contact, and is generally
viewed positively by others. It involves establishing eye-contact but is
not continuous. We usually gaze at the ones whom we like or are
34
 friendly with. One can identify gazing to be a sign of friendliness or
liking while in contrast those who avoid eye-contact can be viewed to
be unfriendly.

B. Stare: However, anything in excess is not welcome. Same is true for

eye contact too. If a person gazes at a person continuously and
maintains eye contact irrespective of what we do or say, such a gaze
will be called staring. A stare is considered to be a sign of anger,
hostility, unfriendliness, etc. This is considered as cold stare and many
people find it very disturbing. People react to such cold stares by
quickly terminating the interaction or quickly withdraw from that
place. Some people find stare as weird while others feel a person who
stares is rude or does not know how to behave in social situations.

Eye contact plays a role in several important types of relational

interaction.

2) Body Language: Gestures, Postures and Movements:

Body language is very subtle and may not be very definitive. These
are the cues provided by one’s position, posture or movements of body
parts. For example, rounded body postures communicates warmth and
friendliness, while angular body postures communicate hostility or threat
as shown in Indian classical dances.

Body language and Postures also reveal one’s emotional states, for
example, large number of movements suggest emotional arousal
(scratching, rubbing, touching). Higher the frequency of such movements,
higher is the intensity of arousal or nervousness. Information about one's
traits and emotions can be drawn from the number of body movements or
postures that a person makes. They also provide us specific information
about what others are feelings through gestures. For example, in many
countries holding one hand with thumb pointing up may indicate a sign of
‘Okay’. Lastly they also reveal a lot about other’s physical states for
example, their gait, vigor, age etc. It is the extent to which they possess
several different traits.

3) Touching:
Touching conveys various kinds of intentions behind one’s
behavior. It depends on numerous factors depending on who is touching
(stranger, friend or member of the other gender). Not only that but also the
nature of contact (gentle, rough, brief, prolonged), the part of the body
touched and the context where touching takes place (social, business
setting or doctors office) convey different information. Touching (Haptics)
is especially important in infancy and early childhood. It is an important
aspect of interpersonal communication and perception. Touch or Physical
contact can be influenced by many factor like one’s age, culture,
relationship between them etc. Handshakes are the most acceptable way of
touching, even strangers. Other five major aspects of touching are:
35
affectionate touch, care giving touch, power and control touch, aggressive
touch, ritualistic touch. One of the most acceptable ways in which many
people touch strangers in various cultures is through handshaking.
Findings suggest that handshakes are a form of non-verbal communication
where firm and longer handshakes are viewed to be more favorable. Hence
touching is used as the basis to form one's social perception.

Scent: Another important channel of Non-verbal Communication:

Even though body movements, eye-contact, gestures, touching and
facial expressions are crucial and important foundations of non-verbal
information, those are not the only ones. Information can also be gained
from what we term as paralinguistic cues, gauging information through the
changes in the inflection or tone and pitch of people’s voices (which is
quite apart from the meaning of words). Recent research indicates that
subtle cues that are related to others body chemistry are reveal the
importance of paralinguistic cues. For instance, one of the researches
indicated that changes in the women’s internal chemistry that takes place
during menstrual cycle can be transferred to others (especially to men)
through the medium of subtle olfactory cues that take place via the change
in odour emitting from their bodies. A large number of women during this
research were ask to wear clean T-shirt in the night during that month –
either while they were ovulating (during 13 to 15 days of their menstrual
cycle) or/and post the ovulation period (during 20-22 days of their
menstrual cycle). Those T-shirts were then sealed into plastic bags and
were presented to men, who were asked to open the bag slightly and then
smell those shirts. Men were unaware about the women who were
involved or about their menstrual cycle, post that when their testosterone
were assessed, clear results emerged, where men who smelled those T-
shirts worn by ovulating women displayed higher levels of testosterone
than those who smelled the T-shirts worn by women who were not
ovulating or those who smelled clean T-shirts which weren’t worn by
anybody. Surprisingly, men couldn’t mention the differences in the scents
of the T-shirts that were worn after ovulation was over, but still their
testosterone levels differed. In sum, these findings indicated that chemical
changes in the body too can provide non-verbal cues regarding other
people – at least in case of females and their menstrual cycle. So truly,
there are many sources to obtain information about people’s internal states
and not all of it can be revealed by eye-contact or facial expressions or
other basic channels of non-verbal communication.

Why is Nonverbal Communication Effective?:

Nonverbal cues may vary from culture to culture. On the other
hand, studies have indicated seven types of facial expressions that are
universally present throughout the human race. It has been found and
estimated that most of the communication takes place nonverbally,
summing up to be around 80 percent of it, based upon the perception of
person’s eye-contact, gestures, environment and clothing.

36
 By observing and keeping a track of someone’s nonverbal
communication cues can help us find out what is truly being said beyond
the words spoken verbally. There are times where a person may be
agreeing with us verbally while other cues like avoiding eye-contact or
fidgeting indicate them not being completely honest with their words. This
means that only when we notice the match between people's non verbal
and verbal communication we can determine and be sure of their response
over our idea or thoughts

Once we understand the importance of body language, we can also

understand its importance in helping people to understand each others’
point of view. This can be done through various techniques, e.g.,
'mirroring' technique can help us to understand each other. In this
technique we subtly imitate or mimic the other person's body language,
gestures and even speech patterns. Usually mirroring takes place naturally
when there's a communication between people, but it can also be used in a
strategic method to help make others more comfortable in a tense
situation. However, some precautions should be taken; like the person
whom one mimics should not feel that they are being teased, meaning that
the mirroring shouldn't be the exact.

3.3.2 Non-Verbal Cues in Social Life:

Have you ever heard people saying this phrase ‘action speaks
louder than words’? In a way it indicates that when people communicate,
there is something more than just words, their non-verbal cues. Although
verbal communication is very important, non-verbal cues are perhaps
more revealing as discussed below.

Paralanguage:
Paralanguage is a vocal means to communicate, which does not
include words but is still considered as a part of nonverbal
communication. Paralanguage includes gasps, sighs murmurs and even
voice quality, intonation and pitch. Findings indicate that we often tend to
learn more from non-verbal cues which take place when people speak as
compared to their words alone. Paralanguage, a type of non-verbal
communication involves vocal effects apart from speech like tone and
pitch, we often convey our emotions through the specific sound or the
quality of one's voice, independent of the words used by them. for
example, being able to sense someone’s anger not by their words but by
the way they sound.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis:

Have you ever tried to smile or whistle while you are in a nervous
situation and then ended up smiling and calming down? It not you must
try it out. Now, this indicates that it is not a one-way process to feel and
influence emotions but a two way one, i.e., facial feedback hypothesis
states that contractions of facial muscle movement can not only indicate
37
what the person wants to communicate to others but also what s/he wants
to communicate to himself. In other words, it is believed that facial
expressions have a direct influence over the experience of one's affect. In
other words, we can say that non-verbal cues not only influence our
emotions but also influence our inner states.

Facial information: An important source of information about others:

As we have seen that there are many sources of non-verbal
information to gauge others, we now place emphasis over facial
expressions, although this is certainly true and the rising evidence support
the importance in this respect. In this sense it is not astonishing because
we pay ample attention to others’ faces as we converse/interact with them.
This has been supported by many studies, e.g., studies have shown that if
visual stimuli are viewed in a particular situation, it reduces the attention
to those stimuli in subsequent occasions. But this is not true for facial
expressions. Even if we see facial expressions once, they still grab our
attention on subsequent occasions. This is specifically true for facial
expressions that are negative. Even though these kinds of expressions are
noticed only once, they are still easier to notice as compared to other
stimuli on later occasions. For instance, it is easy and quick to spot an
angry face in an array of faces as compared to smiling or neutral faces.
Another important aspect is the extent to which neutral facial expressions
of a person resembles a specific emotional expression, even when there is
no experience of any strong emotion. For instance, faces of males are seen
to be more of like angry expressions to a great extent than faces of
females. In short, humans tend to perceive more in the faces of others than
it really is there, inferring the basic expressions on their faces to be
suggestive of specific emotions, even if they aren’t really present. This
simply suggest that facial expressions are an important pillar of non-verbal
information, although the conclusions received in this context may be far
from accurate. Finally, the most interesting fact is that facial expressions
do not only serve as a piece of information to the observers who make use
of them to understand what people show by displaying expressions about
what they feel but also play a crucial role in generating such feelings or
emotions. In other words, as suggested by one of the prominent American
psychologists, facial expressions are not only the exterior signals of
internal states, but they can also influence or trigger emotional
experiences. The view that these facial expressions trigger emotions is
called facial feedback hypothesis as we discussed above. For instance,
Davis et.al. (2010) conducted a very interesting experiment. They
compared the facial expressions and emotional reactions of two groups of
people who received different types of anti wrinkle drugs. First both the
groups were shown positive and negative video clips and asked to rate
their feelings about each video clip on a rating scale from very negative to
very positive. After days of taking these ratings from them, one group was
administered Botox, a medicine that paralyzes muscles involved in facial
expressions. The other group was administered Restylane, a drug that
simply fills the wrinkles without paralyzing facial muscles. Then after a

38
gap of 14 to 24 days after the administration of drugs, both the groups
were again shown the video clips and asked to rate their feels. It was
found that those who received Botox reported weaker emotional reactions
to both types of clips. This clearly indicated that facial muscles influence
our emotional experiences. So what we express influences what we feel
inside too.

This gets support from traditional wisdom too. Very often you
must have seen that when a small child is sobbing, others try to make him
laugh by deliberately instructing him to smile and laugh. The child may do
it without feeling happiness to begin with but as he starts smiling, he starts
feeling better and gets over his gloomy mood.

3.3.3 Recognizing Deception:

Why do we deceive others? Probably, to avoid hurting others’
feelings or may be to get ourselves out of trouble with a friend, parent or
teacher. Deceptive communication occurs more often than we can think.
Findings indicate that most people lie at least once, every day and make
use of deception almost 20% of the times during social interaction. Since
lying seems to be frequent, we must be able to recognize when it occurs. It
is very difficult to recognize deception. There are several reasons for it,
such as –

We tend to perceive others to be truthful due to which we don't

search for cues of deception. We tend to be polite to others and that makes
us reluctant to report deception by others. Another reason can be our
moods. Our moods can influence our ability to recognize deception.
Studies have shown that those with sad mood can recognize deception
better than those who are in a happy mood. It has also been found that
those who are successful in lying to others can successfully conceal their
deception by nonverbal cue management. Research indicate that one’s
accuracy in decoding non-verbal cues is associated with one's desire to be
liked and accepted by others depending about the need to belong of that
person i.e. Higher the need to belong of an individual, better they are at
being able to read non-verbal cues of others by paying careful attention
due to their need to understand them.

It is a well known fact that everyone engages in deception at least

occasionally. Hence it is important to be able to identify lies when they
tend to occur. In order to decipher when our social perception gets tricked
by others, one can pay careful attention to both their verbal and non-verbal
cues to reveal the deception created.

The following information has been found to be useful to be

helpful with respect to nonverbal cues:

39
1. Micro expressions:
These are fleeting expressions which usually last only for a one
tenths of a second. Such reactions are difficult to control or suppress and
appear quickly on face after an emotion provoking event. Consequently,
revealing true feelings/emotions of another person. For example, you
might ask someone about something that you have purchased, to find out
how the person really felt, pay close attention to their facial expressions. If
you happen to see them frowning immediately followed by smiling, it may
be a sign of lying by stating a different reaction or opinion than otherwise
felt.

2. Inter- channel differences:

It is the second non-verbal cue which reveals deception. Here, the
word channel indicates the kinds of non-verbal cues, such as body
movement being one channel while facial expressions being another one.
Usually, when people are trying to deceive another person, there will be
discrepancies between the non-verbal cues from difference basic channels.
People who lie cannot manage all their channels at one. For instance, one
may control and manage their facial expressions while lying by forgetting
to make an eye-contact.

3. Eye-contact:
One’s efforts to deceive can be revealed through eye contact too. It
is found that people who lie blink their eyes more often and have dilated
pupils as compared to those who do not lie. They may also display low or
surprisingly high level of eye-contact, making an attempt to be honest by
making a direct eye-contact.

4. Exaggerated facial expressions:

It is sometimes seen that people who lie may display exaggerated
emotions. Their smile maybe broader than usual and may show greater
sorrow than in a particular situation. Such as someone saying no to your
request and then feeling overly sorry for it signifying the reasons of the
person to say no to be false.

Along with these non-verbal cues people may also display other
signs of deception through what they actually say or the choice of words
they make. People often speak in high pitch when they attempt to lie. They
often seek a longer time to respond to a question or to start participation in
an event. While speaking, they may also display a greater tendency to start
sentences, stop suddenly and then begin again or they may often repair
their sentences. So, people's linguistic styles can reveal their deception.
We can often identify through people's way of speaking whether they are
lying or attempting to hide their feelings from others. However, the
successfulness of being able to identify those who deceive us is uncertain,
as some people may simply be skilled at lying.

40
Effects of Deception on social relations:
As we have seen till now, deception seems to be a very common
aspect of social life, having large impact, as we may rightly guess, they are
highly negative. Recent findings indicate that when people who are lied to
display mistrust and dislikes towards the liar. In fact, more the lies that a
stranger is found to be saying, more s/he is disliked. Perhaps it is also
witnessed that after one gets exposed someone who has lied, may engage
in similar kinds of behavior themselves.

3.4 WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT THE ROLE

OF NON-VERBAL CUES IN JOB INTERVIEWS?

Evidence suggests that in order to make a good impression at job

interviews, it is important to take non-verbal cues into consideration. For
example, in one study, professional interviewers (having several years of
experience) were shown actual job interview’s videotapes. Applicants
were rated by these interviews over the level of motivation and social
skills - ability to interact well with others. Whereas trained judges rated
their non-verbal cues at the interview. Results indicated that non-verbal
cues like smiles, gestures and time taken to talk were related to both the
judgment of applicant’s social skills and motivation. Applicants who
received higher ratings from the interviews were the ones who were high
on these behaviors.

Would something as simple as posture have an effect over one’s

interview performance?

Research suggests that it can. One can display the feelings of being
powerful non-verbally; by occupying more space with a strong, tall
posture. On the other hand, low-power posture is indicated by a hunched
over body which minimizes space occupied space. Such postures not only
influence others as one being powerful or non-powerful but also
influences the person himself to feel more powerful physiologically and
behaviorally.

Check your progress

1. Define social perception.

41
2. What is non-verbal communication?

3. Write a detailed note on body language and postures.

4. What are the effects of deception on social perception?

3.5 LET'S SUM UP

As we saw in this unit, we understood social cognition - which

explains how people think about other people and social perception that
includes ways through which we understand other people. This is done to
understand other’s emotional states by relying upon nonverbal
communication.

We also looked into the mechanisms of social perception which

consist of non-verbal communication channels, external and internal
attribution, impressions and implicit theories about other people. Followed
by the understanding of temporary states, which are the factors that
include fatigue, mood, illnesses and drugs which induce a certain way to
behave in people.

Non-Verbal Communication is an unspoken language of eye

contact, facial expressions, body movements and touching. While facial
expressions may not be universal for all basic emotions, they do provide
useful information about others. Even body language helps us learn about
one's emotions through movements, postures and positions. Emotions can
also be expressed through the way people speak vocally through their
42
tone, volume, pitch and rhythm. Emotions not only influence our non
verbal cues but also these cues themselves an influence our internal
feelings as given by facial feedback hypothesis.

We also learnt about the effectiveness of non-verbal

communication and regarding the cues such as Paralanguage and Facial
feedback hypothesis which are helpful in our social lives.

We discussed ways to recognize deception and ways through

which one can identify them. Micro-expressions are revealing of
deception, however, they tend to get unnoticed. These signs of deception
are also present in the way one speaks - their linguistic style. One's mood
can influence their ability to recognize deception. People in happy mood
can recognize deception better than those who are in a sad mood.

3.6 QUESTION

1. Discuss the basic channels of non-verbal communication.

2. Explain the role of non verbal cues in a job interview.
3. Why do people use deception? Explain in brief.
4. Describe and mention ways to recognize deception.
5. Write short notes on
a) Paralanguage.
b) Facial feedback hypothesis.

3.7 REFERENCE

 Branscombe, N. R. &Baron, R. A., Adapted byPreetiKapur(2017).

Social Psychology. (14th Ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian
Reprint 2017.



43
 4
SOCIAL PERCEPTION: SEEKING TO
UNDERSTAND OTHERS - II
Unit Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Attribution: Understanding the causes of behavior
4.2.1 Theories of Attribution: Attempting to make sense of the
Social World
4.2.2 Basic Sources of Error in Attribution
4.2.3 Applications of Attribution Theory: Insights and Interventions
4.3 Impression Formation and Management: Combining information
about information
4.3.1 Impression Formation
4.3.2 Impression Management
4.4 What research tells us about why some people conclude they are
superior to others?
4.5 Let us sum up
4.6 Question
4.7 References

4.0 OBJECTIVES

 Defining Attribution
 Identify the causes of human behavior
 Analyzing errors, we commit while we attribute
 Understanding theories of Attribution
 Understanding how impression formation takes place
 Learning to manage impression

4.1 INTRODUCTION

In the previous unit we understood what social perception is and

various aspects of it. After looking into one of the ways of obtaining
information about one's perception, through Non-Verbal Communication
we will now discuss the next two very important aspects of social
perception. First, Attribution, the process of understanding the reasons
44
behind others behavior - why one acted in the way s/he did and what goals
and intention they seek to attain. Second, impression formation - how first
impressions of others are formed and impression management (self -
presentation) - trying to create favourable impression on others.

4.2 ATTRIBUTION: UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSES OF

BEHAVIOR

Attribution can be understood as a process through which we

attempt to identify the causes of others’ behavior and to seek knowledge
of their stable dispositions and traits. In other words, we come to know
through this process about the stable causes and permanent characteristics
of individuals’s actions and behavior. Attribution answers the ‘why’ of
other’s behavior. In other words, attribution refers to not only the causes
behind other’s behaviors, but also in some occasions the causes behind our
behaviors.

4.2.1 Theories of Attribution: Attempting to make sense of the Social

World:

Since the process of attribution is complex, many theories have

been proposed to explain regarding how it operates, about when, why and
how we do so. We will be discussing two classic theories of attribution
which continue to be influential and other factors related to attribution.

Theory of Correspondent Inference (Jones & Davis, 1965):

Correspondent inference asks the question on what basis we use

information for inferring the traits of others behavior? To begin with it
might seem to be a simple question to answer. Others provide us about lot
of information, based on observing behavior carefully. People act in
certain ways not because doing that reflects their traits or preferences but
due to the external factors which leave them with little choice. For
example, the receptionist at a restaurant who greets and smiles and act in a
friendly manner does so because it’s her job which requires her to act that
way. For situations like these, using others behaviors as a guide to their
lasting motives or traits can be misleading.

According to this theory we are likely to focus on the kinds of

actions that are most likely to be informative. First, when behavior is
freely chosen we are likely to consider it to be corresponding to a person’s
traits. In contrast, if this behavior has been forced upon a person we are
less likely to view it as a person’s trait. Second, careful attention is paid to,
non-common effects- one specific behavior that is unusual and stands
apart from others’ response to a specific condition. If we rule out all
other possible causes that may be responsible for this unusual response
then, actions that produce non-common effects are found to be
informative.

45
 Finally, theorists suggest that actions of others which are low
in social desirability are paid more attention to than the actions that are
high on this dimension. In other words, we learn more about others when
their actions are not very ordinary than from those which are ordinary just
like all other people.

To conclude, according to this theory, behavior reflects people’s

stable traits (correspondent behavior is drawn from the inferences between
one’s behavior and their personal qualities) provided when behavior is
either chosen freely, displays distinctive, non-common effects and is low
on social desirability or shows some kind of violation of the social norms.

Covariation theory (Kelly,1972):

As humans, it is a natural human tendency that we would want to

know the ‘why’ behind any behavior, being central attributional tasks
people face. We want to know why some events turned out to be the way
they did or why we acted in a particular way. Such information is crucial
because it is important to make sense of the social world around. To make
this task more clear we often manage it in terms of whether others
behavior mainly stem from causes that are internal (their own motives,
traits, intentions) or external (aspects of physical or social world) or both.
For example, one may wonder, the reason why you didn't receive
promotion was because you failed to work hard (an internal cause) or your
boss’s unfair and biasness (an external cause) or perhaps both. In order to
answer this problem, covariation theory attempts to answer the ‘why’ to
other’s behaviors by focusing on three major types of information.

First, Consensus - information about the extent to which other people

behave the same way towards the same stimulus as the actor does.
Second, Consistency – the extent to which people react to the stimulus or
event in the same way on all the occasions.
Lastly, Distinctiveness - extent to which people react in the same way to
different stimuli or events.

According to this theory, when the consensus and distinctiveness

are low but the consistency is high, we are more likely to attribute that
behavior to an internal cause. In contract, when the consensus, consistency
and distinctiveness are all found to be high, we're likely to attribute that
behavior to an external cause. Lastly, when the consensus is low, but the
consistency and distinctiveness are high, we are likely to attribute that
behavior to a combination of internal as well as external factors. To
conclude, main assumptions of this theory have been confirmed in a wide
range of social situations, providing important insights into the nature of
causal attributions.

46
Other Dimensions of Causal attribution:

We are often interested in figuring out whether others’ behaviors

stem mainly from internal or external causes. We are also concerned with
stability of the behavior which is influenced by the causal factors and
controllability. Whether individuals can influence or change their
behaviors if they desire to. Some causes of behavior which are internal to
people are quite stable over time, like temperament and personality traits.
Whereas, other internal causes can or may often change, like one’s health,
motives, and fatigue. Likewise, some internal causes are controllable like
trying to control one’s temper. Whereas some internal causes like illnesses
or disabilities may be nearly impossible to control. The same is true for
external causes of behavior.

Fate Attributions VS Personal Choice:

Attribution is the belief of how we perceive an event, by

concluding that something was meant to be or we have a role to play in
causing those events to happen. Another approach to attribution is that of
attribution of events to fate, forces that operate outside our understanding
and control. Since both interpretations are possible, what are the factors
that lead us to choose one over another? Some answers on this have been
provided by research which suggest belief in fate is related to two aspects,
one - belief in complex causality, that events are influenced by many
causes, as no single cause is sufficient to explain the occurrences and
second, the existence of god and religious convictions. These two beliefs
lead to the conclusions that occurrences of unlikely events ‘are meant to
be’.

Action Identification and Attribution Process:

There are times when we try to understand the reason why some
people act in some particular way and what they want to accomplish, there
are a wide range of interpretations that we have with us. For instance:
seeing that someone is putting loose change into his piggy bank we may
assume that the person is saving money to address his future needs. Here,
the first is a low level of interpretation focusing on the action while
attributing very little to the way of planning of the person involved.
Second, the action (putting into the piggy bank) attributes to the person’s
plans or intentions and goals. Here, the action is same but its interpretation
is different and the reason of why it occurs is different. This level of
interpretation is called as action identification. There are a wide range of
possibilities or interpretations when we seek to understand why others do
what they do, which also include what goals they want to accomplish.
Action identification can be defined as the interpretation that we place on
an act in terms of its varying degrees of abstractions.

47
4.2.2 Basic Sources of Error in Attribution:

People feel that they have been generally doing a good job of
evaluating and making sense of the social world accurately. However this
is not the case, our efforts to understand ourselves and other people
involve several types of misconceptions. These errors of attribution can
lead us to conclusions which are false regarding why others acted as they
did and also influence one's predictions about their actions in the future.
Let us see some of these errors that can take place.

Correspondence Bias:

It is also called fundamental attribution error. It is a tendency to

explain other’s behavior in terms of internal factors, such as his
personality, in spite of compelling situational factors being present that
can explain his behavior. In other words, we believe that others behave the
way they do because they are ‘that kind of a person’. This is done even
when there are external logical factors motivating behavior of another
person. Hence, people are bound to overlook the circumstances and tend
to infer on the basis of the person's actions. This error is more likely to
take place, especially, when both consensus and distinctiveness are low,
and when we are trying to predict a person’s behavior in far off future
rather than in near future.

The question arises why we attribute others’ actions to their

internal traits rather than to external situations. One of the reasons can be
that when we observe another person’s behavior, we tend to ignore
potential situational causes and pay more attention to personal disposition.
This error tends to be more predominant in individualistic cultures than in
collectivistic cultures.

Actor Observer Effect:

It is a tendency to attribute one’s own behavior to situational

(external) causes, but the behavior of others to dispositional (internal)
causes. This effect occurs partly since we are usually aware of the external
factors affecting our own actions, but are however, less aware of external
factors that may have influenced the actions of other people. Hence our
behavior is perceived to rise out of situational causes but others behavior
is perceived to derive mainly from their traits.

Self-Serving Bias:

Self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one's own positive

outcome to internal causes but the negative outcomes to external factors.
This bias has a powerful effect. There are several explanations to this
biasness, out of which, it has been suggested that it mostly falls in two
categories i.e., cognitive and motivational. Cognitive model suggests that
positive outcomes are attributed to internal causes while negative
48
outcomes are attributed to external causes as we expect to succeed.
Motivational model suggests that our need to enhance and protect our self-
esteem is where self-serving bias stems from. However, both play an
important role in self-serving bias, motivational model holds more
evidence.

4.2.3 Applications of Attribution Theory: Insights and Interventions:

Attribution theory helps understand not only other’s behaviors but

also how to apply it to understand depression, a mental health disorder. It
also helps gain insight onto terrorism and harm doings and reasons
behind it.

Attribution and depression:

Depression being the most common mental health disorder has

been estimated to affect almost half of the human population at least at
some point in their life. Out of the numerous factors that play a role in
depression, the most likely one is that of self-defeating pattern of
attribution. This is in contrast to most people who display self-serving bias
as discussed in the previous section. The depressed people tend to display
opposite pattern. Negative outcomes are attributed to internal causes of
one's own which are lasting, but positive outcomes, if any, attributed to
external causes and are temporary. Due to this pattern of attribution these
people think that they hold little or no control over what happens to them.
Higher the severity of depression, higher is the tendency to engage in self-
defeating patterns of attribution. To treat this, several forms of therapies
based on the theory of attribution have been developed and have appeared
to be quite successful. These therapies help depressed people to bring
change into their patterns of attribution - learning how to take credits
personally for successful outcomes and not blame themselves for negative
outcomes and try to view some (obvious) failures as a result of external
factors.

Attribution and Terrorism:

When the word terrorism is heard, many people are likely to recall
events that have occurred closest to their homes like the 26/11 attacks
taking place in Mumbai being the most threatening and memorable
memory of people living in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Terrorism can be in
many forms such as kidnapping, torture, harm doings and executions.
Coming to the question, how the terrorists who commit such crimes
explain what they do? Insights gained from the attribution theory helps us
to find out how these terrorists justify their actions.

Researchers analyzed public speeches of members of Al Qaeda

who spoke about justifying terrorist acts that had been commuted between
2001 and 2004. They focused on the statements that attributed the actions
of the group to various causes - particularly, willingness to do good for the
49
largest number of people or to punish enemies for violating basic rights of
humans. Results indicated that Al Qaeda emphasized on the idea that its
actions were justified because of the harm done by their enemies, by
simply attributing their actions to external causes.

However, since these suggestions hold a small amount of evidence

they should be viewed to be tentative in nature.

Check your progress:

1. Define attribution. How attribution works in our day to day life?

2. What is an action identification in the process of attribution?

3. Write a detailed note on self-serving bias.

4. Role of attribution in depression.

50
4.3 IMPRESSION FORMATION AND MANAGEMENT:
COMBINING INFORMATION ABOUT OTHERS.

When we initially meet someone for the first time there is a large
amount of information which reaches us, however we somehow manage to
combine all into that person's first impression or a mental representation as
a basis for our reaction to them. We will now be looking at how these
impressions develop and what should be done to manage these
impressions.

4.3.1 Impression Formation:

Have you ever observed that when you meet someone for the first
time, you are probably flooded with lots of information? At a first glance,
we are able to gauge about how they look and dress, how they behave and
the way they speak. Although the information reaching us is huge, we try
to somehow manage to combine it into the first impression of this person -
mental representation of that person and our reactions towards him or her.
This indicates that impression formation is clearly a part of social
perception. Impression formation being an important aspect of social
perception is the way in which we develop our view about others and can
be deeply understood by some famous and classic findings in this field.

Pioneering Research on First impressions:

Solomon Asch (1946) conducted pioneer studies in the field of

Impression formation. He was heavily influenced by the work of Gestalt
Psychologists, who believed that “the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts”. Like Gestalt Psychologists, Solomon Asch held the view that
impression is not formed simply by adding together all of the traits we
observed in other people. Rather, these traits are perceived in relation to
one another, so that the traits can be a part of an integrated, dynamic
whole. Asch studied impression formation by giving individuals lists of
traits supposedly possessed by a stranger, and then asked them to indicate
their impression of this person by checking the traits on a long list that
they felt would fit with their impression of the stranger.

In one of his studies participants were given the following two lists:
 Intelligent - Skillful - Industrious - Warm - Determined - Cautious -
Practical
 Intelligent - Skillful - Industrious - Cold - Determined - Cautious –
Practical

The lists differed only with respect to two words: warm and cold.
Thus, the impression formed by persons exposed to these lists should not
differ a lot in forming impressions merely by adding together individual
traits. The results of this study revealed that those who read the list
containing “warm” were likely to view the stranger as good natured,
51
sociable, generous, happy, popular, and altruistic than those who read the
list containing “cold.”

On the basis of many studies such as these, Asch and other

researchers concluded that forming impressions of others involve more
than simply adding together individual traits.

Implicit Personality theories: Schemas shaping first impression:

Supposedly, your friend described someone he has met as being
helpful and kind. Would you also assume that person to be sincere?
Probably, What if your friend describes a stranger to be as being
intelligent and practical, would that lead you to assume that the person is
ambitious? Probably. Have you ever wondered, why do you believe
this even when there is an absence of these specific traits, why do you
assume the person to possess them? The answer is, partly, because we all
possess implicit personality. Implicit personality theories are the beliefs
regarding what characteristics or traits might go together. These specific
kinds of schemas suggest that when people are found to possess some
traits they are more likely to possess others too. Culture in which people
live also strongly shapes these kinds of expectations. For instance, many
cultures assume that ‘things that are beautiful are good’ - people who are
found to be attractive (beautiful) possess positive traits like social skills
and having good things and good times in life. When we see individual
possessing these traits we may assume them to possess other traits also
that eventually covary. The tendency to assume certain characteristics or
traits go together is not uncommon and can be seen in many contexts. In
sum, impressions that we form about others are strongly shaped by beliefs
about what characteristics or traits go together. These beliefs might be so
strong at times that people may bend their perceptions about others just to
be consistent with them. This results in forming impressions about others
that reflect ones implicit belief more rather than their actual traits.

Cognitive perspective to Impression formation:

Through the help of Solomon Asch’s research there has been a

great deal of understanding about the nature of information formation. It is
important to understand this furthermore, it is useful to examine its
cognitive process. For instance, when we meet someone, instead of
focusing on all kinds of information we pay attention to only certain kinds
of information, that is, the input which we may find useful. In order to
have lasting first impressions, one must collect various kinds of
information and store in their memory, to recollect in the later times. Since
humans view others through the lens of their own motives, desires and
traits, our first impression of others are to some extent based on our own
characteristics.

52
4.3.2 Impression Management:

Most of us would want to look good or the best when we desire to

make a favorable impression as first impression is always strong, once it is
formed after meeting someone. Efforts to make a good impression on
others are also termed as self-presentation and impression management.
Evidence suggests that people who engage in impression management do
gain advantage in many situations. Research below indicates what tactics
used by these people make them favorable.

Tactics for Looking Good to Others:

Most of the tactics for boosting our images fall into two major categories:

1. Self-enhancement (efforts in increasing our appeal to others):

Specific strategies of self-enhancement include efforts in boosting

one’s appearance either professionally or physically. Professional
appearance refers to appropriate dressing, personal grooming and
hygiene. People may sometimes also make use of props to enhance their
appeal for instance, carrying a right kind of handbag for particular
occasion.

2. Other enhancement (efforts in making the target person feel good

in various ways):

Specific strategies for other-enhancement include efforts of

flattering others, expressing agreement with others, asking for their advice
and doing favors for them. In short, in order to enhance one’s appeal
people bend the truth, this can be found on online social applications like
Facebook, Instagram and Yahoo where new friends are made while
keeping up with the old ones. They offer their descriptions in flattering
terms because they know that by presenting themselves in a good manner
may win them more dates or contacts.

Impression Management: The Role of Cognitive load:

Impression management is of great importance when it comes to

dealing with others. We have crucial reasons for wanting to be seen as
good by others (on dates, interviews or in society). This can be done quite
well since people are trained to form an impression of others since years.
Due to this experience people can often present themselves positively in
an effortless and automatic manner. However, cognitive overload may
take place if the number of situations to manage and form impression
increases many folds. In such a scenario, when a person is busy creating
good impression in one situation may bungle up in another situation
simultaneously, and may make serious blunders due to overload or fatigue.
Hence, cognitive overload may act as a hindrance to look good in the eyes
of others.
53
Why do people engage in Impression Management?:

So far we have seen that people engage in impression management

for one sole reason – to enhance people’s reactions towards them. This can
be certainly a primary reason to indulge into such kind of behaviour. But,
research states that there are many other reasons too. For instance, efforts
that one makes to form an impression (termed as self-presentation) may
serve to enhance the mood of people who ideally engage in it. This can be
the case as one’s effort to appear happy, pleasant and cheerful might be
through the mechanism proposed by facial feedback hypothesis which
generate real increment in such feelings. In other words, by trying to
appear positive and happy, people might actually encourage such feelings.
Research suggests that this is actually the case. To verify this assumption,
researchers asked dating couples to give a rating to their moods both pre
and post interaction with an opposite sex dating partner or with a stranger.
It was predicted that they would feel happier after interacting with their
dating partners, but results showed a bigger boost in mood post the
interaction with a stranger. This may be due to the fact that participants
had to involve more impression management tactics with a stranger than
their own dating partners. In short, we engage in impression management
to get better appraisal from others’. There might be extra paybacks to such
tactics for those who make use of them for attempting to display
themselves into a positive light to others which can often make them feel
better in several basic ways.

Check your progress

1. Write a detailed note on impression formation and impression

management?

2. Discuss in brief Solomon Asch research for impression formation.

3. State the reasons why people engage in impression formation.

54
4.4 WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT WHY SOME
PEOPLE CONCLUDE THEY ARE SUPERIOR TO
OTHERS?

Hubris is an example of self-serving bias and it refers to a strong

tendency of holding exaggerated positive views about oneself. It is a form
of extreme confidence, a person who displays hubris typically perceives
himself as being completely responsible for positive outcomes. Highly
individualistic culture especially encourages the belief that creative
outcomes in music, art, science and business are all because of the special
abilities of the individuals, while ignoring critical role played by the
communities where these creative outcomes originated. At times some
inventors do acknowledge the role of the situation and that of others in
their achievements, but most of them do not do so. Their background and
the institutions to which they belong may possibly encourage their belief
that they alone are responsible for their successes. This fosters the belief
that they cannot make any wrong decisions, consequently leading to self-
serving attribution.

4.5 LET'S SUM UP

We often engage in attribution to gain information about others

traits, intentions and motives. Attribution is seeking to understand why
people behave in a particular way. According to the theory of
correspondent inference, observation of particular aspects of behavior
leads us to try to infer something about them - behavior that is freely
chosen often produces non common effects as well as may be low in
social desirability. Moving forward to the covariation theory, while
focusing on information related to consistency, consensus and
distinctiveness we seek to understand whether behaviors of others stem
from an internal or an external cause. Another two important aspects or
casual contributions relate to whether specific causes of behavior being
stable or unstable over time and whether behavioral causes are
controllable or uncontrollable. Action identification is when the level of
abstraction is used to interpret an individual's action.

One of the factors related to attribution concerns the extent to

which one attributes events in their lives to their fate or to the personal
causes. People are more likely to attribute important events to fate when
they strongly believe in the strong existence of God. It may also be true
for those who believe more into the acceptance of causality in their
cultural heritage.

Attribution is a subject to bias. Amongst which the

Correspondence Bias is a phenomenon in which others actions are
explained to be stemming from their dispositions even during the presence
of situational cues. Another attribution error is self-serving bias i.e.,
Attribution of positive outcomes.
55
 The formation of first impressions takes place very quickly, within
seconds or less, however the speed doesn't determine its accuracy. Studies
show that even a little information about others can lead to accurate
perceptions, whilst other studies indicate the accuracy of first impressions
to be above chance. Even after the formation of the first impression, it
does change every time with new information coming in. This may occur
when one reinterprets the previously known information while the new
information is found to be relevant to the situation being judged.

People often engage in impression management or self-

presentation to make a good impression on others. Techniques used to do
this fall in two categories. One is self-improvement, that is, the effort to
increase one's appeal to others and the other is other-enhancement which
is the effort to induce positive reactions or moods in others. Evidences
indicate limited working of impression management. If they are over
performed, people might be able to recognize it leading to negative rather
than positive reactions from others. Impression management is seen to be
something we practice all through our lives, engaging ourselves into it in
an effortless manner. Impression management can suffer when there are
tasks which need cognitive resources as these kinds of tasks may distract
us from fears and anxiety leading to poor performance.

4.6 QUESTION PATTERN

1. Explain Kelley’s theory of attribution.

2. Discuss fate attribution and personal choice with suitable examples.
3. a. Describe in brief the sources of error in attribution.
b. Discuss the uses of tactics to look good.
4. Explain in detail the applications of attribution theory.
5. Write short notes on:
a.Theory of Correspondent Inference
b. Causal attribution
c.Actor Observer effect
d. Attribution and Terrorism

4.7 REFERENCE

 Branscombe, N. R. &Baron, R. A., Adapted byPreetiKapur (2017).

Social Psychology. (14th Ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian
Reprint 2017.



56
 5
ATTITUDE: EVALUATING AND
RESPONDING TO THE SOCIAL WORLD - I
Unit Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Attitude Formation: How Attitudes Develop
5.2.1 Classical Conditioning: Learning Based on Association
5.2.2 Instrumental Conditioning: Rewards for the “Right” Views
5.2.3 Observational Learning: Learning by Exposure to Others
5.3 When and Why Do Attitudes Influence Behavior?
5.3.1 Role of the Social Context in the Link Between Attitudes and
Behavior
5.3.2 Strength of Attitudes
5.3.3 Attitude Extremity: Role of Vested Interests
5.3.4 Attitude Certainty: Importance of Clarity and Correctness
5.3.5 Role of Personal Experience
5.4 How Do Attitudes Guide Behavior?
5.4.1 Attitudes Arrived at Through Reasoned Thought
5.4.2 Attitudes and Spontaneous Behavioral Reactions
5.5 Summary
5.6 Questions
5.7 Reference

5.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit you will understand following concepts:

 Learning processes through which our attitudes are formed
 Link between attitudes and behavior and the factors that affect their
relationship
 Processes through which attitudes guide behavior

5.1 INTRODUCTION

One of the most central concepts in social psychology is that

of attitudes (Banaji & Heiphetz, 2010). In this unit, we will focus on
attitude formation and how attitudes guide our behaviour. We will see that
attitudes are an essential component of our lives because they play a vital

57
role in helping us effectively interact with our environment. Our attitudes
allow us to make judgments about events (e.g., “I don’t mind waiting in a
queue for these concert tickets”), individuals (e.g., “I really admire the
Dalai Lama”), social groups (e.g., “I love my university”), and many other
things.

Let us begin the topic on attitude with one example which is very
easy to understand. If I ask you what are your beliefs about climate change
and how those beliefs were formed? Are you going to be influenced more
by the source’s expertise than others? Because of human activity there is
increased carbon emissions in the planet’s atmosphere. As a result, global
warming is on the rise and increased extreme weather events (e.g.,
droughts, rising sea levels, wildfires, and heat waves) can be expected. 98
percent climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is
actually happening but general public is not so sure about the reasons
behind the climate change. Why is there this “belief gap” among the
scientists and general public? Is this because public is not properly
informed or are there psychological factors that predict how people
perceive this complex environmental issue?

Research reports that50 percent of the U.S. population believes

that the earth is getting warmer because of human activity. Do you think
age and education level of respondents will have an impact on their belief
about climate change? Probably you would say yes. It was found that
those who were more educated and younger ( 18-29 years) endorsed this
belief as compared to less educated and older people ( 65 years and more).

Apart from education and age, there is an important role of self-

interest in the attitudes people form about climate change and the intensity
with which those are held. That is, people who live on coastlines (around
the world)are more concerned about climate schange and the expected rise
in sea levels than are people who are less proximal and therefore expect to
have less direct experience with the consequences (Milfont, Evans, Sibley,
Ries, & Cunningham, 2014).

Are we guided by scientists’ statements on the matter of climate

change or are we more influenced by politicians’ statements? Is it possible
that because the consequences of climate change are so severe and scary
that many people ignore the issue altogether? Is it possible that some of
the climate change messages are so frightening thatlarge numbers of us
simply dismiss the message?

`In this chapter we will explore the factors that shape the attitudes
we hold, and address the key question of whether our attitudes are simply
a product of rational thought. We will study various learning theories such
as classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and observational
learning and their role in attitude formation. We will also see why
attitudes influence our behaviour and role of our own personal experiences
in forming attitudes.
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5.2 ATTITUDE FORMATION: HOW ATTITUDES
DEVELOP (VARIOUS LEARNING PROCESSES)

What is Attitude?:

Let us first see how can we define attitude? “An attitude is a

tendency to respond positively (favourably) or negatively (unfavourably)
to certain people, objects or situations. In other words, it is a tendency to
react emotionally in one direction or another”. Now the question is how
these attitudes are formed. There are certain learning processes which
make us understand the formation of attitudes. Let us see all those learning
processes. Following are some learning theories which explain the
phenomenon of attitude formation.

5.2.1 Classical Conditioning: Learning Based on Association:

Classical conditioning is learning based on association. When two

stimuli occur together or in close proximity, they come to be associated
with one another. When one stimulus regularly precedes another, the one
that occurs first may soon become a signal for the one that occurs second.
In other words, when the first stimulus is presented, individuals come to
expect that the second will follow. As a result, they may gradually
demonstrate the same kind of reactions to the first stimulus as they did to
the second, especially if the second stimulus is one that induces fairly
strong reactions when encountered. This is the basic principle of classical
conditioning.

In psychology it is a basic principle that when a stimulus that is

capable of evoking a response known as unconditioned stimulus—
regularly precedes a neutral stimulus,the one that occurs first can become
a signal for the second—the conditioned stimulus. Advertisers have
considerable expertise in using this principle to create positive attitudes
toward their products. To use this method for creating attitudes, you need
to know what your potential audience already responds positively toward
(to use as the unconditioned stimulus). If you are marketing a new beer,
and your target audience is young adult males, you might safely assume
that attractive young women will produce a positive response. Then, you
pair the product repeatedly (the formerly neutral or conditioned
stimulus—say, your beer logo) with images of attractive women and,
beforelong, positive attitudes will be formed toward your new beer! Of
course, for other target audiences, another unconditioned stimulus might
be successfully paired with the new beer logo to achieve the same result.

Classical conditioning contributes in shaping our attitudes—it can

do so even when we are not aware of the stimuli that serve as the basis for
this kind of conditioning. For example, in one study (Walsh & Kiviniemi,
2014),students saw photos of apples and bananas. While these photos were
shown, other photos known to induce either positive or negative feelings

59
were exposed for very brief periods of time—so brief that participants
were not aware of their presence. Participants who were nonconsciously
exposed to photos that induced positive feelings(e.g., baby animals) were
later more likely to select fruit as a snack than participants who had been
exposed to photos that no consciously induce negative feelings (e.g.,junk
cars) or those who had been exposed to neutral images (e.g., baskets). The
repeated pairing of fruits with positive images created affective
associations that affected subsequent behavioural choices. These findings
suggest that attitudes can be influenced by subliminal conditioning—
classical conditioning that occurs in the absence of conscious awarenessof
the stimuli involved.

Once formed, such attitudes can influence behaviour. For example,

initially people may be neutral toward a particular product label (for
example particular brand of beer). However, after repeatedly pairing the
product’s logo with an “unconditioned stimulus” of various attractive
women to the targeted group of young males, then seeing the product logo
may come to elicit positive attitudes on its own.

5.2.2 Instrumental Conditioning: Rewards for the“Right” Views:

Second learning theory where we learn by the consequences of our

behaviour is known as instrumental or operant conditioning. If we ask you
about your attitudes toward marijuana, you may say immediately “Oh,
that’s wrong!” This is because most children have been repeatedly praised
or rewarded by their parents and teachers for stating such views.As a
result, individuals learn which views are seen as the “correct” attitudes to
hold—because of the rewards received for voicing those attitudes by the
people they identify with and want to be accepted by. Attitudes that are
followed by positive outcomes (e.g., praise) tend to be strengthened and
are likely to be repeated, whereas attitudes that are followed by negative
outcomes (e.g., punishment) are weakened and their likelihood of being
expressed again is reduced. Thus, another way in which attitudes are
acquired is through the process of instrumental conditioning.

Sometimes the conditioning process is subtle, with the reward

being psychological in nature such as rewarding children with smiles,
approval, or hugs for stating the “right” views. (Oskamp & Schultz, 2005).

Sometimes we may find ourselves in a situation where our

attitudes are different than the attitudes of others in a new group. In this
kind of situation what will happen to our attitude? In order to get approval
from others are we going to change our attitude by agreeing with others?

To investigate this issue, Levitan and Visser (2009) assessed the

political attitudes of students at the University of Chicago when they
arrived on campus and then determined over the course of the next 2
months the networks the students became part of, and how close the
students felt toward each new network member.
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 This allowed the researchers to determine the influence of these
new peers on students’ political attitudes. Those students who entered
networks with more diverse attitudes toward affirmative action exhibited
greater change in their attitudes over the 2-month period. These results
suggest that entering new social networks can be quite influential—
particularly when they introduce us to new strong arguments not
previously encountered (Levitan & Visser, 2008). The desire to fit in with
others and be rewarded for holding similar attitudes can be a powerful
motivator of attitude formation and change.

It is also the case that people may be consciously aware that

different groups they are members of will reward (or punish) them for
expressing support for particular attitude positions. Rather than being
influenced to change our attitudes, we may find ourselves expressing one
view on a topic to one audience and another view to a different audience.
Indeed, such potentially incompatible audiences tend to remain physically
separated (e.g., your parents and your friends on campus).

5.2.3 Observational Learning: Learning byExposure to Others:

A third means for acquiring attitudes is observational learning, and

it occurs when individuals acquire attitudes or behaviours simply by
observing others (Bandura, 1997). For example, people acquire attitudes
toward many topics and objects by exposure to advertising—where we see
“people like us” acting positively or negatively toward different kinds of
objects or issues.

The question here arises is why we often adopt the attitudes and
behaviours of others? According to Festinger (1954) there is a mechanism
of social comparison—our tendency to compare ourselves with others in
order to determine whether our view of social reality is correct or not. If
we find that our views are similar with those of others, we tend to believe
that our ideas and attitudes are accurate. On the other hand, if we find that
our views and attitudes are not in line with majority, we tend to discard
them.

It is seen that people often adjust their attitudes so as to hold views

closer to those of others and identify with—their reference groups. If you
hear someone (whom we respect) expressing negative views toward a
particular group, this usually should not influence your attitudes. Right?
But research findings indicate that hearing others, whom we respect or see
as similar to ourselves, stating negative views about a group can lead us to
adopt similar attitudes—without ever meeting members of that group (e.g.,
Maio, Esses, & Bell, 1994; Terry, Hogg, & Duck, 1999).

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Check your progress
Short Notes
Attitude

Classical Conditioning

Instrumental Conditioning

Observational Learning

5.3 WHEN AND WHY DO ATTITUDES INFLUENCE

BEHAVIOUR?

We have seen how attitudes are formed. But we haven’t considered

one important question, which is, whether attitudes predict behaviour? La
Piere (1934) was the first researcher who tried to answer this question.
LaPiere wanted to know whether people with negative attitudes toward a
specific social group would in fact act in line with their attitudes. He spent
two years travelling around the United States with a young Chinese
couple.

While travelling, they stopped at 184 restaurants and 66 hotels and

motels. He observed that most of the time, they were treated courteously;
infact, they were refused service only once.

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 When Lapiere completed the travels, he wrote to all the businesses
where he and the Chinese couple had stayed or dined. He asked the
businesses whether they would or would not offer service to Chinese
visitors. He was stunned by the results. 92 percent of the restaurants and
91 percent of the hotels that responded said “No to Chinese customers!”

These results indicated that there is a gap between attitudes and

behaviour—that is, what a person says and what that person actually does
when confronted with the situation of that attitude may be quite different.
We are back to our original question. Do attitudes predict behaviour?
Above research by Lapiere shows that attitudes don’t predict behaviour.
But to understand why attitudes might not predict behaviour, we need to
recognize that there are various norms that can affect the likelihood of
discriminatory behaviour.

5.3.1 Role of the Social Context in the Link Between Attitudes and
Behaviour:

Let’s consider now how the social context can affect the link
between attitudes and behaviour. Context of the situation: There is role of
situational pressure which makes people do otherwise, that is, behave in
contradiction in relation with their attitude. Have you ever noticed a gap
between your attitude and behaviour? Your answer would be probably
yes. This is because the social context can directly affect the attitude–
behaviour connection. For example, if one of your friends shows you a
new tattoo and asks for your opinion? Suppose you are against tattoo,
would you say that you do not like it? The chances are quite good that you
would try to avoid hurting your friend’s feelings so you might even say
you like it even though your attitude is negative. As this example
illustrates, depending on the degree to which the action has social
consequences or not, attitudes may be differentially related to behaviour.
In contrast to your attitude–behaviour inconsistency in responding to your
friend’s tattoo, your attitude might be a very good predictor of whether
you would get a tattoo or not.

Research has found that attitudes that are held with greater
certainty are more strongly linked to the behaviour (Tormala & Petty,
2004) compared to attitudes that are held with some uncertainty. Research
shows that older people are often more certain of their attitudes than are
young people. They usually place greater value on “standing firm” in the
attitude positions they adopt, and for this reason they tend to show greater
attitude (Eaton, Visser, Krosnick, &Anand, 2009).

5.3.2 Strength of Attitudes:

Attitudes that are stronger are better predictors of human behaviour

than weak ones. This phenomenon is very well shown in the Hollywood
movie “The Insider” where the protagonist goes against his own
organization because he felt that they were not working responsibly
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towards public safety. People like this are committed to the notion that
corporations must be honest, especially when there is the potential for
damage to the public. Attitudes like these—that are based on moral
convictions—can give rise to intense emotion and strongly predict
behaviour (Mullen & Skitka, 2006). In other words, whether attitudes will
predict sustained and potentially costly behaviour depends on the strength
of the attitudes.

There are three important factors: extremity of an attitude,

certainty with which an attitude is held and personal experience with the
attitude object which determine the extent to which attitudes will drive our
behaviour (Fazio, Ledbetter, & Towles-Schwen, 2000).

5.3.3 Attitude Extremity: Role of Vested Interests:

We will first consider attitude extremity—the extent to which an

individual feels strongly—in one direction or the other—about an issue
(Visser, Bizer, & Krosnick, 2006). In this context the term ‘vested
interest’ is important. It means to what extent the attitude is relevant to the
person who holds it.

Many studies have shown that more the vested interest, stronger
the impact is of the attitude on behaviour (Crano, 1995; Visser, Krosnick,
& Simmons, 2003). In one study, on increasing the legal age of alcohol
drinking, with university students, Sivacek & Crano (1982) found that
who had vested interest, that is, who would be affected by the new law
were more likely to take part in the campaign than those who had low
vested interest. Sivacek & Crano, 1982 conducted a research on university
students in which students from a large university were asked if they
would participate in a campaign against increasing the legal age for
drinking alcohol from 18 to 21, their responses depended on whether they
would be affected by the policy change or not. Students who would be
affected by this new law—those younger than 21 — have a stronger stake
in this issue than those who would not be affected by the law because they
were already 21.Thus, it was predicted that those in the first group—
whose interests were at stake— would be much more likely to join a rally
against the proposed policy change than those in the second group. This is
exactly what happened: While more than 47 percent of those with high
vested interest agreed to take part in the campaign, only 12 percent of
those in the low vested interest group did so.

Not only do people with a vested interest behave in a way that

supports their cause, they are likely to elaborate on arguments that favour
their position. By doing so, attitude-consistent thoughts come to mind
when an issue is made salient. For example, Haugtvedt and Wegener
(1994) found that when participants were asked to consider a nuclear
power plant being built in their own state (high personal relevance) they
developed more counter arguments against the plan than when the power
plant might be potentially built in a distant state (low personal relevance).
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Thus, attitudes based on vested interest are more likely to be thought about
carefully, be resistant to change, and be an accessible guide for behaviour.

5.3.4 Attitude Certainty: Importance of Clarity and Correctness:

Attitude certainty is when a person learns that others share one’s

attitudes, it acts as justification for that attitude and thereby increases
certainty. Attitude certainty is conceptualized in terms of attitude clarity
(the subjective sense that one knows what one's attitude is) and attitude
correctness (the subjective sense that one's attitude is correct or valid).

When more people agree with your idea it gives a positive

feedback about the correctness of the idea. Clarity is another component of
attitude certainty. The more often you are asked to report on your attitude,
the more it will facilitate clarity and thereby certainty.

The social context too is important in assessing the relative effects

of attitude clarity and correctness. High clarity will be more predictive of
behaviour in private, but not public contexts—where correctness concerns
are likely to be greater. Moreover, when people’s attitudes are attacked,
successfully resisting those attacks may well increase perceptions of
attitude certainty because mounting and expressing counter arguments will
increase perceptions of attitude correctness. In terms of attitude–
behaviour consistency, an attitude that is high on both clarity and
correctness is most likely to reliably predict behaviour in public and in
private.

5.3.5 Role of Personal Experience:

Attitudes formed through direct behavioural experience with an

attitude object have been found to better predict later behaviour than
attitudes formed through indirect experience. An experiment was
conducted to test the hypothesis that an information processing difference
exists between direct and indirect experience. Subjects watched a
videotape of an individual working examples of a variety of puzzles under
instructions to empathize with that person or not. Taking the perspective
of the person having the direct experience led Empathy subjects to behave
more consistently with their own reported attitudes toward those puzzles
than Control subjects. The results suggest that direct experience affects the
attitude formation process by altering the way in which the available
information is processed. Similarly, attitudes based on personal relevance
are more likely to be elaborated on in terms of supporting arguments, and
this makes them resistant to change (Wegener, Petty, Smoak, & Fabrigar,
2004). Personal experience is one way to create involvement with an
issue, and people who are more involved with an issue and whose values
are linked with that issue are more likely to act on their attitudes
(Blankenship & Wegener, 2008). In relation with personal experience,
attitude accessibility was also studied by Fazio (1989). Attitude
accessibility refers to the ease with which specific attitudes can be
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remembered and brought into consciousness. The kinds of attitudes that
have been found to be closely related to behaviour are the ones that would
probably be most accessible.

In sum, existing evidence suggests that attitudes really do affect

behaviour. However, the strength of this link is strongly determined by a
number of factors. First of all, situational constraints may not permit us to
overtly express our attitudes. Second, attitude extremity, which is a
function of whether we have a vested interest in the issue or not,
influences whether our attitudes translate into behaviour, and this is
particularly likely when a message is framed as having an immediate
impact rather than one far in the future. Third, attitudes that are clear and
experienced as correct are more likely to affect behaviour than are those
that lack clarity or that we are uncertain about their correctness. Fourth,
whether we have personal experience with the attitude object or perceive it
as relevant to our important values can affect the accessibility of the
attitude, and attitudes that are more accessible are more likely to determine
behaviour compared to those that are not accessible.

Check your progress

Short Notes
Strength of Attitude

Attitude extremity

Attitude certainty

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Attitude clarity

Attitude correctness

Attitude accessibility

5.4 HOW DO ATTITUDES GUIDE BEHAVIOUR?

In this section we will focus on two processes through which

attitudes guide behaviour. Those two processes are a) attitudes based on
reasoned thought and b) Attitudes and spontaneous behavioural reactions
We will first consider behaviours that are driven by attitudes based on
reasoned thought, and then examine the role of attitudesin more
spontaneous behavioural responses.

5.4.1 Attitudes Arrived at Through Reasoned Thought:

Theory of reasoned action was refined by Ajzen & Fishbein in

1980 and termed as theory of planned behaviour. This view assumes that
the decision to engage in a particular behaviour is the result of a rational
process. Various behavioural options are considered, the outcomes of each
option are evaluated, and a decision is reached to act or not to act. That
decision is then reflected in behavioural intentions, which are often good
predictors of whether we will act on our attitudes in a given situation
(Ajzen, 1987). Albarracin, Johnson, Fishbein, & Muellerleile (2001) found
that intentions are moderately correlated with behaviour.

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 Research has proved that the intention– behaviour relationship is
even stronger when people have formed a plan for how and when they will
translate their intentions into behaviour (Barz et al., 2014; Frye & Lord,
2009). Suppose that you form the intention to go to the gym to work out.
If you develop a plan for how you will translate your intention into actual
behaviour—beginning with setting your alarm, preparing your exercise
clothes, and so forth—you will be more likely to succeed at doing so
.Gollwitzer (1999) noted that a plan to implement our intentions is very
effective because it involves delegating control of one’s behaviour to the
situation.

But, how can one form an intention to change some aspect of your
behaviour ? According to the theory, intentions are determined by two
factors: Attitudes toward the behaviour— people’s positive or negative
evaluations of performing the behaviour (whether they think it will yield
positive or negative consequences), and subjective norms—people’s
perceptions of whether others will approve or disapprove of this
behaviour. A third factor, perceived behavioural control —people’s
appraisals of their ability to perform the behaviour—was subsequently
added to the theory (Ajzen, 1991).

5.4.2 Attitudes and Spontaneous Behavioural Reactions:

In many situations, people have to act spontaneously. For example,

suppose you are driving and you may have to suddenly apply the brakes
to avoid an accident. In such a case, attitudes influence behaviour in a
more direct and automatic manner, with intentions playing a less
important role. Accordingto Fazio’s attitude-to-behaviour process model
(Fazio, 1990; Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1994), some events activate our
attitude; that attitude, once activated, influences how we perceive the
attitude object. At the same time, our knowledge about what’s appropriate
in a given situation (our knowledge of various social norms) is also
activated. Our attitude and whatever information are already stored helps
in shaping our definition of the event. And this perception This perception
influences our behaviour.

It can be said that attitudes affect our behaviour through two

mechanisms, and these operate under contrasting conditions. When we
have time to engage in careful, reasoned thought, we can weigh all the
alternatives and decide how we will act. Under the hectic conditions of
everyday life, however, we often don’t have time for this kind of
deliberate weighing of alternatives, and often people’s responses appear to
be much faster than such deliberate thought processes can account for. In
such cases, our attitudes seem to spontaneously shape our perceptions of
various events—often with very little conscious cognitive processing.

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Check your progress
Short Notes
Behavioural intentions

Subjective norms

Perceived behavioural control

Spontaneous behavioural reactions

5.5 SUMMARY

Attitudes are evaluations that can color our experience of almost

any aspect of the world. Very often, attitudes can be accessed consciously
and are easy to report. These type of attitudes are explicit. But attitudes
can also be implicit as well, and therefore not consciously accessible or
controllable. We usually acquire attitudes from other persons through
social learning. Such learning can involve classical conditioning,
instrumental conditioning, or observational learning.

Sometimes, attitudes can also be formed on the basis of social

comparison, which is, our tendency to compare ourselves with others to
know whether our view of social reality is correct or is not. In order to be
similar to others we usually accept the attitudes that others hold, to the
extent that we identify with that group.

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 There are many factors that can affect the strength of the
relationship between attitudes and behavior. Situational constraints may
prevent us from expressing our attitudes overtly—including concerns
about what others may think of us. People often show pluralistic ignorance
which means wrongly believing that others have different attitudes than
we do, which can limit our willingness to express our attitudes in public.
Several aspects of attitudes themselves also moderate the attitude–
behaviour link. These include factors related to attitude strength: including
the extremity of our attitude position, the certainty with which our
attitudes are held, and whether we have personal experience with the
attitude object. All of these factors can make our attitudes more accessible,
and therefore likely to guide our behavior.

There are two different mechanisms through which attitudes

influence behavior. According to the theory of reasoned action and theory
of planned behavior, when we can give careful thought to our attitudes,
intentions derived from our attitudes strongly predict behavior. According
to the attitude-to-behavior process model, in situations where our behavior
is more spontaneous and we do not engage in such deliberate thought,
attitudes influence behavior by shaping our perception and interpretation
of the situation.

5.6 QUESTIONS

1. Define the term attitude?

2. How do attitudes influence one’s behavioural choices and decision
making with long-term consequences?
3. Discuss the role of classical conditioning in shaping our attitudes. Give
examples.
4. How are attitudes acquired through instrumental conditioning? Discuss
with examples from your life.
5. Why do people’s expressed attitudes change or stand in opposition for
different audiences and contexts?
6. How are our attitudes influenced by our identification with groups and
our perception of the attitudes held by the group members?
7. What is the social modelling effect? What are some of the potential
functions of social modelling of eating behaviours?
8. Discuss the role of social norms in regard with the way people act and
the way they feel about a particular object.
9. What factors determine whether behaviour is consistent with attitudes?
10. Discuss an instance where you failed to express your true attitude
about an issue because you were worried what others would think of
you.

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11. How does the strength of attitudes influence attitude behaviour
consistency?
12. What is a vested interest? Discuss some relevant research.
13. Give two important components of attitude certainty and discuss their
role in attitude change and resistance to change.
14. How do direct and indirect experiences with an object affect our
attitude toward it and guide behaviour?
15. What are the factors that affect the strength of the relationship between
attitudes and behaviour?
16. According to the theory of planned behaviour, what are the factors that
determine our intention to change some aspects of our behaviour?
17. According to the attitude-to-behaviour process model by Fazio, why
do attitudes sometimes influence behaviour in a direct and automatic
manner?
18. Explain why people always engage in careful and reasoned thought
when there is ample time to make decisions but make hasty decisions
under hectic conditions.

5.7 REFERENCES

 Branscombe, N. R. &Baron, R. A., Adapted by PreetiKapur (2017).

Social Psychology.
(14th Ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian reprint 2017.



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 6
ATTITUDE: EVALUATING AND
RESPONDING TO THE SOCIAL WORLD - II
Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Science of Persuasion: How Attitudes Are Changed
6.2.1 Persuasion: Communicators, Messages, and Audiences
6.2.2The Cognitive Processes Underlying Persuasion
6.3 Resisting Persuasion Attempts
6.3.1 Reactance: Protecting Our Personal Freedom
6.3.2 Forewarning: Prior Knowledge of Persuasive Intent
6.3.3 Selective Avoidance of Persuasion Attempts
6.3.4 Actively Defending Our Attitudes: Counter arguing Against
the Competition
6.3.5 Individual Differences in Resistance to Persuasion
6.3.6 Ego-Depletion Can Undermine Resistance
6.4 Cognitive Dissonance: What Is It and How Do We Manage It?
6.4.1 Dissonance and Attitude Change: The Effects of Induced
Compliance
6.4.2 Alternative Strategies for Resolving Dissonance
6.4.3 When Dissonance Is a Tool for Beneficial Changes in
Behaviour
6.5 What research tells us….
6.6 Summary
6.7 Questions
6.8 References

6.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit you will understand following concepts:

 Factors determining persuasion attempts to alter our attitudes
 Methods that help people resist attempts to persuade them
 Effects of cognitive dissonance on attitude change

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6.1 INTRODUCTION
The study of attitudes is central to the field of social psychology
because attitudes are capable of influencing almost every aspect of our
experience. Even when we do not have strong attitudes toward a specific
issue, related values can influence what attitudes we form.

Social psychologists view attitudes as important because they often

do influence our behavior. This is especially likely to be true when
attitudes are strong and accessible (Bizer, Tormala, Rucker, & Petty, 2006;
Fazio, 2000). Attitudes can also affect important behavioral choices that
have long-term consequences, so it is important to understand how they
influence decision making.

In this unit, we will address the important question of how

attitudes are changed— the process of persuasion. Persuasion is the
process of changing our attitude toward something based on some kind of
communication. Much of the persuasion we experience comes from
outside (external) forces. How do people convince others to change their
attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors? What communications do you receive
that attempt to persuade you to change your attitudes, beliefs, and
behaviors?

We’ll also examine some reasons why attitudes are often resistant
to change. Finally, we’ll consider the important topic of cognitive
dissonance which is an internal form of attitude change. It is the tension
we experience when our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are in conflict.
In order to reduce dissonance, individuals can change their behavior,
attitudes, or cognitions, or add a new cognition. Cognitive dissonance has
fascinating implications not just for attitude change, but for many aspects
of social behavior as well.

6.2 THE SCIENCE OF PERSUASION: HOW

ATTITUDES ARE CHANGED

In this section we will deal with the factors that determine whether
persuasion attempts to alter our attitudes will be effective. If I ask you to
close your eyes and think whether in the last few days did someone try to
change your attitudes about something? If you think about it for a
moment, you may be surprised to realize that it happened almost every
day. You were bombarded with such attempts by billboards, television
commercials, magazine ads, telemarketers, pop-up ads on your computer,
and even friends. To what extent are such attempts at persuasion— efforts
to change our attitudes through the use of various kinds of messages —
successful? And what factors determine if they succeed or fail ? Social
psychologists have studied these issues for decades, and as we’ll soon see,
their efforts have yielded important insights into the cognitive processes
that play a role in persuasion (e.g., Petty, Wheeler, &Tormala, 2003;
Wegener & Carlston, 2005).
73
6.2.1 Persuasion: Communicators, Messages, and Audiences:

Persuasion research was conducted by Hovland, Janis, and

Kelley(1953) which focused on characteristics of communicators,
communications and audience.

Communicators who are credible or considered to be experts with

respect to the topics or issues they are presenting — are more persuasive
than those who are seen as lacking expertise. For example, we can change
our eating habits much in accordance with the advice from a family doctor
than from a next-door neighbor who is an ordinary clerk in the railways.
If the source of the message is from credible person, it has power of
persuasion than a message which lacks trustworthiness and credibility.

If a communicator has personal gain (financial or otherwise) in

persuading you then that communicator loses credibility and ability to
persuade. Consequently, communicators are seen as most credible and,
therefore persuasive, when they are perceived as arguing against
their self-interests (Eagly, Chaiken, & Wood, 1981).

Popular and physically attractive communicators are more

effective in changing attitudes than unpopular and unattractive ones
(Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Frequently, advertisers whose attractive models
are attempting to suggest to us that if we buy their product ,we too will be
perceived as attractive.

We believe those communicators more who are in our own social

networks. They have more persuasive powers. When opinions are
provided in an informal person-to- person manner, it is referred to as
word-of-mouth marketing (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955). If someone from
our own group has given good feedback about something, for example, a
movie, we tend to believe it because we see them as trustworthy and as
having the same interests as ourselves.

Messages that do not appear to change our attitudes are usually

more successful than those that try to achieve this goal (Walster &
Festinger, 1962). Research on this issue indicates that fore warning lessens
the extent to which attitude change occurs (Benoit, 1998). So, simply
knowing that a sales pitch is coming your way can undermine its
persuasiveness.

Persuasion can be enhanced by messages that arouse strong

emotions such as fear in the audience. When the message is sufficiently
fear arousing that people genuinely feel threatened, they are likely to argue
against the threat (Liberman & Chaiken, 1992; Taylor & Shepperd, 1998).
Fear-based ads have been used in an attempt to frighten people about
future consequences if they fail to change their behavior. Despite the long-
standing use of such fear-based messages, research concludes that it is not
generally effective at changing people’s behaviors (de Hoog, Stroe be, &
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de Wit, 2007). You must have seen ‘tobacco causing cancer’ ads in
movies. Despite this gruesome advertisement tobacco consumption has
not gone down.

Research findings (Broemer, 2004) suggest that health messages of

various sorts are more effective if they are framed in a positive manner
(e.g., how to attain good health) rather than in a negative manner (e.g.,
risks and undesirable consequences of particular behavior).

6.2.2 The Cognitive Processes Underlying Persuasion:

Cognitive approach to persuasion focuses on the cognitive processes that

underlie persuasion. We can process persuasive messages in two distinct
ways.
1. Systematic processing
2. Heuristic processing

The first type of processing is known as systematic processing or

the central route to persuasion, and it involves careful consideration of
message content and the ideas it contains. Such processing requires effort,
and it absorbs much of our information-processing capacity.

The second approach, known as heuristic processing or the

peripheral route to persuasion, involves the use of mental shortcuts or
simple rules of thumb. This kind of processing requires less effort and
allows us to react to persuasive messages in an automatic manner. Attitude
change occurs in the absence of careful thought. When do we engage in
each of these two distinct modes of thought ? Modern theories of
persuasion such as the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM; e.g., Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986; Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005) and the
heuristic-systematic model (e.g., Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989;
Eagly & Chaiken, 1998) provide the following answer. We engage in the
most effortful and systematic processing when our motivation and
capacity to process information relating to the persuasive message is high.
This type of processing occurs if we have a lot of knowledge about the
topic, we have a lot of time to engage in careful thought, the issue is
sufficiently important to us, or we believe it is essential to form an
accurate view (Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991; Petty & Cacioppo,1986).

In contrast, we engage in heuristic type of processing when we

lack the capacity or time to process more carefully or we have little
knowledge about the issue or when our motivation to perform such
cognitive work is low (the issue is not very important to us or has little
potential effect on us). Advertisers, politicians, salespersons, and others
wishing to change our attitudes prefer to push us into the heuristic mode of
processing because, for reasons described later, it is often easier to change
our attitudes when we think in this mode than when we engage in more
careful and systematic processing.

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 The discovery of two contrasting modes of processing—systematic
versus heuristic — has provided an important key to understanding when
and how persuasion occurs. For instance, when persuasive messages are
not interesting or relevant to individuals ,the degree of persuasion they
produce is not strongly influenced by the strength of the arguments these
messages contain. When such messages are highly relevant to individuals,
however, they are much more successful in inducing persuasion when the
arguments they contain are strong and convincing.

Can you see why this is so ? According to modern theories such as

the ELM that consider these dual pathways ,when relevance is low,
individuals tend to process messages through the heuristic mode, using
various mental shortcuts. Thus, argument strength has little impact. In
contrast, when relevance is high, they process persuasive messages more
systematically and, in this mode, argument strength is important (e.g.,
Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

Similarly, the systematic versus heuristic distinction helps explain

why people can be more easily persuaded when they are distracted than
when they are not. Under these conditions, the capacity to process the
information in a persuasive message is limited, so people adopt the
heuristic mode of thought. If the message contains cues that will induce
heuristic processing (e.g., communicators who are attractive or seemingly
expert), persuasion may occur because people respond to these cues and
not to the arguments being presented. In sum, the modern cognitive
approach really does seem to provide the crucial key to understanding
many aspects of persuasion.

Check Your Progress

Short Notes
Persuasion

Credible communicators

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Systematic processing (central route to persuasion)

Heuristic processing (peripheral route to persuasion)

Elaboration-likelihood model (ELM)

6.3 RESISTING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS

In the previous section we were discussing how people can be

persuaded to change their attitudes and behavior — either because they
think systematically about a compelling message, or because they are
influenced by more peripheral cues. In the following section we will
discuss how it is not always possible to change people’s attitude and how
people resist efforts which are directed towards changing their attitude.

6.3.1 Reactance: Protecting Our Personal Freedom:

Many times you must have felt that you could not express your
attitude freely on some issue. You also might have felt pressure to change
your attitude. Some of us might be alright to be told what to do but most
of us would not like a situation where we do not have freedom to express
our attitude. Sometimes there is an individual, on other occasion there are
advertisers, politicians who pressure others to change their attitude on
some issue. Whether “public” persuaders or private ones, you are on the
receiving end of threats to your freedom to decide for yourself. As a
result, you may experience annoyance and resentment. So, what do you
do? You may try to resist the persuasion attempts. Sometimes you may
adopt views opposite to those the would-be persuader wants you to adopt.
Such behaviour is an example of what social psychologists call
reactance—a negative reaction to efforts by others to reduce our freedom
by getting us to believe or do what they want (Brehm, 1966).

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 Research indicates that in such situations, we do often change our
attitudes and behaviour in the opposite direction from what we are being
urged to believe or to do. Indeed, when we are feeling reactance, strong
arguments in favour of attitude change can increase opposition compared
to moderate or weak arguments (Fuegen & Brehm, 2004).This is the
reason why hard-sell attempts at persuasion often fail. When individuals
perceive such appeals as direct threats to their personal freedom they are
strongly motivated to resist.

6.3.2 Forewarning: Prior Knowledge of Persuasive Intent:

Forewarning means knowing beforehand that someone is making

an attempt to change our attitude. Thus, forewarning is advance
knowledge that a particular forthcoming message is specially designed to
change our attitude. Research studies have shown that forewarning helps
us to resist persuasion. For example, when we watch commercials on
television, we know that these messages are designed to persuade us to
purchase various products, we are often less likely to be affected by it than
if we do not possess such knowledge. Why? Because forewarning
influences several cognitive processes that play an important role in
persuasion.

Forewarning helps us to resist persuasion in two ways: First, helps

us to prepare counter arguments and defenses against a given message.
When we receive a persuasive message, especially one which is opposite
to our present views, we often indulge in counter arguments. When we
know the content of such a message in advance, we can get sufficient time
to prepare our defenses and in addition, forewarning gives us more time to
recall relevant facts and information from memory. This can help us to
refute a persuasive message.

6.3.3 Selective Avoidance of Persuasion Attempts:

Selective avoidance can be defined as a tendency to direct our

attention away from information that challenges our existing attitude. We
can consider an example of television viewing to explain how selective
avoidance occurs in our processing of information. People do not simply
sit in front of the television passively absorbing whatever the media
decides to throw at them. Instead, they channel-surf, mute the
commercials, record their favorite programmes, or simply cognitively
“tune out” when confronted with information contrary to their existing
views. The opposite effect occurs as well. When we encounter information
that supports our views, we tend to give it our increased attention. We stop
changing channels and watch carefully. Together these tendencies to “tune
out” information that contradicts our attitudes and “tune in” information
that support our attitudes are two sides of selective exposure. Such
selectivity in what we make the focus of our attention helps ensure that
many of our attitudes remain largely intact for long periods of time.

78
6.3.4 Actively Defending Our Attitudes: Counter arguing Against the
Competition:

Many times, we try to ignore or screen out information which is

not matching with our current views. This is one way of resisting
persuasion. This is known as passive defense of our attitudes. In addition,
we also use a more active strategy which is counter arguing against views
that are contrary to our own attitudes (Eagly, Chen, Chaiken, & Shaw
Barnes, 1999).

Research has proved that we are good at resisting persuasion

because we not only ignore information that is inconsistent with our
current views, but we also carefully process counter-attitudinal input and
argue actively against it. In this way, exposure to arguments opposed to
our attitudes can serve to strengthen the views we already hold, making us
more resistant to subsequent efforts to change them.

6.3.5 Individual Differences in Resistance to Persuasion:

Different people respond differently at attempts to persuasion in

relation with their attitudes (Brinol, Rucker, Tormala, & Petty, 2004).
Some people are very much motivated to counter arguing and hence,
resistant to change. On the other hand, some people try to strength their
own beliefs when faced with persuasion attempts. Brinol (2004) conducted
research to find out which of these two strategies was predictive of attitude
change. He found that both the approaches resisting persuasion predicted
successful resistance to attitude change. Further , the types of thoughts
people have when they are confronted with a counter-attitudinal message
are predicted by their preference for resisting persuasion by either counter
arguing or strengthening their initial attitude position. So, apparently
people do know something about how they deal with attempts to persuade
them, and they use their favored techniques quite effectively.

6.3.6 Ego-Depletion Can Undermine Resistance:

Ego depletion refers to the idea that self-control or willpower

draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When
the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is impaired, which
would be considered a state of ego depletion. People have limited capacity
to self-regulate (i.e., to engage their willpower in controlling their own
thinking). Prior expenditure of our limited resources can make us
vulnerable to persuasion. When people are tired or are in a state of ego-
depletion, they may simply agree with other people’s ideas which is in
contrast with their own idea, that is, they will show attitude change.

The process of ego depletion was studied by Wheeler, Brinol, and

Hermann (2007). They gave participants an easy or difficult first task,
with the difficult task being designed to deplete their self-regulation
resources. Later, participants were given a weak or strong message in
79
favor of compulsory examinations for graduation. Students were initially
strongly against compulsory graduation examination .The question in front
of the researchers was “did ego depletion result in people being more
persuaded by bad (weak) arguments?” The answer was a yes. The weak
arguments were unpersuasive among those who were not ego depleted, but
they were just as persuasive to those who were ego-depleted as were the
strong arguments. Examination of the participants’ thoughts in response to
the message verified that the non-depleted participants had more favorable
thoughts about the message when the arguments were strong compared to
when they were weak. In contrast, the thoughts of the ego depleted
participants were equally as favorable in the strong and weak arguments
case.
Recent research has confirmed that those who have resisted a
persuasive message have less ability to subsequently exert self-control
(Burkley, 2008; Vohs et al., 2008; Wang, Novemsky, Dhar, & Baumeister,
2010). It has been found that resistance depletes our self-control, which
results in greater vulnerability to persuasion, and when we are depleted,
we may find it more difficult to resist would-be persuaders’ weak
messages. Furthermore, when people are attempting to persuade others,
they are more likely to be dishonest when their capacity to exert control
has been depleted (Mead, Baumeister, Gino, Schweitzer, &Ariely, 2009).
This research suggests that we need to beware of communicators who are
the most tired when they are attempting to persuade us — for they may be
strongly tempted to colour the truth in ways that favour them over us.
Check Your Progress
Short Notes
Reactance

Selective avoidance

Counter-attitudinal message

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Ego depletion

6.4 COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: WHAT IS IT AND HOW

DO WE MANAGE IT?

We know that attitudes and behaviour are linked. But in many

situations, there can be a gap between what we feel on the inside (positive
or negative reactions to some object or issue) and what we show on the
outside. For example, your father gifts you a Maruti car and you do not
like Maruti cars for various reasons. Maybe because Maruti brand is not
liked in your friends circle or it does not sound like a foreign brand etc. If
your father asks you how is the new car? You probably end up saying that
it is a very nice car. You did not want to offend your father .But you
certainly felt uncomfortable when you uttered those words. Why? Because
in this situation you were aware that your behaviour was not consistent
with your attitudes and this is an uncomfortable state to be in.

Psychologists term this reaction as cognitive dissonance—an

unpleasant state that occurs when we notice that our attitudes and our
behaviour are inconsistent. It has been studied and found that when we
cannot justify our attitude-inconsistent behaviour, we end up changing our
own attitudes. Any time you become aware of saying what you don’t
really believe (e.g., praise something you don’t actually like “just to be
polite”), make a difficult decision that requires you to reject an alternative
you find attractive, or discover that something you’ve invested effort or
money in is not as good as you expected, you are likely to experience
dissonance. In all these situations, there is a gap between your attitudes
and your actions, and such gaps tend to make us uncomfortable. Research
has found that the discomfort associated with dissonance is reflected in
elevated activity in the left front regions of our brain (Harmon-Jones,
Harmon-Jones, Fearn, Sigelman,& Johnson, 2008). Most important from
the present perspective, cognitive dissonance can sometimes lead us to
change our own attitudes—to shift them so that they are consistent with
our overt behaviour, even in the absence of any strong external pressure to
do so.

6.4.1 Dissonance and Attitude Change: The Effects of Induced

(Forced) Compliance:

The theory of cognitive dissonance was introduced by Leon

Festinger (1957) to explain how individuals change their own attitudes.
Cognitive dissonance can be defined as an unpleasant internal state that
results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more of their
81
attitudes or between their attitudes and their behaviour. This theory
predicts that dissonance will be stronger when we have few reasons for
engaging in attitude-discrepant behaviour. When we have little
justification and therefore cannot explain away our actions to ourselves,
dissonance can be quite intense.

When someone is forced to do something they really don't want

to do, dissonance is created between their cognition and their behaviour.
Forced compliance occurs when an individual performs an action that is
inconsistent with his or her beliefs. The behaviour can't be changed, since
it was already in the past, so dissonance will need to be reduced by re-
evaluating their attitude to what they have done. This prediction was
tested in an experiment by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959).

They asked participants to perform a series of dull tasks (such as

turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant's attitudes toward this
task was highly negative. Festinger and Carlsmith investigated if making
people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through
forced compliance behaviour. They used 71 male students as participants
to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an
hour). They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a waiting participant
that the tasks were really interesting. Most of the participants agreed to
persuade other participants that the boring experiment would be
fun. When the participants were asked to evaluate the experiment, the
participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and
enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.

What could be the reason of above findings? Being paid only $1 is

not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1
experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that dissonance by
coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable.
Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs, and there is, therefore,
no dissonance.

These findings were very surprising and social psychologists refer

to this prediction as the less-leads-to-more effect t— less rewards for an
action often leads to greater attitude change— and it has been confirmed
in many studies (Harmon-Jones, 2000; Leippe & Eisenstadt, 1994). The
more money or other rewards that are offered to people for them to behave
in an attitude-discrepant way provides a justification for their actions and
can undermine the likelihood that attitude change will occur. Small
rewards lead to greater attitude change when people believe that they were
personally responsible for both the chosen course of action and any
negative effects it produced. However, if ordered by an authority to do a
particular behaviour that is inconsistent with our personal attitudes, we
may not feel responsible for what happens and therefore not experience
dissonance.

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 Strong reasons
Dissonance is Attitude
for engaging in
weak change is small
attitude
discrepant
behaviour

Weak reasons for

engaging in Dissonance is Attitude
attitude strong change is large
discrepant
behaviour

Fig. 6.1 Attitude-Discrepant- Dissonance-Attitude Change

6.4.2 Alternative Strategies for Resolving Dissonance:

In this section we will discuss various strategies people use to reduce

dissonance. Changing attitude is not the only method to reduce
dissonance. There are direct and indirect methods used by individuals to
reduce dissonance.

Direct Methods to reduce dissonance:

 To alter the behaviour: Other way is to alter our behaviour so it is

more consistent with our attitudes—for example, we could resolve to
only buy organic products in the future and not change our “green
environmental attitudes” after we’ve made some non-environmental-
friendly purchase.

 Trivialization: Whenever individuals face dissonance, they tend to

reduce it in the easiest possible way. One method of reducing
dissonance that has been studied in recent years is called as
trivialization. It is a technique for reducing dissonance in which the
importance of attitudes or behaviour that are inconsistent with each
other is cognitively reduced. Research studies conducted by Simon,
Greenberg and Brehm (1995) point to the overall conclusion that once
individuals choose the easier or most convenient form of dissonance
reduction and they tend to ignore all other alternatives.

These strategies are called as direct methods of dissonance reduction:

They focus on the attitude–behavior discrepancy that is causing the
dissonance.

Indirect methods to reduce dissonance:

Research by Steele and his colleagues (e.g., Steele & Lui, 1983;
Steele, 1988) suggested that dissonance can be reduced by indirect means
as well. That is, although the basic discrepancy between the attitude and
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behavior is left intact, the unpleasant or negative feelings generated by
dissonance can be still reduced by, for example, consuming alcohol.
Under certain conditions, individuals experiencing dissonance may not
focus so much on reducing the gap between their attitudes and behavior,
but instead on other methods that will allow them to feel good about
themselves despite the gap (Steele, Spencer, & Lynch, 1993).

Self-affirmation: People sometimes engage in self-affirmation—restoring

positive self-evaluations that are threatened by the dissonance (Elliot &
Devine, 1994; Tesser, Martin, & Cornell, 1996). This is accomplished by
focusing on positive self-attributes—good things about oneself. For
instance, when I experienced dissonance as a result of saying nice things
about my neighbor’s new SUV, even though I am strongly against such
vehicles, I could remind myself that I am a considerate person. By
contemplating positive aspects of the self, it can help to reduce the
discomfort. However, we choose to reduce dissonance—through indirect
tactics or direct strategies that are aimed at reducing the attitude–behavior
discrepancy—we all find strategies to help us deal with the discomfort that
comes from being aware of discrepancies between our attitudes and
behavior.

6.4.3 When Dissonance Is a Tool for Beneficial Changes in Behavior:

• People who don’t wear seat belts are much more likely to die in
accidents than those who do.
• People who smoke are much more likely to suffer from lung cancer
and heart disease than those who don’t . . .
• People who engage in unprotected sex are much more likely than those
who engage in safe sex to contract dangerous diseases, as well as have
unplanned pregnancies . . .

Most of us know these statements are true, and our attitudes are
generally favorable toward using seat belts, quitting smoking, and
engaging in safe sex (Carey, Morrison- Beedy, & Johnson, 1997). Despite
having positive attitudes, they are often not translated into overt actions.
Research suggests that dissonance can be used to promote beneficial
behaviour change.

Let us consider some daily life situations. Some people continue to

drive without seat belts, to smoke, and to have unprotected sex. To address
these social problems, we do not need to change people’s attitude, rather, a
change in overt behaviour will be beneficial. The question is can
dissonance be used to promote beneficial behavioral changes?

Research suggests that it can (Batson, Kobrynowicz, Dinnerstein,

Kampf, & Wilson,1997; Gibbons, Eggleston, & Benthin, 1997),
especially when it is used to generate feelings of hypocrisy— publicly
advocating some attitude, and then making salient to the person that they
84
have acted in a way that is inconsistent with their own attitudes. Such
feelings might be sufficiently intense that only actions that reduce
dissonance directly, by inducing behavioral change may be effective.
These predictions concerning the possibility of dissonance-induced
behaviour change have been tested in several studies. Stone, Wiegand,
Cooper, and Aronson (1997) asked participants to prepare a speech
advocating the use of condoms (safe sex) to avoid contracting AIDS.
Next, participants were asked to think of reasons why they themselves
hadn’t used condoms in the past (personal reasons) or reasons that people
in general sometimes fail to use condoms (normative reasons not
involving their own behavior).

The researchers predicted that dissonance would be maximized in

the personal reasons condition, where participants had to come face-to-
face with their own hypocrisy. Then, all persons in the study were given a
choice between a direct means of reducing dissonance—purchasing
condoms at a reduced price, or an indirect means of reducing
dissonance—making a donation to a program designed to aid homeless
persons. The results indicated that when participants had been asked to
focus on the reasons why they didn’t engage in safe sex in the past, an
overwhelming majority chose to purchase condoms, suggesting that their
behavior in the future will be different—the direct route to dissonance
reduction. In contrast, when asked to think about reasons why people in
general didn’t engage in safe sex, more actually chose the indirect route to
dissonance reduction—a donation to aid the homeless project—and didn’t
change their behavior.

These findings suggest that using dissonance to make our own

hypocrisy salient can indeed be a powerful tool for changing our behavior
in desirable ways. For maximum effectiveness, however, such procedures
must involve several elements: People must publicly advocate the desired
behaviors (e.g., using condoms), they need to be induced to think about
their own behavioral failures in the past, and they must be given access to
direct means for reducing their dissonance (i.e., a method for changing
their behavior). When these conditions are met, dissonance can bring
about beneficial changes in behavior.

Check Your Progress

Short Notes
Cognitive dissonance

85
Less-leads-to-more

Trivialization

Self-affirmation

Cultural tightness versus looseness

6.5 WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US…..

Different cultures have different norms according to which people

are expected to behave in ways that are in accordance with prevailing
social norms. This is known as cultural “tightness versus looseness”
(Gelfand et al., 2011). If a culture is characterized by pervasive norms and
sanctioning of deviance from norms, it is a tight culture. In a tight culture,
people’s values, norms, and behavior are similar to each other, while loose
cultures have weaker social norms and a higher tolerance for deviant
behavior. In cultures such as the United States, which is a relatively loose
one, because there is a lower emphasis on self-regulation and fewer
situational constraints on behavior, personal attitudes are quite good
guides for behavior. On the other hand, in cultures such as India, Pakistan
and Malaysia which are relatively tight cultures, personal attitudes are not
much related to behaviour.

Riemer et al. (2014) reviewed cross-cultural research on attitudes

and behaviour in Western and non-western contexts. He studied whether

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beliefs about personal attitudes and behavior should be consistent or not,
and whether attitudes and behaviour should differ across time. Following
points were studied by Riemer and his colleagues:
• The extent to which cognitive dissonance is experienced when
attitudes and behavior are inconsistent.
• Having strong and clear attitudes is less important for effective
functioning in non-Western context than in Western contexts.
• Being influenced by what others expect when making choices “feels”
right in non-Western contexts, but is seen as a struggle for personal
control in Western contexts.
• Successful persuasive advertisements in Western contexts often
emphasize personal uniqueness, whereas they are likely to emphasize
being appropriate for one’s social position in non-Western contexts.
• Whether people who “do it their way” are considered good and
normal, or immature and unwise for not considering the consequences
of their actions for others.

It can be concluded that many attitude processes differ when closely

examined in Western compared to non-Western contexts. Accordingly,
how we attempt to change attitudes—particularly those of relevance
around the globe such as climate change, and what to do about it, may
require different approaches in Western and non-Western settings.

6.6 SUMMARY

In this unit we discussed concepts like how persuasion can change

attitudes, how people resist persuasion attempts and cognitive dissonance.
We may be able to change attitudes by using persuasive communicators
who deliver persuasive messages to message recipients. In general,
persuasion will be greater when the communicator appeals to our self-
interest. Thus attractive, trustworthy, and expert communicators, who
present their messages confidently and fairly and who do not appear to be
influenced by situational forces, are most effective.

Persuasive messages may be processed either spontaneously or

thoughtfully. In some cases the spontaneous and emotional processing of
messages may be effective because the positive or negative affect makes
the message more salient, causing it to grab our attention. We are more
willing and able to process information thoughtfully when the
information allows us to meet underlying goals—for instance, when the
message is personally relevant to us. We also process more thoughtfully
when we have the ability and motivation to do so.

Sometimes people develop resistance to persuasion by using

various techniques. These techniques are called forewarning, reactance,
selective avoidance, counter arguments etc respectively.
87
 Sometimes self-perception occurs when individuals use their own
behavior to help them determine their attitudes toward an attitude
object. That is, we may use our own behavior as a guide to help us
determine our own thoughts and feelings, based on the assumption that
our thoughts and feelings should be consistent with our behaviors.

The discomfort that occurs when we behave in ways that we see

as inappropriate, such as when we fail to live up to our own expectations,
is called cognitive dissonance. Dissonance can be reduced by changing
behavior, by convincing ourselves that the behavior was not so negative,
or by creating new consonant cognitions. Persuaders may use principles
of attitude-behavior consistency to create attitude change.

6.7 QUESTIONS

1. When was the last time you were successfully persuaded by others.
What persuasion technique did they use?
2. What are the elements of persuasion? Explain with an example which
is not given in the text.
3. Credible communicators are more persuasive than the ones who are
not. Discuss.
4. Are you more likely to be persuaded by someone who is physically
attractive or someone who is from your social network?
5. Do you agree that messages that are designed to change our attitudes
are likely to be less persuasive?
6. How effective is the role of fear in persuading someone?
7. Define reactance. Why do hard-sell attempts at persuasion fail in the
presence of reactance?
8. Explain selective avoidance as a strategy to resist persuasion. Give
examples when you tried selective avoidance.
9. How does exposure to arguments that are opposed to our attitudes
strengthen the views we already hold and make us resistant to efforts
to change them?
10. Discuss strategies that you would employ to resist persuasive
messages?
11. Why do people suffering from ego-depletion fail to differentiate
between strong and weak arguments and are likely to be persuaded by
both?
12. Define the term cognitive dissonance? Cite an instance from your own
experience when you felt like this.
13. When is change in attitude likely to occur, when there are enough
reasons to engage in attitude-discrepant behaviour or when one lacks
the justification to do so?

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14. Discuss two direct methods aimed at reducing dissonance ? When is
one likely to engage in indirect methods of dissonance reduction?
15. If you are experiencing dissonance, what strategies would you use to
reduce it?
16. How can dissonance be used to bring about beneficial behavioral
changes? Give some real life examples.
17. Explain the concept of cultural tightness versus cultural looseness. Is
your culture relatively tight or loose?

6.8 REFERENCES

 Branscombe, N. R. &Baron, R. A., Adapted by Preeti Kapur

(2017). Social Psychology.
(14th Ed.). New Delhi: Pearson Education; Indian reprint 2017.



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 7
LIKING, LOVE AND OTHER CLOSE
RELATIONSHIPS - I
Unit Structure
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Internal Sources of Liking Others: The Role of Needs and Emotions
7.2.1 Importance of Affiliation Need
7.2.2 Role of Affect
7.3 External Sources of Attraction: The Effects of Proximity, Familiarity
and Physical Beauty
7.3.1 Power of Proximity
7.3.2 Physical Beauty
7.4 Sources of Liking based on Social Interaction
7.4.1 Similarity
7.4.2 Reciprocal liking or disliking
7.4.3 Social skills
7.4.4 Personality and Liking
7.4.5 Characteristics desired in others? Gender differences and
Changes over Stages of relationships
7.5 Summery
7.6 Questions
7.7 References

7.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading the chapter, you should be able to understand the following
 Affiliation and Affect as the internal factors that influences our liking
for others.
 Understand the influence of External factors like Proximity and
Physical Beauty on Interpersonal Attractions
 Understand the influence of factors related to Social Interaction (
Similarities, Reciprocal liking or disliking, Social skills, Personality,
Gender differences and stages of development) on interpersonal
attractions.

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7.1 INTRODUCTION

In the process of interacting with people, human beings also form

relationships with the people with whom they interact. Some relationships
may be temporary in existence while others may be relatively long lasting.
Some of the relationships may be trivial while others may play very
important role in our lives. The various relationships also vary along the
dimensions of duration and importance. All our close relationships are
based on liking and love for another person. Liking, in psychological
terms is referred to as ‘Interpersonal Attraction’. This chapter involves
understanding the nature of ‘liking’ and the different factors that
influences our liking for others.

Liking or Interpersonal attraction for another person is very

important factor that determines our relationship with that individual. All
our close relationships are based on our likes and dislikes. Social
psychologists and sociologists have tried to understand the basis on which
we like, dislike or remain indifferent to another individual. The various
researches in Social psychology indicates that our liking for an individual
may be traced to three sets of factors –
(1) Internal Factors –Factors related to our basic internal needs, motives
and emotions
(2) External factors– Factors related to the characteristics of the
environment and the person towards whom we get attracted to
(3) Factors based on Social Interaction – Factors related to events that
take place when we interact with others.

This chapter will discuss the internal factors in the section 7.2,
followed by External factors in section 7.3 and the Factors based on Social
Interaction in section 7.4

7.2. INTERNAL SOURCES OF LIKING OTHERS: ROLE

OF NEEDS AND EMOTIONS

Whether we will like others or not depends partly on our internal

conditions. Two important factors related to internal conditions that
determine interpersonal interactions are our needs and our emotional
states.

7.2.1 The importance of affiliation in human existence: the need to

belong:

One internal source of liking is linked to human need to affiliate

with others. Human beings have a social motive of affiliation. The need
for affiliation refers to the need to be with others and to be accepted
by others. Psychologists have traced our need for affiliation to the
following factors-
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(1) Neurobiological basis- Our need for affiliation is traced to its
neurobiological basis (Rowe, 1996). Biologically human infants are
said to be born with the motive and the ability to seek contact with
people around them.
(2) Evolutionary basis- Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that
need for affiliation in human beings is the result of survival value of
affiliation. Since being with others and living in groups was important
for the survival against threatening forces of the environment, human
beings developed the need to be in company of others.

Individual differences in the need to affiliate:

All individuals differ in the level to which they desire the company of
other people. According to O’Connor & Rosenblood (1996) human
beings seek the amount of social contact that is optimal for them. The
optimal level that produces satisfaction varies from one individual to
another.

People not only differ in the extent to which they desire

interpersonal contact, they react negatively when the desired level is not
satisfied. When people are excluded from social interaction or are ignored
by others, they show negative emotional, cognitive and social effects-
(1) Social effects: Social effects include increased sensitivity to
interpersonal information (Gardner, Pickett & Brewer, 2000).
(2) Emotional effects: Emotionally, individuals who are left out
experience feelings of loss of control, sadness and anger (Buckley,
Winkel& Leary, 2004).
(3) Cognitive effects: Cognitively, social exclusion is also associated with
reduced effectiveness in cognitive functioning (Baumeister, Twenge &
Nuss, 2002).

All this suggests that social contacts are important for the
development of human beings.

Several individuals express little or even no strong desire for social

interactions. Some people state that they do not have the need to relate and
interact with others. However researches in social psychology indicate that
this need exists in all human being at least to some extent. Even
individuals who state to have low need for affiliation show that they feel
better about themselves and even experience positive emotions when
accepted by those whom they claim not to need.

Are there people who don't need other people?:

All human beings have a need to be connected to others but they

may differ in the levels of the need for affiliation. One's need for
affiliation may be influenced by certain internal factors as well as
situational factors.
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 Our need for affiliation is influenced by internal factors like
attachment style. Attachment style refers to the ways in which human
beings form emotional bonds and regulate emotions in close relationships.
It has a strong influence on our thinking about others and our relationships
with them (Gillath et. al., 2005). For example, individuals with a secure
attachment style have a positive self-esteem and are also high on
interpersonal trust. This influences their tendency to seek others’ support
and engage in self-disclosure.

Accordingly individuals with secure attachment style actively seek

support from others and trust others and are more likely to engage in self-
disclosure. This helps them to form strong and lasting interpersonal
relationships with others. On the other hand individuals with fearful-
avoidant attachment style, have a low self-esteem and are low on
interpersonal trust. This makes it difficult for them to develop and
maintain relationships with the underlying lack of confidence and
difficulties in trusting others.

Attachment styles influences the cognitive processes and also the

neural process. Individuals with high levels of fear of rejection show
higher level of activation of the brain areas associated with emotions when
they think of negative aspects of relationships like conflicts, break- up, etc.
(Gillathet al., 2005).

Attachment style of an individual thus influences the affiliation

need of an individual through its underlying cognitive and neural
processes.

Situational influences on the need to affiliate:

The need for affiliation is also influenced by environmental

factors. Human beings show an increased desire for interpersonal
interactions when exposed to negative situations like being reminded of
one’s own mortality (Wisman & Koole, 2003). Individuals who had
experienced natural disasters too show higher desire for social contacts
(Benjamin, 1998). During natural disasters and unusual events, very often
even strangers come together and interact in a friendly manner. All this
suggests that negative and disturbing environmental situations increases an
individual’s need for affiliation.

The underlying reason for responding to a stressful situation with

friendliness and affiliation was first identified by Schachter (1959). He
observed that during such disturbing situations individuals prefer
contacts, specifically being in contact with those having similar problems.
In Schachter’s experiment, participants who were expecting to receive an
electric shock showed a preference to spend time with others facing the
same situation.

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 This suggests that human beings prefer company of people with
similar problems. Company of such kind is sought for the following
reasons-
(a) Social Comparison: Company of others provides an individual with
the opportunity for social comparison - to communicate about what is
going on, compare their perceptions and make decisions about what to
do.
(b) Cognitive Clarity: When exposed to a distressing situation, human
beings make an attempt to understand the situation. Talking to others
enables them to develop a better understanding of the situation
(Cognitive Clarity)
(c) Emotional Clarity: Under a distressing situation human beings also
have a need to understand their own emotional reactions that results
from the negative situation (Emotional Clarity). The desire for
cognitive and emotional clarity determines the individual's need for
affiliation (Gump & Kulik, 1997)

Thus human beings seek company of others and this seeking out
company is beneficial. Study by Kulik, Mahler & Moore (1996) with
individuals hospitalized for no emergency cardiac surgery showed that
they spent more time with their roommate (who had or was expecting
cardiac surgery) talking and seeking cognitive clarity and emotional
clarity. This cognitive and emotional clarity was associated with ability to
leave hospital more quickly after the surgery. This indicates the rewarding
effects of the affiliation motive.

All of the above indicates that although people differ in the level of
need for affiliation, it is present in every individual and this motive is one
of the factors that underlie our interpersonal attraction.

7.2.2 The role of affect: do our moods play a role in liking others?:
Another internal factor that influences our liking for another
individual is our mood. Our emotional state affects several cognitive
processes like perception, motivation, decision making and interpersonal
attraction. Moods have a strong influence on the way in which we evaluate
others. A positive affect often leads to positive evaluations of other
people and a negative affect often leads to dislike or negative evaluations
of others. Thus moods have an impact on our likes and dislikes for another
individual.

Moods and emotions influence our likes and dislikes in two ways-
directly and indirectly.
(1) Direct effects: We like someone who makes us feel good and dislike
someone who makes us feel bad (Ben-Porath, 2000). This is the direct
effect. Thus direct effect takes place when another person says or does
something that makes us feel good or bad.
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(2) Indirect effects: Sometimes like or dislike for an individual occurs
only because the person is present at the time when we experience the
emotional state. For example, if we meet a stranger immediately after
being scolded by the teacher, we are less likely to like him or her.

The influence of affective states have been demonstrated in various

experiments with diverse external cues like pictures, music and even
reported emotional states by the participants. For instance, a research
study showed that students liked the experimenter better if he had
administered rewards rather than punishments (McDonald, 1962). Similar
results were found with subliminal presentation of pleasant versus
unpleasant pictures, background music and room lighting.

The indirect effect of the emotions may be explained by Classical

Conditioning through which a neutral stimulus (person) is paired with the
unconditioned stimulus (Situation producing the emotion) and hence
produces the same emotional state. Consistently it has been shown that
positive affect results in positive evaluation (liking) while negative affect
results in negative evaluations ( disliking).

This factor has been used by advertisers and politicians to

influence our liking for their product or candidates. Advertisers and
Politicians influence our liking for products and candidates by associating
it with pleasant experiences. Research suggests that irrelevant affective
states (induced by factors unrelated to the candidate or product) can
influence our liking and hence our overt action of whether we will actually
vote or buy the product. Thus attempts made by advertisers and politicians
are successful in influencing our likes and dislikes. Affiliation and affect
are internal factors that influence our liking for others.

Check Your Progress:

1. How do our needs influence Interpersonal Attraction?

2. How does affect influence interpersonal attraction?

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7.3: EXTERNAL SOURCES OF ATTRACTION: THE
EFFECTS OF PROXIMITY, FAMILIARITY AND
PHYSICAL BEAUTY

Two individuals may come in contact with each other accidently.

The first contact with classmates, colleagues, playmates are always
accidental. Their closeness (proximity) brings them in contact with each
other. Sitting stogether or working together brings them in contact with
one another. Once in contact, other external factors like physical
attractiveness and similarity plays an important role in their liking for each
other. This shows that proximity plays an important role in interpersonal
attraction. This section of the unit covers some of the external sources of
interpersonal attraction – proximity and physical beauty.

7.3.1: PROXIMITY: Unplanned Contacts:

The initial feeling of liking for another individual is based on our

physical contact with that individual. Contact with another individual
enables us to form our likes or dislikes for them. Social networking has
enabled us today to form contacts without direct face-to-face contacts.
While some people feel that virtual physical contact is important for
developing close relationships, others feel that strong close relationships
may also be formed on social networking sites.

Several studies have pointed out the importance of proximity in

interpersonal attraction. Many researches in United States and Europe
have suggested that students are most likely to know each other if they sit
close to each other (Bryne, 1961). Also people who live or work in close
proximity are likely to become acquainted, form friendships and even
marry one another (Bossard, 1932).

Why does proximity matter? repeated exposure is the key:

The influence of proximity could be explained by repeated

exposure effect. Proximity increases the frequency of our exposure with
the stimuli and more the exposure to the stimulus, more favorable is our
evaluation of such a stimulus. Research suggests that this occurs for
people, places, words as well as objects.

Repeated exposure to a new stimulus ( a stranger’s face, an

abstract drawing, a product) results in positive evaluation of that stimulus
(Zarjonc, 1968). Even infants tend to smile more at a photograph of
someone they have seen before but not at a photograph of someone they
are seeing for the first time (Brooks-Gunn & Lewis, 1981).

Moreland & Beach (1992) conducted an experiment in a classroom

setting. In their experiment one female assistant attended class 15 times,
second assistant attended the class 10 times, third assistant 5 times and
96
fourth assistant did not attend any class during the semester. With no
interaction with the students by any of the assistants, at the end of the
semester students were asked to indicate the extent to which they liked
each of the assistants. It was found that more the frequency of exposure,
more the liking for the assistant.

The increased liking due to frequent exposure is explained by

Zajonc (2001) with the feeling of comfort that develops when we are
repeatedly exposed to the stimulus. We experience discomfort when
facing a new and unfamiliar stimulus. However repeated exposure helps in
reducing the discomfort and also produces more comfort.

In an experiment conducted by Reis et al., (2011) pair of

individuals met and discussed several topics. They discussed two, four or
six topics after which they had to rate their partners’ attractiveness. It was
found that greater the number of topics discussed, the higher the ratings. In
another similar study by Reis et al., (2011) involved students engaging in
unstructured internet chats with a stranger ( for 10 to 15 minutes) for two,
four, six or eight times. Feedback of the participants indicated that
increased interaction made them feel more familiar with them and hence
develop more comfort with the partners.

Thus repeated exposure enhances attraction due to the comfort and

familiarity that it produces about the stimulus.

Whether repeated contacts will produce liking or not depends on

the nature of initial reaction. Initial negative repeated contacts leads to
reduction in attraction, since repeated meetings tend to strengthen these
negative feelings (Swap,1977).

The effects of social media on proximity and repeated exposure:

Modern technology has altered the effects of proximity and

frequency. In a way it has brought people closer and has facilitated
interpersonal relations. Psychological studies show that it has positive as
well as negative effects on relationships.

Some of the positive effects are:

(1) Increased satisfaction: Status updates on the social networking sites

plays an important role in the emotional life of an individual. It gives
people an opportunity for emotional disclosure. This helps in
enhancing the satisfaction level of the individual (Mango, Taylor &
Greenfield, 2012)

(2) Social support: With the emotional disclosure there is greater social
support received by the individual.

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 However technology also produces negative effects. Some of the
negative effects are:
(1) Depression: Frequent use of Facebook is associated with depression
and lowered subjective feelings of well-being (Kross et. al.,2013)
(2) Comparison: Studies have shown that greater the number of friends
with whom an individual can compare and especially when they
present themselves favorably, it makes one feel sad.

Thus modern technology has positive as well as negative effects on

relationships.

7.3.2: Physical Beauty: Its role in interpersonal attraction:

Another external factor that plays an important role in

interpersonal attraction is the physical attractiveness of the person. In
many situations our liking for the person could be because we found the
person attractive at the first sight itself.

Physical Beauty:

Although different individuals may have differences in what they

may consider as attractive, physical appearance often plays a strong role in
interpersonal attraction (Vogel at al., 2010). The criteria for beauty may
differ from one culture to another. For instance, in India fair complexion
and well carved figure are some of the physical features that are preferred.

Beauty may be skin deep, but we pay a lot of attention to it:

Although we understand that physical appearances are superficial,

it strongly influences our liking for others (Collins & Zebrowitz, 1995). It
has an impact on how one is evaluated. We are more likely to perceive
attractive individuals positively. Attractive individuals are more likely to
be seen as having desirable social characteristics like kindness, generosity
and warmth. (Lemay et. al., 2010) Attractive defendants are less likely to
be found guilty by judges than unattractive defendants. (Downs & Lyons,
1991)

The “ What Is Beautiful Is Good “ Effect

Individuals who are physically attractive are considered to be
possessing socially desirable characteristics. This is known as the “
What is beautiful is good" effect. Some of the reasons for this effect are
-
(1) One reason why attractive people are viewed as possessing desirable
characteristics, is the stereotype belief that we possess for people who
have good looks (Physical Attractiveness Stereotype).
Stereotypically we believe that beauty is associated with
characteristics like kindness, warmth and other positive
characteristics. Possession of such stereotype shapes the way in
98
 which we think and perceive people and thereby determines our likes
and dislikes. Several studies have supported this view. (Snyder el. al.,
1977)

(2) Lemay et. al. (2010) proposed a 3-step theory to explain why attractive
people are viewed as possessing desirable characteristics. According to
them, when people find someone attractive they have a desire to form
relationship with that individual. Thus it begins with our desire to
form relationship with attractive people. This desire leads us to
perceive them as interpersonally positive even on dimensions which
may not even be directly connected to physical beauty.

Several studies conducted by Lemay et. al. supported this theory.

In their experiments they asked individuals to rate strangers on the level of
physical attractiveness. Then the participants were asked to rate the extent
to which they would like to form relationships with that person. The
participants were then asked to rate the strangers on other socially
desirable characteristics. They found that attractive people were viewed
more favorably and it was mediated by participants’ level of desire to form
relationships with that person. Since we have a desire to develop
relationship with such an individual we see them in a more favourable
manner.

Sometimes the association between attractiveness and socially

desirable characteristics may not be a bias, but a reality. Individuals who
are physically attractive may demonstrate desirable characteristics. For
instance study by Diener at al., (1995) showed that attractiveness is
associated with popularity, high self-esteem and good interpersonal skills.
Physically attractive individuals experience positive reactions from others
and this may perhaps build positive characteristics like high self-esteem
and confidence in them.

However sometimes attractive people may use their looks for their
own benefit- like persuading or influencing others. Their desirable
behaviour could be their attempt at manipulating others to get whatever
they desire. However it is not necessarily only beautiful people are
manipulative. But it is important to understand that associating beauty
with desirable characteristics may not always be realistic and accurate.

What makes a person physically attractive?:

Researchers have tried to identify the characteristics that are

considered as attractive. There are some characteristics that are
consistently been regarded as attractiveness across several different
cultures. (Cunningham et al., 1995) Psychologists use two approaches in
identifying the cues that determine attractiveness of the stimulus.

The first approach involves finding out the characteristics that

are commonly possessed by people regarded as attractive.
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Cunningham (1986) asked male undergraduates to rate photographs of
young women who were considered as attractive . Analysis of
characteristics commonly possessed by them showed that these women
fell into one of the two groups- ‘Childlike features’ and ‘mature features’.
The same general categories seem to exist even for men.

The Second approach in determining what is attractive was

undertaken by Langlois & Roggman (1996). They created composite
faces by using computer digitizing to combine multiple facial
photographs into one photo. It was found that composite faces were
rated as more attractive than most of the individual faces used to make the
composite. (Langlois, 1994) This could be because each person’s schema
of women and of men is created in our cognitions in the same way that the
averaged face is created. Faces that most closely match the composite are
perceived as attractive.

Beauty is defined differently by different individuals. However

certain features have been found to be consistently associated with beauty.
Child-like and mature features- Studies suggests that certain
characteristics like child-like and mature features are found to be
associated with being considered as beautiful.

RED REALLY IS SEXY- AND ATTRACTIVE Beauty is also

influenced by other environmental cues. Many ancient cultures as well as
modern cultures have shown red color to be associated with increased
attractiveness at least for women. Many female primates display red on
their genitals, chest or face during ovulation. This has led social
psychologists to suggest that perhaps the color red increases women’s
attractiveness for men.

In a study by Elliot and Niesta (2008) male and female participants

saw photos of strangers standing against a red background or other
backgrounds (white, gray or green).The stranger wore either red or blue
shirt and the participants rated their attractiveness and sexual appeal. It
was found that when the photo of female strangers were shown against a
red background, male participants assigned higher ratings than when the
same women were shown against a white background. For women, the
background color or shirt color did not make a significant difference. Thus
red color has an influencing effect on men’s attraction to women.

Other aspects of appearance that influences attraction:

Another factor related to appearance that influences attraction is

the physique or body built. People generally associate round body with
an easy going, relaxed personality while muscular body is perceived to be
indicative of high energy. Angular body is seen as a sign of intelligence.
(Gardner & Tuckerman, 1994)

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 In many cultures overweight is viewed negatively in terms of
attractiveness. However in many other cultures overweight is considered
as attractive. In countries like Mauritania young women are encouraged to
eat and gain weight. Yet in most societies being overweight reduces
attractiveness.

Thus liking for an individual is also determined by external factors

like proximity and physical beauty of the person.

Check Your Progress-

Discuss the influence of Proximity on liking.

How does beauty or physical attractiveness affect interpersonal attraction?

7.4: SOURCES OF LIKING BASED ON SOCIAL

INTERACTION

Apart from the internal and external factors attraction and liking for an
individual also depends upon factors that are related to social interactions.
Our liking for an individual depends upon our experiences on interacting
with them. Some of the factors related to this are –
- Similarities that we share with the person
- The extent to which the other person like us
- Social skills
- Aspects of Personality
- Stage of relationships and Gender

7.4.1: Similarity: Birds of the same feather actually do flock together

The Similarity hypothesis states that similarity is the basis of
interpersonal attraction.:

Sir Francis Galton’s findings indicated that friends and spouses

expressed a greater than chance degree of similarity. However it is
difficult to state whether similarity leads to liking or liking leads to
similarity.
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 The role of similarity was studied experimentally by Newcomb
(1965). He believed that if people find after interacting with each other
that they have similar attitudes, their liking for each other increases. To
test this assumption, he studied transfer students, i.e., the students who had
not met each other before coming to campus. He measured their attitudes
about various issues such as family, religion, race relations, etc. via mail.
Their liking for one another was then assessed weekly after they came to
campus. Results showed that more the similarity in their attitudes, the
more they liked each other by the end of the semester. Many later studies
also confirmed this finding.

However at times people find those who are different from

themselves attractive. This suggests that complementarities attract each
other. Complementarities are those differences which when combined
help to make the individual participants work well together. For
example, dominant individuals would be attracted to submissive one. It
was felt that complementary characteristics would be mutually reinforcing
and benefitting each other.

However there is no direct evidence for attraction for opposites.

The only complementarity that is associated with greater attraction is
male-female interaction with one showing dominant behavior and other
showing submissive behavior. In all other conditions opposite styles are
associated with incompatibility and are more likely to lead to rejection and
avoidance than liking. (Swann et. al., 2003)
Thus consistently similarity is found to be the basis of attraction in many
kinds of relationships.

SIMILARITY – DISSIMILARITY EFFECT: A CONSISTENT

PREDICTOR OF ATTRACTION:
Encountering similarity produces positive emotions while
dissimilarity produces negative feelings in us. This is called as
‘Similarity-Dissimilarity effect’. Although earlier work emphasized on
similarity in thinking and feeling towards things and persons, it was later
expanded to include even similarity of beliefs, values and interests.

In laboratory experiments to study this, the participants’ attitudes

are first assessed and then they are asked to evaluate a stranger, whose
attitudes, beliefs, values and interests they are exposed to (Byrne, 1961). It
was found that participants not only liked a stranger when similarity is
found between the stranger and oneself, but also they tend to judge such
strangers as possessing positive traits.
Research studies suggest that attraction is determined by the
proportion of similarity and its effect on attraction can be precisely
calculated. When the number of topics on which there is similar views is
divided by the total number of topics discussed, the resulting proportion
may be inserted in a simple formula which allows us to predict attraction.
(Byrne & Nelson, 1965)
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 This effect hold true for males and females regardless of age,
educational and cultural differences (Byrne, 1971). It also holds true with
respect to smoking marijuana, religious practices, self- concept, being a
‘morning versus evening person’ and being aroused by same jokes.

Do we seek similarity even with respect to physical attractiveness? :

Researchers have also attempted at understanding the role of

similarity in choosing partners. With respect to similarity in physical
attractiveness, it is found that people tend to choose marital partners
who are similar in physical attractiveness, even though we would
prefer to be friends with very attractive ones (Matching Hypothesis).
This view was first proposed by Bercheid et. al., (1971). However some
evidence indicated that people sometimes try to obtain the most attractive
partners available (Kalick& Hamilton, 1986).

Van Straaten et. al. (2010) had male and female strangers interact
briefly with each other. During this videotaped interaction, the
attractiveness of the participant and the extent to which they engaged in
efforts to make favorable impressions on each other was rated by the
observers. Each participant also rated his or her interest in dating the
stranger. Results showed that men invested more efforts in building
relations with strangers when they were more similar in attractiveness.
However this pattern was not found with women. Since women are less
willing to express overt interest in opposite sex, they do not put in efforts
to press the partners.

Thus most of human efforts are directed towards obtaining partners

who closely match one’s level of attractiveness, since it has a better
chance of survival and prosperity.

Do Even Trivial Similarities Generate Attraction?:

Sometimes our attraction for others may also be due to similarities
in trivial matters like names starting with same letters. Our positive
feeling about things like our name may spill over and may make us
like those who have same name. This is called as ‘implicit egotism’.
Research by Pelham et. al., (2005) examined records of marriages in
different states from 1823 to 1965. They found that last name with same
first letter to be significantly more than chance amongst couples. Similar
effects were seen with respect to the number on jerseys. Thus such
similarities have a strong influence and may occur even when we do not
pay careful attention.

Why do we like others who are similar to ourselves but dislike those
who are different?:
Researchers have made an attempt to put forth theories to explain
why similarities elicit positive feelings and dissimilarity elicits negative

103
feelings. Two theories put forth to explain this are –The Balance theory
and Social Comparison theory.

(1) The Balance Theory by Newcomb (1961) & Heider (1958) suggests
that people naturally organize their likes and dislikes in a symmetrical
way. Similarity with others produces a state of balance, which is
emotionally pleasant while dissimilarity produces imbalance, which is
emotionally unpleasant. When in state of imbalance, individuals strive to
restore balance by making either of the two changes—Underestimating or
Ignoring the dissimilarity or deciding to dislike one another. Disliking
involves non-balance, which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant.\

This theory fails to explain why similarity matters to individuals.

(2) Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) states that we evaluate

the accuracy of our views by comparing it with others. When our view
does not match with others, the odds are that our view is incorrect. Since
we do not want to be in a ‘wrong’ position, we turn to others to obtain
‘consensual validation’- evidence from others who share our views.
Knowing that someone else has similar view suggests that we are in
contact with reality and have a sound judgment. Dissimilarity creates
negative feeling. However it is less uncomfortable when it comes from
out-group members since we expect them to be different from ourselves.
(Haslam,2004)

7.4.2: Reciprocal Liking Or Disliking: Liking Those Who Like Us:

Almost everyone desires to be liked and we like those who like us.
Even in case of false flattery, people perceive it as accurate (Gordon,
1996), unless and until it is totally obvious. Research also suggests that we
have tendency of reciprocal liking, means we have a tendency to like those
who express liking towards us and disliking those who express dislike for
us (Condon &Crano, 1988).

7.4.3 Social Skills:

Individuals’ likelihood of being liked also depends on the extent to

which they possess ‘social skills’- a combination of aptitudes that help
individuals who possess them to interact effectively with others. Social
skills have been found to be important in various settings – politics,
medicine, romantic relations. Defendants high in social skill are declared
innocent more often. Doctors high in social skills are more popular and
people high in social skills have more success in romance.

Social skills includes 4 aspects

(1) Social astuteness: The capacity to perceive and understand others
accurately.
(2) Interpersonal influence : The ability to change others attitudes or
behavior by using variety of techniques.
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(3) Social adaptability: The capacity to adapt to a wide range of social
situations and interact effectively with a wide range of people.
(4) Expressiveness: The ability to show emotions openly in a form others
can readily perceive.

Social skills may be used by some individuals to manipulate

others. However it still plays an important role in liking. Individuals who
are high on social skills are likely to be found desirable due to their ability
to understand others and the flexibility demonstrated by us.

7.4.4 Personality & Liking:

As we interact with others, we form impressions about others,
which may range from accurate to very inaccurate. Studies have been
conducted to understand the impact of different personality traits on being
liked by others. Some of the personality factors associated with liking are
as follows-

1) Agreeableness & Extroversion:

The Big Five Model of personality describes personality on the
basis of 5 traits – Neuroticism (Emotional Stability), Extroversion
(Outgoing and warm), Openness to Experience (Imaginative and seeking
new ideas), Agreeableness (Co-operative), Conscientiousness (Being
organized and ‘on time’)

People high on agreeableness and extroversion receive higher

ratings of interpersonal attractiveness from others (Zhao & Seibert, 2006)

2) Narcissism:
Another personality characteristics associated with interpersonal
attractiveness is narcissism. (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2011) which is
characterized by inflated view of themselves, who focus mostly on
themselves and ignore the needs and feelings of others. Such individuals
seem likable in the beginning. However with repeated interactions their
belief that they are superior and others should admire them, makes them
unlikable.

In a study by Back et. al., (2011) students were asked to introduce

themselves to the group. Later the students were asked to rate them on
narcissism and their liking for the individual. Research showed that the
narcissism is associated with higher rating on likability and popularity. In
the initial part of the interaction, narcissism is desirable since such
individuals appear charming, extraverted and friendly. However later
when they are seen more frequently, they are disliked.

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7.4.5: What do we desire in others? gender differences and changes
over stages of a relationship:

Psychologists have tried to identify what characteristics we would

prefer to have in a perfect person or an ideal partner. The characteristics
we seek and prefer may change depending upon our gender and the stage
or length of our relations with them. The traits that we look for, in an ideal
partner undergo changes over the period of time. It may change after
getting acquainted with the person.

Most of the research related to the identification of characteristics

desired in a partner has been conducted in the context of romantic
relationships and it has been seen that the characteristics desired in the
partner changes as the partners get acquainted with each other.

Many studies have investigated the characteristics that men and

women desire in others. Cottrell et. al. (2007) asked students to create an
ideal person by rating 31 positive characteristics in terms of importance
for the ideal person. It was found that trustworthiness and
cooperativeness were the most important traits followed by
agreeableness and extroversion. However this study did not find whether
the desired characteristic changes with different type of relationship –
friends, employee, lover, etc.

1) Type of relationships: The above question was studied by asking male

and female students to imagine creating an ideal member of different
groups and relationship – work project team, final exam study group, golf
team member, sorority members, fraternity members, close friends,
employees. Students rated 75 different traits for each group.
Trustworthiness and co-cooperativeness were rated as most important on
all relationships. This was followed by agreeableness followed by
extroversion.

Thus research suggests that certain traits (trustworthiness,

cooperativeness, agreeableness and extroversion) are valued across all
relations. However there are also differences in the valued traits depending
upon the kind of relationship. For instance, intelligence was rated high
for project team and study team while humor was rated as important
for close friends. This suggests that the desired traits differed for different
types of relationships.

2) Gender: Researches have also been conducted to identify whether

women and men desire different qualities in potential romantic partners. It
is found that men focus more on physical attractiveness than women,
while women weigh this variable as less important than other
characteristics. Women assign greater importance to traits related to
forming stable relationships such as partner’s potential future
earning. Two theories have explained the gender differences in desired
traits in the partner----
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a. Sociobiological theory: suggests that women seek mates (at least
long-term ones) who could potentially support them.
b. The Parental Investment Theory (Boeklund & Kipp, 1996) : states
that the one who invests and risks the most in reproduction, will be the
most particular when selecting the mate.

Today despite of increased financial status of women, meta-

analysis of hundreds of studies on gender differences in ideal romantic
partners suggests that there are gender differences (although small) related
to financial support (Eastwicket.al., 2014)

(2) Stage of relationships: The characteristics sought in an ideal partner

is also determined by the stage of the relationship. Before the
relationship gets formed, physical attractiveness may predict the
choice of the partner. As the relationships develops, other factors like
intelligence and stability becomes important characteristic sought.

Thus the characteristics desired in an ideal partner vary depending upon

factors such as type of relationship, gender and stage of relationship.

Check Your Progress

1. Explain the role of similarity in interpersonal attraction.

2. Discuss the importance of Reciprocal liking and Social skills in liking.

3. How does Personality influence liking for the person?

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7.5 SUMMARY

Interpersonal Attraction refers to the evaluations made by human

beings regarding another individual. The positive or negative evaluations
made by human beings may be influenced by three sets of factors-
Internal, External and Social Interaction

Internal factors includes the influence of factors such as the need

for affiliation and affect of the individual. Need for affiliation refers to our
need to interact with others in a co-operative manner. This need forms the
basis of our interpersonal attractions. Affect may directly or indirectly
influence our liking for others.

External factors includes the influence of proximity and physical

attractiveness of the person in determining interpersonal attraction. The
initial contact with one another is most commonly found among those
sitting or living close to each other. Physical features like- attractiveness,
color like red, physique are some of the observable characteristics that
determines our liking for others.

Another set of factor that determines our liking for others is those
based on social interactions. This includes our similarity with the
individual, social skills and personality traits of the individual. We like
those who are similar to us in terms of attitude, beliefs, values and
sometimes even if there are similarities on trivial matters. Possession of
social skills increases an individual’s likelihood of being liked. Similarly
personality factors like Big 5 factors and narcissism also determine our
liking for an individual.

7.6 QUESTIONS

Q1) Discuss t he different Internal Sources of Liking Others.

Q2) Explain the importance of different External Sources of
Interpersonal Attraction
Q3) Explain the different Sources of Liking Others based on Social
Interaction

7.7 REFERENCE

(1) Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. (2007). Social Psychology.
(6th edit.), New Jersey: Pearson Education, Prentice Hall.
(2) Baumeister, R.F., &Bushman , B.J. (2008). Social Psychology and
Human Nature. International student edition, Thomson Wadsworth,
USA


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 8
LIKING, LOVE AND OTHER CLOSE
RELATIONSHIPS - II
Unit Structure
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Close relationships: Foundations of Social life (Introduction)
8.1.1 Romantic relationships and the (Partially solved) Mystery of
Love
8.1.2 What do we seek in Romantic Partners?
8.1.3 Relationships with Family Members: Our First and Most
Lasting – Close Relationships
8.1.4Friendships: Relationships Beyond the Family
8.2 What research tells us about dramatic differences in appearance
between partners: Is love really blind?
8.3 What research tells us about two factors that may destroy love-
Jealousy and Infidelity
8.4 Summery
8.5 Questions
8.6 References

8.0 OBJECTIVES

After studying this unit, one should be able to understand

 What is love and what are the basis of romantic relationships
 Nature of family relationships- Parent-child relationship, relationships
with other adult family members and relationships with sibling
 Basis of relationship with close friends
 Why sometimes people choose partners who are dramatically different
 What are the effects of jealousy and Infidelity on love

8.1 CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS: FOUNDATIONS OF

SOCIAL LIFE (INTRODUCTION)

Throughout our life, we develop close relations with different

individuals - spouse, family members, friends, etc. Some of these close
relationships are involuntary (blood relations) while others are voluntary.
These voluntary relationships are based on interpersonal attractions or
liking for the person. Social psychologists have tried to understand

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different aspects of these relationships like- its formation and
development, significance and functions, factors affecting its survival. In
this unit we will understand the nature of three important social
relationships- Romantic relationship, relationships with family members
and relationships with friends.

Romantic relationships is covered in unit 8.1.1 followed by Close

relationships in the family (parent- child, other adults in the family, sibling
relationships) which is covered in 8.1.2. Section 8.1.3 of the chapter
covers another close relationship- friendship. Section 8.2 and 8.3 includes
certain additional aspects of close relationships- dramatic differences in
appearance between (Section 8.2) and two important factors (Jealousy and
Infidelity) that affect relationships (Section 8.3)

8.1.1 Romantic relationship and (partially solved) mystery of love:

This is one of the important close relationships formed by us.
Romantic relationships are based primarily on love. Love is a combination
of emotions, cognitions and behavior that plays a crucial role in close
relations.

Love: Its basic nature:

In a way love may be regarded as one of the basic emotions like
sadness, fear, etc. (Shaver et. al., 1996). It has a positive impact on
personal happiness and on psychological adjustment since it is associated
with increase self-efficacy and self-esteem. Very often, people mistake
sexual attraction as love, but it is much more than that. Though love is a
universal experience but the specific details of love varies from culture to
culture. (Beall & Sternberg, 1995)

What is the origin of love:

The origin of love may be speculated to be due to pleasant fantasy
that people share with another person at a certain time in life. Another
explanation for the origin of love can be traced to its association with
reproductive success. According to evolutionary theory, it was necessary
for the survival of early humans that they reproduce off springs
successfully. Buss (1994) suggested that reproductive success is more
likely if the couple is erotically attracted to one another and are willing to
invest time and energy in nourishing and protecting their off springs. This
indicated two basic features of love, i.e., desire and commitment.

Components of love:
Sternberg conceptualized various components of love and
explained them in the form of a model called as Sternberg’s Model of
Love. This model suggests that each love relationship is made up of 3
components- Intimacy, Passion and Commitment.

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(1) Intimacy: It is the closeness that two people feel and the strength of
the bond that holds them together. Partners high on this are concerned
with each other's welfare and happiness. They value, trust, understand
and like each other.

(2) Passion: It is based on physical attraction and sexual excitement

associated with the relationships.

(3) Commitment: It represents the cognitive factors such as decision to

love and commitment to be with the person on a permanent long tem
basis.

Each of these components is present in varying degrees for

different couples. Although lovers subjectively experience these three
components as overlapping and related, psychological study suggests that
any given relationship is characterized primarily by one or two
components.

Depending on the presence of the 3 elements in the relationships,

love may be classified into different types.

Consummate love: When all three components are present in equal

strength and are balanced, it is called consummate love. Sternberg
believed that consummate love is the ideal form of love but it is often
difficult to achieve and maintain.

Companionate love: Love based on care for each other, mutual liking and
respect is known as Companionate love (Caspi&Herbener,1990).
According to Sternberg, it involves the combination of intimacy and
commitment. Although this form of love is not as exciting as passionate
love, it is very important for lasting and committed relations.
Hatfield(1988) described this type of love as “the affection we feel for
those with whom our lives are deeply entwined.” This type of love is the
foundation for long lasting committed relationships, such as marital
relationships.

The role of passionate love in romantic relationships:

This kind of love involves sudden, overwhelming and all-

consuming positive reaction to another person, which is often described by
the individual as beyond his or her control. Researchers have tried to
understand the components of this form of love, i.e., passionate love.

According to Meyers and Berscheid (1997) sexual attraction is an

important component of this form of love. However sexual attraction is
not the only factor responsible for this kind of love. One may be sexually
attracted to someone, without the feeling of love, but one is not likely to
be in love without sexual attraction. For many individuals sex becomes

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more acceptable because they are in love. In such cases sexual activity
gets romanticized (Baumister, 2005).

Another component of passionate love is emotional arousal, the

desire to be physically close and an intense need to be loved as much as he
or she loves the other person. Loving and being loved are positive
experiences that are often accompanied with the fear that relationship
may not last.

Very often when love at first sight happens and a person falls in
love with a stranger, it happens only to one person and is not mutual. Such
a love, where a person’s feelings are not returned by the other person is
known as unrequited love. It is a one way love and is most common
among people who have conflicts about attachments. They want them, but
are afraid of them too(Aron et. al., 1998).

According to Hatfield and Walster (1981) passionate love requires 3 basic

factors-
(1) Having a concept of passionate love
(2) An appropriate love object
(3) State of physiological arousal

Passionate love happens when an individual believes that such a

love exists, comes across a physically attractive individual of opposite sex,
who is not married at present ( this condition of marriage is culture
specific) and he or she is in a state of physiological arousal like sexual
excitement, fear, anxiety, etc. that can be interpreted as the emotion of
love. All these factors together produce passionate love.

Love, intimacy, close relationships and marriage are influenced by

several factors- endogamous and exogamous. Endogamous refers to
practice of marrying within a specific caste or ethnic group and religion
and rejecting people for marriage from other groups. Exogamous, on the
hand, refers to the social norm of marrying outside one’s own social
group. Both these factors, put together determine the cultural norms. In
Indian culture especially, marriage is more of a social phenomena rather
than an individual phenomena. In India, arrange marriages are more
common than love marriages and the cultural ethos are that marriage takes
place not just between two consenting individuals but between two
consenting families. Research has indicated that in Indian culture religion,
caste, ethnicity, family attributes and the gender discourse followed by
physical appearance are the primary deciding factors for marriage to take
place.

8.1.2. What do we seek in romantic partners?:

Another factor that determines romantic relationship is the

characteristics desired in the partner. Psychologists have tried to identify
112
the factors that are sought by people in romantic relationship. Some of the
important factors are as follows:

1) Physical Beauty & Youth:

Physical beauty and Youth have been found to be important

characteristics sought in potential romantic partner. Evolutionary
psychologists suggest that these are important since they are associated
with reproductive potential. Youth and attractiveness are associated with
health and fitness. Even today these qualities play a stronger role in men’s
preference than women’s choice of romantic partners (Scutt et. al., 1997).

2) Goals and Social Circumstances:

Another factor that determines mate selection is one’s goal and

social circumstances. Eagly et. al., (2009) stated that social roles people
are expected to play in life would be important in determining what they
sought in their future mate. For example, if individual planned to pursue a
career outside the home, they may seek a mate with skills necessary to be
a homemaker.

3) Social Role and Gender:

The social roles that people expect to play in life also determine
what they look for in future mate. Eagly et.al. believed that social roles are
more important than gender in determining the choice of future partner.
They conducted a study in which they asked male and female participants
to imagine themselves to be married with children and also as either
provider for the family or a homemaker. They were then asked to indicate
the extent to which different mate characteristics would be important for
them. The findings of their study were as follows-
 It was found that for both men and women, roles influenced the
importance of characteristics in the mate. When participants were
expected to be provider, they rated homemaker skills as more
important in potential mate. They sought someone with whom they
could readily divide key home tasks or responsibilities.
 Regardless of the role, women valued good provider skills.
 Also women expressed a preference for older men while men
expressed preference for younger ones.

This study suggests that social role and gender influences the
preference of a mate.

Thus romantic relationship may be understood in light of the

nature of love and the characteristics desired in the romantic partner.

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Check Your Progress:
1. What are the different types of Love?

2. What are the different characteristics desired in romantic partner?

8.1.3: Relations with family members: Our first and the most lasting
close relationships:

Another close relationships that we develop are family

relationships. Our relationship with family members is one of the first and
most lasting close relationships. Although family structure has changed
over a period of time, relationship with family members are still
important. Within family there are generally three important close
relationships that are formed-
 Parent -child relationship
 Relationship with other Adults
 Sibling relationship

Relationships with parents :

One important relationship in the family is that with the parents.

Parent-child interaction is usually the first contact of a child with other
people and plays an important role in our interpersonal behavior. The
relationship that the child has with parents is a learning experience that
helps the child to learn about relationships with other people. These
experiences enables the child to develop an understanding of different
social situations, relationships and Social norms and desirable social
behaviour like co-operation.

The nature of relationship that may develop between parents and

children during childhood has a strong influence on the social
relationships that they develop throughout their lives. This is evident in the
effects of the different attachment styles suggested by
Bowlby(1969,1973).

Bowlby (1969) developed the concept of attachment style – the

degree of security an individual feels in interpersonal relationships.
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According to him, early interaction with the adult help in acquiring two
basic attitude in the child –

 Attitude about self (Self-esteem) – emotional reactions of the caregiver

gives him/her the information that he/she is loved, valued, important.
 Attitude concerning other people (Interpersonal trust)- child considers
caregiver as trustworthy and dependable.

Based on these two attitudes, he suggested 4 attachment styles :

1) Secure attachment style:

This is an attachment style in which a person has high self-esteem

and high trust. Individuals who experience this style have a positive
attitude towards themselves and even towards others. This results in
formation of lasting, committed and satisfying relationships in life.

2) Fearful-attachment style:

This is an attachment style characterized by low self-esteem and

low trust. Individuals with such an attachment style feel low about
themselves and also negative about others. It results in difficulties in
formation of close relationships and tend to have unhappy relations and
the person is more likely to avoid others.

3) Preoccupied attachment style :

This is characterized by low self-esteem and high interpersonal

trust. It results in formation of relationship where individual desires
closeness, cling to others and expected to be rejected eventually because
they consider themselves to be unworthy.

4) Dismissing attachment style ;

This is characterized by high in self-esteem and low in

interpersonal trust. It results in people believing that they deserve good
relations but due to difficulties in trusting other they fear genuine
closeness.

Thus attachment styles influences future relations developed by an

individual. Although the attachment styles are formed in the early part
of an individual’s life, it may be changed by later life experiences of an
individual. For example, a broken relationship in later life may make an
individual with secure attachment style develop insecurity. The kind of
attachment style affects several aspects of an individual’s life. For
example, individuals with insecure attachment styles show poor academic
performance, fewer friends, experience higher stress when experience
interpersonal conflicts and are more likely to commit suicide.

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 Thus this first formed relationship by the child has a lasting impact
not only on the development of the child but also on the other
relationships that the child forms throughout his or her life.

Relationships with other adult family members:

In a family a child is exposed to many adults apart from their

parents. These may include adults like grandparents, uncle, aunt, etc.
These other people differ from child’s parents in their personalities. Many
of these adults have a strong influence on the child’s development and
other interpersonal relationships developed by them. Some of the effects
of these relationships are as follows-

1) Nullifying effects:

Sometimes it may help in nullifying the negative effects of parent’s

personality. For instance, if the mother has a withdrawn personality, it
may generally have a negative impact on the personality and development
of the child. However in the presence of a caring other adults like
grandparents or aunt at home may help in reducing the negative impact on
the child.

2) Formation of attitudes:

Every interaction of the child is a determinant of attitudes formed

by him or her. The way in which other elderly person relates to the child
has a strong influence on the child's self- concept. When other adults
praise the child and recognize the child's achievements, it helps in
developing trust and affection in the child. Children develop meaning and
value of factors like self-worth, competition, humor, trust, etc,

3) Other interactions:

Interactions with adults teaches children not only about the game
but also about how to interact in a social situation, follow a set of rules and
how to deal with disagreements. Talking and negotiating with
grandparents may help the child to know how nature of interaction with
friends and parents is different than interacting with grandparents. This in
turn helps the child in dealing with elders outside the family. Thus it
determines how an individual interacts with others.

Relationships with siblings:

Another relationship in the family that has a strong impact on the

development of an individual is sibling relationship. Generally
relationships between siblings may be described as filled with affection,
concern and care. However it is also filled with experiences of hostility,
rivalry, fights and conflicts.

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 The effect of sibling relationships is generally studied by
comparing children who are the only child and those having siblings.
Conclusions of such studies have shown that the relationship that one has
with the sibling influences their interpersonal behaviour in the following
ways

1. Learning experience:
Events like fights, sharing, negotiations between siblings helps the
children by providing interpersonal learning experiences. It equips them
with skills that help them to deal with other relationships outside the
home.

2. Social Interactions:
Children with no sibling are less likely to be liked by their
classmates and are likely to be either victimized by others or they
themselves are likely to be aggressive towards others. Having siblings
helps the child to develop interpersonal skills which enhances their ability
to deal with negative social behaviour like bullying in a constructive way.

3. Unique experience:
The relationship that one has with their siblings is very different
and provides a unique experience to the child. Sibling relationship is
different than parent-child relationship since it has a combination of
affection, hostility and rivalry (Boer et. a., 1997). All this makes it a very
different relationship which has a strong impact on the development of the
child.

4. Shared experiences and affection:

Living in the same environment, many of the positive and negative
experiences are shared by the siblings. Going through the same
experiences makes it easier for them to relate to each other. This makes it
easier for them to grieve for losses and also empathize with each other.
Such sharing strengthens the bond between the siblings and aids emotional
venting.
Most siblings get along with each other despite occasional fights
and competition. However in rare incidences sibling relationship may also
be marked by sibling rivalry and jealousy amongst siblings.
Check Your Progress:
1. Discuss the important close relationships in the family?

117
8.1.4: Friendships: relationships beyond the family:
The relationship that one has with friends is another very important
influencing factor on our development.

Formation of friendships may be traced in the following manner:

1. Childhood:
Early childhood stage is referred to as the ‘pre- gang’ age while
late childhood stage is called as ‘gang age'. The early interactions with
friends generally begin during the childhood stage. At this stage it is based
on proximity. Children generally make friends with those living close to
their family or those sitting close to them.

2. Adolescence and Adulthood stage:

As a child enters adolescence stage some of the friendships formed
earlier continue while others may fade away. Friendship with mutual
interests and shared positive experiences are maintained and grows in
strength. Some friendships in childhood continuous even into adolescence
and sometimes even the entire life.

Close friendships:
An individual may have many friends but fewer close friends. The
nature of interaction that takes place between friends who are only friends
is different than those between close friends. Some of the important
characteristics of interactions in close friendship are:

(1) Modesty - Tice et.al. (1995) suggested that a person may engage in
bragging with others but with close friends they are more modest in
their behaviour.

(2) Less likely to lie – A person is less likely to lie to close friends
(DePaulo & Kashy, 1998.) and if they lie, it would be with the
intention of making the friend feel better.

(3) ‘we’ ness- Conversations amongst close friendship is more inclusive

and involves talking in terms of “we’’ and “us”.

(4) Nature of interaction-The nature of relationship with close friends is

quantitatively and qualitatively high. Not only the frequency and
length of interaction is high with close friends but qualitatively also
there is greater sharing, support and self- disclosure.

All of this suggests that close friendship is important since it

provides mutual emotional support. An individual is able to relax and
become comfortable with a close friend. These benefits makes close
friendship very important for the development of an individual.

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 In general people admire characteristics of generosity, sensitive
nature and honesty in friends. They value friends with whom they are
able to be themselves and are able to relax (Urbanski, 1992)

Although the above characteristics are desired in friends in general,

the desired characteristics may vary depending upon the culture that an
individual is exposed to.

What an individual expects in a close friend differs from one

culture to another. Japanese college students emphasized characteristics
like easy to get along, not bragging , considerate and not short-tempered
(Maeda & Ritchie, 2003). American students also emphasized on
spontaneity along with being active in close friends.

Gender and friendships:

Gender also influences characteristics desired in a close friend,
although in a very minor way. While women place importance on
intimacy by expecting to share and discuss emotions and experiences and
receive emotional support from them, men tend to form friendship based
on activities like sports, projects or shared hobbies (Fredrickon, 1995)

Is Similarity the basis of friendship?:

Another factor that plays an important role in close friendship is
similarity. Study by Selfhout et al., (2009) involved making freshmen
complete personality questionnaire for themselves and other student they
had recently met. They then completed the questionnaire once in a month
for several months. The study tried to understand the importance of actual
similarity and perceived similarity in close friendship. It was found that
perceived similarity was able to predict friendship formation while actual
similarity could not.

The relationship with friends is also a very important relationship

in an individual's life since friends boost one's self-esteem and help in
coping with Stress. These positive effects are possible only in the presence
of positive friends. However if the friends are unsupportive, antisocial and
overcritical it may lead to negative effects on the individual.

Check your progress

1. Discuss the nature of relationship with close friends.

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8.2 WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT DRAMATIC
DIFFERENCES IN APPEARANCE BETWEEN
PARTNERS: IS LOVE REALLY BLIND?

Similarity and Physical attractiveness plays an important role in

interpersonal attractions. These factors also play an important role in
romantic relationships. While thinking of marriage or romance, people
generally choose partners who are similar to them and whom they find
attractive.

The criterion for beauty or physical attractiveness differs from one

individual to another. As a result what may seem attractive to one
individual may not appear attractive to another individual.

The differences in preferences may sometimes makes some

individuals choose partners who may be considered as a mismatch by
others. For instance a very young person choosing a partner who is very
old or a tall women choosing a very short man. When we look at them, we
may wonder about the basis on which they chose each other. It also makes
us wonder whether love is blind towards things that others perceive as
obvious.

Researches in Social psychology have tried to understand whether

romantic partners see each other realistically or do they have an overly
positive perception of each other. Is it that love makes them blind and they
are not able to see things which are seen by others. Studies show that
realism and positivity co-exists in romantic partner's perception.

Although people may have their own individual ways of thinking and
perceiving their partners, there are two types of partner knowledge that
they have-
 Insight in to how their partners see them ( Identity Accuracy)
 Insight into how others see their partners (Reputation Accuracy)

Solomon & Vazire's study in 2014 demonstrated this paradoxical

effect with physical attractiveness, which is a highly evaluative trait and
which is especially important in romantic relationships. Their study
involved understanding the cognitive process of couples with mismatched
or contrasting features.

Solomon &Vazire’s (2014) research was undertaken to know

whether such mismatched partners show realism (see each other
realistically) or positivism (are overly positive in perceiving their
partners). They found that both may co-exist in mismatched couples. They
perceive their partners as more attractive (positivism) and are also aware
that their perception does not match with the perception by others
(realism).

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 In their study participants were asked to answer a questionnaire
regarding their perception of their own physical attractiveness. The
questionnaires were sent to the participant's friends and romantic partners
regarding their perception of the participant's physical attractiveness and
their perception of participant's self- evaluation. For the romantic partners,
an additional questionnaire was given regarding their perception of the
participant's friends’ evaluations. Correlations were found between the
participant's self, partner's and friend’s perception.

Two main findings of their research with mismatched couples were-

(1) Such couples do tend to perceive their partners as more attractive
than other people. They see their partners very positively.

(2) Such couples are aware at least to some degree of their tendency to
perceive their partners as more attractive than other people. Thus
although they may find their partner attractive, they are also aware of
the fact that they view the partner more positively in comparison
to how others view them.

Thus their research suggests that romantic partners have some

awareness of each other’s identity and reputation for physical
attractiveness.

Thus such partners perceive each other more attractive than other
observers. This suggests that perhaps love makes people blind –each
partner may be partially blind towards the discrepancy between them,
which is considered by others as very important. These individuals are
also aware how other people view their partner and know that they
consider their partners more attractive in comparison to others. Although
they recognize the differences with each other, it is perceived by them as
insignificant. Although others may perceive the contrast, they themselves
may find the difference unimportant.

According to Soloman & Vazire, people are more positively biased

towards their partners in comparison to everyone else, but they are also
consciously aware of their own bias.

Solomon & Vazire argue that people are able to maintain an overly
positive and realistic view of partners in three major ways-
(1) Everyone will rate their significant others as more attractive than
average rating from other friends.

(2) People make overly positive global evaluations of their partners, but
more realistic evaluations of specific traits and abilities ( My spouse is
great but is not very patient)

121
(3) People have a more biased judgment for relationship- relevant
dimensions and more realistic judgment for dimensions related only to
their partners ( My spouse is really attractive but is not good at soccer)

Another study related to couples with differences in physical

attractiveness by Hunt et al., (2015) which studied 167 couples. This
study suggested that couples who began dating immediately after their
meeting are more closer in the level of physical attractiveness than those
who decide to marry after knowing each other.

According to Hunt et al., when couples decide to get married soon

after their first meeting, it is more likely to be based on physical
attractiveness. However when people get married after knowing each
other, physical attractiveness is considered as less important and hence
there may be more differences in their level of physical attractiveness.
Getting more time to interact with each other helps the couple to develop
unique impressions, which makes them see beyond physical appearance.

The above study also involved understanding whether there is a

difference in the happiness level of the couples who matched in physical
attractiveness and those who did not match. They also found that there
was no differences in the level of happiness experienced by couples who
matched in physical attractiveness and those who did not match.

8.3 WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT TWO

FACTORS THAT MAY DESTROY LOVE- JEALOUSY
AND INFIDELITY

Love is a strong element involved in close relationships. There are

certain barriers that prevent love or may even destroy the love that once
existed between people. In this section we will study two important factors
that destroy love- Jealousy and Infidelity.

Jealousy refers to concerns that a romantic partner or other person

whom we care deeply might, or has already, transferred their
affection or loyalty to another individual.

Social psychologists have attempted to understand the factors contributing

to jealousy. Some of the important factors are:

1. Threat from Rival:

Jealousy may occur in situations where an individual perceives

threat to the valued relationship by some rival. For example, a wife may
be jealous of her husband's close female colleague whom she considers as
a threat to her relationship with the husband.

122
2. Threat to self-esteem:

Sometimes people may experience jealousy because they

anticipate social rejection that threatens their self-esteem. For example a
man may be jealous of his wife's close male friend with whom he thinks
she is sexually involved. This produces jealousy since her sexual attraction
to another person is a blow to his self-esteem.

There are also gender differences in what may produce jealousy,

with men experiencing jealousy over partner’s sexual attraction to others,
while females experiencing jealousy due to partner's emotional attraction
to another person.

Feelings of Jealousy have negative effects on interpersonal attractions.

Some of the negative effects includes :

1. Stress:

Negative elements in a relationship produce stress. Jealousy is one

of the negative elements which produces stress in all individuals involved
in the relationship. The person who is jealous is stressed due to the
anticipated effects on marriage. The person who is the target of jealousy
too undergoes stress due to strained relationship that results out of
jealousy.

2. Affects evaluations:

Research by Chan et al., (2013) involved making participants think

of a situation when they experienced jealousy. Followed by this they were
asked to taste two products. In the next part of the experiment, participants
were asked to think of a situation when they experienced love and then
again taste the same two products. The products were evaluated and rated
sweeter when thinking about love. This suggests that jealousy affects our
evaluations of things around us.

3. Homicide:

A common reaction to jealousy is anger and aggression. This often

results to attacking and striking at the person. Statistics suggests that
jealousy is a major factor in homicide against women.

4. Declined love:

Another negative effect of jealousy is declined love between the

partners. Jealousy results to lowering of love and at times even complete
loss of love for the person.

123
Thus jealousy is an important source of destroyed relationship.
Another factor that threatens relationships is- infidelity. It refers
to a partner's betrayal through intimate relationships with others.
Infidelity occurs across different cultures, socio-economic status and
gender. However, powerful people engage in such behavior more
frequently than less powerful individuals (Lammers et. al., (2011).
Research by Lammers et. al., (2011) suggested that this was primarily due
to their confidence about their ability to engage in infidelity.

Infidelity negatively affects the relationships in different ways:

1. Divorce:
Infidelity by a partner destroys the bonding and emotional
attachment for the person engaging in such relationship. In fact infidelity
is the most frequent reason for divorce (Previti & Amato, 2003)

2. Mental & Physical health:

Dealing with unfaithfulness by the spouse is often traumatic.
Infidelity produces depression in the partner affecting his or her physical
and mental health ( Gordon, Baucom& Snyder, 2004)

3. Media attention:
When infidelity occurs among powerful individuals, it receives
widespread public attention. This may result to tarnishing the image of
people involved.

4. Stress:
Infidelity involves secret romantic relationship. Individuals
engaging in secret relationship undergo stress (Lehmiller, 2009). They
may be stressed about the consequences when people come to know of it.
Sometimes they may even be stressed thinking about the future of such
relationship.

Thus infidelity although seems to be exciting, has negative impact on love

and marital relationships

8.4 SUMMARY

Interpersonal Attraction forms the basis of all our relationships.

Close relationships that we form have a common element of love.

Love is a combination of emotions, cognition and behaviour. It

may take different forms like- Passionate love and Companionate love in
romantic relationship between partners.

124
 Relationship with family members (parents, children and siblings)
is another close relationships formed by human beings. Relationship with
parents is governed by attachment style and interpersonal trust. These
family relationships have àn impact on our attitude towards oneself.

Friendship is another close relationships although initially begins

through proximity, later on develop through other factors like similarity.

Although similarity is generally the basis of choosing a partner,

sometimes people choose partners who are considered by others as
mismatch. Studies with such couples shows that they are aware of the
difference in their perception but consider the differences as unimportant.

Jealousy and Infidelity are two important factors that destroy love
amongst people. Both these factors may produce stress in the relationships
and reduce the love between partners.

8.5 QUESTIONS

(1) Discuss the nature of love and the characteristics sought in Romantic
relationship.
(2) Evaluate the nature of different family relationships.
(3) Discuss the basis for close friendship.

8.6 BOOKS FOR REFERENCE-

(1) Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., &Akert, R.M. (2007). Social Psychology.
(6th edit.), New Jersey: Pearson Education, Prentice Hall.
(2) Baumeister, R.F., & Bushman , B.J. (2008). Social Psychology and
Human Nature. International student edition, Thomson Wadsworth,
USA.



125
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