FINAL COUNTDOWN ! FINAL WEEK !  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY !


Muqaddimah
Almost a month and a half had passed by, and now we're entering the final of week of Summer Semester ! Woo! Felt like Summer began only yesterday. It's amazing how time flies fast when we enjoy the company of the people we know and classes that we attend but it's also important to note that the Final Examinations are also coming! Yikes ! Anyhow, Social Psychology is the final chapter in the Syllabus of Introduction of Psychology, and here I am, Izwan Zhuqairy, writing a post on the chapter. It intrigues me when in reality, humans are mostly influenced by the surroundings mainly the people around through feelings, behaviors or even thoughts. This is Social Psychology, and it is a subject of interest for me and throughout the class conveyed by Sir Wafiy, I paid full attention ;)

Why do we need to learn social psychology?

We can better understand how groups impact our choices and actions. Additionally, it also allows us to gain a greater appreciation for how our social perceptions affect our interactions with other people.

We shall look first at SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Social influence is where anyone can influence another person through Conformity, Compliance, and also Obedience.

Conformity is the change of behaviour of a person to match others. 
Compliance however, is the change of behaviour upon a request of another person. This is amazing.

There are 4 ways to gain Compliance! Note this! Perhaps can be useful in daily life hehe

The first way is Foot-in-the-door technique, an easy to be imagined technique. When we ask someone for a small favor or commitment (after knocking a door of our neighbors' house, perhaps to borrow a bicycle to go to a supermarket), then so our neighbor agrees (he or she gives compliance) But, we put on our foot in the door that is closing to ask for another bigger favor or commitment such as borrowing the bicycle to go to other places other than the supermarket, like going to our Grandma's house and visit a friend.

Next is the Door-in-the-face technique, this technique is somehow the inverse of the first technique in a sense that we ask for a large commitment first, then after not gaining a compliance, we ask for a smaller commitment. Inverting the first example, we ask to borrow a bicycle to go the supermarket, Grandma's house and visit a friend. But our neighbor refuses to allow that so we asked to only ride it to go to the supermarket only.

Thirdly is the Lowball technique, most commonly used in world of sales. After giving someone a commitment that is accepted, more and more commitment comes after that. Say for example, a car salesperson says that a car starts at a low price of RM12 000, and during the sales process he introduces extras that needs to be paid as well which adds to the price and becomes more expensive.

Finally the That's-not-all-technique, a technique that pulls people to gain compliance by adding few more extras to an offer. For example, a car salesperson decide to give extras such as automatic sliding door, LCD screen television and etc for free if a customer wants to buy a car that he is selling.

Obedience finally is the change of behavior of a person by instruction of someone with more power (authority).



Task Performance

• Social Facilitation is a positive impact given to a person doing a task with the presence of other people.
• Social Impairment is a negative impact given to a person doing a task with the presence of other people.
• Social Loafing (also known as free-riding) is when a person puts less effort in a task that involves group of people

Social Cognition
Focus on the way perceivers encode, process, remember, and use information in social contexts in order to make sense of other people's behavior.
Under Social Cognition, there are Attitude, Impression Formation, Attribution

Attitude
It's basically how we humans respond to ideas of other people positively or negatively.

In the formation of attitude, they are a number of influences. Namely,

• Direct Contact – formed by direct contact with the person, idea, situation, or object that is the focus of the attitude
• Direct Instruction – direct instruction given by parents or some other individual
  • (Example: Telling smoking cigarettes is dangerous & unhealthy)
• Interaction with others – the person is around other people with that attitude
• Vicarious Conditioning (Observational Learning) – learned through observation of other people’s action and reactions to various objects, people, or situations

What's more interesting that attitude can be shaped by persuasion. However, there are few factors that make a successful persuasion.

1. Source – The communicator that must be trustworthy or knowledgeable
2. Message – Should convey the positive and negative side of an argument towards the audience 
3. Target Audience – The characteristics of the people who are intended of the message of persuasion. Younger people are easily influenced.

Cognitive Dissonance

What is that? Cognitive Dissonance is when a person has a conflicting behavior and attitude. For example, a person continues to smoke and that's a bad behavior however, the person thinks that he or she can still live longer.

Cognitive Dissonance can be corrected by the following steps:

1. Change their conflicting behavior to match it with their attitude
   “Quit smoking when knowing that smoking is dangerous and could cut short lives”
2. Change their current conflicting cognition to justify their behavior
   “Change their thought attitude on smoking by searching for journal that telling smoking is not factor of lung cancer to justify their behavior of smoking cigarettes.”
3. Form new cognition to justify their behavior “Buying cigarettes with less tobacco, which is less dangerous than cigarettes with heavy tobacco".

Impression

First impression matters. Impression is the first knowledge of a person.

Attribution

It is how we explain our own behaviors and others.

Now we move on to Social Interaction.

Prejudice

Prejudice is simply a negative attitude held inside us towards members of a group of people. Discrimination is a way of action in which the prejudiced group is treated differently in a negative manner.

A social group that is identified as "us", is called "In-groups", while a social group that is identified as "they" are called "out-groups"

Scapegoating, a term to describe prejudice by in-groups who have more social power over those who are in out-groups. Immigrants coming to a new country are usually subject to scapegoating.

Interpersonal attraction is the liking or having a desire for a relationship with another person. This is typical for all humans hehe and attraction to people has its own rules. What? Rules? Wow!

The rules are !

• Promixity - which is how close a person is to someone physically or geographically
• "Opposites attract"/Complementarity - People tend to like others who are similar to themselves, or even different.
• Reciprocity of liking - Tendency of people to like others who like them in return
• Birds of feather (Similarity) - Sound romantic in my opinion haha, but it is the tendency of people to like being with someone that are similar to them
• Physical Attractiveness - Ahh, humans tend to like others who are attractive without no doubt.

Love is a TRIANGLE, my friend.

What? Triangle? No, it doesn't mean that we form a love triangle relationship. That's bad. In Psychology, there's a theory called Stenberg's Triangular Theory of Love.

Voila! The triangle!

Love is a feeling of strong affection to another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or even common interests.

The three main components of love are:

1.Intimacy (which are feelings of closeness, psychologically not physically)

2.Passion (physical aspect of love emotional and sexual arousal a person feels to other such as holding hands, hug, loving looks. Woops, dont think too much)

3.Commitment (decisions one makes about a relationship, in a serious manner).

Now we've come to and end, I'd like to thank Sir Wafiy for his awesome teachings in class as well as supporting friends from Chicago. You guys are the best!