Unit 3: Social Psychology – understanding

some basic concepts in social context

Dr. Edgar H. Mainza, PhD

 INTRODUCTION
• The following concepts will help us understand and appreciate social
psychology and psychology generally and they relate to our daily lives and to
those we work with and serve.
 Self-concept

• The self-concept is a general term for how someone thinks about, evaluates,
or perceives themselves. To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of
oneself.
• It’s formed through experiences, interactions, and reflections, and plays a
pivotal role in influencing behavior, emotions, and interpersonal
relationships. A healthy self-concept promotes well-being, while a negative
one can lead to emotional and social challenges.
Self - concept
 Self-concept

• Humanist psychologist Carl Rogers believed that self-concept is made up of

three distinct parts: ideal self, self-image, and self-esteem. His theory explains
what it means when these parts are congruent or incongruent with reality
that impacts your self-concept.
1. Ideal self: The ideal self is the person you want to be. This person has the
attributes or qualities you are either working toward or want to possess. It's
who you envision yourself to be if you were exactly the person you wanted to
be.
 Self-concept

2. Self-image: Self-image refers to how you see yourself at this moment in time.
Physical characteristics, personality traits, and social roles affect your self-image.
3. Self-esteem: How much you like, accept, and value yourself contributes to your
self-concept. Self-esteem can be affected by a number of factors, including how
others see you, how you think you compare to others, and your role in society.3
 SELF – ESTEEM

• Self-esteem is how a person feels about themselves. Someone with positive self-
esteem will generally approach things thinking he/she is a good person who
deserves love and support and can succeed in life.
• Self-esteem is composed of two components: 1. Self-efficacy - confidence in
one's ability to think, learn, choose, and make appropriate decisions; and 2. Self-
respect - confidence in one's right to be happy and in the belief that
achievement, success, friendship, respect, love, and fulfillment are appropriate to
us.
High self esteem
Low self esteem
 Self - esteem

• Someone with low or negative self-esteem will generally think they are not
good at things, don’t deserve love or support and that situations will work
out badly for them.
 Children and young people with high self-
esteem
• Have a positive image of themselves
• • Are confident
• • Can make friends easily and are not anxious with new people
• • Can play in groups or on their own
• • Will try and solve problems on their own, but if not able to will ask for help
• • Are proud of their achievements
• • Admit mistakes and learn from them
• • Will try new things and adapt to change
 Children and young people with low self-
esteem:
• Have a negative image of themselves and may feel bad, ugly, unlikeable or stupid
• Lack confidence
• Find it hard to make and keep friendships, and may feel victimized by others
• Feel lonely and isolated
• Tend to avoid new things and find change hard
• Can’t deal well with failure.
• Tend to put themselves down and might say things like “I’m stupid” or “I can’t do that”
(before they have tried)
• Are not proud of what they achieve and always think they could have done better
• Are constantly comparing themselves to their peers in a negative way
 Some of the causes of low self esteem
• However, some children seem to have low self-esteem from an early
age. This may be partly down to their personalities or they may have
had an unsettled time as a baby or toddler. Other children develop
low self-esteem following a difficult time such as divorce,
bereavement or being bullied or abused, and can’t bounce back.
Teenagers with low self-esteem can find it very hard to cope with
pressures from school, peers and society. Children and young people
with low self-esteem are more at risk of developing depression,
anxiety, self-harming and other mental health problems as they grow
up, and will often find the ups and downs of life in general harder to
get through.
 What can help? What to do next – helping
your friends with low self esteem
• Show them lots of love and be positive about them as a person – tell
them what makes them special to you.
• Let them know you value effort rather than perfection
• Encourage them to try new challenges themselves, and celebrate
them for it. Phrases like “Well done, that was hard, and you managed
it” are good.
• Let them know they should take pride in their opinions and ideas and
not to be afraid to voice them. It’s ok when people disagree, we all
see things differently.
 What can help? What to do next – helping
your friends with low self esteem
• Give praise for their successes, and don’t focus on areas where they
have not done so well.
• Reassure them it’s OK to make mistakes and that it’s all part of life.
Getting it wrong is not the end of the world and happens to
everyone.
• Don’t be too critical and don’t put them down – if you are unhappy
with their behavior, say this but make clear that you still love them.
Acknowledge their feelings and help them express their feelings in
words.
 What can help? What to do next – helping
your friends with low self esteem
• Focus on what goes well. Get them into the habit of saying
or writing down three good things that went well that day.
• Help them discover and develop their talents, through clubs,
groups and activities. Finding something they are good at
provides a huge boost to their feelings of self-worth.
• Encourage their curiosity.
 Social cognition

• Social cognition refers to the different psychological processes that influence

how people process, interpret, and respond to social signals. These processes
allow people to understand social behavior and respond in ways that are
appropriate and beneficial.
• It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions.
How we think about others plays a major role in how we think, feel, and
interact with the world around us.
 Social cognition
Social cognition encompasses a range of processes. Some common factors that
many experts have identified as being important include:
• The processes involved in perceiving other people and how we learn about
the people in the world around us.
• The study of the mental processes involved in perceiving, remembering,
thinking about, and attending to the other people in our social world.
• The reasons we attend to certain information about the social world, how it
is stored in memory, and how it is used to interact with other people.
 Examples of Social Cognition

Imagine that you are getting ready to go on a blind date. Not only do you worry
about the impression and signals that you are sending to the other person, but
you are also concerned with interpreting the signals given by your date.
Questions you might ask include:
• How do you form an impression of this person?
• What meaning do you read into the other person's behavior?
• How do you attribute their actions?
 Examples of Social Cognition
• This is just one example of how social cognition influences a single social
interaction, but you can probably think of many more examples from your
daily life. We spend a considerable portion of every day interacting with
others, which is why psychology helps us to understand how we feel, think,
and behave in social situations.
• Social cognition develops in childhood and adolescence. As children grow,
they become more aware not only of their own feelings, thoughts, and
motives but also of the emotions and mental states of others.
 Attribution

• Attribution Theory attempts to explain the world and to determine the cause of an
event or behavior (e.g. why people do what they do).
Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do,
that is, interpret causes to an event or behavior[1]. A three-stage process underlies an
attribution:
• behavior must be observed/perceived
• behavior must be determined to be intentional
• behavior attributed to internal or external causes
 Attribution

• Weiner’s attribution theory is mainly about achievement. According to him,

the most important factors affecting attributions are ability.
• Weiner’s theory has been widely applied in education, law, clinical psychology,
and the mental health domain. There is a strong relationship between self-
concept and achievement. Weiner (1980) states: “Causal attributions
determine affective reactions to success and failure. For example, one is not
likely to experience pride in success, or feelings of competence, when
receiving an ‘A’ from a teacher who gives only that grade, or when defeating a
tennis player who always loses.
 Example
• Attribution theory has been used to explain the difference in motivation
between high and low achievers. According to attribution theory, high
achievers will approach rather than avoid tasks related to succeeding because
they believe success is due to high ability and effort which they are confident
of. Failure is thought to be caused by bad luck or a poor exam, i.e. not their
fault. Thus, failure doesn’t affect their self-esteem but success builds pride
and confidence.
 Example
• On the other hand, low achievers avoid success-related chores because they
tend to (a) doubt their ability and/or (b) assume success is related to luck or
to “who you know” or to other factors beyond their control. Thus, even
when successful, it isn’t as rewarding to the low achiever because he/she
doesn’t feel responsible, i.e., it doesn’t increase his/her pride and confidence.
 Persuasion
Route to social change
• When we talk about persuasion, we are actually into the realm of attitudes. On a
day to day basis, we all are involved in changing attitudes. Even outside the
advertising industry, it is a way of life: parents socialize their children, scientists
propose theories, elected officials advance public policy, men throw their
manifestos to women, and religious groups seek converts.
• Some of these efforts succeed; others fail. Some are blatantly coercive; others
are subtle. Some serve the public interest; others serve personal interests.
Attitude change is a powerful form of social influence. People often change
their behavior in response to social pressure.
Persuasive communication – roadmap of the persuasion
process

(a) The central route – Psychologists Richard Petty and John Cacioppo
say that when people think carefully about the contents of a message,
they take a central route to persuasion, and are influenced by the
strength and quality of the arguments. What usually follows in this kind
of persuasion is that the individual goes through a process of
elaboration. This is the process of thinking about and scrutinizing the
arguments contained in a persuasive communication.
Persuasive communication – roadmap of the persuasion process

(b) The peripheral route – When people do think carefully about the contents of a
message, but focus instead on other cues or signals, they take a peripheral route to
persuasion. On the peripheral route to persuasion, people often evaluate
communication by using simple-minded heuristics (an approach to problem
solving), or rules of thumb. If a communicator has a good reputation, speaks
fluently, or writes well, for example, we are prone to assume that his or her
information must be correct. Likewise, if a message contains numerous arguments
or intimidating statistics, then again, we assume it must be correct. Rather than take
the time to absorb and scrutinize all the speaker’s arguments, we take the easy way
out, accepting the message according to heuristics.
 Attitudes and prejudice

• Attitude can be aimed at a person, object, place, or situation, while prejudice

is aimed at a person or group of people.
• Attitude can be positive or negative, but prejudice is always negative.
• Attitudes are formed after a full investigation of a fact, whereas prejudice is
based on prejudgment without experiencing the facts.
• Is prejudice a negative attitude?
 The ills of negative prejudice
• Human conflict can result in crime, war, and mass murder, such as genocide.
Prejudice and discrimination often are root causes of human conflict, which
explains how strangers come to hate one another to the extreme of causing others
harm. Prejudice and discrimination affect everyone.
• Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on
one’s membership in a particular social group
• Prejudice is common against people who are members of an unfamiliar cultural
group. Thus, certain types of education, contact, interactions, and building
relationships with members of different cultural groups can reduce the tendency
toward prejudice.