Introduction.
Social psychology aims to understand how individuals think, feel, and behave towards others in social settings. Social psychologists explain and predict social occurrences, such as attribution and persuasion, through various concepts and theories to achieve that. This essay will discuss common biases, attribution errors, and the various paths to persuasion and behavioral impacts.
The Peripheral and Central Routes to Persuasion
Persuasion encompasses modifying or reinforcing attitudes, beliefs, and behavior via communication. There are two main persuasion routes: the peripheral and the central. The peripheral route includes extraneous factors that do not go hand in hand with the message being communicated, like the likability/credibility of the speaker, the emotional appeal of the argument, and numerous points made. Those who follow the peripheral approach make simple and prompt decisions using principles such as “Experts are right” or “More is better.” These approaches are utilized by less motivated people who cannot perceive the message due to a lack of attention or the absence of previously acquired relevant knowledge (Spielman et al., 2014). Alternative methods produce a short and weak change of attitudes susceptible to being counter-persuaded or forgotten.
The case of the central route involves careful consideration of the information’s contents, reasoning, fact-checking, and rebuttals. Those adopting the middle path do not simply swallow an idea but think over it well with sound logic. People engaged in something, involved and knowledgeable, will use a “center route” when they strongly wish to grasp the meaning of a message or it is very easy to understand. The first route leads to a persistent and strong attitudinal change, which defies counter-persuasion or short memory.
Situational vs. Dispositional Influences On Behavior
Behavior is subjected to both internal and external influences. Personal traits such as personality, attitude, and belief are internal factors that shape an individual’s response to specific conditions. External factors comprise particular conditions, such as the environment, situation, and presence of other persons, significantly determining people’s behavior. For instance, if someone comes late to a meeting, he could be careless or unruly, whereas externally, it may have been just a jam. These influences are also known as dispositional and situational factors.
In social psychology, people often make fundamental attribution errors – they tend to consider too many internal factors but give little consideration to external ones to explain others’ behavior. For instance, if someone witnessed another person treating a waiter inappropriately, such as calling them insulting names, they would rather blame it on his personality, like being mean and arrogant, compared to his situation, like he is having a rough day or stressed.
People commit this fundamental attribute error because they tend to be more informed about their situations than others. In addition, they also tend to look at the person rather than the situation (Spielman et al., 2014). One of the critical mistakes that may cause judgmental prejudices and generalizations about people and culture is the fundamental attribution error.
Conclusion
Investigation of persuasion channels and behavioral determinants explains the nature of human decision-making. It provides a comprehensive comprehension of people’s interactions that helps understand the sophisticatedness of social psychology based on the fact that both inner forces and outer factors shape human psychology.
Reference
Spielman, R. M., Dumper, K., Jenkins, W., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Perlmutter, M. (2014). 12.1 What Is Social Psychology? – Psychology | OpenStax. Openstax.org; OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/12-1-what-is-social-psychology
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