3-social Flashcards
SITUATIONISM
view that our behaviour and actions are determined by our immediate environment and surroundings
DISPOSITIONISM
behaviour is determined by internal factors
fundamental attribution error
** tend to fail to recognize when the behaviour of another is due to situational variables, and thus to the person’s state**
- simple strategy to understand the world
- situationism vs dispositionism
- people tend to lean towards DISPOSITION in NA
- tendency that people’s behaviours are the result of their TRAIT rather than the situation
where is belief in disposition over situation more prevelant
individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures
what political group leans more towards dispositionism
right-leaning
what political group leans more towards situationism
left- leaning
all individuals lean toward individualism/dispositionism when…
disinhibited (alcohol) or under cognitive load
attitudes and types
- like traits
- stable
- fixed overtime
- predisposition to a stimulus
TYPES:
Peripheral route persuasion
Central route persuasion
Peripheral route persuasion
audience: motivation, analytical
processing: high effort, evaluate message
persuasion: lasting change in attitude
Central route persuasion
audience: not motivated, not analytical
processing: low effort, persuaded by cues outside of message
persuasion: temporary change in attitude
examples of how Actions can modify attitudes
- Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
- Role playing
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
more likely to comply with a larger request if they comply with a small fast first
Role playing
- imagine themslves a certain way
- more likely to act that way later on
- “fake it till you make it”
Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory
When attitudes do not fit with actions, tensions are often reduced by changing attitudes to match actions
behaviour SHAPES attitude
psychological discomfort arising from holding 2 or more inconsistent attitudes, behaviours, or cognitions
Conformity implications in WEIRD cultures
negative judgement
types of conformity
- Compliance (obedience)
- Acceptance
compliance
conformers without believing
why? to seek out social rewards and avoid social punishments
Acceptance
grow to understand or even agree with other person’s point of view
maybe related to cognitive dissonance
normative social influence
- to gain social approval/favour so people like us more
- the influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them
ASCH’S CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS
Predicting adjustment of behaviour
* Feelings of competence
* Group size
* Group agreement
* Group status
* Response commitment
* Known observation
* Cultural mores
Stanley Milgram
- 1933-1984
- Jewish
- Worked with Asch
- Demands of authority vs. demands of conscience
- Operationalizing obedience
what did milgram want to study
how can normal everyday people go along with these atrocities of WWII?
milgram’s study
- “The effect of punishment on learning”
- Draw roles out of a hat?
- Use of confederate
- The shock generator
- The task
- From 15 to 450 volts
- The learner protests
- The experimenter prods
confederate
- person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher
- Used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design
- Participants believe that confederate are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment
what most people thought would happen in the milgram experiment
- Most claim they would disobey by 135 volts
- Most claim others would disobey by 200 volts
- Most guessed no one would go to 450 volts/“XXX”
Predictors of obedience shown from Milgram
- Emotional distance of the victim
- Closeness, legitimacy of the authority
- Authority of the institution
- Role model for compliance
- Lack of role models for defiance
- Conformity against conformity?
- Foot-in-the-door effect
Methodological problems with Milgram’s experiments
- many thought it wasn’t real
- Direct orders were actually least convincing
- cf. Appeals to scientific progress
- Experimenter occasionally off-script
- Mostly only men
BUT - Reproduced many times, by other researchers, in women as well
what does Milgrim’s experiment suggest in terms of the fundamental attribution error
- We over-estimate influence of personal traits
- We under-estimate influence of situational traits
Social facilitation
triplett
being around the presence of others arouses us and improves our performance in many aspects
Social loafing
- exert less effort in a social setting
- Exertion of less effort by a person working in a group because individual performance cannot be evaluated separately from the group, thus causing performance decline on easy tasks
causes of social loafing
- not feeling accountable
- if your individual contributions don’t matter
- don’t identify with the rest of the group members
Deindividuation
Group situation in which a person may feel a sense of anonymity and a resulting reduction in accountability and sense of self
group polarization
- the internet works as a social amplifier
- when exposed to likeminded people, amplifies and polarizes view from the norm of middle
- Strengthening of the original group attitude after discussing views within a group
Groupthink
- people are driven for harmony towards group
- minimize the amount of disagreement around themselves
- Tendency to prioritize group cohesion over critical thinking that might lead to poor decision making
- more likely to occur when there is perceived unanimity among the group
Individual power in conformity
- does not take many individuals to break groupthink and conformity
Prejudice
- Means “prejudgment”
- Is an unjustified (usually negative) attitude toward some group and its members
- Can be understood as a social extension of previous cognitive ideas we explored (e.g. schemas)
- Often targets different cultural, ethnic, or gender group
Components of antisocial relations
- Beliefs (stereotypes)
- Emotions
- Predispositions to action (i.e. to discrimination)
An important distinction between prejudice and discrimination
- Prejudice is a negative attitude
- Discrimination is a negative behavior
- Discrimination can be subtle (e.g. microaggressions)
prejudice in north america changes
EXPLICIT prejudice in North America has decreased over the decades of psychology research
instead, it has shifted into IMPLICIT prejudice
examples of Social roots of prejudice
- Social inequalities
- Just-world phenomenon
- Stereotypes and rationalization
Just-world hypothesis
- beliefs that people get the outcomes they deserve
- To maintain this belief, ppl tend to think that good ppl get good outcomes, bad ppl get bad outcomes
In-group
- social definition of what we are and what we are not
- what you associate yourself with
- identify with some characteristic
In-group bias
favour in-group vs out-group
Scapegoat theory
people are quick to find someone to blame
highest levels in economically disadvantaged
Scapegoating
act of blaming an outgroup when the in-group experiences frustration or is blocked from obtaining a goal
Implicit association test
- measure Implicit racial associations
- say through behaviours what they’re unwilling to say out loud
Unconscious patronization
evaluating different groups of people at different standards
Race-influenced perceptions
being quick to ascribe certain aspects to certain groups of people
Reflexive bodily responses
- microaggressions
- not always replicable
- not at levels of consciousness
Potential problems with the IAT:
- Scores are not stable in individuals… a lot of variability
- Likely to be measuring cultural/linguistic
associations (cf. red + warm vs. red + cold) - Doesn’t erase the harm of the poor cultural
association though! - Very poor predictive validity, don’t find strong association between IAT score and behaviour
- Interventions to change bias via changes to IAT scores have failed
evidence for implicit bias
- In a simulation, police shoot unarmed black suspects more often than unarmed white suspects
- Employers more likely to call back white/men’s names vs. other names for job interview
What can we do about implicit bias?
- Extensive training (e.g. police simulation)
- Regular positive “intergroup” contact
- Exposure to counter-stereotypes, e.g. community policing
- Building a bigger in-group: e.g. urban vs. rural - Working toward common goals
mere exposure effect
being around someone makes you more likely to attract them
Some universal physical features of attractiveness
Youthful
Averageness
Symmetry
BUT appealing traits enhance feelings of physical attractiveness Attraction endures when people are more alike
online dating and matchmaking
- Increasingly common way for friendships and romantic relationships to form
- Success rate for romantic AND friendships sometimes reported higher than in-person connections
Passionate love
- intense absorption… often at the beginning of relationships
- but doesn’t stay forever
- when a lot of arousal, we try to make sense of it in our ad
Key to a satisfying and enduring relationship?:
time!
where does Altruism occur
Occurs in humans and non-human animals Most likely in an emergency
other factors that increase likelihood of altruism
- children
- women
- good mood and good headscape
- selfishness
veneer theory
- society is the outer layer, brings out the best of us… but humans are inherently selfish
Bystander effect
opposite of altruism
when many people watching, you’re less likely to give aid
informational social inflluence
- Conformity to a group norm prompted by the belief that the group is competent and has the correct information
do people tend to lean towards situationism or dispositionism
- We tend to think that people are in control of their own behaviours
- Any behaviour change must be due to something internal, such as their personality, habits, or temperment
- Ppl tend to overemphasize internal factors as explanations/attributions for the behaviour of other people
Attitude
our evaluation of a person, idea, or object
conformity
Changing your behavior to go along with the group even if you do not agree with the group
Compliance
Going along with a request or demand
obedience
Changing your behavior to please an authority figure or to avoid aversive consequences
