3B Others: Social Psychology

Question 1

What did Floyd Allport believe social psychology to be concerned with?

Answer 1

Concerned with the scientific study of human individual behaviour

Question 2

What ideas did Floyd Allport introduce?

Answer 2

• Social conformity: changing behaviour and attitude in response to group pressure
• Facial expression for emotions
• Influence of audiences on individual behaviour

Question 3

What ideas were developed following Allport’s ideas?

Answer 3

• Social norms
• Conformity
• Attribution theory
• Cognitive dissonance

Question 4

Define cognitive dissonance

Answer 4

The uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously; when our attitudes are inconsistent with our behaviour

Question 5

What is attribution theory concerned with?

Answer 5

How and why ordinary people explain events as they do

Question 6

Define attribution theory according to Fiske & Taylor

Answer 6

Deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events. It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form causal judgement.

Question 7

What are the two general types of attributions that people make according to Fritz Heider

Answer 7

• Personal: explanations in terms of personal characteristics
• Situational: Explanations in terms of situational factors

Question 8

What are the three factors people must take into account when making a personal vs. situational attribution?

Answer 8

• Consistency
• Distinctiveness
• Consensus

Question 9

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 9

Where we overestimate the power of the person and underestimate the power of the situation
- The situation is not noticeable when people make attributions for the behaviour of others

Question 10

What is self serving bias?

Answer 10

When individuals attribute their success to personal factors and their failures to situational factors
- e.g. “I got an A cause I’m smart”
“I failed because I didn’t get enough sleep”