Block 2 (Part 2)

Question 1

Ostracism

Answer 1

excluding one ore more individuals from a group by reducing or eliminating contact with the person, usually by ignoring, shunning, or explicitly banishing them

Question 2

Social Comparison

Answer 2

the process of contrasting one’s personal qualities and outcomes, including beliefs, attitudes, values, abilities, accomplishments, and experiences, to those of other people

Question 3

Social Identity Theory

Answer 3

a theoretical analysis of group processes and intergroup relations that assumes groups influence their members’ self-concepts and self-esteem, particularly when individuals categorize themselves as group members and identify with the group

Question 4

Collective Self-Esteem

Answer 4

feelings of self-worth that are based on evaluation of relationships with others and membership in social groups

Question 5

Sociometer Model

Answer 5

a conceptual analysis of self-evaluation processes that theorizes self-esteem functions to psychologically monitor one’s degree of inclusion and exclusion in social groups

Question 6

Social Facilitation

Answer 6

improvement in task performance that occurs when people work in the presence of other people

Question 7

Social Loafing

Answer 7

the reduction of individual effort exerted when people work in groups compared with when they work alone

Question 8

Teamwork

Answer 8

the process by which members of the team combine their knowledge, skills, abilities, and other resources through a coordinated series of actions to produce an outcome

Question 9

Shared Mental Model

Answer 9

knowledge, expectations, conceptualizations, and other cognitive representations that members of a group have in common pertaining to the group and its members, tasks, procedures and resources

Question 10

Group Cohesion

Answer 10

the solidarity or unity of a group resulting from the development of strong and mutual interpersonal bonds among members and group-level forces that unify the group, such as shared commitment to group goals

Question 11

What are the group development stages and their characteristics?

Answer 11

1. Forming: the members become oriented to each other
2. Storming: the group members find themselves in conflict, and some solution is sought to improve the group environment
3. Norming: standards for behavior and roles develop that regulate behavior
4. Performing: the group has reached a point where it can work as a unit to achieve desired goals
5. Adjourning: ends the sequence of development, the group disbands

Question 12

Group Polarization

Answer 12

the tendency for members of a deliberating group to move to a more extreme position, with the direction of the shift determined by the majority or average of the members’ predeliberation preferences

Question 13

Common Knowledge Effect

Answer 13

the tendency for groups to spend more time discussing information that all members know (shared information) and less time examining information that only a few members know (unshared)

Question 14

Groupthink

Answer 14

a set of negative group-level processes, including illusions of invulnerability, self-censorship, and pressures to conform, that occur when highly cohesive groups seek concurrence when making a decision

Question 15

What are the factors that cause groupthink?

Answer 15

1. Cohesion
2. Isolation
3. Biased Leadership
4. Decisional Stress

Question 16

What is the relationship between role models and social norms?

Answer 16

role models are important in teaching children about helping

seeing people act socially or antisocially affects children

seeing prosocial behavior on TV has more of an influence on children than seeing violent programs

Question 17

How do role models inspire helping?

Answer 17

provides an example of behavior to imitate directly

teaches that helping is valued and rewarding

increases awareness of societal standards of conduct

Question 18

What is the norm of reciprocity?

Answer 18

establishes quid pro quo transactions as socially normal

Question 19

What is the norm of equity?

Answer 19

when people receive more benefits than they should they help people that receive fewer benefits

Question 20

What is the norm of social responsibility?

Answer 20

people should help those who need assistance, sense of duty or responsibility

Question 21

What are concerns about justice or fairness?

Answer 21

person they are helping deserves to be helped, rather than just needing it

Question 22

What are the relationship between culture and social norms for helping?

Answer 22

social norms vary dramatically across cultures

Miller et al (1990): people of India more likely to see helping as an obligation than those in US

Yablo and Field (2007): Thai students appear more altruistic and helpful than American students (role of religion a factor)

Question 23

What is empathy?

Answer 23

understanding or vicariously experiencing another’s individual perspective and feeling sympathy and compassion for that individual

perspective taking: cognitive component of empathy, use imagination to understand what a person is going through

empathic concern: emotional component of empathy, involves emotions such as sympathy

Question 24

What is the concept of helping others to help oneself?

Answer 24

more likely to help when the potential rewards of helping seem high relative to the potential costs

Arousal Cost-Reward Model: what are the costs and rewards associated with helping?

Question 25

What is the concept of helping to feel good?

Answer 25

relationship between helping and feeling better

helping others to feel good is often not a conscious decision, but it can be

negative state relief model: proposes that people help to counter their own feelings of sadness

Question 26

What is the concept of helping to be good?

Answer 26

may help because motivated to behave in ways that are consistent with moral principles, “right thing to do”

Question 27

What are the costs of helping or not helping?

Answer 27

helping has its costs as well as its rewards

helping can also be more sustained and deliberate

courageous resistance: helping in the face of enormous risk

helping can have negative health effects if involves constant and exhausting demands

Good Samaritan laws to reduce potential costs

Question 28

What is altruism?

Answer 28

motivated by the desire to increase another’s welfare

adoption of the other person’s perspective is present

emotional response of empathic concern

motive is the reduction of other’s distress

Question 29

What is egoism?

Answer 29

motivated by the desire to increase one’s own welfare

there is no adoption of the other person’s perspective

emotional response of personal distress

motive is reduction of one’s distress

Question 30

How do you tell the difference between egoistic and altruistic motives?

Answer 30

how easy it is to escape from a helping situation

if egoistic motive, helping should decline when escape from the situation is easy

if altruistic motive, help is given regardless of ease of escape

Question 31

What is majority influence?

Answer 31

conformity increases with group size, but only up to a certain point

law of diminishing returns: like with light bulbs, second bulb has a greater impact than the tenth

perception that others are either in “collusion” or “spineless sheep”: one’s perception of how many individual thinkers are in the group

Question 32

How does awareness of norms affect majority influence?

Answer 32

conform only when they know about and focus on social norms

often misperceive what is normative

pluralistic influence: most college students overestimated how much other students drank

Question 33

How does having an ally in dissent affect majority dissent?

Answer 33

when there was an ally in Asch’s study, conformity dropped by almost 80%

substantially more difficult to stand alone for one’s convictions than when one is part of even a tiny minority

any dissent can reduce the normative pressures to conform

Question 34

How does the power of style affect minority influence?

Answer 34

Moscovici: nonconformists derive power from the style of their behavior

“consistent dissent” approach: draws attention from those in the majority, the majority will want to reach a compromise

Hollander: minorities influence by first accumulating idiosyncrasy credits

“first conform , then dissent” strategy: establish themselves and acquire good will

Question 35

How does minority influence work?

Answer 35

because of their power and control, majorities elicit public conformity through normative pressures

because seen as seriously committed to their views, minorities produce private conformity, or conversion

Question 36

What are some comparisons between majority and minority influence?

Answer 36

relative impact of each depends on whether the judgement that is being made is objective or subjective

when there is clear right or wrong answer, people will stray from the norm

the relative effects of majority and minority viewpoints depend on how conformity is measured

Question 37

What is the history of research into social facilitation?

Answer 37

Triplett (1897): enhanced performance with the presence of others

Further research: conflicting results, sometimes enhances, sometimes impaired

Zajonc (1965): arousal is the key

Question 38

How does arousal affect social facilitation?

Answer 38

presence of others enhances performance on easy tasks, impairs performance on difficult tasks

facilitates dominant response

Question 39

What are the three theories on why social facilitation occurs?

Answer 39

Zajonc’s Mere Presence Theory

Evaluation Apprehension Theory

Distraction Conflict Theory

Question 40

What is the evaluation apprehension theory of social facilitation?

Answer 40

someone must be imposition to evaluate performance

stereotype threat: perform better on easy task, worse on difficult

Question 41

What is the distraction conflict theory of social facilitation?

Answer 41

attentional conflict between focusing on task and inspecting the distracting stimulus creates arousal, maintains there is nothing uniquely social about “social” facilitation

Question 42

Which theory of social facilitation is correct?

Answer 42

likely that all three can have an impact

Question 43

Under what circumstances will social loafing not occur?

Answer 43

people believe their own performance can be identified

task is important

people believe their efforts are necessary for success

group will be punished for poor performance

group is small

group is cohesive

Question 44

What is the relationship between culture and social loafing?

Answer 44

prevalent around the world, but some cultural differences have been found

research has found social loafing to be less prevalent among women than men, and less prevalent in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures

some individuals conform to the norm of not working hard

Question 45

What are the paradigms of individual evaluation?

Answer 45

easy task –> social facilitation –> enhanced

difficult task –> social facilitation –> impaired

Question 46

What are the paradigms of group evaluation?

Answer 46

easy task –> social loafing –> impaired

difficult task –> social security –> enhanced