Ch 13: Social Psychology Flashcards
1
Q
What do social psychologists focus on?
A
The social influences explain why the same person acts differently depending on the situation.
2
Q
What is Heider’s attribution theory?
A
We can attribute one’s behaviour to stable, enduring traits (DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION), or to the situation (SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTION).
3
Q
What is the fundamental attribution error?
A
We tend to overestimate the influence of personality, underestimate the influence of situations.
We assume that a person’s behaviour is CAUSED by personality.
4
Q
What factors affect our attributions?
A
Our culture!
Individualist westerners more often attribute behaviour to people’s personal traits, whereas East Asian cultures are more situation-sensitive.
The assigned role and the given situation: Professors seem less professorial outside of their assigned roles.
Explaining our own behaviour, and those of people we know well.
In those cases, we seem to put more weight on the situation than on the individual.
5
Q
What are the consequences of our attributions?
A
They help us decide how we perceive a person and a situation.
They explain how we view social and economic issues.
6
Q
What are attitudes?
A
Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, events.
7
Q
Attitude and actions form a __-way road.
A
Two-way road. Attitudes affect our actions; our actions affect our attitudes.
8
Q
What are the two forms of persuasion?
A
PERIPHERAL ROUTE PERSUASION
- Doesn’t engage systematic thinking
- Produces fast results: Responsiveness to uninformative cues (celebrity endorsement) = Making snap judgments
CENTRAL ROUTE PERSUASION
- Offers evidence and arguments
- Goal = Trigger favourable thoughts
- Occurs when people are analytical, involved in the issue
- More thoughtful, less superficial
- More durable
9
Q
What other factors can influence our behaviour and weaken the attitude-behaviour connection?
A
External pressure – Strong social pressures.
10
Q
When is the attitude-behaviour connection strongest?
A
- Minimal external influences
- Stable attitude, specific to the behaviour, easily recalled
11
Q
What phenomenon displays how actions affect attitudes?
A
The foot-in-the-door phenomenon.
12
Q
What is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
A
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
Doing becomes believing!
13
Q
What effect does role-playing have on our attitudes?
A
When adopting a new role, you strive to follow the social prescriptions.
At first, it may seem like you are acting the role, but soon enough, it becomes you.
In other words, role-playing morphs into real life.
However, the extent of the effect depends on the individual.
14
Q
Define: Role
A
Set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave.
15
Q
What is the cognitive dissonance theory?
A
We act to reduce the dissonance (discomfort) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent.
When we become aware that our attitudes and actions clash, we reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.
16
Q
What is an important implication of the attitudes-follow-behaviour principle?
A
While we cannot directly control all of our feelings, we can influence them by altering our behaviour. What we do, we become!
Changing behaviour = Changing our thoughts and feelings
17
Q
What is the chameleon effect?
A
Humans are natural mimics, unconsciously imitating others’ expressions, postures, voice tones.
18
Q
Why do humans experience automatic mimicry?
A
It helps us EMPATHIZE, feel what others are feeling = MOOD LINKAGE, sharing of moods.
19
Q
What is conformity?
A
Adjusting our behaviour or thinking to coincide with a group standard.
20
Q
What are two subtle types of conformity?
A
Suggestibility and mimicry.
21
Q
When are we more likely to conform?
A
- Made to feel incompetent/insecure
- Group with 3+ people
- Group in which everyone else agrees
- Admire group’s status, attractiveness
- No prior commitment to any response
- Know that others in the group will our behaviour
- Culture encouraging respect for social standards
22
Q
What is normative social influence?
A
Our tendency to conform to avoid rejection, or to gain social approval.
Our sensitivity to social norms - understood rules for accepted & expected behaviour - because we want to belong.
23
Q
Why do we conform?
A
- Avoid rejection
- Gain social approval
- Want to be accuracy
24
Q
What is informational social influence?
A
Accepting others’ opinion about reality
25
Is conformity good or bad?
That depends on our culturally-influenced values!
Westerners prize individualism, while Asian, African, Latin American countries value the honouring of group standards = Higher conformity rates.
26
What was Milgram's obedience experiment?
As a teacher, you test the learner on a list of paired words. When the learner gives a wrong answer, you deliver a brief electric shock. With each succeeding error, you move to a higher voltage.
The learner starts crying out, but you still obey the experimenter's assistance to continue.
In sum, most participants continued to obey to the end.
27
When is obedience highest?
- The person giving the orders is close at hand and perceived to be a legitimate authority figure.
- The authority figure is supported by a prestigious institution.
- The victim is personalized, at a distance.
- There are no role models for defiance.
28
What dilemma did participants in Milgram's obedience experiments face?
Do I adhere to my own standards, or do I respond to others?
29
What do Milgram's experiments demonstrate?
Strong social influences can make people conform to falsehoods, or capitulate to cruelty.
30
Does the foot-in-the-door phenomenon apply to obedience?
Yes! After the initial acts of compliance or resistance, attitudes begin to follow and justify behaviour = People succumbing gradually.
31
What is social facilitation?
Strengthened performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others, while diminished performance on tougher tasks, in the presence of others.
32
How does social facilitation work?
When people observe us, we become aroused, which amplifies our most likely response.
33
What is social loafing?
The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal, than when held individually accountable.
34
What is deindividuation?
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
35
What causes social loafing?
- People feel less accountable when part of a group
- Group members view their individual contributions as dispensable
- People may free ride on others' efforts when they share equally the benefits regardless of their level of contribution
36
What is group polarization?
The beliefs and attitudes we bring to a group grow stronger as we discuss them with like-minded others.
37
What are the possibilities within the polarization of virtual groups?
People can virtually isolate themselves from those with different perspectives, which can be more intense than real-life polarization.
Internet-as-a-social-amplifier: It connects and magnifies the inclinations of like-minded people.
38
What is groupthink?
The mode of thinking occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
No one speaks strongly against the idea? Everyone supposes the support is unanimous.
39
What are the two types of control that interact with one another?
Social control - the power of the situation
| Personal control - the power of the individual
40
What is the importance of the power of individuals?
Committed individuals can sway the majority and make social history!
41
What is minority influence?
The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities.
42
Why is minority influence important?
Even when not yet visible, people may privately develop sympathy for the minority position, and rethink their views.
43
What is prejudice?
An unjustifiable and typically negative attitude towards a group and its members.
44
What are the three parts of prejudice?
Beliefs - Stereotypes
Emotions
Predispositions to action
45
Are stereotypes fully accurate?
No! They can be partly accurate, however, they can also exaggerate and bias behaviour.
46
What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?
Prejudice is a negative ATTITUDE, while discrimination is a negative BEHAVIOUR.
47
What are the two types of prejudice?
Explicit (overt)
| Implicit (automatic)
48
How has ethnic prejudice changed over time?
While explicit ethnic prejudice wanes, subtle ethnic prejudice lingers.
49
Prejudice can not only be subtle, but also _______ and ________.
Automatic and unconscious = Unthinking knee-jerk response.
50
What are implicit racial associations?
People who deny harbouring racial prejudice may still carry negative associations.
51
What is unconscious patronization?
The expectations we set in evaluating individuals differs depending on their race.
52
What are race-influenced perceptions?
Our expectations influence our perceptions.
53
What are reflexive bodily responses?
Even those consciously expressing little prejudice may give off telltale signals as their body responds selectively to another's race.
54
How has gender prejudice changed?
Overt gender prejudice has declined sharply, but inert gender prejudice still persists!
55
People ______ more positively about women.
FEEL - see women as having some traits that most people prefer.
56
What is sexual orientation prejudice?
Attitudes and practices that label, disparage, discriminate against homosexuality. The cultural variation is enormous!
57
What are the social roots of prejudice?
Social inequalities
| Social divisions
58
What is the just-world phenomenon?
The idea that good is rewarded and evil is punished = 'Blame-the-victim' dynamic.
In other words, the attitudes we have to justify things.
59
What do our social identities provide us with?
They allow us to associate ourselves with certain groups, contrast ourselves with others.
60
What is the ingroup and the outgroup concept?
Ingroup = Mental drawing of people who are from our group, and who we tend to like = Sharing of common identity
Outgroup = People outside of that circle
61
What is the ingroup bias?
Favoring of our own group
62
What is the scapegoat theory?
When things go wrong, finding someone to blame can provide a target for anger.
63
To _______ our own sense of status, it helps to _______ others.
Boost; denigrate.
64
What are the cognitive roots of prejudice?
Our tendency to simplify the world, by categorizing, and by remembering vivid cases?
65
When categorizing people into groups, we __________.
Stereotype
66
How do we categorize?
We recognize how greatly WE differ from others in OUR groups = Ingroup heterogeneity
We overestimate the homogeneity of other groups = Outgroup homogeneity
67
What is the other-race effect?
The tendency to recall faces of one's own race more accurately than faces of other races.
68
How do vivid cases feed our stereotypes?
They are more readily available to our memory.
69
What is the human's natural conservatism?
People have a tendency to justify their culture's social systems; we're included to see the way things are as the way they ought to be.
70
What is aggression, in psychology?
Any unwanted behaviour intended to harm someone.
71
Aggressive behaviour emerges from...
The interaction of biology and experience.
72
What are the biological factors that influence our thresholds for aggressive behaviour?
1. Genetic level: There are genetic markers, such as the Y chromosome and the MAOA gene.
The MAOA gene helps breakdown neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. People with low MAOA gene expression tend to behave aggressively when provoked.
2. Neural level: Brains have neural systems that, given provocation, will either inhibit or facilitate aggression. Example - damaged, inactive frontal lobes.
3: Biochemical level: The testosterone hormone circulates in the bloodstream and influences the neural systems that control aggression. High testosterone = Irritability, assertiveness, impulsiveness, more aggressive responses.
Alcohol UNLEASHES aggressive responses to frustration.
73
What are the psychological factors that pull the trigger of aggression?
AVERSIVE EVENTS
-Suffering: Those made miserable often make others miserable
= FRUSTRATION AGGRESSION PRINCIPLE
-Stimuli: Hot temperatures, personal insults, foul odours, physical pain, etc.
REINFORCEMENT, MODELLING, SELF-CONTROL
- If our aggressive behaviour is reinforced and works, we are more likely to act aggressively again = Prior rewards
- Aggressive role models
- Dominating behaviour
74
What social-cultural factors trigger aggressive behaviour?
Different cultures model, reinforce, and evoke different tendencies toward violence.
SOCIAL SCRIPTS: Culturally provided mental files for how to act = Aggression models.
75
Why do we befriend or fall in love with some people but not others?
PROXIMITY: Geographic nearness breeds liking (mere exposure effect, familiarity) (LESS TIME/EFFORT TO DEVELOP RELATIONSHIP)
PHYSICAL & TRAIT ATTRACTIVENESS: Influences first impressions, while also predicting how often people date and how popular they feel.
(AESTHETICALLY PLEASING, ASSOCIATING WITH THEM IS SOCIALLY REWARDING)
SIMILARITY: Friends and couples are far more likely to share common attitudes, beliefs, interests.
Similarity breeds content!
(SOMEONE TO VALIDATE YOUR BELIEFS)
76
What is the mere exposure effect?
Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases our liking for them = Familiarity breeds fondness.
77
What have researchers learned from modern matchmaking?
Speed dating offers a unique opportunity for studying influences on our first impressions of potential romantic partners.
- Men are more transparent
- Given more options, people's choices become more superficial
- Men wish for future contact with more of their speed dates; women are more choosy.
78
What are the evolutionary aspects of attractiveness?
Women are judged more attractive if they have a youthful, fertile appearance: Low waist-to-hip ratio
Men are more attractive when they are mature, dominant, masculine, affluent.
An averaged face (features) is attractive = Symmetry
79
What is the reward theory of attraction?
We will like those whose behaviour is rewarding to us, including those who are both able and willing to help us achieve our goals
80
What is passionate love?
An aroused state of intensive positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship.
81
How does the two-factor theory of emotion help understand the intensive positive absorption of passionate love?
First, the PHYSICAL AROUSAL, which enhances an emotion.
| To be revved up, associate some of that arousal with a desirable person = Pull of passion
82
What is companionate love?
The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined.
83
Which hormones are passion-facilitating?
Testosterone, dopamine, adrenaline
84
Which hormone is present in companionate love?
Oxytocin, which supports feelings of calmness, trust, bonding.
85
What is the key to a gratifying and enduring relationship?
Equity: Condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it
86
What is another vital ingredient to loving relationships?
Self-disclosure: The revealing of intimate details about ourselves (likes/dislikes, dreams/worries, pride/shame).
87
What is the third key to enduring love?
Positive support!
88
What are the mathematics of love?
Self-disclosing intimacy + Mutually supportive equity = Enduring companionate love
89
What is altruism?
An unselfish concern for the welfare of others.
90
Which situational factor can attribute to one's inaction to a tragedy?
The presence of others!
91
When do we tend to help?
If the situation enables us to first NOTICE the incident, then to INTERPRET it as an emergency, and finally to ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY for helping.
92
What happens when there is a diffusion of responsibility?
When more people share responsibility for helping, any single individual is less likely to help.
93
What is the bystander effect?
The tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.
94
The best odds of our helping someone occur when...
- Person appears to need and deserve help;
- Person is in some way similar to us;
- Person is a woman;
- We have just observed someone else being helpful;
- We are not in a hurry;
- We are in a small town/rural area;
- We are feeling guilty;
- We are focused on others, not preoccupied;
- We are in a good mood.
95
Happiness breeds __________, and vice-versa!
Helpfulness!
96
What is the social exchange theory?
The theory that our social behaviour is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
If rewards > Costs, you help!
Human interactions are seen as transactions - maximizing rewards, minimize costs.
97
What is the reciprocity norm?
An expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.
Socialization has prescribed norms on how we ought to behave.
Compels us to give about as much as we receive.
98
What is the social-responsibility norm?
An expectation that people will help those needing their help, even if costs > benefits.
99
What is a conflict?
A perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas.
100
What happens in conflicting situations?
People become enmeshed in potentially destructive processes that can produce unwanted results.
101
What are social traps?
Situations in which the conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behaviour.
102
How can we convince people to cooperate for their mutual betterment?
Agreed-upon regulations;
Better communication;
Promoting awareness of our responsibilities toward community, nation, humanity
103
What is enemy perception?
The tendency for those in conflict to form diabolic images of one another.
104
What are mirror-image perceptions?
Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful, while viewing the other side as evil and aggressive.
105
Mirror-image perception can often feed what type of cycle?
A vicious cycle of hostility!
106
What can perceptions become?
Self-fulfilling prophecies: Beliefs that lead to their own fulfilment!
107
How can we transform feelings of prejudice, aggression, and conflict into attitudes that promote peace?
- POSITIVE CONTACT
- COOPERATION: Giving SUPERORDINATE GOALS, shared goals that can only be achieved through cooperation.
- COMMUNICATION: Mediators that help each party to voice its viewpoint, understand the other's needs and goals. This can replace the competitive 'win/lose' orientation with a cooperative 'win/win' orientation.
- CONCILIATION: Using GRIT (Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction), one side announces recognition of mutual interests, its intent to reduce tensions. It then initiates small conciliatory acts, opening the door for reciprocity!
108
What are the two types of conformity?
COMPLIANCE: Privately disagree, publicly act in accord to social pressure (Implicit norm)
OBEDIENCE: Follow direct order from an authority (explicit norm)
109
What concerns were brought forward in regards to Milgram's experiments and the ethics involved?
Milgram employed deception - this could alter people's self-concepts.
There was cruelty inflicted on the participants.
However, there was tremendous educational value!
110
When is the behaviour-attitudes relationship weak?
When external influences are overwhelming.
111
Why does attribution theory matter?
It can influence how we perceive/attribute the actions of others
112
What is an attribution?
A conclusion about the cause of an observed behaviour or event.
113
What are the types of prosocial ?
Casual helping: Small favours
Substantial helping: Bigger favours
Emotional helping: Emotional support
Emergency helping: Assistance to a stranger
114
For which reasons do we help another?
- Social exchange
- Social norms
- Evolutionary psychology
- Modeling
115
What are the social norms that enable us to help others?
- Social expectations
- Reciprocity norm
- Social-responsibility norm
116
From an evolutionary psychology perspective, why do we help others?
Kin protection/selection: Altruism towards relatives enhances survival of mutually shared genes
-Reciprocity: A favour to be returned
117
What is modeling?
Engaging in helping because we have learned to do so by observing others.
118
What influences helping behaviour?
- Modeling helpfulness
- Attractiveness
- Time pressures
- Similarity
119
What are ways in which we can increase helping?
- Door-in-the-face technique: Making an unreasonably large request. The persuader then makes a second, more reasonable request, to which the respondent is more likely to agree.
- Teach moral inclusion
- Model altruism/helping
120
How will studying love science help us?
- It gives us a deep understanding of how love works
- Relationship quality is the biggest predictor of human happiness and a predictor of health (better predictor than smoking or obesity)
121
Can a quiz make people fall in love?
- The quiz (answering 36 questions that gradually get more and more personal) makes people feel closer to the other person
- Dr. Aron states that it could contribute to falling in love if other things are in place. Part of falling in love is feeling a connection so if other things are in place it could help facilitate falling in love.
- Mitch and Greg claimed that a study was done where strangers asked each other 36 questions and this interaction increased the likelihood they would fall in love
- However, Dr. Aron states that in the research, they have found that the quiz makes people feel closer to the other person and this could potentially facilitate falling in love
122
In the video, Dr. Eberhardt states, “Our minds are shaped by the racial disparities we see out in the world and the narratives that help us to make sense of the disparities we see: Those people are criminal. Those people are violent. Those people are to be feared.”
Describe below one of the research findings she discusses as evidence that people associate “Black” with “criminality”.
(1) Exposing participants to black faces led them to see blurry images of guns with greater clarity and speed.
(2) Prompting people to think of violent crime can lead them to direct their eyes onto a black face and away from a white face.
(3) Prompting police officers to think of capturing and shooting and arresting leads their eyes to settle on black faces.
123
In educational settings, Dr. Eberhardt has found that teachers treat Black students as _________ and White students as __________.
Groups; Individuals
For example, Dr. Eberhardt states, “if one Black student misbehaves and then a different Black student misbehaves a few days later, the teacher responds to that second Black student as if he had misbehaved twice.”
124
We create categories to make sense of the world around us and help make quick and efficient judgements and decisions. Our ability to categorize so efficiently also unfortunately reinforces biases. While we are all vulnerable to these biases, what term did Dr. Eberhardt use to describe what can be done to minimize their effect on our behaviours or “muffle” acting on these biases?
By adding friction.
125
How did Dr. Eberhardt and her colleagues add friction in Oakland Police Department’s traffic stops?
Dr. Eberhardt and colleagues reduced the number of stops by having police officers ask themselves the following question to stop and think about the situation. Specifically, they were told to ask themselves, “is this stop intelligence-led, yes or no?” That is, the police officers asked themselves if they had information to tie this person to a specific crime. This slowed down the process and allowed officers time to think about the stop.
