Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is social psychology?
Study of how individuals thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by other people in social situations
Do others need to be physically present to influence us?
no – memory of thoughts and behaviours of others (peers, teachers, parents) are enough to influence
other people affect how we: (3 ways)?
- interpret events since behavour occurs in a social context (ex. bystander effect)
- feel about ourselves (ex. social comparison theory)
- behave/act in a situation (ex. deindividuation)
What is the social comparison theory?
self comparison to peets about things like intelligence, athleticism, etc. causing us to feel better or worse about ourselves
True or False?
“Blowing off steam” is an effective means of reducing one’s motive to act aggressively.
FALSE
- increase anger by keeping aggressive thoughts active in memory due to it’s rewaring feeling
- destruction therapy
True or false?
Opposites attract
FALSE
- more successful relationship when similar morals, backgrounds, beliefs, values
True or false?
People’s attitudes are always highly predictive of their behaviour
False
- would be correct if sometimes
- behaviour can our without agreement with attitude
- ex. kid eating vegetables with motive
True or false?
The best way to get something off your mind is to actively try to suppress your thoughts
FALSE
- makes us think about the “thought” even more
- though suppression fails bc of unconscious mind
- engage in tasks/postpone thought instead
True or false
The more options we have to choose from, the better
NOT USUALLY
- choice overload
- ↑ options = ↑ drawbacks = paralyzed by indecision
- fewer options (3-5) makes people more satisfied with decision
Is social psychology just common sense?
no! Our intuitions about human behaviour are sometimes right, sometimes wrong (ex. hindsight bias)
what is hindsight bias?
allows people to convince themselves after an event that they accurately predicted it before it happened (“knew it all along”)
the best way to understand how people behave is…
empirical testing using the scientific method to get an accurate answer
What are the major themes of social psychology?
- We construct our social reality
- our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous
- we have a strong motivation to feel good about ourselves even when we have done something bad by rationalizing unethical behaviour
- Situations exert powerful influences on our behaviour
- Culture plays a foundational role in shaping people’s views of the world
- Social behaviour is also biological behaviour
- relating to others is a basic human need
- social psychology’s principles are applicable to everyday life
what is confirmation bias?
search for confirmation of what we already believe
what are the 2 types of social intuition?
- automatic: beyond control, emotional factors
- controlled: consciously choose to think a certain way and override “gut feeling”, deliberative thought
ex. stereotype of automatically seeing someone
why is “gut feeling not always accurate?
forget times when your gut feeling was incorrect
What was Darley & Baston’s The Power of the Situation experiment? What was the result?
- theology students who had just read the good samaritan from bible told to deliever a sermon on this parable in another building
- independent variable was time pressure: told they were on time or late
- on their walk to the other building, they Came across confederate lying on ground outside
result: on time = 2/3 of people stopped to help
late = 1/10 people stopped to help
culture is a ____ factor
situational
What are the two types of cultures found worldwide?
- independence (unique self): western cultures; individualistic
- interdependence (self connected to others; eastern cultures; connectivistic
What was the Kim & Markus experiment for testing the two culture types? results?
- participants (east asians and americals) completed survey in airport and given a pen after survey
- options of 4 of the same pen and 1 different
results: americans mostly chose unique option and east asians mostly chose the majority option
all humans share common ___
genes
what is evolutionary psychology?
The view that human social behaviours are rooted in physical & psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors survive & reproduce
What are Human Universals?
biological influences
- facial expression
- death rites
- taboo utterances
- dance
- incest avoidance
- food sharing
Lack of _________ _____________ has devastating effects on our well-being. This applies to both ____ and ____
social interaction
humans and primates
what does solitary confinement do to a person?
hallucinations, mental distress
what are the principles of social psychology that apply to everyday life?
- individual issues (health, happiness, personal relationships)
- societal issues (prejudice, violence, environmental degradation)
Where can social psychology interpretations be found?
- TV/movies
- articles
- observe others and own behaviour to see consistency
- advertisements (racial and gender stereotypes)
What is cognitive dissonance?
beliefs that are contradicted by strong counterevidence cause psychological distress
What is the difference between a “tight” and loose” society/culture?
tight: norms are explicit and powerful thus ppl are inclined to follow
loose: weaker norms thus compliance is less certain
What is disposition?
“internal factors”
beliefs, values, personality traits, and abilities that guide behavior
What is the fundamental attribution error?
failure to recognize the importance of situational influences on behavior, together with the tendency to overemphasize dispositions
What is the concept of “channel factors”?
aka “nudges” - small innocuous-seeming prompts that have big effects on behaviour
circumstances can guide behaviour making it easy to choose certain paths
What is gestalt psychology?
people perceive objects by active, usually nonconscious interpretation of what the object represents
- not some passive and unbiased perception of objective reality
What is naive realism?
the beleif that we see the world directly without any complicated perceptual or cognitive machinery “doctoring” the data
our judgments and beliefs are actively constructed by
perceptions and thoughts
what does construal refer to?
how we interpret situations and behaviour and how we make (nonconscious) interfereces about people we encounter
ex. freedom fighters vs terrorists
What are schema?
generalized knowledge about the physical and social world
what are stereotypes?
schemas that we have for different people
2 types of attitudes/beliefs?2 types of attitudes/beliefs?
- implicit: can’t be readily controlled by the conscious mind (caused by automatic processing)
- explicit: beliefs we are aware of (caused by controlled processing)
what is ideomotor mimicry?
type of nonconscious processing
- subconsciously mimic other peoples body language
What is natural selection?
- Individuals with certain traits will be better able than others to survive, reproduce, and raise their offspring to the age of viability
- these more successful individuals will pass their traits on to their offpring through certain genes
What is autism?
difficulties in interacting and communicating with others–particularly in relation to mental states like feelings and thoughts
what is naturallistic fallacy?
the way things are is the way they should be
- no logical foundatiom!
What is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)?
- tech to understand the brain’s role in social behaviour
- blood flows to areas activated in brain
shared with other mammals and appear to be involved in non-conscious, automatic reactions
examples of older, shared regions of the brain?
- amygala: fearful gut feelings
- nucleus accumbens: dopamine receptors - reward
