Chapter 1 - 4 Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific study of behavior; anything an animal or human does, feels, or thinks
What is social psychology?
Science that:- studies influences of our situations- with special attention to how we view and affect one another;Scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.
What constitutes social thinking?
- How we perceive ourselves and others- What we believe- Judgments we make- Our attitudes
What constitutes social influence?
- Culture and biology- Pressure to conform- Persuasion- Groups of people
What constitutes social relations?
- Helping- Aggression- Attention & intimacy- Prejudice
What are some examples of social thinking?
- Self-fulfilling prophecy- Diagnostic labels- Self-handicapping- Hindsight bias
What are some examples of social influence?
- Groupthink- Obedience- Conformity
What are some examples of social relations?
- Bystander apathy- Mob mentality- Cults
What are six major themes in social psychology? How do they relate to the three subfields of social psychology?
Social Thinking:1. We construct our social reality.2. Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous.Social Influences:3. Social influences shape behaviour.4. Dispositions shape behaviour.Social Relations:5. Social behaviour is also biological behaviour.6. Relating to others is a basic need.
What are two problems with correlational research?
- Directionality problem2. Confounding variables
How did Kurt Lewin summarize the fundamental principles of social psychology?
“Behaviour is a function of the person and the situation.”
What is the naturalistic fallacy?
Error of defining what is “good” in terms of what is observable. i.e. Typical = normal = good.
What are the obvious ways in which the values of social psychologists penetrate their work?
- Choice of research topics- Types of people who are attracted to various fields of study
What are the subtle ways in which the values of social psychologists penetrate their work?
- Hidden assumptions when forming concepts- Choosing labels- Giving advice- Naturalistic fallacy
What does a good theory accomplish?
- Effective summarization of many observations- Clear predictions that can be used to confirm or modify the theory, generate new exploration, and suggest practical applications.
What are demand characteristics?
Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of correlational and experimental research?
Correlational research:+ Often uses real-world settings- Causation often ambiguousExperimental research:+ Can explore cause and effect by controlling variables by random assignment- Some important variables cannot be studied with experiments
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences on others’ behaviour.AKA The correspondence bias
Why do we make the fundamental attribution error?
When people explain their own behavior they typically are giving reasons (not causes) that justify how they chose to behave. Reasons are justifications perceived by the actor.Causes are objective factors (features of the environment, the actor, etc.) as discerned by objective or external observers.Also, the situation is visible to us because we’re focusing on what we’re reacting to while when we watch someone act, that person is the focus of our attention.
How is negative behaviour interpreted through dispositional attribution vs. situational attribution?
Dispositional attribution:- Person is naturally a negative person- Leads to unfavourable reactionSituational attribution:- Person has received some bad news- Leads to symptomatic reaction
What is priming?
- Activating particular associations in memory(e.g., watching a scary movie and interpreting household noises as an intruder)- Can influence our thoughts & actions
What is unconscious transference?
Refers to an eyewitness’s misidentification of an innocent bystander for a criminal perpetrator because of the witness’s exposure to the bystander in another context.
What do Elizabeth Loftus’ studies show about eyewitness accounts?
Elizabeth Loftus found that those who had “seen” were, indeed, believed, even when their testimony was shown to be useless. Compared to criminal cases lacking eyewitness testimony, those that have eyewitness testimony are more likely to produce convictions even if that eyewitness testimony was discredited.
What is the misinfomation effect?
Incorporating “misinformation” into one’s memory of an event, after witnessing the event and receiving misleading information about it.Potential for the creation of false memoriese.g., Supposed child sexual abuse
How do we falsely construct our memories?
Reconstructing past attitudes:- Rosy (or less then rosy) retrospections- “Maturation makes liars of us all” Reconstructing past behaviour:- Hindsight bias- Self-serving bias
What is the representativeness heuristic?
Snap judgments of whether someone or something fits a category.May lead to discounting other important information.
What is the availability heuristic?
Quick judgments of likelihood of events (how available it is in memory).May lead to over-weighting vivid instances and thus, for example, to fearing the wrong things.
What is counterfactual thinking?
- Imagining alternative scenarios and outcomes that might have happened, but did note.g., Bronze versus silver medalists at the Olympic games- Underlies our feelings of luck- Typically more regret over things not done
What are two examples of illusory thinking?
Illusory correlation:- The perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually existse.g., Noticing “coincidences”Illusion of control:- The perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one’s control or as more controllable than they aree.g., Gambling- Regression toward the average
What did the Charles Lord study show about the students who had reviewed information that was disconfirming their beliefs favouring/disfavouring of capital punishment?
They were very critical of the disconfirming evidence, which only strengthened their disagreement of it.
What is spontaneous trait transference?
When we say something good or bad about someone else, people will tend to associate that trait with us. If we go around talking about others being gossipy, people may then unconsciously associate “gossip” with us.
Which things do we remember explicitly and implicitly?
Explicit recall includes facts, names, and past experiences.Implicit recall includes skills and conditioned dispositions.
What is the overconfidence phenomenon?
The tendency to be more confident than correct; to overestimate the accuracy of one’s beliefs.
Which two factors strongly influence how we interpret and remember events?
Our schemas and preconceptions strongly influence how we interpret and remember events.
What do before-the-fact judgments and after-the-fact judgments bias?
Before-the-fact: Perceptions & interpretationsAfter-the-fact: Recall
What is meant by “totalitarian egos”?
We revise the past to suit our present views. Thus, we under-report bad behaviour and over-report good behaviour.
What are three techniques that successfully reduce overconfidence bias?
- Prompt feedback. For example, weather forecasters receive prompt feedback so they are good at estimating their probable accuracy.2. “Unpack a task” and estimate time required for each to reduce “planning fallacy” overconfidence.3. Force people to think of one good reason why judgments might be wrong and to evaluate disconfirming information.
What kind of thinking does depressive mood motivate?
Depressed mood motivates self-focused brooding and intense thinking, searching for information that makes one’s environment more understandable and controllable.
What is the camera perspective bias?
Confession focused on suspect is perceived as genuine.Confession focused on policeman is perceived as forced.Now confessions are filmed from side profiles.
How can “attitude” be defined?
An attitude can be defined as one’s favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone exhibited in beliefs, feelings, or intended behavior.
What are the ABCs of behaviour?
A – affect (feelings)B – behavior (intentions)C – cognitions (thoughts)
What are the affective measures of attitude?
- heart rate- adjective ratings of positive and negative mood- Thurstone scale, “I feel anxious (happy,etc)”
What are the behavioural measures of attitude?
- average distance between subject and phobia- extent of contact subject is willing to have with phobia
What are the cognitive measures of attitude?
- Thurstone scale “Snakes control the rodent population” and “Snakes will attack anything that moves”- net proportion of favorable to unfavorable thoughts listed in the presence of the snake
What are the physiological measures of attitudes?
galvanic skin response and pupil dilation
What does an electromyograph record?
Records electrical activity in subjects’ facial muscles. Agreement is associated with the typical facial muscle pattern of happiness and disagreement with sadness pattern.EMG can measure the direction as well as the intensity of an attitude
What were the details and results of the condom use study?
- Recruited 72 sexually active university students to help design an AIDS prevention program.Group 1 – make a videoGroup 2 – brainstormGroup 3 – reveal instances they failed to follow their own rules or advice- Immediately following the experiment far more of those in the “induced-hypocrisy” group bought condoms than did those who helped make the video or brainstormed.- 3 months later - 92% of the hypocrisy group reported using condoms without fail. Compared to only 55% in the video group and 72% in the brainstorming group.
What are three factors that influence reasoned action?
- Attitudes toward the behavior2. Subjective norms3. Perceived behavioral control
What are behavioural intentions?
The subjective probabilities of how a person intends to behave
What are implementation intentions?
When individuals identify precisely when and where the behavior is to be performed it increases the likelihood of the behavior
When are goal intentions more likely to be carried out?
Goal intentions when supplemented by implementation intentions are more likely to be carried out.
What are the four attitude functions?
- A knowledge function by helping us organize and structure our environment.2. An instrumental function in helping us maximize rewards and minimize punishments.3. An ego-defensive function by helping us deal with internal conflicts and defend against anxiety.4. A value-expressive function in helping us express ideals important to our self-concept.
When are attitudes potent?
- When people are reminded of and think about their held/past attitudes.- When attitudes are forged by experience.
What are some examples of cognitive dissonance reduction?
If someone works hard to attain a goal, the goal will be more attractive than to the individual who achieves the same goal with no effort. Such as:- Hazing- Basic training- Charging money for pound puppies- Aronson and Mills (1959) sex discussion group with an embarrassing initiation
What is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.The “low-ball technique” as a variation.Works even when people are aware of a profit motive.Takes advantage of the psychological effects of making a commitment.
How do social movements begin?
Public conformity can lead to private acceptance.“One does what one is; one becomes what one does” (Robert Musil, Kleine Prosa, 1930)
Why does our behaviour affect our attitudes?
1) Self-presentation: Impression management2) Self-justification: Cognitive dissonance3) Self-perception
How does impression management affect our attitudes?
Being concerned with making a good impression in order to gain social and material rewards, to feel better about ourselves, or to become more secure in our social identities.Wanting to appear consistent.
How does self-justification affect our attitudes?
When our negative actions are not fully explained by external rewards or coercion, we will experience dissonance, which we can reduce by believing in what we have done.
How does self-perception affect our attitudes?
When people do something they enjoy, without reward or coercion, they attribute their behaviour to their love of the activity.External rewards undermine intrinsic motivation by leading people to attribute their behaviour to the incentive.
What is self-affirmation theory?
People often experience self-image threat after engaging in an undesirable behaviour, and they compensate for this threat by affirming another aspect of the self.Threaten people’s self-concept in one domain and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domains.
Action stimulates thinking. True or false?
True
Experiencing phenomena first hand heightens understanding. True or false?
True
Active cognitive processing of concepts increases retention. True or false?
True
Judgments made without experience or evidence are often wrong. True or false?
True
What is the Implicit Association Test?
A computer-driven assessment of implicit attitudes. The test uses reaction times to measure people’s automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. Easier pairings (and fast responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious associations.
Which area of the brain is active as we automatically evaluate social stimuli?
Amygdala, centre for threat perception.
Which conditions will attitude more accurately predict behaviour?
- When we minimize other influences on our attitude statements and our behaviour.- When the attitude is specifically relevant to the observed behaviour.- When the attitude is particularly potent.
What does self-perception theory assume?
Assumes our actions are self-revealing (when uncertain about our feelings or beliefs, we look to our behaviour, much as anyone else would).
How can culture affect one’s experience of cognitive dissonance?
People from individualistic cultures justify their actions for personal reasons, people from collectivist cultures justify their actions for social reasons.
What is self-perception theory?
Assumes that when we are unsure of our motivations we make similar inferences when we observe our own behaviour as any outside observer.
What is the overjustification effect?
The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their action as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.
What are some components of “the self”?
- Self-concept (Who am I?)- Self-esteem (My sense of self-worth)- Self-knowledge (How can I explain and predict myself?)- Social self (My group identity)
How do we form our self-concept?
We see ourselves as how we appear to others and how we perceive others see us.We have limited self-insight.
What are some examples of automatic thinking?
- Schemas- Emotional reactions- Memory- Subliminal Stimuli
How do we develop our social self?
- our social identity the comparisons we make with others our successes and failures how other people judge us the surrounding culture
How is learned helplessness formed?
Uncontrollable bad events → Perceived lack of control → Learned helplessness
What is the “dark side” of self-esteem?
When feeling threatened, only high-self-esteem people become significantly more antagonistic–arrogant, rude, and unfriendly.
How does self-serving bias manifest?
- Attributing one’s success to ability and effort, failure to luck and things external- Comparing oneself favourably to others- Unrealistic optimism- False consensus and uniqueness
What are some common self-presentation strategies?
- Self-Promotion- Exemplification- Modesty- Intimidation- Supplication- Ingratiation
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- Competent- Conceited- Respect- Performance claims
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- Worthy- Hypocrite- Guilt- Self-denial
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- Likable and competent- Nonassertive- Affection and respect- Understatement of achievements
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- Dangerous- Blowhard- Fear- Threats
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- Helpless- Stigmatized- Nuturance- Self-deprecation
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- Likable- Brownnoser- Affection- Compliments and favors
What is an example of social surroundings affecting our self-awareness?
When we are the only members of our race, gender, or nationality in a group, we notice how we differ and how others are reacting to our difference. The only woman in an executive meeting or math class is likely to be acutely aware of her gender.
How does self-interest colour our social judgment?
When problems arise in a close relationship such as marriage, we usually attribute more responsibility to our partners than to ourselves. When things gowell at home or work or play, we see ourselves as more responsible.
How does self-concern motivate our social behaviour?
In hopes of making a positive impression, we agonize about our appearance. Like savvy politicians, we also monitor others’ behaviour and expectations and adjust our behaviour accordingly.
How do social relationships help define the self?
In our varied relationships, we have varying selves. We may be one self with Mom, another with friends, another with teachers. How we think of ourselves is linked to the person we’re with at the moment.
What brain activity underlies your sense of being yourself?
- Right hemisphere;You’llhave trouble recognizing your own face if it’s put to sleep with anaesthetic)- Medial prefontal cortex; Seemingly helps stitch together your sense of self as it becomes more active when you think about yourself.
What is the self-schema?
Beliefs about self that organize and quide the processing of self-relevant information. They make up our self-concepts that help us organize and retrieve our experiences.
What is the looking-glass self?
How sociologist Charles H. Cooley (1902) described our use of how we think others perceive us as a mirror for perceiving ourselves.Fellow sociologist George Herbert Mead (1934) refined this concept, noting that what matters for our self-concept is not how others actually see us but the way weimaginethey see us.
What is the difference between self-esteem in individualistic vs. collectivist cultures?
Individualistic:
- Stable (enduring across situations)
- More personal and less relational
- Personal identity threat is more anger-inducing
- Persist more when succeeding
- Make comparisons with others that boost self-esteemCollectivist:
- Malleable (context-specific)
- Persist more when failing
- Make upward comparisons with others that facilitate self-improvement
What do studies of “affective forecasting” reveal about the greatest difficulty people have with predicting their future emotions?
Peoplehave greatest difficulty predicting theintensityand thedurationof their future emotions.
What was Timothy Wilson’s theory the mental processes that affect our self-analysis?
The mental processes that control our social behaviour are distinct from the mental processes through which we explain our behaviour. Our rational explanations may, therefore, omit the unconscious attitudes that actually guide our behaviour.
What is the dual attitude system?
Differing inplicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes towards the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; Implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.
Which two elements does our self-concept consist of?
The self-schemas that guide our processing of self-relevant information, and the possible selves that we dream of or dread.
What us the “bottom-up” view of self-esteem?
Whenwe feel good about the domains (looks, smarts, or whatever) important to our self-esteem. For example, one person may have self-esteem that is highly contingent on doing well in school, so they will feel high self-esteem when made to feel smart.
What are the two forms of self-esteem?
explicit (consciously controlled, feeling good about what you do) andimplicit(automatic or intuitive, feeling good about who you are)
What are the consequences of high explicit self-esteek but low implicit self-esteem?
- Likely to have fragile self-view
- More defensive
- Rationalize their actions
What are temporal comparisons?
A comparison between how the self is viewed now and how the self was viewed in the past or how the self is expected to be viewed in the future.
Why do people perceive themselves in self-enhancing ways?
One explanation sees the self-serving bias as a by-product of how we process and remember information about ourselves.Comparing ourselves with others requires us to notice, assess, and recall their behaviour and ours. Thus, there are multiple opportunities for flaws in our information processing
What are some positive results of self-serving bias?
- Helps protect people from depression
* Helps buffer stress and anxiety
What are some ways in which people self-handicap?
- Reduce their preparation for important individual athletic events.
- Give their opponent an advantage.
- Perform poorly at the beginning of a task in order not to create unreachable expectations.
- Not try as hard as they could during a tough, ego-involving task.
