Chapter 11 Flashcards
Social psychology
Branch of psychology that studies how thoughts feelings and behaviors are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment
What are two key research areas in social psychology
Social influence and social cognition
Social influence
Focuses on how our behavior is affected by other people and by situational factors
Social cognition
The mental processes people used to make sense of their social environment
Conformity
Adjusting opinions judgment or behavior so that it matches that of other people or the norms of a social group or situation
Normative social influence
Subjects desire to be a liked and excepted by the group
Informational social influence
Subjects reported having doubted their own perceptual abilities which led to their conformance
Solomon Asch’s experiment (1955)
Tested conformity, standard line test
Result of Asch’s experiment
76% of participants conformed atleast one wrong choice
You are more likely to conform to group norms when (say atleast 3)
You are facing a unanimous group of at least four or five people
You must give your response in front of the group
You have not already expressed commitment to a different idea or opinion
You find the task to be ambiguous or difficult
You doubt your abilities or knowledge in the situation
You are strongly attached to a group or want to be a member of it
Conformity is higher in____________than in_____________
Collectivistic cultures, individualistic cultures
Individualistic cultures
Tend to emphasize independence
Conformity chance to carry a negative connotation
Collectivistic cultures
Publicly challenging the judgment of others particularly the judgment of members of ones in group would be considered rude tactless and insensitive
Conformity does not seem to carry the same negative connotation
Stanley Milgram
Known for his obedience study in 1962
Obedience
The performance of a behavior in response to a direct command typically an authority figure or a personal her status such as a teacher or supervisor gives a command
What was Stanley Milgram‘s critical question
Can a person be pressured by others in the committing a immoral act even some of that violated his or her own conscious such a hurting stranger stranger
Name one of Stanley Milgram’s experiment
The electric chair
What happened in the electric chair
Levels of volt to ‘leaner’ if they got something wrong was 150, 300, 450 volt shock applied by random teacher
2/3 of milligram subjects were fully compliant and went to the full 450 volt level
Evil of those who disobeyed experimenter not one stop before 300 volt level
When teachers were allowed to act as her own authority and freely choose a shock level what happened
95% of them did not venture beyond 150 voltes
Milgram found that people were more likely to muster up the courage to defy authority when
They saw others do so
Who is Philip Zimbardo
Administered the Stanford Prison Experiment
A state of reduced individuality self-awareness and attention to personal standards occurs when
People are a part of a group
Lynndie England
Instructed to hold leash (tied to tortured prisoner) and stand there
Philip Zimbardo said that (non-important)
unless we learn the dynamics of “why” we will never be able to counteract the powerful forces that can transform ordinary people into evil perpetrators
Bystander effect
A phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely each individual is to help someone distressed
Diffusion of responsibility
Like the bystander effect it is a phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distressed, this is because the obligation to intervene is shared among all onlookers
Two reasons for the bystander effect
Diffusion of responsibility
Motivation to some extent by desire to behave in a socially acceptable way (normative social influence) and appear correct (informational social influence)
Social cognition
Mental process that people use to make sense of their social environment like attribute attitude and stereotype
Attribution refers to the
Process of explaining your own behavior and the behavior of other people
Personal attributions
Refer to peoples internal characteristics such as abilities, traits, moods, or efforts
Situational attributes
Refer to external events such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people’s actions
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to spontaneously attribute the behavior of others to internal personal characteristics while ignoring or underestimating the role of external situational factors
Changing attitude
A learn Tennessee to evaluate some object, person, or issue in a particular way
Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959
Tested Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance
 The state of having inconsistent thoughts and beliefs or attitude especially relating to the behavior decisions and attitude change
When you were torn between two choices it means you
Deemphasize a negative features of the choice he rejected
And emphasize the positive features of the choice you made
Implicit
Evaluations that are automatic, unintentional, and difficult to control
People can be unaware of them but they influence choices and behavior
Implicit association test or IAT
Most widely used test measure implicit attitudes and preferences
