Chapter 12 - Social psychology Flashcards
Social brain hypothesis
Humans belong to the order primates, which includes great apes and monkeys
According to the social brain hypothesis, brain hypothesis, primates have large brains in particular, large prefrontal cortices because they live in complex social groups that change over time
People are especially likely to organise themselves into groups when two conditions are met. What are they?
Reciprocity
Transitivity
Reciprocity
Meaning that people treat others as others treat them
Transitivity
Pople generally share their friends’ opinions of other people
Outgroup homogeneity effect
The tendency to view outgroup members as less varied than in-group members
Social identity theory
The idea that in-groups consists of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category and experience pride through their groups membership
In-group favouritism
The tendency for people to evaluate favourably and privilege members of the in-group more than members of the outgroup
Minimal group paradigm example
Turner (1979) randomly assigned volunteers to two groups using meaningless criteria such as flipping a coin
Why do people favour members of their own groups?
One possibility is that people who work together to keep resources within a group and deny resources to outgroup members have a selective advantage over these two are willing to share with outgroup
Another possibility is that group membership is as important to us that we are willing to hurt people in outgroups as a way of signalling how much we value the people in our in-group
Brain activity associated with thinking about other people
The middle region of the prefrontal cortex, called the medial prefrontal cortex, is important for thinking about other people
Thinking about them generally or specifically, whether they are in in-groups or outgroups
When is the medial prefrontal cortex less active?
When people consider members of out-groups, at least members of extreme out-groups such as people who are homeless or drug addicts
Explanation for differences in the medial prefrontal cortex brain activity
One explanation for these differences in brain activity is that people see in-group members as more human than outgroup members
Risky shift effect
Group often make riskier decisions than individuals do
Group polarisation
The process by which initial attitudes of groups become more extreme over time
Groupthink
The tendency of a group to make a bad decision as a result of preserving the group and maintaining its cohesiveness
Especially likely when the group is under intense pressure, is facing external threats, and is biased in a particular direction
How to prevent groupthink
Leaders must refrain from expressing their opinions too strongly at the beginning of discussions
The group should be encouraged to consider alternative ideas, either by having someone play devil’s advocate or by purposefully examining outside opinions
What does Zajonc’s model predict?
That social facilitation can either improve or impact performance. The change depends on whether the response that is required in a situation is the individual’s dominant response.
If the required response is easy or well learned, so that the dominant reponse is good performance, the presence of others will enhance performance. If the required response is novel or less well learned, so that the dominant response is poor performance, the presence of others will further impair performance
Social facilitation
The idea that the presence of others generally enhances performance
Social loafing
The tendency for people to work less hard in a group than when working alone
Deindividuation
A state of reduced individuality, reduced self awareness, and reduced attention to personal standards
This phenomenon may occur when people are part of a group
Individuated
We walk around with a sense of ourselves as individuals who are responsible for our own actions
Conformity
The altering of one’s behaviours and opinions to match those of other people or to match other poles expectations
Normative influence
The tendency for people to conform in order to fit in with the group
Informational influence
The tendency for people to conform when they assume that the behaviour of others presents the correct way to respond
Social norms
Expected standards of conduct that influence behaviour
What are the factors that reduce conformity according to Asch and other researchers?
When there are only one or two confederates, a naive participant usually does not conform
Asch found that lack of consensus is another factor that diminishes conformity
The social and cultural context also plays a role in conformity
What situations did Milgram find that produced less obedience?
If a teacher could see or had to touch the learner, obedience decreased
The the experimenter gave the orders on the telephone and thus was not physically present and visible, obedience dropped dramatically
What situations produced maximum obedience?
The the shock level increase slowly and sequentially
When the victim starts protesting later in the study
When the orders help justify continuing with the study
When the study is conducted at a high status school
When experimenters might be viewed as being more authoritative
Aggression
Any behaviour that involves the intuition to harm another
When is aggression likely?
By observational learning and exposure to media violence
When people feel socially rejected
Heat
Biological factor to aggression
One biological factor is the hormone testosterone, which has a modest correlation with aggression
Why might testosterone potentially increase aggression?
Because it reduces the activity of brain circuits that control impulses
What have studies found on the role of testosterone on aggression?
Testosterone might not play a direct role in aggression but rather might be related to social dominance, the result of having greater power and status
What has evidence shown about serotonin and aggression?
That serotonin is especially important in the regulation of aggressive behaviour
What does serotonin do to increase aggression?
Alterations in serotonin activity increase the amygdala response to threat and interfere with the prefrontal cortex’s control over aggressive impulses
What has genetic research found affects aggression?
MAOA gene
What does the MAOA gene do?
Control the amount of MAO, an enzyme that regulates the activity of neurotransmitters including serotonin and norepinephrine
It is important to know that MAOA does not cause violence. What does it do instead?
The long running effect of having one form of the gene versus another increases a person’s susceptibility to environmental risk factors associated with impulsive or antisocial behaviours
How can societal and cultural changes affect aggression?
By a collective shift in expectations and beliefs about aggression and its consequences
Why might some cultures be violent
They have a culture of honour
Phase 1 of sherif’s study of competition and cooperation
During Phase 1 of Sherif’s study, boys from the two summer camps were pitted against each other and become hostile
Phase 2 of Sherif’s study
During phase 2, the two groups had to work together to achieve common goals.
The shared goals led to cooperation and a reduction of hostility between the groups
What contact between groups can reduce hostility?
Superodinate goals
Goals that require people to cooperate and reduce hostility between groups
Prosocial behaviours
Actions that benefit others, such as doing favours or helping
Why are humans prosocial?
One suggestion is that prosocial behaviours are motivated by empathy, in which people share other people’s emotions
Another suggestion is that most prodigal behaviours have selfish motives such as wanting to manage one’s public image or relieve one’s negative mood
Altruism
Providing help when it is needed, without any apparent reward for doing so
Inclusive fitness
An explanation for altruism that focuses on the adaptive benefit of transmitting genes, such as through kin selection, rather than focusing on individual survival
Kin selection
When your family members thrive, at least some of our genes survive
Reciprocal helping
One animal helps another because the other may return the favour in the future
Bystander intervention effect
The failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need when other people are present
Reason for bystander intervention effect
Diffusion of responsibility
Social blunders
Anonymous
People weigh two factors: how much harm do they risk to themselves by helping? What benefits might they have to forgo if they help?
Attitudes
People’s evaluations of other people, objects, events, or ideas
Mere exposure effect
The idea that greater exposure to a stimulus leads to greater liking for it
Advertisers often use classical conditioning. What is it?
When people see a celebrity paired with a product they tend to develop more positive attitudes about the product
What leads to more predictive behaviour?
The stronger and more personally relevant the attitude
The more specific the attitude, the more predictive it is of behaviour
How quickly your attitude come to mind. Attitude accessibility.
Attitude accessibility
Refers to the ease or difficulty that a person has in retrieving an attitude from memory
Explicit attitudes
Those you know about and can report to someone else
Implicit attitudes
Attitudes that influence a person’s feelings and behaviour at an unconscious level
How do people access implicit attitudes?
With little conscious effort or control
What is a method to assess implicit attitudes
A reaction time task called the Implicit Association Test (IAT)
What does the IAT measure?
How quickly a person associates concepts or objects with positive or negative words
Why is IAT controversial?
Question of reliability and stability of IAT scores
How do people reduce dissonance?
By changing their attitudes or behaviours
Another option is to rationalise or trivialise the discrepancies
Findings of dissonance study
One way to get people to change their attitudes is to change their behaviours first, using as few incentives as people
What happened when participants were paid only 1$ in dissonance study?
Participants who were paid only one dollar to mislead a fellow participant experienced cognitive dissonance. This dissonance led to them to alter their attitudes about how pleasurable the task had been
Effect of hazing on dissonance
People experience a great deal of dissonance when they put themselves through pain, embarrassment, or discomfort to join a group
According to the cognitive dissonance theory, dissonance can arise when
A person holds positive attitudes about different options but chooses one of the options anyway
Postdecisional dissonance causes what, example?
Influences a person to focus on the chosen school’s positive aspects and the other schools’ negative aspects
Persuasion
The active and conscious effort to change an attitude through the transmission of a message
What are the various factors that affect persuasiveness of a message?
The source
The content
The receiver
Receivers also find people who are similar to themselves to be more credible and persuasive sources
What do advertisers also use for persuasiveness?
Use the mere exposure effect
Repeating the message over and over in the hope that multiple exposures will lead to increased persuasiveness
Elaboration likelihood model
The idea that persuasive messages lead to attitude changes in either of two ways:
Via the central route
Via the peripheral route
Central route
When people are motivated and able to process information
People are paying attention to the arguments, considering all the information, and using rational cognitive processes
Peripheral route
When people are tired not motivated to process information or unable to process it
People minimally process the message
Compliance
The tendency to agree to do things requested by others
What are the factors that increase compliance?
A person in a good mood
Receiving a request
Comply with a request that is justified by a reason
Foot in the door
If you agree to a small request, you are more likely to comply with a large request
Door in the face
If you refuse a large request, you are more likely to comply with a smaller request
Low balling
When you agree to buy a product for a certain price, you are likely to comply with a request to pay more for the product
What is key for us to do as social animals on judging others?
Identifying people who are and are not trustworthy is key to our survival as social animals
Nonverbal behaviour
The facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, and movements by which one communicates with others
Attributions
People’s explanations for why events or actions occur
Personal attributions
Explanations of people’s behaviour that refer to their internal characteristics, such as abilities traits, moods, or efforts.
Situational attributions
Explanations of people’s behaviour that refer to external events
Examples of situational attributions
Weather
Luck
Accidents
Fundamental attribution error
In explaining other people’s behaviour, the tendency to overemphasise personality traits and underestimate situational factors
Correspondence bias
Focusing on the beliefs and dispositions that correspond with a behaviour while neglecting other factors
Actor/observer discrepancy
The tendency to focus on situations to explain one’s own behaviour but to focus on dispositions to explain other people’s behaviour
Difference between Easterners and Westerners
Easterners are more likely than Westerners to take situational forces into account, they do still tend to favour personal information over situational information when making attributions about others
Subtyping
When people encounter someone who does not fit a stereotype, they put that person in a special category rather than changing the stereotype
Illusory correlations
Example of the psychological reasoning error of seeing relationships that do not exist
Prejudice
Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype
Discrimination
The differential treatment of people as a result of prejudice against their group
Why do stereotypes so often lead to prejudice and discrimination?
Together, social identity theory and the idea that individuals’ survival is depends on their group obtaining scarce resources lead to the prediction that people might feel threatened by anything that favours the outgroup at the expense of the ingroup
Modern racism
Subtle forms of prejudice that coexist with the rejection of racist beliefs
When do people discriminate less towards the out group
When they have common goals
Explicit training about stereotypes can also reduce prejudice
Stereotype threat
Fear or concern about confirming negative stereotypes related to one’s own group, which in turn impairs performance on a task
Study on stereotype threat findings
Demonstrate the power of social and cultural stereotypes to create or alleviate the effects of stereotype threat on individual performance
Students are protected from stereotype threat when
They engage in self affirmation by writing about important personal values or read about a black role model who is successful in the stereotyped domain
What mental strategies can reduce the effect of prejudice
Reframing
Self labeling
Can reduce the effects of prejudice by helping the target think about the situation in a different way
Reframing
Involves taking a negative stereotype and transforming it from a weakness into a strength
Self labeling
Involves embracing the very slurs used against you.
Taking ownership of the slur can provide a sense of power to those who are stigmatised
Perspective taking
Means activity contemplating the psychological experiences of other people
Such contemplation can reduce racial bias and stereotyping and help smooth potentially awkward interracial interactions
Proximity
Simply means how often people come into contact with each other because they are physically nearby
Neophobia
Because of the mere exposure effect, people tend to like things they are exposed to repeatedly
In fact, humans generally fear anything novel
Matching principle
The most successful romantic couples also tend to be the most physically similar
What are the least desirable characteristics in relationships?
Dishonesty
Insincerity
Lack of personal warmth
What are the most desirable characteristics in relationships?
Kind
Dependable
Trustworthy
What are the two fundamental dimensions that characteristics fall along into?
Warmth
Competence
What might be attractive in trading partners?
Trustworthiness
What might be attractive in friends?
Culturally determined causes of social status or likability
What did a study find on the effect of testosterone on a men’s faces?
Found that men with the highest levels of testosterone had faces with a higher width to height ratio
Why do people find symmetrical faces more attractive than asymmetrical ones?
This preference is thought to be adaptive because people use symmetry to evaluate health
‘What is beautiful is good’ stereotype
The belief that attractive people are superior in most ways
Passionate love
A state of intense longing and desire
Companionate love
A strong commitment based on friendship, trust, respect, and intimacy
Attachment theory
Romantic relationship are likely to vary depending on attachment
What are the four interpersonal styles that typically lead couples to discord and dissolution
Being overly critical
Holding the partner in contempt (eg: lacking respect)
Being defensive
Mentally withdrawing from the relationship
Capitalisation
Couples that deliver criticism lightly and with compassion when things go wrong, whereas they revel in each other’s successes when things go right
Attributional style
How one partner explained the other’s behaviour
How do happy couples differ from unhappy couples in attributional styles?
They overlook bad behaviour or respond constructively
This is known as accommodation
Study on attributional style and accommodation
The people with the most positively biased views of their partners were more likely to still be in relationships with their partners several months later than were those people with unbiased views of their partners
Social blunders
Some degree of ambiguity, and people may be worried that they would look foolish if they sought help that was not needed
