Chapter 13 Flashcards
Kurt Lewin
Behaviour = function of the Person and the Environment
Synchrony
Occurs when two individuals’ speech, language, and physiological activity become similar during social interaction
Mimicry
Copying behaviours, emotional displays and facial expressions of others
-usually unconscious
-serves as ‘social glue’ (helps coordinate behaviour in social settings)
Social Norms
Guidelines for behaviour in social contexts
Why we follow them:
-Social approval, social pressure, avoid ostracism:Being ignored or excluded from social contact
-powerful form of social pressure
-anger, sadness, low self esteem, self confidence, violence
Social Roles
Guidelines that apply to specific positions within the group
ex: parent, child, student ,professor, stanford prison experiment
Social Loafing
Member of group puts less effort working on a task than others
Factors encouraging
Low efficacy beliefs
Believing one’s contribution isnt important
Not caring about outcome
Feeing like others arent trying either
Social facilitation
A group member’s performance is affected by presence of others
-ex racing against bikers
-ants digging more when working with other ants
Presence of others may also impair performance when task is hard or skill level is low
-presence for others emotionally arousing:more distraction for novices than experts
Conformity
Change in behaviour to fit in group
Can be unintentional
Similar to mimicry
Solomon Asch conformity studies
Normative Influence
Social pressure to adopt group’s perspective to be accepted (public compliance)
Informational Influence
Genuine interest in information provided by group (private acceptance)
Factors for Conforming
Larger group
Friends, family or acquaintances in vicinity
Task unclear/ambiguos
Others conform first
Responses made publicly
Groupthink
Decision making problem where group members avoid arguments and strive for agreement
-May minimize/ignore potential problems, risks
-May settle on ‘easy’ solution too quickly without considering better options
-May lead to overconfidence and less time considering consequences of decision, learning mistakes
Usually occurs with one strong leader unwilling to accept ideas of other group members, or when all members have similar ideas
Stanley Milgram Obedience Studies
Variatons:
-experimenter in different room
-teacher and learner in same room
-requiring teacher to physically shock learner (all these made obedience ~30%)
-three teachers (two confederates and one experimenter)
-when confederates stop, participants agreed
Bystander Effect
Individual less likely to help others when others around also arent
‘Bystander apathy’
eg. Kitty Genovese
Latane and Darley
Participant engaged in conversation with 1,2 or 3 others via intercom
During conversation one ‘has seizure’
More confederates involved in conversation, longer participants took to react
Explanations of Bystander Effect
Normative influences: What if I embarrass myself
Informational Influences: What if others know something I don’t?
Diffusion of Responsibility: Reduced sense of personal responsibility when more people
Altruism
Helping others with need without receiving or expecting reward
Counterintuitive to natural/sexual competition
Kin selection
Strategy favouring reproductive success of relatives
-Hamilton’s rule, green beard gene
Social Cognition
Combines influence of social context and cognition (thought process)
Dual-Process Model
Behaviour model accounting for both implicit and explicit processes
Explicit Process
Conscious thought
-deliberate, effortful,slow,under intentional control
Implicit Process
Unconscious thought
-intuitive, automatic, effortless, fast, outside of intentional control, lower level processes, can lead to bias/stereotypes
Schemas
Organized clusters of knowledge, beliefs and expectations
-influence our attention and perceptual processes>biases
Heuristics
‘Best guess’ problem solving strategies based on prior experiences
1Person Perception
Process by which individuals categorize and form judgements about other people
Can occur very quickly (unconsciously)-first impressions
-‘Thin slices’ of behaviour: Small samples of person’s behaviour
-eg, judgements about sexual orientation, political affiliation
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
First impression/expectation affects one’s behaviour>affects other person’s behaviour>leads to confirming original impression/expectation
Naïve Realism
Assumption that our perceptions of reality are accurate and we see things the way they are
Us vs Them
False Consensus Effect
Tendency to project one’s self concept onto social world
Self-Serving Biases
Biased way of processing self-relevant info to enhance positive self-evaluation
(taking credit for success, blaming others, circumstances or bad luck for failures)
Better than Average Effect
Assuming we are above average at skills/qualities important to us
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to over-emphasize internal attributions and under-emphasize external factors to explain others’ behaviour
Internal Attributions
Dispositional Attributions
Behaviour of another person is an innate quality
External Attributions
Situational Attributions
Behaviour of another person is result of situation
Ingroups
Groups someone feels positively toward and identifies with
Ingroup Bias
Extension of a positive bias toward the self to include one’s ingroup
Outgroups
‘Other’ groups someone doesn’t identify with, or dis-identifies with
Stereotype
Cognitive structure (schema) that guides how we process info about social world
Set of beliefs about characteristics of specific social group
Can be negative or positive: Both can be harmful
Prejudice
Emotionally charged response to outgroup members
Includes holding negative attitudes and making critical judgements of other groups
Discrimination
Behaviour that disadvantages members of certain social group
Implicit Associations Test
Measures how fast people can respond to images or words flashes on a computer screen
Reaction time scores correlate with activation in amygdala (emotion processing, fear response)
Improving Intergroup Relations
People’s implicit networks can be ‘reprogrammed’ with practice
-eg training to replace internal/dispositional attributes with external/situational attributions
Can help avoid stereotypical thinking
Contact Hypothesis
Social contact between members of different groups is extremely important to overcoming prejudice
Better when:
Both groups have equal status and power
Meeting involves cooperating on tasks or pursuing common goals
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Dual-process model of persuasion that predicts whether factual info or other types of info will be most influential
Explicit vs implicit thinking
When audience not interested/has to make quick choice: less rational (implicit) thinking
Central Route to Persuasion
Focuses on facts, logic and content of message
Audience needs both motivation and time to think rationally about message
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
Focuses on features of issue/presentation that are not factual
-attractiveness of person delivering message, # of arguments made
-style vs substance of argument
Tips for Central Route
Make sure message is being presented clearly in accessible manner
-confusing cognitively challenging topics can promote feelings of insecurity, frustration and apathy (curse of knowledge)
Tips for Peripheral Route
Use of experts/authority figures, high-status individuals
Use likeable communicators (attractiveness)
Social validation
-other people listen to this message, you should too
-new your times #1 bestseller, billboard 100 charts…
Construal-Level Theory
Information affects us differently depending on psychological distance from information
Messages more personal feeling are more successful motivators
-geographical distance, temporal distance, social distance, degree of specificity, certainty
Identifiable Victim Effect
People act more by story of single person suffering than a whole group
Experiential System
Operates quickly, implicitly, intuitively, mostly emotional
-intuition and feelings
Analytic System
Operates explicitly, slower and more methodical, uses logic to understand reality
-understanding
Reciprocity
Strong social norm to repay others
(Door-in-the-Face Technique)
-ask for something big
-follow with smaller request (usually initial goal)
Consistency
Hard to say no after sating yes
(Foot-in-the-Door Technique)
-make simple request
-after they say yes, follow with larger request
Cognitive Dissonance
Inner tension, discomfort felt when we hold inconsistent beliefs
Motivates us to reduce this tension
Confirmation Bias
Only searching for evidence confirming one’s beliefs
Self-Justification
Justifying or excusing one’s behaviours
