Chapter 13 Flashcards
social psychology
The study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.
2 features of social psychology
- Connection to real life events
- Reliance on experimental methods
Social psychology’s connection to real life events
Emergence occurred after the civil war - topics of racism, prejudice, stereotypes were central topics
WW2 - used to understand the events that led to the war + the rise of the Nazis
Social psychologists are likely to manipulate
an independent variable to draw causal conclusions about its effects on some outcome
bystander effect
The tendency of an individual who observes an emergency to help less when other people are present than when the observer is alone.
Darley and Latane’s 5 steps to helping in an emergency
- Notice the event
- Understand that it is an emergency
- Take responsibility for aiding the victim
- Know how to help
- Help
Why does the bystander effect occur
Presence of other people appears to short circuit the process of aiding in an emergency at some point
- People may use other people as guide for behaviour (if others are not helping, they shouldn’t help either)
- Presence of others have the effect of draining responsibility from the person
Social psychologists often focus on the
Immediate social situation to understand what causes people to behave as they do
social cognition
The area of social psychology that explores how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information.
Person perception
Refers to the processes by which we use social stimuli to form impressions of others
Important social cue
The face - we automatically process information about how trustworthy a person is likely to be
stereotype
A generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to another
self-fulfilling prophecy
belief or expectation about a person or event leads to behaviors that ultimately make the belief or expectation come true
- Teacher believing a student will fail so they do not provide attention to student, resulting in failure
Why are first impressions so powerful
Primacy effect: the tendency to attend to and remember what they learned first
Attribution
The process by which we come to understand the causes of others’ behaviour and form an impression of them as individuals
- explanation of the causes of behaviour
attribution theory
The view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behaviour as part of their effort to make sense of the behaviour
Attributions vary along three dimensions
Internal/external causes: Internal - person such as their traits and abilities. External - social pressure
Stable/unstable causes: Whether the cause of the behaviour is relatively enduring and permanent or temporary influences attributions - was car honked because person is hostile or if they were in a hurry that day?
Controllable/uncontrollable causes: People have power over some causes but not others
Actor vs observer
Actor: Produces the behaviour to be explained
Observer: Offers a causal explanation of the actor’s behaviour
fundamental attribution error
Observers’ overestimation of the importance of internal traits and underestimation of the importance of external situations when they seek explanations of an actor’s behaviour
representativeness heuristic
The tendency to make judgments about group membership based on physical appearance or the match between a person and one’s stereotype of a group, rather than on available base rate information
One common heuristic
false consensus effect: A person’s overestimation of the degree to which everybody else thinks or acts the way the person does
Individuals with high self esteem often possess a variety of
positive illusions: Favourable views of the self that are not necessarily rooted in reality.
self-serving bias
The tendency to take credit for one’s successes and to deny responsibility for one’s failures
self-objectification
The tendency to see oneself primarily as an object in the eyes of others.
stereotype threat
An individual’s fast-acting, self-fulfilling fear of being judged based on a negative stereotype about their group
social comparison
The process by which individuals evaluate their thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and abilities in relation to others
attitudes
An individual’s opinions and beliefs about people, objects, and ideas—how the person feels about the world
Conditions under which attitudes guide actions
When person’s attitudes are strong
When person shows a strong awareness of an attitude and rehearses and practices it
When the person has a vested interest: When issue at stake is something that will affect them personally
cognitive dissonance
An individual’s psychological discomfort (dissonance) caused by two inconsistent thoughts
- We feel uneasy when we notice an inconsistency between what we believe and what we do
We can reduce cognitive dissonance in one of two ways
Change our behaviour to fit our attitudes or change our attitudes to fit our behaviour
Dissonance reduction: Effort justification
Means coming up with a rationale for the amount of work we put into getting something
self-perception theory
Bem’s theory on how behaviours influence attitudes, stating that individuals make inferences about their attitudes by perceiving their behaviour.
Two theories of the connections between attitudes and behaviour
Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory and Bem’s self perception theory
Persuasion
Involves trying to change someone’s attitude and often their behaviour
Various elements of persuasion
The communicator (source): Person doing the persuading
The medium: Medium or technology used to get message across
The target (audience)
The message
elaboration likelihood model
Theory identifying two ways to persuade: a central route and a peripheral route
Two pathways of persuasion
Central route: Works by engaging the audience thoughtfully with a sound, logical argument
Peripheral route: Involves factors such as the source’s attractiveness or the emotional power of an appeal
Television advertisers use the peripheral route
Strategies that make successful persuasion
Foot in the door technique: Involves making a smaller request at the beginning and saving the biggest demand for last
Door in the face technique: Involves making the biggest pitch first which customer will reject and then making a smaller demand
Resisting persuasion: Inoculation
Giving people a weak version of a persuasive message allowing them time to argue against it can help individuals avoid persuasion
If someone asks you, “How many students at your school support the decriminalization of all street drugs, like in Portugal or Oregon?” the false consensus effect would suggest what is true?
If you support this belief you believe most others will support it as well
Two particular types of behaviour that have interested psychologists represent the extremes of human social activity
Altruism and aggression
Altruism
Unselfish interest in helping another person
Egoism
Giving to another person to ensure reciprocity; to gain self-esteem; to present oneself as powerful, competent, or caring; or to avoid censure from oneself and others for failing to live up to society’s expectations
What are some biological factors in prosocial behaviour
Genetic factors explain 30%-69% of the differences we see in the tendency to engage in kind acts
Linked to the oxytocin is associated with social bonding
High levels of serotonin + dopamine receptors in the brain
What are some psychological factors in prosocial behaviour?
Empathy: Is a person’s feeling of oneness with the emotional state of another
Agreeableness is the personality trait most strongly associated with prosocial behaviours
Mood
What are some sociocultural factors in prosocial behaviour
Socioeconomic status: Those of lower socioeconomic status tend to be more likely to help
Media: TV, film, social media
Aggression
Behaviour that is intended to harm another person
Aggression in evolutionary theory
Basic theme: Survival of the fittest
- Conclude that early in human evolution the survivors were probably more aggressive individuals
Biological influences on aggression
Genes: After a number of breedings among only aggressive animals, descendants become vicious
Aggressive behaviour often results when areas such as the limbic system are stimulated by electric currents
Low levels of serotonin
Hormone testosterone implicated in aggressive behaviour
What are psychological influences on aggression
Low personality characteristics such as agreeableness, conscientiousness and high levels of neuroticism
Frustration - aggression hypothesis states that frustration always leads to aggression
Cognitive determinants: Aggressive behaviour starts with aggressive thoughts
Weapons effect
The tendency for the presence of firearms to enhance aggression
Social cognitive theorists believe
That individuals learn aggression through reinforcement and observational learning
Cultures of honour
A man’s reputation is thought to be an essential aspect of his economic survival. Such cultures see insults to a man’s honour as diminishing his reputation and view violence as a way to compensate for that loss
conformity
A change in a person’s behaviour to coincide more closely with a group standard
Psychological factors in conformity
informational social influence: The influence other people have on us because we want to be right
normative social influence: The influence others have on us because we want them to like us.
obedience
Behaviour that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority
deindividuation
The reduction in personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when one is part of a group
social contagion
Imitative behaviour involving the spread of actions, emotions, and ideas
social facilitation
Improvement in an individual’s performance because of the presence of others
social loafing
Each person’s tendency to exert less effort in a group because of reduced accountability for individual effort
risky shift
The tendency for a group decision to be riskier than the average decision made by the individual group members
group polarization effect
The solidification and further strengthening of an individual’s position as a consequence of a group discussion or interaction
groupthink
The impaired group decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony
social identity
The way individuals define themselves in terms of their group membership
5 distinct types of social identity
Ethnicity and religion, relationships, Vocations and avocations (athlete), political affiliation and stigmatized identities (homeless)
social identity theory
Tajfel’s theory that social identity, based on group membership, is a crucial part of self-image and a valuable source of positive feelings about oneself
ethnocentrism
The tendency to favour one’s own ethnic group over other groups.
prejudice
An unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individual’s membership in a group
Explicit and implicit racism
Explicit: Person’s conscious and openly shared attitude
Implicit: Attitudes that exist on a deeper hidden level
discrimination
An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group
According to allport, intergroup contact is likely to reduce prejudice when group members
- Think they are of equal status
- Feel that an authority figure sanctions their positive relationships
- Believe that friendship might emerge from the interaction
- Engage in cooperative tasks in which everyone has something to contribute
mere exposure effect
The phenomenon that the more individuals encounter someone or something, the more probable it is that they will start liking the person or thing even if they do not realize they have seen it before
Two types of love
romantic love or passionate love: Love with strong components of sexuality and infatuation, often dominant in the early part of a love relationship.
affectionate love or companionate love: Love that occurs when individuals desire to have another person near and have a deep, caring affection for the person.
social exchange theory
The view of social relationships as involving an exchange of goods, the objective of which is to minimize costs and maximize benefits.
investment model
A model of long-term relationships that examines the ways that commitment, investment, and the availability of attractive alternative partners predict satisfaction and stability in relationships
