Chapter 13 Flashcards
What is social psychology?
Seeks to understand, explain, and predict how peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others
Social cognition; attitudes
Social cognition; how people perceive, interpret, and categorize their own and others’ social behaviour
Attitude; relatively stable and enduring evaluations of things and people
ABC model of attitudes
- The affective component—how we feel toward the object; e.g., I’m scared of snakes
- The behavioural component—how we behave toward the object; e.g., I will avoid snakes and scream if I see one
- The cognitive component—what we believe about the object; e.g., I believe snakes are dangerous
Do Attitudes Determine Behaviour
Research suggests that people’s attitudes don’t always determine their behaviour
Study from 1930’s:
Asked hotel owners would they accept Chinese people as guests in their hotel? Over 90% said no.
When a young Chinese couple showed up at hotel, only 1 owner refused them a room
Examining attitudes specific to the behaviour
Specific, relevant attitudes do predict behaviour
Subjects who were paid $1.00 for “talking up” the tasks reported the tasks to be more enjoyable than those who were paid $20.00.
Why?
Cognitive Dissonance
A state of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent, or when a person’s belief is incongruent with his or her behaviour
Cognitive Dissonance
- Behaviour: occasionally drink alcohol
- Belief: drinking kills brain cells
The behaviour and the belief are inconsistent - this leads to feeling of psychological discomfort which we are motivated to reduce
Haley goes through a painful, embarrassing initiation to join her sorority
Kari goes through an easy initiation to join her sorority
They join the sorority and their roommate is awful
Important Elements:
1) behaviour must be freely chosen
2) there must be insufficient justification for the behaviour
Belief: Jack cares about the environment
Behavior: He did not recycle his pop can at lunch
Will he experience cognitive dissonance?
Belief: Janie wants to lose weight
Behavior: She doesn’t eat dessert at dinner
Should she experience dissonance?
Behaviour: paid $20 to tell another participant that an experiment was fun
Belief: the experiment was boring
Should I experience dissonance?
Behaviour: paid $1 to tell another participant that an experiment was fun
Belief: the experiment was boring
Should i Experience Dissonance?
Self-Perception Theory
A theory suggesting that when people are uncertain of their own attitudes, they infer what their attitudes are by observing their own behaviour
Cognitive dissonance theory applies to situations that are strikingly out of character
Self-perception theory applies to situations that are only slightly out of character or where our attitudes are unclear to begin with
Cognitive Dissonance Theory vs. Self-Perception Theory
Which one is an example of cognitive dissonance and which one is self-perception theory?
A) You eat a lot of vegetarian dishes because that is what your roommate cooks for dinner. You decide that your favourite type of food is vegetarian.
B) You used to love psychology. You take a psychology class at 8:30am and cannot seem to make it to class very much—probably because you have a tendency to party too much and cannot get up early enough. Half-way through the semester, you decide that you are not making it to class because you really do NOT like psychology that much.
Would you tell the truth if:
1) your doctor asked you how much alcohol you consume each month?
2) your significant other asked if you were ever attracted to another person?
3) your professor asked you if you loved the class
Attitudes
Bogus pipeline:
• Participants are hooked up to a machine that they believe is able to measure deception; they answer more truthfully in this situation
Explicit versus Implicit Attitudes
• Explicit attitudes: Conscious attitudes; measured through self-report measures
• Implicit attitudes: Unconscious attitudes; measured through Implicit Association Task (IAT)
IAT Clip
Social Cognition: Persuasion
2 Routes to Persuasion:
Central route: Persuasion that occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favourable thoughts
Central Route to Persuasion Clip
Peripheral route: Persuasion that occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness
Peripheral Route to Persuasion Clip
Source Factors
People are more persuaded by attractive people and by people who are similar to them
Persuasion Tactics
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request
Foot-in-the-Door Study
Foot-in-the-Door Study
Persuasion Tactics
Door-in-the-face technique
Start with an extreme request that is sure to be rejected, then, follow this up with a smaller request, which is likely to be accepted because it appears to be a concession
Persuasion Tactics
The Effect of Arousing Fear
Messages that evoke fear can also be persuasive
Fear-arousing messages are even more effective if they are paired with a strategy people can use to reduce their fear
Barriers to Persuasion
Forewarned is forearmed: audiences who are prepared to be persuaded will be less open to the message than those who are not
Social Cognition: Stereotypes and Prejudice
Stereotypes: generalized impressions based on social categories
May be positive or negative
Examples: age, race, beliefs
Allow us to quickly process new information and retrieve memories
Distort reality in 3 ways:
Exaggerate differences between groups
Produce selective perception
Underestimate differences between groups
Social Cognition: Stereotypes and Prejudice
Prejudice: Negative and unjust feelings about individuals based on their inclusion in a particular group
Stereotypes and Prejudice
- Mere categorization effect: we tend to sort people into groups on the basis of common attributes (e.g., race, gender); this is a cognitive process
- Ingroup: group you belong to or identify with
- Outgroup: groups you don’t belong to or identify with
“Us” versus “them”
Group Identity: Us versus Them
Participants guessed how many dots there were and were split into
2 groups:
Overestimators
Underestimators
Participants allocated money to other participants (both in-group and out-group members)
Group Identity: Us versus Them
Participants allocated more money to their ingroup than to members of the outgroup
Robbers’ Cave Experiment
• Summer camp for boys
• Boys were split into two groups: the Eagles and the Rattlers
• The groups competed against one another in a series of games
• The winner of the competition was rewarded with big prizes
• Eagles and Rattlers hated each other
• Robbers’ Cave Experiment
• Could peace be restored?
• Robbers’ Cave Experiment
Social Cognition: Attributions
Attribution Theory: The theory that people are motivated to explain their own and other peoples’ behaviour by attributing causes of that behaviour to a situation or a disposition.
Attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error: Tendency in explaining others’ behaviours to overestimate personality factors and underestimate situational influence.
Attributions
Self-serving bias: Tendency, in explaining own behaviour, to take credit for one’s good actions and rationalize one’s mistakes.
Social Forces: Conformity
- Subjects in a group were asked to match line lengths.
- Confederates in the group picked wrong line.
Social Relations: Group Dynamics
- Social Facilitation
- People perform simple, well-learned tasks better in the presence of others
- But, for more difficult tasks, the presence of others can inhibit performance
Social Relations: Group Dynamics
• Social Loafing: The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable
Social Loafing in Everyday Life
• People do not engage in social loafing when the task is challenging, appealing or involving, or when their group members are friends
Social Relations: Helping Behaviour
• Altruism: self-sacrificing behaviour carried out for the benefit of others
Social Relations: Helping Behaviour
Paul Vienneau
- Clears ice in winter; hands out water bottles in summer
- Spent 6 hours one day chipping away at ice on a sidewalk in January
Social Relations: Helping Behaviour
Smoke-filled room study
Social Relations: Aggression
Aggression: broad category of behaviours intended to harm others, including physical and verbal attacks
Genetic component
Gender Differences in Aggression
Who is more aggressive? Men or women?
Gender Differences in Aggression
Who is more aggressive? Men or women?
Social Relations: Aggression
Does testosterone play a role in aggression?
§ High correlation between level of testosterone and level of aggression
Aggression and Time of Year
Social Relations: Interpersonal Attraction
Five key factors linked to liking (fondness and affection for another person):
1) Similarity 2) Proximity 3) Self-disclosure 4) Situational factors 5) Physical attractiveness
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
