Chapter 13 - Social Psychology Flashcards
Define social psychology
Study of how people influence others’ behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes
What is Dunbar’s number?
The amount of people an individual can know reasonably well and develop relationships with; 150 people
What is one of the harshest punishments?
Social isolation
What are 4 ways the social nature of humans causes problems?
- Competition
- Conformity
- Conflict
- Obedience
What is the social comparison theory? / what is downward vs. upward comparison?
We compare ourselves to others to help us understand/ evaluate our own beliefs and abilities.
Downward - comparing ourselves to someone “inferior” / looking down on someone
Upward - comparing ourselves to someone “superior” / looking up to someone
Relates to our drive for accuracy and self-enhancement
What are internal/ dispositional vs. external attributions?
We attribute causes to behavior.
Internal/ dispositional - relate to one’s character/ personality
External - relate to one’s situational circumstances
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Our tendency to attribute behavior to dispositional (external) factors and underestimate situational factors
Ex. he’s a shitty person because he cut me off [referring to an ambulance driver]
What is a self-serving bias?
Explaining our own failures with situational factors and our successes with dispositional factors
What is conformity?
Our tendency to alter behavior as a result of group pressure
Ex. Asch study
Explain Asch’s line study.
- Participants are asked to answer obvious questions regarding object similarity
- Confederates are placed around the participants to answer wrongly
- Participants conform with the confederates and answer wrongly on obvious questions
73% conformed on at least one trial
37% conformed on all trials
When is conformity more likely? Six factors discussed.
Conformity is more likely when…
1. Rest of the group is unanimous - group is fully im agreement
2. You’re the only one with a different answer
3. The larger the majority, the more likely you’ll conform
4. Having to answer publicly
5. Individual has low self-esteem or is from a collectivist culture
6. When deindividualization occurs
What is deindividualization? / what two factors explain the phenomenon?
The tendency for people, upon stripped of their usual identity, to engage in activities they otherwise would not engage in
Anonymity and lack of responsibility explain the phenomenon
Explain the Stanford Prison Study. What did it aim to test? What did we learn? Which three situational factors play a huge role on behaviour, according to the study?
An experiment in which prescreened participants were randomly assigned as prisoners or guards and analyzed in a simulated prison for what was supposed to be 2 weeks, but ended after 6 days.
Aimed to examine situational influences on prison behavior:
1. Are guards inherently more sadistic?
2. Can the power of the situation make regular people do awful things?
3. Does your role determine your behavior?
Result:
- guards engaged in hostile, arbitrary, inventive humiliation
- prisoners experienced extreme psychological distress, became hopeless, and lost their sense of selves
Conclusion:
Situational factors have a huge influence on behavior…
1. Fulfilling social roles: guard vs. prisoner schema
2. Deindividualization: uniforms stripped guards of their identities in the real world
3. Dehumanization: prisoners given number identifications stripped of their human identities
Additional conclusion:
Scientists should remain neutral observers
Abu Ghraib was the real world equivalent of …?
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Large groups of strangers can act either … or … based on others’ actions?
Antisocially or peacefully
Ex. Piling sandbags for a flood vs. the Stanley cup riots
What is groupthink? What three factors increase it? What are two ways to minimize it?
The emphasis on group unanimity over critical thinking
Ex. Walkerton, ON. - nobody wanted to speak out on e-coli contamination
Increased by…
1. Illusion of group unanimity
2. Conformity
3. Self-censorship
Minimized using…
1. A voice of dissent in the group (devil’s advocate)
2. Independent experts
What is group polarization?
Tendency for group discussions to push dominant ideas to be held more strongly
Ex. News stations, social media, cults
What are cults? / what are four common characteristics of cults?
A cult is a group with intense and unquestioning devotion to a cause
Ex. Heaven’s gate
Common characteristics:
1. Persuasive leaders
2. Disconnection from the outside world
3. Discouraged questioning of the path
4. Creating gradual indoctrination practices
What is the best way to convince someone they are wrong?
List the reasons that they are right, then debunk those reasons
What is obedience?
Adherence to instruction from authority figures
Ex. Milgram study
What is the difference between obedience and conformity?
Obedience is blindly following a leader and conformity is blindly adhering to your peers/ others
Explain the Milgram Study. What was the aim? What were the results? What did we learn?
The Milgram study aimed to analyze how far people would go, blindly following orders
Basis of idea…
We’re atrocities like the holocaust caused by evil people?
[and/or]
Did unethical action occur because normal people were just following orders?
- Mr. Williams is conducting a punishment and memory/ learning study
- Participant is the ”teacher”
- Mr. Wallace is the ”learner” and he has a heart condition (actually the confederate)
- The learner’s arm is strapped to a shock plate
- Each incorrect response leads to a higher voltage, with 450V being the max
- Mr. William encourages the teacher to continue
- The learner becomes unresponsive at 345 volts
62% of participants go to the end (450 volts)
Conclusions:
- Situational factors can have a huge influence on behavior
- We need clear and rigorous ethical standards in research
- Scientists overestimated internal/ dispositional factors (compassion, kindness) and discounted situational influence (instructions from a scientist in a lab coat)
Which six factors influence obedience? (in reference to the Milgram study)
- Psychological proximity to the learner
- Psychological proximity to the authority figure
- Disagreement between two authority figures - the addition of one disagreeing scientist led to 0% compliance
- Cues to prestige/ authority - less obedience if the research building was less prestige/ more rundown
Dispositional factors:
1. Morality - negative correlation with compliance
2. Authoritarianism - positive correlation with compliance
100% on midterm
What is a criticism of the Milgram Study?
In the real-world, this kind of behavior is probably initiated by truly sadistic individuals; less by obedience
What is the bystander effect?
Tendency to assume others will intervene and thus, not intervening yourself
Ex. Kitty Genovese was stabbed multiple times and audibly yelled but nobody decided to call the police, everyone probably thought “someone else must’ve called already”
What are two causes of the bystander effect?
- Diffusion of responsibility - feeling less responsible with more witnesses nearby
- Pluralistic ignorance - assuming something is not an emergency because nobody is reacting like it is (Ex. Smoking Room Study)
What is social loafting?
The tendency to slack off in groups because people feel less individual responsibility
Ex. Clapping quieter in groups, Tug-of-War
What is altruism? What decreases altruism?
The act of helping others for unselfish reasons
Feeling rushed decreases altruism (Ex. The Good Samaritan Study)
What are six situational factors that increase the likelihood we help others?
- Being unable to escape
- Signs of disability
- Being in a good mood
- Observing positive role models
- Being an empathetic person
- When someone perceivably shares the same values as us
What are five individual/ gender factors that increase the likelihood we help others?
- Having knowledge about social psychology
- Being less traditional/ concerned about what others think
- Being male (especially in a scenario when the victim is an attractive female)
- Being extraverted
- Having emergency training
What is aggression?
Behavior intended to harm others either physically or verbally
What seven factors make us more likely to hurt others?
- Provocation
- Frustration
- Media (only in the short-term) - how often we see certain aggression normalized in the media
- Aggressive cues (Ex. Weapons in one’s presence)
- Arousal (Ex. From exercise)
- Alcohol/ drugs - reduce inhibitions
- Temperature - positive correlation with aggressive behavior
What five individual/ cultural factors make us more likely to hurt others?
- High levels of negative affect - negative emotions such as anger, mistrust, anxiety, and depression
- Impulsivity
- Men between the ages of 12 and 28
- The culture of honor in Southern USA - the importance of ”defending your honor” in the face of disrespect
- Aggression is less prevalent in Asian cultures
How does aggression vary across genders?
Men are more aggressive overall and more physically aggressive
Women are more relationally aggressive
Relational aggression is a more passive aggressive form of aggression (Ex. Bullying and gossiping)
What is an attitude? What is it composed of?
A positive or negative evaluation about something or someone
It is composed of…
1. Affect - outward expression of feelings and emotions
2. Behaviors
3. Cognitions/ thoughts
When do attitudes predict behaviors? When do they not?
Sometimes attitudes do not predict behaviors
Ex. Attitudes and behaviors regarding distracted driving/ speeding in Edmonton
Sometimes attitudes do predict behaviors
1. When the attitudes are easily accessible
2. When the attitudes are firmly held
T or F: a person, after completing a boring task, will rate it more interesting when they are given a bigger reward.
False.
A person that has completed a boring task will rate it more interesting if they are given a lesser reward. According to the cognitive dissonance theory, someone that has received a poor reward will have little justification for why they did it. Therefore, they will convince themselves they enjoyed the task to make up for the lack of justification for why they did it. Someone that received a greater reward will be truthful and admit they did not like it because they are able to justify why they did it (for the reward)
What is the cognitive dissonance theory?
When we experience inconsistent cognitions, attitudes, and behavior, we experience dissonance
Dissonance is a feeling of discomfort when our attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions don’t align
Therefore, we modify our behavior, attitudes, and/ or cognitions to reduce dissonance
What are two alternative theories to the cognitive dissonance theory on why we chance our attitudes?
- The self-perception theory states our attitudes are created by observing our behaviors
- The impressional management theory states that we lie because we don’t want to be seen as a hypocrite. Thus, we didn’t change our attitudes, we just wanted to show consistency
What are the two routes to persuasion? Through which route of attitude creation do attitudes last/ endure longer?
- The central route is the information content route; really diving into the specifics of something
- The peripheral route is the surface aspects route; looking only at the broad, superficial aspects of something
Attitudes last/ endure longer through the central route
What are the three common persuasion techniques?
- Foot-in-the-door technique is coming first with a small request, then asking for a bigger one later; relies on cognitive dissonance
- Door-in-the-face technique is coming with a favor, then requesting slightly less when you say no
- Lowball technique is starting with a low price, then introducing add-ons later
What are seven ways to increase persuasion?
- Attractive/ famous spokesperson
- “Experts” (Ex. With a man coat)
- Vivid testimonials
- “Natural goodness” (”if something is natural, it must be good”)
- Emphasizing scarcity/ “limited supplies”
- People with similar features - more likely to buy something if someone with similar features sells it
- Name-letter effect - more likely to purchase/ associate with things that contain your name letter
What is prejudice?
Tendency to judge something/ someone negatively before you’ve had the chance to evaluate your judgements with evidence
What are four reasons we are prejudice?
- Our bringing up
- Cognitive economies are saved when we avoid evaluating evidence
- The media (Ex. Bright and pretty tone of the US in movies/ orange and yellow tone of Mexico in movies)
- Evolutional factors lead us to naturally distrust people not in our group
What are the two factors that maintain prejudice?
- In-group bias - favoring people within our group over others; less empathy in our brains for others
- Out-group homogeneity - the belief that all members of the other group are the same
What are stereotypes?
Positive or negative beliefs about most individuals in a group
Can influence our snap judgements
(Ex. Amadou Diallo, a black man, shot for reaching into his pockets for his wallet)
What is the difference between prejudice and stereotypes?
A stereotype is a negative or positive belief about most individuals in a group
Prejudice is a specifically negative judgement about most individuals in a group
What is discrimination? What is one way it can be created?
The act of treating the out-group differently; influences both the discriminator and victim
Creating separate groups on chosen characteristics can create discrimination
What are four roots of prejudice?
- Scrape-goat hypothesis - blaming those beneath us for our misfortunes
- Just-world hypothesis - blaming the victim
- Conformity to social norms - need to fit in and be liked
- Personality factors - people with high authoritarianism and extrinsic religiosity
What is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity?
People with high extrinsic religiosity use religion to make friends and network (more likely to be prejudice)
People with high intrinsic religiosity use religion as a higher moral belief with no networking benefits intended
T or F: Caucasians pair negative words with black faces faster than with Caucasian faces
True.
What is group work? What are four requirements for it to work well?
An effective technique to combat prejudice; encouraging people to work together on a shared goal
To work well…
1. The contact should be enjoyable
2. Group members should be of equal status
3. Group members should disconfirm stereotypes
4. Groups members should be able to become friends
