Chapter 13: Social Psychology Flashcards
______: Taking on for ourselves
the behaviours,
emotional displays, and
facial expressions of
others
mimicry
T/F: Synchrony facilitates
social bonding (ex: mimicry!)
true!!
T/F: mimicry is always conscious
false! can be conscious or unconscious
_______: Unwritten guidelines
for how to behave in
social contexts
social norms
what do social norms promote?
conformity!
what is the difference between space bubbles in NA and Europe?
we have much larger space bubbles in NA, thats our social norm! so it seems weird when Europeans are so much closer to each other in everyday scenarios because thats THEIR norm
______: putting less effort
into tasks when working with others
social loafing
what are four reasons that someone may “social loaf” i.e. not work as hard in groups?
- Low efficacy beliefs
- Believing one’s contributions are
not important - Not caring about the group’s outcome
- Feeling that others are not trying hard
_______:
when one’s
performance is
enhanced by the
presence of others
Social facilitation
_______: when
group members tend
towards the same
ideas to minimize
conflict
Groupthink
______ law: describes a relationship between arousal and performance, suggesting that there’s an “optimal” level of stress or arousal for peak performance
yerkes-dodson law
Too little stress might lead to a lack of motivation or focus, while too much stress can cause anxiety, overwhelm, and ultimately impair performance.
what are the tell-tale markers of group-think?
other perspectives not considered
dissenters pressured into conforming
overconfidence in decisions, group polarization
Group polarization: what is it?
if u poll opinions before and after discussion with a group, people will be much more confident in their opinion after being within a group discussion
where can we see group think? two common examples
governmental advisors (usually pretty like-minded)
juries! (people are much more inclined to conform in that closed-group setting!)
T/F: group polarization is super intertwined with politics
true!!! allows people to strengthen their beliefs within their party, always being agreed with
T/F: group polarization can lead to self-selection of media
true!!! add-in confirmation bias to group polarization and thats exactly what the US is dealing with right now
_____: A change in behaviour
to fit in with a group
conformity
_______:
conforming to avoid
incurring a social cost
Normative influence
have a private belief but dont want to disrupt group
______:
concluding the group
must be right
Informational influence
become convinced the group must be right, their private belief changes!
what five things affect conformity, or our tendency to conform?
- size of social group
- Familiarity of group
- Complexity of task
- Presence of nonconformists
- Anonymity of responses
T/F: Being ignored or excluded from social contact violates
our need to belong
very true!
ostracism!
T/F: many school shooters have a common factor of feeling/being ostracized
true
T/F: ostracism can lead to a strengthened belief in the group that one is
being excluded from as we try to gain social acceptance
true! we all just want to belong, shifts our personal beliefs
_______: The presence of other
people sometimes
reduces the likelihood of
helping behaviour
the bystander effect
________: feeling of
responsibility is spread
across members of a
group, so no single
individual feels a
concentrated sense of
personally responsible
Diffusion of
responsibility
why does the bystander effect happen?
diffusion of responsibility, people think that it must be everyone else’s responsibility!
T/F: Bystanders with self-
efficacy more likely to help
true!! people with specialized training will feel more responsible for others, more likely to help!
T/F: Cases of altruism show
that people are willing to
sacrifice their own well-
being for others
true! ex: Malala
_______: When uncertain, we look to
see how others are reacting
and act accordingly
pluralistic ignorance
what is the smoke-filled room study? what was it testing?
people were brought into room, when they left, smoke would billow out
if people were alone, they were much more likely to say something and help!
when people were in groups (with people who were instructed not to do anything), they would look to the others and notice no one else doing anything, so they did nothing too! assuming everyone else knew something they didn’t!
_______: specific sets of expectations for how someone
in a specific position should behave
Social roles
______: psychological state of decreased self-
evaluation, often leading to a loss of accountability and
disinhibited or anti-normative behaviour
Deindividuation
what is the most infamous study of social roles?
stanford prison experiment
T/F: stanford prison experiment was horribly unethical
true!!! not good
was the stanford prison experiment a scientific experiment?
no. they weren’t really variables or anything official, it was mostly a demonstration
Guards acting according to
______ characteristics, so
experimenters “have something
to work with”
demand
they knew what the experiment was about, and thought they would act accordingly
were similar results found when BBC made a pseudo-replication of Stanford Prison experiment?
no, found very different things
prisoners and guards worked together! but they knew cameras were there, so perhaps they acted accordingly
T/F: Each role we find
ourselves in activates a
schema for that role, we act accordingly! (ex: Stanford Prison)
true!!
_____ can explain riot behaviour, since we explain away groups behaviour as not belonging to ours
deindividuation
what happens when police officers dress in military gear?
we see them act more brutally, rather than keeping the peace (like we would expect!)
this can explain some factors of militarization and police violence
Participants instructed to give ever-increasing
electric shocks to another participant, who was
actually a confederate
what experiment is this describing?
Milgram’s infamous obedience study
why were people so interested to study obedience?
after WWII, people were curious why people seemed to blindly follow the Nazi regime, what made them so susceptible to authority that they seemingly lost all their morals
what were the five changes Milgram made to his learner/teacher experiment?
difference in location
closeness of teacher/learner
physical contact
authority orders by phone, not in person
presence of other people disagreeing
what is a real-world example of obedience to authority?
the astros cheating scandal
also police brutality and other societal issues like it
person perception is a ____ model
dual-process, implicit and explicit
_______:
underlie quick,
effortless, automatic
thinking
Implicit processes
________:
involve more careful
and effortful thinking
Explicit processes
in what order does our dual-process model usually work?
implicit comes before explicit (snap decisions before mulling it over)
T/F: For certain traits, first impressions can be somewhat accurate
true!! distribution is slightly above 50%, more than random!
what are self-fulfilling prophecies?
we have first expectations of others, so we change our behaviour, making them change THEIR behaviour
ex: when people act standoffish because of snap judgement, you may change your behaviour towards them (confirming their ideas of you!)
______:
assuming that our views
are representative of
society at large
False consensus effect
_____: assuming
that our perceptions of
reality are accurate, and
therefore those who differ
must be wrong
Naïve realism
________ effect: We often
experience illusory
superiority about
our abilities in
ways that are
mathematically
improbable
better than average
______ effect: The people who know the least are at the greatest risk of overestimating their abilities
dunning-kruger
people who are most extreme usually have the lowest amount of knowledge, we lack the expertise to realize we AREN’T experts
how many switches did people go to in Milgram’s experiment that indicated that they would go all the way to the 30th switch?
only needed to go to 10 switches!
_________ attribution:
explaining a person’s
behaviour as due to
some intrinsic quality
of the person
Internal attribution
_____ attribution:
explaining a
person’s behaviour
as the result of the
social context
External
______:
degree to which
people believe they
have control over the
events in their life
Locus of control
T/F: we have an internal and external locus of control
true! how we explain our own behaviour
what would be an internal and external point of view (locus of control) when we fail and test vs pass a test
fail: we would use an external locus, blaming our failure on others
pass: we would use an internal locus, thinking that we must be so smart and have studied so hard
________ attribution error: We often have an immediate tendency to resort to
internal attributions when judging others
fundamental
we’re way less forgiving of others
______: people we belong and identify with
ingroups
______: people we feel different from
outgroups
why are ingroups and outgroups so prevalent in human society?
we like to divide ourselves into groups, belonging somewhere
T/F: Fundamental attribution error more likely when judging
someone perceived to be from an outgroup
true! we don’t feel as connected to them, rely on our snap judgements
______: we are more likely to attribute positive
qualities to the social group to which we belong
In-group bias
______: a set of
common beliefs about
a group of people
Stereotype
______: attitudes
based on stereotypes
that include
emotional and
value judgments
Prejudice
________:
behaviours based on
prejudice
Discrimination
T/F: Positive stereotypes can’t have negative consequences
false! they def can
anytime we make a generalization of a whole group of people, we’re creating double standards
what is an example of a positive stereotype about women? black men?
women: are more docile, and virginal
makes it so that women are held to a double standard against men, they can’t be sexual and are put in a box
black men: being athletic, they aren’t always so… may lead to feeling inadequate
what happened to Mary Whiton Calkins? representing discrimination in psychology
Denied her PhD by Harvard
despite William James
describing her defense as “the
most brilliant examination for
the Ph.D. that we have had at
Harvard”
she was a fantastic scientist but was denied her PhD because she was a woman
she later became the 1st woman president of the American Psychological Association
T/F: Individual’s
declarations of not
holding any bias…
at odds with
disproportionate use
of force on minority
groups
true!
even if we say we don’t believe something… why is it still happening?
what is the example of the black therapist being shot trying to help his client? how does this relate to prejudice and people saying it doesn’t exist
it confirmed this contradiction in self-reported bias and actual racism
he laid down flat on his back with his arms in the air and was still shot in the leg, afterwards, he asked the police officer “why did you shoot me?” and the officer replied “i don’t know”
People of Indigenous
descent make up 5%
of the population, yet
>____% of the prison
population – 54% in
Manitoba!
25
we think we’re so different but we’re really not!
how can we study biases if people don’t admit that they have them?
implicit associations test
______: Measures how fast people respond to
stereotype-consistent and stereotype-
inconsistent stimuli
implicit associations test
Event-related potentials differ depending
on race and gender within 200 ms! making them…. _____ processes
implicit
maybe later on our explicit processes can then come and correct our implicit bias!
T/F: implicit associations test is perfect
false!
Results are not
always stable across
repeating testings
Does not predict an
individual’s tendency
for discrimination
not necessarily a mark against the test, we just have conscious processes that play an important role in filtering our unconscious/implicit bias ( also biases may change over time!)
T/F: Evidence for implicit bias
shows up in other
contexts in which
decisions are based on
implicit processes
people are less likely to stop if a black person is crossing the road than white! real-world implications of our implicit processes
what are three ways we can reduce implicit bias?
Reprogramming
through practice
Explicit training to
unlearn stereotypical
associations
Virtual reality training
§ Shoot/Don’t shoot
simulations
§ Empathy training
what might be a negative side effect for the use of VR in police training?
might lead to desensitization, but so helpful for empathy training!! still important
T/F: Face memory and
recognition skills
depends on the
diversity of faces we
are exposed to during
development
true!! we need exposure to different things to feel comfortable around them!
_______ model: Dual-process model of when and how we become persuaded
elaboration likelihood model
T/F: Route of persuasion depends on whether we have motivation
and time to process an argument
true (whether we pick implicit/explicit pathways)
which route is an implicit process in the elaboration likelihood model?
peripheral route, more effective when people don’t have time to consider (using their intuition and motivation) not as long-lasting of change
which route is an explicit process in the elaboration likelihood model?
central route, appealing to someone’s logic and reasoning, results in long-lasting effects
_______ route to persuasion: Makes use of
substantive
arguments and
requires
attentiveness of
the audience to
evaluate the
argument’s logic
central route, using evidence!
_____ route to persuasion: Makes use of
style, is easier to
process quickly,
and activates
people’s feelings
peripheral route
return of Dunning-Kruger- people that know the least think they know the most!
______ theory:
information affects us
differently depending on
our ‘psychological
distance’ from the
information
Construal level
psychological distance- how close someone feels to an issue (time, distance, etc.)
how can we enhance the central route to persuasion?
minimizing the “psychological distance” someone feels to a topic
appeal to their values, and try to avoid the false consensus effect (thinking that everyone else believes the same as us!)
_______ effect: People are more affected by
the story of a single suffering
person, than by information
about a whole group
the identifiable victim effect
The _______ system:
operates implicitly, is
predominantly emotional (implicit, instincts)
experiential
The ______ system: operates
explicitly, acts more slowly
and methodically, and uses
logical processes (explicit, analytical)
analytical
________: A strategy for strengthening
attitudes and making them
resistant to change by first
exposing people to a weak
counter-argument and then
refuting that argument
attitude inoculation
T/F: attitude inoculation can be used for good and evil
true!!
what is the central route hindered by?
Message complexity
- Negative emotions and
processing fluency
if people don’t understand, they interpret it in a negative way (makes people resentful and shut off from your argument)
how can we enhance the peripheral route?
want to engage implicit
authority (using experts)
using someone people like (people we find attractive and we like, makes us more likely to believe them!)
social validation (people like conformity!)
reciprocity (we feel a sense of obligation if they’ve done something for us)
door-in-the-face technique- ask for something more reasonable after asking for something outrageous (anchoring effect)
T/F: peripheral route can exploit our want to maintain internal consistency in our beliefs and behaviour
true!! ask for a small request, then ask another request (someone will want to continue what they’ve already been helping with)
_____: When we hold
inconsistent beliefs,
this creates aversive
inner tension (i.e.,
dissonance) that we
are motivated to
reduce
cognitive disonance
what happened in the experiment to show cognitive dissonance, when people did a super boring task then either got paid 20$ or 1$ to lie to the next person
people who were paid 1$- had cognitive dissonance (the experiment was super boring, they weren’t getting paid well to lie either) so to resolve that inner conflict, they changed their belief about how fun the experiment WAS and reported that it was more fun
T/F: We are constantly,
often unconsciously,
trying to find internal
justifications for our
actions and beliefs
true!!
why do people have a stronger affinity to people that haze them?
people like to think they wouldn’t let others humiliate them, so in their head, if they’re letting a group morally degrade them, it must be a super awesome group! (pushes them closer to the group that was essentially abusing them!)
justifies why we just did that to ourselves
cognitive dissonance in Canada? indigenous peoples?
we believe that Canada is such a multicultural, fair country but we see these acts of brutality against minorities by our police (especially towards indigenous peoples)
people justify this behaviour by convincing themselves it must just be a “few bad apples” its not the systems that need to change (since their patriotism might be more comfortable and cherished to them)
