chapter 13: social psychology 2 Flashcards
social pressure
a set of psychological forces that are exerted on us by others’ judgements, examples, expectations, and demands
who influences us the most
people who’re physically or psychologically closest to us
how does social pressure arise
from the ways we interpret and respond emotionally to the social situations around us
is social pressure useful
it can be, promotes our social acceptability and helps create order and predictability in social interactions, but can also lead us to behave in ways that are foolish or morally repugnant
social facilitation
being observed improves performance
social interference/inhibition
an audience hinders performance
who studies social facilitation
zajonc
what did zajonc say about social facilitation
the presence of others facilitates performance of dominant actions and interferes with performance of non dominant actions
dominant actions
actions that are so simple, species-typical, or well learned that they can be produced automatically, with little conscious thought
non dominant actions
actions that require considerable conscious thought or attention
how does social facilitation/interference work
presence of an audience increases a person’s level of drive or arousal - tightened drive increases the person’s effort, but also interferes with controlled, calm, conscious thought and attention and worsens the performance of non dominant actions
what findings supported zajonc’s theory
the presence of observers does increase drive and arousal (self-reports and physiological indices - increased heart rate and muscle tension)
can facilitation and interference occur on the same task and what does that depend on + example
yes, depends on the performers’ skill
ex1: expert pool players performed better when watched by a group of 4
ex2: college students asked to explain something that they just learned, interference when they had been given negative feedback just before and decreased when given positive feedback
choking under pressure
the highly aroused mental state produced by any strong form of pressure to perform well can cause performance to worsen
working memory
control conscious attention and holds those items of information that are needed to solve a problem
when is chocking under pressure especially likely
with tasks that make strong demands on working memory
why does anxiety affect nondominant actions
they put heavy demands on working memory, anxiety creates distracting thoughts (about being evaluated, the difficulty of the task, about the consequences of failing) - usurp much of the limited capacity of working memory, interfere with concentration
students and math problems experiment
some told that they’re part of the team that will fail if they don’t do the task well - they performed much worse on unpracticed difficult problems, but not on the easy or practiced problems which were less taxing on the working memory
who described stereotype threat
Claude steele
stereotype threat
threat that test-takers experience when they’re reminded of the stereotypical belief that the group to which they belong to isn’t expect to do well on the test
stereotype threat examples
African Americans and IQ tests, older adults on working-memory tests, women on math tests, christians on science tests
when is stereotype threat first noticed
in elementary and middle school children, even in girls as young as 5
do white males also show stereotype threat
yes, for math, with the stereotype that white people have less math ability
what is stereotype threat an example of
self-fulfilling prophecy