Chapter 13 - Social Psychology

Question 1

What are the 5 categories of social psychology?

Answer 1

attraction, attitudes, peace & conflict, social influence, and social cognition.

Question 2

What is the main focus of social psychology?

Answer 2

understanding how the presence of others affects our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
It investigates the way groups function, the costs and benefits of social status, the influence of culture, and all the other psychological processes involving two or more people.

Question 3

What are the levels of analysis?

Answer 3

Culture/environment > relationships/groups > behaviour > thoughts/feelings/perceptions > physiology > chemistry/DNA

Question 4

What are attitudes?

Answer 4

Attitudes are opinions, feelings, and beliefs about a person, concept, or group.

Question 5

What is stereotyping?

Answer 5

Stereotyping is a way of using information shortcuts about a group to effectively navigate social situations or make decisions.

Question 6

What is prejudice?

Answer 6

prejudice refers to how a person feels about an individual based on their group membership.

Question 7

What is discrimination?

Answer 7

Discrimination occurs when a person is biased against an individual, simply because of the individual’s membership in a social category.
Can occur when someone acts on a stereotype.

Question 8

What is conformity?

Answer 8

being persuaded to give up your own opinions and go along with the group.

Question 9

What is obedience?

Answer 9

following orders or requests from people in authority.

Question 10

What is social attribution?

Answer 10

making educated guesses about the efforts or motives of others.

Question 11

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 11

The consistent way we attribute people’s actions to personality traits while overlooking situational influences.

Question 12

What is a schema?

Answer 12

A schema is a mental model or representation of any of the various things we come across in our daily lives.
It is an organized body of general information or beliefs we develop from direct encounters and secondhand sources.

Question 13

What are heuristics?

Answer 13

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that reduce complex problem-solving to more simple, rule-based decisions.

Question 14

What are representativeness heuristics?

Answer 14

People use representativeness heuristics to come to a quick decision by judging the likelihood of the object belonging to a category, based on how similar it is to one’s mental representation of that category.

Question 15

What is an availability heuristic? What is it used for?

Answer 15

People use the availability heuristic to evaluate the frequency or likelihood of an event based on how easily instances of it come to mind.

Question 16

What is the planning fallacy?

Answer 16

When someone underestimates how long it will take to complete a task.

Question 17

What is affective forecasting?

Answer 17

Our ability to predict how we will feel about certain outcomes, whether we will feel positively or negatively, and how strongly or for how long we will feel that way.

Question 18

What is the impact bias? What does it influence?

Answer 18

The impact bias is the tendency for a person to overestimate the intensity of their future feelings. This influences predictions about future feelings.

Question 19

What is the durability bias?

Answer 19

The durability bias is the tendency for a person to overestimate how long positive or negative events will affect them.

Question 20

What is hot cognition?

Answer 20

The mental processes that are influenced by desires and feelings.

Question 21

What is motivated skepticism?

Answer 21

Being skeptical of evidence that goes against what we want to believe despite the strength of the evidence.

Question 22

What is the need for closure often induced by?

Answer 22

Time constraints and the individual differences in the need for closure.

Question 23

What is mood-congruent memory?

Answer 23

The tendency to recall memories similar in valence to our current mood.

Question 24

When is a behaviour or process considered automatic?

Answer 24

When it is unintentional, uncontrollable, occurs outside of conscious awareness, or is cognitively efficient.

Question 25

How do behaviours and processes become automatic?

Answer 25

Through repetition, practice, or repeated association.

Question 26

What is the chameleon effect?

Answer 26

Individuals non-consciously mimic the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviours of their interaction partners.

Question 27

What are the two primary reasons for conformity?

Answer 27

Normative influence and informational influence.

Question 28

What is normative influence?

Answer 28

Normative influence is when people go along with the crowd because they are concerned about what others think of them.

Question 29

What is informational influence?

Answer 29

Informational influence refers to the process of being influenced by others because people are often a source of information.

Question 30

What are descriptive norms? When do they occur?

Answer 30

Descriptive norms occur when it is not clear what society expects of us in a given situation. In these situations we rely on descriptive norms, that is, we act the way most people like us act.

Question 31

What are blatant biases?

Answer 31

Blatant biases are conscious beliefs, feelings, and behaviours that people are perfectly willing to admit, which mostly express hostility towards other groups while favouring one’s own group.

Question 32

What is social dominance orientation?

Answer 32

Social dominance orientation describes a belief that group hierarchies are inevitable in all societies and are even a good idea to maintain order and stability.
It is a preference for inequality to be normal and natural.

Question 33

What is the fundamental belief of social dominance orientation? How do people in high social dominance orientation see different groups?

Answer 33

Social dominance orientation rests on a fundamental belief that the world is tough and competitive with only a limited number of resources.
Those with high social dominance orientation see groups as battling each other for these resources, with winners at the top of the social hierarchy and losers at the bottom.

Question 34

What does right-wing authoritarianism endorse?

Answer 34

Right-wing authoritarianism endorses respect for obedience and authority in the service of group conformity.

Question 35

What are subtle biases?

Answer 35

Subtle biases are unexamined and sometimes unconscious. They are automatic, ambiguous, and ambivalent, but nonetheless biased, unfair, and disrespectful to the belief in equality.

Question 36

What does the social identity theory describe?

Answer 36

The social identity theory describes the tendency to favour one’s own in-group over another’s out-group.

Question 37

What is pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 37

Pluralistic ignorance occurs when someone relies on others to define the situation and concluding that no intervention is necessary even though help is actually needed.

Question 38

What is the diffusion of responsibility?

Answer 38

Diffusion of responsibility occurs when there are multiple bystanders, because knowing that someone else could help seems to relieve one of personal responsibility, and they do not feel the need to intervene.

Question 39

Explain the personality dimension of agreeableness.

Answer 39

Agreeableness is a core trait that includes characteristics of being sympathetic, generous, forgiving, and helpful.

Question 40

What are the two characteristics of the prosocial personality orientation?

Answer 40

Other-oriented empathy and helpfulness.

Question 41

Describe other-oriented empathy.

Answer 41

People with prosocial personality orientation have a strong sense of social responsibility, empathize with and feel emotionally tied to those in need, understand the problems the victim is facing, and have a heightened sense of moral obligation to be helpful.

Question 42

Describe helpfulness.

Answer 42

helpfulness is more behaviourally oriented. Those high on the helpfulness factor have been helpful in the past, and because they believe they can be effective with the help they give, they are more likely to help again in the future,

Question 43

What are the 3 reasons why people help?

Answer 43

1. evolutionary forces may serve to predispose humans to help others.
2. egoistic concerns may determine if and when help will be given.
3. selfless, altruistic motives may also promote helping in some cases.

Question 44

What is kin selection?

Answer 44

Kin selection refers to the likeliness for a person to help someone related to them to increase chances of their DNA being passed on to future generations.

Question 45

What does the negative state relief model suggest?

Answer 45

The negative state relief model suggests that people sometimes help in order to make themselves feel better.

Question 46

What does the arousal cost-reward model focus on?

Answer 46

The arousal cost-reward model focuses on the aversive feelings aroused by seeing another in need. We are motivated to eliminate the aversive feeling.

Question 47

What does the empathy-altruism model explain?

Answer 47

It explains altruistically motivated helping for which the helper expects no benefit.

Question 48

Explain compliance.

Answer 48

Insincere, outward conformity.

Question 49

Explain obedience.

Answer 49

Complying to reap a reward/avoid punishment.

Question 50

Explain conversion.

Answer 50

Changing position; accepting the groups position as their own.

Question 51

Explain acceptance.

Answer 51

Sincere, inward conformity.

Question 52

What were the results of Milgram’s experiments? (percentages)

Answer 52

Original study: 65% finished
Change in location: 47% finished
learner’s presence in room: 30% finished
experimenter not present in room: 23% finished
increase in number of teachers: 10% finished
Conflicting experiments: 0% finished