Chapter 7 Flashcards
Self-concept/self-identity
Sum of individuals knowledge and understanding of themselves
Physical, psychological, and social attributes
Self-consciousness
Awareness of one’s self
Personality identity
Ones own sense of personal attributes
Social identity
Social definitions of who you are - race, gender, occupation
Self-reference effect
Tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves
Ideal self
Constructed out of life experiences, societal expectations, and things you admire in role models
Incongruity
When ideal self does not equal real self
Self-efficacy
Beliefs in one’s own competence and effectiveness
Locus of control
Internal or external
What forces are controlling outcomes
Self-esteem
Overall evaluation of one’s self-worth
Looking-glass self
Person’s sense of self develops from interpersonal interactions with others in society and the perceptions of others
People shape their self-concepts based on their understanding of how other perceive them
Social behaviourism
Mind and self emerge through the process of communicating with others
Symbolic interactionism
Mind and self merge through social process of communication or use of symbols
Generalized other
Common behavioural expectations of general society
Socialization
Process through which people learn to be proficient and functional members of society
Norms
Spoken and unspoken rules and expectations for the behaviour of its members
Normative behaviour
Social behaviours that follow norm expectations and meet ideal social standard
Sanctions
Normative behaviour is enforced using rewards and punishments
Formal norms
Generally written down - laws
Informal norms
Generally understood but less precise
Mores
Norms that are highly important for the benefit of society and are often strictly enforced
Folkways
Norms that are less important but shape everyday behaviour
Anomie
Social condition where individuals are not provided with firm guidelines in relation to norms and values
Minimal moral guidance or social ethic
State of normlessness
Non-normative behaviour
Viewed as incorrect because it challenges shared values and institutions
Deviance
Actions that violate the dominant social norms, whether formal or informal
Differential association
Deviance is a learned behaviour resulting from interactions between individuals and their communities
Labeling theory
Deviance is the result of society’s response to a person, rather than something inherent in the person’s actions
Behaviours become deviant through social processes
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Individuals internalizing labels and redefining concept of self
Agents of social control
Groups or individuals that can define societal impressions
Structural strain theory
Deviance is the result of experienced strain, either individual or structural
Collective behaviour
Spontaneous situations where people engage in actions that are otherwise unacceptable and violate social norms
Crowds
Group of people that share a purpose
Thought to be emotional
Herd behaviour
Public
Group of individuals discussing a single issue, which conflicts with the common usage of the term
Mass
Group of people whose formation is prompted through efforts of mass media
Share common interest
Social movements
Collective behaviour with the intention of promoting change
Active movement
Attempt to foster social change
Expressive movements
Attempt to foster individual change
Fad
Collective behaviour where something has rapid and dramatic incline in reputation, remains popular for a brief period of time, and has rapid and dramatic decline in reputation
Mass hysteria
Collective behaviour
Collective delusion of some threat that spreads through emotions, and escalates to spiral out of control
Riots
Collective behaviour
Crowd behaviour
No specific end
Result of general dissatisfaction with social conditions
Amalgamation
When minority and majority groups combine to form new group
Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
Six identifiably developmental stages of moral reasoning, which form basis of ethical behaviour
Kohlberg stage 1
Obedience and punishment orientation - learning how to avoid punishment
Kohlberg stage 2
Self-interest orientation
Focus on behaviour that will be in their best interest
Kohlberg stage 3
Interpersonal accord and conformity
Focus on approval and disapproval of others and try to live up to expectations
Kohlberg stage 4
Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
Individuals feel a duty to uphold laws, rules, and social conventions
Kohlberg stage 5
Individuals see laws as social contracts to be changed when they do not promote general welfare
Kohlberg stage 6
Morality is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles: laws are only valid if they are grounded in justice
Attribution theory
Social psychological attempts to explain how individuals view behaviour
Dispositional attribution
Attributing behaviours to internal causes
Situational attribution
Attributing behaviours to external causes
Three factors that determine attribution
- Consistency
- Distinctiveness
- Consensus
Fundamental attribution error
We tend to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact of a person’s character or personality
Actor-observer bias
Tendency to blame our actions on situation and those of others on personalities
Self-serving bias
Tendency to attribute successes to ourselves and our failures to others or the external environment
Optimism bias
Belief that bad things happen to other people, but not us
Just world phenomenon
Tendency to believe that the world is fair and people get what they deserve
Halo effect
Tendency to believe that people have inherently good or bad natures, rather than looking at individual characteristics
Physical attractiveness stereotype
People tend to rate attractive people more favourably for personality traits and characteristics than they do those who are less attractive
Social perception
Understanding of others in our social world
Social cognition
Ability of the brain to store and process information regarding social perception
False consensus
We assume that everyone else agrees with what we do
Projection bias
When we assume others have same beliefs we do
Illusory correlation
New, different draws more attention
Stereotype threat
Self-fulfilling fear that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype
Cultural relativism
Judging cultures based on its own standards
Group
Collection of any number of people who regularly interact and identity with each other, sharing similar norms, values and expectations
Primary groups
Smaller, engage in personal, long-term ways
Secondary groups
Larger, more impersonal, and may interact for specific reasons for shorter periods of time
Expressive functions
Meeting emotional needs
Instrumental functions
Meeting pragmatic needs
In-group
A group that an individual belongs to, and is integral to identity
Out-group
A group that an individual is not a part of
People tend to have a lesser opinion of out-groups
Reference groups
Standard measure that people compare themselves to
Dyad
Smallest group, containing 2 members
Triad
Containing 3 members
Aggregate
People who exist in the same space but do not interact or share a common sense of identity
Category
Group of people who share similar characteristics but are not otherwise tied together
Bureaucracy
Administrative body and the processes by which this body accomplishes work tasks
Max Weber
Developed bureaucracy
Thought it necessary for society to function
Rationalization
Process by which tasks are broken down into component parts to be efficiently accomplished by workers within the organization
Iron Law of Oligarchy
Paradoxical feature of organizations
Purpose is to tackle tasks in revolutionary ways, but become less revolutionary as they become more organized
Mere presence
In same area, doing their own tasks individually
Social facilitation effect
People make decisions, or can perform tasks better in the presence of others
For simple, practiced tasks
Deindividuation
In situation with high degree of arousal, but low sense of responsibility
People may lose sense of restraint and their individual identity in exchange for identifying with a group or mob mentality
Bystander effect
People are less likely to help if there are bystanders
Kitty Genovese
Social loafing
People tend to put in less effort if being evaluated as a group instead of individually
Group polarization
Groups tend to intensify pre-existing views of their members
More extreme collective view than average of initial members views
Informational influence
The most common ideas emerging are those that favour dominant viewpoint, therefore giving it more influence
Normative influence
Influenced by wanting to be accepted or admired
Social comparisons
Evaluating your opinions by comparing them to those of others
Groupthink
State of harmony in a group, where people do not bring up conflicting ideas
Mindguarding
Group members prevent dissenting opinions from permeating the group by filtering out information
Solomon Asch
Wanted to research peer pressure
Used visual tests alone/in presence of other people
Confederates
People included in an experiment - not experiment subjects
Stanley Milgram
Allowed people to use “shocks” to punish people for getting questions wrong
Few questioned use of shocks, many kept increasing volts
Compliance
Motivated by rewards or avoidance of punishment
Identification
Motivated by desire to be like another person or group
Internalization
Motivated by values and beliefs that have ben integrated into own value system
Normative social influence
Motivation is desire for approval of others and to avoid rejection
Informational social influence
Process of complying because we do not know what to do, or we think others know better
Factors influencing conformity (6)
- Group size
- Unanimity
- Cohesion
- Status
- Accountability
- No prior commitment
Master status
Status that dominates all others and determine’s individuals place in society
Ascribed statuses
Those assigned to a person by society, regardless of person’s own efforts
Achieved statuses
Due to individual’s efforts
Role conflict
Conflict in society’s expectations for multiple statuses held by the same person
Role strain
When a single status results in conflicting expectations
Role exit
Disengaging from a role that has become closely tied to one’s self-identity to take on another
Utilitarian organizations
People get paid for their efforts
Normative organization
Motivate membership based on morally relevant goals
Coercive organizations
People do not have a choice in joining
Impression management/self-presentation
Conscious or unconscious process whereby people attempt to manage their own images by influencing the perceptions of others
Self-handicapping
People create obstacles and excuses to avoid self-blame when they perform poorly
Dramaturgical perspective
We imagine ourselves playing certain roles when interacting with others
Our identities are not stable, but reliant on our interactions with other people
Stems from symbolic interactionism
Front stage
Social interaction, we play a role and use impression management to craft the way we come across to other people
Back stage
Social interaction
We let down our guard and be orselves
Mere exposure effect
People prefer repeated exposure to the same stimuli
Familiarity breeds fondness
Frustration-aggression principle
When someone is blocked from achieving a goal, frustration can cause anger, leading to aggression
Foraging
Search for, and exploitation of food resources by animals
Inclusive fitness
Number of offspring organism has, how it supports its offspring, and how its offspring supports others in a group
Altruistic behaviour
A behaviour that helps ensure the success or survival of the rest of a social group
Possibly at the expense of the success or survival or the individual
Evolutionary game theory
Used to try to predict large complex systems, such as the overall behaviour of a population
