CHP 12 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Question 1

Social psychology

Answer 1

the study of how people influence other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions

Question 2

Social brain hypothesis

Answer 2

humans aren’t physically strong so we solve our problems by thinking, so our brains got bigger

Question 3

Ingroup

Answer 3

group to which one belongs

Question 4

Outgroup

Answer 4

group to which one doesn’t belong

Question 5

2 conditions of group formation

Answer 5

reciprocity: people will do back what you do to them

transitivity: people generally share their friends’ opinions about other people

Question 6

Outgroup homogeneity effect

Answer 6

tendency to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members

Question 7

Ingroup favoritism

Answer 7

tendency to favor and privilege ingroup members more than outgroup

Question 8

Minimal group paradigm

Answer 8

regardless of the way the group was formed, ingroup/outgroup effect will still be present

Question 9

Dehumanization

Answer 9

tendency to see outgroup members as less human than ingroup members

Question 10

Group influence

Answer 10

people want to be good group members and so are easily influenced by others, conform easily, and obey commands by authority figures

Question 11

Mere presence effect

Answer 11

the presence of others generally enhances arousal and affects performance

Question 12

Social facilitation

Answer 12

an easy and practiced task will see improved performance in the presence of others

a difficult talk will see impaired performance in the presence of others

Question 13

Deindividuation

Answer 13

individual in a group has a weakened sense of personality identity and self-awareness

facilitated by anonymity and having an assigned role

Question 14

Group polarization

Answer 14

process by which intial attitudes of groups becomes more extreme over time

Question 15

Groupthink

Answer 15

extreme form of group polarization wherein the group values consensus/cohesiveness more than making a good decision, so they make a bad decision

Question 16

Social loafing

Answer 16

the tendency for people to work less hard in a group than when working alone

Question 17

Conformity

Answer 17

altering behaviors and opinions to match group members/expectations

Question 18

Normative influence

Answer 18

tendency for people to conform to fit in with a group (elevator experiment)

Question 19

Informational influence

Answer 19

tendency for people to conform when they assume other’s behavior is correct (we duck when others around us duck)

Question 20

Factors that reduce conformity

Answer 20

small group size
other group members dissenting from the majority
(consensus INCREASES conformity)

Question 21

Compliance

Answer 21

agreeing to requests from others

Question 22

Factors that increase compliance

Answer 22

being in a good mood
not paying attention
not fully considering options (time crunch)

Question 23

3 ways to induce compliance

Answer 23

foot in the door
door in the face
low-balling

Question 24

Foot in the door

Answer 24

agreeing to a small request inc likelihood of compliance to a biger request

Question 25

Door in the face

Answer 25

refusal of a large request inc likelihood of agreeing to a smaller request

Question 26

Low-balling

Answer 26

when you agree to buy a product, if they raise the price you’re more likely to buy it

Question 27

Milgram’s research

Answer 27

people may be horrible things when an authority figure orders them to (they feel like the authority figure is responsible for the actions, not themselves)

Question 28

Aggression

Answer 28

any behavior that involves the intent to hurt

Question 29

Adults’ agressive acts

Answer 29

involve words, symbols, intend to threaten, intimidate, emotionally harm

Question 30

MAOA gene

Answer 30

“warrior gene”, a particular form of the gene + environmental risk factors associated with antisocial behaviors seems to make individuals more violent

Question 31

MAOA gene and serotonin

Answer 31

MAOA gene regulates serotonin which affects amygdala activity

Question 32

Testosterone and agression

Answer 32

Testosterone changes may be the RESULT of aggressive behaviors (remains high for winners to protect them from further fights, and drops lower for losers)

Question 33

Culture of honor

Answer 33

belief system in which men believe they have to protect their reputations through physical aggression

Question 34

Bystander intervention effect

Answer 34

failure to offer help when other people are present

Question 35

4 reasons for bystander intervention effect

Answer 35

1. Diffusion of responsibility (someone else will do something)
2. Fear of making social blunders in an ambiguous situation
3. People are less likely to help if they’re anonymous and can remain so (no one will know you could’ve helped and didn’t)
4. People weigh the costs v benefits of helping

Question 36

Attitudes

Answer 36

people’s evaluations of objects, events, ideas (shaped by social context and affect how we interact with other people)

Question 37

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 37

an uncomfortable mental state resulting a contradiction between 2 attitudes or an attitude and a behavior (ex. smokers know it’s wrong to smoke)

try to reduce by changing attitudes or behaviors, or by rationalizing/trivializing dissonance

Question 38

Cognitive dissonance study

Answer 38

participants did a boring study then told other people how it was

people who were paid $1 to lie experienced cognitive dissonance and said they remembered the task being way better than it was (they didn’t believe they could be persuaded to lie for only $1), people who were paid $20 to lie didn’t experience conflict and said the task was slightly better than those who weren’t paid anything

Question 39

Personal attributions

Answer 39

using INTERNAL CHARACTERISTICS to explain people’s behavior (more common in individualistic cultures)

Question 40

Situational attributions

Answer 40

using EXTERNAL EVENTS to explain people’s behaviors (more common in collectivist cultures)

Question 41

Correspondence bias

Answer 41

tendency to expect that people’s actions align with their beliefs and personalities

Question 42

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 42

when explaining OTHER’S behavior, the focus is on personality traits rather than situational factors

Question 43

Actor/observer discrepancy

Answer 43

when explaining ONE’S OWN behavior the focus is on SITUATIONAL factors, when they explain OTHER’S behavior the focus is on DISPOSITION

Question 44

Stereotypes

Answer 44

cognitive schemas that quickly organize info about people on the basis of their membership in certain groups

occurs AUTOMATICALLY and streamlines formation of impressions

Question 45

Negative stereotypes

Answer 45

can lead to prejudice (negative feelings, opinions, beliefs bc of a stereotype) and discrimination (inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice)

Question 46

Factors of prejudice

Answer 46

we distrust people who look and behave differently

we feel uncomfortable around people we don’t understand

we want to feel superior/special

Question 47

Illusory correlations

Answer 47

a psychological reasoning error of seeing relationships that don’t exist

Question 48

Subtyping

Answer 48

when a person doesn’t fit in the stereotype, we make a special category for them instead of changing our stereotype

Question 49

Sulf-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 49

if we have stereotyped a behavior for someone, we tend to behave in a way that encourages them to do things that confirm our stereotypes (ex. Prof Warren says he’s not religious and isn’t as happy, which makes a student want to talk to him about religion)

Question 50

Stereotype threat

Answer 50

fear/concern about feeding negative stereotypes about one’s own group impairs performance on a task (ex. women do worse on tests when they hear about how women get worse scores on tests than men)