Definitions for Final Flashcards
Hindsight bias
the tendency to be overconfident about whether they could have predicted a given outcome
thought experiment
when you cannot conduct an experiment for some reason or another and therefore you just think of how you would conduct it and test it which will often allow you to gain some insights you weren’t expecting
Dissonance theory
the theory that people like their thoughts to be consistent with one another and will do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive consistency
Participant observation
observing some phenomenon at close range
Self-selection
when the researcher has no control over a participant’s score or level of a given variable. Properties of the participants are not assigned by the researcher
Longitudinal studies
collecting measures at different points in time
IV/DV
The independent variable (which the scientist manipulates) is supposed to be the cause of the dependant variable (which thew scientist measures
External validity vs Internal validity
External validity is a measure of well the study conditions relate to real life while Internal validity is a measure of how the result was ONLY caused by the manipulated variable and nothing else, this is essential. It also requires that the experiment seem realistic and plausible to participants
Reliability
the degree to which the same result is obtained no matter how many time the experiment is conducted
Measurement validity
the correlation between a measure and some outcome the measure is supposed to predict (how an IQ score predicts school grades)
Statistical significance
a measure of the probability that an event could have occurred by chance alone
Two factors determining statistical significance
The size of the difference between groups in an experiment or the size of a relationship between variables in a correlational study/
The number of cases on which the finding is based.
The larger the difference or relationship and the larger the number of cases: the greater the statistical significance
Open science
the way scientists are encouraged to share all their data and methods when conducting a study
IRB
institutional review board checks if a study is ethical
Informed consent
when the participants have been warned of the possible harm involved in the study
Deception research
when informing the participants would have defeated the purpose of the study and therefore the participants are not warned
Basic science vs applied science
Basic science is trying to understand a phenomenon in its own right rather than trying to solve it while
Applied science tries to solve a real life issue
Basic research can give rise to theories that will lead to interventions to change something
Applied research can produce results that feed back into basic science
Self-schemas
represent people’s beliefs and feelings about themselves both in general and in particular situations.
They are more than simple storage of knowledge, they also help us navigate and make sense of all the information being thrown at us everyday
Reflected self-appraises
our beliefs about other’s reactions to us. This means that we see ourselves partly in the light of others
Working self concept
the idea that we only show a part of ourselves in any given context, usually the most appropriate part to the situation
independent self-construal vs interdependent self-construal
An independent self-construal promotes an inward focus on the self, whereas an interdependent self-construal promotes an outward focus on the social situation
Social comparison theory
when people have no objective standard by which to evaluate their traits or abilities, they do so largely by comparing themselves with others
Self-esteem
the overall positive or negative evaluation people have of themselves
State self-esteem vs Trait self esteem
State: the dynamic, changeable self-evaluations a person experiences as momentary feelings about the self
Trait: the stable part of one’s identity
Contingencies of self-worth
a perspective maintaining that people’s self-esteem is contingent on the success and failures in domains on which they have based their self-worth. In other words self esteem goes up when you do well in areas that matter to you
Sociometer
self-esteem in an internal subjective index of how well we are seen by others and hence how likely we are to be included or excluded by them
Self-enhancement
the desire to maintain, increase or protect positive views of the self. Strategies are:
Self serving construals: people think of themselves as better than average because they change the definition to their interest
Self-affirmation: when people remind themselves that they are good in another domain when they are told bad news in a certain domain (I got a bad grade in math but at least im good at music)
Self-verification theory
people sometimes strive for stable, subjectively accurate beliefs about themselves because such self-views give them a sense of coherence and predictability
Self-regulation
the process by which people initiate, alter and control their behaviours in pursuit of their goals
Self-discrepancy theory
people hold beliefs about not only what the are actually like but also what they would ideally be likened what they think they ought to be (ought self represents your obligations)
promotion focus
a focus on attaining positive outcomes. Prevention focus isa focus on avoiding negative outcomes
Implementation intention
an ‘if-then’ plan to engage in a goal-directed behaviour
Self-presentation
presenting the person we would like others to believe we are (also called impression management)
Self-monitoring
the tendency to monitor one’s behaviour to fit the demands of the current situation
Self-handicapping
the tendency to engage in self-defeating behaviour to protect the self in public and prevent others from making unwanted inferences based on poor performance
the 2 mental processes involved in social cognition and their interplay determines the judgments we make
Reason and intuition
Social cognition
the study of how people think about the world, and how they interpret the past, understand the present and predict the future
first impressions
When making first impressions, people look at 2 dimensions: whether the person should be approached or avoided, and whether the person is a top dog or an underdog.
Adults with baby-features (big eyes, round face,…) are usually seen as more trustworthy and weak, this is because the cuteness of young mammals triggers an automatic reaction that ensures that the young are properly being taken care of
Pluralistic ignorance
when someone acts differently then their true beliefs in fear of the social consequences
The self-fulfilling prophecy
when our expectations lead us to act in ways that elicit the very behaviour we expected from others (thinking someone else doesn’t like you so you become cold which makes them be cold to you )
Factors that reduce the reliability of secondhand information
Ideological distortions: people have a desire for certain aspects of the story to be emphasized, which leads to mislead the whole truth and only provide part of it, the part that makes our point seem the best
Overemphasis on bad news: one of the most pervasive causes of distortion in secondhand accounts is the desire to entertain. We emphasize on some points and round up some points to make the story more interesting. This also happens in mass media, bad news ten to be more newsworthy than good news “if it bleeds it leads”
Bad news bias can lead people to think that they are in more danger than they actually are. Studies have constantly found a positive correlation between time spending watching tv and the fear of victimization. The violence depicted in tv programs can make the world appear to be a dangerous place, especially when the televised images resonate with what people see in their own environment
key to successful marketing
not only what information to present but also how it is presented. Countless studies have proven that slight variations int he presentation of information (how and when it was presented) can have profound effects on people’s judgments
order effects
The order in which items are presented can have powerful influence on judgement. When the information presented first exerts the most influence its called the primacy effect. When the last information has the most impact its called a recency effect.
Framing effects
the way information is presented, including the order of presentation can frame the way its processed and understood. The frame of reference is changed by re-ordering the information, even though the content of the information remains exactly the same
Spin framing
Spin framing varies the content of what is presented. It gives it a spin that makes the audience think strongly about it (changing the war department to the defence department)
Positive or negative framing
takes advantage of the fact that everything has a good and bad side and decided to emphasize only one of the two (a 90% successful condom rather than a 10% failure condom). Negative framing often has a higher impact than positive
A temporal frame
A temporal frame is because we think differently of the same things at different points in time
The confirmation bias
to look for information that will confirm your theory rather than information that Is going to prove it wrong. This is dangerous because if we look mainly for one type of evidence we are probably going to find it
bottom-up vs top-down processing
Bottom up processing takes in relevant stimuli from the outside world. Top-down processing filters and interprets bottom up stimuli in light of preexisting knowledge and expectations
Recent activation
when the schema we though of last will be the schema activated when thinking of that thing (rather than other schemas describing the thing)
Equine activation
when you use the same schema repeatedly and therefore whenever you are evaluating someone you just use that same schema because you are used to it
two minds when making decisions
the intuitive system operates quickly and is based on associations and performs many of its operations simultaneously (in parallel). The rational system is slower and more controlled, based on rules and deduction and performs operations one at a time (serially)
Heuristics
mental shortcuts that provide serviceable , if usually rather inexact, answers to common problems of judgement. They yield answers that feel right and therefore often forestall more effortful and rational deliberation
availability heuristic
The availability heuristic is where recent memories are given greater significance. They are given greater consideration in decision making due to the recency effect. … One example of availability heuristic is airplane accidents. Often, people hear about horrendous crashes or explosions that kill many people.
representativeness heuristic
when we try to categorize something by judging how similar it is to our conception of the typical member of the category
Fluency
the ease or difficulty associated with information processing
Base-rate information
when we base information on the frequency of a category (this person is more likely to be gay because there is a lot of gay people in this town
An illusory correlation
the belief that two things are correlated when they are not.
observer vs actor perception
The observer usually makes attribute actions to someone (saying bill gate did all this just cause he was a genius), when the actor usually attribute these actions to situational factors (his luck)
causal attributions
The process of trying to understand the causes of people’s behaviour.
People make causal attributions because they need to draw inferences about others and themselves in order to make predictions about future behaviour.
Understanding causal attributions is crucial to understanding everyday social behaviour because we all make causal attributions several times a day and the attribution we make can greatly affect our thoughts, feelings and future behaviour
Attribution theory
the study of how people understand the causes of events
Explanatory style
someone’s habitual way of explaining things.
This is evaluated on 3 dimensions:
Internal/external: people either attribute bad/good things to be their fault or other’s
Stable/unstable: whether they think it will be present in the future or not
Global/specific: whether it is something that affects many areas of their lives or just the one
Gender Differences in attribution of failures
Boys are more like to attribute their failures to a lack of effort while girls to attribute it to a lack of ability
The covariation principle
the idea that behaviour should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behaviour.
The discounting principle
the idea that people will assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other plausible causes might have produced it (this guy is nice with me only because he wants my answers to the test not because he is a nice person)
The augmentation principle
the idea that people will assign greater weight to a particular cause of behaviour if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome (I just hit this guy’s car yet he is still being nice to me, he must like me
Counterfactual thinking
the thoughts of what might have could have or should have happened “if only” something had occurred differently
Emotional amplification
an increase in emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy to imagine the vent not happening (your friend died in a bike accident because she changed her plans last minute to go home biking instead of stay over)
The self-serving attributional bias
why people attribute their failures to external circumstances, but success to themselves. It is a motivational bias, motivated by the desire to maintain self-esteem, but it is not always motivated
The fundamental attribution error
the tendency to attribute people’s behaviour to elements of their character or personality even if powerful situational forces are acting to produce that behaviour. Causes for this:
Motivational influence and the belief in a just world, by thinking that people get what they reverse we feel reassured (the just world hypothesis)
Perceptual salience and causal attributions: attributions to the person have an edge over situational attributions in everyday causal analysis because people are usually more salient than situations. The situation is secondary and often slighted in the process aw we attempt to establish causal explanations
People who are more tired or more distracted will not adjust as well their initial thought on the person based on circumstances, their first impression of the person will stay what it was and they won’t take into account the environment (the correction phase of attributional analysis)
The degree to which you’re oriented toward the person versus the situation depends now hether you’re an active actor in the situation or just an observer. Actors should be more likely than observers to make situational attributions for particular behaviour. The actor is in a much better position to know if the behaviour is distinctive and thus merits a situational rather than a dispositional attribution
difference west and asia
The kinds of social factors that are merely background for north americans appear to be more salient to people from other cultures. Westerners think about themselves more in the context of personal goals, attributes and preferences whereas non-westerners think about themselves more in terms of social roles they occupy and their obligation to others and institutions
Asians are more inclined than Westerners to attribute an actor’s behaviour to the situation rather than to the person’s dispositions
Asians are not just more likely to notice situational cues that might correct a dispositional inference, they might also be less likely to make a dispositional inference in the first place
Big five personality dimensions
extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience
‘intentional object’
The focus of an emotional experience
The principle of serviceable associated habits
the idea that the expressions of human emotion we observe today derive from actions that proved useful in our evolutionary past
Display rules
culturally specific rules that govern how when and to whom people express emotions
Oxytocin
the chemical released by our brain that fosters commitment in long-term relationship. It enhances sympathy towards one’s own group but may enhance biases against enemies
Broaden-and-build hypothesis
the idea that positive emotions broaden thoughts and actions, helping people build social resources
Social intuitionist model of moral judgement
the idea that people first have fast emotional reactions to morally related events, which influence the way they reason to arrive at a judgement of right or wrong
Moral fundations theory
there are 5 evolved universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgement: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, purity/degradation
2 measurements of happiness
life satisfaction and emotional well-being
Affective forecasting
predicting future emotions, such as whether an event will result in happiness or anger or sadness and for how long
Immune neglect
the tendency for people to underestimate their capacity to be resilient in responding to difficult life events which leads them to overestimate the extent to which life’s problems will reduce their personal well-being
Localism
we focus too much on the most immediate and most central elements of significant events such as our initial despair when learning a romantic partner is leaving us, while neglecting the possible impact of associated factors or other events
2 factors that influence recollections of past pleasures
he peak moment of pleasure during the event strongly predicts how much pleasure you will remember later, second how you feel at the end of the event
Duration neglect
to give relative unimportance to the length of an emotional experience, whether good or bad, in judging and remembering the overall experience
attitude 3 components
an evaluation of an object along a positive or negative dimensions, which includes 3 components: affect (how much someone likes it), cognition (thoughts that reinforces the feelings towards it such as knowledge or beliefs about it) and behaviour (tendency to approach or avoid it)
Likert scale
a numerical scale used to assess people’s attitudes, a scale that includes a set of possible answers with labeled anchors on each extremes
A response latency
the amount of time it takes someone to respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question. This measures the accessibility of the attitude. Someone who is faster at answering is likely to have a stronger opinion about it
implicit attitude measures
Another way of measuring attitudes is implicit attitude measures in which the measure does not involve self-report. This lets researchers tap on non conscious attitudes
The collective of cognitive consistency theories
the impact of behaviour on attitudes reflect the powerful tendency we have to justify or rationalize our behaviour and to miniminize any inconsistencies between our attitudes and our actions
cognitive dissonance theory
the theory that inconsistency between a person’s thought sentiments and actions create an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency
Effort justification
the tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
Induced- or forced- compliance
to subtly compel people to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes or values in order to elicit dissonance and therefore change in their original attitudes and values
Self-perception theory
people come to know their own attitude by looking at their behaviour and the context in which it occurred and inferring what their attitude must be
Cognitive dissonance theory
attitude change only happens if their is an uncomfortable psychological feeling arousing due to inconsistency between attitude and behaviour.
System justification theory
the theory that people are motivated to see the existing sociopolitical system as desirable, fair and legitimate
Terror management theory (TMT)
the theory that people deal with the potentially crippling anxiety associated with the knowledge of the inevitability of death by striving for more symbolic immortality through preserving valued cultural worldview and believing they have lived up to the culture’s standards
ELM, Elaboration Likelihood Model
there are two routes of persuasion: central and peripheral. Central route of persuasion occurs when people think carefully and deliberately about the content of a persuasive message, they rely on experiences of their own to evaluate the message, involves systematic elaboration of the persuasive arguments. Peripheral route is when people focus more on superficial aspects of the message, characterized by less effortful processing of relatively superficial cues
two factors matter to decide which route to take
Motivation: we’re more likely to go through the central route if the message has personnel consequences.
Ability: were more likely to take the central route if we have more knowledge on the subject
The 3 Ws of persuasion
“who” (source of the message), “what” (content or message itself), “to whom” (intended audience)
Source characteristics
attractiveness, credibility, certainty
Sleeper effect
an effect that occurs when a persuasive message from an unreliable source initially exerts little influence but later causes attitudes to shifts
Message characteristics
message quality, vividness, fear, culture
Identifiable victim effect
people are more incline to be persuaded to act on behalf of a cause by portrayals of clearly identifiable victims, such as the children in UNICEF commercials
Audience characteristics
need for cognition, mood, age
Metacognition
the thought we have about our thoughts
The self-validation hypothesis
feeling confident about out thoughts validates those thoughts, making it more likely that we will be swayed in their direction
shared attention
When people perceive that they are attending to a stimulus simultaneously with many others (shared attention) they’re inclines to process the stimulus more deeply resulting in persuasion via the central route
Agenda control
efforts of the media to select certain events and topics to emphasize, thereby shaping which issues and events people think are important
Thought polarization hypothesis
more extended thoughts about a particular issue tend to produce a more extreme entrenched attitude
Attitude inoculation
small attacks on people’s beliefs that engage their preexisting attitudes, prior commitments, and background knowledge, enabling them to counteract a subsequent larger attack and thus resist persuasion
Homophile
the tendency for people to associate disproportionally with people who are like them
Conformity
changing one’s behaviour or beliefs in response to some real or imagines pressure from others
compliance
when a person responds favourably to an explicit request by another person
Obedience
when a more powerful person issues a demand to which the less powerful submits
Ideomotor action
the phenomenon whereby merely thinking about a behaviour makes performing it more likely. This is because the brain regions responsible for perception overlap with those responsible for action
Informational social influence
the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper and effective
Normative social influence
the influence of other people that comes from the desire to avoid their disapproval and other social sanctions
Internalization
private acceptance of a proposition, orientation or ideology. This is influenced in formative social influence which makes us adopt the group’s ideology, whereas in normative social influence we may say something to fit in the group but keep thinking differently
minorities vs majorities influence
Minorities have their effect primarily through informational social influence rather than normative social influence
Majorities typically elicit more conformity but it is often of the public compliance sort. In contrast, minorities typically influence fewer people, but the nature of the influence is often deeper and results in true private attitude change
Reason-based approaches
aim at convincing people that they would be better off choosing a particular course of action
Norm of reciprocity
a norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who benefit them, give back to who gave to you
Reciprocal concession techniques/ door in the face
a compliance approach that involves asking someone for a very large favour that will certainly be refused and then following that request with one for a smaller favour (which tends to be seen as a concession the target feels compelled to honour)
Foot in the door technique
a compliance approach that involves making an initial small request with which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behaviour of interest. This works because it makes people feel like they are the type to accept request
Negative state relief hypothesis
taking an action to benefit someone else, especially when its for a good cause, is one way to make ourselves look better
descriptive vs prescriptive norms
Descriptive norms are simply descriptions of what is typically done.
Prescriptive norms are what one is supposed to do (also called injunctive norms
Reactance theory
the idea that people reassert they perogatives in response to the unpleasant state or arousal they experience when they believe their freedoms are threatened
Communal relationships
a relationships in which the individual feel a special responsibility for one another and give and receive according to the principle of need, these are often long-term
exchange relationship
a relationship in which individuals feel little responsibility toward each other, giving and receiving are governed by concern about equity and reciprocity, these are usually short term
Social exchange theory
based on the idea that how people feel about a relationship depends on their assessment of its costs and rewards
Comparison level:
expectations people have about what they think they deserve or expect to get out of a relationship
Comparison level for alternatives
expectations people have about what they can get out of available, alternative relationships
Equity theory
the idea that people are motivated to pursue fairness, or equity, in their relationships. A relationship is considered equitable when the benefits are proportionate to the effort both people put in it (the relationship can be equal when one person receives more than the other as long as they put more effort than the other
Attachment theory
the idea that early attachments with parents and other caregivers can shape relationships for a person’s whole life
Functional distance
the influence in an architectural layout to encourage or inhibit certain activities, including contact between people
Mere exposure effect
the idea that repeated exposure to a stimulus, such as an objet or a person leads to greater liking of the stimulus
attraction is influenced by?
similarity, proximity, attractiveness
Complementarity
the tendency for people to seek out others with characteristics that are different from and complement their own. This effect is more limited than similarity
Status change hypothesis
romantic attraction increases when two individuals complement each other in terms of their social status by offering each other elevated status, through romantic partnership where they themselves are lacking
Halo effect
the common belief that attractive individuals possess a host of positive qualities beyond their physical appearance
Reproductive fitness
the capacity to pass one’s genes to subsequent generations
3 categories of love
Companionate love is the love we typically experience with friends and family members, people we trust, share activities with and like to be around
Compassionate love is a kin to a communal relationship, with bonds that focus on monitoring and responding to another person’s needs such as a mother and her child
Romantic love is the love associated with intense emotion and sexual desire, also referred as passionate love
Investment model of commitment
a model of interpersonal relationships maintaining that 3 determinants make partners more committed to each other: relationship satisfaction, few alternative partners, and investments in the relationship
The four horsemen of the apocalypse
couples that find fault and criticize each other, people prone to avoidance, unable to talk openly, refuse to consider that they are wrong, contempt (looking down on another) Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling
3 perspectives on hostility
The economic perspective identifies the roots of intergroup hostility in competing interests that can set groups apart from one another
The motivational perspective emphasizes the psychological needs that lead to intergroup conflicts
The cognitive perspective traces the origin of stereotyping to the same cognitive processes that enable people to categorize, say, items of furniture into distinct classes
Stereotypes
beliefs that certain attributes are characteristic of members of particular groups, stereotyping is a way of categorizing people, it involves thinking of a person as part of a group rather than as an individual
Prejudice
an attitudinal and affective response toward a group and its members, it involves prejudicing others because they are part of a group
Discrimination
behaviours directed towards group members, it involves unfair treatment of others based on solely their group membership
Modern racism
a rejection of explicitly racist Beliefs while nevertheless feeling animosity towards a group or being uncomfortable around them or suspicious of them
IAT
the implicit association test is a technique for revealing nonconscious attitudes toward different stimuli, particularly groups of people
AMP
affect misattribution procedure, a priming procedure designed to asses people’s implicit associations to different stimulus, including their association to various ethnic, racial, occupational and lifestyle groups
Realistic group conflict theory
all these things are likely to arise from competition for limited resources, as well as ideologies
Ethnocentrism
to glorify one’s own group while vilifying other groups
Superordinate goals
a goal that transcends the interests of any one groups and can be achieved more readily by two or more groups working together
Minimal group paradigm
an experiment paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these minimal groups are inclined to behave toward one another
Social identity theory
the idea that a person’s self-concept and self-esteem derive not only from personal identity and accomplishments, but also from the status and accomplishments of the various groups the person belongs to
Basking in reflected glory
taking pride in the accomplishments of other people in one’s group, such as when sports fans identify with a winning team
Paired distinctiveness
the pairing of two distinctive events that stand out even more because they occur together
Sub typing
explaining away exceptions to a given stereotype by creating a subcategory of the stereotypes group that can be excepted to differ from the group as a whole
Outgroup homogeneity effect
the tendency for people to assume that within group similarity is much stronger for out-groups than in-groups
Own-race identification bias
the tendency for people to be better able to recognize and distinguish faces from their own race than other races
Attributional ambiguity
not knowing the underlying causes of what they experience
Stereotype threat
the fear of confirming the stereotype that other have about one’s group
Contact hypothesis
the proposition that prejudice can be reduced by putting members of majority and minority groups in frequent contact with one another
group
a collection of individuals who have relations to one another and make them interdependent to some significant degree
Social facilitation
initially a term for enhanced performance in the presence of others; now a broader term for the effect, positive or negative, of the presence of others on performance
Dominant response
in a person’s hierarchy of possible responses in any context, response that the person is most likely to make
Evaluation apprehension
people’s concern about how they might appear in the eyes of others, or be evaluated by them
Social loafing
the tendency to exert less effort when working on a group task in which individual contributions cannot be monitored
Groupthink
faulty thinking by members of highly cohesive groups in which the critical scrutiny that should be devoted to the issues at hand is subverted by social pressure to reach consensus
Self-censorship
withholding information or opinions in group discussions
To avoid groupthink
be open to outside input, designate someone as devil’s advocate
Group polarization
the tendency for group decisions to be more extreme than those made by individuals, whichever way the group as a whole is leaning, group discussion tends to make it lean further in that direction
The persuasive argument account
when the issue is discussed by the group, each person is likely to be exposed to new arguments which are more likely to be skewed in the direction the people were predisposed to
The soil comparison interpretation
people tend to see themselves as riskier than average, therefore when in a group setting they all try to be a little riskier than usual to prove it and the whole group ends up being riskier. This is a group polarization effect
Power
the ability to control one’s own outcomes and this of others, the freedom to act. Your power is your ability to influence others and make a difference in the world
Status
the outcome of an evaluation of attributes that produces differences in respect and prominence
Authority
the power that derives from institutionalized role or arrangement
Dominance
the behaviour enacted with the goal of acquiring or demonstrating power
Approach/inhibition theory
a theory maintaining that high power individuals are inclined to go after their goals and make quick judgments, whereas low power individuals are more likely to constrain their behaviour and pay careful attention to others
Deindividuation
a reduced sense of individual identity accompanied by diminished self-regulation that can come over people when they are in large groups
The deindividuated state
characterized by diminished self-observation and self-evaluation and a lessened concern with how others evaluate us
Individuation
an enhanced sense of individual identity produced by focusing attention on the self, which generally leads people to act carefully and deliberately and in accordance with their priority and values
Self-awareness theory
a theory maintaining that when people focus their attention inward on themselves, they become concerned with self-evaluation and how their current behaviour conforms to their internal standards and values
Spotlight effect
people’ conviction that other people are paying attention to them more then they actually are
Hostile aggression vs Instrumental aggression
behaviour motivated by feelings of anger and hostility, where the primary aim is to harm another, either physically or psychologically. Instrumental aggression in contrast refers to behaviour that is intended to harm another in service of motives other than pure hostility (ie to gain status, to attract attention, to acquire wealth)
5 reactions to playing violent video games
Increase aggressive behaviour
Reduce prosocial positive behaviour
Increase aggressive thoughts
Increase aggressive emotions especially anger
Increase blood pressure and heart rate, two things associated with fighting
Dehumanization
the attribution of non-human characteristics and denial of human qualities to groups other than one’s own
A culture of honour
a culture defined by its members’ strong concerns about their own and others’ reputations, leading to sensitivity to insults and a willingness to use violence to avenge any perceived wrong
Rape-prone culture
a culture in which rape tends to be used as an act of war against enemy women, as a ritual act, or as a threat against women to keep them subservient to men. Rape-prone cultures were more likely to have high levels of violence generally, a history of frequent warfare and an emphasis on machismo and make toughness.
gender differences in aggression
Women seem to exceed men in what’s known as relational aggression or emotional aggression
Males are the big majority of crimes, a way bigger tendency to to engage in physical violence
Precarious manhood hypothesis
the idea that a man’s gender identity of strength and toughness may be lost under various conditions and that such a loss can trigger aggressive behaviour
Reactive devaluation
attaching less value to an offer in negotiation once the opposing group makes it
Altruism
prosocial behaviour that benefits others without regards to consequences for oneself
3 motives required for any altruistic action
Social reward, enjoying the positive regards of others. They can be so as powerful to create competitive altruism
Personal distress, people help others in order to reduce their own distress (hurting to see someone hurt)
Empathic concern, the feeling when identifying someone in need and the intention to Enhance their wellbeing, taking the other’s point of view results in sympathy
The first 2 are egoistic. These are often spur of the moment feelings, impulses
Volunteerism
assistance a person regularly provides to another person or group with no expectations of compensation
Bystander intervention
assistance given by a witness to someone in need
Diffusion of responsibility vs pluralistic ignorance
a reduction of the sense of urgency to help someone in an emergency or dangerous situation, based on the assumption that others who are present will help. In pluralistic ignorance you are not sure the person needs help because no one around you is helping
4 reasons people are more likely to help in villages than cities
Milgram said its because there is too much stimulus in cities to register it all
Diversity hypothesis, people are more likely to help others similar to themselves which is less common in cities
More people are around to help in urban areas which leads to more diffusion of responsibility
In rural areas people’s actions are more likely to be seen by someone they know and can judge them, whereas in cities everyone around is a stranger
Kin selection
an evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of one’s genetic relatives, even at a cost to one’s own survival and reproduction. You are more likely to favour people with which you share the most genes
Reciprocal altruism
helping others with the expectations that they will probably return the favour
Prisoners’ dilemma
a situation involving pay off to two people who must decide whether to cooperate or defect. In the end, trust and cooperation lead to higher joint payoffs than mistrust and defection
Reputation
the collective beliefs, evaluations and impressions people hold about an individual within a social network
Processes involved in court law
Pretrial events: inclue eye witness identification, attempts to elicit confession, efforts to distinguish lies from sincere efforts to tell the truth
Issues related to the trial itself including jury selection and deliberation
Post-trial events: include administration of punishment
voir dire
Juries are randomly selected, then they go through voir dire which consists of being asked questions to make sure they are reasonably impartial and not biased against a side
Peremptory challenge
the right for the attorneys to exclude a certain amount of juror without any justification
Scientific jury selection
a statistical approach to jury selection whereby members of different demographic groups in the community are asked their attitudes toward various issues related to a trial, and defence and prosecuting attorneys try to influence the selection of jurors accordingly. In this way, the jurors themselves are not questioned, just stats about the community
Death-qualified jury
a jury from which prospective jurors would never recommend the death penalty have been excluded. By excluding everyone against death penalty from jurors, there are higher chances that the person found guilty will be charged with death penalty
Minority vs majority juries
It is rare in real life that the minority overcomes the majority in jury decisions.
The majority prevails through the very processes of informational and normative social influence .
A 12 person jury is more likely to have a bigger minority and therefore more deliberation.
When verdicts can be given without unanimity, minority opinions are often disregarded once a sufficient majority has been reached
Compensatory damage
given to recover the cost from the harm that has been done, these are evaluated by economic analyses of the harm done
Punitive award damage
more subjective, they are designed to prevent the guilty from acting that way again
How jurors make their decision
Jurors to make these decisions consult their sense of outrage at the defendant’s behaviour (which is affected by how recklessly the defendant behaved and how much malice seemed to be involved in the actions), they then translate the outrage into punitive intent (influenced by amount of harm done), then translate that intent into an amount of dollars
Punishment
referred to as retributive justice, requiring people to make amends for harm and social transgression
Two motives for punishment
Just desserts: an eye for an eye justice, the goal is to avenge a prior evil deed rather than prevent future ones
Deterrence: goal is to reduce the likelihood of future crimes
Two attributions that lead people to feel anger about a criminal act
the belief that the perpetrator is responsible for the crime and intended it, the belief that the crime reflects a stable part of the perpetrators’s character. If they believe these two things people will lean towards just dessert punishments
Procedural justice
assessments of whether the processes leading to legal outcomes are fair
Three factors that shape procedural justice:
Assessment of the neutrality of the authority figure
Trust in the system
Everyone is treated with respect
Emotional contagion
the tendency to
converge emotionally with another
Operational definition
Definition of a variable in terms of a process used in your research
Correlation does not equal Causation
Reverse causation
Third variables
Experimental Research
Manipulate one (or more) independent variables, and observe the outcome on the dependent variable:
• INDEPENDENT -> DEPENDENT
variable variable
• Independent variable: Typically, comparing an “experimental condition” to a “control condition” that is identical except for one feature of interestSelf-Selection problem
allowing participants to somehow determine which condition they are in
demand characteristics
cues in the study
that might tell the participant how to behave
Construal
People’s interpretation and
inference about the stimuli or situations they
confront
Types of social knowledge
• Declarative knowledge: “knowing that”
– Knowledge about types of people and social
situations
• Procedural knowledge: “knowing how”
– Rules, skills, and habits for thinking and acting
ACTIVATION
Retrieval of an element of social
knowledge from long term memory
Applicability
overlap or “fit” between the features of a
stimulus and the features of some stored
knowledge
Accessibility
activation readiness of stored knowledge
how likely is a schema to have a “top-down”
influence
Spreading Activation
activation spreads from one concept to
other related concepts in the associative network
Sub-liminal
below threshold of
conscious awareness
Automatic processing
– efficient (e.g., making judgments while distracted)
– unintended (e.g., snap judgments of personality)
– difficult to control (e.g., prejudice)
– outside of awareness – does this happen? Are we influenced by truly subliminal stimuli? How could we test this properly?
Subjective vs Objective threshold
Subjective Threshold: duration necessary for subject to be aware of seeing the stimulus – Objective Threshold: duration necessary for stimulus to have an effect
Controlled processing
– effortful
– intentional
– controllable
– aware
Theory of “Lay Epistemics”
- Need for closure
- Desire for validity
- Motive for specific conclusions
Self-Knowledge vs
Self-Evaluation vs
Self-Regulation
Self-Knowledge: “Who am I?”
Self-Evaluation: “How good/bad am I?”
Self-Regulation: Control of behaviour.
Subjective Self-awareness vs
Objective Self-awareness vs
Symbolic Self-awareness
Subjective Self-awareness
– Distinguish between self and environment
• Objective Self-awareness
– Simple representation of self
• Symbolic Self-awareness
– Complex, abstract representation of self
Declarative self-knowledge vs
Procedural self-knowledge
Declarative self-knowledge – self-schemas • Procedural self-knowledge – heuristics and mental habits for thinking about oneself
Aspects of Self
Bodily self
Spiritual Self
Social self
3 aspects of social self
Individual (what makes you unique)
Relational (in relationships)
Collective (member of group)
Self-Construal processes
Observation:
– contingency between external
and internal
Assimilation and Differentiation:
– ways in which self is similar to and
different from others
Self-Narrative of autobiographical
memory:
– “Identity” – a sense of unity, oneness
– comes in large part from autobiographical memory, with selected information integrated
in a self-narrative
Self Perception:
- attitudes
- emotions
Social Construction:
- social feedback can shape virtually all our thoughts about self
- intersubjectivity (co-ordination and conflict)
- symbolic interactionism (perceiving self from viewpoint of others)
- self-presentation (control impressions others have of us)
Self-Esteem
The overall positive or
negative evaluation people have of
themselves
– Evaluative thoughts and feelings about self
Self-Evaluation Procedures:
• 1) Comparison with Standards • self-esteem = “successes/pretensions” 2) Importance of the domain 3) Attribution 4) Overgeneralization (spreading of evaluation from a specific domain to more general) 5) Social construction (Symbolic interactionist view of how self is evaluated through “reflected appraisals”)
Some possible underpinnings of
Self-Esteem Motive
Mastery (“Wired to” feel good when we are competent)
Social Sources: (a) Social Rank (Perhaps we are wired to feel good when dominant, high status) (b) Need to Belong (Perhaps we are wired to feel good when accepted, included, attached)
Sociometer Theory
Self-esteem feelings may arise from an
evolved system to monitor social inclusion
Conditional acceptance
– Versus unconditional acceptance
– Influences self-evaluative feelings
– A person’s ratings of
• “how would I feel about myself” (if I had certain successes and failures) correlates with
• “would others include or exclude me“(if I had certain successes and failures)
Internalization
– When evaluating ourselves, our thoughts are
guided by social knowledge about
relationships and patterns of social evaluation
Self-awareness
degree to which a
person is paying attention to his/her own
thoughts, feelings, & behaviours
The “Werther effect”
After a well publicized suicide, suicide rates increased
Informational Influence
– taking others’ comments or actions as a source of
information about what is correct, proper,
effective
Descriptive Norms:
–Perceptions of how most people behave in a given
context
Normative influence
Influence due to
desire to avoid disapproval, judgment,
etc.
Buzz marketing:
Creating the appearance that everyone is talking about you or your product
So being watched can lead to
–conformity with norms
–reduced creativity
Bowlby’s Attachment Theory
–Evolution has “wired” humans to seek
closeness and, thereby, emotional security
Correlates of Secure pattern
- •highly invested in relationships; tends to have long, trusting ones
- •grieves following loss but achieves resolution
- •enjoys sex (but usually in the context of a long-term relationship)
- •feels well liked by coworkers
- •describes parents in favorable (though not unrealistic) terms
- •is supportive of partner when partner is under stress
- •self-discloses appropriately and likes others to self-disclose
- •seeks integrative, mutually satisfactory resolutions of conflicts
- •regulates anger effectively, tends to forget negative interactions or reinterpret them constructively
- •likely to adopt parents’ religion (and view God as a good parent)
Correlates of Avoidant pattern:
- -less invested in relationships, expresses less grief following loss
- •imagines someone other than actual partner during sex
- •has more “one night” sexual encounters
- •prefers to work alone; work is excuse to avoid close relationships
- •describes parents as rejecting and cold
- •more likely to have been abused or to have had a parent with an alcohol problem
- •withdraws support from partner when partner or self is stressed
- •feels bored and distant during social interactions
- •doesn’t like to self-disclose, doesn’t approve of others who disclose
Correlates of the Anxious pattern:
• •invested in relationships yet high breakup rate
• •grieves intensely following loss
• •prefers the “cuddly” rather than the genital aspects of sex
• •prefers to work with others but feels under-appreciated at
work
• •binges on chocolate (and is vulnerable to bulimia)
• •describes parents as intrusive and unfair
• •worries about rejection during daily interactions
• •self-discloses too much and indiscriminately, likes disclosers
• •subject to jealousy, unregulated anger and self-directed
anger
Transference
• When a Significant Other concept is used in
perceiving a new person who resembles the
significant other in some way
Rejection sensitivity:
anxiously expect
rejection from significant others in situations
where rejection is possible
Role
a set of behaviours expected of someone
in a particular position in a social system
Role conflict
when the
expectations of two roles one has
require incompatible behaviours
Role distance
experiencing
and communicating that
one’s role is not a reflection
of one’s true self
Role identification
experiencing a role as a
reflection of one’s true self
Shared reality
people are motivated to achieve mutual understanding or ‘shared reality’ with others in order to – (i) establish, maintain, and regulate interpersonal relationships, and – (ii) perceive themselves and their environments as stable, predictable, meaningful, and potentially controllable
