Exam 3 Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is a group?
Two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other
Why do people join groups?
Benefits
-Important aspect of identity (help us define who we are, distinguish us from other groups)
- Important source of information (helps us deal with new situations, Informational social influence)
- Establishment of social norms (Helps guide our behavior, Normative social influence)
What are the functions of groups?
Groups encourage similarities
Promote social norms
Communicate social roles
What is group cohesiveness?
Group qualities that bond members and promote liking
How does cohesiveness influence groups?
- If a task requires close cooperation between the group members, cohesiveness helps performance
- If maintaining good relations among groups members is more important than finding good solutions, cohesiveness can interface with optimal performance
What are social roles, and why can they be a problem?
Is a pattern of behavior that is expected of a person in a given setting or group
-Roles can be too restrictive especially relation to gender
-Roles can take over a person if the person gets too entangled in a role
What are gender roles?
- What a culture considers acceptable attitudes or behaviors for the different genders
- Men and women can face difficulties if they don’t act in accordance with acceptable gender roles
What is gender role conflict?
Gender roles are by their nature restrictive
- Women are expected to nurturing and emotional
- Men are expected to be assertive and unemotional
What is replication?
When a researcher conducts a study again and finds the same results
What was the replication crisis?
In 2010, psychologist started to recognize that some famous studies would not produce the same results when ran again today
What is arousal?
Arousal refers to the mobilization or activation of energy for and during behavior
Arousal increases the vigor of behavior and affects efficiency the of behavior
What is Yerkes-Dodson Law
Description of how task difficulty and arousal influence performance
Easy tasks differ from difficult tasks in how they’re influenced by arousal
Yerkes-Dodson Law: Low arousal
-People who are experiencing low arousal will perform poorly at a task
- Skilled performance requires energy and focus that low arousal people don’t have
Yerkes-Dodson Law: High arousal + Difficult tasks
-Inverted U arousal relationship: as stimulation for arousal increases, performance increases, levels off then declines
- Wand et al (2204): Increasing anxiety led to poor shooting performance
Yerkes-Dodson Law: High arousal + Easy tasks
Performance is increased. People’s reaction times are also increased
Why do people cause arousal?
Increased alertness
- Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant
- Because other people can be unpredictable we are in a state of greater alertness in their presence
Why do people cause arousal?
Evaluation Anxiety
- They make us apprehensive about how we’re being evaluated
- When other people can see how you are doing, you feel like they are evaluating you
Why do people cause arousal?
Distraction
- They distract us from the task at hand
- Divided attention produces arousal
- Consistent with this interpretation, nonsocial sources of distraction, such as a flashing light, cause the same kinds of social facilitation effects as the presence of other people
How did Zajonc (1965) build on Fere (1887) and Triplett’s (1898) findings?
Added more conditions to his experiment
Zajonc (1965): What were the methods?
Created different conditions for the cockroaches, had an easy or difficult maze and made them go through the maze either alone or with spectators
Zajonc (1965) What were the major findings?
Presence of others
- Lowered times in the simple maze
- Increased times in the difficult maze
Effect of other depends on the difficulty of the task