Exam 4 Social Psych Flashcards
What is social psychology?
how individuals think about, interact with, and are influenced by other people.
What’s the difference between social psychology and personality psychology?
Social Psych power of the situation, that people are strongly influenced by the social setting
While Personality psych believe in the power of traits, that people are strongly influence by their internal personality traits
When is socail psych more likely to influence personality psych or vice versas
Powerful situations can overwhelm personality (e.g., peer pressure).
Personality takes over in weak situations (e.g., sitting alone).
What is the power of the situation?
What is social cognition? Why is it important in social psychology?
How we perceive, remember, and interpret information about ourselves and others.
Important becaise we are relying on what we already know to make since of the world
What is an attribution?
is an explanation for the cause of a behavior or outcome (either for us or other people).
What’s the difference between an internal and external attribution?
Internal (personality): something inside the person caused the event.
External (situation): something outside the person caused the event
Why do attributions matter?
Attributions can help us understand other people’s personality
Internal vs. External attributions
Internal attributions tell you something about a person’s personality.
External attributions don’t tell you anything about personality.
What is the fundamental attribution error
The tendency to underestimate the effects of a situation on a person’s behavior and overestimate the effects of the person’s disposition
The belief that behavior always reflects a person’s personality.
Why is the fundamental attribution error important?
We’re not taking into consideration the power of the situation to influence people’s behavior.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of blaming the victim for their problems, when that is not always the case.
What is actor-observer bias?
we make attributions about ourselves that protect our self-esteem.
What is a schema, and how do they affect our social cognition?
Mental frameworks that organize your knowledge on a specific category. (what we know)
also help us simplify things
What are self-schemas
beliefs about ourselves.
What are scripts
how an event should take place.
What are stereotypes
schemas about groups of people
Why are schemas problematic when applied to people?
People are more varied than objects. Stereotypes are simply not accurate.
Objects have easily examined, objective qualities. People have hidden, unobservable traits.
What did Kelley (1950) do
Had two groups of students observe the same lecture but are given different descriptions of the speaker before his talk. (One said cold and said warm)
What did Kelly (1950) find
The lecturer was rated better when he was rated warmly
What is an attitude
are feelings influenced by beliefs, which predispose people to have specific reactions to objects, people, and events.
What do attitudes do
When other influences are minimal, attitudes that are stable, specific, and easily recalled can affect our actions.
What is cognitive dissonance
discomfort that people feel when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their attitudes or conception of themselves.
People are motivated to reduce these unpleasant feelings of dissonance.
How do we reduce cognitive dissonance
Changing your attitude or behavior, making them consistent again.
Acquiring new information that helps reduce the dissonance.
Reducing the importance of the beliefs or attitudes, eliminating the conflict.
What is the foot-in-the-door technique and how does it use cognitive dissonance?
Make a small request, and then later ask for something larger People are more likely to comply if you do this.
What is social influence?
the effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on us
two types conformity and obedience
What is conformity?
doing what everyone else is doing.
Informational influence
you don’t know what to do.
normative influence?
you want a group to like you.
What did Asch (1955) do
The line judging task was completed 18 times.
The participants working for the experimenter uniformly gave incorrect answers 12 times.
The real participant heard everyone’s answers before he gave his.
What did Asch (1955) find
About 75 % of participants gave at least one incorrect answer during the study after hearing other people give incorrect answers.
People will lie in order to fit in with a group.
Why do people conform and obey?
They feel incompetent or insecure.
Their group has at least three people.
Everyone else agrees
They admire the group’s status and attractiveness.
What is obedience?
When behavior is influenced due to the direct commands of an authority figure.
Why do people obey authority figures?
Because of learning, Heuristic and normative
learning
we’re trained to follow authority figures.
Heuristic
authority figures know what they’re doing.
Normative
you want to fit in.
What did Milgram (1963) do
“Learning experiment” on punishment and memory
“Teacher” is participant
“Student” is a confederate, must memorize word pairs the teacher provides.
“Student” mistakes must be punished with shocks that escalate in strength.
What did milgram find?
Over 60 % of participants shocked the student at the maximum voltage.
Why do conformity and obedience matter?
People are vulnerable to social influence, especially if there’s strong normative pressure or the presence of an authority figure.
This kind of social influence can cause normal, ordinary people to conform to falsehoods or obey orders to commit cruel acts.
Why do people need groups?
Provide valuable assistance
Provide social interaction
Define our idenity
What is social facilitation?
Occurs when a group observes you performing a task and effects your performance
Easy, well-learned task? You perform better
Difficult, poorly-practiced task? You perform worse
What is social loafing
When your in a big group the group causes decreased physiological arousal which generally leads to less effort and poorer performance.
(Found in group projects)
What is deindividuation
Occurs when you’re in a large mob of people whose influence overwhelms your sense of identity
Feelings of anonymity
High levels of arousal
Reduced self-awarness
Focus on group norms
Usually results in the mob engaging in destructive behavior
What is group polarization
Group disscussions with like-minded others strengthen members’ prevailing beliefs and attitudes.
Hear supporting arguments that polarize your opinion.
Express stronger opinions to fit in with the group.
What is groupthink
People are driven by a desire for harmony within a decision-making group, with this desire overriding realistic appraisal of alternatives.
Why do group processes matter
You will always work in groups
The collective effort can produce good results
You also need to recognize that groups can cause bad outcomes.
How does role-play affect attitudes?
You get a new role and at first it feels like your pretending, but eventually you change yourself it fit the role and becomes you
central route to persuasion?
occurs when interested people’s thinking is influenced by considering evidence and arguments.
peripheral route to persuasion
occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker’s attractiveness or an adds that pulls at the heart strings
What is social contagion?
The tendancy to do what other people in a group (ex yawn, same posture, ect)
