Final Exam: Social Psychology

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

The study of how people influence other behavior, beliefs, and attitudes

Question 2

Need to belong theory

Answer 2

states there is a biologically based need for interpersonal connections
- when we are deprived of social contact for a considerable amount of time, we become lonely

Question 3

Social facilitation or disruption

Answer 3

enhancement of easy tasks or disruption of difficult ones, elicited by the presence of others

Question 4

Social Facilitation Ex)

Answer 4

If you work out regularly, working our at a gym will motivate you to work harder

Question 5

Social Disruption Ex)

Answer 5

If you never or rarely work out at a gym having others around may make you more anxious, and therefore, more prone to perform poorly

Question 6

Attribution

Answer 6

Process of assigning causes to behavior

-when we try to figure out why other people or why we ourselves did something, we are making attributions

Question 7

Internal attribution

Answer 7

inside the person

Question 8

External attribution

Answer 8

outside the person

Question 9

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 9

tendency to OVERESTIMATE the impact of dispositional/internal influences (personality, attitudes, intelligence) on other people’s behavior
- because of this error, we attribute too much of people’s behavior to who they are and too little of their behavior to what is going on around them

Question 10

Social comparison theory

Answer 10

we evaluate our beliefs, attitudes, and abilities by comparing ourselves to others (how do I stack up??)

Question 11

Mass Hysteria

Answer 11

Outbreak of irrational behavior that is spread by social contagion
ex) Halloween night 1938 a radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds- people thought there was an alien invasion of sorts

Question 12

Urban Legends

Answer 12

Demonstrate the power of social influence

• tap into out emotions (usually negative)
  ex) bloody mary

Question 13

Conformity

Answer 13

tendency of people to change their behavior as a result of group influence

Question 14

Solomon Asch’s Experiments

Answer 14

Experiment with comparison lines. Must identify which lines are the same as the standard line. Confederates in the group would pick the wrong line each time to see if the person being experimented on would conform

Question 15

Asch Paradigm and conformity

Answer 15

• Unanimity= if all subjects gave the same wrong answer, the participant was more likely to conform
• Diff Wrong Answer Given= a confederate gives an incorrect answer different than the other confederates, a participant is less likely to conform
• Size of Majority= as long as there were at least 5 or 6 people, people conformed

Question 16

Individual and Cultural Differences (Asch Paradigm)

Answer 16

• Low self-esteem= people with low self-esteem are more prone to conformity
• Asians vs Americans= Asians are more likely to conform. Likely because Asian cultures are more collectivist than the individualistic American culture.

Question 17

Groupthink

Answer 17

emphasis on group consensus at the expense of critical thinking and sound decision making

Question 18

Groupthink: Challenger explosion

Answer 18

1986 space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after
take-off. Engineers warned against launching on bitterly cold days
because certain parts could fail. Project managers went on with the
launch. They were all confident of their decision to move forward. No
one dared challenge management.

Question 19

How to prevent groupthink

Answer 19

groups should encourage dissenting (conflicting) opinions.

designate a person to play devil’s advocate

Question 20

Symptoms of groupthink

Answer 20

• illusion of the group’s invulnerability
• illusion of groups unanimity
• and unquestioned belief in the group’s moral correctness
• conformity pressure= pressure on group members to go alone w everyone else
• self-censorship
• mindguards= self-appointed individuals whose job it is to stifle disagreement

Question 21

Cults and Brainwashing

Answer 21

they promote groupthink in 4 ways:

1. Employing persuasive leadership that fosters loyalty
2. Disconnecting group members from the outside world
3. discouraging questioning of leadership
4. gradually indoctrinating new members

Question 22

Cult

Answer 22

groups of individuals who exhibit intense and unquestioning devotion to a single cause
-in many cases they are devoted to one charismatic individual

Question 23

Unification Church Cult

Answer 23

Rev. Sun Yung Moon= united thousands of total strangers in. mass wedding ceremonies
couples determined by leadership pairing of photos

Question 24

Deindividuation

Answer 24

the tendency of people to engage in atypical behavior when stripped of their usual identities

• anonymity and lack of individual responsibility
• deindividuation makes one more vulnerable to social influences

Question 25

Stanford Prison Study

Answer 25

curious about dehumanizing
conditions in prison. Participants were assigned to be guards or
prisoners (deemphasizing their individuality). The study got out of hand
and was ended early. Was this the result of roles people adopted or
was it their personalities?

Question 26

Obedience

Answer 26

Adherence to instructions from those of higher authority (vertical)
-obedience is essential in society, yet it can produce troubling consequences when people stop asking questions about why they are behaving as others want them to.

Question 27

My Lai Massacre

Answer 27

soldiers following orders without thought during the Vietnam War. U.S. platoon ordered to open fire on 500 civilians ages 1-82. After, the soldier insisted they were just taking orders.

Question 28

The Milgram Paradigm

Answer 28

wanted to understand irrational behavior (e.g. how the holocaust could have occurred?)
-People wanted to say Nazis=mentally ill, but Milgram sensed this was not the case.

Question 29

Milgram’s Finding

Answer 29

Good people can do very evil things or behave irrationally

• Compliance decreased with greater psychological distance between teacher and experimenter
• compliance increased with increasing psychological distance
• compliance is negatively correlated with moral development (more moral= more likely to defy)
• authoritarianism= participants/teachers were more likely to go all the way

Question 30

Is human nature good or bad

Answer 30

It is a blend of socially constructive and destructive tendencies

Question 31

Bystander Nonintervention

Answer 31

safety in numbers isn’t always the case

• Kitty Genovese Stabbing
• Deletha Word beating

Question 32

Pluralistic Ignorance

Answer 32

• look around, does anyone else think it is an emergency?
• It must be just me. No one else thinks it’s an emergency.
• It must not be an emergency

Question 33

Diffusion of responsiblity

Answer 33

Passing the buck
-the more people present at an emergency, the less each person feels responsible for the negative consequences of not helping

Question 34

Bystander Intervention

Answer 34

the percentage of people helping when in groups was markedly lower than the percentage of people helping when alone

Question 35

Social Loafing

Answer 35

the phenomenon in which people slack off in groups

-“freeloaders”

Question 36

Diffusion of responsiblity

Answer 36

in groups, individuals feel less responsible for the outcome

- people are more likely to hold back ideas due to fear of criticism

Question 37

How to prevent social loafing

Answer 37

• ensure each person in the group is identifiable

- ex) by guaranteeing that managers/bosses can evaluate each individuals’ performance in a group project

Question 38

Altruism

Answer 38

helping others selflessly

-ex) genuine altruism of the poor giving to the poor (role of empathy)

Question 39

Situational Influences on Altruism

Answer 39

1. More likely to help others if the possibility to avoid/escape situation is low
2. victim characteristics= whether the victim is crippled or drunk matters
3. mood= good mood -> more likely to assist others
4. enlightenment effect= knowledgeable about bystander intervention
5. Individual differences= people less concerned about social approval are more likely to help
6. Men, less traditional, extraverted and med workers= more likely to help

Question 40

Aggression: Why we hurt others

Answer 40

• interpersonal provocation
• frustration
• media influences= observational learning
• Aggressive cues (guns and knives-> stimulate aggression)
• Arousal
• Alcohol/Drugs= lower inhibition to behave violently
• temperature= warmer temps increase irritability

Question 41

Aggression: personality traits

Answer 41

• Negativity (high level of negative emotions, e.g., mistrust)
• Impulsivity (act out without thinking)
• Lack of closeness with others

Question 42

Aggression: Sex Differences

Answer 42

Sex differences
• Males are by far more physically aggressive
• Females engage in more relational aggression

Question 43

Two Pathways to Persuading others: Central Route & Peripheral route

Answer 43

1. evaluates merits thoughtfully
2. snap judgments, we can be fooled by superficial factors such as how physically attractive, famous or likable the communicator is.

Question 44

Foot in the door technique

Answer 44

involves making a small request before making a large one

Question 45

Door in the face technique

Answer 45

involves making an unreasonably large request before making a small request we are hoping would be granted

Question 46

Low ball technique

Answer 46

seller of a product starts by quoting a low sales price and then mentions all of the “add on: costs once the customer has agreed to purchase the product

Question 47

Nature of Prejudice: Adaptive conservatism

Answer 47

distrust anything unfamiliar

- evolutionary origins

Question 48

In group bias

Answer 48

tendency to favor individuals inside out-group relative to members outside f our group (e.g. fans at a football game)

Question 49

Out-group homogeneity

Answer 49

tendency to view all people outside of our group as highly similar- they all share at least on undesirable characteristic

Question 50

Prejudge

Answer 50

to arrive at a conclusion before we have evaluated all of the evidence
-prejudge is synonymous with prejudice

Question 51

Prejudice (attitudes) vs discrimination (behaviors)

Answer 51

• prejudice can lead to discrimination
• consequences of discrimination: reducing opportunities
• ex) less women in major American orchestra

Question 52

Stereotype

Answer 52

a belief, positive or negative, about the characteristics of members of a group that is applied generally to most members of the group

Question 53

Why have stereotypes?

Answer 53

• Simplification of a social world and saves us mental energy
• everyone has stereotypes, but nonprejudiced people try to resist them
• Implicit stereotypes (unaware) vs explicit (aware) stereotypes

Question 54

Scapegoat hypothesis

Answer 54

claim that prejudice arises form a need to blame other groups for our misfortune

Question 55

just-world hypothesis

Answer 55

claim that our attributions and behaviors are shaped by a deep-seated assumption that the world is fair and all things happen for a reason

• people are poor because its what they choose to be
• blaming the victim mentality

Question 56

Conformity

Answer 56

conformity to social norms

-may originate from the need for social acceptance or approval: the rejection of out-group