Important Themes in Psychology Flashcards
explain strong situation vs weak situation
strong: situation can overwhelm personality (in certain situations most people tend to behave the same way)
weak: situations allow personality to come out
explain the Seminarians as Good Samaritans study and how it relates to the power of the situation
- priests put in strong situations
- told they would be giving a talk about helping others and had to walk to a building to give the talk
- 3 groups: no hurry, moderate hurry, high hurry
- staged situation of need on walk- a man showing the need for help
results: % of people who tried to help was significantly lower in the hurry groups than the no hurry group
how can mental state affect attention/behavior
- can affect what you pay attention to or what you think about something
- maybe high stress priest groups didnt even notice the man
what is the cooperate vs. defect game and what is another name for it
prisoners dilemma
two partners told they can either cooperate of defect and you get points for both of the partners choices
trying to see who cooperates, and can you trust your partner?
explain power of the situation in the cooperate vs. defect game study
- found people who were cooperative and competitive in a residence hall
- paired people of same personality type together to play game
- 1 condition it was called community game, the other it was called wall street game
results: fewer people cooperated in the wall street game than the community game in both the known cooperators group and the known competitors group (cooperators actually cooperated less than the competitors)
what did the study of cooperate vs. defect game show us
personality didnt matter in wall street game, the cooperators didnt cooperate
-shows personality doesnt matter in certain situations and the name of the game sent message about how the players should behave
what is the self reference effect
if we relate something to ourselves it is more easily remembered than just blindly trying to remember
how did we demonstrate the self reference effect in class
1 group asked to count syllables of words shown on screen other group asked to remember the words used to describe themselves
-group asked to relate words to self remembers more
explain person x situation interaction
when one variable (person) depends on another (situation)
-situations tend to affect people the same way on average, but there are situations where there is an interaction between person and situation
why do we need research to tell us about social psychology
- inadequacy of introspection: people cannot explain behavior or mood and we do not realize the factors that affect us
- we only know of the reality we are in and not other realities that exist
explain the Nisbett and Wilson study: Telling More than We Know and how it pertains to why we need research
- put participants in challenging problem of connecting two ropes on other sides of the room
- very few people could it on their own
- experimenter would bump into rope and make it swing and the participant saw and realized that was the answer
results: when asked how they figured it out the participants did not say that they saw the rope swing, they made up other reasons because they did not actually know the real reason
what is misattribution
if we falsely think something is affecting us, we credit how we feel to that thing and it actually calms us down
-how we explain something changes how we feel
explain the shock study that is an example of misattribution
- put participants through electric shocks to see how much they could take
- one group told they would take pill that could make them jittery, other group told they would take pill with no side effects
- group that was told pill would make them jittery took higher electric shocks
- when people were asked why they took higher electric shocks they made up explanations because they didnt know the actual explanation
Researchers can tell what affects behavior, but participants dont think they were affected
explain the levels of explanation diagram (arrow pointing up) and the examples going down the diagram
proximal (immediate, now) factors
- the situation (people, physical environment, mood, cognition)
- personality, how you were raised
- cultural and society
- natural selection
distal (ultimate, past) factors
all levels contribute and matter
are people aware of why they do things
people are unaware of the reasons behind responses and feelings
-may come up with justifications, but arent the actual reason
