L010 - Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology?
The scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
What are first impressions?
Initial judgement of someone’s character or personality.
We form schemas of others automatically and spontaneously
These are made quickly (milliseconds to minutes), from very little information.
What are schemas?
Organized network of association in our mind
What are the sources of first impressions?
Physical appearance
What people say
How they say it
Body language
Non-verbal cues
FACES
What is the study by Willis and Todorov? What did it prove?
Photographs of faces shown to participants at various durations
Asked to judge standing on a trait
Correlated these ratings with another group of participants who had no time constraints to rate faces on same traits
Everyone thought that the person shown was not trustworthy
This study proved that we only need a split second to judge a person by their face.
What do we most care about when forming first impressions and why?
If the person is trustworthy and warm
To differentiate if they have good or bad intentions
Competence and dominance
To determine if they have the physical abilities to act on their intentions
What is the Primacy effect ?
Explains how first impressions last
We tend to process information that come to us earlier as it is weighing more in our judgement than our later judgements.
What is the confirmation bias?
Tending to information that confirm our suspicions and not paying attention to things that disprove it.
Are first impressions accurate?
NOT accurate
We track their emotions and emotions are only momentary – they change
What is the transference of traits from people to meeting/seeing a new person?
Comparing them with someone you know – ex. Sister, roommate…
What is false consensus?
Idea that others are similar to us regarding beliefs, attitudes, behavioral tendencies
Ex. You are a liberal and you assume that the people you pass by on the street are too
What are stereotypes?
Beliefs schemas or associations that link whole groups of people with certain traits characteristics
Automatic associations or mental representations. Can be positive or negative. It is an association not necessarily a judgement
Can be accurate, sometimes based on a kernel of truth, sometimes inaccurate based on assumptions. Some are learned from personal experiences, family and culture
Perpetuated by the many experiences we’ve had in life growing up by the media
What are Attributions?
Inferences we make about the causes of behavior
What is the Attribution theory?
When making sense of others’ behavior, we can attribute (explain) their behavior to either
Dispositions or situations
What are dispositions in the attribution theory?
Internal factors such as traits, values, beliefs, skills and intentions
Their thoughts and personalities (inside person)
Ex. they are courageous, crazy
What are situations in the attribution theory?
External factors such as events weather, aspects of a context, circumstances, other people’s actions, chance
Anything outside of the person
Ex. They lost a bet, they were paid…
What is Fundamental Attribution Error?
It is when people try to figure out the cause of another person’s behavior, in Western, individualistic cultures, people tend to
- Overestimate the impact of internal/dispositional influences
- Underestimate the impact of external/situational influences
Give an example of Fundamental Attribution error
Someone cuts in front of you when you are driving.
what we tend to think
- what a jerk
- he is such a bad driver
- he is so reckless
what we do not take into consideration
- he might be rushing to the hospital
- he is possibly sleep deprived
- it might be a side effect of a medication
What are the Collectivistic / INTERDEPENDENT cultures?
China, Japan, Latin America, Eastern Europe
Tend to value interdependence, cooperation and social harmony to a greater extent
Consider more both internal and external factors
What are the Individualistic / INDEPENDENT cultures ?
U.S., Canada, Western Europe
Tend to value independence, autonomy and self-reliance to a greater extent.
Tend to focus more on the internal factors
What is prejudice?
Attitudes or affective responses towards or about a group and its individual members
What are valenced judgements?
Evaluative – positive to negative but negative is usually what we mean when we say prejudice – it tends to get a lot more attention
What is discrimination?
Behaviors directed against people because of their group memberships
Differential treatment
Example of discrimination
Not hiring someone, excluding someone from activities, saying or doing unliked things to people because they are minority
What is social categorization?
Humans characterize people into different groups based on shared characteristics or common attributes.
Race, gender, age, height
Student organization, sports team
Shared beliefs, causes (political, dog/cat person)
Personal preference, hobbies
Classifying people leads to stereotyping
Humans characterize everything
Objects
Animals
People
Food
Categorizing is adaptive
Saves time and mental energy
Simplifies our environment
Often is accurate
Costs to Social categorization.
Often stereotypes are negative and/or not accurate and can derive prejudice and discrimination
In/out groups mentality can lead to us vs. them mentality and increase prejudice
Prefer our group – we are better than them
Hate on other groups – they suck we hate them
Can lead to process of information about outgroups differently
Overestimating group differences – they are not like us
Out-group homogeneity effect – they are all alike, we are unique and diverse
What is the Social Identity Theory?
A person’s self-concept and self-esteem derives from status and accomplishments of various groups to which a person belongs to
We want our group to be the best, to be of high status, so we show favoritisms to people in our groups vs. of other groups
What is Robber’s Cave Study? What did it prove?
Sought to examine how prejudice and discrimination might develop and also how it might be reduced
Stage 1-Bonding + forming of groups: boys-friends
Stage 2- Competition stage: boys hated each other
Stage 3-teamwork of all: boys = friends again
Normal boy/ became their own cultures and showed that conflict for limited resources can lead to prejudice attitudes and discriminatory behaviours
↳ Simple coexistence did not eliminate these but teamwork for something better for both groups did.
What is the Realistic conflict theory ?
Prejudice and conflict arise from competition for scarce resources among groups
Resources such as water ways, access to fish, land rights, valued objects…
Economic perspectives – lots of evidence to support this theory
What are Attitudes and behaviours when talking about social categorization?
Positive/negative/mixed reaction to or orientation towards a person, a group, object or idea.
Examples
Abortion
Immigration
Pizza
Mac vs. PC
Gun control
Like, dislike, love, hate, pro/against, also mixed feelings
What are explicit attitudes?
Easy to report, conscious of it, can be updated with new information
What are Implicit attitudes ?
Quick, automatic, unconscious/not aware of it, difficult to update
What are implicit association tests?
Categorization task that uses reaction times based on decision rules to assess strength of associations between concepts and positivity/negativity
Faster responses are thought to reflect stronger associations, thereby presumably revealing implicit bias – automatic unconscious, preference/prejudice.
When are attitudes most likely to predict behavior?
When they are specific issues
They tend to generate specific behaviors.
When there are strong attitudes
When we are certain about them and they apply to situations with which we have experiences
Ex. You love guns and are living in America
Affects if you have a gun or not.
Attitudes can have consequences on behavior
Don’t often predict behavior
What is the Dual process theory of persuasion?
Central – scrutinizing the content of the message; strength and weaknesses of arguments
Information and text
More lasting chance in attitude
Peripheral – attending to relatively superficial cues; low effect processing
Pictures and
Temporary change in attitude
What is the Cognitive dissonance theory?
Our behaviour predicts our attitude
Self-persuasion
Based on the idea that we strongly desire cognitive consistency or the mental state in which beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are compatible
When there is a discrepancy between beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, we feel dissonance (inner tension)
Larger discrepancy – greater dissonance
We are motivated to reduce it
You either change your thoughts on the subject or change your actions to fix the discrepancy/be consistent
What is the Social influence?
The way that people are affected by the real and imagined presence of others
Automatic – reflex like behaviors (You yawn, I yawn)
Automatic mimicry
What is the CHAMELEON effect?
You wipe your face, I wipe my face – accidental mimicry – you believe there might be something on your face and that is why they did that
What are Social norm?
Commonly shared beliefs about appropriate actions
Unwritten social rules – might or might not be aware of them
Vary across context, culture and time
Violating of social norms often result in awkwardness, hostility or ostracism
People in collectivistic cultures tend to conform more to social norms compared to those in individualistic cultures
We usually follow others when we don’t know what to do
What is Conformity?
Changing our perceptions, opinions or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms
What is Compliance?
Changing our behavior in response to direct requests
What is Obedience according to behaviour?
Changing our behavior in response to commands by perceived authority figures
Why do we conform?
Informational influence and normative influence
What is informational influence?
we need to be correct, we seek information
What is normative influence?
we fear social ostracism, judgement and social exclusion
What is the Stanley Milgram Experiment?
Student (confederate) got it wrong, the participant had to shock him – people blindly obey the authorities (the scientists)
Participants wanted to stop but didn’t
What is aggression?
Behavior intended to harm others
Gossiping/spreading rumors are types of aggression
Extreme aggression =violence
What is Instrumental aggression?
To achieve something
Harmful behaviour has a goal (sports – useful)
When you are being attacked
What is Hostile aggression?
Motivated by hostility
Road rage
Impulsive/emotional – heat of the moment
What environmental factors can cause aggression?
Heat/hot weather
As temperature increases, aggression increases
Crowding
People don’t like goals blocked – feel aggressive
Social provocation
Insults or social rejection
Social learning
We learn to be aggressive via behavior modelling
We learn to be more/less aggressive via rewards and punishments
What is the Bobo dolls assignment?
Aggressive vs. Non-aggressive behavior is provoked by what the children watched prior to receiving the bobo doll
What motivates prosocial behavior?
Egoism - do it for individual / self-interest or Altruism - intended to benefit of others
What is egoism?
Help people and do it for individual / self-interest
Motivation to increase one’s own welfare; self interest
To be seen in a positive light
To feel good about yourself
To get something tangible
What is altruism?
Help people and intended for the benefit of others
Motivate to increase another person’s welfare
Concern for others
What is the Evolutionary theory?
Altruistic/prosocial behaviors have reproductive advantages
Helping kin helps our genes
Sibling in fire, run to help – possibly because you share genes so our genes survive
Why helped strangers and non-kin?
Might help us in the future and we might get something in return
reciprocal altruism and reciprocal norms
What is reciprocal altruism?
Actions that benefit others, despite some immediate risk or cost that may be repaid in the future
If you help someone, they owe you one
What are reciprocal norms?
Give and take rule – I help you, you help me
If someone helps us, we should help them back
Short-term relationship
Reciprocation is expected right away/soon
Lasting relationship
No score keeping, reciprocation is expected over long-run
Ex. Flowers given out to strangers in the airport, felt like they needed to give a dollar or two in return
Who is Kitty Genovese? What was proved?
She was attacked twice by the same male
First – is stabbed outside her apartment
Second – is raped, stabbed again, murdered in nearby building
37 alleged witnesses heard screams
Police were called eventually but too late to save her
More people that hear/witness, less likely people are going to help
They think others are going to help (not their job)
What is Interpersonal attraction in regards to prosocial behaviour?
Positive orientation towards someone – like someone (not romantically)
What is familiarity in regards to prosocial behaviour?
We tend to like people who are known to us
What is the mere exposure effect in regards to prosocial behaviour?
The more you see a novel stimulus, the more you like it; easier to cognitively process familiar stimuli
More you like someone, the less you will think they are a threat so you like them more
What is similarity in regards to prosocial behaviour?
We tend to like similar others – attitudes, values, interest
What is reciprocity in regards to prosocial behaviour
We like those who like us – very validating
What is physical attractiveness in regards to prosocial behaviour?
Rewarding, visible and immediate stimulus
What is the halo effect?
Believe that attractive people possess a bunch of positive qualities
What is the attachment theory?
Human infants develop intensely strong emotional bonds with caretakers as a survival strategy
Infants rely on caretakers for sense of security and to meet their needs
Children develop internal working models of how relationships should do/how they should function
Internal working model give rise in attachment styles
What is Social facilitation?
Social facilitation suggests that we perform better when others are watching us engage in a relatively easy task.
