L11: Social Psych Flashcards
Social Psych (def)
The scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influence by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others
First Impressions
Initial judgments of the character of other people. Made quickly, with very little information, especially from faces.
Impression Formation
Based on trustworthiness/warmth and competence
Primacy Effect
Order matters, we remember earlier info and take it into account more than later info
Confirmation Bias
Attending to information that’s consistent with an initial impression, and ignoring information not consistent with these beliefs.
Accuracy of First Impressions
Generally, fairly accurate. The more we get to know someone, the more accurate we are. The better our motivation to be accurate, the more accurate we are likely to be
Attributions
Inferences we make about the causes of behaviour
Dispositional Attributes
Internal factors such as traits, values, attitudes, and beliefs
Situational Attributes
External factors, such as events and context
Fundamental Attribution Error
When people try to figure out the cause of another person’s behaviour in Western cultures, they tend to overestimate the impact of internal influences and underestimate the impact of external influences
Actor-Observer Bias
We are more likely to explain our own behaviour through external attributes, while explaining others’ behaviour through internal attributes
Self-Serving Bias
We are more likely to attribute our successes to internal explanations and our failures to external explanations
Affective forecasting
Estimating how we will feel in the future. Usually not very accurate, because we place too much emphasis on one quality
Attitude (def)
Positive, negative, indifferent, mixed reaction or orientation towards a person, object, or idea
Explicit Attitudes
Easy to report, conscious of it, can be updated with new info
Implicit Attitudes
Quick, automatic, unconscious, not aware of it difficult to update
Implicit Association Tests (IAT)
Very common method of testing for attitudes, uses reaction times and/or categorization tasks (faster responses presumably reveal bias
Behavior
Consequences of attitudes
When are attitudes most likely to predict behaviour?
When they are about specific issues & when they are strong attitudes
Persuasion
Changing people’s attitudes as a means to change their behaviour
Elaboration likelihood model
Dual process theory of persuasion: central and peripheral routes
Central route
High effort argument that results in a lasting change in attitude
Peripheral route
Low effort argument that results in a temporary change in attitude
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
We strongly desire cognitive consistency in which beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours are compatible. When there is discrepancy b/n beliefs and attitudes we experience dissonance, and act irrationally to reduce it.
