Lecture 3: Social Psychology Flashcards
The halo effect
Initially if we find someone attractive we associate them with good traits
What are attractive people rated as?
More intelligent, trustworthy, friendly and competent
McArthur + Berry 1987: Baby faced
Compared Nature and baby faces features Those with baby faces are viewed as honest and not likely to get managerial jobs Recruitment and selection process, interpersonal relation choices
Norman Tripplet 1898
Speed record of cyclists He noticed that racing against each other rather than against the clock alone increased the cyclists speeds Duplicate this under laboratory conditions using children and fishing reel 2 conditions: the child alone and children in pairs but working alone Task was to wind in a given amount of fishing reel Triplett reports that many children worked faster in presence of a partner during same task
What is the co-action effect?
Increased task performance Mere presence of others during the same task
Halo effect
Cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel, and think about his/her character
Baby faced feature
Perceived as less dominant, more naive and warmer than those with mature features
Smith and Mackie
The scientific study of effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive Influence and relate to others
What was the results of Smith and Mackie’s experiment?
Children are relying on the same aspects of facial appearance in order to judge a persons competence
Heider and Simmel 1944
Asked participants to describe movement of abstract geometric shapes Would attribute emotions and I tend to shapes based on movements Participants often saw characters with emotions, motivation and purpose
Jones and Harris (1967)
College students are asked to read essay written by fellow students that either supported or opposed Fidel Castro’s rule in Cuba and then guess how the author is the essay really felt about Castro. Some were told author chose position while others were told position was assigned Participants assigned the author really believed what he wrote
Social comparison theory (Festinger,1954)
We determine our own social and personal worth based on how we stack up against others Constantly making self and other emulations across domains: Attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, success
Kitayama 1991: Independent self
Self is viewed as independent, autonomous separate being defined by unique repertoire of attributes: abilities, thoughts and feelings
Kitayama 1991: Interdependent self
The self is viewed as interdependent with and is experienced as part of social web. Ones behaviour, thoughts and feelings are seen as dependent on those of others in relationship
Actor-Observer effect
Tendency to make dispositional attribution for others behaviours and situational for own behaviour
What does self esteem depend on?
Comparisons with others
Medvec et al (1995)
Bronze medal winners in 1992 olympics were happier than silver medal winners
Blascovich et al 1997
Categorise block based on colour - no difference. Categorise people based on race, the high prejudice people took longer to sort individuals and low prejudiced people were quick
What is implicit association test?
Devised to examine influences of implicit processes on behaviour
Payne 2001
Found that when primed with black rather than white faces people think gun
What is covaritian model of attribution
Person has information from multiple observation, at different times and situation
Three dimensional model of Attribution
Persons attribution and perception about their own successes and failure determine the amount of effort the person will put forth in a similar situation in the future
Locus of control
Internal or external
Internal: sees people as active participants in the world, capable of influencing what happens to them
External locus: sees the world as happening to people, outside their control
Stability
Whether someone’s attribution is stable or unstable over time
Controllability
Extent to which a cause is able or unable to be controlled
Internal locus of control
People who believe what happens to them is within their control e.g. hard work
More able to resist following orders as they feel in charge of their life
External locus of control
People who believe that whatever happens is outside their control e.g. fare
More likely to obey as they think events are out of their hands
What is the result of Heider + Simmel
Infuse intention into movement of geometric shape
Also infuse intention in people merely by observing their behaviour
What is the strength of Jones and Harris study
Laboratory experiment - strict control over variables
Determined a cause-effect relationship
Finding support FAE
What are limitations to Harris and Jones study
Lack ecological validity (cannot be applied to real life settings)
Participants, not representative sample, all American Ps were used
Laboratory experiment - artificial environment
What are the strength of FAE?
The theory has promoted the understanding of common errors in explanation of what happens in the world - help explain human behaviour
The theory has proven to be robust - supported by many research studies
What are limitations to FAE
The theory is culturally biased with too much focus on individualism
Much research has been conducted in laboratories and with a student sample
Just world hypothesis
One consequence of westerners tendency to provide internal explanation for other behaviour is victim blaming
When bad things happen to people, other assume those people somewhere are responsible for their own fate
Cultural factors
Culture affect how people make attribution
Individualistic culture: value personal goal and independence
Collectivist: see individuals as members of a group and tend to value conformity, mutual support and interdependence
Festinger, Social comparison theory
People want a precise assessment of themselves by judging their own abilities and opinions in comparison with individual around them
Get a sense of validity and cognitive clarity by comparing them selves
What does the social conpmparison process Involve
People coming to know themselves by evaluating their own attitudes, abilities and beliefs in conparison with others
Upward social comparison
When we compare outdoes with those who we believe are better than us
Improve our current level of ability
We compare ourselves to someone better off and look for ways that we can ask achieve similar results
Downward social comparison
When we compare ourselves to others who are worse off than ourselves
Feel better about our abilities
We may not be great at something, but atleast we are better off than some one
Disposition
Caused by internal characteristic that reside within Individual
Positive illusion
Unrealistically favourable attitude that people have toward themselves or people that are close to them
Self deception
Self enhancement
Maintain self esteem or starve off discomfort
Old fashioned prejudice
Majority openly rejects minority
La Piere Discrimination study 1934
Study on relationship between attitude and behaviour
Modern prejudice
Subtle or hidden
More likely to keep real views private if it is believed that views are socially unacceptable
What is discrimination?
When prejudice is expressed through behaviour
Positive or negative behaviour directed towards a social group and it’s members
Factors that increase/decrease prejudice
Ingroups and outgroups
Inter group conflict
Attribution h
Ingroups and outgroups
People catergorisd themselves and others into groups which can influence their attitude toward other group men reefs
In group
Group that someone belongs to
Give preferential treatment to in group
Viewed more positively
See individual difference
Outgroups
Group that someone doesn’t not belong too
Seen to be less like us and more like each other
Likely to view them negatively
Results in discrimination
Unjust treatment of different catergories of people on ground of race, age or sex
Social cognition
Takes racist people more time to catergorise faces