Psy 201 Flashcards
Social Psychology
The study of social processes and how the presences others affect the way we think, feel and behave
What is the power of situation?
They can determine our behaviors despite being with different people
Give an otherview of the Milgram study
There was a 1 participant and one actor playing as a participant. The participant would be instructed to shock the other for any wrong answer starting at 15 volts to 450 volts (which is deathly) . The actor was meant to scream in pain and beg for help and the experimenter, who was an actor in a lab coat, was to encourage people to keep going.
What did the Milgram study show?
It showed the effects of authority and how far people are willing to go based on authorities instructions.
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the role of personality and underestimated the role of situations when explaining peoples behaviors.
How do construal’s affect behavior?
How we interpet a situation will influnece how we act in that situation
Channel Factors
Small situational factors can have large influences on behavior by guiding behavior in a particular
Construal
Interpretation and inferences made about stimulus or situation. It is an active process.
Schemas
General Knowlegde about the physical and soicla world. Include expection about how to behave in different situaions and influnece behavior and jugdements.
Stereotypes
Schemas about specific social groups
Why are stereotypes a double edged sword?
Pro: They can make social interaction more efficient as people believe they know what to expect
Con: They can be applied incorrectly and given too much influence on judgment.
Automatic Processing
Involuntary and unconscious
Often based on EMOTIONAL responses.
Theory
A body of related propositions intended to describe some aspect of the world
Hypothesis
A preduction about what will happen under particular circumstances. Testable and gives theoriees practial vaules.
Observational Research
Involves observing participants in social situations. Attempts to systematically observe behavior but may need additional measures like interviews and questionnaires.
Archival research
Involves analyzing social behaviors documented in past records. (Newspapers, police reports, hospital record etc.) Can be used to test theories.
Surveys
Involves asking participants questions usually through an interview or questionnaire.
Important to consider the number and type of people in a survey.
Random Sample
When every person in the population has an equal chance of being picked.
Why are random samples important?
This help give a more diverse sample as well as create an unbiased sample.
Correlation research
Research that examines the relationships between variables without manipulating the situations or items the participants have experienced.
Can correlational equal causation?
NO!!! Correlation can only determine if the variables are related, not if x causes y.
Third Variable
External variables that can explain correlation.
Experimental research
Invovles assinging participants to different situations or condiotns. Behaviors are systmeatilcally measured and compared with how different manipulations affect the beahovior. These allows researchers to make a CAUSAL claim.
Self Selection
Researchers have no control over characteristics choices and behaviors of the particiapants.
Independent variable
The variable that is manipulated and hypothesized to change the dependent variable.
Dependent Variable
The variable being mearsured
Control group/conditon
This is the group that excludes the IV, meaning it can be compared to the IV.
Experimental group
This group has the IV and it being changed.
External validity
Experimental results can generalize to the population and how much it resembles the real world
Internal Valdity
How confident are you that the result were caused by the manipulated variables
Reliability
How consistently a test will measure the variable of intrest
Test Reliability
Can you repeat the study and get the same results?
Internal Consistency
It measures whether several items that propose to measure the same general construct produce similar scores.
Inter-rater reliability
Will you get the same results from different researchers watching the same study?
Validity
The degree that a test accurately measures the variable of interest
Content Validity
evaluates how well an instrument (like a test) covers all relevant parts of the construct it aims to measure.
Construct Validity
how well a test measures the concept it was designed to evaluate.
Creiteration related Validity
evaluates how accurately a test measures the outcome it was designed to measure
Statisical signifaince
Measure the probability that a given result would have occurred if there were no “real” relationship
Basic Research
Trying to gain knowledge in it’s own right. Not aiming to gain greater understanding of the phenomenon
Applied Research
Concerned with using current understanding of a phenomenon in order to solve a real world problem
Social Self
Who we are as a person
What are the three kinds of self
The indidvudal, the relational self and the collective self
The individual
Our own beliefs about our unique personal traits ablieites talents etc.
Relational Self
Beliefs about our identities in spefici relationships
Collective self
Beliefs about our identities as members of social group to which we belong
Reflected self Appraisal
Come from how we think people see us, directly or indirectly. This is OUR idea of our self and how we hold ourselves.
Situationism and self
We are not fixed and we can shift and changed based on the situation we are in
Working self concept
Subset of self knowlegde that is brought to mind in a particular context
Distinctiveness
We highlight aspect of the self that make us feel most unique in a given context
Independent view of self (Individualistic)
Self is seen as distinct autonomous entity separate from other and defined by individual traits. Common in Western European culture
Interdependent view of self
Self is seen as a connected to other, defined by social duties and shared traits and preferences. Common in Asian and African cultures.
How does gender play a role in the social self?
Across culture, men generally have more independent self view and women have more of a interdependent self view
What are some reasons men and women’s self views are different?
Socialization: Parents, schools and society reinforcing stereotypes
Evolution: Enhance survival and reproductive success
Self esteem
Positive or negative overall evaluation of self that each person has.
How do we measure self esteem?
Rosenberg scale
Contingences of self worth
Self esteem is contingent on successes and failures in domain on which a person has based their self worth
Social Acceptance
Sociometer hypothesis which is more specific than general contingencies. Self esteems is an internal subjective index to the extent that a person is included and favored by others.
How does culture play a role in self esteem?
While those in Individualistic culture are rated higher for self esteem, it is not a perfect score as the way we score self esteem is based on self and not other, being those in Collectivistic cultures may view self esteem differently.
Impact to self esteem Individualistic v Collectivistic
Individualistic: More value on self achievements and self accomplishments.
Collectivistic: More value on self improvement and contributions to others
What are some dangers of high self esteem?
Can be sensitive to threats, insults and challenges and they may react more aggressively especially if the high self esteem is unwarranted.
Social comparison theory
The hypothesis that we evaluate ourselves through comparison to other and weather they are above or below us we either feel better or motived to improvement.
Self affirmation
The ability to maintain self esteem despite negative feedback. Typically, you will find another part of yourself to reaffirm your self esteem.
Do people have accurate views of themsevles?
No. Most well adjusted people have a SIGHTLY unrealsitc view of themselves and it doesn’t mean they are disregulated.
What are some benefits to (mild)unrealistic self view
Elevated positive mood, making people more social, and promotes the purist of persistence goals.
Self verification
We care more about having stable accurate beliefs about ourselves. We do this by recalling time where we were consistent with the info and enter relationships that promote this consistency.
Self Regulation
Helps us manage and regulate our behavior and abtain and control behavior.
Self discrepancy theory
The idea our behaviors are motivated by the discrepancies between different aspects of the self.
What are the three selves in Self discrepancy theory?
Ought self: The person you/others feel you should be
Actual self: The person you belief you currently are
Ideal self: The person you aspire/want to be
Public v Private face
Public: Aware and control of what other think of you
Private: Aware of our own internal feelings, thoughts and preferences
These face may NOT match
Self monitoring
The tendency to monitor and scrutinize one’s behavior when in a public situation.
High v Low self monitoring
High: Attuned to social cues and normal and always adjusting
Low: Less concerned with conforming to expectations and more consistent across context
Self Handicapping
Self defeating behaviors to have a ready to use excuse for poor behavior and make us think that low performances aren’t our fault
Snap jugdments
Quick judgments about a self based off limited info. Can be accurate or not.
Attribution theory
Gerenal term for theories about how people explain the causes of events they observe
Causal attribution
Explanation for the cause of your or another person behavior. Weill influence how you respond to the situation
Attributions
Internal: Behavior is a reflection of the person
External: Behavior is a reflection of the situation
What the three explanatory dimesnions?
Internal v external: The link to the self or to the external situation
Stable v unstable: How much the cause is seen as a fixed or as something temporary
Global v specific: Degree that the cause is seen as affecting other areas in life or is restricted to affecting one specific area
Pessimistic Attribution style
Internal stable and global attribution are made for negative event.
Covariation principle
Helps us analysis more specific events. Has two main factors: Consensus, if people behavior similar in similar situations and Distinctive: Specific to events and location
Emotional Amplifiction
Emotional reactions are more intense if it’s easier to imagine the situation.
Self serving bias
Tendency to attribute failure to external factors and success to internal factors
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to underestimate external factors and overestimate internal behavior
Framed effects
Judgments about the social world based on how info is presented
Primacy v Recency Effect
Primacy: Info that is presented first is more remember than info in the middle
Recency: Info that is presented last has more weight than something that is in the middle
Spin framing
Where the context of the info impacts the way we see it (Positive and Negative)
Construal level theory
The idea that things are more psychosocially distant, they feel less real and abstract. Compared to psychologically close things which seem more concrete and easier to visual.
Confirmation Bias
When we think a certain outcome is going to happen and thus look for info that confirms that
Motivated Confirmation
People are motivated to deliberately search for evidence that support their expectations or preference. WILL ignore sources that do not confirm their biases
Bottom up processing
Starts at sensory input and smaller details and then builds up from there
Top down processing
Starts from prior knowledge and works down to the more simple sensory information
What are the influences of schemas
Attention: Influence what we pay attention to
Memory: Help encode and retrieve info, the better it fits into a subject the better we remember it
Construal: Our existing belief help us interpret info from prior info
Behavior: Provide expectation on how to react and act in different situations
Consciousness of activation: We dont always know it’s happening and when we are being affected
Emotions
Brief specific response to goal relevant events. Have both physiological and psychological factors.
Emotion vs Mood
Emotion: Brief (Minutes) and specific
Mood: Longer ( hours/days) and doesn’t come from specific things
How do emotions motivate behavior?
Emotions motivate our behavior psychologically( impacts the way you are acting in different situations) and physiological( It’s preparing your body for the reaction the emotions cause)
What are the two branches of the autonomic nervous system?
Sympathetic: Fight or flight ( pupil dilation, heart racing lung expands)
Parasympathetic: Restorative response, calms you down ( pupil pinpoint, heart slowing down, lungs relaxing)
Psychoglocal state (aka appraisl)
How we feel our emotion
Apprisal
How objects and events in our environment are evaluated to our current goals. Then we make sense of what is happening in front of us.
What are the two cognitive appraisal states?
Primary appraisal: Initial and quick, gut feeling and helps us determine if it’s helpful for our well being
Secondary Appraisal: Accesses the gut feeling and decides to feel. Later concerns why we feel the way we do.
What are the 6 universal facial expressions? (from the 1960 study)
Happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise.
Where do emotions come from, evolution or culture?
Both! Some emotional response are innate and universal but what accents and how we display them is cultural
What are some evolutionary explanation
They are biological based behavior adaptions meant to promote survival and reproduction.
Cultural expectations on emotions
Emotions are influenced by views of self, social values and social roles and they vary from culture to culture.
Focal Emotions
Emotions that stand out and are emphasized within a culture
Ideal emotions
These are the values and emotions that are promoted within a culture and support the values of the culture.
Social functional theory
Emotions help navigate social dynamics
What is the role of oxytocin
Called the love hormone and plays a key role of maintain and building bond. It is released during intimate moments.
Emotional mimicry
Unconscious imitation of emotions. It says that I am listening and understand you. (Mimicking the person facial expression that we are interreacting with)
How can different things influence our emotion perceptions
Circumstance: Our environment play
Broader Judgment:
Priming perception:
Happiness
Plays a huge factor in our life.
Happiness for individualists v collectivists
individualists : Archiving goals and having personal success is highly valued and brings happiness
collectivists: More about maintaining relationships and social balance that brings happiness
Measurements of happiness
Life satisfactions and emotional well being.
What are advantages to happiness?
More successful marriages, longer lives and more creative and productive work.
What are some influences on happiness?
Age: The older we get the more we priorize relationship and have more experience
Wealth: To a certain point, wealth makes you happier but too much wealthier decreases happiness.
Ways to increase happiness
Putting emotions into words and expressing positive social emotions.
Duration neglect
We only really remember the peak moments of these event and thus misremember the length of the event.
Addictive forecasting
Predicting how we will feel during or after a particular event in the future. We tend to overestimate how long negative emotions will effect us.
Immune neglect
Tendency to underestimate our resilience during negative life events. We are really good at coming back from negative emotins/events.
Focalism
Tendency to focuses on only one aspect of an experience when trying to predict future emotions.
Morality
The ways we indicates what is the “right” and “wrong” way to behave
Moral Attitudes
Consistent over time, resistant to change, and predictive of behavior
What is Kohlberg model?
Believes the morals develop in a series of stages.
What is Kohls first stage of development?
Preconventional: 1. Obedience and punishment orientation and 2. Self interest orientation
What is kohls second stage of development?
Conventional: 3. Interpersonal conformity and 4. Authority Orientation
What is kohls third stage of development?
Post Conventional: 5. Social Contract Orientation and 6. Universal Ethics
What are some of the critisim of Kohlberg
Too western and uses men as the norm without considering differences for women.
Social Intuitionist Model
- Moral Intuitions: Automatic reactions and based on our upbring and our moral ideals
2, Moral judgment: Guides us to judge wheatear or not something is right to wrong and also very quick - Rationalization: Judgment is made we use reasoning to justifying
why we made it.
What are the five moral foundations?
Harm/care: Sensitivity to vulnerable others and to care for those in need.
Fairness/reciprocity: Want to have justice, equal treatment and ideal.
Ingroup/loyalty: Want to protect and promote people in their group
Authority/respect: Wanting to maintain social stablity, order and respect to those above us
Purity/sanctity: The feeling of contamination physically and morally, comes with feelings of disgust
Are emotions always caused by things?
No. They can be partial (from things we care about), arbitrary ( from things that are irrelevant) and unreasoned( not caused or controlled by anything)
Empathy
Empathy allow us to feel what another person is feeling allow and give us a deeper moral connection. Can be negative and positive.
Is empathy instinctive?
Yes
When can our empathy be biased?
When we are close to the person, when we have more detail (vividness) and when it’s salience (attention grabbing)
Disgust
An emotional response to something seen as potentially harmful and/or morally contradictory
What is attitude?
A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone which is shown in one’s beliefs feelings or intended behaviors
The evaluation of attitudes
Affect: How you feel when you see is going reflect later
Cognition: The knowledge and beliefs we have about an object (outside emotions) (thoughts, images etc.)
Behavior: Actions and observable behaviors we make towards the object
Explicit v Implicit Attitudes
Explicit: Where we consciously endorse and can easily report
Implicit: Attitude which are involuntary uncontrollable and at times nonconscious
Likert scale
A numerical scale used to assess people’s attitude. It’s very simple making it hard to analysis complex emotions
Can you use self report to measure implicit attitude?
No.
Where do attitudes come from?
Learned through experience, exposure and heuristics(mental shortcuts).
How do attitudes become strong?
Greater accessibility, surrounding yourself with others who share the same attitudes, and gathering evidence to confirm your attitude
Do attitudes alway predict behavior
It does not always predict behavior and attempting to change behaviors by changing attitudes doesn’t always work
Theory of planned behavior
Says that the best predictor of a persons behavior are their behavioral intentions. These are:
Attitudes towards specific behaviors, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.
When attitudes not equal behaviors
Negative attitude, conflicting components and attitudes that are inconsistence with actions and thoughts?
Cognitive consistency
People try to maintain consistency between different beliefs and behaviors
Balance theory
Theory that people try to maintain a balance between their thoughts, feelings and sentiments( the enemy of my enemy is a friend of mine)
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
That inconsistences between thoughts feelings and behaviors create an unpleasant mental state that we want to resovle.
How do we stop cognitive dissonance?
Change your behavior or change your beliefs. Easier to change your belief than behaviors.
Counter attitudinal advocay
The process that occurs when a person states an opinon or attitude that runs COUNTER to their private belief/attitude
What is the cognitive dissonance cycle?
After committing a cruel act people may reduce dissonance by dehumanize the victim. Each justification can help lead to future justification of just bad or worse behaviors. To avoid, connect the behavior back to the human. Have them talk about how they are a good person and reconnect them to their vaules
Effort justification
Attempts to reduce dissonance when you make a lot of effort or time that leads to something disappointing. Greater effort expended leads to more dissonance and rationalization.
Induced compliance
Subtly getting people to act in ways that aren’t consistent with their attitudes. Often leads to change in attitude in order to resolve dissonance.
Is dissonance universal?
Yes but with different way:
individualists: happen when making choices for themselves
Collectivist: happens when making choices for friends
Why does inconsistency produce dissonance?
Free choice, insufficient justification and negative consequences.
Self Perception theory
Theory that people infer their attitudes from observing their behavior and if the behavior is weak or ambiguous it is changeable.
System justification Theory
People are motivated to defend and justify the status quo even at the expense of personal or group interest. (not just the 1%)
Terror management theory
Human behavior is influenced by the fear of death and anxiety around it.
Parallel feature searches
This is when our brain recognizes something that is famiarily and easy to spot without much effort
Feature conjugation search
This is the more complex processing and will happen in a much more controlled and slow way. Has more than one feature
We cannot parallel search and have to scan every item alone to see both features
Priming
Activating a concept or association in working memory
Semantic Priming
Seeing one word can make it easier to say and relate it to a simlar
Why automaticity
Functional, reduces cognitive work and often prime appropriate behavior for social situation
Can automatic responses have negative outcomes?
Yes, as these snap judgments about others an led to biases and unfair treatment when we don’t know
Social influence
How we influence other and how they influence us
Compliance
Agreeing to the request of another person REGRADLESS of that person status.
Foot in the door
Making a small request that is accepted and then making a lager request
Door in the face
Making a big, absurd, request that will be declined and then making a small request that now seems more reasonable.
Pluralistic igorance
Wrongly believe that our feelings or behaviors are different from those of the group
Static v Dynamic Norm compliance
Static: The norms in place that we are following right now and is fairly stable
Dynamic: How behaviors change over time and what people are doing more and more
Descriptive and prescriptive Norm compliance
Descriptive: Description of what people typically do in situations
Prescriptive: The norms of what people SHOULD do in a situations
Norm of Reciprocity
Feeling obligated to give to someone who has given to us
Identification
Not really believing in what is being said by the person and not caring when saying it but it’s an attempt to emulate the speaker if they are liked/admired
Internalization
Adopting a new belief because it’s in line with our beliefs, ideals and value.
How can positive emotions influence people?
Mood maintenance: People want to maintain a positive mood
Different construal of the request: More likely to trust someone intention when you’re feeling positive
How can negative emotions influence people?
Negative state relief: More likely to agree to a request when feeling bad because it may make us feel better
Guilt: Feel more obligated to help someone if we feel guilty.
Obedience
Compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another’s authority.
When is social influence strongest?
When situations are ambiguous/difficult and when we feel like we have little knowledge about the situation.
Normative social influence
Conformity based on the desire to be liked or socially accepted. We can know something is wrong but still do it to fit in.
Factors influencing conformity
Group size TO A POINT (4 people)
Group unanimity
Expertise and status: the higher the status, the more trustworthy
Difficulty/ambiguity of a task
How can anonymity effect social influence?
When decisions can be made anonymously, people are much less susceptible to normative social influence.
Minority influnce
Minority opinion are be influence when it is consistent, confident and steady overtime.
Persuasion
The active attempt to change, guide and influence our behaviors and actions towards a specific one.
McGuires information processing approach
- Message must capture the audiences attention
- Once the message is delivered, they must comprehend the message
- They audience must remember their thoughts and feelings when they saw the message ( the thoughts, feelings and ideas)
4.They must be motivated to act on the message and that it is personally reinvent
Elaboration likeihood model
Central route: Thoughtful consideration, motivate us to think and deep into the idea. When the message is strong it can make lasting change.
Peripheral route: Superficial cues (how pretty someone is) for when we can’t and won’t think about the message, messages are less impactful and longlasting.
Elements of perssuasion
Credibility, attractiveness and certainty.
Audience charactericis that influnce persuasion
Distraction: can enhance for the superficial route but decreases for the central route
Personality: your need for cognition and self esteems
Mood: How you feel can make you more or less open to a message
Age: younger people are generally more open to persuasion
How can media influence persuasion?
Shared attention: When everyone is talking about it, it feels important
Agenda control: By highlighting a topic, it feels more important than other
Fears effect on persuasion
Can enhance persuasion when people can feel the severity of the threat and see a solution but won’t if
Too much: Makes people panic and feel overwhelmed
Too little: Makes people feel bored and tune out
When does emotional persuasive work best?
The audience has low knowledge/involvement and original attitude was created through emotion
When does reason persuasive work best?
Has high knowledge/involvement, original attitude was created through reason.
Six Persuasion Principles
Authority: People prefer credible expert
Liking: People respond more affirmatively to those they like
Social proof: People allow the example of others to validate how to think, feel and act
Reciprocity: People feel obliged to repay in kind what they’ve received
Consistency :People tend to honor their public commitments
Scarcity :People prize what’s scarce
Highlight genuinely exclusive information and opportunities
Remember strong attitudes bias information processing through
Selective Exposure :People with firm belief seek out things that support these beliefs
Selective Attention: Even when people are shown conflating information, they still ignore it or focus on the parts that support their beliefs
Selective Perception: Strong attitude will change our perpetuation to things
Selective Memory: More likely to remember things that support their beliefs and forget things that challenge it
