PSY1022 WEEK 1 - SOCIAL 1

Question 1

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Answer 1

Study of how people influence others’ behavior, beliefs, and attitudes.

Question 2

SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY

Answer 2

Theory that we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others. Helps us to understand ourselves and our social worlds.
Example - talking to other students after an exam.
Leon Festinger.

Question 3

MASS HYSTERIA

Answer 3

Outbreak of behaviour that is spread by social contagion. Can lead to collective delusions.

Question 4

SOCIAL FACILITATION

Answer 4

Enhancement of performance brought about by the presence of others.

Question 5

ATTRIBUTION

Answer 5

Process of assigning causes to behaviour.

Question 6

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

Answer 6

Tendency to overestimate the impact of dispositional influences on other people’s behaviour.
Attribute too much of people’s behaviour to who they are. Underestimate situational influences.
Mostly applies to OTHERS’ behaviour, not our own.
Chinese and Japanese less prone to this error.

Question 7

CONFORMITY

Answer 7

Tendency of people to alter their behaviour as a result of group pressure.
Conforming triggers activity in amygdala - anxiety, fear.
Factors include:
- Unanimity.
- Size (more like to conform in larger group).
- Difference in wrong answer (even if answer is wrong, different answers reduce conformity).
- Low self esteem
- Asian cultures more likely to conform.

Question 8

DEINDIVIDUATION

Answer 8

Tendency of people to engage in uncharacteristic behaviour when stripped of their usual identities.

• feeling of anonymity
• lack of individual responsibility
• KKK, internet trolls, Abu Ghraib etc.
• Stanford Prison Study
• crowd behaviour
• but not always negative. Makes us more likely to conform to whatever norms are present in the situation.

Question 9

GROUPTHINK

Answer 9

Emphasis on group unanimity at the expense of critical thinking. Irving Janis.
- Bay of Pigs, Challenger.
Can be treated by having a devil’s advocate and follow up meetings, plus independent experts to check ideas make sense.

Question 10

GROUP POLARISATION

Answer 10

Tendency of group discussion to strengthen the dominant positions held by individual group members.
- slight leanings become extreme prejudices.

Question 11

CULT

Answer 11

Group of individuals who exhibit intense and unquestioning devotion to a single cause. Groupthink.
Four factors in cults:
- Persuasive leader who fosters loyalty
- Disconnecting group members from the outside world
- Discouraging questioning of the group’s assumptions
- Establishing training practices that gradually indoctrinate members.
Also:
- cult members tend to be psychologically normal, but cult leaders tend to have a mental illness.
- same with suicide bombers.

Question 12

INOCULATION EFFECT

Answer 12

Approach to convincing people to change their minds about something by first introducing reasons why the perspective might be correct and then debunking them. Works like a vaccine.
Works with cults.

Question 13

OBEDIENCE

Answer 13

Adherence to instructions from those of higher authority. Not always negative, such as obeying traffic lights.

Question 14

ROBIN DUNBAR

Answer 14

Anthropologist. 150 - approximate size of most social groups. Tribes, many work places, Facebook friends, etc.

Question 15

NEED-TO-BELONG THEORY

Answer 15

Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary.
Humans have a biologically based need to for interpersonal connections. No social contact leads to negative consequences.

Question 16

UPWARD SOCIAL COMPARISON

Answer 16

Compare ourselves with people who seem superior to us in some way.
“If he can achieve that, I bet I can too”

Question 17

DOWNWARD SOCIAL COMPARISON

Answer 17

Compare ourselves with others who seem inferior in some way.
Maybe explains reality TV?

Question 18

SOCIAL CONTAGION

Answer 18

Looking to others to see how to act and what to believe.
Mass hysteria.
Urban legends.

Question 19

COLLECTIVE DELUSIONS

Answer 19

Many people simultaneously come to be convinced of bizarre things that are false. Part of mass hysteria, social contagion.
- UFOs.

Question 20

URBAN LEGENDS

Answer 20

Social contagion. False stories repeated so many times that people believe them to be true.

Question 21

SOCIAL DISRUPTION

Answer 21

Worsening of performance in the presence of others. Occurs on tasks we find difficult.
“Choking”
Opposite side of social facilitation.

Question 22

SOLOMON ASCH (ASCH EXPERIMENT)

Answer 22

Conducted classic study on conformity. Different sized lines.
75% of participants conformed at least once.
Participants conformed the the wrong answer 37% of the time.
Down to 5% conformation if one other person was also correct.

Question 23

STANFORD PRISON STUDY

Answer 23

Paul Zimbardo. Prisoners and guards. Deinvidualisation.

Unable to successfully replicate.

Question 24

THE MILGRAM PARADIGM

Answer 24

Stanley Milgram. Graduate student of Asch and child of Jewish parents who grew up in WWII.
Study in obedience. Volunteers administering shocks when ordered to by authority figure.
100% - some shocks
Most - 150 volts
62% - 450 volts (maximum)
Variations:
The greater the distance between participant and experimenters the LESS the obedience.
The greater the distance between the participant and “subject” the MORE the obedience.
Highest compliance when participants ordered someone else to give the shocks.
More “moral” people were less likely to give shocks.
More “authoritarianism” people more like to give shocks.

Question 25

“MAGIC NUMBERS”

Answer 25

150 - maximum number / average number of social contacts

6 - number of degrees of separation from anyone else in the world.

Question 26

SOCIAL ISOLATION

Answer 26

Mood and anxiety issues
Unhealthy behaviours (like overeating)
Also if TOLD you WILL be social isolated in the future.
Occurs within 3-4 days. Also occurs in other animals.
Social isolated monkeys had less dopamine in brain. And took more drugs.