PSY220 midterm Flashcards
What is social psychology?
study of people thinking about, influencing, relating
Construals, needs related to construals
interpretation of social environment. Construals come from need to feel good (self esteem) and desire to be accurate (social cognition)
Social psych vs. sociology
social psych is more individual, focus on immediate stimuli, psychological states, predict behavior, use experiments. Sociology is more holistic, looks into social structure, poverty, institutions. Try to describe and explain behavior, describe and explain behavior, survey and aggregate data
Social psych vs. personality psychology
social psych is less focused on personality and more on fundamental attribution
Scientific method (theory, hypothesis, operational definition):
A theory is a set of principles used to explain observed phenomena. Hypothesis is a testable statement for relationship between variables. Operational definition is creating a measurable thing to measure constructs. Explain how to measure
Major themes in social psychology
social thinking, social influences, and social relations contribute to social psychology. Social thinking says we construct our social reality, and our intuitions are very strong. This is due to dual processing. Basically me locking myself up like a prisoner of my own sanity. Social influences shape our behavior, but so does our disposition. Basically me being influenced by UofT to stfu and not talk, like ever (stuff like fatshaming depends on where you’re from) (China’s fucked up beauty standards: LMFAOOO). But then again my INTP 5w6 predisposes me too. Soial relations say social behavior is biological, we need to relate to people. And to that? Fuck you bitch I don’t need to mortal companion (I do and I think I’m starting to hallucinate)
Correlational method or research
Systematic measurement. Examples include surveys, good at using one thing to predict another and can use variables hard to observe. No causal statements and sometimes people lie
Observational/field method or research
You can or not intervene. Need clear definition of variable and judges judge similarly. No causal statements and you only describe. Very spontaneous (most)
Experimental method or research
can explore cause and effect, some variables not ethical. Expensive. Need to increase mundane and experimental realism, reduce effects of demand characteristics.
Random sampling, representative sampling, random assignment
random sampling helps generalize things to a population. You could have a random sample but not representative if you sample the wrong population. Random assignment helps with cause and effect
Correlation coefficient (r) and spurious correlation
positive means one increase other does. Spurious is third variable (murder and ice cream). The more blob like the more close to 0
Probability level (p-value)
how likely something is caused by chance
Ethics surrounding social psych studies
respect for dignity, informed consent, freedom to withdraw, privacy, less deception
Informed consent
constant, need to know enough to choose if want to participate
Naturalistic fallacy
define what is observable or common as good
The rouge test
greater apes have sense of self
Self-concept
comprised of self schemas, answers the question of “who am I”. High self concept clarity increases life satisfaction, well being and compassion.
Self-esteem
Personal self-esteem is more prominent in western cultures. It is context specific. Tends to be more unconditional sounding and broader: “I am a god” “I am so good at this”
Self-efficacy
belief you can do something. Having low self esteem but high self esteem would be knowing I can do Mikitaka’s makeup, but feeling overall not built to be a makeup artist and disliking my makeup. “I am capable of doing eyeliner without shaky hands” “I know how to do math”
Self-knowledge
information about explaining and predicting yourself. Affected by planning fallacy and impact bias
Introspection
self analysis, it is one way to gain knowledge about yourself
Individualism and collectivism
individualism is prioritizing your own goals above that of your group’s and defining yourself with personal attributes (I am good at makeup). And collectivism is giving priority to the goals of your groups and defining your identity according to your group. People tend to be more self critical and focus less on positive self view. I am literally smack dab in the middle of these two. I describe myself with groups I’m in but I don’t give a shit about the goals of my groups (cosplayers want to be more inclusive, my dorm house wants participation).
Self-schemas
beliefs about the self to process information, such as attitudes, preferences, and personality. Basically the pieces of the vase that you break your soul into. Include memories, beliefs, generalizations of own behavior. I am good at makeup. I am an INTP. I am gay. I hate JK Rowling. I hate talking to people
Self-concept clarity
low clarity is related with low self esteem, depression, neuroticism, self-handicapping, lower awareness of mental states.
Self-handicapping
protects self image and self esteem
Self-presentation
our desire to express ourselves that is admirable or agrees with your ideas. The image is presented to external audience and ourselves. For example, me trying to pretend like I’m normal and do not have violent urges
Self-awareness theory
if we get a cue to focus on self, we become aware and compare internal standards/values to thoughts and behavior. Then change behavior or thoughts or disengage from self awareness.
Self-perception theory
when we are unsure of how we feel, we look at our past behavior to see if that’s how we feel. We observe ourselves from a third person perspective to see the behavior and circumstances when it happened
Planning fallacy
tendency to underestimate how long it would take for a task
Looking-glass self
we use how we think others perceive us as a way to perceive ourself. The only thing that matters is how we imagine people see us, not how they actually see us
Social comparison theory
common when there is no objective standard and we feel uncertain about ourselves. Downward can make you feel better unless it’s threatening and downward. Upward tends to make you worse unless its achievable
Self-serving bias and self-serving attributions
to attribute positive outcomes to yourself and negative ones to external factors. Self-serving attributions are a type of self-serving bias and both are to help with self-esteem. Very outcome focused compared to FAE.
Explanatory style
a habitual way of explaining events. Internal, global, and stable attributions are depressive (it’s going to last and ruin me and it’s my fault). Me a masochist: lol haha. My attributional style is pretty internal, somewhat global, and somewhat stable. Oh fuck
Better-than-average effect:
part of self serving bias. On subjective, socially desirable and common traits, we see ourselves above average (subjective as in “I am tall” and not “I am taller than 6 feet”)
Defensive pessimism
anticipating problems and harnessing anxiety to motivate actions. Some pessimism is needed for excellence.
False consensus and false uniqueness effects
false consensus is when we think everyone agree with is, thinking our friends agree with us more than they actually do. False uniqueness is when we appeal to our self images by seeing our talents and morals as unusual. (Me thinking romance is for peasants and being able to draw lower lashes without batting an eye and contouring my face into something I’m not is a rare talent) Basically I’m not like other girls
Learned helplessness
hopelessness after human or animal perceives no control after repeatedly experiencing bad things. Linked with illness as it lowers body’s resistance, and so does stress.
Automatic and controlled thinking
system 1 is intuitive, automatic, unconscious. System 2 is slow, deliberate.
Priming
related to schema activation. Exposure to stimuli increase salience of schemas
Schemas (including function and accessibility of schemas):
to make sense of, organize information. To reduce the amount of information, fill in knowledge gaps, interpret new and ambiguous information
Self-fulfilling prophecy
essentially beliefs that result in their own fulfillment. Teachers subconsciously teach more to gifted students, set higher goals, and thus they improve more. Also happens with discrimination, if you think people are homophobic you will perform badly with them
Heuristics
thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgement. System 1 is in charge as these are very speedy
Representativeness heuristic
thinking people are of a group if they look similar.
Base rates and base rate fallacy: base
base rates are the proportion of individuals in a population frequency. Fallacy is when you ignore this information in favor of distinctive features. Similar with representativeness heuristic
Conjunction fallacy
more extreme predictions for joint occurrences than single ones
Counterfactual thinking
mentally stimulating what might have been, happens when we can easily picture alternative outcomes. Less likely if it was not as close of a call. Does not need to be a meaningful group
Illusory correlation
perception of relationship when none exists, or perception of stronger than real relationship. People tend to misperceive random events as confirmation. We are likely to notice things that confirm what we believe than otherwise. If expect, perceive. Due to desire for order. Common between rare events.
First impressions (accuracy, speed)
very fast exposure to faces allows us to know trustworthiness, competence, likability, aggressiveness, attractiveness. Very accurate and 100ms is enough. 50 for gaydar
Overconfidence phenomenon
to be more confident than correct, college students still overestimated how much they think they would exercise even if they thought about barriers. The more incompetent, the more overconfident
Confirmation bias
tendency to look for info that confirms preconceptions. Contemplation causes confirmation. Interviewers test for trait by looking for info that confirms it. Framing
Belief perseverance
persistence of old beliefs even after discrediting explanation. The more we examine theories and reasons why it might be true, the more likely to be closed off to challenging beliefs
Nonverbal communication
can be intentional or not, includes eye contact and body movement and tone of voice, facial expression. The function is to express personality and elicit empathy.
Facial expressions of emotions
if you read a story that does not match with a facial expression, you will think the face matches the story. Fear and surprise were easily confused but most expressions are universal. Some crosscultural variation does exist. Spontaneous naming of emotions, context matters.
Implicit personality theory
personality traits are linked together, such as kind and helpful. This is to make better quick impressions. Liking sexual partners linked with thinking they don’t have stds.
Attribution theory
theory of how people explain others’ behavior: internal or external. Does not say you must do which.
Fundamental attribution error (FAE)
easily confused with self-serving bias, which is more self-centered and concerns making judgments in your favor rather than against the favor of others. Tendency to underestimate situational and overestimate dispositional.
Ultimate attribution error (UAE)
saying negative behavior for outgroup is internal, positive is external. Positive behavior for ingroup is internal, negative external. Basically batch FAE
Perceptual salience
the cause of FAE. When trying to figure out reasons of a person’s behavior, you focus on the person and the surroundings become less prominent. Thus the perception is salient on the person and you ignore other factors. a cognitive bias that predisposes individuals to focus on or attend to items, information, or stimuli that are more prominent, visible, or emotionally striking.
Two-step process of FAE
automatically make internal attribution then with time, energy and motivation consider alternatives.
Attitudes, including tripartite model
tripartite model is affective, behavioral, and cognitive. Affective is emotional attitude with facial expressions, behavioral is decisions and actions, and cognitive is thoughts and beliefs. Affective refers to sensory reactions like “it’s plain wrong” and usually are moral and religious (most of these disgust me; this is my affective attitude towards others affective attitudes). Cognitively based attitudes give logical reasons, and behaviorally based is observations of behavior regarding the object of attitude. Self perception theory, you don’t know attitude until you think about behavior
Ambivalent sexism
when asked how competent men and women are, masculine women are seen as bad socially, if they are not masculine they are seen incompetent. Negative traits of women are highlighted regardless
Explicit versus implicit attitude
explicit attitudes are deliberate and conscious and introspective. You need to think about them, and they are thus considered slow and cold, they are reported. Implicit is the opposite and are associative, they connect concepts instead of asking you to reflect. They are tested by response time.
Implicit association test (IAT):
used to test implicit associations, asses people’s reaction time to make automatic associations between things and words. Faster responses are unconscious associations.
When do attitudes predict behaviour?
When influences on behavior are minimal and the attitudes are behavior specific, and our attitudes are strong when we think about them
Theory of planned behaviour:
our specific attitudes, social norms, and perceived control over said behavior contribute to a behavioral intention which contributes to behavior.
When does our behaviour affect our attitudes?
When role playing, like the Stanford prison experiment
Role-playing
authority can create an environment completely different. Artificial roles can turn into something that is real.
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon, low-ball technique, door-in-the-face technique
foot in the door is a small request followed by a bigger one because we desire to be consistent. Door in face is when we feel bad about saying no to a big request and that makes a smaller second deal seem better. Low ball is low price offered then modify the price. You need to apply the initial request to the final for low ball. Foot in door doesn’t need relevant first request
Cognitive dissonance theory, post-decision dissonance, justification of effort:
cognitive dissonance is discomfort in realizing inconsistency, feeling dumb and immoral, and trying to get rid of dissonance. If you write article contrary to irl beliefs and take arousal pill, your beliefs will not change as you believe discomfort is due to pills. Else, you will change beliefs to reduce discomfort as there is nowhere to blame the discomfort. Post-decision dissonance is to make thing you didn’t get seem worse. Justification of effort is me with pinkyparadise lens. You gave me a bit of stuff, so I feel like there is a need to further justify by liking it to make it worthwhile
Internal vs external justification
internal is changing attitudes and behavior for yourself, and external is for someone else or smth else (you told your friend something, now need to be consistent)
Insufficient justification
reduce dissonance by providing internal justification.
Self-affirmation theory
people with high self esteem reduces dissonance. If you are good at something unrelated to the dissonance, the dissonance amount goes down. High self esteem
