Psychology 1a - Social Psychology Flashcards
Define attitude
A positive or negative evaluative reaction
toward a stimulus, such as a person, action, object, or
concept e.g. can include behaviour such as healthy eating
When do attitudes influence behaviours more?
Attitudes influence behaviour more strongly when
situational factors that contradict our attitudes are weak
Describe the theory of planned behaviour
- Intention is affected by attitude (beliefs/evaluation), subjective norm (other peoples attitudes), and perceived behavioural control (internal/external factors)
- Intention results in behaviour alongside perceived behavioural control
What is cognitive dissonance?
- A conflict or unease created by two opposing opinions
- Eg. smokers know smoking has health risks, but still smoke
How can dissonance be resolved? Use smoking as an example.
- Change behaviour: In the case of smoking, this would
involve quitting, which might be difficult and thus avoided - Acquire new information: Such as seeking exceptions
e.g. “My grandfather smoked all his life and lived to be 96” - Reduce the importance of the cognitions (i.e. beliefs,
attitudes). A person could convince themself that it is
better to “live for the moment”
How are messages to change attitudes made more effective?
- Reaches recipient
- Attention grabbing
- Easily understood
- Relevent and important
- Easily remembered
What characteristics are important for persuasive messengers?
- Credible (eg. doctors)
- Trustworthy (eg. objective)
- Appealing (eg. well presented)
What is framing?
- Whether a message emphasises the benefits or losses of that behaviour
- When we want people to take up behaviours to detect health problems or illnesses, loss-framed messages are more effective
- When we want people to promote prevention behaviours (eg. condom use), gain-framed messages may be more effective
Define stereotype
- Generalisations made about a group of
people or members of that group, such as race, ethnicity,
or gender. - Or more specific such as different medical
specialisations (e.g. surgeons)
Define prejudice
To judge, often negatively, without having relevant facts, usually about a group or its individual
members
Define discrimination
Behaviours that follow from negative
evaluations or attitudes towards members of particular groups
What did Lawrie et al. (1998) find?
GPs were reluctant to take on patients with a mental health history despite it being well controlled than diabetes patients
Define social loafing
The tendency for people to
expend less individual effort when working
in a group than when working alone (diffusion of responsibility)
When is social loafing more likely to occur?
When
- The person believes that individual performance is not being monitored
- The task (goal) or the group has less value or meaning to the person
- The person generally displays low motivation to strive for success
- The person expects that other group members will display high effort
How does gender and culture affect social loafing?
- Occurs more strongly in all-male groups
- Occurs more often in individualistic cultures
When may social loafing disappear?
- Individual performance is monitored
- Members highly value their group or the task goal
- Groups are smaller
- Members are of similar competence
Describe Asch 1956 study
- Conformity
- Compare a standard line to comparison lines and determine which is the same length
- Actors said the wrong answer, which influenced the participants (unaware the actors were actors) to also say the incorrect answer
- Conformity
List the factors that affect conformity
- Group size (increases with group size, no increase over five group members)
- Presence of a dissenter (one person disagreeing with others to reduce conformity)
- Culture (greater in collectivistic cultures)
Explain bystander apathy
- When in a group, bystanders will look at the response of others in the group before making a decision as to whether to help or not.
- When alone, we are more likely to assess the situation appropriately
Describe the Darley and Latane experiment
- Participants were invited into the lab under the pretext they were taking part in a discussion about ‘personal problems’
- Participants were all in separate rooms in the lab and
communicated via an intercom system - One participant was an actor, and acted as though they were having a seizure
- 87% helped if they believed it was just them and the other student. When in a group of 4 people, 31% helped, above 4 hardly anyone helped.
- People were unlikely to act after 3 minutes of not acting
- Bystander apathy
What was the response of participants in the Darley and Latane experiment after the experiment concluded?
- Compared to those who did report the emergency, those
that didn’t appeared in distress; many were sweating, and
had trembling hands. - They reported shame and guilt for not helping.
- Reasons given include not wanting to expose themselves
to embarrassment or to ruin the experiment which, they
had been told depended on each participant remaining
anonymous from the others
List the 5 step bystander decision process by Latane and Darley
1) Notice the event
2) Decide if the event is really an emergency
Social comparison: look to see how others are responding
3) Assuming responsibility to intervene
Diffusion of Responsibility: believing that someone else will help
4) Self-efficacy in dealing with the situation
5) Decision to help (based on cost-benefit analysis e.g.
danger)
How can helping behaviour be increased?
Reduce restraints on helping:
- Reduce ambiguity and increase responsibility
- Enhance concern for self image
Socialise altruism:
- Teaching moral inclusion
- Modelling helping behaviour
- Attributing helpful behaviour to altruistic motives
- Education about barriers to helping
What was the Francis report?
- Poor care in mid staffordshire foundation NHS trust between 2005 to 2009, contributing to avoidable deaths
- Non-compassionate behaviour
- Bystandar apathy and cognitive dissonance?
Describe the Milgram experiment
- Obedience
- Learner (actor) and a teacher. Teacher was the participant, gave a electric shock when there was a false answer (learning and memory)
- Shocks grew more intense with each mistake (450V)
- Actor receiving shocks shouting and saying he wants to leave
- The person running the experiment (white coat and clipboard) would encourage the participant to carry on when they said they wanted to stop 3 times then let them stop
List the factors influencing obedience
- Remoteness of the victim
- Closeness and legitimacy of the authority figure
- Diffusion of responsibility: obedience increases when someone else administers the shocks
- Not personal characteristics
Define groupthink
The tendency of group members to suspend critical thinking because they are striving to seek agreement
Define group polarisation
The tendency of people to make
decisions that are more extreme when they are in a group
as opposed to a decision made alone or independently
When is groupthink most likely to occur?
- Is under high stress to reach a decision
- Is insulated from outside input
- Has a directive leader
- Has high cohesiveness
List the different leadership styles
- Autocratic or authoritarian style (all decision making powers are centralised in the leader)
- Participative or democratic style (decision-making by the group, group cooperation)
- Laissez-faire or “free rein style” (leaves the group to itself, maximum freedom to subordinates who decide their own policies and methods)
List the advantages and disadvantages of autocratic leadership
Advantages
- Quick decision making
- Clear hierarchy of responsibility
Disadvantages
- Can be demotivating
- Can lead to errors
List the advantages and disadvantages of democratic leadership
Advantages
- Can win cooperation
and motivate team
- Can improve quality of decision making
Disadvantages
- Time consuming
- Can lead to
disagreements
List the advantages and disadvantages of Laissez Faire
Advantages
- Allows autonomous working
- Allows expertise to be utilised
Disadvantages
- Can lead to lack of direction
- Lack of ultimate responsibility holder
