social Flashcards
what were social psychs largely looking at late 20th century?
attitudes, particularly cognitive processes involved
social neuroscience def
study of how our social behaviour both influences + is influenced by brain activity
social situation def
people that we interact w every day
person-situation def
joint influence of person variables and situational variables
evolutionary adaption def (w/ in social psych)
assumption that human nature, including much of our social behaviour, is largely determined by evolutionary past
describe the 2 fundamental motivations evolutionary adaptation has provided us w:
- self-concern - motivation to protect + enhance the self and the people psychologically close to us
- other concern - motivation to affiliate with, accept, + be accepted by others
kin selection
strategies that favour the reproductive success of one’s relatives, sometimes even at a cost to individual’s own survival
how does the concept of an in-group come into evolutionary adaptation?
people we were closest to were usually those we were related to - so in-group favouritism could b connected 2 kin selection
cerebral cortex def
distinguishing brain feature in mammals (including humans), part of brain involved in thinking
social cognition def
cognition that relates to social activities + helps us understand and predict the behaviour of ourselves and others
attitude object def
thing that is being evaluated
difference between moods n emotions:
moods r experienced in normal situations, but emotions r caused by specific events + are accompanied by high levels of arousal
reciprocal altruism def
cooperation by giving benefits to those who are in need, w/ the expectation of a return in the future
describe the prefrontal cortex
- part of brain that lies in front of the motor areas of the cortex + helps us remember the characteristics and actions of other people, plan complex social behaviours, and coordinate our behaviours w/ others’
- newest part of brain thru evolution, enlarged as social relationships between people became more frequent n complex
reconstructive memory bias
when we remember info that matches our beliefs better than info that doesn’t + reshape those memories to better align with our current beliefs
when r schemas used the most for judgement-making?
when people r tired (cognitive impairment) + have 2 remember more info (cognitive strain)
causal attribution
process of trying to determine the causes of people’s behaviour
when r we more likely 2 make personal attributions?
when the behaviour is unusual/unexpected in that situation
covariation principle def
a given behaviour is more likely to have been caused by the situation if that behaviour covaries (or changes) across situations
central traits
concepts that have a disproportionate influence on impressions
configure model (Asch)
all traits r combined together into a holistic perception guided by central traits
role schema def
guides ur expectations abt particular roles (fine undressing in front of Dr.)
‘content-free’ schema
not abt anything in particular, more just how the world works (e.g. causal schema - ideas abt what causes what)
how can u break down the behaviour you’re trying 2 explain?
can be broken down into person + the interaction they’re having w/ the stimulus (interaction happens w/ in the context of a social situation)
salience (stimulus) def
property of a stimulus that attracts attention
what impacts on salience?
- switching orientation of image (might change which properties r more salient)
- contrast (woman in room full of men would be more noticeable, would bring to mind woman schema)
- meaning - meaningful content more salient
accessibility
ease with which a schema comes to mind (some people just might be more likely to access a certain schema, but can also be influenced by salience n situation)
hostile media phenomenon
occurs when people w/ a certain standpoint perceive balanced media 2 be biassed against their own perspective
describe Heider’s Naïve Psychology
- outlined basic issues involved w/ attribution
- basic motivation - seek out causes of others’ behaviour in an effort to predict + control their environment
- people gather info + test their personal theories of cause and effect
- two kinds of attributions r internal and external
correspondent inference theory described:
behaviour is informative abt internal state when it:
1. has fewer ‘non-common effects’ (unique or special consequences of a person’s behaviour)
2. has fewer alternative causes
3. violates social norms
4. is unexpected or counter-schematic
5. is negative (mostly we behave positively, as dictated by social norms)
6. has an impact on the perceiver (hedonic relevance) - people make more confident personal attributions when the behaviour affects them
7. is/appears 2 b intentional and freely chosen (personalism)
Kelley’s covariation model brief description
attributions depend on assessment of consistency, distinctiveness, + consensus
1. if we don’t have info over time, rely on cues from one-off situation: causal schemas, discounting + augmenting principle
casual schemas def
well-known or culturally appropriate ideas abt what causes behaviour
discounting principle def
more causes available, less confident u can be - look for smth uniquely associated w/ this behaviour
augmenting principle def
u can be more confident of potential cause if there’s smth else that works against it; in spite of
when can u make an external attribution (Kelley’s covariation model)?
when distinctiveness, consensus, + consistency r high
when can u make an internal attribution (Kelley’s covariation model)?
when distinctiveness n consensus r low, consistency is high
Weiner’s Attribution Theory
success or failure can be seen as coming from either personal causes or situational causes
what r personal causes in Weiner’s attribution theory?
ability (stable) and motivation (unstable)
what r situational causes in Weiner’s attribution theory?
luck (unstable) and task difficulty (he thought it was stable, but can be unstable)
locus (Weiner’s attribution theory) def
whether the attributions are to the person or situation
self-handicapping
people will either claim or perform behaviours that r counter-productive (e.g. telling people u didn’t study for a test), can use this to manage other people’s beliefs/attributions abt u
name the 3 models of social cognition:
- the naïve psychologist
- the ‘cognitive miser’
- the ‘motivated tactician’
the naïve psychologist
people take a semi-scientific approach to understanding the world, rational n thorough
the ‘cognitive miser’
people have limited cognitive capacity + try to minimise effort (shortcuts, heuristics) - developed to contest naïve psychologist approach
the ‘motivated tactician’
- use heuristics strategically, depends on motivation and cognitive opportunity
- associated w/ dual process models
main heuristics
representativeness, availability, anchoring + adjustment
representativeness def + reason that it works
- when we base our judgments on info that seems to match what we expect 2 happen, while ignoring more informative base-rate info
- works bc objects or events in same category do tend to resemble each other
disfluency (associated w/ representativeness)
difficulty u might have w/ assigning someone to a category, don’t like people as much when they don’t meet ur expectations
how does representativeness play a role in attribution?
causal schemas based on similarity (e.g. a big effect should be produced by a big cause), underweighting randomness as a cause
availability def + reason it works
- frequency judgments based on the ease w/ which info comes to mind (e.g. figuring out how many lawyers in Dunedin - how easy is it to think of lawyers u know → must be a lot of them)
- works bc frequency is related to ease of retrieval BUT can also b influenced by salience, priming etc
anchoring n adjustment def + reason it works
- judgements tied to initial standards (e.g. if u knew the covid rate yesterday, u could adjust slightly + estimate for today)
- works bc previous judgements r often good approximations
fundamental attribution error def
tendency to over-attribute behaviour to internal factors
actor-observer bias def
tend 2 make more personal attributions for others (make fundamental attribution error for others more), make more situational attributions 4 ourselves
2-stage model of attribution
stage 1: automatic internal attribution serves as an anchor
stage 2: effortful adjustment for situational factors, if time + motivation permit
base rates def
the likelihood that events occur across a large population
processing fluency
ease with which we can process information in our environments
false consensus bias
tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people hold similar views to our own (happens bc our own views r highly accessible 2 us)
projection bias
tendency to assume that others share our cognitive and affective states
counter-factual thinking
tendency to think about events according to what might have been
optimistic bias
tendency to believe that positive outcomes are more likely to happen than negative ones, particularly in relation to ourselves versus others
what is ‘depressive realism’?
when people w/ clinical depression’s social judgments abt the future r less positively skewed + often more accurate than those who do not have depression
bias blind spot
tendency to believe that our own judgments are less susceptible to the influence of bias than those of others
affect heuristic
tendency to rely on automatically occurring affective responses to stimuli to guide our judgments of them (e.g. judge certain soap to be best option cause it has the prettiest packaging + thus triggers the most positive emotional response)
mood dependent memory
tendency to better remember information when our current mood matches the mood we were in when we encoded that information
mood congruence effect
when we r more able to retrieve memories that match our current mood
cognitive reappraisal
altering an emotional state by reinterpreting the meaning of the triggering situation or stimulus
affective forecasting
our attempts to predict how future events will make us feel, often not v accurate (tend to overestimate our emotional reactions to events)
self-reference effect
information that is processed in relationship to the self is particularly well remembered
3 aspects of self-concept:
physical characteristics, personality traits, social identity
self-concept clarity
extent to which one’s self-concept is clearly and consistently defined, higher self-concept clarity is positively related to self-esteem
private self-consciousness
tendency to introspect about our inner thoughts and feelings
public self-consciousness
tendency to focus on our outer public image + to be particularly aware of the extent to which we are meeting the standards set by others
self-awareness theory ((Duval & Wicklund, 1972)
when we focus our attention on ourselves, we tend to compare our current behaviour against our internal standards
self-affirmation theory
people will try to reduce the threat to their self-concept posed by feelings of self-discrepancy by focusing on + affirming their worth in another domain, unrelated to the issue at hand