social Flashcards
social psychology
the study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people
why are we social species?
- our survival depends on it
- we behave very differently when we are in groups vs when alone
social cognition
the specific area within social psychology that explores how people select, interrupt, remember, and use social information
person perception
- the processes by which an individual uses social stimuli to form impressions of others
ex. what makes you like someone? what makes you trust them?
stereotypes
- generalizations about a groups characteristics that does not consider any variations from one individual to the next
- some positive, some neg.
- can be anything about a group
Stereotypes in some ways are an extensions of what?
- our normal cognitive tendencies to make quick decisions -the heuristics
- they are sometimes wrong, even though they might be useful in some situations
self-fulfilling prophecy
social expectations that cause an individual to act in such a way that the expectations are realized
-stereotypes have an important effect on people
attributions
-not just making judgements about people but also what determines their actions
attributional theory
the view that people are motivated to discover the underlying causes of behavior as part of their effort to make sense of that behavior
3 dimensions of attributions
- internal vs external
- stable vs unstable
- controllable vs uncontrollable
internal vs external causes
-due to something about the person themselves (internal), or something about the environment (external)
stable vs unstable causes
-due to a cause that is fairly permanent, or just a fluke or chance happening
controllable vs uncontrollable causes
the cause of what happened something that can be controlled, or something that is uncontrollable
the (not so) fundamental attribution error (FAE)
general tendency of people to make attributions that emphasize the role of the person (internal) rather than the role of the situation (external)
-only western cultures seem to do this. Collectivist cultures, the opposite is true
self- serving biases
- when we make attributions about ourselves
- when we consider ourselves, theres tendency to give ourselves credit for successes (internal attributions)
- but when we fail we tend to attribute that to the situation (external attribution)
- ex. i win because I’m amazing. I lost because the game was fixed
we also assume that other think the way WE do
true
the false consensus effect
people tend to overestimate the degree to which people think or act the way that we do
attitudes
an individuals opinion and belief about people, objects, and ideas
-peoples behavior is not well predicted by their attitudes (often act in a way that contradicts what we belied)
when are we more likely to act in accordance with our beliefs?
-when our attitudes are strongly held, when we’re really aware of the current influence of our attitudes or when we have vested interest in it
cognitive dissonance
- this is an individuals discomfort that is caused by an inconsistency between our beliefs and actions
ex. when we say one thing and do another - when this is experience one or the other tends to change
ex. sometimes we will even change our attitudes to fit our actions
persuasion
you want to change someone else attitude, how could you?
elaboration likelihood model
elaboration likelihood model
one can use either a central or peripheral route to changing attitudes
-central vs peripheral
central
works best when the other person is motivated and paying attention (a formal debate on a topic)
peripheral
works best when the other person isn’t as invested or paying attention (many commercials, cool attractive people buy apple products)
persuasion techniques
- foot in the door approach
- door in the face approach
foot in the door approach
-asking for something small of a person gets them to start acquiescing to requests. they then become more likely to agree to subsequent larger requests
door in the face approach
an initial request for something very large can sometimes lead another person to agree to a subsequent smaller request
social behavior
- altruism
- egoism
altruism
giving aid to another person with the ultimate goal of benefiting that person, even if it comes as a cost to the self.
egoism
giving to another person in order to ensure reciprocity, to gain self-esteem, to present one’s self well; or avoid the dissonance of living up to one’s values
helping behavior
- often don’t help others , even when we experience a sense of empathy for a person in need
- seems to happen in particular due to a sense of diffusion of responsibility
bystander effect
the tendency to help other people in an emergency decreases when there are other people present (as opposed to when you’re alone)
In other words, you are less likely to assist someone in need if there are other people who could help.
helping behavior-diffusion of responsibility
This is the phenomena where you are less likely to take responsibility for something when others are present.
- THEY could have helped, so it’s not my responsibility
- This is also true, though, for when we should stop engaging in a particular behavior, as we will discuss next class.
close relationships
These include, but are not limited to, romantic relationships.
-Much of this area focuses on the formation of friendships, how families interact, and yes, dating and marriage
(as well as divorce and breakup)
science on attractive faces
highly average faces are actually seen as most attractive
attraction
-seem to become more attracted to things that we experience most
mere exposure effect
the phenomenon where the more we see someone (or something), the more probable it is that we will develop a liking of that person (or thing)
EVEN IF we didn’t realize that we had seen them/it before
love- 2 kinds
- romantic/passionate love
- affectionate love/companionate love
- other kinds-love expirenced by close platonic friends, self-love, love of strangers, etc.
romantic love/passionate love
strong components of sexuality and infatuation. Dominates the early part of relationships.
affectionate love/ companionate love
characterized by a deep, caring affection for another person, and wanting to have them near.
conformity viewed…
- often viewed negatively in western cultures, more valued in eastern
- though our society explicitly values non-conformity, we actually implicitly value it (difference between what we say versus what we really do)
conformity
the change in a persons behavior to coincide with a group standard
2 different opposites that both get called non-conformity
- -rowing your own canoe and doing whatever you want without any concern about what other people are doing
- purposely going against the norm for the purpose of opposing it. this still involves letting the norm influence your behavior just in the opposite direction
study by Soloman Asch
- group participated together to ask questions about comparisons. answers given out loud
- only one “subject” rest were confederates
- after a few trials, confederates started to give the wrong answer, true subject was last to answer, confeds. all agreed on the same wrong answer
- subject started giving same wrong answer as confederates
- knew answer was wrong but didn’t want to disagree
two explanations for conformity
- informational social influence: We want to be correct. If other people seem to know what they are doing, … do what they do.
- normative social influence: We conform because we want other people to like us. Do something different or give a different answer, and implicitly you are saying that the other people are wrong.
obedience
behavior that complies with the explicit demands of the individual in authority
stanford prison experiment
- 24 male college students, regular guys
- randomly assigned to prisoner or guard
- epirement had to end after 6 days due to brutality of treatment
group influences
how do people behave differently in groups than they do when alone? deindivualilzation
Deindividualization
the reduction is personal identity and erosion of the sense of personal responsibility when in a group.
Many people would never do the kind of destructive things individually that they do when they’re in a group.
“The group did it; not me”
social contagion
imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior, emotions, and ideas
We seem particularly prone to imitate the behavior of others.
This can be good or bad, of course, depending on the behavior
group influences (performance)
- social facilitation: when you improve in your performance because of the presence of others
e. g., sports in front of a crowd - social loafing: when working on a team without individual accountability for your performance, your performance decreases
e. g., tug-of-war competitions - depends on whether that individual performance is observable
group influences (decision making)
-risky shift: the tendency of decisions made by groups to be riskier than the average decision of the group members
Groups seem to get “pulled” in the direction of risk
group polarization effect
Individuals are also influenced by group discussions. Individual opinions tend to become more polarized.
-After discussions within groups, individuals become more polarized in their opinions than they were before the group influence
groupthink
impaired decision making that occurs when making the right decision is less important than maintaining group harmony.
prejudice
- The unjustified negative attitude toward an individual based on the individuals’ membership in a group.
- Discrimination is the unfair behavior of an individual based on that prejudice
racism
- explicit racism- conscious racism, that people will openly share
- implicit racism:attitudes that an individual might not themselves even be aware of.
- This implicit / explicit distinction can also be applied to other forms of discrimination. E.g., sexism, religious intolerance
social interaction and intolerance
- Groups that are separated, especially if a competitive situation is present, tend to develop more negative views of each other.
- But bringing people together in a cooperative environment tends to counteract negative views.
