Social Flashcards
Describe the ideological level of analysis.
Cultures, values and norms within a society, etc.
Describe the positional level of analysis.
Aspects of social position, such as status, group memberships, relationships between groups, etc.
Describe the interpersonal level of analysis.
Between individuals: interaction, features of the situation, presence of others, etc.
Describe the intrapersonal level of analysis.
Within the individual: How we organise our experience, perceptions, sense of self, etc.
Define the self concept.
The entire collection of beliefs we hold about ourselves.
Define the self schema.
Attributes about which we are certain and represent clearly.
Define the working self.
Information about the self that is used in a given situation.
Define self-enhancement.
Having self-esteem.
Define self-assessment.
Being accurate about ourselves.
Define self-verification.
Confirming what we already think.
Give 5 examples of self-enhancement.
Better-than-average effect, considering self fairer than others, remembering success and forgetting failure, considering those who say nice things about us to be more credible and self-serving attribution bias.
How do people tend to acquire self worth in individualistic cultures?
Being unique, independent, “true to self” and pursuing own goals.
How do people tend to acquire self worth in collectivistic cultures?
Fitting in, fulfilling obligations, maintaining harmony, self control and promoting others’ goals.
Briefly describe self-categorisation theory.
The combination of personal identity (uniqueness) and social identity (similarity and difference with others (groups)).
How does the ‘naive scientist view’ understand attribution?
Based on consensus, distinctiveness and consistency.
What is the fundamental attribution error (FAE)?
Over attributing behaviour to stable, dispositional causes and not accounting for social norms and situational causes.
What makes FAE stronger?
Quick judgements, cognitive busyness, good mood and not knowing much about the person.
Describe actor-observer bias.
Attributing own behaviour to situational causes and others’ behaviour to dispositional causes.
Describe self-serving attribution bias.
Tracking credit for success but denying responsibility for failure.
Describe self-handicapping.
Pre-emotive attribution of failure to situation, which can lead to sabotaging your own performance.
(Collectivist/Individualistic) cultures appear to think more holistically.
Collectivist.
Describe the ‘just world theory.’
Derogation of victims to protect sense of justice and feeling that it won’t happen to oneself.
Attitudes needs to be (genetic/specific) to predict specific behaviour.
Specific.
Describe the self-perception theory of attitude.
We infer our attitudes from our behaviour.
Describe the over-justification effect in the study of attitude.
Incentives can undermine motivation because we won’t attribute our behaviour to intrinsic interest.
Describe embodied social cognition.
Physical circumstances facilitate reactions/attitudes.
Describe cognitive dissonance.
An unpleasant psychological state where people notice their attitudes and behaviours/other attitudes are inconsistent with each other.
Describe the central route of analysing an argument.
Based on quality: Analysing the message and elaborating: active think and countering, etc.
Describe the peripheral route of analysing an argument.
Based on persuasion cues: Considering the length/number of arguments, attractiveness of source, mere exposure, etc.
What motivational factors influence argument processing routes?
Involvement in the topic and ‘need for cognition.’
What ability based factors influence argument processing routes?
Expertise, difficulty and distraction.
Give 2 problems with using fear to persuade.
“Fear control” rather than risk control and self-affirmation leading to defensiveness (but not always).
What are process losses in group production?
Coordination loss where some effort is lost (due to hindering each other, etc).
What is social loafing in group production?
Motivation loss due to own effort not being recognised.
What 3 factors can make groups more productive than individuals?
Collectivism, meaningful tasks and identification and cohesion.
Describe deindividuation.
A state where people have lowered concern for social evaluation and act in an unconstructed, anti-social manner.
What aspects of group behaviours (e.g. at riots) suggest it is not deindividuation, but more likely group norms?
Social identity, limits to violence and not all actions generalise.
Define normative influence.
Wanting to be liked and accepted.
Define informational influence.
Wanting to be right.
Describe the ‘genetic’ model of how minorities change the majority opinion.
Break the consensus, attract attention, set out alternative, show commitment and certainty, don’t compromise and make majority move position to avoid conflict.
Explain majority influence as a (______) process.
Comparison: submission to social pressure and temporary, public conformity.
Explain minority influence as a (______) process.
Validation: trying to understand the position, deeper cognitive processing and private conversion.
Describe the ingroup sensitivity effect.
Criticism of the group is more acceptable when it comes from an ingroup member assumed to have a constructive motive.
Briefly describe contingency theories of leadership.
The leader must match the situation.
What situations are task-oriented leaders more suited to?
High and low situational control.
What situations are relationship-oriented leaders more suited to?
Intermediate situational control.
Describe the social identity theory of leadership.
Leaders must be seen to promote group interests, be prototypical and be entrepreneurs of identity.
What is prototypical leader?
One which acts an embodiment of ‘us’ and is seen as fair, trustworthy, characteristic and creative with change (while maintaining trust).
Give 3 problems with the ‘agentic state’ explanation of Milgram’s study.
Obedient people are not always passive and indifferent to consequences, there was variation between the conditions and directs orders are actually ineffective.
Describe the 3-process theory of power.
Persuasion, control by authority and control by coercion.
Define power in the 3-process theory of power.
Getting people to carry out one’s will.
Give 2 limits of coercion to exercise power.
It requires surveillance and undermines legitimacy and influence, eventually reducing power.
Describe the authoritarian personality.
Some people have irrational prejudices and are susceptible to Fascist propaganda due to inner frustration because of authoritarian parenting.
Define Realistic Group Conflict Theory.
Material relations between social groups determine attitudes and prejudice comes from conflicts of interest.
According to the stereotype content model, in low competition situations people of high status are treated with (___) and considered (___).
Admiration & warm and competent.
According to the stereotype content model, in high competition situations people of high status are treated with (___) and considered (___).
Envy & cold and competent.
According to the stereotype content model, in low competition situations people of low status are treated with (___) and considered (___).
Paternalism & warm and incompetent.
According to the stereotype content model, in high competition situations people of low status are treated with (___) and considered (___).
Contempt & cold and incompetent.
How does exposure to benevolent sexism affect men?
They excuse domestic violence.
How does exposure to benevolent sexism affect women?
They are more deferent to men, they base self esteem on appearance rather than competence and they undermine their own competence with intrusive thoughts.
Briefly describe stereotype threat.
Performance can be undermined by the fear of confirming a negative stereotype.
In what groups is outgroup favouritism most prevalent?
Low status groups.
What is system justification theory (SJT)?
When unfair social systems are supported even by disadvantaged groups, due to media stereotypes that promote dominant group interests and motivation to avoid uncertainty and legitimate the status quo.
What is the main problem with system justification theory?
It treats justifying the system as a basic human motive, but people actually do reject systems.
Give the 3 main antecedents of collective action.
Sense of injustice, efficacy and identity.
What is relative deprivation?
The gap between what we have and what we think we are entitled to, understood through comparison.
What type of relative deprivation leads to collective action?
Group/fraternalistic.
What are the conditions required for the Contact Hypothesis?
Institutional support, equal status, cooperation/common goals and acquaintance potential.
What are the strongest effects of contact on prejudice?
Affective measures and majority groups.
What are the 2 key factors in contact that improve relations?
Reducing intergroup anxiety and empathy.
Describe extended indirect contact.
Seeing others interact or knowing someone who interacted with the outgroup.
Describe imagined indirect contact.
Mentally picturing interactions with the outgroup.
What is the de-categorisation model of group salience?
Seeing others as individuals makes interaction less awkward and anxiety provoking.
What is the mutual intergroup differentiation model of group salience?
Seeing each other as group members allows generalisation of attitudes.
How do you combine the 2 approach to group salience to make contact effective?
First, reduce GS to avoid anxiety, then increase GS go facilitate generalisation.
What is the prejudice reduction approach to social change?
Improving the attitudes of the historically advantaged group to reduce conflict.
What is the collective action approach to social change?
Action by the historically disadvantaged group to challenge the status quo.
What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?
Empathetic concern drives helping.
Give 2 ways empathy can be understood.
As a trait or as a skill.
The bystander effect: as no. of bystanders increased, people are less likely to….?
Notice the problem, interpret it as a problem and assume responsibility.
In what type of emergencies is bystander effect reversed?
Violent emergencies.
The number of people present (increases/reduces) helping when those people are friends )compared to strangers).
Increases.
In what 2 circumstances are people more likely to help the outgroup?
When the ingroup image is at stake and when the help is dependency oriented, so the outgroup is inferior.
Helping behaviour is more common in cultures (high/low) economic productivity.
Low.
Define aggression.
Behaviour that is intended to harm another person, with the knowledge that the target is motivated to avoid the action.
Define catharsis.
Releasing aggressive energy through some ‘harmless’ substitute for actual aggression.
How can catharsis train people to be aggressive?
Aggression is often rewarding to the perpetrator and so aggressive behaviour is reinforced.
How does media influence aggression?
Teaches that violence is rewarding, can cause hostile attribution bias and ‘mean world syndrome’ and causes desensitisation.
Give 2 ways people may be dehumanised to justify aggression towards them.
Treated as animals or as objects.
What are implicit attitudes?
Actions or judgements under the control of automatically activated evaluation, without performer’s awareness.
Give 2 advantages of studying implicit, over explicit, attitudes.
Avoidance of self-presentation concerns and reveal of attitudes people may be unaware of.
Give 4 criticisms of Implicit Association Tests.
Are they “true” attitudes, are they valid, are they just cultural/environmental associations, and some versions have high correlations with explicit attitudes.
Define group polarisation.
“The average postgroup response will tend to be mute extreme in the same direction as the average of pregroup responses.”
Give 3 brief explanations for group polarisation.
Persuasive arguments, social comparison and social identity.
