Social Behaviour 1

Question 1

social psychology

Answer 1

the study of how living among others influences thought, behaviour and feelings

Question 2

social cognition

Answer 2

how we think about our social world

Question 3

attributions

Answer 3

explanations for behaviour
-shape how we feel about others
two types: internal/dispositional
external/situational

Question 4

internal/dispositional attributions

Answer 4

attributing behaviour to something within a person (personality, motives, attitudes)
ex: chris flunked a test because he’s lazy

Question 5

external/situational attributions

Answer 5

attributing behaviour to the person’s environment of the situation
ex: chris flunked a test cuz his dog died

Question 6

self-serving bias

Answer 6

making external/situational attributions for our failures

internal/dispositional attributions for our successes

Question 7

fundamental attribution error

Answer 7

explaining other peoples behaviour using dispositional attributions

• bias in judgment
  ex: notice the actors, not the stage

Question 8

asian cultures

Answer 8

• less likely to make the fundamental attribution error

- explain things using situational attributions, picture the bigger pictures

Question 9

blaming the victim

Answer 9

attributional bias
-blames the victim rather than the bad people/situation
ex: blaming rape victims
likely with people who have just world beliefs

Question 10

Just world beliefs

Answer 10

world is fair with good people being rewarded and bad people being punished
likely to blame victims
ex: people with just world beliefs are likely to blame people with AIDS that its their fault

Question 11

STUDY FROM U OF C

participants more likely to attribute a man’s misfortune

Answer 11

participants more likely to attribute a man’s misfortune (ie- serious injuries from being hit by a car) to his past behaviour when he was perceived to deserve it (he was a shitty person by having an affair) than when he was not perceived to deserve the outcome (not a bad person cuz he wasn’t cheating) even though the two events (the affair and the accident) were unrelated
people are more likely to blame an individual’s misfortune on his/her behaviour when they perceive the individual as a bad/person who deserves it

Question 12

schema

Answer 12

models about the social world
-function like lenses, filters perception
used to form first impressions, especially when we encounter ambiguous information

Question 13

some schemas are more accessible that others

Answer 13

ex: invited to a dinner, one of the guests has slurred speech and walks shakily across the room
assume she is drunk
later learn that she has Parkinsons’: neurological condition that affects motor condition
assumed that woman was drunk because the schema of drunkenness was much more accessible than that of Parkinson’s disease

Question 14

Stereotypes

Answer 14

schemas of how people are likely to behave based on groups to which they belong
allow for quick (often inaccurate) decisions
often linked to something factual but not representative of entire group
ex: Jocks are dumb, women are bad drivers, muslims are terrorists

Question 15

Stereotyped thinking shown by fMRI

Answer 15

activated prefrontal cortex: area involved in inhibiting inappropriate response
when you rely on stereotypes, you aren’t thinking correctly

Question 16

Obama stereotypes

Answer 16

Obama faced stereotypes regarding his mixed race, education, and name that has Muslim roots
People who didn’t know him were more likely to believe rumours that be was Muslim
implication he was muslim activated terrorist stereotype
stereotyped him as an elitist because he went to Harvard Law
tried to stereotype him that well-educated people are out of touch with average people, even though he had grown up in a low-income household and worked with poor people in the past

Question 17

Attitudes

Answer 17

a person’s favourable or unfavourable feelings, beliefs, or actions toward an object, idea or person
have affective, cognitive, and behavioural components
eX: sen’s fan

Question 18

Affective attitude component

Answer 18

feelings or emotions associated with the belief
ex: enthusiam for the sens
attitude about the death penalty

Question 19

cognitive attitude component

Answer 19

Cognitive attitude component
rational thoughts and beliefs that make up the attitude
ex:knowledge about the sens players
the best way to slice a mango

Question 20

behavioural attitude component

Answer 20

Behavioural attitude component
the motive to act in a particular way toward the person or object of attitude
ex: going to all of the sens games

Question 21

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 21

discomfort caused by information that challenges a person’s conception as a rational person
Leon Festinger
people may goto extreme lengths to reduce it, reduce discomfort and maintain self-esteem
when people smoke (behaviour) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition). thinking smoking causes cancer will cause dissonance to someone who smokes

Question 22

Three options for decreasing the discomfort created by dissonance:

Answer 22

Change the behaviour to make it consistent with dissonant cognition
Justify the behaviour by changing one of the cognitions to make it more consistent with our behaviour
Add new cognitions that are consistent with the behaviour and that support it

Question 23

Festinger’s Experiment
convinced undergrad students to tell a lie to a fellow student
participants were given two repetitive, monotonous tasks while experimenter timed them and took notes
for 30 minutes, participants placed spools onto a tray and for another 30 min they moved wooden pegs a quarter turn clockwise, over and over again
provided an unpleasant experience, basis of the lie participants were asked to tell
hour was up, experimenter asked the participant to tell the next student that the experiment was really fun, next student was a confederate: not an actual participant, worked for the experiment
For telling the lie, participants were given either $1 or $20
participants in control were not asked to lie and given no compensation

Answer 23

wanted to measure whether the compensation for lying altered participants’ actual ratings of the experiment itself

participants who were in the unpaid/control group rated the task as being unenjoyable, since it was designed to be extremely boring
participants given $20 for telling the lie also rated the task very low
those given $1 for telling the lie rated the task enjoyment as higher
this irrational behaviour (rating a boring task as fun) was due to cognitive dissonance since the $1 was not enough compensation for the lie and therefore attitude was altered to fit with behaviour
being paid only $1 is not enough incentive for lying so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. they could only overcome the dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks were really interesting and enjoyable. being paid $20 provides a reason for turning the pegs, and there is therefore no dissonance

Question 24

Smoking example and Cognitive dissonance

Answer 24

Smoking can cause lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease
People still continue to smoke
Cognitively, smokers must manage the conflict between their notion of themselves as rational beings and the fact that they engage in a risky habit
to reduce unpleasant and dissonant thoughts and behaviours, people who smoke will either:
change behaviour
justify smoking by changing cognitions associated with it
change cognitions to justify smoking

Question 25

Making use of tendency towards dissonance around high-risk behaviour is a way of treating them

Answer 25

Simmons created a web program where smokers watched a video about the dangers of smoking or a control vid about nutrition
asked to make a video about themselves about them “promoting a healthy lifestyle” which would be shown to peers, supposed to mention their smoking
created dissonance
if given the anti-smoking video,experienced the most dissonance
PEOPLE WILL CHANGE ATTITUDES OR BEHAVIOURS TO REDUCE DISSONANCE
smokers who experienced the most dissonance (given the smoking video) had a higher motivation to quit smoking

Question 26

Persuasion

Answer 26

the act of attempting to change the opinions, beliefs, or choices of others by explanation or argument
trying to change someone’s beliefs

Question 27

How credible/believable is the persuader?

more inclined to believe people who…

Answer 27

we are more inclined to believe people we perceive as experts

we are more inclined to believe those who are trustworthy

we are more likely to be persuaded by people who are physically attractive to us
why advertisers spend millions of dollars to hire famous hot people to endorse their products

Question 28

what should the persuasive message focus on?

Answer 28

messages containing both sides of an issue are more persuasive, especially when the audience hasn’t committed to either side

messages that attempt to persuade by bringing up fear can be effective, only if they actually create fear in the audience
most ads meant to scare us don’t actually do
citing statistics doesn’t instills fear in people and is not effective at getting people to change their behaviour
people rarely believe that they will be the ones to suffer the negative consequences implied by ads
ads on cigarette packages showing graphic images reduced smoking

Question 29

Who is the targeted audience of the message?

the more people know about a topic and the stronger their opinions are

Answer 29

the more people know about a topic and the stronger their opinions are, the less likely they are to change their attitudes
ex: Political campaigners use this
candidates focus on their efforts on swing districts that either have not consistently voted one way in the past or have a mix of party preferences

Question 30

two routes to change an attitude

Answer 30

Central route to persuasion

Peripheral route to persuasion

Question 31

Central route to persuasion

Answer 31

attitude change results from a person paying attention to the content of a message
analyzing the merits of the message or arguments
engaging in effortful thinking (high elaboration) to make a decision
attitude changes are more persistent, predictive of behaviour, and resistant to attacks than those from the peripheral route (low elaborative route)
more likely to follow central route when the message is personally relevant for them

Question 32

Peripheral route to persuasion

Answer 32

attitude change results from people processing superficial message cues only
low elaborative route (focusing on the attractiveness of message, focusing on things that have nothing to do with the message itself)
changing your opinion based on the surface level, appearance of a message, not actually looking into it

Question 33

People also differ in their need for cognition

Answer 33

some take great pleasure in analyzing issues

others prefer not to use much mental effort