Social Behaviour

Question 1

What do attributions mean?

Answer 1

Judgements about causes of our own and other people’s behaviour and outcomes which affect our subsequent behaviour and emotions

Question 2

What is the attribution theory?

Answer 2

Concerned with how individuals perceive the information they receive, interpret events, and how these form casual judgements - no indivdiual would take an action or decision without attributing it to a cause or factor

Question 3

What does Kelly’s theory consist of?

Answer 3

• Situational attribution has all three attributional factors high
• Personal attribution has consistency high while consensus and distinctiveness are low

Question 4

What are the three attributional factors in Kelly’s theory?

Answer 4

Consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus

Question 5

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 5

The central role in how we understand the actions of others and how we justify our own

Question 6

What is important about first impressions (primacy effect)?

Answer 6

It attaches more importance to initial information and tends to be the most alert to information received first - the initial information may shape how we perceive subsequent information

Question 7

How is mental set defined?

Answer 7

Perceiving the world in a particular way

Question 8

How are schemas defined?

Answer 8

Describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them

Question 9

How are stereotypes defined?

Answer 9

Generalized belief about a group or category - a powerful type of schema

Question 10

What are self-fulfilling prophecies?

Answer 10

An expectation or belief that can influence your behaviors, thus causing the belief to come true

Question 11

What is social facilitation?

Answer 11

Social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance - people do better on tasks when they are with other people rather than when they are doing the task alone

Question 12

What is conformity?

Answer 12

Being compliant with social norms, standards, and laws. Essential for norms to influence people

Question 13

What is the door-in-the-face-technique?

Answer 13

When the persuader makes a large request with the expectation of refusal. Knowing this, the persuader makes a smaller request (what they actually want) and it will more likely persuade because it seems like the “better deal”

Question 14

What is the foot-in-the-door-technique?

Answer 14

When the persuader obtains compliance with a small request and then later presents a larger request.

Question 15

What is lowballing?

Answer 15

The persuader gets person to commit to some action and before the action is performed, the persuader increases the “cost” of the action

Question 16

What is deindividuation?

Answer 16

A phenomenon in which people engage in seemingly impulsive, deviant, and sometimes violent acts in situations in which they believe they cannot be personally identified - riots, acts of genocide, etc.

Question 17

What is the Bystander Effect?

Answer 17

A person in need is less likely to receive help as the number of people who are present increases

Question 18

What is diffusion on responsibility?

Answer 18

As the number of people present increases, the relative level of accountability of each person decreases

Question 19

When people fail to act becasue they rely on social cues from others to guide their behaviour, without realizing that the referent others also face uncertainty - the failure to act can be the result of reliance on faulty social cues is defined as:

Answer 19

Plauralistic Ignorance

Question 20

What are the factors that affect helping?

Answer 20

• Environment (urban vs rural)
• Sense of common fate
• Perceive help is needed
• Risk to self
• Personal factors

Question 21

What is the escalation of commitment?

Answer 21

The longer one remains in a group, despite experiencing increasingly negative outcomes, the more difficult it is to leave the group

Question 22

What are the three components of attitudes?

Answer 22

1) Cognitive: thoughts and logic
2) Affective: emotional components/feelings
3) Behavioural: actions that reflect support for one’s attitudes

Question 23

What cognitive dissonance?

Answer 23

When attitudes and behaviours are inconsistent, a state of unease is felt, which the individuals is motivated to reduce - change attitude/behaviour OR distort attitude/behaviour

Question 24

What is a stereotype threat?

Answer 24

When a person or group experiences significant fear of confirming negative expectations about one’s own social group, which ultimately adversely affects performance

Question 25

What does prejudice mean?

Answer 25

Prejudice is learned, negative attitudes or opinions that a person has towards certain groups

Question 26

When someone has a stimulating hypothalamus, this means:

Answer 26

This person will have aggressive behaviours

Question 27

What defines reinforcement when learning to aggress?

Answer 27

Aggression increases when the behaviour produced a positive outcome for the aggressive individual

Question 28

What defines modeling when learning to aggress?

Answer 28

When there is a positive correlation between aggressive children and parents who model aggressive behaviour

Question 29

What is the principle of Catharsis?

Answer 29

• Aggressive behaviour discharges aggressive energy
• Behaviour temporarily reduces impulses to aggress
• Channel aggressive impulses into socially

Question 30

What is overcontrolled hostility?

Answer 30

When there is little immediate reaction and after provocations accumulate, feelings can suddenly erupt into violence

Question 31

What are the two evolutionary approaches to helping others?

Answer 31

1) Kin Selection: most liekly helping others with which we share the most genes
2) Reciprocal Altruism: helping others increases the liklihood that they will help us in the future

Question 32

What are the two social learning and culutral influences to helping others?

Answer 32

1) Norm of Reciprocity: should help when others help us
2) Norm of Social Responsibility: should help others and contribute to society’s welfare