Social & Cultural Bases Flashcards
What is social cognition?
The study of how people make sense of their social world (ourselves, others, & ourselves in relation to others)
What is a schema?
Organized pattern of thought and behavior that influence what we attend to, provide predictions/explanations of stimuli.
Define the following
Role schema
Person schema
Event schema
Self schema
role schema: expectations of someone in a particular role
person schema: attributes to characterize (specific?) people and make inferences about their behavior
event schema: cognitive scripts, set of behaviors that can feel like a routine, used to approach tasks
self schema: perceptions of our self-concept including our traits, competencies, values
Define the following
Heuristics
Availability heuristic
Representativeness heuristic
Base rate fallacy
Heuristics: efficient mental strategies (mental shortcuts) but can lead to errors.
Availability heuristic: the easier info is to recall, the bigger the impact on our subsequent thinking
Representativeness heuristic: tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on resemblance to the ‘typical case’ rather than base rates.
Base rate fallacy is the tendency to ignore statistical info in favor of case-specific info.
What is the fundamental attribution error (Heidel)?
we tend to overestimate dispositional factors (e.g., personality traits, motives, attitudes) and underestimate situational factors (e.g., social norms, external pressures, chance, acts of God)
What is correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis)?
We use people behavior to form explanations of their personal characteristics. Ex, if we see anger outbursts in someone we attribute them to a stable personality trait.
What is the covariation model of attribution (Kelley)?
we use consensus information (how other people act in the same situation with same stimulus), distinctiveness information (how sismilarly people act in different situations with different stimuli) and consistency information (how frequently people perceive the same stimulus and respond that way) to make attributions about a behavior
What is Weiner’s attributional theory of motivation and emotion?
Attributions about the cause of an event are based on three dimensions: stable (fixed personality trait) or unstable (changeable, motivation or effort level), internal or external locus of control, control over the cause or lack of control over the cause.
What is bias?
Systematic distortion of logical and correct procedures.
What is the actor-observer bias?
We attribute dispositional factors to other people’s behavior and situational factors to our own behavior. Ex, they got a poor grade because they are lazy, I got a poor grade because the study guide was wrong.
What is the self-serving bias?
We tend to attribute dispositional factors to our success, and situational factors to our failure. Ex, I got a good grade because I am smart, I got a bad grade because I was sick that day.
Also operates on a group level.
What is confirmation bias?
We search for and remember information that aligns with our previously held beliefs.
What is self-fulfilling prophecy?
When a prediction causes itself to become true.
What is the Barnum effect?
People think vague descriptors of their personality (like horoscopes) are very accurate when they in fact apply to many people.
Define social judgments, filtering, and inference.
Social judgments are how we perceive and form impressions of people and social situations. We tend to filter out a lot of the information we encounter, and we tend to make inferences (beyond the actual evidence) based on what we filter in.
What is impression formation and what were Asch’s findings on it?
Impression formation is the process forming a global impression of one another. Asch found that we form a global, integrated impression of people rather than impressions about their individual traits. Primacy effect and negativity bias are at play.
Describe the following tactics used in impression formation:
Self-promotion
Self-monitoring
Self-handicapping
self-promotion: point our your own positive attributes/accomplishments
self-monitoring: edit yourself in social situations
self-handicapping: creating obstacles for yourself if you anticipate failure so you can blame the obstacle. Can be verbal or behavioral.
Define affiliation and attraction
affiliation- desire to be with others and form social relationships
attraction- type of affiliation based on liking
Describe what each of these theories say about attraction
Gain-loss theory
Social exchange theory
Equity theory
Gain-loss theory: attraction is maximized if your impressions of someone are first negative then positive
Social exchange theory: you are attracted to someone if the rewards of the relationship outweigh the costs and these are reciprocal
Equity theory: perceptions of equity in a relationship are more important than rewards/costs of the relatioship
What does the social exchange theory say about altruism, and what does the empathy-altruism hypothesis say?
Social exchange theory says altruism exists when benefits > costs.
The empathy-altruism hypothesis says that watching someone suffer causes personal distress, and altruism is a way to reduce that distress.
What is the bystander effect and what are some potential mechanisms?
Bystander effect- people are less likely to help a victim when there are more people present. Potential mechanisms are diffusion of responsibility (someone else will help), social comparison (if others aren’t helping you copy them and also don’t help), evaluation apprehension (fear of being judged for helping)
What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis?
Aggression results from frustration (being blocked from achieving a goal), and may be directed at someone other than the obstacle. There was a lack of evidence, so modified to say that frustration creates a ‘readiness for aggression’, but aggression requires anger and external aggressive cues.
What does social learning theory say about aggression?
Aggression is learned from observing others. There is empirical support for this.
What did Zimbardo’s prison study show?
People assigned to role of aggressor (prison guard) became very aggressive and those assigned to victim role (prisoner) became submissive.
People will obey authority figures to do things that may go against their conscience.
Define prejudice vs
discrimiation vs stereotype
Prejudice: intolerant, unfair or negative attitude towards someone because of group membership
Discrimination: intolerant, unfair, and sometimes aggressive actions towards someone because of their group membership
Stereotype: schemas about an entire group that are oversimplified and rigid, it’s the cognitive component of prejudice.
