Social & Cultural Psych Flashcards
Social Psychology
scientific study of effects of social + cognitive processes on way individuals perceive, influence + relate to others
Impression Formation: Attributions
SITUATION, DISPOSITION, BEHAVIOUR
•Tend to ignore situational factors when coming up with explanations
•Act that way because that’s the type of person they are
Attributions
causal explanations for why events or actions occur
Personal attributions
Explanations that refer to internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods + effort
Situational attributions
Explanations refer to external events - weather, luck, accidents/actions of other people
The Fundamental Attribution Error
tendency for ppl to overemphasize personal factors + underestimate situational factors in explaining the behaviour of others
•ignore external causes, focus on personality traits, moods, overemphasize internal factors
–Cultural differences: Collectivistic cultures much better at looking at context
Actor/observer discrepancy
When make attributions about themselves, tend to focus on situational variables rather than on their personal dispositions
–Particularly for negative events: positive = dispositional, negative = situational, for other ppl it’s the opposite
Attributions Across Cultures
- Indians more likely to use situational factors to explain behaviour
- Morris & Peng:
- American students found personality more important
- Chinese student found situational factors more important
Attributions Across Cultures
• Morris & Peng, 1994:
–Examined English + Chinese language newspaper reports of two similar, highly publicized murders
Attributions Across Cultures
• Morris & Peng, 1994:
–English newspaper reports focus on traits, attitudes + psychological problems
–Chinese newspaper reports focus on interpersonal relationships, problems with Chinese society + aspects of American society
Impression Formation: Stereotypes
Cognitive schemas allow for easy, fast processing of info about ppl based on membership in certain groups
•Not inherently good/bad
•Gather info about them without getting to know them first
•At least some of the time they allow us to make good assumptions
•If we are properly motivated then we go beyond labels to get to know them
AUTOMATIC, CATEGORY-BASED PERCEPTIONS
“Nerd”, “Trekkie”, “Geek”
CONTROLLED, ATTRIBUTE-BASED PERCEPTIONS
- Friendly
- Honest
- Gives to charity
- Tutors 5th grade students
- Drama major
Self-fulfilling prophecy
tendency to behave in ways that confirm own/others’ expectations
Labels stick, expectations define what we see
•Teachers expectations of students
•Told teachers these are gifted kids, but chosen at random, set up these expectations
•Gave more attention to kids lead to good grades
•Expectations affect interactions
•Bad expectations elicit bad interactions
Self-fulfilling prophecy
–Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places”
•Rosenhan took various adults
•Admitted them to psychiatric institution
•Behaved normally, ppl just interpreted normal behavour in pathological way
Stereotype threat
when ppl worried about confirming negative stereotypes
anxiety tends to lead to confirmation of stereotype
•Distraction from performing well, impairs WM– Tends to actually lead to decreased performance
–Physiological stress, distraction, effortful suppression of negative thoughts & emotions
Prejudice
negative judgments + attitudes toward a person based on their group membership
•Prejudice: negative feelings
Discrimination
Inappropriate + unjustified treatment of people based on group membership
Attitudes
Positive/negative evaluations of objects, events, or ideas
– Mere exposure effect: like more familiar
– Conditioning effects: learning to like something
– Social influence: do other ppl like/hate this
– Direct experience
Implicit attitudes
Tend to reflect automatic, less controllable aspects of evaluations
–Predict automatic, spontaneous behaviours, not really aware of attitude
•Talking to member of outgroup, negative – not even aware, predictive of behaviour, how much eye contact, how close, how much blinking
Explicit attitudes
Tend to reflect conscious, controllable aspects
–Predict controlled, deliberate behaviours
•These attitudes may not always agree
•What we’re saying
Implicit and Explicit Prejudice
“Shooter Task” (Correll et al, 2002)
–participants view various scenes + whenever they see a person, they must decide whether to shoot/not shoot
more likely to incorrectly shoot unarmed black + not shoot armed white man
•Degree of awareness of cultural stereotypes
Shooter Task (Correll et al, 2002)
–Performance predicted by levels of racial prejudice,but by awareness/knowledge of cultural stereotypes (regardless of personally endorsed/not)
Implicit and Explicit Prejudice
•Similar studies have shown that police officers are less likely to shoot unarmed people + equally likely to shoot black + white targets
Social Influence
impact we have on other people + that they have on us
Social facilitation
presence of other ppl increases arousal, which can lead to improved/impaired performance (complex tasks)
being in the presence of other ppl is enough to increase arousal automatically, also in other species
•Increase helps better if task is easy + well practiced, dominant response
•Impair if it’s complex, non dominant, something we haven’t practiced
Social loafing
tendency for people to work less hard in a group than when working alone
–Reduced if people know their individuals efforts can be monitored
•Why we hate group work
•As group size gets larger, less effort
•We know individual performance aren’t monitored
Social norms
Expected standards of conduct, which influence behaviour
Conformity
altering of opinions/behaviours to match those of others/social norms
Conformity
–Sherif’s studies using the autokinetic effect – tiny spec of light in dark room stationary – think it’s moving
•indivudually – responses widely varied
•with group – we conform other ppl’s opinion
–Asch’s line judgment studies: show standard + given 3 line to compare
•confederates pick a, 32% conform
•if one confederate that gives correct answer then conformity drops
•what matters is unanimity
Social Norms
• Obedience to authority
powerful social norm which refers to shared view that ppl should obey those with legitimate authority
exists in all societies so it runs smoothly
Milgrams’ studies of obedience
–Performed a series of experiments involving a “learner” (confederate), “teacher” (participant) + an experimenter (authority figure)
Milgrams’ Studies of Obedience
-overall prediction was that fewer than 1 tenth would obey completely + provide max level of shock
•T believes that hear L getting shocked
•Experimenter giving lines of encouragement
•Compliance goes down if authority goes down, experimenter not in room, T + L beside one another
Milgrams’ Studies of Obedience
- Authority must be legitimate – Obedience in original study was reduced if not
- Authority must accept responsibility
- Norm of obedience must be accessible
- Incompatible norms (to not harm others) must be suppressed
Helping Others: Bystander Apathy
Kitty Genovese
–Diffusion of responsibility: When other people are present, responsibility is divided + each person feels less responsible for helping
•less likely to help/seek help when there’s other ppl present, we assume it’s not up to us
•If ambiguous + no one is reacting, then we assume they don’t need help
Helping Others: Bystander Apathy
–other people can also promote helping: If one person rushes to offer help, they signal that help is needed + many others may jump in
•Ambiguous situations: look to other ppl to see their reactions, we don’t wanna be the person to make a fool of ourselves
To Seek or Not to Seek (Help)
Latane & Darley, 1968: The smoke-filled room
Alone: 75% reported the smoke
Three naïve participants: 38% reported the smoke
Two confederates who acknowledged smoke but then ignored it: 10% reported the smoke
Aggression: Biological factors
–low levels of serotonin
•Bio: testosterone, low levels of serotonin
Aggression: Individual factors
–frustration-aggression hypothesis
•Frustration leads to aggression
•Blocking from goal leads to frustration
Aggression: Social and cultural factors
–culture of honour: belief system M primed to protect reputations through physical aggression
Aggression: Culture of honour
–White Southern M more likely to endorse aggression in defense of property/in retaliation for insults
•Cohen et al (1996)
Aggression
- Walk down narrow hallway: person in the way calls him asshole
- Southern men got in their face before moving away
- More cortiol release from southern men when insulted + shook hands more vigourously
What is culture?
Broadly defined - any kind of info acquired by individuals through imitative/social learning
Is culture unique to humans?
•Unique to humans depends on definition
Humans are particularly skilled at social learning
Significance of Cultural Information
–Sophisticated communication skills
–Theory of mind: understand ppl have minds of their own
•Nim chimpsky: uses language to make requests
Significance of Cultural Information
- Cultural animals deliberately share + pass on + add to knowledge so that it can be preserved
- “High precision cultural learning: allows humans to accumulate + build on cultural information
Significance of Cultural Information
Social animals may figure out good ways of doing things + may copy something they see another doing
Cultural Psychology
study of how culture shapes psychological processes
–Cultural vs. social environments
Cultural Psychology
Psychological experiences similar + different across cultures
•All psychology is conducted in cultural context
•Culture harder to pinpoint + see its effect
•Hard to sse because they’re so embedded
•Don’t see impact until we leave that culture
Some examples of universalities
•Cultural universalities: common in vast array of cultures –Males more aggressive –Marriage –Preference for own kin –Children fear strangers –Facial expressions –Language; use of narrative –Wariness of snakes –Group living
CULTURE + MIND
- Culture + mind continually impacting each other
- Culture made up of collective minds
- Mind shaped by culture
Thinking Styles
•Categorization strategies
- Taxonomic – individualistic – dog + cat
* Thematic – collectivistic – dog + bone
Thinking styles
- Analytic – attributes independent of context (Western)
* Holistic – considers things in context, relationship with other objects (Eastern)
Cultural Differences in Perception & Categorization
- Nisbett & Miyamoto (2005)
- Individualistic: may be harder to do collectivistic task
- Collectivistic: collective interest, relationships
- European: rule based
- Asian: family resemblance
- As a whole/specific attribute
Analytic vs. Holistic Perception
- Absolute: draw same length – easier for individualistic
- Relative: proportioned – easier for collectivistic
- Absolute more analytic
- Relative more holistic
