Social Psych Flashcards
Social Psych
Not clinical, but research based to understand why people behave in certain ways in given social situations
*Concern is the social situation and not so much the person (how we think about, relate to, and influence others)
Attribution theory
created by Heider in 1958
2 routes to explain behavior according to attribution theory
1.) Think about traits
2.) Think about situation
Ex. On way to Mercyhurst and late to work, going speed limit but someone speeds past you and cuts you off… in your mind, you are thinking this person is an asshole, but what if they were swerving because they were trying to get their dying child to the hospital
- We tend to lean toward judging based on traits without understanding full story
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR: to explain other people’s behavior, we tend to lean on trait and do not value or consider the situation (cutoff on highway example)
Attitudes impact action and vice versa
Ex. you eat more at a restaurant you like
Ex. hair in food can be such an awful experience that you never eat at that restaurant again
Cognitive dissonance theory
Engage in behaviors that aren’t good for us but we still do it
- we make explanations for our behavior all the time lol
Ex. smoking: we engage in this behavior even when we know it is not the best for us and then justify it by saying things like “it feels good,” “only ten dollars a week,” “research doesn’t apply to me,” etc.
Dissonance
Is what you feel (uncomfortable feeling) when you know your behavior is “not best for you”
2 routes to getting rid of dissonance
1.) Change your thoughts about it
- “calms my nerves”
- “not as expensive as people think”
- “my family does it”
- “research isn’t that backed up”
This is more common since it is easier to change thoughts in a social setting rather than change behavior
2.) Change your behavior
- don’t smoke example
This is harder to do in social settings and just in general
*Something has to give in this scenario
Persuasion
Change an attitude
2 routes to persuasion
1.) Peripheral route
2.) Central route
Peripheral route to persuasion
*Outside stuff (ex. visual fluff that draws people in)
- celebrity
- music
- perfectly made burger
- pretty colors
*Quick, speedy, flashy aids/arguments
Works quicker for people who don’t want to think a lot about it but other people will prefer central and the logistics of the product itself; it just DEPENDS on who you are trying to persuade
Central route to persuasion
Convince because product is cheap; data suggests people benefit from it
- statistics and other data
*more rational and logical
Why do people conform?
- Social pressure (we don’t want to be excluded)
person driving the conformity is seen as powerful and knows what they are talking about
Norms
*Prescribed behavior (what society deems acceptable and expected)
- “rules”
- society deems acceptable, important, proper
*Differs depending on situation and social context
*Inherently connected to conformity since people tend to conform to norm
Conformity rules (2 routes)
1.) social
2.) informational
Solomon Asch
Early conformity studies
- had a group of people and a reference line… shows the group three lines of differing lengths labeled A, B, C (with B closest length to reference line)
- everyone else says A, but you know it is B but you ay A because majority of people are saying A and you are following everyone else (more likely that people will conform in groups because they don’t want to face rejection; people just want to fit in)
Confederate
Actor who is on/part of a study
What makes conformity more likely?
Key findings from Asch’s studies and those after:
- If a person is made to feel insecure or incompetent
- 3+ people, an individual will conform more
- admiration for the group (based on attractiveness, power, influence, etc.)
- on the fence/no prior commitment made (can go either way)
- if others are observing (rest of groups sees the answer so you feel more pressure to please them)
*Significantly decreases if you write down answer/don’t share answer directly - culture that promotes respect/adherence to the standard
Milgram “Shock box” experiment
Basis surrounds World Wars and how we can explain good people doing such bad things…
Participants were told it was a study about “memory”
Major players:
- researcher (in on it)
- learner (in on it)
- teacher (male participants at first)
Room is divided with shock box in the middle; teacher and learner can’t see each other but testing how far teacher will go to “shock” the learner to stay obedient to the researcher
Blind obedience to authority (despite going against conscious… and what is believed to be good)
If learner makes a mistake, he has to shock her at increasing voltage to see how far he will go (experiment says you have to go on even if you don’t want to)
**60-70% of participants went the whole way to last voltage
- People following orders, thinking it is not their responsibility
Goes back to change your action or change your thought… in this case, a lot of people changed their thoughts to the “researcher will take the fall if something happens” and everyone else got up and walked away
Conditions that increase obedience
- proximity matters (is researcher close?)
- person in charge must be seen as a legitimate authority figure (perception matters)
- Institution is perceived as more prestigious (ex. Yale)
- Victim is at a distance (not seeing person getting shocked example as opposed to being in the same room and harder to detach from victim)
- No deviance from others, such as role models
Social thinking and influence
Group behavior (especially in presence of others)
1898: Tripplett (fishing rod example)
Would the presence of others change someone’s performance?
*Social facilitation
*Social loafing phenomenon
*Deindividuation
*Group think
Social facilitation
reel in fishing rod faster when other people are around (broadly)
*Easy tasks: presence of others actually increases performance
*Complex tasks: presence of others actually reduces performance
Social loafing phenomenon
Not doing anything=loafing
In group settings, people loaf or slack because they believe someone else will do the work or that their work is not going to add much to the project so why bother
- tends to happen in bigger groups where you can hide
Deindividuation
“Individua” means individual
- We tend to lose ourselves in large groups (extreme situations) of people and do things we normally wouldn’t do if we were alone
*High levels of nervous system arousal
*Can we be anonymous (less likely to get caught)
Group think
Group with people who think like you, more like to pull those thoughts together and strengthen them
