Social Psych Flashcards
independent view of the self
defining oneself in terms of one’s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people
Interdependent view of the self
defining oneself in terms of one’s relationships to other people, recognizing that one’s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others
Causal Theory
theories about the cause of your own feelings and behaviors
Self perception theory
When our attitudes and feelings are uncertain, we try to figure them out by observing our behavior and the situation it happens in
What helps you have more self control?
thought suppression
don’t fight it, lean into it
we have limited amount of energy put into self control
Self esteem
- when self-esteem is threatened, we feel the highest level of discomfort
- people with high self-esteem have more dissonance when they do something wrong than people with low self esteem
- the way we try to maintain positive views of ourselves
self knowledge
the way we understand who we are and organize this information
self control
the way we make plans and execute decisions
impression management
the way we present ourselves to other people and get them to see us the way we want to be seen
upward social comparison
set a goal to aim for
downward social comparison
to feel better about yourself
who would experience the greatest amount of cognitive dissonance?
when confronted with a mismatch between beliefs, attitudes, or actions, leading to mental discomfort
Ex: smokers
justification of effort
- way of reducing dissonance
- increase liking for something they worked harder to attain
role of self esteem in cognitive dissonance
People with high self-esteem have more cognitive dissonance when they do something wrong compared to people who have low self-esteem
external justification
A reason or explanation for dissonant personal behavior that comes from outside the individual
internal justification
Reducing your uncomfortable conflicting feelings/thoughts by changing something about yourself
attitudes
evaluation of people, objects, and ideas
where do attitudes come from?
genetics
cognitive component of attitude
the thoughts that people have about their object
affective component of attitude
feeling or emotion that people have about the object
behavioral component of attitude
how people act towards the object
attitude accessibility
how strong the association is between an attitude object and your evaluation of that object
what 3 things help us predict planned behaviors
- their attitude toward the specific behavior
- subjective norms
- perceived behavioral control
Yale attitude change approach
- source of the communication
- communication itself
- nature of audience
central focused argument
when people are motivated and can pay attention to the facts of the argument
peripherally focused argument
when people do not pay attention to the argument but are instead swayed by surface characteristics
how is fear used in persuasive communication?
persuasive message that attempts to change people’s attitudes by arousing their fears, if fear is too strong it will not work either, as audience will have hard time focusing on how to change the behavior
how do attitudes effect cognition and behavior?
- mostly by targeting the populations affect or emotion
- highlight excitement, youth, energy, and sexual attraction
- when product isn’t closely associated with emotion, the advertising is most effective when fact-base
what is product placement and why is it effective?
- when companies pay content creators to place the product on the set of a movie, tv show, or music video
- it is effective because it gets viewers to go buy the product because they see their favorite characters use it
characteristics of attitude
- attitude has an object that is liked or disliked
- learned through social interaction/experience
- complex combination of things that we usually call personality, beliefs, values, behaviors, and motivations
attitude inoculation
- exposing yourself to arguments against your point or position
- be alert to product placement
conformity
change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people
informational social influence
when we conform to others because we believe they have accurate information
normative social influence
when we conform to others because we want them to accept and like us
3 components of social impact theory
- strength
- immediacy
- the number of people in the group
minority influence
case where a minority of group members influences the behavior or beliefs of the majority, key to this happening is consistency
Milgram’s obedience study
effect of authority on obedience, human tendency to obey commands from an authority figure
example of door in the face technique
asking my mom to borrow the car for 2 hours and her saying no and me asking her again to borrow it for only one hour because I really only need it for an hour
