Social Psych

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

“We cannot live for ourselves alone.”

Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Question 2

Social Thinking

Answer 2

Social thinking involves thinking about others, especially when they engage in doing things that are unexpected.

1.Does his absenteeism signify illness, laziness, or a stressful work atmosphere?
2.Was the horror of 9/11 the work of crazed evil people or ordinary people corrupted by life events?

Question 3

Attribution Theory (Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations)

Answer 3

Fritz Heider (1958) suggested that we have a tendency to give causal explanations for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition.

A teacher may wonder whether a child’s hostility reflects an aggressive personality (dispositional attribution) or is a reaction to stress or abuse (a situational attribution).

Dispositions are enduring personality traits. So, if Joe is a quiet, shy, and introverted child, he is likely to be like that in a number of situations.

Question 4

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 4

The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the
fundamental attribution error.

Question 5

Effects of Attribution

Answer 5

How we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it.

*EX - Negative behavior (Someone cutting you off) You think either: Maybe that person is ill, or crazy ass fucking driver the REACTION will either be tolerable or unfavorable

Question 6

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 6

The tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analyzing the behaviors of others leads to the
fundamental attribution error.

**EX: We see Joe as quiet, shy, and introverted most of the time, but with friends he is very talkative, loud, and extroverted.

Question 7

Attitudes

Answer 7

A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people, and events.

If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner.

Question 8

Attitudes Can Affect Action

Answer 8

Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors, including the external situation, also influence behavior.

Question 9

Attitudes guide behavior most when:

Answer 9

Outside pressure is minimal
The attitude is specific and relevant to the behavior
One is made aware of one’s attitude

Etc.

Question 10

But, Can Actions Affect Attitudes?

Answer 10

Not only do people stand for what they believe in (attitude), they start believing in what they stand for.

Cooperative actions can lead to mutual liking (beliefs).

Question 11

Small Request – Large Request

Answer 11

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
777

Question 12

Role Playing Affects Attitudes

Answer 12

Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes.

Question 13

Actions Can Affect Attitudes

Answer 13

Why do actions affect attitudes? One explanation is that when our attitudes and actions are opposed, we experience tension. This is called cognitive dissonance.

To relieve ourselves of this tension we bring our attitudes closer to our actions (Festinger, 1957).

eg. counter-attitudinal essay studies

Question 14

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 14

person holds conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their beliefs don’t align with their actions:

“maybe they have a point”

Question 15

Social Influence

Answer 15

Social psychology studies how attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and actions are molded by
social influence.

Question 16

Norms

Answer 16

conventions or unwritten rules
grease the social wheels

norm violation

Question 17

Conformity & Obedience

Answer 17

Behavior is contagious, modeled by one followed by another. We follow behavior of others to conform.

Other behaviors may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority.

Question 18

The Chameleon Effect

Answer 18

Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).

Question 19

Group Pressure & Conformity

Answer 19

Suggestibility is a subtle type of conformity, adjusting our behavior or thinking toward some group standard.

An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality.
Asch paradigm

Question 20

Conditions that Strengthen Conformity

Answer 20

One is made to feel incompetent or insecure.
The group has at least three people.
The group is unanimous.
One admires the group’s status and attractiveness.
One has no prior commitment or response.
The group observes one’s behavior.
One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard.

Question 21

Reasons for Conformity

Answer 21

Normative Social Influence: Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection. A person may respect normative behavior because there may be a severe price to pay if not respected.

Informative Social Influence: The group may provide valuable information.

Question 22

Obedience

Answer 22

People comply to social pressures. How would they respond to outright command?

Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience.

Question 23

Milgrims study

Answer 23

the more dangerous the task was, the less the people would do it.

Question 24

Individual Resistance

Answer 24

A third of the individuals in Milgram’s study resisted social coercion.
An unarmed individual single-handedly
challenged a line of tanks at Tiananmen Square.

Question 25

Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies

Answer 25

***Social influence is strong.
In both Asch’s and Milgram’s studies, participants were pressured to go along.
Even when participants were torn between hearing victims pleas and obeying experimenter’s orders most obeyed.
Don’t need to be a monster to do monstrous things.

Question 26

Deindividuation

Answer 26

The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.

**EX: Mob behavior

Question 27

Social Relations

Answer 27

Social psychology teaches us how we relate to one another through prejudice, aggression and conflict, to attraction, altruism and peacemaking.

Question 28

Prejudice

Answer 28

Simply called “prejudgment,” a prejudice is an unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is often directed towards different cultural, ethnic, or gender groups.

Beliefs (stereotypes)
Emotions (hostility, envy, fear)
Predisposition to act (to discriminate)

Question 29

Reign of Prejudice

Answer 29

Prejudice works at the conscious and [more at] the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is more like a knee-jerk response than a conscious decision.

Question 30

How Prejudiced are People?

Answer 30

Over the duration of time many prejudices against interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.

Question 31

Racial & Gender Prejudice

Answer 31

Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice, but prejudices still exist.

Question 32

Social Roots of Prejudice

Answer 32

Why does prejudice arise?

Social Inequalities
Social Divisions
Emotional Scapegoating

Question 33

Social Inequality

Answer 33

Prejudice develops when people have money, power, and prestige, and others do not. Social inequality increases prejudice.

Question 34

In and Out Groups

Answer 34

Ingroup: People with whom one shares a common identity. Outgroup: Those perceived as different from one’s ingroup. Ingroup Bias: The tendency to favor one’s own group.

Question 35

Emotional Roots of Prejudice

Answer 35

Prejudice provides an outlet for anger [emotion] by providing someone to blame. After 9/11 many people lashed out against innocent Arab-Americans.

Scapegoating

Question 36

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

Answer 36

One way we simplify our world is to categorize. We categorize people into groups by stereotyping them.

Question 37

Cognitive Roots of Prejudice

Answer 37

In vivid cases such as the 9/11 attacks, terrorists can feed stereotypes or prejudices (terrorism). Most terrorists are non-Muslims.

The tendency of people to believe the world is just, and therefore people must get what they deserve and deserve what they get (the just-world phenomenon).

Question 38

Psychology of Attraction

Answer 38

1. Proximity: Geographic nearness is a powerful predictor of friendship. Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases their attraction (mere exposure effect).
2. Physical Attractiveness: Once proximity affords contact, the next most important thing in attraction is physical appearance.
3. Similarity: Similar views among individuals causes the bond of attraction to strengthen.

Question 39

Altruism

Answer 39

An unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Question 40

Bystander Effect

Answer 40

Tendency of any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.

Question 41

Bystander Intervention

Answer 41

The decision-making process for bystander intervention.

Question 42

The Norms for Helping

Answer 42

Social Exchange Theory: Our social behavior is an exchange process. The aim is to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

Reciprocity Norm: The expectation that we should return help and not harm those who have helped us.

Social–Responsibility Norm: Largely learned, it is a norm that tells us to help others when they need us even though they may not repay us.