Social Psych Flashcards
Social Psychology
“We cannot live for ourselves alone.”
Social psychology scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
Social Thinking
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?
Attribution Theory (Attributing Behavior to Persons or to Situations)
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.
Fundamental Attribution Error
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.
Effects of Attribution
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
Fundamental Attribution Error
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.
Attitudes
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.
Attitudes Can Affect Action
Our attitudes predict our behaviors imperfectly because other factors, including the external situation, also influence behavior.
Attitudes guide behavior most when:
Outside pressure is minimal
The attitude is specific and relevant to the behavior
One is made aware of one’s attitude
Etc.
But, Can Actions Affect Attitudes?
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).
Small Request – Large Request
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
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Role Playing Affects Attitudes
Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes.
Actions Can Affect Attitudes
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
Cognitive Dissonance
person holds conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes, or when their beliefs don’t align with their actions:
“maybe they have a point”
Social Influence
Social psychology studies how attitudes, beliefs, decisions, and actions are molded by
social influence.
Norms
conventions or unwritten rules
grease the social wheels
norm violation
Conformity & Obedience
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.
The Chameleon Effect
Conformity: Adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999).
Group Pressure & Conformity
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
Conditions that Strengthen Conformity
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.
Reasons for Conformity
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.
Obedience
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.
Milgrims study
the more dangerous the task was, the less the people would do it.
Individual Resistance
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.
Lessons from the Conformity and Obedience Studies
***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.
Deindividuation
The loss of self-awareness and self-restraint in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
**EX: Mob behavior
Social Relations
Social psychology teaches us how we relate to one another through prejudice, aggression and conflict, to attraction, altruism and peacemaking.
Prejudice
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)
Reign of Prejudice
Prejudice works at the conscious and [more at] the unconscious level. Therefore, prejudice is more like a knee-jerk response than a conscious decision.
How Prejudiced are People?
Over the duration of time many prejudices against interracial marriage, gender, homosexuality, and minorities have decreased.
Racial & Gender Prejudice
Americans today express much less racial and gender prejudice, but prejudices still exist.
Social Roots of Prejudice
Why does prejudice arise?
Social Inequalities
Social Divisions
Emotional Scapegoating
Social Inequality
Prejudice develops when people have money, power, and prestige, and others do not. Social inequality increases prejudice.
In and Out Groups
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.
Emotional Roots of Prejudice
Prejudice provides an outlet for anger [emotion] by providing someone to blame. After 9/11 many people lashed out against innocent Arab-Americans.
Scapegoating
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
One way we simplify our world is to categorize. We categorize people into groups by stereotyping them.
Cognitive Roots of Prejudice
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).
Psychology of Attraction
- Proximity: Geographic nearness is a powerful predictor of friendship. Repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases their attraction (mere exposure effect).
- Physical Attractiveness: Once proximity affords contact, the next most important thing in attraction is physical appearance.
- Similarity: Similar views among individuals causes the bond of attraction to strengthen.
Altruism
An unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
Bystander Effect
Tendency of any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.
Bystander Intervention
The decision-making process for bystander intervention.
The Norms for Helping
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.
