Social Psych Flashcards
Attenuation
Stimuli not attended to are processed too weakly to be brought to conscious awareness
Attentional bias
Because not all information can be attended to, our mind chooses which stimuli is most important
What was the first comprehensive theory of attention?
Broadbent’s Filter Theory of Attention. The filter selects the incoming messages that will be further processed based on the physical properties of the message
Dichotic listening
A task in which a person simultaneously hears two different auditory stimuli,with one stimulus presented to each ear
What experiment determined that “misery loves miserable company?”
Schachter’s anxiety experiment
Factors that foster group cohesion
Presence of an outside threat; distinction between in-group and out-group; social in physical environment that is conducive to people frequently meeting and interacting with each other, similarity of members and interests or values; democratic leader who values good group feelings and group members’ input in decision-making
Groupthink
Tendency of a cohesive group to seek unanimity and suspend critical evaluation in making decsions
Role consensus
The degree to which the group agrees on the role of each member
Group polarization
The tendency of people in groups to hold extreme views and a group-produced enhancement of member’s preexisting tendencies or a strengthening of the average inclination of group members.
Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension, and weakened restraints against forms of prohibited behaviors
Social trap
The conflict that occurs when a behavior has a positive short-term consequences but negative long-term consequences
Group contagion
Transmission of emotion through a crowd or group
What are the three classifications for group tasks?
Combined contributions (additive or compensatory); comparing tasks based on best and worst members (disjunctive and conjunctive); and task classification (intellective, criterion, judgmental, and maximizing)
What is an additive task?
The inputs of each of the group members are added together to create the group performance, and the expected performance of the group is the sum of the group members’ individual input
What is a compensatory task?
The group input is combined, so that the performance of the individuals is averaged rather than added.
Disjunctive task
When the group’s performance is determined by the best group member
Conjunctive task
When the groups’ performance is determined by the ability of the poorest performing group member
Intellective task
Involves the ability of the group to make a decision or a judgment
Criterion task
The group can see that there is a clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed.
Judgmental task
There is no clearly correct answer to the problem that is posed
Maximizing task
Involves performance that is measured by how rapidly the group works, or how much of a product they are able to make
Two defining task types
Divisible (work can be divided among individuals) and unitary (work cannot be divided)
Aggregate
People who are unaware of one another and do not interact with one another
Social inhibition
The tendency for people to do worse on complex tasks when observed by others
Diffusion of responsibility
The tendency for people to assume that someone else will respond to a situation and take effect
Schachter’s Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
Emotional reactions are based upon cognitive interpretations of arousal
Self-Verification Theory
We prefer to be right rather than happy
Consistency Paradox
The idea that variability in behavior from one situation to another is far greater than had been recognized by many early theorists
Cooperative Learning
The jigsaw technique. Children of defferent races brought together in cooperative groups. Each assigned a different portion of the lesson to learn and teach others. Promotes group learning and race relations.
Low vs. High achieving in cooperative learning situations
Low-achieving students derive maximum benefit; high-achieving students resist technique, complaining that the methods are not sufficiently challenging.
Muzafer Sheri
Founder of modern social psychology. Developed multiple techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms and social conflict. Autokinetic Effect experiment, and Robber’s Cave. Realistic Conflict Theory (conflict over limited resources).
Berkowitz and crowding
Posited that adverse conditions (such as heat) can amplify the effects of crowding
Gender and crowding
Women cope better in crowding situations that are set in the lab, while men do better in studies in naturalistic settings. High density situations typically produce negative moods in men, whereas women have more negative moods in low-density situations.
Proxemics
The study of measurable distances between people as they interact
Gender differences in leadership
Men tend to be more task-oriented and women tend to be more relationship-oriented.
Qualities of effective leaders:
Outgoing, energetic, conscientious, agreeable, emotionally stable, self-confident, and intelligent.
Minority influence
Has to do with a portion of the group disagreeing with the majority of the group. If first conforms to group and builds up idiosyncrasy credits, minority can influence group when consistent, persistent, and self-confident.
Normative influence
Going along with the crowd to avoid rejection, to say in people’s good graces, or to gain their approval; commonly leads to compliance, as one is concerned with social image
Informational Influence
Leads people to acceptance by the need to be correct; when a person is unsure of the accuracy of information, he may look to another person as a source of information
Social Comparison Theory
Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself to others
Social-Exchange Theory
The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs
False Consensus Bias
The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors
Brainstorming
People working individually are more likely to generate good ideas that when working in a group. Brainstorming is effective when the group is highly motivated and diverse, and when the groups are primed with categories of possible ideas.
Instrumental aggression
Aggressive behavior that is a means to some end
Hostile aggression
Takes place without any incentive; aggression for the sake of aggression
Reactive aggression
Emotionally driven (reaction to a perceived threat)
Proactive aggression
Involves initiating aggressive behavior with some goal in mind and no perceived threat
Relational aggression
Harms of threatens to harm relationships and more likley to be used by girls
Physical aggression
Physical attempt to hurt someone
Passive aggression
An indirect way of expressing anger while denying any purposeful wrongdoing
Dollard’s Frustration-Aggression Theory
Frustration creates a motive to aggress
Plutchik and Kellerman’s Circumplex Model
Variables that measure interpersonal relations are arranged around a circle in a two-dimensional space
Aggression and emotional reactivity
People who are emotionally reactive are more likely to show an escalation of aggressiveness when they are exposed to aggressive stimuli
Excitation-Transfer Theory
Anger is physiologically similar to all other emotions and, therefore, can be enhanced by any type of emotional arousal
Misattribution Theory
Arousal can be misattributed as anger and thereby lead to increased aggression
Kinesics
The interpretation of non-verbal messages through movement or expressions of the face or parts of the body.
Birdwhistell
Studied messages communicated through body language, argued that all movements are purposeful and can be read, claimed only 30-35% of communication is verbal.
Paralanguage
The use of accent, cadence, pitch, and tone to convey meaning
Kinesis
Undirected movement of a cell, organism, or body part in response to an external stimulus.
Theme interference
Process that occurs when a therapist loses his objectivity and takes on the subjective world of the client and in some cases projecting their own subjective world into the client’s situation.
Two techniques to overcome theme interference
Unlinking (Consultant provides insight by untangling the therapist’s past and their current interactions with the client) or Theme interference reduction (consultant assists the consulted in brainstorming additional outcomes for the client, broadening the consultee’s perspective)
Secondary prevention
Support directed toward specific groups of people who are at risk for illness or hardship
Tertiary prevention
Support directed toward individuals who have exhibited illness or hardship
Theory of mind
The awareness that one’s mind is different that other people’s minds
Cycle of Violence
Honeymoon phase, tension building phase, acting out phase, and reconciliation phase
Types of domestic violence
Common couples violence (aggression is used occasionally, usually due to poor coping strategies and communication skills); Partriarchal terrorism (a persistent pattern of abuse used by a male to control a female); and Instrumental abuse (involves a brutal act with little provocation)
Disengagement Theory
The concept that older adults cope better by socially withdrawing over time.
Activity Theory
The concept that older adults cope better by being social and active
Impact of divorce on children
Only 25% have long-term consequences (usually those who openly witnessed violence). Younger children tend to have more immediate problems; older children then to have more persistent problems (deviance and relationship impairment)
Sternberg’s Theory of Love
Love relationships invovle a combination of three components: passion, intimacy, and commitment
Ellen Berscheid
Studied attraction (found that even among children attraction was important in friendship; attractive people are treated well and view themselves as good); and emotions in relationship (peopled experience high degree of emotion, both good and bad, when their is an interruption to the norm behavior).
Berscheid’s 2-factor theory of love
Mutual attraction and reciprocal reinforcement are the two elements in love
Social Norm Theory
Argues that helping is mandated by the social group’s norms or behavioral expectations
Reciprocity Norm
We help those who have helped us
Socia-Responsiblity Norm
We help needy people so long as they are deserving
Extended family altruism postulate
Large extended family does not specifically foster altruism
Sibling altruism postulate
Having older siblings has not been found to correlate with altruism
Four main factors that promote attraction
Proximity, physical attractiveness, similarity, and the reciprocity phenomenon
Gain-Loss Theory
A gain has more impact on liking that a set of events that are all positive
Matching Phenomenon
Tendency for men and women to choose partners that are similar to them in attractiveness and other traits
Factors that influence personal space
Culture, familiarity, social status, gender, and age.
Reciprocity principle
A person is more likely to help another individual if they have previously been helped by them in the past
Social Exchange Theory
When an individual contemplates entering a new relationship, they weigh the benefits of a relationship against the costs or a relationship.
Confluence model of sexual aggression
Men who sexually coerce women had a history of combining impersonal sex with hostile masculinity
Teen pregnancy
45% decrease between 1991 and 2005. Distribution of condoms does not increase sexual activity.
According to social learning theory, what types of adults have behavior that is modeled?
Respected, powerful, attractive
Pro-social behaviors learned by children
Altruism, assertiveness, conscientiousness, and responsibility
Overjustification hypothesis
If an individual believes that their behavior is motivated by extrinsic rewards, rather than intrinsic motivation, their interest in a task will decrease
Deci’s experiment
Used a puzzle and payment of a dollar to study the effects of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic rewards
Approach-Avoidance conflict
Occurs when an individual experiences both positive and negative effects from reaching a particular goal
Equity Theory
A condition in which the outcomes people perceive they receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it
Studies that proved confirmation bias
Snyder and Swann (students designed questions to determine if person was an introvert or an extrovert) and Rosenhan (people pretended to be schizophrenic in hospital setting)
Functional fixedness bias
The tendency to see objects only as serving conventional problems-solving function and thus failing to see that they can serve novel functions.
Scripts
Mental representations of expected sequences of events
Schema
Mental templates by which we organize our worlds
Death anxiety
The fear of death or ceasing to exist. In existential theory, the fear of death motivates most human behavior
What are the phases of Rape Trauma Syndrome?
Acute phase (expressed, controlled, and shocked disbelief); Outward Adjustment Phase (makes attempts to continue living life, tries to find answers to why, and dramatization: person needs to speak about it often); and Resolution Phase (person acknowledges the rape and its effects, but does not feel consumed by experience)
Emic/Indigenous
Looks at behaviors and cognitions from within the culture.
Etic
Looks at variables affecting a cultural group based on universal constructs.
Four categories of acculturation
Integration (maintain minority culture but also incorporate parts of dominant culture); Assimilation (reject own culture and accept dominant culture); Separation (reject dominant culture and accept only minority culture); and Marginilization (identify with neither majority or minority culture).
Nomothetic
An understanding based on the observation of groups and the discovery of laws and principles
Ideographic
An understanding of the behavior of a particular individual
Cultural Identity Development Model
Conformity (preference for dominant culture); Dissonance (confusion and conflict over contradictory values of own culture and dominant culture); Resistance and Immersion (endorsing minority views and rejecting dominant views); Introspection (realize level of intensity causes low energy for devotion to own group); Integrative awareness (cultural security and appreciation of dominant culture)
Three forms of racism
Institutional, individual, and internalized
Ethnicity
Social factors such as religion and language
Race
Physical traits such as skin and eye colr
Typical sequence of help-seeking by Chinese
Intrafamilial coping, consultation with elders, seeking outside help like acupuncturists or herbalists, seek a physician or religious figure, last resort is Western hospitals
Abortion stats
Unarried white women under age 25 have greatest percentage of abortions. Women between the ages of 20-24 obtained highest number of abortions. Fewest abortions in women less than 14 and over 40. Abortion rates in US have been consistent from 1998-2004.
Rosenstock’s Original health Belief Model
Four constructs predictive of health behaviors: perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, and perceived benefits.
Study of the predictive value of the Health Beliefs Model
Barriers most reliable predictor followed by: susceptibility, benefits, and severity.
Theory of Reasoned Action
Developed by Tirandis of the University of Illinois: the utility of a behavior is a function of beliefs about the behavior and the evaluation of the same.
Longevity of mental illness in rural vs. urban settings
Longer in urban settings for affective disorders, no difference for anxiety disorders
SES and mental illness
Dx of psychotic disorders is inversely related to SES; non-psychotic disorders is directly related to SES
Point prevalence
The estimated proportion of actual, active cases of the disorder in a given population at any instant in time.
Incidence
The number of new cases that occur over a given period of time.
Lifetime prevalence
An estimate of how many people have suffered from a particular disorder at any time in their lives.
Lewin’s Field Theory
To understand an individual’s behavior, one must comprehend the totality of his or her environment (biological and psychological) within the present context. Fields are the physical and psychological life spaces a person occupies.
Obesity definition
Overweight = BMI of 25-29; Obese = BMI of 30 or more
Prevalence of obesity
In US, steadily increasing in last 20 years; from 2005 on, number two preventable disease second only to tobacco use. Most common nutritional problem in the elderly.
Externality Hypothesis
Obese individuals are more responsive to external stimuli than they are to internal stimuli
Set Point Theory
Each person has a genetically predetermined set point weight that is controlled by metabolic hormones and fat cell enzymes. Scientific support is waning.
Prevalence of homosexuality
5-6% of men and 2-3% of women.
Cass’ Homosexuality model
Identity confusion (questioning previously assumed heterosexual identity); Identity Comparison (tentative commitment to homosexuality); Identity Tolerance (tolerates rather than accepts gay identity); Identity Acceptance (accepts rather than tolerates); Identity Pride (commitment to gay community grows, group identity); and Identity Synthesis (Individual integrates gay identity with all other aspects of self, homosexuality is just one aspect)
Most common dx that leads to inpatient admission?
Schizophrenia
Keys to improving job satisfaction
Increased intrinsic aspects of work; increasing the number of opportunities for independence, responsibility, and for advancement and promotion; working conditions and professional interpersonal relationship are kept positive.
ERG Theory
Existence, relatedness, and growth. A person can “regress” to a lower level called the frustration-regression principle. Better supported thru research than Maslow’s hierarchy.
Primary prevention
Directed toward the general population
Self-Perception
The way we make inferences about other people’s behavior either by attributing it to attitudes or to environmental factors, is the same way that we make sense of our own behavior
Self-assesment motivation
A person desires truthful information about themselves
Forer Effect
AKA Barnum effect or the personal validation fallacy; when presented with descriptions that have supposedly been tailored to an individual, that individual rates the statements as being highly accurate, even when description is general enough to apply to a number of people.
Motivational bias
Success attributed to personal factors due to motivation to enhance self-esteem
Self-Improvement Motive
In trying to improve, individuals typically look to successful other for inspiration
Self-Enhancement Motive
The tendency to maintain positive feelings about the self
Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory
In times of uncertainty, we look to those in our environment to evaluate our feelings, opinions, and behavior.
Schachter and Singer Experiment
2 groups given epinephrine. One group told of side-effects; other group was not. Those not told acted like confederate, regardless of how he acted.
Social Identity Theory
The info about who a person feels themselves to be, in comparison to others, who are similar or dissimilar. Includes many aspects of the self: nationality, ethnicity, gender, education, religion
Contrast Effect
An object appears to be better or worse than it is, depending on the quality of the objects with which it is compared
Atkinson
Studied human motivation and behavior, and in particular, achievement motivation
Atkinson’s measures of motivation
Tendency (likelihood that a particular behavior will be utilized); Value (worth a person puts on the goal to be achieved); Motive (reasons for achieving the goal); Incentive (perceived reward to be obtained by achieving the goal); Expectancy (self-perception of what one is capable of).
Kahneman and Tversky’s Experiment
Examined base-rate fallacy. Engineers vs. Lawyers.
Illusory correlation
Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists
Discounting principle
Reducing causal factors when others are present
Approach-Approach conflicts
The client must choose between two desirable alternatives
Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts
Client must choose between two unpleasant alternatives that both lead to negative results
Difference between fundamental attribution error and the correspondence bias
Fundamental Attribution Error is the tendency to make dispositional rather than situational inferences for behavior. Correspondence bias is the tendency to draw dispositional inferences from behavior.
Defensive Attribution
A type of self-serving bias in which motivations for assessment of causal attributions are aimed at reducing anxiety and feelings of being in danger
Primacy effect vs. recency effect
Primacy is stronger than recency, especially after a time lapse.
Central Route to Persuasion
Occurs when the attitude of the audience, or individual, is changed as a result of thoughtful consideration of the message.
Peripheral Route to Persuasion
Occurs when positive or negative cues are associated with the object of the message
Feature Integration Theory
A theory of visual attention that describes how people recognize objects and perceive scenes
Distributed attention
All parts of a scene are processed in parallel. Automatic, quick and easy
Focused attention
Each part of the scene is processed serially and individually. Takes longer and requires effort.
Counterfactual thinking
The tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not.
Retroflection
A type of boundary crossing in Gestalt Therapy. Occurs when the client is directing impulses toward the self that rightly should be directed to another (as in anger causing psychosomatic or depressive symptoms)
