Social psych Flashcards
Social psych
The scientific investigation of how people think about, interact with, influence, and are influenced by the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of others
Social influence
The ways in which other people alter their behaviour or attitudes because of a direct or indirect influence of others
Social facilitation
A boost in performance due to the presence of others
Social inhibition
The presence of others leads to a worse performance
Yerkes and Dodson (1908)
Discovered that people generally perform best at a moderate level of arousal
Drops off when they are not sufficiently aroused and when they are over aroused
Optimal level depends on task
Simple/well learned: high
Difficult/new: low
Triplett, as cited in Myers 2007
Noticed that cyclists rode faster when they raced against each other rather than against a clock
Group
A collection of two or more people who interact with and influence one another and who share a common purpose
Group polarisation
Discussions within groups tends to strengthen opinions, when individuals are in groups with others who hold similar attitudes or beliefs.
Myers and Bishop (1970)
When students who are low in racial prejudice discuss racial issues they become more accepting, however the reverse is true for those who are highly prejudiced (they become more prejudice)
McCauley 2002
Terrorist mentality arises when people with shared grievance get together and talk in a group where there are no moderating influences
Obedience
Occurs when we follow the commands of someone with authority, or the rules of the law of our society
Compliance
Involves changing one’s behaviour in response to a request to do so, it does not necessarily involve an authority figure
Conformity
The tendency to adjust one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour in ways that are in agreement with those of a particular individual or group, or with accepted standards about how a person should behave in certain situations
Milgram (1963) AIM
Researched how far a person would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person
Factors affecting obedience
Social proximity
Legitimacy of authority figure
Group pressure
Asch (1955) AIM
To investigate the extent to which social pressure form a majority group could affect a person to conform.
Factors that affect conformity
1) Group size (increase up to 4)
2) Unanimity (Complete agreement, ally affect)
3) Informational influence (Need for direction/ feels incompetent/ thinks other people are more informed)
4) Normative influence (Guided by the social norms/ desire to be liked)
5) Culture (Collectivist cultures more likely to conform eg Asia and Africa)
Deindividuation
Loss of individuality and gain a sense of anonymity in a group setting
Social Learning theory
All our behaviours are learned and occur as a result of whether they are rewarded or punished
Status
The importance of an individual’s position in a group, as perceived by the members of that group
Power
An individual’s or group’s ability to control or influence the thoughts, feelings or behaviour of another person or group
Social hierarchy
Shows the order of dominance of different members of a group, with the most dominant individual (leader) at the top, and the least dominant at the bottom
Attribution theory
Explains how we infer the behaviour of others
Internal attribution (Dispositional) (Heider, 1958)
The process of assigning the cause of behaviour to some internal characteristic, rather than to outside forces.
External attribution (Situational) (Hieder, 1958)
The process of assigning the cause of behaviour to some situation or event outside a person’s control rather than to some internal characteristic
Fundamental attribution error (Heider, 1958)
The tendency for an observer, when interpreting and explaining the behaviour of another person, to underestimate the situation and to overestimate the personal disposition
Jones and Harris (1967)
Asked students to judge the true attitude of a person after reading limited info presented in either an essay or speech by him on a controversial topic
In one of their studies they read debates on ‘Castro’s Cuba is a legitimate member of the family of nation’.
Speeches either supported or opposed (assigned)
Findings: Still inferred debator held an attitude towards Castro that was close to what they had debated
Crick and Doge (1994)
Reactive aggression: An angry response to frustration or provocation
Proactive aggression: A deliberate attempt to get a desired goal
Findings: Children showing reactive aggression are likely to show attribution bias and interpret situations as hostile when no hostility is intended
De Michele and colleagues (1998)
Suggests that we distort facts and make situational attributions to maintain self-esteem = self seving bias
EG: Dispositional: “I bought the bag because I needed it”
Situational: “I bought the bag because the shop assistant pressured me into it”
Covariation (Kelley, 1967)
A person has info from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes
Consensus
The extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation.
Distinctiveness
The extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations
Consistency
The extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs
Cognitive dissonance theory
Festinger (1957)
Suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance)
Dissonance can be reduced in one of three ways
1) Forced compliance behaviour Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) 2) Decision Making Brehm (1956) 3) Effort Aronson and Mills (1959)
