Social Psychology

Question 1

What is social psychology

Answer 1

The study of how people influence others’ behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. The study of an individual -NOT a group.

Question 2

Social behavior

Answer 2

Behavior that involves the interaction of 2+ people

Question 3

Attributions (general) and 2 types

Answer 3

An explanation for the cause of an event or behavior.

1. Dispositional attributions
2. Situational attributions

Question 4

Internal/dispositional attribution

Answer 4

Blaming the event/behavior on the person’s personality

Question 5

External/situational attribution

Answer 5

Considering other factors that may explain someone’s behavior

Question 6

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 6

Our immediate instinct is to explain others behavior as dispositional/internal

Question 7

Conformity

Answer 7

Behavior that complies with socially accepted standards, the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence thoughts, feelings, behavior etc.

Question 8

Soloman Asch study

Answer 8

1 innocent subject and confederates participated in a line judgment experiment, the innocent subject tended to conform even though they knew the answer was obviously wrong

Question 9

Group characteristics that impact conformity

Answer 9

Group majority is unanimous, size of group, when group members are seen as competent, when responses are given publicly

Question 10

Factors that affect conformity

Answer 10

• Conformity increases if people feel group members are more competent than they are
• Pressure increases as group size increases
• Position within a group
• Public vs. private

Question 11

Obedience

Answer 11

Compliance with the orders of another person or group

Question 12

Milgram study

Answer 12

Subjects were told to deliver shocks to other “subjects” who answered wrong. The one’s answering questions were really confederates and no one was really being shocked. The study showed that 65% of subjects delivered a lethal shock.

Question 13

Social facilitation

Answer 13

Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others. Occurs with simple or well-known tasks but not with non-mastered tasks

Question 14

Social loafing

Answer 14

Tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts rather than being individually accountable. Less likely to occur when the task is rewarding, more likely to occur when individual performance if hard to identify

Question 15

Deindividuation

Answer 15

The lessening of sense of personal identity and responsibility

Question 16

Factors that contribute to deindividuation

Answer 16

• People who are stressed and dependent are targeted for cults
• Love bombing: a leader shows someone lots of attention and love to persuade them to follow their lead AKA join their cult

Question 17

Groupthink

Answer 17

When a decision-making a group feels it’s more important to maintain group unanimity than to consider all the facts. Can lead to catastrophic events, ex: the Titanic

Question 18

Bystander effect

Answer 18

Witnesses’ unwillingness to help during an event. Safety is not in numbers

Question 19

Diffusion of responsibility

Answer 19

When someone knows that others are present, they feel less accountable to act on a situation

Question 20

Explain the Kitty Genovese story

Answer 20

30+ of her neighbors heard her screams as she was being attacked in the middle of the night, no one called 911. They diffused their responsibility because they figured someone else would call, or didnt want to get involved.

Question 21

When are bystanders more likely to offer help

Answer 21

More likely: when alone, when they feel competent to help, when they know the victim, gender differences (females more likely to help, males more likely to help females, etc)

Question 22

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 22

Having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, attitudes (contradictory)

Question 23

4 compliance techniques

Answer 23

Foot in the door, Door in the face, lowballing and norm of reciprocity

Question 24

Foot in the door

Answer 24

Getting someone to agree to a large request by getting them to agree to a moderate one first.

Question 25

Door in the face

Answer 25

The persuader makes a large request knowing the other person will turn it down, and hoping that they will accept a more moderate request

Question 26

Lowballing

Answer 26

Offer a deceptively low bid/request etc.

Question 27

Norm of reciprocity

Answer 27

We repay in kind what another has done for us

Question 28

Findings of the Jane Elliott experiment

Answer 28

• on day 1, kids started bullying each other within 15 minutes
• some of the blue-eyed kids became vicious to the brown-eyed
• on day 2, the brown eyed kids didnt taunt their blue eyed classmates as viciously, but still did

Question 29

Maslow’s revisited hierarchy of needs

Answer 29

1. Physiological needs
2. Safety
3. Belongingness/Love
4. Self-esteem needs
5. Cognitive needs (understanding)
6. Aesthetic needs (beauty/order)
7. Self-actualization
8. Transcendence (spiritual needs)

Question 30

6 basic universal emotions

Answer 30

Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise

Question 31

What is a drive?

Answer 31

Something that motivates us or urges us to perform a certain action

Question 32

Emotion

Answer 32

Our natural instinctive state of mind

Question 33

3 major components of emotion

Answer 33

1. cognitive: how we interpret emotions
2. physiological: how our body reacts to an emotion
3. behavioral: how we express our emotions