Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology
The study of how people influence others’ behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. The study of an individual -NOT a group.
Social behavior
Behavior that involves the interaction of 2+ people
Attributions (general) and 2 types
An explanation for the cause of an event or behavior.
- Dispositional attributions
- Situational attributions
Internal/dispositional attribution
Blaming the event/behavior on the person’s personality
External/situational attribution
Considering other factors that may explain someone’s behavior
Fundamental attribution error
Our immediate instinct is to explain others behavior as dispositional/internal
Conformity
Behavior that complies with socially accepted standards, the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence thoughts, feelings, behavior etc.
Soloman Asch study
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
Group characteristics that impact conformity
Group majority is unanimous, size of group, when group members are seen as competent, when responses are given publicly
Factors that affect conformity
- 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
Obedience
Compliance with the orders of another person or group
Milgram study
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.
Social facilitation
Improved performance of tasks in the presence of others. Occurs with simple or well-known tasks but not with non-mastered tasks
Social loafing
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
Deindividuation
The lessening of sense of personal identity and responsibility
Factors that contribute to deindividuation
- 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
Groupthink
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
Bystander effect
Witnesses’ unwillingness to help during an event. Safety is not in numbers
Diffusion of responsibility
When someone knows that others are present, they feel less accountable to act on a situation
Explain the Kitty Genovese story
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.
When are bystanders more likely to offer help
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)
Cognitive dissonance
Having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, attitudes (contradictory)
4 compliance techniques
Foot in the door, Door in the face, lowballing and norm of reciprocity
Foot in the door
Getting someone to agree to a large request by getting them to agree to a moderate one first.
Door in the face
The persuader makes a large request knowing the other person will turn it down, and hoping that they will accept a more moderate request
Lowballing
Offer a deceptively low bid/request etc.
Norm of reciprocity
We repay in kind what another has done for us
Findings of the Jane Elliott experiment
- 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
Maslow’s revisited hierarchy of needs
- Physiological needs
- Safety
- Belongingness/Love
- Self-esteem needs
- Cognitive needs (understanding)
- Aesthetic needs (beauty/order)
- Self-actualization
- Transcendence (spiritual needs)
6 basic universal emotions
Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise
What is a drive?
Something that motivates us or urges us to perform a certain action
Emotion
Our natural instinctive state of mind
3 major components of emotion
- cognitive: how we interpret emotions
- physiological: how our body reacts to an emotion
- behavioral: how we express our emotions
