SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Flashcards
What is attribution?
How we make judgements about the causes of behavior
What is the difference between situational and dispositional attribution?
Situational - behavior due to external factors
Dispositional - behavior due to internal factors
Correspondence error
general tendency to underestimate situational factors & overestimate dispositional
Fundamental attribution error
failure to consider situational factors & reliance on dispositional factors
Actor-observer bias
emphasize disposition factors to explain behavior of others, emphasize situational factors to explain own behavior
Self-serving bias
attribute our own successes to dispositional factors & failures to situational factors
Group-serving bias
attributions made by a group or organization → group’s success to dispositional factors & failures to situational factors
Just-world belief
assume that good things happen to good people & bad things happen to bad people
What are attitudes? How are they formed?
Favorable or unfavorable evaluations that predispose behavior toward a person, object, or situation
Social inclusion, learning, conditioning, genetics (twin studies)
What is cognitive dissonance, and how does it influence attitude change?
Uncomfortable cognitive state due to perception of contradictory info
Change attitude to reduce dissonance
What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)? What is the difference between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion?
Explanation for response to persuasive messages
Central route - consider arguments thoughtfully & carefully ; quality of arguments
Peripheral route - evaluation shortcuts ; # of arguments, how message presented, characteristics of speaker
What is a fear appeal? How well do fear appeals work to change attitudes?
Using fear to persuade
Don’t work very well → defensive avoidance = too scary I’m not listening, doesn’t apply to me
Nyhan et al. (2014): What was the independent variable? Dependent variable? What do the results tell us about the concepts of belief perseverance and the backfire effect?
Studied parents w various attitudes about safety of MMR vaccine, but focused on ‘anti-vaxxer’ parents
IV - type of info intervention - disease risk (list of symptoms of for the disease they are vaccinating for), autism correction (author of study made the data up & no replication), narrative danger (mom whose kid had very fatal disease tells story), disease images
DV - rating of how likely parent would vaccinate a future child for MMR
Results - nothing worked, did not change likelihood for vaccination at all
Belief perseverance - the tendency to cling to one’s initial belief even after receiving new info that contradicts or disconfirms basis of that belief
What is the difference between prejudice and stereotypes?
Prejudice - attitude or prejudgment about about others
Stereotypes - simplified sets of traits associated w/ group membership
How does confirmation bias affect the stereotyping process?
We search for, interpret, favor, & recall info in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs & hypotheses
How can the process of stereotyping be thought of as a natural extension of general cognitive tendencies?
Arises from out tendency to categorize & generalize
Stereotyped categories can contain accurate info, but become inaccurate by oversimplifying, exclusion of info
What is in-group favoritism? How did Sherif’s classic Robbers Cave study demonstrate the forces of in-group favoritism?
We tend to favor people in our own group
Robbers cave experiment - Assigned boys to 2 groups at summer camp - rattlers & eagles
Groups separated at first - group bonding
Competitive events between groups
Integration, social activities → Fights broke out, could not get along
Required cooperation (superordinate goal) → Water crisis → Brought boys together
What is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and what does it test for?
Tests unconscious attitudes
What is a stereotype threat? How does it affect performance?
Feeling of being at risk of conforming to stereotypes about your social groups
What are social norms?
Rules for behavior in social settings
Explicit - no smoking indoors
Implicit - “bless you” when someone sneezes
What is the difference between conformity, compliance and obedience?
Conformity - matching behavior & appearance to perceived social norms
Compliance - agreement to requests from others w/ no perceived authority
Obedience - compliance to requests from authority figures
What is deindividuation? Dehumanization? How can these processes lead to the
mistreatment of others?
Deindividuation - immersion of individual within group, leading to anonymity
Dehumanization - depriving a person or group of positive human qualities
What are some beneficial functions of conformity?
Useful in new & ambiguous situations
Reduces risk of social rejection
What are some effective techniques for compliance? How do they work?
Foot-in-the-door - smaller request (yes), then larger request
Door-in-the-face - larger request (no), then more moderate request
