SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Question 1

What is attribution?

Answer 1

How we make judgements about the causes of behavior

Question 2

What is the difference between situational and dispositional attribution?

Answer 2

Situational - behavior due to external factors

Dispositional - behavior due to internal factors

Question 3

Correspondence error

Answer 3

general tendency to underestimate situational factors & overestimate dispositional

Question 4

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 4

failure to consider situational factors & reliance on dispositional factors

Question 5

Actor-observer bias

Answer 5

emphasize disposition factors to explain behavior of others, emphasize situational factors to explain own behavior

Question 6

Self-serving bias

Answer 6

attribute our own successes to dispositional factors & failures to situational factors

Question 7

Group-serving bias

Answer 7

attributions made by a group or organization → group’s success to dispositional factors & failures to situational factors

Question 8

Just-world belief

Answer 8

assume that good things happen to good people & bad things happen to bad people

Question 9

What are attitudes? How are they formed?

Answer 9

Favorable or unfavorable evaluations that predispose behavior toward a person, object, or situation

Social inclusion, learning, conditioning, genetics (twin studies)

Question 10

What is cognitive dissonance, and how does it influence attitude change?

Answer 10

Uncomfortable cognitive state due to perception of contradictory info
Change attitude to reduce dissonance

Question 11

What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)? What is the difference between the central and peripheral routes to persuasion?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What is a fear appeal? How well do fear appeals work to change attitudes?

Answer 12

Using fear to persuade

Don’t work very well → defensive avoidance = too scary I’m not listening, doesn’t apply to me

Question 13

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?

Answer 13

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

Question 14

What is the difference between prejudice and stereotypes?

Answer 14

Prejudice - attitude or prejudgment about about others

Stereotypes - simplified sets of traits associated w/ group membership

Question 15

How does confirmation bias affect the stereotyping process?

Answer 15

We search for, interpret, favor, & recall info in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs & hypotheses

Question 16

How can the process of stereotyping be thought of as a natural extension of general cognitive tendencies?

Answer 16

Arises from out tendency to categorize & generalize

Stereotyped categories can contain accurate info, but become inaccurate by oversimplifying, exclusion of info

Question 17

What is in-group favoritism? How did Sherif’s classic Robbers Cave study demonstrate the forces of in-group favoritism?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and what does it test for?

Answer 18

Tests unconscious attitudes

Question 19

What is a stereotype threat? How does it affect performance?

Answer 19

Feeling of being at risk of conforming to stereotypes about your social groups

Question 20

What are social norms?

Answer 20

Rules for behavior in social settings
Explicit - no smoking indoors
Implicit - “bless you” when someone sneezes

Question 21

What is the difference between conformity, compliance and obedience?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

What is deindividuation? Dehumanization? How can these processes lead to the
mistreatment of others?

Answer 22

Deindividuation - immersion of individual within group, leading to anonymity

Dehumanization - depriving a person or group of positive human qualities

Question 23

What are some beneficial functions of conformity?

Answer 23

Useful in new & ambiguous situations
Reduces risk of social rejection

Question 24

What are some effective techniques for compliance? How do they work?

Answer 24

Foot-in-the-door - smaller request (yes), then larger request
Door-in-the-face - larger request (no), then more moderate request

Question 25

What did Milgram’s classic study tell us about when and why people comply with authority figures?

Answer 25

Teacher & learner shock experiment

Question 26

What is social facilitation? When does social facilitation predict enhanced performance? Poor performance?

Answer 26

The presence of others changes individual performance
Familiar or simple tasks = better performance
Unfamiliar or complex tasks = worse performance

Question 27

What is social loafing?

Answer 27

lower effort & motivation when working in a group vs. working alone

Question 28

What is group polarization, and how does it affect decision making?

Answer 28

During discussion, members tend to take more extreme positions in direction they were already inclined to hold

Question 29

What is groupthink, and how can it lead to inaccurate decisions?

Answer 29

Group does not question its decisions critically