Social Psychology Flashcards
Why is it difficult to define the self?
Multiple definitions in psychology
What does the definition of the self include/require?
Dickerson - ‘The self is any aspect of who or what the individual is considered to be’
Self = Includes what we possess, social self & what we are in a given situation & perception of self which is consistent
Requires ‘I’ (actor) & Me (object) - The I must be able to think about ‘me’
Each time you think about ‘me’, you are drawing attention to the self
What is the significance of the self?
Distinguishes us from other animals - Ability for reflexive thought & to think about ourselves
We can rethink/redefine ourselves
Self/selves can be viewed as outcomes or consequences of social interactions of antecedents (cues that trigger behaviour)
What is the twenty statements test for?
Tests the question of ‘who am i ?’ in relation to the self
How does the twenty statements test work?
Asked to write 20 ‘I am …’ statements in a certain time
Two types of statements were given = Consensual (I am a student) & sub-consensual ( I am happy)
TST = LED TO IDEA OF SELF-CONCEPT
What is meant by self-concept?
Knowledge, idea or set of ideas, attitudes & beliefs about who i am
- Individual or personal self-descriptions (e.g. traits)
- Collective/social descriptions
- Relational self-descriptions
What are criticisms of self-concept?
Brewer & Gardner (1996) - No evidence of relational self - only collective & individual self
Self may differ across cultures & gender groups
What is meant by self-schemata?
Information about the self is organised and stored cognitively & is derived from past experiences
How does the self schemata work?
People have clear conceptions of themselves on some level but not others
Have large number of discrete self-schemata
Higgins - 3 types of self schemata (actual self, ideal self and ought self)
Think more about things that are consistent in the self-schema
Information stored cognitively as separate contextual nodes
What is self-coherence?
Majority of us maintain an integrated or coherent picture of who we are
How is self-coherence achieved?
Restricting our lives to a limited set of contexts in order to have consistency & reinforcing how we view ourselves. Any change that occurs is due to circumstances (not us)
When addressing ‘How do i know who i am?’ what are the sources of self-knowledge that helps?
Introspection, Self-perception, Feedback from others, social comparisons, self-categorisation theory
What is introspection as a tool of self knowledge? Limitations?
Examining our own thoughts, feelings, motives & reasons for behaving in a particular way
L:
- Poor awareness of influence of situation (workmen study) - Poor explanation of past behaviours - Poor awareness of learning (carpenter et al - Professor study)
What is self-perception? (self-knowledge technique)
Makes inferences about myself from behaviour/imagined behaviour
(picturing a certain behaviour makes it more likely to occur)
How are social comparisons a form of self-knowledge?
When comparing to people inferior or superior to us it can have an impact on self-esteem
What is self-categorisation theory as a form of self-knowledge?
Knowledge of the self is derived from group membership, which produces a sense of social identity
Why do we seek self-knowledge?
- Self-assessment motive - Seeking accurate/valid information to find out what can of person we really are
- Self-verification motive - Making information that verifies or confirms our prior beliefs
- Self-enhancement motives - Seeking/wanting favourable information about self
How do we evaluate ourselves positivley?
Global self-esteem = Our overall sense of self-worth
Positive self-esteem = Important for psychological well-being & more likely to develop positive relationships
Positive self-esteem can act as a self-protective function
How does maintaining self-esteem/protective illusion mechanism be beneficial?
- Self-serving attributions (positive outcomes due to ourselves but negative results down to external factors
- Above-average effect - Less people are unable to recognise their incompetence at specific tasks
Unrealistic optimism - Perceive ourselves to have more positive outcomes than we expect
False consensus (if i fail, others will too)
What are possible threats to self-worth?
Failures, inconsistencies, stressors
as they arouse negative emotions & can contribute to physical illness & can impact immune system
How can you cope with threats to self-worth?
Escape physically, denial, downplay threat via re-evaluation, attack threat via self-handicapping
Self-handicapping - Behaviours designed to sabotage our performance in order to provide a subsequent excuse for failure
Why does the self matter?
Positive self-esteem = Important for psychological well-being
Self schemata influences the way I process self-relevant information & mood
Concepts of self can help guide/regulate behaviour (LOC etc.)
What is Higgins’ Regulatory focus theory?
Perceived discrepancies between actual & ideal selves = Create different emotions/behaviours
(dejection-related emotions when discrepancy between actual & ideal)
(agitation-related emotions when discrepancy between actual & ought)
What are the two self-regulatory systems in the Regulatory focus theory?
- Promotion = Motivated to attain our ideals, aware of the absence of positive events so adopt a strategy to maintain own goals
- Prevention = Motivated to fulfil out duties and obligations = Generates sensitivity to presence or absence of negative events - adopt avoidance strategy
People are either promotion or prevention focused
How do others know who we ‘are’?
Present ourselves through what we do & say Authentic self presentation Impression management (try to shape how others perceive us)
What are some self-presentation strategies?
Self-promotion, ingratiation (motivated to get along with others), exemplification (to regard self as morally respectable), supplication (attempts to get others to take pity), intimidation
What is social cognition?
How we perceive our social world, recall events, use social information to make judgements, how we respond to reality as we really perceive it
What is the difference between controlled and automatic thinking?
Controlled thinking - Putting thinking effort into our judgements/decisions
Automatic thinking - Our judgements & decisions are automatic. involving low-level thinking/awareness (often using biases)
How does automatic thinking work using the schemata?
We have different schemata for specific people/groups of people
Schemata = Cognitive structures & represent our knowledge about a concept/response to a stimulus
Allows us to make a quick judgement of someboday
Can be direct or indirect schemas
What are the functions of schemata?
Help organise the world, guide perception, allow us to make sense of people & events. Allows us to interpret new or ambiguous information
How do schemas work?
- Affect what we notice (filters out inconsistent information)
- Encoding of information & memories we construct
- Recall
What determines which schemata are applied?
Accessibility to schema (ease of recall/frequency that its used)
Priming = Activation of certain associations
Schemas persist as they are resistant to change
How can the representations in the schemata come true?
Acting on schemata leads to behaviours of other to be consistent with it through influence
(IQ study - some students told they would academically bloom & they did more so than others)
What are the biases in automatic thinking?
Overconfidence in judgements, false consensus (overestimate that our behaviour is the same as others), illusion of control & illusory correlation (when we make inferences about the co-occurrence of two things)
What are some evaluative points of social cognition?
It’s not really social = Takes no account of language, interaction or communication
Assume unflattering image of people as cognitive misers
The same cognitive biases have been seen in driving errors
What’s the difference between compliance & conformity?
Compliance - When we publicly comply with someone’s behaviour/beliefs but are privately not convinced
Conformity - When the norm is internalised and used as standard behaviour as we believe they are correct & reliable
Can be good as without = social chaos
View of conformity is influenced by culture - In Japan, conformity is seen as socially strong
What are norms? How do they work?
Norms - Shared beliefs among a group about what is the appropriate way to behave
Norms are often resistant to change
Sherif & Sherif - How are norms formed and how do they influence behaviour?
Used via autokinetic effect
Spot of light in dark room = There are individual differences in perceived movement = When in a group = Estimates converged on group mean even when removed from group = Internalised norm
What is ISI & NSI?
Informational influence - We use other people to check if our information is correct as we have an underlying need to be right = Increases in ambiguous situations & results in internalised beliefs
Asch - Line judgement task - Pressure by confederates, difficulty of task, group size (only to 3-5 majority) and unanimity (someone always saying the right answer reduced conformity, even if posing as blind)
Why did they comply? - To avoid ridicule, embarrassment & standing out
Normative influence - When we comply in a way to gain social approval and avoid costs because we have an underlying need to be liked
In studies of conformity, who is most likely to conform?
Age - Younger the PPT = Higher conformity
Gender - Females conform more than males but extent of conformity depends on the task - Especially on a task stereotypically of the opposite gender
Culture - Collectivist cultures conform more
Time - Levels of conformity may have dropped over time as findings have not been replicated
How does resistance to conformity work?
Believe in the right circumstances we react blindly to conformity
Not the case = Were trying to make sense of the situation
No consequences of getting it right or wrong
Those who resisted = More concerned about it being correct
What is minority social influence? Moscovici et al.
Moscovici et al (1969) - Minority influence depends on the behavioural style of the minority
Consistency, persistent & confident in their views
Also interested if it was the same for majority influence
Moscovici - slide task -
When confederates consistent: Some followed the minority
Participants in both experimental conditions change the way they looked between blue-green (latent effect) = Impact greater on participants who resisted the minority
Minority influence works through a conversion process
Majority influence is thoughtless
Minority influence is thoughtful - indirect, latent and private change in opinion due to cognitive conflict
Minority dissent stimulates novel, creative thinking & activates information processing
What did Milgram investigate?
Obedience to authority
What was Milgram’s procedure?
Individuals = Recruited for a study on the ‘effect of punishment on learning’
Real PPT = Teacher & Confederate = Learner
Teacher & Learner in different rooms = Hear through wall
Teacher administered electric shock for every wrong word association & increased by 15v
4 standardised ‘prods’ of teacher asked to stop - ‘Please continue’, ‘you have no other choice’, ‘you have to go on’
Majority of PPT (63%) continued to maximum voltage of 450v
What were the importance of situational factors in Milgram’s study?
Victim’s distance = Closer proximity to victim, less obedience
Closeness & legitimacy of authority = When experimenter was absent, less obedience
Peer pressure = Obedience depended on what 2 other confederates did
Applicable to real-life scenarios: Hofling et al. - Nurses obeyed Doctors order to give lethal dose of a certain drug, despite knowing the consequences
What are some explanations for obedience?
Agentic shift - Attribute responsibility to authority
Blame the victim
Gradual slippage - PPT administered just a little more voltage each time
Situations - Where we give people little time to reflect on the possible consequences of their actions
To what extent do Milgram’s study show how we could all commit evil
Based on the idea of Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil thesis = Nazi leader knew what he was doing was wrong but because he was following orders he was devolved of responsibility
Gibson shows it is possible to disobey orders - Some PPT refused to continue with the study, even after the 4 prompts had been used
What is the definition of a group?
‘Two or more people who interact and influence one another & perceive one another as ‘us’
How are we affected by the presence of others?
Found that children work quicker when working in the presence of another child (social-facilitation)
What support is there for group influence?
Increased speed doing simple multiplication problems
Accuracy of motor tasks
Production of word associations - Allport,1920
Bayer, 1929 - Present in animals too - When other chickens present, the chicken eats more grains
What are the opposing arguments to group influence?
People are slower at learning nonsense syllables (Pessin,1933)
Doing complex multiplication
Completing a maze
What are the three possible explanations of social facilitation?
Drive theory of facilitation, Evaluation apprehension, Distraction-conflict theory
What is the drive theory of social facilitation?
Others presence causes arousal which strengthens the dominant response enhancing easy behaviour but impairing difficult behaviour
What evidence is there for the drive theory of social facilitation?
Hunt & Hillery (1973) - Time taken for students to learn simple or complex mazes - More error in learning complex mazes
Michaels et al. - Pool players - Experts played better in audience whereas novices played better alone
Zajonc- Get aroused in the presence of others as mere presence of individuals creates arousal due to instinct
What is the evaluation apprehension theory of social facilitation?
Performance boosted only when there was an attentive audience - thought that we’re going to be evaluated
What is distraction-conflict theory?
Presence of people causes a conflict in out attention (may have more impact when people interact with one another)
Some believe it doesn’t have much impact
Are we more or less productive working in a group?
Group membership - Entails shared goals, interdependence, mutual influence & face to face interaction
Ringelman - Force exerted per person in tug of war was less when in a group (coordination loss)
Social loafing = motivation loss in a group context as there is a diffusion of social responsibility
Why does social loafing occur?
Output equity (expect other to want to be equal)
Anonymity/deindividuation effects
No evaluation apprehension
Can we reduce social loafing?
Make output or effort of each individual identifiable
Increase individuals commitment to task
Increase the value of the importance of the task
How to we make decisions as a group (group polarisation)?
Group polarisation - Tendency for the group to make decisions that are more extreme than the mean of individual members initial positions
Why does group polarisation occur?
- Persuasive arguments/influence (like-minded individuals produce supportive but new arguments)
- Social comparison (want social approval)
How does ‘groupthink’ contribute to making decisions as a group?
Common process leading to irrational decision making in government, financial & military contexts
Often override rational decision making as stronger desire to reach unanimous decision (explanation for bad military decisions)
What are symptoms of groupthink?
Highly cohesive group, isolated from other viewpoints, directed leader
Illusion of invulnerability, belief that the group is right
Collective rationalisation and close-minded group
Pressure towards uniformity (pressure to conform and self-censorship)
How do we prevent groupthink?
Be impartial, encourage critical evaluation, use breakout subgroups, welcome outside critiques , have a second-chance meeting before deciding
Do groups generate more ideas than individuals?
Brainstorming in groups has an inferior performance, evaluation apprehension, social loafing, production matching, production blocking (interference effects due to presence of others)
Illusion of group effectivity that we think it’s productive but its not
What is altruism?
Altruism - A type of prosocial behaviour that is intended to help others (positive social consequences) & is motivated by the desire to benefit someone else (with no benefit to the self)
Why are people altruistic?
Social exchange/potential reward (benefit the self, relieve guilt)
Social norms/responsibility
Evolutionary explanation (to ensure the survival of the species)
Genuine Altruism
Does genuine altruism exist?
Helping others benefits the self psychologically (selfless altruism doesn’t exist)
Batson = Two routes explain true altruism
- Empathetic response to someone’s distress
- Distress can cause people to avoid situation to reduce their own distress
What was Batson et al. 1981 experiment testing his theory of empathy?
48 F Psych students - Watched video of woman receiving shocks in performance trials
Also given a placebo capsule
Two conditions:
Easy escape - Could swap with the victim or leave after the second trial (after strong reaction by the victim - mentioning she had a bad experience as a child with shocks)
Difficult escape - The same but were given the choice of watching more trials or swapping with the victim
Those who felt empathy helped by swapping with woman (both conditions)
Those who felt distressed helped only to relieve their own distress (When they could not escape)
What are some critics of Batson’s research?
Empathetic PPT experience a negative mood & help in order to relieve their mood
BUT - when told their mood had been fixed by mood fixing drug, empathetic people still helped
When do people help?
Cognitive model of helping behaviour
- Whether people help depends on the outcome of a series of decisions = More difficult the decisions, the more people there
What is Latane & Darley (1968) decision tree explaining why people help?
(In context of smoke experiment)
First do they notice the incident, do they see it as an emergency, do they then assume responsibility & the consequently help
What leads to bystander apathy?
Diffusion of responsibility, audience inhibition (self-conscious due to other bystanders), social influence (others provide a model for our actions), ambiguity, communication (more likely to intervene with friends than strangers)
What are some situational factors that influence whether someone helps or not?
Seeing someone else help, time pressures, perceived social similarity & danger (bystander effects don’t occur in dangerous situations)
How can we increase helping behaviour?
Reduce ambiguity
Increase individual sense of responsibility
Personalise requests
Provide more realistic altruistic models
Exposure to prosocial music increases helping behaviour
Why is it important to study relationships?
Important as we need to affiliate with others, they fulfil needs, beneficial to happiness & mental health
Social exclusion can result in less effective cognitive functioning
What are the factors that predict initial attraction to a stranger?
Proximity, Physical attractiveness, Perceived similarity, Feeling Liked
How does proximity impact initial attractiveness?
Closer we are in physical space & the more often we cross each others path = The more we like someone
It impacts on making acquaintances/friendships
Festinger et al. - Students are more likely to make friendships/acquaintances when they live on the same floor or building
Segal - Police recruits named their closest friends as those who were living on the same floor/building
Modern technology has eased issue of proximity to an extent
Why does proximity have an effect?
Mere exposure - Frequency of exposure increased attraction rate (familiarity reduces feelings of uncertainty and unsafety)
Availability - People who live nearby are accessible and reward of social interaction comes at little cost
Anticipation of interaction leads to liking
How does physical attractiveness help initial attraction?
Walster - Physical attractiveness more important than personality and intelligence (more attractive, the more they liked the date)
We believe attractive people are more psychologically balanced & happier
We believe that attractive people are more psychologically balanced, happier etc. - ‘Physical attractiveness stereotype)
Evidence that ‘prettier’ children are punished less and attractive adults are employed more
Jurors are more lenient to those who are attractive
Dion et al - Attractive people are more successful & nicer than non-attractive
Landy & Sigall (1974) - Effect of perceived attractiveness on grades given to essays of varying quality
Male students given essay, told to review ability of writer & given picture of the writer
When the person who wrote it was deemed more attractive, the better they said the essay was
What is criticism of physical attractiveness?
Many attractive stereotypes are invalid but attractive people tend to be more socially skilled
People are not accurate at estimating how attractive they are in others eyes
Smile can replace attractiveness but not in context of punishment
What does the role of physical attractiveness depend on?
Perceived match, higher self-esteem (go for people more attractive than them) but low self-esteem (equal or lower)
How does perceived similarity impact initial attractiveness?
Similarity in attitudes caused attraction in a campus study
‘Law of effect’ - combined likely & desire to work with a stranger is determined by a proportion of similarity
Over 21 years, married couples become more similar on mental ability and attitudes
How does feeling liked contribute to initial attractiveness?
Reciprocal liking was a major determinant of interpersonal attraction
We especially like people who seem to grow to like us
What are the limitations of interpersonal attraction research?
Assumes: Between 2 people, based on feelings, match on chemistry/attributes, people are passive & relationships just happen
How is Duck’s approach different?
People are active, use skills & strategies to make relationships happen
Relationships are a process & many things develop a relationship
Understanding the features of a relationship requires non-experimental, qualitative methods
Self-report, Roleplay, Interviews & Students diaries of daily ‘significant interactions’ kept over a term
These methods used to identify the tacit skills/strategies that we use to make relationships happen or not, takes account of how we reflect on and interpret actions & events + investigates when and how factors like similarity are important
What are the 4 main phases in relationship development according to Duck?
Meeting people, Getting acquainted, Forming & developing a relationship, Maintaining the relationship
What happens in the meeting people stage?
We actively judge whether to try and get acquainted - It is made within 30 seconds
Our decision is based on circumstance, if the person is open & whether our efforts are likely to be successful (demographic similarity and match in physical attractiveness
Similarity & attractiveness may influence decision to get acquainted but they don’t lead to a relationship
What happens in the get acquainted stage?
Initial strategies are related to trying to get other people to like us
Managing others perception
Self-presentation strategies (to show normality/have something to offer)
Signalling interest through non-verbal behaviour & by asking questions
Uncertainty about other’s feelings
Gauge each others feelings by looking for indirect signals of interest
Relationship development is a two-sided venture - Minute behaviours are more important than attractive personal attributes = Positive way of looking at relationships because we can learn the skills of relating
In forming & developing a relationship, what are the four sets of strategies to help develop the relationship?
Seeking information, Affinity seeking, Increasing intimacy, showing the relationship is growing
How does seeking information help form & develop a relationship?
Related to when you are uncertain about the other person & the success of relationship
3 types of strategies for seeking information: Passive (unobtrusive observation), Active (asking 3rd parties) & interactive (conversation with other)
Also have private reflection/mental replay to re-analyse our experience
Seeking information occurs through filtering/testing - Test different types of similarity & actively seek this information progressively - Those who aren’t compatible are then filtered out
Seeking information requires skills to trade off efficiency and politeness and is mostly indirect
Seeking information continues until the end of the relationship
How does affinity seeking help form & develop a relationship?
Addresses our concern about the other’s liking or uncertainty about their feelings towards us (Douglas, 1987)
Preference for indirect strategies: Confronting, withdrawing, sustaining, hazing, diminishing self, approaching , offering & networking
How does increasing intimacy help form & develop a relationship?
Self-disclosure (telling private information about self) is the strategy used to increase intimacy
Even among strangers - greater self-disclosure led to an increase in positive affect
Amount of self-disclosure may help define a relationship
Women self-disclose more than men & varies across cultures
How is self-disclosure used?
We monitor the amount & type of our self-disclosures to match the other’s self-disclosure (norm of reciprocity)
Risks in self-disclosing (the other may change their mind about the relationship)
Self-disclosing requires skill & judgement
Reis & Shaver - Intimacy is the products of interactions: Self-disclosure, partner disclosure & perceived partner responsiveness (e.g. understanding)
Laurenceau et al. Diary study:
Showed the importance of each aspect of disclosure for intimacy
Self-disclosure of emotion is more important than self-disclosure of facts
How does showing the relationship is growing help form & develop a relationship?
Through shared activities which are fun & signal to social world of a friendship
There are changes in pattern, frequency & nature of communication
We develop an account of the origins of life of the relationship (helps feelings of security)
We construct ‘relational disclosures’ to outsiders to indicate depth of involvement
What happens in the maintaining the relationship stage?
Attend to the others needs & adhering to expectations
Continuing to use development skills
Shared routines
Via social network
Managing their match with our ideal standards - Have cognitive strategies to match our partner with this (e.g. playing down faults etc.)
