Social Psychology Flashcards
Causal attributions
- inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behavior and others behavior
Dispositional
- internal attributions
Situational
External attributions
Optimistic explanatory style
- Attribute negative outcomes of actions to external, unstable, and specific factors
Pessimistic explanatory style
-attribute bx too internal, stable, and global factors
The fundamental attribution error
- The tendency to overestimate the role of disposition (internal) factors into underestimate the role of situational (external) factors when making attributions about other’s behavior
- affected by culture
MILLER (1984)
- North American adults and adolescents made more dispositional. Attributions
- Asian Indians made more situational. Attributions
Actor- observer effect
- involves behavior of ourselves and others
- The tendency to attribute our own behavior to situational (external) factors and attribute others behavior to dispositional (internal) factors
Self-Serving bias
- attributions about our own behavior
- tendency to attribute our own behavior to dispositional (internal) factors when it has desirable outcomes and situational (external) factors when it has undesirable outcomes
The ultimate attribution error
- used to explain prejudice of members of a majority group towards a minority group
- Attribute negative behaviors of own group to situational (external) factors and the negative behavior of the out group to to dispositional (internal)
factor - regarding positive behavior, attribute members of owned group’s behavior to dispositional factors (internal) members of out groups behavior to situational factors
Group attribution error
- attributions about a group and its
Members - I believe in individuals, group beliefs, attitudes and preferences reflective of the whole group
Covariation model
- people make attributions about another’s behavior by considering consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness
- when consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high, they’re more likely to make external (situation al)attribution
Automatic processing
- fast, and efficient
- operates outside of conscious awareness
- can lead to errors and biases that affect decision and judgment
Controlled processing
- slower and effortful
- operates with conscious awareness
Confirmation bias
- tendency to seek and pay attention to info that confirms our attitudes and beliefs and ignore info that refutes them
Self-Verification theory
- people seek feedback from and prefer to spend time with others who confirm their self-concepts
Illusory correlation
- overestimate the relationship between two variables that are not are only slightly related
Base rate fallacy
- tendency to ignore or underuse base rate information and be influenced by distinctive features of a case being judged
- example. Jury’s more likely to be persuaded by anecdotal case histories then probabilistic base rate info
False consensus effect
- The tendency to overestimate to the extent which other people share our opinions, values, and beliefs
- found to affect judgments in a variety of situations
- students were told they had either passed or failed. A bogus social sensitivity test. When asked to estimate how other students would do, those who were told they failed said most students would fail the test and
Those who were told they had passed said other students would pass the test
Counterfactual thinking
- tendency to imagine what might have happened but didn’t
- can involve imagining either better or worse outcomes
- is most likely to occur when the outcome is personal significant and it’s relatively easy to imagine an alternative outcome
Illusory control
- The illusion of control
- when people believe that they can influence events outside of their control.
- has been used to explain superstitious behavior that people believe will maximize their success
When people believe blowing on a dice before throwing them will result in the desired numbers or using lucky numbers in a lottery
- illusion of control
The spotlight effect
- Believe that more people take note of your actions and appearance then they actually do
- similar to Elkind’s imaginary audience characterized in adolescence and a result of renewed egocentrism
- common in people with social anxiety
Think everyone is looking at you when you arrive late or eat alone in a restaurant
- The spotlight effect
Illusion of transparency
- overestimate the extent to which others can discern their internal States
When asked to drink unpleasant liquids while hiding their feelings of disgust subjects overestimated, how many observers would detect their true emotional state
- illusion of transparency
The hindsight bias
- tendency for people to inaccurately believe they predicted the event would occur or to overestimate the likelihood that they could have predicted that the event would occur
- linked to the need to see the world as predictable and orderly, and reconstructive memory processes which automatically update the information that was already stored
After a political election, study, participants memories of their own pre-election predictions about the percent of votes that the different political parties earned were closer to the actual percentages than their original predictions had been
- hindsight bias
The Sunk-Cost fallacy
- tendency for people to continue investing resources in an endeavor when they have already invested significant resources that have not produced desired outcomes or are not recoverable
- younger adults. More susceptible
-Concorde Fallacy
French and British governments continued funding the Concord, a supersonic plane long after it was clear that they would never recover the money they had already spent to develop it
- The sunk cost fallacy
Explanations for the sunk cost fallacy
- people don’t want to be wasteful or they don’t want to admit that their initial actions were a mistake
Heuristics
- mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of certain events
- can be useful when it’s necessary to make quick judgments but can lead to inaccurate conclusions
Representativeness heuristic
- when making judgments about the frequency or likelihood of an event, ignore the base rates and other important information and focus on to the extent of which the event resembles a prototype
When asked to judge whether a woman is more likely to be a librarian or elementary school teacher after being told she is friendly, but a little shy, tends to speak softly, and a conservative dresser, and keeps her house very clean, you assume she is a librarian because of the personal characteristics even though there are fewer librarians than elementary school teachers
- representativeness heuristic
Conjunction fallacy
- explained by the representativeness heuristic
- estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either happening alone
Availability? Crystal
- Base judgments about the likelihood of frequency of an event to occur on how easy it is to recall relevant examples of an event
Tendency to overestimate frequency of deaths due to shark attacks and plane crashes because they’re they are highly memorable Even though they are uncommon
- availability? Heuristic
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic
- estimate the frequency of an event or other value by beginning with the starting point and then making an upward or downward adjustment?
When negotiating the price of a used bike at a garage style, the seller’s initial price is a starting point and determines the size of the purchaser’s counter offer
- anchoring and adjustment heuristic
Simulation heuristic
- judge the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to imagine the event happening to us or others
- events more easily to imagine are judged to be more likely to occur
- affects how we feel or think others feel about the event
- when a negative event can be easily undone in imagination, the person is likely to have or predict another person will have a more extreme emotional reaction of that event
- requires counter factual thinking
Subjects told that two different people arrived 30 minutes late for their flight, but one missed their flight by 30 minutes because it left on time where the other missed their flight by 5 minutes because it was delayed by 25 minutes when the subjects were asked. Which person felt worse about missing the flight? Nearly all subjects said that the man who missed the flight by 5 minutes
- simulation heuristic
High consistency, consensus and distinctiveness
- external attribution about another’s behavior
Low consensus and distinctiveness, consistency
- likely to make a internal attribution for others behavior
Early research on attitudes and behavior
- found a weak relationship
- attempted to use general attitudes to predict specific behaviors and not same level of specificity
Attitudes and behavior
- strength of relationship is affected by strength, accessibility and specificity of attitudes
Strength of attitudes
- better predictors of behavior when a person’s attitude is strong
- attitudinal strength is greater when the person’s attitude towards an issue is derived from direct experience and the issue is relevant to the person’s self-interests
Accessibility
- More likely to predict behavior when the attitude towards an issue is easily accessible because the person is well informed about the issue or has been repeatedly asked about it
Specificity
- Link between attitudes and behavior is stronger when they are the same level of specificity
Theory of planned behavior
- The intention to perform a behavior is the best predictor of behavior
Factors that influence a person’s behavior intention
- person’s attitude towards a behavior
- what the person thinks others believes they should do
- The person’s confidence and their ability to perform to behavior
Subjective norms
- A person believes other people think they should do
Perceived behavior control
- person’s confidence and their ability to perform the behavior
Prototype/willingness model
- used primarily to predict health-related risk behaviors
- based on the assumption, there are two paths to engage in in a behavior, a reason path and a social reaction path
Reasoned path
- The result of a person’s behavior intention
Social reaction path
- The result of a person’s willingness to engage in a behavior in particular circumstances
Willingness according to prototype/willingness model
- depends on the person’s perceived acceptability of a behavior which is in turn influenced by the person’s prototype/ social image of people who engage in a behavior
Positive prototype
- More likely to engage in the behavior in social situations that are conducive with that behavior
Adolescents who have a positive image appears who use marijuana will be more willing than those who have a negative image to try marijuana at a party where some of their peers are smoking
- prototype/ willingness model
Health belief model
- beliefs, attitudes, and other factors that predict the likelihood that a person will engage in a behavior that reduces the risk of developing a disorder
- willingness can be increased by targeting these factors
- perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, and cues to action
perceived susceptibility
- The person’s perceptions about their likelihood of developing a disorder
Perceived severity
- The person ‘s perceptions about the seriousness of consequences of developing the disorder
Perceived benefits
- The person’s beliefs about the likelihood that taking action will reduce their vulnerability to the disorder
Perceived barriers
- The person’s beliefs about the material and psychological cost of taking action
Self-Efficacy
- The confidence that they Have the ability to take action
Cues to action
- factors that motivate the person to act
Illness of a family member, advice from health providers, and mass media campaigns
- cues to action
Elaboration likelihood model
- persuasive message can be processed through the central or peripheral route
Central route
- High level of elaborative processing that involves thoughtful and careful evaluation of the message
- likely to be used when the person perceives the message to be personally relevant, has cognitive ability to process the message, and or is in a neutral or bad mood
Attitude change via central route
- depends on the strength of the argument presented in the message and is likely to be strong, enduring, and predictive of behavior
Peripheral route
- low level of elaboration and involves automatic evaluation of the message
- most likely to occur when the person perceives a message to be unimportant, does not have the cognitive ability to process the message, and or is in a good mood
Attitude change via the peripheral route
- depends on the peripheral cues
- likely to be weak, temporary, and not predictive of behavior
Peripheral cues
- source, message, and recipient factors that are not Central to the content of the message
Communicators attractiveness, likability, credibility, or celebrity, The length of the message, and the recipients reliance on heuristics
- peripheral cues
Social judgment theory
- effectiveness of a persuasive message depends on the person’s current position on an issue
- distinguishes between three latitudes that represent different degrees of similarity between the person’s position and a position advocated by the message
- latitude of acceptance
- latitude of rejection
- latitude of non-commitment
Latitude of acceptance
- positions the person finds acceptable because they’re similar to their own position
Latitude of rejection
- positions a person finds unacceptable because they’re extremely different from their positions
Latitude of non-commitment
- positions that the person will not automatically accept or reject but will consider because they are moderately different from their position
Latitudes
- The size of the latitude is affected by the person’s ego involvement with the issue addressed by the message
- as a person’s level of ego involvement increases the latitudes of acceptance and non-commitment becomes smaller and the latitude of rejection becomes larger
Balance theory
- aka P-0-X theory
- focuses on the relationships between people (P), another person(o), And an attitude object/event (x)
- relationships between the three can become balanced/ consistent or unbalanced/ inconsistent and because unbalanced states make people uncomfortable, they are motivated to establish balance
Patricia likes Oliver and country music and Oliver hates country music so Patricia is motivated to establish a balanced state by switching her attitude to not like Oliver or country music
- balance theory
Cognitive dissonance theory
- when people become aware of an inconsistency between two of their cognitions (attitudes, opinions, beliefs) or between a cognition and behavior, they experience a state of mental discomfort that they are motivated to relieve
- to relieve dissonance they replace or subtract a dissonant cognition, at a consonant cognition, increase the importance of a consonant cognition, or decrease the importance of a dissonant cognition
Self-Perception theory
- people learn about themselves in the same way they learn about others by observing their behaviors and circumstances in which those behaviors occur
- evidence is provided by research on the over justification effect
Over justification effect
- predicts that when people aren’t externally reinforced for engaging in intrinsically rewarding behavior, their intrinsic motivation decreases
Kids who colored with felt tip markers were either rewarded or not rewarded for using the markers during free play.
- in a subsequent play. After rewards were no longer given to the previously rewarded children, they spent less time coloring with markers and rewarded children did, because the external reward reduced their intrinsic motivation
Self perception theory
Adolescent to a positive images of peers who are marijuana users will be more willing than those who have negative image to try marijuana at a party where some of their peers are smoking marijuana
Prototype/ willingness model
Persuasion
- researchers have identified a number of communicator, message, and recipient factors that affect the likelihood that a message will persuade recipients to change their attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors
Communicators
- More persuasive when are attractive, likable, And credible