Social Psychology Flashcards
What are social psychologists?
The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
What is the attribution theory which was proposed by Fritz Heider?
We can explain someone’s behavior by either:
-attributing it to the person’s disposition (their character or nature), this is called dispositional attribution
-attributing their behavior to the situation, this is called ** situational attribution**
Ex.: in class, we notice Juliet barely talks. At the game, Jack talks non stop. That must be the sort of people they are, we decide. Juliet must be shy and Jack outgoing. These attributions to their disposition are valid, because people do have enduring personality traits.
What is fundamental attribution error?
When we analyze other’s behaviors, we overestimate the influence of personality and underestimate the influence of situations.
Ex.: in class, Jack may be as quiet as Juliet. Juliet may be the lead in the high school musical; you would definitely not recognize her as your quiet classmate
What are attitudes?
They are feelings, often influenced by beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events
Ex.: if we believe someone is threatening us, we may feel fear and anger toward the person and act defensively. Our attitudes affect our actions and our actions affect our attitudes.
What are the two forms of persuasion? Explain both
Peripheral route persuasion: does not engage systematic thinking, but produces fast results as people respond to incidental cues (such as endorsements by respected people) and make snap judgements.
Ex.: a perfume ad may lure us with images of beautiful or famous people in love
Central route persuasion: offers evidence and arguments that aim to trigger favorable thoughts. It occurs mostly when people are naturally analytical or involved in the issue.
Ex.: environmental advocates may show us evidence of rising temperatures, melting glaciers, rising seas, and northward shifts in vegetation and animal life. Because it is more thoughtful and less superficial, it is more durable and likely to influence behavior.
Considering the fact that actions affect attitudes, what is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to find it easier to comply later with a larger request.
Basically, start small and build
How does role playing (action) affect attitude?
When you adopt a new role, for example starting a new job, your behaviors may feel phony, because you are acting a role. However, after some time, the playacting becomes real life
What is the cognitive dissonance theory developed by Leon Festinger?
We act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent.
Ex.: you might agree to give a measly $2 to help a researcher by writing an essay that supports something you don’t believe in. Feeling responsible for the statements (which are inconsistent with your attitudes), you would probably feel dissonance. To reduce the uncomfortable tension, you might start believing your phony words
The more dissonance we feel, the more motivated we are to find consistency, such as changing our attitudes to help justify the act
What is automatic mimicry? What does it help us to do?
We replicate or act out behaviors that we are exposed to
Ex.: if someone yawns or laughs, we will soon do the same.
We are natural mimics, unconsciously imitating others’ expressions, postures, and voice tones
Automatic mimicry helps us to empathize- to feel what others are feeling.
What is conformity?
Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard
Ex.: if a teacher proposes a question in class where you must migrate to one of the four corners; highly agree, agree, disagree, highly disagree, and most people go to highly agree while you thought of disagree, you choose to follow the crowd to highly agree.
Describe Asch’s conformity experiment
You sit at a table with five other people. The experimenter displays three comparison lines to a standard line, you must choose the line most identical to the standard line. Seems pretty easy. However, on the third trial, as people answer around the table which line is most identical, they are all saying the wrong answer. You feel nervous, torn between the agreeing unison of the 5 other people or the literal correct answer that is right in front of your own eyes.You feel unsure and tense. You choose to agree with everyone else.
Asch found we are more likely to conform when we:
-feel incompetent or insecure
-in a group with at least three people
-in a group where everyone else agrees
-have not made a prior commitment to any response
-know others in the group will observe our behavior
What is normative social influence?
Influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval
We are sensitive to social norms, or understood rules for accepted behavior. We need to belong
What is informational social influence?
Influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality
Who tends to prize individualism?
Western Europeans and people in most English speaking countries
Who places a higher value on honoring group standards?
People in Asian, African, and Latin American countries
Describe Milgram’s obedience experiment
The experiment was to study of the effect of punishment on learning.
You and another person were asked to draw slips from a hat to see who will be the teacher, and who will be the learner. If you draw the teacher slip, you would be sat down in front of a machine which had a series of labeled switches. The learner is led to an adjoining room and strapped into a chair. From the chair, wires run through the wall to your machine. You were given your task: teach, and then test learner on a list of word pairs. If the learner gives a wrong answer, you flip a switch to deliver a brief electric shock. For the first wrong answer, you will flip the switch labeled 15 Voltz – slight shock. With each succeeding error, you will move to the next higher voltage.
After the 10th switch, 150 Volts– strong shock, the learner begins shouting to let him out, and he does not want to continue with the experiment. You draw back, but the stern experimenter prods you: “please continue the experiment requires that you continue.” You resist, but the experimenter says, “it is absolutely essential that you continue.”
More than 60% complied toward the experimenter fully – right up to the last switch of 435 to 450 V.
What were some situations that Milgram found contributed to the highest level of obedience?
The person giving the orders was close at hand and was perceived to be a legitimate authority figure
The authority figure was supported by prestigious institution
The victim was personalized or at a distance, even in another room
There were no role models for defiance
What is social facilitation?
Improved performance on simple or well learned tasks in the presence of others
But on other tasks, like learning nonsense syllables or solving complex multiplication problems, people perform worse when observers or others are working on the same task are present.
What you do well, you are likely to do even better in front of an audience. What you normally find difficult may seem all but impossible when you are being watched.
What is social loafing?
It is the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.
What three things causes social loafing?
People acting as part of a group feel less accountable, and therefore worry less about what others think.
Group members may view their individual contributions as dispensable
When group members share equally in the benefits, regardless of how much they contribute, some may slack off. Unless highly motivated and strongly identified with the group, people may free ride on others efforts.
What is deindividuation?
It is the loss of self-awareness and self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity.
Ex.: tribal warriors, who depersonalize themselves with face paints, or masks are more likely than those with exposed faces to kill, torture, or mutilate captured enemies.
What is group polarization?
The enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group.
Discussion among like-minded people tends to strengthen pre-existing attitudes
By linking and magnifying the inclinations of like-minded people, the Internet can be very, very, very bad, but also very very good.
What is groupthink?
The mode thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives
What is social control and personal control?
Social control is the power of the situation
Personal control is the power of the individual
Both of these interact with each other
The power of one or two individuals to sway majorities is called what?
Minority influence
If you are the minority, you’re far more likely to sway the majority if you hold firmly to your position and don’t waffle. This tactic won’t make you popular, but it may make you influential, especially if your self-confidence stimulates others to consider why you react as you do.
What is prejudice? Prejudice is a three-part mixture of what?
Prejudice means prejudgment. It is an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude towards a group – often a different, cultural, ethnic, or gender group.
Beliefs, in this case, called stereotypes (a generalized or over generalized belief about a group of people)
Emotions, for example, hostility or fear
Predispositions to action; to discriminate
What is ethnocentrism?
It is assuming the superiority of one’s ethnic group
It is one example of prejudice
What is the difference between discrimination and prejudice?
They are related, however, prejudice is cognitive and nature.
Discrimination, on the other hand, is behavior motivated by prejudice
What is the difference between overt prejudice and subtle prejudice?
Overt prejudice is conscious and deliberate acts of discrimination
Subtle prejudice is automatic, unconscious attitudes towards a group or its members
What is automatic prejudice? List some examples.
It indicates that prejudice is often implicit, and automatic attitude that is an unthinking knee-jerk response.
Implicit racial associations
Unconscious patronization
Race influenced perceptions
What is the just world phenomenon?
It’s s the idea that the good are rewarded and the evil are punished
What is ingroup?
“Us” people with whom we share a common identity
What is the outgroup?
“Them” - people outside of our circle, or those perceived as different from our ingroup
What is an ingroup bias?
It is the tendency to favor our own group
What is the other-race effect, or also known as the cross-race effect or own-race bias?
It is the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race, more accurately than faces of other races
How does the availability heuristic affect prejudice?
We often judge the frequency of events by instances that come readily to mind.
In a classic experiment, researchers showed two groups of University of Oregon students lists containing information about 50 men. The first group’s list included 10 men arrested for nonviolent crimes, such as forgery. The second group‘s list included 10 men arrested for violent crimes, such as assault. later, both groups were asked how many men on their list had committed any sort of crime. The second group over estimated the number. Vivid violent cases are more readily available to our memory and feed our stereotypes.
How does hindsight bias affect prejudice?
Have you ever heard people say that rape victims, abused spouses, or people with aids got what they deserved?
In one experiment illustrating the blame-the-victim phenomenon, people were given a detailed account of a date that ended with a woman being raped. They perceived the woman’s behavior as at least partly to blame, and in hindsight, they thought, “she should’ve known better.“ blaming the victim also serves to reassure people that it couldn’t happen to them. Others, given the same account with the rape ending deleted, did not perceived the woman’s behavior as inviting rape.
What does aggression mean?
Aggression is any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy
In the nature versus nurture debate, which side does the following statement support: “genetics influence aggression. We know this because animals have been bred for aggression. “
Nature
Which area of the brain, when damaged, inactive, disabled or immature, seems to be linked to aggression?
The frontal lobes
What human hormone is closely linked to aggression?
Testosterone
How does alcohol influence aggression?
Alcohol unleashes aggressive responses to frustration. In police data and prison surveys, as in experiments, aggression prone people are more likely to drink, and become more violent when intoxicated.
What is the frustration aggression principle?
Frustration creates anger, which can spark aggression.
How do uncomfortable conditions, such as heat, hunger, etc. influence, aggressive behavior?
When people get overheated, they think, feel, and act more aggressively. In baseball games, the number of hit batters rises with the temperature.. And in the wider world, violent crime, and spousal abuse rates have been higher during hotter years, seasons, months, and days.
How do reinforcement and modeling work to increase or decrease aggressive behavior?
In situations where experience has taught us aggression pays, we are likely to act aggressively again. Children, whose aggression has successfully intimidated other children may become bullies. Animals that have successfully fought to get food or mates , become increasingly ferocious.
To foster a kinder, gentler world. We had best model and reward sensitivity and cooperation from an early age, perhaps by training parents to discipline without modeling violence. parents of delinquent youth frequently cave in to reward their children, tears, and temper tantrums. Then, exasperated, they discipline with beatings.
What are social scripts? Where are we most likely to be exposed to them?
Social scripts are culturally provided mental files for how to act in various situations
What is proximity?
Proximity – geographic nearness – is friendships most powerful predictor. It provides opportunities for aggression, but much more often it breeds liking. Studies reveal that people are most inclined to like, and to even marry, those who live in the same neighborhood, who sit nearby in class, who work in the same office, who share the same parking lot, who eat in the same cafeteria. Mating starts with meeting.
What is the mere exposure effect?
It is the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them.
This applies to nonsense syllables, musical selections, geometric figures, Chinese characters, human faces, and the letters of our own name.
How does similarity affect our feelings for others?
Compared with randomly paired people, friends and couples are more likely to share common attitudes, beliefs, and interests. Moreover, the more alike people are, the more their liking endures. Similarity breeds content. Dissimilarity often fosters disfavor.
What is the reward theory of attraction?
We will like those whose behavior is rewarding to us, and we will continue relationships that offer more rewards than cost.
Ex.: When people live or work in close proximity with us, it cost less time and effort to develop the friendship and enjoy its benefits.
What is passionate love?
An aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship.
Emotions have two ingredients, what are they?
Physical arousal and cognitive appraisal
What’s the difference between lust and romantic love?
Lust is immediate desire
Romantic love is desire + attachment
How does adrenaline play a role in attraction/arousal ?
When adrenaline is high and you associate some of that arousal with a desirable person, you will feel the pull of passion.
Adrenaline makes the heart grow fonder
What is companionate love?
The deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our live are intertwined.
Passion facilitating hormones like testosterone, dopamine, and adrenaline subside and another hormone, oxytocin, supports feelings of trust, calmness, and bonding
What is equity?
A condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it.
What is self-disclosure?
It is the revealing of intimate details about ourselves- our likes and dislikes, our dreams and worries, our proud and shameful moments- to others
How does physical attractiveness benefit those who have it?
It increases social opportunities and improves the way we are perceived.
What is altruism?
It is the unselfish regard for the welfare of others.
What is the diffusion of responsibility?
It is when more people share responsibility for helping
When there is a diffusion of responsibility, it makes it less likely for a single person to help
What is the bystander effect?
It is the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present.
The best odds of helping someone occur when
The person appears to need and deserve help
The person is in someway similar to us
The person is a woman
We have just observed someone else being helpful
We are not in a hurry
We are in a small town or rural area
We are feeling guilty
We are focused on others and not preoccupied
We are in a good mood
What is the social exchange theory?
It is the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize cost
If you were pondering whether to donate blood, you may weigh the cost of doing so (time, discomfort, and anxiety) against the benefits(reduced guilt, social approval, and good feelings.) If the rewards exceeded the costs, you will help.
What is the social-responsibility norm?
An expectation that people will help those needing their help
What are social traps?
A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each pursuing their self interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.
What are mirror image perceptions?
Mutual views often held by conflicting people, as when each side sees itself as ethical and peaceful and views the other side as evil and aggressive.
What are self fulfilling prophecies?
A person’s belief that leads to its own fulfillment
Ex.: if you believe you are bad at taking tests, you will study less, which will result in you studying less.
How do both contact and cooperation help to promote more peaceful relationships between different groups?
When contact is non competitive and between parties of equal status, such as fellow store clerks, it typically helps.
Examples where contact has led to more positive attitudes
-interracial contact
-Heterosexuals’ attitudes towards gay people are more supportive when they have friends or family they know who are gay or lesbian.
What are superordinate goals?
Shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation
How can acts of conciliation change the direction of a relationship?
Small conciliatory gestures- a smile, a touch, a word of apology- have allowed both parties to begin edging down toward the tension ladder to a safer rung where communication and mutual understanding can begin
What is GRIT?
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction- a strategy designed to decrease international tensions
In applying grit, one side first announces its recognition of mutual interests and intent to reduce tensions. Then initiates one or more small conciliatory acts. Without weakening one’s capability, this modest beginning opens the door for reciprocity by the other party. Should the enemy respond with hostility, one reciprocates kind. But so, too, with any conciliatory response.
What is the scapegoat theory?
When things go wrong, people look for someone to blame or take out their anger and frustration
What is the reciprocity norm?
If someone helps you or you receive something, you feel obligated to do the same to them.
Increased activity of the ________ influences aggressive behavior, and reduced activity of the ________ _______ does the same
Amygdala
Frontal lobes
What is the false consensus effect?
The idea that everyone agrees with your beliefs
