Social Psychology

Question 1

Core motivations

Answer 1

belong and to form trusting relationships with others, perceive ourselves and the groups we are part of positively, understand the world and feel a sense of control over our actions and outcomes

Question 2

Social vs personality psych

Answer 2

personality focuses on individual’s stable characteristics and their effects on behaviour, social psychology focuses on how the immediate environment changes individuals’ behaviour

Question 3

Conformity

Answer 3

the process by which people implicity mimic, adopt, or internalize the behaviours and preferences of those around them

Question 3

Social norms

Answer 3

patterns of behaviour, traditions, and preferences that are implicitly approved of by a given culture

Question 3

Conformity experiment: minority of one against unanimous majority

Answer 3

all but one participant were instructed to give the same wrong answers, sole participant often responded with the same answer as the others (motivation to adapt to a social situation)

Question 4

Biggest difference between how parents treat boys/ girls

Answer 4

encouraging them to participate in activities based on their gender assigned at birth

Question 5

Dominant response

Answer 5

most likely behavioural outcome of a given situation

Question 6

Social facilitation

Answer 6

enhancement of the dominant response when performing a task in the presence of others

Question 7

Easy vs difficult task

Answer 7

difficult tasks typically involve mistakes, which means that they’re more likely to be done incorrectly with others, easy tasks are typically completed successfully, which means that they’re more likely to be completed successfully for others

Question 8

why do we choke under pressure (social)

Answer 8

presence of a critical audience causes a threat response → regardless of personality traits, social pressure can increase stress

Question 9

social loafing

Answer 9

the tendency to put in less effort on a task when they are doing it with others, compared to doing it alone (more likely for a simple task)

Question 10

Appeal to authority fallacy - Milgram experiments

Answer 10

The experimenter represented a dominant authority figured, obeyed by over 60% despite vocalization of pain from the “learner”

Question 11

Why did so many obey? (Milgram)

Answer 11

Pressure created by experimental environment
Replications revealed that anything that made the experimenter seem less authoritative reduced the amount who obeyed

Question 12

aggression

Answer 12

any behaviour directed toward the goal of harming another living being

Question 13

how is anger often triggered?

Answer 13

when we perceive a threat to our belonging/ acceptance

Question 14

Aggression model

Answer 14

personality + situation –> trigger –> reaction –> decision

Question 15

what makes altruism easier

Answer 15

we find it easier to empathize with a single identified person in crisis than a large group of people in crisis

Question 16

prosocial behaviour

Answer 16

acting in a way that assists others toward their goals (can involve hindering our own)

Question 17

norm of reciprocity

Answer 17

automatic tendency to help others who have helped in the past, or are expected to help in the future

Question 18

other-race-effect

Answer 18

tendency to see individuals of other races as more similar looking and harder to distinguish than people of our own racial background (people are more likely to help a member of their racial group)

Question 19

stereotype

Answer 19

mental representation or schema we have about a group (learned in early life)

Question 20

analysis of television news

Answer 20

white people overrepresented as victims, black/latino as perpetrators –> viewers form stronger stereotypes of different racial/ ethnic groups based on inaccurate information

Question 21

why can stereotypes be inaccurate?

Answer 21

we use average differences between groups to judge the characteristics of a single member of that group

Question 22

why do we use stereotypes

Answer 22

energy-saving: automatic system is always engaged first, and we have to willfully switch to the controlled system when needed

Question 23

stigmatizing

Answer 23

describing or regarding someone as worthy of disgrace or great disapproval

Question 24

prejudice

Answer 24

an adverse opinion formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge

Question 25

contact hypothesis (Gordon Allport)

Answer 25

proposal that prejudice can be reduced through sanctioned, friendly, and cooperative interactions between members of different groups working together as equals toward a common goal

Question 26

ways to reduce prejudice

Answer 26

contact with groups we are prone to prejudge, shifting social norms towards inclusion

Question 27

Effect of online socialization

Answer 27

Perception of having a broad social network is related to lower stress/ higher well-being, but if you only see posts detailing ideal circumstances you might see your own life negatively in comparison

Question 28

informational social influence

Answer 28

conformity to others’ actions/ beliefs in order to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world

Question 29

normative social influence

Answer 29

conformity to gain approval or avoid disapproval (can –> deindividuation)

Question 30

deindividuation

Answer 30

losing sight of own individuality

Question 31

kin selection

Answer 31

strategy of assisting those who share genes

Question 32

empathy gap

Answer 32

inability to accurately simulate mental suffering of another

Question 33

complementary stereotypes

Answer 33

help us justify the current social system by attributing both positive and negative traits to certain groups

Question 34

Elements of positive contact

Answer 34

1.working together
2.as equals
3.toward a common goal
4.where those in authority support social change

Question 35

Affect of violent video games

Answer 35

Generally desensitizes people to suffering of others and violence in the world. However no clear evidence between aggressive behaviour