Social Psychology Flashcards
Kitty Genovese
Was assaulted and murdered in her apartment. No one in her building or outside of the building (38 people) called the police despite seeing and hearing what was going on.
The Smoke-Filled Room Study
Darley and Latané in 1968. Participants either alone or with 2-3 other participants were in a room and could see smoke escape from a door. 75% reported the smoke when alone while 10% reported it when in the presence of others.
The Seizure Study
Participants having a conversation with one or more other students via intercom and one person seems to be having a seizure. 85% seek help when alone while 31% seek help when with others.
In Order For an Intervention to Occur
1) Notice the event.
2) Interpret the event as an emergency.
3) Assume responsibility.
4) Know the appropriate form of assistance.
5) Decide to implement help.
6) Offer help.
Bystander Effect
The presence of other people decreases the likelihood of helping behaviour.
Conformity
Adjusting our behaviour or thinking to coincide with the group. Affected by group size, group unanimity, and confidentiality.
Normative Social Influence
We follow social norms (unwritten rules for behaviour) to avoid rejection and gain approval. We don’t want to stand out or be punished.
Asch’s Line Judgment Study (1951)
When asked which line matches the target line, 75% of the participants gave the wrong answer when hearing 7 others give the wrong answer.
Informational Social Influence
When we assume that the group knows something we don’t so we look to others for information especially in new or ambiguous situations.
Obedience
Complying with a direct request from an authority figure.
Milgram Experiment (1962)
Participants must deliver a shock to the “learner” when they get an answer wrong. Shocks become increasingly more intense. Learner protests, asks to leave, screams, refuses to answer, complains of heart problems, and falls silent. The experimenter says that the experiment needs to continue. The majority of participants continued to the end.
Why Do People Obey?
1) Diffusion of responsibility.
2) Pluralistic ignorance (seeing more people doing something makes it seem that it is okay).
3) Entrapment (starting with something that is wrong at low intensities makes it harder to quit at higher intensities).
4) Obedience is less likely when there is less legitimacy to authority figures, more group dissent, and more proximity.
Thin-Slice Judgments
We form quick impressions of others based on thin slices of behaviour.
Attribution
Inference regarding the cause of an action, event, or behaviour.
Fundamental Attribution Error
We overestimate the influence of internal dispositions and underestimate the influence of situations.
Self-Serving Bias
We blame the situation for bad things and we give ourselves credit for good things.
Prejudice
An unjustifiable (usually negative) attitude towards a group and its members. Is often cultural, ethnic, gender, or sexual orientation groups. Is a pre-judgment.
Components of Prejudice
1) Beliefs (stereotypes)
2) Emotion
3) Behaviour (discrimination)
Explicit Prejudice
Consciously held attitudes.
Implicit Prejudice
Automatic, unconscious learned associations between social groups and specific qualities.
Shooter Bias
More shoot errors on Black men holding neutral objects and more not shoot errors on White men holding guns.
Roots of Prejudice
1) Categorization and outgroup homogeneity (underestimate diversity in outgroups ex. Own-race bias).
2) Ingroup bias.
3) Social inequality.
4) Emotional scapegoating.
Transference
The tendency to treat one person as if they possess the traits or characteristics of another more familiar person. For example, in psychotherapy, clients might respond to a therapist in ways that resemble the dynamic they have with major figures in their own lives.
False Consensus
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which other people’s beliefs and attitudes are similar to our own.
Impression Management
A series of strategies that people use to influence the impressions that others form of them.
Self-Promotion
To be seen as competent. Ex. mentioning a recent award you received while on a job interview.
Ingratiation
To be seen as likeable. Ex. congratulating your friend on a recent success.
Exemplification
To be seen as dedicated. Ex. volunteering to work an extra shift at your job.
Intimidation
To be seen as dominant. Ex. sneering at an opponent during a sports competition.
Supplication
To be seen as needy. Ex. tearing up and holding your knee after falling and getting hurt.
Attribution
Assignment of a causal explanation for an event, action, or outcome.
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to assume that people’s actions are more the result of their internal dispositions than of the situational context.
Self-Serving Attributions
The attributions people make for their own behaviours or outcomes. We tend to make dispositional attributions for positive events but situational attributions for negative events.
Affective Forecasting Errors
People’s inability to accurately predict the emotional reactions they will have to events.
Attitude
An orientation towards some target stimulus that is composed of an affective feeling, a cognitive belief, and a behavioural motivation towards the target.
Implicit Attitude
An automatically activated evaluation of a stimulus ranging from positive to negative.
Explicit Attitude
The consciously reported evaluation a person has in response to a target stimulus.
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
A theory of persuasion contending that attitudes can change by two different routes, a central route that focuses on the strength of the argument and a peripheral route that is sensitive to more superficial cues.
Central Route
Relies on more thoughtful, reflective processes.
Peripheral Route
When attitudes are swayed by surface-level features and more automatic associations.
Need For Cognition
The extent to which an individual is inclined to engage in and enjoy cognitively effortful activities such as thinking hard about problems and contemplating their own thought processes.
Cognitive Dissonance
A sense of conflict between people’s attitudes and actions that motivates efforts to restore cognitive consistency.
Post-Decision Dissonance
Happens when we have to forgo an option that we have a positive attitude towards.
Social Norms
The patterns of behaviour, traditions, and preferences that are tacitly approved of by a given culture or subculture.
Conformity
The process by which people implicitly mimic, adopt, or internalize the behaviours and preferences of those around them.
Informational Social Influence
Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs based on a desire to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world.
Normative Social Influence
Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs in order to gain approval from others or avoid social sanctions.
Deindividuation
Losing sight of our own individuality.
Social Facilitation
An enhancement of the dominant behavioural response when performing a task in the mere presence of others. Easy or well-learned tasks are performed better but difficult or novel tasks are performed worse.
Social Loafing
The tendency for individuals to expend less effort on a task when they are doing it with others rather than alone.
Group Polarization
A tendency for people’s attitudes to become more extreme after they discuss an issue with like-minded others.
Groupthink
A form of biased group decision making whereby pressure to achieve consensus leads members of the group to avoid voicing unpopular suggestions.
Aggression
Any behaviour directed toward the goal of harming another living being (the intention to hurt someone).
The General Aggression Model
An integrative framework of the various factors and psychological processes that contribute to an act of aggression (what factors predict the likelihood that people will act aggressively?).
Weapons Effect
A phenomenon whereby simple exposure to a gun or weapon can increase aggressive responses by bringing violent thoughts to mind.
Prosocial Behaviour
Actions aimed at assisting others towards their goals.
Kin Selection
An evolved or adaptive strategy of assisting those who share one’s genes, even at personal cost, as a means of increasing the odds of genetic survival.
Norm of Reciprocity
An automatic tendency to help others who have helped in the past or are expected to help in the future.
Empathy Gap
The inability to accurately stimulate the mental suffering of another person.
Bystander Effect
The lower likelihood of people coming to the aid of a victim when in the presence of other observers than if they are alone.
Pluralistic Ignorance
A situation that can occur when people are collectively unaware of each other’s true attitudes or beliefs.
Diffusion of Responsibility
A tendency for people in a group to assume that someone else is in a better position to act or has already acted.
Stereotypes
Mental representations or schemas that summarize the beliefs and/or associations we have for a group of people.
Prejudice
A negative attitude towards a group or members of a group.
Discrimination
A tendency for individuals to receive different treatment or outcomes as a result of their membership in a given social group.
Realistic Group Conflict Theory
A theory asserting that negative intergroup attitudes develop whenever groups compete against one another for access to the same scarce resources.
Social Identity Theory
A theory that explains why people develop a more positive attitude towards their own ingroup than towards outgroups.
Symbolic Racism
The tendency to redirect one’s prejudice towards a racial or ethnic group to the policies that might benefit that group.
Implicit Racial Bias
Differential treatment resulting from the automatic activation of, and failure to control, negative attitudes or stereotypes of a racial group.
Explicit Racial Bias
Results from negative attitudes and stereotypes that are openly endorsed and freely expressed.
Aversive Racism
A tendency, even among egalitarian-minded people, to have unconscious negative reactions to people of racial or ethnic outgroups.
Contact Hypothesis
The proposal that prejudice can be reduced through sanctioned, friendly, and cooperative interactions between members of different groups working together as equals towards a common goal.
Social Identity Theory
The tendency to favour one’s own group (self-esteem).
Realistic Group Conflict Theory
In group bias can be harmful when we are in conflict with another group.
System Justification Theory
Rationalizing the status quo.
Stereotype Threat
Fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group, leading to underperformance.
3 Attraction Predictors
1) Familiarity
2) Similarity
3) Reciprocity
Familiarity
Liking those who are familiar (mere exposure effect).
Similarity
Liking those who are like us.
Reciprocity
Like those who express liking for us.
The Matching Hypothesis
We tend to pair up with others whose desirability (mate value) is similar to our own.
Forming Intimacy
Self-disclosure.
The Interpersonal Process Model of Intimacy
The development of intimacy depends on A’s self-disclosure, B’s response, and A’s reaction to B’s response.
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
1) Intimacy
2) Passion
3) Commitment
Intimacy
Feelings of closeness and affection.
Passion
The drive that leads to romantic and physical attraction/desire.
Commitment
The decision to love and commitment to maintain that love.
Passionate Love (Romantic Love)
Intimacy and passion. Tends to fade over time.
Companionate Love
Intimacy and commitment. Tends to increase over time. Deep caring, concern, and companionship. Associated with greater satisfaction and happiness.
Conflict
Any time what you want, feel, say, or do is incompatible or at odds with what your partner wants, feels, says, or does.
Types of Conflict
1) Goal Interference
2) Unequal Exchange
3) Bad Behaviour
The 4 Biggest Predictors of Divorce in the Next 5 Years
1) Criticism
2) Defensiveness
3) Contempt
4) Stonewalling
Criticism
Verbally attacking personality or character versus complaint of behaviour.
Defensiveness
Victimizing yourself as a form of self-protection and to reverse the blame.
Contempt
Conveying your moral superiority by ridiculing the other person.
Stonewalling
Withdrawing to avoid conflict and get distance.
Negative Behaviour
Beneficial when severe problems and problems are solvable BUT harmful when minor problems and problems are unsolvable.
Positive Behaviour
Beneficial when problems are minor or partners are defensive BUT harmful when serious problems remain unaddressed.
