Social Psychology Flashcards
What is reinforcement theory?
Behavior is motivated by rewards (Thorndike/Pavlov/Hull/Skinner)
What is social learning theory?
Behavior is learned by imitation (Bandura)
What is role theory?
We act according to perceived roles (Bindle)
What is cognitive theory in relationship to behavior?
Perception, judgment, memories, decision-making shape our behavior
What are the three component parts of an attitude?
(1) Cognition or beliefs
(2) Feelings
(3) Behavioral predisposition
I love Chinese food = I have knowledge of Chinese food; I have strong positive feelings toward it; I eat it regularly
What is consistency theory?
People prefer consistency; will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference
What is Fritz Heider’s balance theory
Imbalance occurs when someone agrees with someone he/she dislikes or disagrees with someone he/she likes; will shift to find balance
What was Fritz Heider’s contribution to psychology?
Balance theory:
Imbalance occurs when someone agrees with someone he/she dislikes or disagrees with someone he/she likes; will shift to find balance
What is Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory?
Attitudes and behavior are out of sync
Free-choice dissonance: make a choice and then must rationalize
Post-decisional dissonance: leads to spreading of alternatives; focus on positives of your choice or natives of what you didn’t choose to reduce dissonance
Forced-compliance dissonance: ex. Must eat dinner before dessert
What was Festinger and Carlsmith’s famous experiment?
$1 or $20
What is the minimal justification effect?
When the external justification is minimal, dissonance is reduced by changing internal cognitions (also called insufficient justification effect)
What is self-perception theory?
Daryl Bems
People infer what their attitudes are based on observation of their own behavior
Bem doesn’t hypothesize a state of discomfort or dissonance; possible implication - if you reward someone for something they like doing already, they may like it less
What is the overjustification effect?
Mistakenly attribute a behavior to external causes rather than dispositional causes
What is the sleeper effect?
Over time, the persuasive impact of the highly credible source decreased while the persuasive impact of the uncredible source increased
What three attributes increase persuasiveness of a message?
(1) credible source; (2) speaker going against her interests; (3) two-sided message - appears balanced
What is the central route of persuasion?
Care deeply about the issue; will follow argument closely and mentally evaluate them by coming up with counterarguments of your own; strong arguments will change our minds more often than weak ones
What is the peripheral route of persuasion?
Don’t care, can’t follow, or distracted; strength of argument doesn’t matter; situation does matter
What was Petty and Cacioppo’s contribution to psychology?
Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
- Central route
- Peripheral route
What was William McGuire’s contribution to psychology?
Analogy of inoculation - presenting someone with refuted counterarguments enables them to practice defending their beliefs
What is the analogy of inoculation?
Presenting someone with refuted counterarguments enables them to practice defending their beliefs
What is belief perseverance?
When people hold beliefs even after they are shown to be false
What is reactance?
When you try too hard to convince someone of something, they will choose to believe the opposite of your position
What is social comparison theory?
Leon Festinger
We are drawn to affiliate because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relation to other people
(1) People prefer to evaluate themselves by objective, non-social means
(2) When this is not possible, people evaluate themselves and their opinions by comparing them to those of other people
(3) The less the similarity of opinions and abilities between two people, the less the tendency to make comparisons
(4) When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions and abilities, there is a tendency to change one’s position so as to move it in line with the group
What was Stanley Schater’s contribution to psychology?
found that greater anxiety leads to a greater desire to affiliate. A situation that provokes little anxiety typically does not lead to a desire to affiliate; both anxiety and a need to compare oneself with other people may play roles in determining both when and with whom we affiliate.
What is the reciprocity hypothesis?
Tend to like people when they like us and dislike people why they dislike us; do not merely evaluate a person’s qualities, take into account how they feel about us
What is the gain-loss principle?
we will like someone more if their liking for us has increased; dislike someone if they dislike us more
What is the social exchange theory?
we weigh the costs and rewards of interacting with one another
What is equity theory?
desire for each person to have similar rewards and costs in a relationships
What is the attractiveness stereotype?
tendency to attribute positive qualities to attractive people
What is need complementarity?
opposites attract theory; must be some similarity
What is the mere exposure hypothesis?
Increase attraction when close to another
Robert Zajonic
What is the bystander effect?
(1) Social influence
(2) Diffusion of responsibility
(3) Pluralistic ignorance: group influence leads to interpretation of an event as a non-emergency
John Darley and Bibb Latane
What is the empathy-altruism model?
Seeing another in distress can provoke distress or empathy; if empathy, more likely to help
Batson