Social Psychology Flashcards
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
- study of how people relate to and influence each other
- use experimental method to study individuals
Research areas
1) mistakes we make
2) why we do what we do
3) power plays
4) groups
5) I say tomato
Norman Triplett
- 1st official social psychology experiement i 1897 on social facilitation
- cyclist performed better when placed by others vs. alone
Kurt Lewin
- founder of social psychology
- applied Gestalt ideas to behaviour
- concieved field theory
Field theory
- Kurt Lewin
- field theory = total of influences upon individuals behaviour
- person’s life space is collection of forces
- valence, vector and barrier are forces
Fritz Heider
- found of attribution theory and balance theory
Attribution theory (Heider)
- study how people infer causes of other’s ehaviour
- ppl attribute intentions to anything - even shapes
Balance theory (Heider)
- study of how ppl make their feelings and actions consistent to preserve psychology homeostasis
Actor-observer attributional divergence
- tendency for ppl who are doing eahviour to have different perspective on situation than person watching
Self-serving attributional bias
- interpret own ations as positive, blaming situations for failures and taking creidt for success
- think we are better than average
Illusory correlation
- assuming 2 unrelated things have a realtionahips
Slippery slope
- logical fallacy that says small insignificat fist steps will lead to larger steps and have significant impact
Hindsign bias
- believe after the fact that you knew something the entire time
Halo effect
- thinking that is someone has good quality than he has only good qualities
Self-fulling prophecy
- when one’s expectations somehow draw out the behaviour that is expected
False consensus bias
- assuming mot people think as you do
Lee Ross
- studied subjet wo were 1st made to believe a statement and then later told as false
- subjects continued to belive statement and devised their own logical explanation
Richard Nisbett
- lack of awareness for why we do what we do
Base-rate fallacy
- overestimating the general frquency of things we are familiar with
M.J. Lerner’s just world bias
- belief that good things happen to good people and bad to bad
- uncomfortable for ppl to accept that bad things happen to good ppl so they blame the victim
Ellen Langer
- studied the illusion of control
- driving force behind manipulating the lottery, gambling, and superstituion
Oversimplification
- tendency to make simple explanations for complex events
- ppl hold onto OG ideas even when new factors emerge
Representativeness heuristic
- using a shortcut about typical assuptions to guess at an answer vs. relying on actual logic
e. g. a tall woman is a model rather than a lawyer but there are more lawyers than models
Availability heuristic
- when people think there is ahigher proportion of one thing in a group than there really is because examples of that one thing come to mind easier
e. g. person thinks there were more celebrity namesbecause he can recall them easier
Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory
- uncomfotable for people to have beliefs that do not match their actions
- after making decision, people are motivted to back action up by touting corresponding beliefs
- less the act is justified, more we feel the need to justfy it by bringing out attitude in line with behaviour
Darly Bem’s self-perception theory
- altnerative explanation for cogitive dissonance
- when ppl are unsure of their belief they take their cues from own beaviour rather than changing beliefs to match their actions
- e.g. if you demand 1000$ a day you don’t really like your job
Overjustification effect
- self-perception theory
- tendency to assume that we don’t really want to do things we are paid to do
- if they get paid, they will loose pleasure in activity
Gain-loss theory
- people act in order to obtain gain and avoid loss
- fabour situations that start out negatively and end positiveiy (even over complete positive situations)
Social exchange theory
- humans interact in ways that max reward min cost
Self-presentation
- important influence on behaviour
- act in way that are in line with our attitudes/ will be accepted by others
Self-monitoring (presentation)
- pay close attention to their actions, will change to be more favourable
Impression management (presentation)
- behaving in ways that might make a good impression
Social facilitation
- Triplett
- tendency for presence of others to either enhance or hinder performance
- Robert Zajonc found others are good for easy task but hinder harder tasks
Social comparison
- evaluating one’s own actions, abilities, opinions and ideas by comparing them to those of others
- others are of people of own strata
- used against mainstreaming because when people with LD are with others without - then this comparison may result in lower self-esteem
Role
- set of behavioural norms that seem suitable for a particular person
Morton Deutsch
- prisoner’s dilemma and trucking company game to illustrate strugle between cooperation and competition
Prisoner’s dilemma
- Deutsch
- 2 criminals are charged and best solution is to established trust and remain silent but most people spill because you can never be sure what the other might do
Equity theory
- idea hat people are most comfortable in situations in which rewards and punishsments are equal, fitting and highly logical
Overbenefited people
- people tend to feel guilty
- random or illogical punishments make people feel anxious
Stanely Milgram’s stimulus-overload theory
- why urbanities are less prosocial than country peoples are; urbanities don’t need any more interaction
Reciprocal interaction
- constanc exchange of influences between people
- factor in behaviour
Conformity
- going along with real or perceieved group pressure
Compliance
- people go along with conformity pubicly but not privatly
Acceptance
- ppl change actions and beliefs to conform
Dissenter
- person who speaks out against the majority and doesn’t conform
Individul is most likely to conform when:
- majority opinion
- majority has unanimous position
- majority has high status, or inividual is concerned with own status
- situation is in public
- person not previously committed to another position
- person has low self-esteem
- person scores high on measure of authoritarianism
Reactance
- refusal to conform that may occur as a result of blatant attempt to control
Forewarned
- people will not conform if people are forewarned that others will attempt to change them
Stanley Milgram
- known for experiment when teacher order experimenter to adminster painful schocks to learner
- factors that included conformity = remotenes of victim, proximity of commander, legitmate commander, conformity of other subjects
- 66% conformed
- raised quetions about Nazi’s and ethics
Philip Zimbardo
- people who were wearing hoods (deindividuated) were willing to administer higher levels of shocks
- prison simulation experiment
- show people will step into suprirsing roles
Solomon Asch
- study where subjects listened to staged opinions of others about which lines were equal
- subjects conformed to the obvious incorrect opion 33% of time
- unanimit seemd to be influential
Muzafer Sherif’s
- people’s descriptions of the autokinetic effect were influenced by other’s descriptions (light shaking in the dark)
Speaker is most likely to change a listern’s attitude if:
- speaker is expert/trustworth
- speak is similar to listener
- speaker is acceptable
- speaker is overheard rather than trying to influence
- content is anecdotal, emotional, shocking
- speak is part of 2 person debate vs. one sided
Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood
- model of persuasion suggests that people who are very invovled with issue listen to strength of argument vs. superfiial factors e.g. characteristics of speaker
Sleeper effect
- explains why persuasive communication from source of low credibility may become more acceptable after the fact
McGuire’s inoculation theory
- people’s beliefs are vulnerable if they have never faced challnege
- once expeirnece callenge to their opinions, they are less vulberable
- challnege = vaccination
Deindividuation
- when individual identity/accountability is de-empahsized
- e.g. mingling in crowd, wearing uniforms and adopting a larger identity
The Kitty Genovese Case
- murder of woman witnessed by many led the investigation of the bystander effect or why people are less likely to help when others are present
Diffusion of responsbility
- tendecny that larger the group = less likely indiviuals in group will act or take respnsbility
- everyone waits for someone else to act –> result of deindividuation
Social loafting
- tendency to work less had in group
- guarded against when each individual is closely monitored
Philip Zimbardo
- AS behaviour + correlates with population density
- left broken cars in cities; in NY was stripped in hours
Sherif and competition
- scarce resources cause conflict in groups
robber’s cave experiment
- Sherif
- group conflict is mot effectvely overcome by need for cooperatve atention to be a higher superordinate goal
Contact (conflict)
- with the opposing party decreaes conflict
- we fear what we don’t know
Group polarization (Stoner)
- james Stoner
- group discussion generally serves to strengthen already dominant point of view
- explains risk shift that groups will take greater risks than individuals
Risk shift
- groups take greater risk than individuals because groups strengthen the dominant point of view
Groupthink (Janis)
- Irving Janis
- likely to occur in group tat has unquestioned beliefs, pressure to conform, invulnerability, censors, cohesiveness, isolation from without, and a strong leader
Pluralistic ignorance
- when most of the people in a group privately disagree with something but incorrectly believe that most people in group agree with it
Kenneth and Clark (doll perference studies)
- factored in the 1954 supreme court case of Brown vs. Board of Education
- show negative effect that group segregation had on African american children’s self esteem = though white dolls were better
Ingroup/outgroup bias
- individuals in one group think their membershave more positive qualities and few negative qualitites than member of other group even though qualities are the ame
= basis for prejudice
In relative order of importance, we are attracted to other people who:
1) near us because we get a chance to know them (propinquity)
2) physically attractive
3) have attitudes similar to our own
4) like us back (reciprocity)
Oppoites do not attract
- not backed up by evidence
Reciprocity or dissclosure
- sharing secrets facilitates emotional closeness
Excitation-transfer theory
- sometimes we attribute our excitmenet or arousal aout one thing to somthing else e.g. the arousal of roller coasters if thought to be from your date instead
Mere exposure effect
- how stimuli are rated
- the more we see something, the more positive we rate it
Richard Lazarus
- studied stress and coping
- differentiated between problem and emotion focused
Objective self-awareness
- achieved through self-perception, high self-monitoring and efficacy
- peforming tasks infront of mirror promote this
- deindividuation work against object self-awarness
Door in the face
- sales tactic in which people ask for more than thy would ever ask for to settle for less
Foot in the door phenomem
- how doing a small favor makes people more willing to do larger ones later
Social support netwok
- effects on mental health have emerged as an area of study that combines social and clinical ideas
Rodin and Langer
- nursing home residents who have plants to care for have better health and lower morality rates
Bogus pipeline
- instrument that measure physiological reactions in order to measure truthfulness of attitude self-reporting
Peter principle
- concept that people are prooted at work until they reac position of incompetence, position in which they remain
Stuart Valins
- enviornmental infuences on beahviour
- artchitecture matters
- students in long corridor dorms feel more stress and withdrawn than in suite-style dorms
Berkowitz’s frutration agression hypothesis
- posits relationship between frustration in achieve a goal and show of aggression
Rokeach
- racial bias and similairity of beliefs
- ppl prefer to be with ike minded people more than with like-skinned peole
- racial bais decreases as attitude similairty increases
Fischbein and Ajzen
- theory of reasoned action
- people’s beahviour in given situation determined by their attidued about situation and social norms
Cross cultural research
- more popular
- if western ways of conceptualizing are the same as ways of other cultures
Hazel Markus
- found Eastern countries value interdependence over independence
Attitude
- positive, negative, or neutral evaluation or a person, issues, or object
Hatfield
- 2 basic kinds of love are passionate and companionate love
Passionate love
- intene longing for untion with another and profound physioloical arousal
- based on biophysioloical system shared with other primates
- power emotions that are positive or negative
Companionate love
- affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined
- achieved via mutual trust, respect, and communication
Ekman
- humans have 6 basic emotions: sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust
- found this through universal facial expresion
FACS coding
- Facial action coding system determines genuine smile vs. fake
Reciprocal socialization
- when 2 parties adapt to or socialize by each other e.g. parents and children who influence eachother
Harold Kelly
- attriubutions we make about our actions or those of others are usually accurate
- base this on consistency, disctinveness and consensus of the action
