Social Psychology Flashcards
SOCIAL INHIBITION
reduced performance due to the presence of others
SOCIAL FACILITATION
improved performance due to the presence of others
GROUP POLARISATION
the strengthening of attitudes in individuals when they are in groups of people who hold similar attitudes
- discussion within groups can strengthen attitudes
MYERS AND BISHOP (1970)
GROUP POLARISATION
− Found that when students who were low radical prejudice talked together, attitudes became more accepted
− When highly prejudice students talked about the issues then became even more prejudice
CLARK MCCAULEY (2002) GROUP POLARISATION
− Noted that terrorists mentally come from groups that get together and share their similar grievances where there is no moderating influence
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
“deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events. it examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment” (friske & taylor, 1991)
- concerned with how and why ordinary people explain evens as they do
HEIDER (1958)
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
- believed that people are naive psychologists trying to make sense of the world
- two main ideas; internal (situational attribution) and external (dispositional attribution)
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION
assigning the because of behaviour to some internal characteristic, rather than outside forces e.g. personality traits
SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTION
assigning the because of behaviour to some situation or event outside a person’s control rather than internal characteristics e.g. having bad day
KELLEY COVARIATION MODEL (1967)
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
covariation; a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its because
- 3 types (consensus, distinctiveness, consistency)
- low = dispositional (internal)
- high = situational (external)
- may not have enough information to make judgement
CONSENSUS
- the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a a similar situation
DISTINCTIVENESS
- the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations
CONSISTENCY
- the extent to which the person behaves like this every times the situation occurs
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
- a situation involving conflicting attitudes, belied or behaviours
- produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance
FESTINGER (1957)
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
- we have an inner drive to hold all out attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (dissonance)
- a powerful notice to maintain cognitive consistency can give rise to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behaviour
- participant observation study of a cult which believe the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood
- fringe members were inclined to recognise that they made fools
- committed members were more like to re-interpret the evidence to show they were right
DISSONANCE CAN BE REDUCED IN 3 WAYS
- change one or more of the attitudes
- acquire new information
- reduce the importance of the cognition
FORCED COMPLIANCE BEHAVIOUR
an individual performs an action that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs
can’t be changed as already in the past
reduced by re-evaluating their attitude to what they have done
FESTINGER AND CARL SMITH (1959)
- investigated if making people perform a dull task would create cognitive dissonance through forced compliance behaviour
- 71 males
- half paid $1 to $20 to tell waiting patient that task was interesting
- those paid $1 rated task as more fun
- being paid $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance
- overcome by believing that the task really were interesting
ASCH
line test
MILGRAM
obedience study/zappy zap
ZIMBARDO
prison experiment
