SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Question 1

Phylogenetic time =

Answer 1

evolutionary psychology

Question 2

Ontology time =

Answer 2

developmental psychology

Question 3

The case of Kitty Genovese

Answer 3

• March 13th 1964
• came home after work and was raped and killed in front of 38 walker by but no one ever called the police
• this is called the bystander inaction/effect

Question 4

Latane - social psychologist on the bystander effect

Answer 4

“each bystander is picking up cures about what is happening and how to react to it from the other bystanders” 1982
-went on to test this hypothesis by gathering uni students and having 2 conditions alone of 3 people. they were put into a room and each condition had smoke put into the room to make it look like the room was on fire. it was found that the 3 person condition were less likely to report the smoke due to the lack of responsibility - THIS IS CALLED DIFFUSED RESPONSIBILITY

Question 5

Latin’s second experiment to test defused responsibility

Answer 5

‘the fallen woman’

• the fear component is taken away
• alone or 2 person condition
• put into a room, greeted by a woman, 4 mins later they hear what sounds like her climbing up a ladder and falling down and crying
• again the alone condition were 70% more likely to help

Question 6

Social rejection/social exclusion - the ball tossing game/cyberball developed by Kip williams

Answer 6

2 confederates, one participant - excluded in a ball tossing game

• boys showed anger
• girls showed upset through crying
• done through a computer game the 2nd time and there was no difference in how they felt in belonging, control, self esteem and meaningful existence but their anterior cingulate cortex was activated which shows up when an individual feels pain
• the ventral prefrontal cortex was too activated which shows up when one is trying to hold back emotion

Question 7

what factors influence the way you form impressions about others?

Answer 7

superficial processing of information = relying on accessible information to make a judgement e.g. how they look
systematic processing of information = goes further than first impressions and looks at putting characteristics together to create a more rounded impression

Question 8

J Willis and Todorov 2006 - snap judgements (personality impressions)

Answer 8

• a group were shown 66 faces and then had to rate the 66 faces on how trustworthy, competent, likeable and aggressive they thought they looked
• a second group viewed the same photos but in staggered times
• exposure of how long they saw the faces for was manipulated
• it was found that peoples snap judgements on personality wherever similar to more considered impressions

Question 9

Todorov 2005 - the case of politicians

Answer 9

• a group of people compared to photos of a pair, and asked to judge who they thought looked more competent for the US elections; little did they know that the two men shown were rivals in elections for the US senate or house of representatives
• inferences of competence predicted the outcomes of the US congressional elections better than chance
• the findings suggest that rapid, unreflective trait (how someone looks) inferences can contribute to voting choices

Question 10

Miller 1984 - the examination of american and Oriya children and adults person perceptions

Answer 10

• Motorcycle accident
• US said that the guy was irresponsible and he was just chasing career success
• the indian group said that he had a duty to be in court - LOOKING AT SITUATIONAL FACTORS OVER INDIVIDUAL FACTORS
• culturally based?

Question 11

What is a Gestalt

Answer 11

– a structured view of a person which integrates various pieces of information into a coherent whole

Question 12

Impression formation

Answer 12

Solomon asch 1946

• our actions towards others make them act in that way to us
• impressions about a person can produce the reality that corresponds to the impression

Question 13

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 13

• when a person unknowingly makes a prediction come true

Question 14

Synder, Tanke and Bersheid 1977 (male phone call)

Answer 14

men had a conversation with a random female over the phone who they were told was either attractive OR unnatractive (shown images)
-those who were shown an attractive image behaved in a more social way, flirting, developing a greater liking
It was clear from the pre-conversation assessments that men who anticipated physically attractive partners expected to interact with comparatively sociable, poised, humorous and socially adept women. In contrast, the other men expected unsocialble, awkward, serious, and socially inept women.

Question 15

Pygmilion effect

Answer 15

Rosenthal informed the teachers that 5 students had been identified as very smart who would out perform the others, they were told falsely that this had been determined due to testing. As a result the teachers paid greater attention to them, gave them more challenging tasks etc and led them to perform better a few motnhs later.

Question 16

External attribution(situational attribution)
VS interpersonal attribution

Answer 16

• refers to interpreting someones behaviour as being caused by the situation they are in
• eg placing blame on other things apart from you
  -eg tyre puncture was due to bad roads when really was due to the individuals bad driving
  THE OPPOSITE of this is interpersonal attribution and often occurs when the cause of events to question the individuals actions involves others

Question 17

Willaim James 1842-1910 - types of ‘me’

Answer 17

1. material me
   2.social reputations of me
2. spiritual part of me
   all of these make up the experience of myself

Question 18

Charles Horton Cooley on the sense of I

Answer 18

there is no sense of i without “you, he or they” - other peoples responses to you are the foundation of the thinking about yourself

Question 19

What did George herbet Mead think about how one comes to view themselves?

Answer 19

• how you act and interact within society is how you view yourself
• “the self…arises in the process of social experience and activity”

your sense of your self is constantly changing as you experience new things and new people

Question 20

At what age do babies being to recognise themselves in the mirror?

Answer 20

by 2 years

Question 21

Nielsen 2004 - infant behaviour and development between 18-21 months

Answer 21

showed that facial recognition in the mirror appears between the ages of 18-21 months

Question 22

Dianne Tyce - introvert/extrovert experiment

Answer 22

asked people to rate themselves on how introverted/extroverted they are in a private condition and then a public condition and found that the introverts in the private condition were more likely to describe themselves as an extrovert in a public condition. she continued to see this but with chairs and how close the introvert or extrovert would sit next to a stranger - she showed that behaviour is shaped too by the knowledge of how other peoples perceive or think of you

Question 23

indivdualism vs collectivism

Answer 23

individualist - everyone is supposed to take care of themselves/countries such as USE and Australia view this

collectivist - we work together as a society - Thailand, singapore…

(the country data is Hofstede 1980)

Question 24

Markus and Kitayam 1991 independent self construal and interdependent self construal

Answer 24

Independent = individuals are unique from others 
Interdependent = I am who i am due to the relationships i have with others

Question 25

What are attitudes?

Answer 25

1. learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object
2. not genetically determined but what you have learnt from others
3. liking or disliking are the characteristics that make up ones attitude

Question 26

Structure of an attitude

the relationships between some components of attitudes

Answer 26

3 components to the structure

1. cognitive (thoughts)
2. affective (gut feelings)
3. behaviour (what you do with this feeling)

Question 27

Functions of an attitude

Answer 27

1. knowledge function = to suss out what an object is like
2. utilitarian function = works in order to gain rewards and avoid punishment
3. self esteem maintenance function = to protect ones self esteem (buy lots of nice things)
4. social identity function = to express ones values and place your values with another group to find a match which will identity you

Question 28

La Piere 1934 (chinese culture experiment)

Answer 28

92% of restaurants said they would not accept a chinese couple but when the couple turned up they did
- concluded that people responded more to appearance and self-confidence rather than race and that what people do is often different to what they say

Question 29

Theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Azjen)

Answer 29

• an individuals decision to engage in a particular behaviour will be a predetermined action that had been thought about and is based on the outcome that the individual expects will come as a result of performing the behaviour
• your behaviour will be driven by how you think and how you think others will think however it was later discovered that behaviour is not always under our control so the THoery of planned BEHAVIOUR was created that incorporated behaviour control

Question 30

theory of planned behaviour

Answer 30

human action is guided by

1. behavioural beliefs (beliefs about the consequences of the behaviour)
2. normative beliefs (beliefs about the normative expectations of the behaviour)
3. control beliefs (beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate or impede perforce of the behaviour)

Question 31

Attitude accessibility theory - Fazio

Answer 31

• attitudes are memory representations of evaluation associated with the attitude object
• attitudes tend to be stronger based on the direct experience
• one has vested interest
• two conditions must be met in order for the attitude to guide your behaviour ATTITUDE ACCESSED AND ATTITUDE RELEVANT - if they are met then the attitude will influence your behaviour

Question 32

can attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 32

SOMETIMES

Question 33

What are some strategies to change ones attitude?

Answer 33

1. Individual level strategy = have a behaviour that is consistent with your hope attitudes and is voluntary - for instance if you are asked to stop smoking but your attitude is that you don’t want to or that you won’t die from it the behaviour will not change due to the inconsistent attitude
2. Cognitive dissonance theory (leon festinger) -we have cognitive elements EG attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and they have relations among themselves - when these elements are consonant (you know smoking causes cancer so you eat a cheeseburger) this is fine but some cognitive elements become dissonant for example you may smoke and know it causes cancer which led to a bad feeling or a guilty feeling; this could work for the best so you want to reduce this bad feeling by trying to quit BUT you could also try to repress this dissonance by making yourself think you don’t smoke enough to cause cancer

Question 34

the induced compliance paradigm which was put into place to test the cognitive dissonance theory

Answer 34

In the study, Festinger and Carlsmith predicted that the greater the reward, the smaller the change in the participant’s opinion.

participants turned 48 pegs clockwise for another 30 minutes. Once participants completed the task, the experimenter asked the participants to fill in for an absent experimenter by lying to another participant about how enjoyable the experiment was for either one or 20 dollars; a control group was not asked to lie. Lastly, participants rated the task for its enjoyment. Therefore, the contradiction between their attitudes of the boring task and their actions (lying) should cause the participants to suffer dissonance.

The lack of a strong external reward (20 dollars) forced participants in the low reward condition (one dollar) to change their attitudes in order to relieve the stress caused by the conflict between their attitudes and behaviors (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1957).

Question 35

Positive feedback loop

Answer 35

Attitudes (accessible) –> Behaviour (voluntary) –>Attitudes

Interpersonal level strategy = communicator sends a message to audience which goes through a process of SOURCE -> MESSENGER -> AUDIENCE
—- factors that could affect the attitude change based on this theory – if the source is attractive? similar to you? if the message is repeated? if it is something that provokes fear?

Question 36

two routes to persuasion - the elaboration likelihood model 1

which route is taken - depends on the ability and motivation to elaborate on the message received

Answer 36

1. central route(e.g. strong arguments) – if the argument is inline with the message then an attitude will occur but if they develop counter arguments then their attitudes will not change
2. peripheral route -> desired change is not as enduring

Question 37

elaboration likelihood model 2

Answer 37

cognitive resources are required to elaborate on the messages

motivation is necessary to elaborate on the messages

Question 38

Kurt Lewin and his interest in peoples motivations

Answer 38

• experiemtn “how can eating habits change” (during war time)
• 2 conditions which were information vs information and group discussion
• it was found that group discussion enhanced attitude change and behaviour change because info is circulated and you could hear others opinions (group norm)

Question 39

Why are groups important for humans?`

Answer 39

1- task performance function = a sense of reliance/there are some things that humans cannot perform on their own
2 - socio emotional function = sense of someone being there/ a sense of social support
3 - social identity function - a sense of meaning and place “location in society”

Question 40

Our culture and genes enable us to live in groups of huge scales
(neocortex correlated with our group sizes)

Answer 40

• Robin Dunbar 1993 should that the larger the group size someone was in, the larger the neocortex was
• part of the reason why we have the kind of intelligence that we do is because we can live in a large group

Question 41

Group properties 1

Answer 41

Norms 1 –> attitudinal and behavioural patterns characteristic of groups - there are two types that fall into this category; a descriptive norm which involves what people actually do do and think such as shake hands or stand up to clap if everyone else does and an injunctive norm which is what people should do and think, what is ought to be seen as morally right or wrong such as if others think that tax fraud is bad you are most likely going to to think so too and therefore not do it

A NORM TENDS TO PROVIDE A UNIFORMITY TO A GROUP

Norms 2 - background norms/ in a group these become evident when there is shared values and beliefs and attitudes
- Newcomb’s Bennington Study; looked at conservative girls from an arts college to educate women to be house wives and leaders- this college changed them from being so rigid and changed their norms transforming them. They went on to being successful leaders therefore it is clear that NROMS HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT YOU EVEN AFTER YOU HAVE LEFT THE PLACE WHERE THE NORMS WERE ESTABLISHED

• Sherifs 1936 experiment on the auto kinetic movement which was an experiment “all in peoples heads” showed that group norms are agreed-upon standards of behavior. Sherif’s experiment showed group norms are established through interaction of individuals and the leveling-off of extreme opinions. The result is a consensus agreement that tends to be a compromise…even if it is wrong.

Group cohesiveness - like a pressure from individual members - Lewins field theory “a field of forces” which act on an individual to remain in the group; the forces being the attractiveness of the group and how much you like the group. As well as this if an individuals interdependent goals are aligned or in common with another member in the group the cohesiveness in the group will be increased

• more cohesive (unity) groups enforce norms more, and the power of the norm too

Question 42

define cohesiveness in a group

Answer 42

UNITY

Question 43

Intra group differentiation (processes happening within a social group)
(last group property)

Answer 43

role - define what you should be doing/ an expectation coordinating peoples activities together and provides you a role
status - high in status - takes the leadership
leader-follower structure- there has to be a match between what the individual is like and what they are doing to make the behaviour good
Fiedler’s contingency theory and leadership - relationship oriented leader and task oriented leader you cannot be both - to establish best situational control

Situational Control is determined by three factors:

v Leader-member relations—how loyal is the
Group to the leader?

v Task structure–clarity of the task for the followers

v Leader Power—the ability of the leader to reward and punish the followers

Question 44

Social network structure (last group property)

Answer 44

• who talks to whom

- notion of centrality (persons self values)

Question 45

Group task performance

Answer 45

Ivan Steiner’s model - group performance is driven by group potential (process loss) so if actions cannot be coordinated the group will decrease. There are two types of losses; coordination and motivation
Latane et al in 1979 bought 6 people into a lab and got them to yell as loudly as possible; there was a 2 person condition and a 6 person condition. It was found that the yell was quite with more people which showed a process loss as it wasn’t coordinated - SO the lower the process loss the better the group performance

Question 46

Types of social influences

Answer 46

normative influences = to conform with the expectation of others perhaps to gain social approval or to avoid disapproval
Informational influences = to accept information from others as evidence about reality/ to listen and learn
majority influence and minority influences = the more people to share an opinion the more likely it will be that that will become the majority view

Question 47

Asch’s experiemtn to test majority influence

Answer 47

1961, 1956

• 7-9 people were all confederates apart from one and they all made the wrong choice and gave the wrong answer in a test which asked them to say which line was a different length to the other 3 - however they all answered wrong and this became a majority influence - making the 1 participant to conform
• 25% never conformed but on average 33% did conform to the WRONG answer
• conformtity rate increases with more peoples attitudes but does end up stabilising

Question 48

Serge Moscovici on minority influence

Answer 48

his argument was that consistent minority disrupts the majority norm and increases uncertainty, drawing attention to the minority view eventually - he conducted an experiment called “blue-green” in 1969 and a slide was shown on the board which was blue but the confederates would all say it was green and this would keep on going until the confederate had ‘drilled’ it into the participants heads that it was actually green. After persistence it was shown that those who conformed was when there was more of a consistent minority

Question 49

define group polarisation

Answer 49

group discussions tend to produce group decisions that are more extreme or polarised than the initial position

Question 50

Milligrams study on obedience

Answer 50

65% of the participants went up to the 450 volts due to the power of the authoritative figure
- Burger 2009 went on to report a replication of milligrams experiment in 2006

Zimbardos prison experiment is another case showing the power of hierarchy dictating conformity

• Zimbardo was a social psychologist who, randomly assigned 24 young people into two groups being prisons or guards
• One prisoner become emotionally disturbed
• Some guards became abusive eg push ups, marching
• There was a plan of an attempted break out
• The experiment was to last for two week but stopped five days into it

Question 51

Abu Ghraib - a real life example of zimbardo

Answer 51

17 US soldiers near iraq were removed from duty after charges of mistreating iraqi prisoners

Question 52

INTERGROUP PROCESSES- (social dynamics between groups)

Answer 52

group formation - groups are more likely to form if there is a liking among in-group members such as cohesiveness and norms
intergroup relationships - cooperation vs competition
stereotypes and prejudice - there will be beliefs and attitudes that reflect intergroup relationships

an example of intergroup processes in action is the Robbers cave park experiment 1954
22 boys were taken to a summer camp
they were into 2 separate groups and they formed identities through flags and names - there was then a sense of intergroup competition which was a 4 day tournament and the fact that they were fighting for limited resources
-intergroup conflict was found when the losing group raised the winning group and stole the prizes
- a sense of in-group favouritism was surfaced when there was intergroup competition
-negative stereotypes were too formed
-to resolve the intergroup conflict a group coordination task was put into place to bring them all togehter such as pushing a truck

Question 53

what leads to intergroup harmony?

Answer 53

coordination and cooperation

Question 54

The minimal group paradigm - Henri Tajfel

Answer 54

found that social identities do drive in group favoritism

• They created an experiment where only identities matter
• They wanted to create social identities without intergroup competition, people were asked which types of paintings they prefer
• Based on their picture preference they were put into two groups
• They were then asked to allocate points to a person from your ingroup and one person from your out group
• Points = rewards
• Showed whether they favoured their in group or their out group OR be completely fair
• Most people tended to favour their in group

Question 55

Halloran and Kashima 2004

Answer 55

made aboriginal and Australian social identities salient by asking aboriginal participants to read essays that emphasized their traditional culture and that emphasized the acheivements of Australians
1 condition = aboriginal essay, another condition = Australian essay
3rd condition = no essay
- when the traditional aboriginal culture was made salient they were individualistic and collectivistc
- when it was the Australian essay they were heavily individualistic over collectivistic

Question 56

Social networks and health

Answer 56

• given the importance of social connectivity for humans; isolation and exclusion from a social network may be detrimental to health and when included in a social network, positive social interactions may be harmful for psychological and physical health
• social integration vs isolation – the better integrated you are in society the better off you are in general well being – Berkman and Syme (1979) in California asked people about their social interactions and networks and found that the fewer social ties people reported on a 1965 survey, the more likely they were to die over the next 9 year period
• in 1997 Cohen found that greater social integration was associated with susceptibility to the common cold ( immune system)
• 752 men aged 50 in Sweden were observed by Rosengren and it was found that social support can lead to a healthier life
• Cohen 1998 interviewed men and women to find out about their life stressors especially interpersonal conflicts that have lasted 1,3 or 6 months and then exposed them to common flu virusus and examined whether they developed the colds and it was clear that stressful life events to lead to lower immunity.

Social integration is essential to keep us well functioning!

• percentages of studies that found relationships between self reported racism experiences and mental and physical health outcomes (paradies 2006)
• physical health was less clear but there were some findings that say that there may be

Question 57

Troxel 2003 and the findings between unfair treatment between African and Caucasian women and their heart health

Answer 57

• those who had recorded experiences of unfair treatment were more likely to suffer from heart disease

Question 58

5 stages of the bystander effect

Answer 58

1. notice the event
2. interpret the need for help
3. take personal responsibility
4. decide what kind of help to give
5. provide help

Question 59

fundamental attribution error/corespondence bias

Answer 59

the tendency for the individual to emphasis internal characteristics of the agent rather than external factors in explaining some one else behaviour that they have observed

Question 60

covariation principle

Answer 60

do we blame internal or external factors for ones behaviour? internal = dispositional or external = situational… e.g. if a girl is doing bad in her maths class but also does bad in other subjects and others are not then we can say she is a poor student and her behaviour is dispositional HOWEVER, if everyone else is doing badly in the class and this girl doesn’t usually do badly it must be due to poor teaching which is due to situational factors

based on 3 factors

1. do others behave in this way
2. is this similar to how the person usually acts
3. is this different to how the person usually acts

Question 61

define congruent

Answer 61

in agreement/harmony

Question 62

list of cognitive biases

Answer 62

sterotyping
reporting bias ( defined as “selective revealing or suppression of information”)
bandwagon effect
unconsicous bias

Question 63

transactional vs transformational leadership

Answer 63

trans = normal flow leadership/contingent reward 
transformational = goes beyond managing day to day operations/focuses on motivation and team work

Question 64

collective behaviour

Answer 64

Collective behaviour resembles organized group behaviour in that it consists of people acting together; but it is more spontaneous—and consequently more volatile and less predictable—than is behaviour in groups that have well-established rules and traditions specifying their purposes, membership, leadership, and method of operation.

Question 65

deindivduation

Answer 65

loss of self awareness in a group/identiy

Question 66

intergroup contact hypothesis

Answer 66

proposed by Allport who suggested that positive effects of intergroup contact occur in CONTACT situations characterised by group components; equal status, intergroup cooperation, common goals and support