Social Psychology Flashcards
Role theory
People are aware of social roles they are expected to fill
Social facilitation
Studied by Triplett with the cyclists experiments
Studied by Zajonc in dominant traits
Social Comparison
Evaluating own actions by comparing to others
Argument against mainstreaming children with difficulties
Father of Social Psych
Kurt Lewin
Lewin’s Field theory
Total influences on individual behavior
Life space
Collection of forces upon an individual
Forces: Valence, vector, barrier
Actor-observer attributional divergence
Tendency for the person doing the behavior to have a different perspective than person watching
Self-serving attributional bias
Interpreting one’s own actions in positive way, blaming situations for failures and taking credit for success
Illusory correlation
Assuming that two unrelated things have a relationship
Slippery slope
Logical fallacy that says small step in a direction will lead to greater steps and significant impact
False Consensus Bias
Assuming other people think as you do
Attitudes
Opinion statements
Consistency theories
People prefer consistency
Fritz Heider’s Balance theory
Consistency theory
Three elements: person, other, and another object/idea/person
Balance is when people like each other and both like/dislike third
Or if person doesn’t like other and they disagree on third
Imbalance is if people like each other but disagree on third
Cognitive dissonance
Attitudes are not in synch with behaviors
Engaging in behavior that conflicts with an attitude may result in changing attitude so it is consistent with behavior
Leon Festinger’s Cognitive dissonance theory
Need to change either attitude or behavior
Two types of dissonant
Free-choice and forced-compliance
Post-decisional dissonance
Dissonance emerges after his choice
Spreading of alternatives
Relative worth of alternatives is spread apart through either accentuating negative on let go choice or accentuating positive on choice
Festinger and Carlsmith
Boring tasks, had to tell next subject that it was fun, were paid either 20$ or 1$. 1$s enjoyed the task more
Minimal Justification Effect
Changing internal cognitions because external justification is minimal
Daryl Bem’s Self perception theory
People infer what their attitudes are based on observation of their own behavior
Overjustification effect
If you award someone for doing something they already like, they may stop enjoying it
Self presentation
Ways we act in line with our attitudes or in ways that will be accepted by others
Self- monitoring
Pay attention to actions and change behaviors to be more favorable
Impression management
Behaving in ways that might make a good impression
Hovland’s 3 components of persuasion
Communicator, communication (presentation of argument), and situation
Credibility Study
Articles written by “different sources” One found more credible sources change attitudes
Sleeper effect
Over time, persuasiveness of credible source decreases
Self-interest
By arguing for Self-interest, persuasiveness increases
Ex. drug addicts who argue for greater police power persuasive
Two-sided messages
Contain arguments on both sides, used for persuasion because seemingly balanced
Petty and Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
Two routes to persuasion
Peripheral: don’t care much about issue, doesn’t take a lot to convince
Central: care a lot about issue, strong arguments will change mind
Analogy of inoculation
Body resists stronger when exposed to pathogen, minds same with attack of persuasion
Cultural truisms
Beliefs seldom questioned
McGuire believed they were vulnerable to attack
Refuted counter
arguments
Practice defending beliefs can be helpful for actual attacks
Reactance
Trying too hard to persuade, it threatens other person’s freedom and they will believe the opposite
Festinger’s Social
Comparison theory
Drawn to affiliate because we tend to evaluate ourselves in relationships. Prefer to evaluate by non social means, but then compare to others when this isn’t possible. Less similarity, less tendency to compare
Self-evaluation linked to need to affiliate
Reciprocity hypothesis
We tend to like people who indicate they like us and dislike people who dislike us
Aronson and Linder’s Gain-loss Principle
Evaluation that changes will have more of an impact. Ex. Someone starts to like us, we will like more than someone who always liked us
Social exchange theory
A person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with another person
Equity theory
We consider costs and rewards of another person as well. We prefer our ration to be equal to other’s ratio
Over Benefitted people
Tend to feel guilty, and illogical punishments make people anxious
Need complimentary
Choose relationships that mutually satisfy each other’s needs
Ex. dominant and submissive
Talker and more quiet
Attractiveness Stereotype
Tendency to attribute positive and desirable characteristics to attractive people
Spatial Proximity
Closer people live to each other, better opportunity for something to develop or increase intensity
Zajonc Mere exposure hypothesis
Repeated exposure leads to enhanced liking of it
Social Influence
Presence of others lead to interpretation of an event as nonemergency
Diffusion of Responsibility
Most significant factor at Kew Gardens
Only one bystander, has the responsibility to help. Others present, responsibility shared
More people present, less likely to offer help
Pluralistic Ignorance
Smoke in the room while alone or two confederates experiments. Defines event as nonemergency
Base-rate fallacy
Overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familiar with
Illusion of control
Belief you can control things you have no influence on
Oversimplification
Simple explanations for complex events
Representativeness heuristic
Shortcut assumptions to guess rather than relying on logic
Availability heuristic
WHen people think there is a higher proportion of one thing in a group because examples come to mind more easily
Batson’s empathy altruism model
Witnessing shocks, empathy-helped distress- left
Berkowitz’s Frustration-
aggression hypothesis
Strength of frustration experienced correlated with level of aggression observed
Sherif’s autokinetic effect
Stare at a light in a dark room, the light will appear to move
Had subjects estimate amount of movement alone and with others
Changed estimate in group
Solomon Asch’s Conformity Study
Subject in a room of other men
Cards had lines differing in length
Confederates agreed on wrong answer, subject would agree with wrong 37% of time
Pressure to conform to group
Compliance
Change in behavior as a result of situational or interpersonal pressure
Foot-in-door effect
Compliance in small request increases likelihood of compliance with larger requests
Door-in-face effect
Refusing a large initial requests are more likely to agree to a later small request
Clark & Clark doll preference tasks
Showed children a black and white doll. Majority of both preferred white doll. Subsequent methodologies showed unreliable
Dimensions of personal identity
Identities organized into hierarchy
More salient- more we conform to role expectation
Bandura’s Self efficacy
Strong self-efficacy, more lily to exert effort on a task
Judgments based on performance, vicarious experience, social persuasion, physiological and emotional states
Social perception
Impressions about the characteristics of individuals
Primary effects
First impressions are more important than subsequent impression
Recency effect
Most recent information is the most important in forming our impressions
Heider’s Attribution theory
Tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other people’s behavior Dispositional causes (related to person's character) or situational attribution (characteristics of situation that caused behavior
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to look for personality flaws, the general bias toward making dispositional attributions
Halo effect
General impression about a person influence more specific evaluations
Theodore Newcomb’s study
Conservative students at a liberal college, increasingly accepted the norms of their community
Edward Hall study on Proxemics
Cultural norms that govern how far away we stand from others. Strangers further than close friends
Social loafing
Tendency for people to put forth less effort in a group than with acting individually
Zimbardo’s Prison simulation
When a person is anonymous, there is diminished restraint of unacceptable behavior
Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and personal identity (happened in Zimbardo’s study)
Groupthink
The tendency for decision-making groups to strive for consensus by not considering discordant information Janis discovered in regards to historical situations
Risky shift
Group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choice
Value hypothesis
Risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally valued (ex. Risky business ventures)
Stoner’s experiment
Pregnant couples choosing between mom and baby in risky pregnancy
Found a shift with group decisions towards caution not risk
Group polarization
Leading current explanation
Tendency for group discussion to enhance the group’s initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution
Kurt Lewin’s Leadership style study
Laissez-faire: less efficient, organized, and satisfying
Autocratic- more hostile, aggressive, dependent on leader (but quantity of work was greatest)
Democratic- more satisfying, cohesive, and greater work motivation and interest
Deutsch Prisoner’s Dilemma
Investigating choice to compete or cooperate
Shown compete over cooperation
Trucking Company Game
Companies could choose to cooperate on fixed prices or compete against each other with lower prices
Robber’s Cave experiment
Cooperation and competition with boy’s camp. Able to make competition
Superordinate goals
Best obtained through intergroup relations
Excitation Transfer theory
Attribute our excitement to something else. Ex. bungee jumping on a first date. May like that person
Objective self awareness
Self-perception, high self-monitoring, self-efficacy
And looking in a mirror
Lazarus
Studied stress and coping
Problem-focused: change the stressor
Emotion-focused: change our response
Rodin and Langer
Elderly w/ plants have better health
Bogus Pipeline
Measures physiological reactions aka truthfulness of self-reporting
Peter principle
Promoted at work until they reach a position of incompetence and stay there
Stuart Valins
Studied environmental influences on behavior architecture impact on students
Rokeach
Racial bias, people prefer to be with like minded people over like-skinned
Fischbein and Ajzen’s theory of reasoned action
Behavior is determined by attitude and social norms
Hazel Markus
Interdependence and independence cultures in cross cultural research
Elaine Hatfield
Studied two basic types of love- passionate and companionate
Paul Ekman
Sad, happy, fear, anger, surprise, disgust
FACS coding
Coding facial expressions can determine whether smile is genuine or fake
REciprocal socialization
When two parties adapt to each other
Harold Kelly
Base attributions on consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus
Walter Dill scott
Applied psych to business
Landsberger
Hawthorne effect
Sociotechnical system
Interaction between people and technology
Richard LaPierre
Said they would refuse service to asians, but did not
Suggests that attitude does not necessarily dictate behavior
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s pygmalion in the classroom
Self-fulfilling prophecy- kids told they were capable performed better
Out Group homogeneity
Tend to see out group is being all the same
