Social Psychology Flashcards
1
Q
Why do we form groups?
A
- Humans are pretty weak and have low chance of survival as individuals
- Thus, we form social groups and cooperate with others in these groups
- Allows us to dominant chunks of our environment (pushing other animals to extinction)
2
Q
What is social psychology?
A
- The study of how people influence each other’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours
- Through their actual, imagined (thought of the person) or anticipated presence
3
Q
What did Sherif find in his study?
A
- Studied how people make sense of this subjective world using the auto-kinetic effect (dark room, 1 dot of light on the wall, stare at it)
- When people are alone, their subjective results are all over the place of whether the dot is moving
- When placed in groups, the groups change their opinion until they come to a middle consensus (conform)
4
Q
Why does conformity occur?
A
- Informational influence: to get information
- People privately accept and internalize information from others because the information disambiguates reality and provides a basis for correct perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs
- Particularly when the situation is ambiguous - Normative influence: to fulfill our need to belong
- Public compliance, under actual or assumed surveillance, based on a need for social approval and acceptance
5
Q
What did Asch find in his study?
A
- Studied whether people would conform even if it goes against an objective reference point
- Placed participants in a group of actors, showed a line (target) and told them to match the line to choices
- The first few rounds, the actors said the right answer
- Eventually as more actors said the incorrect answer, people will agree
- On average, 75% of people will follow the group at least once
- Many acknowledged afterwards that they knew the responses were wrong, but they were afraid of being ridiculed by others
- Good social skills come with an awareness of social conventions and cues
- A minority of others would say that they actually believed their incorrect choice to be the right one (cognitive dissonance)
6
Q
What is cognitive dissonance?
A
- People want to maintain consistency between thoughts and actions and appear as a “good person”
- Inconsistencies between thoughts and/or behaviours create an unpleasant state of arousal
- Results from threat to people’s sense of themselves as rational, moral, and competent
- Motivates efforts to resolve inconsistencies
- Eg. Festinger conducted a study in which he requested someone to try to persuade another person that the study is super fun when it was super boring
- 3 groups: no payment, 1$, and 20$
- Called the participants back again and asked whether they found the task fun and whether they could book it back
- Those that were given $1 were very willing
- “You lied for $1, how cheap are you!” so the only option to maintain self-image is to change attitude
- Those that were given $20, that’s a lot of money so that’s the reason
7
Q
What did Goldman find in his study?
A
- In the previous studies mentioned, conformity had no negative impact on people
- Conducted study to see whether social norms could influence hunger
- Deprived students for 24 hours, only water
- There were confederates (actors) to eat a certain amount (augmentation, control, inhibition of calories)
- The results show that conformity can influence eating (an innate physiological need)
- In augmented group, eat more calories and in inhibited, eat less calories
- Important also because results suggest the process is symmetrical (norms can increase and eating eating)
- Some norms are assymetrical
- Norms on campus increase alcohol but does not decrease it
8
Q
What is attribution?
A
A conclusion about the cause of another’s observed behaviour (how we explain the behaviour of others because we want to understand actions to anticipate behaviour)
9
Q
What is situational attribution? What is dispositional attribution?
A
- Situational attribution: factors outside the person are causing the action
- Dispositional attribution: the person’s stable, enduring traits, personality, are causing the action
10
Q
What is the fundamental attribution error?
A
- We typically overestimate dispositional influences and underestimate situational infleunces on other’s behaviour
- Again, it is fundamental (particualrly in North America)
- Results in mainly consequences for our social interactions:
- More likely to respond negatively to others (eg. irritability, frustration, anger)
- Less likely to respond positively to others (eg. tolerance, altruism)
11
Q
What is the actor-observer effect?
A
- Actor-observer effect: when we explain our own behaviour:
- Situational attribution: blame the situation for our failures
- Dispositional attribution: assume successes are because of disposition
- A social cognitive bias that contributes to maintain high esteem
12
Q
What transforms human character?
A
- Dispositional: look inside of the person
- Situational: look in the external factors
- System: does the system create a situation that corrupts individuals?
- If you want to change a person, chance the situation and therefore the system
13
Q
What are the processes that grease the slippery slope of evil?
A
- Mindlessly taking the first small step
- Dehumanization of others
- Deindividuation of self
- Diffusion of personal responsibility
- Blind obedience to authority
- Uncritical conformity to group norms
- Passive tolerance of evil through inaction/indifference
14
Q
What is attitude?
A
Evaluation of a person, place, object, event, or behaviour
15
Q
What is the function of attitude?
A
- Key component to how we understand others, among other functions
- Happens very quickly, having a response to them (stereotypes or knowledge)
- Prefer if their attitudes are similar to us
- Lay assumption that attitudes guide behaviour and behaviour reflects our attitudes
- Not really the case
