Social Psychology

Question 1

Reinforcement Theory

Answer 1

behavior is motivated by anticipated rewards

Question 2

Albert Bandura

Answer 2

coined social learning theory. He proposed behavior is learned through imitation.

Question 3

Role Theory

Answer 3

the perspective that people are aware of social roles they are expected to fill, and much of their observable behavior
can be attributed to adopting these roles.

Question 4

Cognitive Theory

Answer 4

has been influential in social psychological theory and research. Perception, judgement, memories and decision making are all examples of cognitive concepts that have influenced social behavior.

Question 5

What are the components of an attitude?

Answer 5

cognition or beliefs, feelings, and behavioral predisposition. Attitudes are usually expressed in opinion statements

Question 6

Consistency Theories

Answer 6

hold that people prefer consistency, and will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference. If a person is aware of an inconsistency the according to consistency theories, the person will try to resolve it

Question 7

What are inconsistencies in consistency theory?

Answer 7

viewed as stimuli or irritants and often are resolved by changing attitudes.

Question 8

Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory

Answer 8

is concerned about how elements are related: the person whom we are talking about, some other person, and a thing idea or some other person. Balance exists when all three fit together harmoniously. When there isn’t balance there will be stress and a tendency to remove this stress by achieving balance.

Question 9

Who coined cognitive dissonance theory?

Answer 9

Leon Festinger

Question 10

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Answer 10

conflict that one feels when your attitudes are not in synch with your behavior. In general, the greater the dissonance the greater the pressure to reduce dissonance.

Things to remember:

1. If a person is pressured to say or do something contrary to his or her privately held attitudes, there will be a tendency for him or her to change those attitudes.
2. The greater the pressure to comply, the less the person’s attitude will change. Ultimately, attitude change generally occurs when the behavior is induced with minimum pressure.

Question 11

How can dissonance be reduced?

Answer 11

changing dissonant elements or adding consonant elements.

Question 12

Free-choice dissonance

Answer 12

when a person makes a choice between several desirable outcomes

Question 13

spreading the alernatives

Answer 13

an approach to reducing dissonance. the relative worth of two alternatives is spread apart.

Question 14

Forced-compliance dissonance

Answer 14

when an individual is forced into behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs or attitudes.

Question 15

Festinger and Carlsmith(1959)

Answer 15

classic experiment where subjects were asked to perform extremely boring tasks. After one hour of doing this subjects were to tell the “next subject”(who was a confederate) that the experiment was enjoyable and interesting. Some subjects were paid 1 dollar and others 20 dollars. Most of the subjects complied with experimenter’s request. After complying they were taken into another room and asked to give ratings of the experiment. The 1 dollar group actually reported enjoying the experiment more than the 20 dollar group.

Question 16

Minimal Justification Effect (insufficient justification effect)

Answer 16

When someone does something and there is minimal justification for them doing it, this creates more dissonance than if they can explain it through a significant rationale. when an individual utilizes internal motivation to justify a behavior.

Question 17

Who coined self-perception theory?

Answer 17

Daryl Bem

Question 18

Self perception theory

Answer 18

when your attitudes are weak and ambiguous you observe your own behavior and attribute an attitude to yourself. Basically, people infer what their attitudes are based on observations of their own behavior.

Question 19

Overjustification Effect

Answer 19

if you reward people for something they already like doing, they might stop liking it

Question 20

Carl Hovland Model

Answer 20

deals with attitudes change as a process of communicating a message with the intent to persuade someone. There are three components: the communicator, the communication and the situation.

Question 21

Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss(1952) credibility

Answer 21

they prepared articles on some controversial topics of that era. Conclusions: communications by highly credible sources were more effective in changing attitudes than were communication by low credibility scores.

Question 22

Sleeper Effect

Answer 22

Over time the persuasive impact of a high credibility source decreased while the persuasive impact of the low credibility source increased.

Question 23

Two sided messages

Answer 23

contain arguments against and for a position, are often used for persuasion since messages seem to be “balanced” communication. News reporting often has these.

Question 24

Who coined the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion?

Answer 24

Petty and Cacioppo

Question 25

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

Answer 25

There are two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route. If the issue is very important to us then it’s the central route. If we cannot clearly hear the message, then it’s the peripheral route.

Question 26

Who coined the analogy of inoculation?

Answer 26

William McGuire

Question 27

Analogy of Inoculation

Answer 27

to prevent persuasion it is necessary to strengthen preexisting attitudes, beliefs or opinions. Used in research of how to resist persuasion.

Question 28

Cultural truisms

Answer 28

beliefs that are seldom questioned(individuals never had practiced defending it)

Question 29

refuted counterarguments

Answer 29

first presenting arguments against the truisms and then refuting the arguments. In experimental tasks McGuire found that inoculation can be effective in developing resistance of cultural truisms to further attacks.

Question 30

Belief preserverance

Answer 30

under certain conditions, people will hold beliefs even after those beliefs have been shown to be false.

Question 31

Reactance

Answer 31

When social pressure to behave in a particular way becomes so blatant that the person’s sense of freedom is threatened, the person will act in a way to reassert a sense of freedom.

Question 32

Who coined Social Comparison Theory?

Answer 32

Leon Festinger

Question 33

Social Comparison Theory

Answer 33

Suggests that we are drawn to affiliate because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relationship to other people. This theory has three principles: 1. people prefer to evaluate themselves by objective, nonsocial means, But, when this is not possible people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing them to those of other people. 2. the less the similarity of the opinions and abilities between two people the less the tendency to make comparisons. 3. when a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions and abilities there is a tendency to change one’s position so as to it move it in line with the group

Question 34

Stanley Schachter’s research

Answer 34

found that greater anxiety does not lead to greater desire to affiliate. A situation that provokes little anxiety typically does not lead to greater desire to affiliate. However, he discovered anxious people prefer the company of other anxious people. Both anxiety and a need to compare oneself with other people may play roles in determining both when and with whom we affiliate.

Question 35

Reciprocity Hypothesis

Answer 35

we tend to like people who indicate they like us. Suggest that our attractions are a two-way street. We don’t merely evaluate a person’s qualities and arrive at a like or dislike: we take into account the other person’s evaluation of us.

Question 36

Gain-Loss Principle

Answer 36

proposed by Aronson and Linder( their version of the reciprocity hypothesis). an evaluation that changes will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant. Therefore we will like someone more if their liking for us has increased (shown a gain) than someone who has consistently liked us. Similarly, we will generally dislike a person more whose liking for us has decreased (shown a loss) than someone who has consistently disliked us.

Question 37

Social Exchange Theory

Answer 37

assumes that a person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with one another. The more the rewards outweigh the costs, the greater the attraction to the other person. People tend to maximize rewards and minimize costs,

Question 38

Equity Theory

Answer 38

proposes that we consider not only our own costs and rewards, but the costs and rewards of the other person. We prefer that our own ratio of costs to rewards be equal to the other person’s ratio.

Question 39

Aronson and Linder

Answer 39

proposed gain-loss principle.

Question 40

Gain-loss principle

Answer 40

an evaluation that changes will have more effect than an evaluation that remains constant

Question 41

Asch

Answer 41

studied conformity by asking subjects to compare length of lines

Question 42

Clark K, and Clark M

Answer 42

Performed study on doll preferences in Afrian American children, the results were used in the Brown vs. Board of education case.

Question 43

The Doll Test

Answer 43

results indicated a clear preference for the white doll among all children in the study

Question 44

Darley and Latante

Answer 44

Proposed that there were two factors that could lead to nonhelping: social influence and diffusion of responsibility.

Question 45

Eagly

Answer 45

suggested that gender difference in conformity were not due to gender per se, but to differing social roles.

Question 46

Hall

Answer 46

Studied norms for interpersonal distance in interpersonal interactions

Question 47

Heider

Answer 47

developed balance theory to explain why attitudes change. He also developed attribution theory and divided attributions into two categories: dispositional and situational

Question 48

Janis

Answer 48

developed the concept of groupthink to explain how group decision making can sometimes go awry

Question 49

Lerner

Answer 49

Proposed concept of belief in a just world.

Question 50

Belief in a just world

Answer 50

a tendency for people to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve.

Question 51

Kurt Lewin

Answer 51

Divided leadership categories into three categories: autocratic, democratic and laizzez-faire

Question 52

McGuire

Answer 52

studied how psychological inoculation could help people resist persuation

Question 53

Autocratic leaders

Answer 53

make all the decisions themselves.

Question 54

Democratic leaders

Answer 54

take an active role in the decision making process, but they involve others.

Question 55

Laissez-faire leaders

Answer 55

have very little involvement in decision making, mostly leaving everything up to their team.