Social Psychology

Question 1

William McDougall and E.H. Ross

Answer 1

A psychologist and sociologist respectively, they each independently published the first books on social psychology.

Question 2

Verplank

Answer 2

Suggested in the 1950s that social approval influences behaviour.

Question 3

Consistency Theories

Answer 3

Behaviour is motivated by a need for consistency. We’d rather have more of the same (even if it’s generally bad) than something that’s different (even if it’s good).

Question 4

How does one relieve cognitive dissonance?

Answer 4

Either by changing/removing dissonant elements, or by adding consonant elements.

Question 5

Minimal justification effect

Answer 5

When external justification for a behaviour (i.e. doing something unpleasant) is insufficient, dissonance is reduced by changing internal cognitions (i.e. attitude toward the behaviour changes).

Question 6

Daryl Bem’s Self-Perception Theory

Answer 6

When our attitudes toward something are weak, we infer them from how we behave.

Ex: If I can’t decide whether I like cooking, I may infer that I do like it, because I do it a lot.

This theory may help to explain Festinger & Carlsmith’s findings about minimal justification.

Question 7

Three components of Carl Hovland’s model of attitude change

Answer 7

• The communicator: the person who is trying to change someone else’s attitudes
• The communication: the argument used by the communicator
• The situation: the circumstances surrounding the discourse.

Question 8

What (according to Hovland) is the effect of credibility on attitude?

Answer 8

The more credible the communicator, the more likely their audience is to change attitudes.

Question 9

How did Hovland show the effect of credibility on attitude changes?

Answer 9

He presented participants with the same information about atomic submarines, but manipulated the source: Oppenheimer as opposed to a Russian magazine.

36% of participants in the Oppenheimer condition had their opinions about these submarines swayed, whereas no one in the Russian magazine condition was swayed.

Question 10

What had Hovland shown with regards to the impact of a credible source over time?

Answer 10

The impact of credible sources decreases over time, whereas the impact of low-credibility sources goes up over time (this is referred to as a sleeper effect).

Question 11

What does Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model of persuasion state?

Answer 11

There are two basic routes to persuasion:

1. Central: This is involved when the issue at hand is important to us. In this case, the strength of the argument we’re presented with will impact our opinion, because we’re likely to pay closer attention.
2. Peripheral: This is the route involved when the issue at hand is not especially important to us. In this case, the strength of an argument is relatively unimportant (because we’re likely not paying as much attention). What’s more important is who is presenting the argument.

Question 12

How did William McGuire test his the validity of his inoculation analogy?

Answer 12

He used cultural truisms (beliefs that are rarely questioned). He showed that these beliefs are vulnerable to attack when the people who hold them have never been exposed to counterarguments. Conversely, when participants had been exposed to relatively weak counterarguments to the truisms, which he could easily refute, the truisms were more resilient to future attacks.

Question 13

Belief perseverance

Answer 13

Holding onto beliefs that have already been proven false.

Question 14

Three principles of Festinger’s social comparison theory

Answer 14

1. If we can’t evaluate ourselves objectively, we compare ourselves to others
2. We prefer to compare ourselves to people who are relatively similar to us
3. When our views differ too much from that of the group, we will change them to align ourselves.

Question 15

Stanley Schachter’s work

Answer 15

Showed that greater anxiety leads to a greater need to affiliate.

Also discovered that anxious people prefer the company of other anxious people.

Question 16

Aronson and Linder

Answer 16

Positved the gain-loss principle, which suggests that we prefer an evaluation of ourselves (from others) that changes, vs one that stays constant.

Ex: we prefer to know that someone grew to like us, rather than that they’ve liked us the same all along.

Question 17

Reciprocity hypothesis

Answer 17

We tend to like people who indicate that they like us.

Question 18

The effect of similarity on affiliation

Answer 18

Similarity in intelligence, attitudes, education, height, age, religion, SES, drinking habits and mental health all predict affiliation.

Question 19

Need complementarity

Answer 19

The idea that opposites attract, because people’s differences on various dimensions complement one-another.

Ex: a quiet person is well-suited to a talkative person, because they’re neither competing for space, nor enduring awkward silences.

Question 20

Attractiveness stereotype

Answer 20

The tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people.

Question 21

Batson’s study to explore his empathy-altruism model, and its findings

Answer 21

Subjects witness a person in distress and are given the choice to either help or not help that person.

Conditions:

1. Easy-escape: the subject is allowed to leave after watching the other person get shocked twice.
2. Difficult escape: the subject is forced to watch 10 shocks.

Measures:
Empathy, distress and helping behaviour (operationalized as willingness to take the other person’s place)

Results:

• People in the easy-escape condition who showed high distress were more likely to leave than help.
• Empathy predicted helping behaviour, regardless of condition.

Question 22

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Answer 22

Suggests that when people are frustrated, they act aggressively. Research has shown that the two correlate.

Question 23

Muzafer Sherif’s Conformity Study

Answer 23

Capitalized on the autokinetic effect (the perception that a single spot of light in the dark appears to move after some time).

Asked subjects to individually report how much the light moved. Then asked them to discuss in a group how much they thought the light moved.

Findings: The individuals’ judgements of the movement of light changed so that the group agreed.

Question 24

Distinctiveness in Personal Identity

Answer 24

We place the greatest weight on the traits we believe make us most distinct in any given situation.

If a man works exclusively with women, his identity as a male will be most salient to him at work. Conversely, when he plays pick-up hockey in the evenings exclusively with men, the fact that he is a man will be less individuating. In that situation, he may place more emphasis on the fact that he is the only Ecuadorian member of the league.

Question 25

Bandura’s self-efficacy theory

Answer 25

Self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in their own ability to organize and execute a particular pattern of behaviour. It is based on previous performance, vicarious experiences, social persuasion and physiological/emotional states.

Research shows that people w/ higher self-efficacy exert more effort on challenging tasks than those with low self-efficacy.

Question 26

Theodore Newcomb’s Study

Answer 26

Found that in a conservative town, women who attended a liberal college varied in their attitudes once they graduated, and that these attitudes largely endured after graduation.

Many of the women were liberal by the time they graduated and remained so 20 years later (unless they married a conservative man, in which case they reverted).

Those who graduated conservative remained so 20 years later.

Question 27

Edward Hall

Answer 27

Founded the study of proxemics

Question 28

James Stoner’s 1968 experimental findings

Answer 28

He found that when couples had to choose between two hypothetical situations–allowing a dangerous pregnancy to continue or terminating it–they tended toward caution instead of risk.

This contradicted earlier findings of risky shift, suggesting that the shift may depend on the context.

Question 29

Leadership and communication

Answer 29

Research has shown that leaders communicate more than nonleaders, and that artificially manipulating the amount a person speaks makes people perceive them more as leaders.

Question 30

Kurt Lewin’s leadership styles

Answer 30

1. Autocratic –> this produces hostility and aggression; underlings may get more work done but are highly reliant on their leader
2. Democratic –> produces a more satisfying and cohesive work environment; underlings may get less work done than in the autocratic group, but will be more motivated and interested in their work
3. Laissez-faire –> produces an inefficient and disorganized work environment; underlings will be least satisfied in these groups

Question 31

Why, in the prisoner’s dilemma, might a prisoner decide to compete instead of to cooperate?

Answer 31

Two reasons:

1. They want the best outcome for themselves
2. They don’t trust the other prisoner and don’t want to be taken advantage of