Social Psychology Flashcards
What is social psychology?
the study of:
- Social Thinking (how we think about our social world)
- Social Influence (how other people influence our behaviour
- Social Relations (how we relate toward other people)
What is an attitude?
a positive or negative evaluative reaction toward a stimulus
this may be a person, action, object, or concept
attitudes influence behaviour strongly when situational factors that contradict our attitudes are weak
What is cognitive dissonance?
The feeling of discomfort due to holding two opposing opinions
e.g. someone acknowledging that they smoke, whilst accepting that smoking causes cancer
How can you resolve dissonance?
Change behaviour
- In the case of smoking, this would involve quitting, which might be difficult and thus avoided
Acquire new information
- Such as seeking exceptions e.g. “My grandfather smoked all his life and lived to be 96”
Reduce the importance of the cognitions (i.e. beliefs, attitudes)
- A person could convince themself that it is better to “live for the moment”
What makes changing attitudes more effective?
- if it reaches the recipient
- is attention grabbing
- is easily understood
- is relevant and important AND is easily remembered
- More persuasive messengers are:
- Credible e.g. doctors
- Trustworthy e.g. objective
- Attractive e.g. well presented
What is framing?
Refers to whether a message emphasises the benefits or losses of that behaviour
When we want people to take up behaviours aimed at DETECTION of health problems/illness (e.g. HIV testing), loss-framed messages may be more effective
When we want people to take up behaviours aimed at promoting PREVENTION BEHAVIOURS (e.g. condom use), gain-framed messages may be more effective
How a message is framed to people makes a difference regarding how they behave.
Define stereotype, prejudice and discrimination
How can this affects medical care?
Stereotype – Generalisations made about a group of people or members of that group, such as race, ethnicity, or gender. Or more specific such as different medical specialisations (e.g. surgeons)
Prejudice – To judge, often negatively, without having relevant facts, usually about a group or its individual members
Discrimination – behaviours that follow from negative evaluations or attitudes towards members of particular groups
- A study investigated and demonstrated whether GPs were more/less likely to take on mentally ill patients
GPs were reluctant to take on patients with a mental health history despite it being well controlled
This study was further replicated in a sample of over 1000 medical students
What is schemas?
mental or cognitive structures that contain general expectations and knowledge of the world
schemas help us process information quickly and economically and facilitate memory recall
This means we are more likely to remember details that are consistent with our schema than those that are inconsistent
What is social loafing?
The tendency for people to expend less individual effort when working in a group than when working alone
When is social loafing more likely to occur/disappear?
more likely to occur when:
- The person believes that individual performance is not being monitored
- The task (goal) or the group has less value or meaning to the person
- The person generally displays low motivation to strive for success
- The person expects that other group members will display high effort
may disappear when:
- Individual performance is monitored
- Members highly value their group or the task goal
*Occurs more strongly in all-male groups
** Occurs more often in individualistic cultures
What is conformity?
There have been experiments in which participants have conformed to the beliefs of people around them, despite holding different beliefs themselves
Many factors affect conformity:
- Group size:
> Conformity increases as group size increases
> No increases over five group members
-Presence of a dissenter:
> One person disagreeing with the others greatly reduces group conformity
- Culture:
> Greater in collectivistic cultures
What did the Darley & Latane’s experiment?
- Participants were under the pretext they were taking part in a discussion about ‘personal problems’
- Participants were all in separate rooms in the lab and communicated via an intercom system
- On the intercom system, one of the participants (actor) acted as if they were having a seizure
- The idea was for other participants to help this actor, who was having a seizure in another room
- 87% helped if they believed it was just them and the other student
- Only 31% helped when they believed they were in a group of 4 people
- Hardly anyone helped if group was above 4
- If the participant had not acted within first 3 minutes, they never acted
RESULTS
- Compared to those who did report the emergency, those that didn’t appeared in distress
- Many were sweating, and had trembling hands
- They reported shame and guilt for not helping
- Reasons given include not wanting to expose themselves to embarrassment or to ruin the experiment, which, they had been told, depended on each participant remaining anonymous from the others
What is the bystander effect?
presence of multiple bystanders inhibits each person’s tendency to help
This may be due to social comparison or diffusion of responsibility
Conformity may also play a role
Experiments have been conducted that show that, if others don’t help, you are less likely to - the minute someone else helps, others are more likely to join in
What is the 5-step bystander decision process?
- Notice the event
- Decide if the event is really an emergency - social comparison: look to see how others are responding
- Assuming responsibility to intervene - diffusion of Responsibility: believing that someone else will help
- Self-efficacy in dealing with the situation
- Decision to help (based on cost-benefit analysis e.g. danger)
How can you increase helping behaviour?
Reducing restraints on helping:
- Reduce ambiguity and increase responsibility
- Enhance concern for self image
Socialise altruism:
- Teaching moral inclusion
- Modelling helping behaviour
- Attributing helpful behaviour to altruistic motives
- Education about barriers to helping
