Social Psychology Flashcards
Norman Triplett
first social psychology study (effect of competition on performance). People perform better on familiar tasks when in the presence of others than when alone.
William McDougall and E. H. Ross
First social psychology textbooks
Verplank
direction of the conversation depends on feedback from others
Reinforcement theory
behaviour is motivated by anticipated rewards
Albert Bandura is mostly closely associated with which theory?
Social learning theory: behaviour is learned through imitation
Role theory
people are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill; much of observable behaviour can be attributed to these roles
What are consistency theories?
people prefer consistency over all else
balance theory
Fritz Heider; two people and a third person OR thing OR idea must be in balance
How can you quickly tell if something is balanced or not in balance theory?
If there are zero or two positive signs, i.e. three dislikes or two likes it is unbalanced. If there are one or three positives, it is balanced.
free-choice (dissonant situation)
occurs when a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives
forced-compliance dissonance
when an individual is forced into behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs or attitudes
minimal justification effect
when external justification is limited, so you reduce dissonance by changing something internally
Daryl Bem
self-perception theory (alternative to cognitive dissonance)
self-perception theory
people infer attitudes based upon observation of their own behaviour
overjustification effect
when you reward people for something they already like doing, they might stop liking it
Carl Hovland
proposed a model to understand how attitudes change in response to persuasion
Components of persuasion
communicator, communication, situation
According to Hovland, what is most effective to change attitudes?
A credible source (expert, trustworthy),
sleeper effect
credible source becomes less persuasive over time will a low credible source becomes more persuasive
How can you increase credibility?
Argue against your own self-interest
Petty and Cacioppo
elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (central and peripheral route)
William McGuire
analogy of inoculation against diseases (to resist persuasion)
cultural truism
beliefs that are seldom questioned
reactance
when X tries too hard to persuade Y of something, Y feels their freedom is threatened and will choose to believe opposite of your position
three principles of social comparison theory
(1) we prefer to evaluate ourselves by objective means. if not available, we compare to other
(2) we don’t usually compare ourselves to those dissimilar from us
(3) when there is discrepancy, we change to affiliate with group