Social Psychology Flashcards
Schematas
Organized, interconnected mental networks of information that are based on our previous personal and social experiences
- help us process and organize information
People typically pay more attention to evidence that confirms our schematas, and have better recollection of schemata-consistent info
Prototype
More abstract than a schemata
Consists of knowledge about the most representative or ideal example of a particular category of people, objects, or events
Scripts
Known as event schemas
Provide knowledge about a sequence of behaviors that are appropriate for specific social situations
“Warm” and “cold” central traits
We associated warm and cold central traits with collections of other characteristics, which we use to make judgements about others
Social context research
Rosenhan study
Pseudopatients admitted themselves to a hospital and were dx with schizophrenia
the behaviors of others tend to be perceived in a manner that is consistent with the social environment in which they occur
Attribution
Refers to the process of determining or inferring why a behavior has occurred
Three types of attributions
Dispositional v Situational
Specific v Global
Stable v Unstable
Fundamental attribution bias
Tendency to overestimate dispositional factors and underestimate situational factors when considering or witnessing behaviors of others
Supported by people’s belief-in-a-just-world, when we assume victims of circumstances were in some way responsible for their situation
Actor-observer effect
The tendency to make different attributions about our own behaviors than we do for other people
Self-serving bias
The tendency to blame external factors for our failures and attribute successes to dispositional strengths
Heuristics
Mental shortcuts that people use when making attributions and other social judgements
Upside: quick and cognitively efficient
Downside: result in errors
Representativeness heuristic
Basing your judgement about the likelihood that a person, thing, etc. belongs to a certain category based on how representative they are to that category (rather than on base rate data)
Ex. Who is more likely to be conservative, an artist or a lawyer
Availability heuristic
Judging the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to retrieve information about that event from your LTM
Ex. Estimating School shootings or plane crashes happen more often than they do because of media coverage being readily available in your memory
Simulation heuristic
Using mental simulations of an event to determine the likelihood that the event would happen
Ex. If you can imagine something happening, you’d assume it’d be more likely to happen
Anchoring and adjuatmrent heuristic
Using an initial value (or anchor) as the basis for making a judgement or estimate
Ex. Knowing how much an item costs, and basing the possibility of purchasing a similar item on whether or not it hovers around that price
Purpose of cognitive biases
Automatic processing to help the brain deal with information overload
Base rate fallacy
Tendency to rely on case-specific information and ignore or underuse base rate data when estimating the likelihood of an event or characteristic
Rely on personality traits over base rate data
Confirmation bias
Pay attention of information that confirms your beliefs and ignore or invalidate information that does not
Been used to explain a number of phenomena including paranormal beliefs, hypochondriasis, and the persistence of stereotypes
Illusory correlation
Belief that two characteristics, events, or other variables are related when they actually aren’t
May be the result of a schema linking the two variables
False consensus effect
When we overestimate the degree to which our beliefs, opinions, or behaviors are similar to those around us
(Overestimate how much people share our beliefs)
Gambler’s fallacy
Tendency to believe the likelihood of a particular chance event is impacted by the occurrence of previous events (where there is actually no relationship)
Ex. Assuming you are destined to win at a slot machine after a sting of losses
Affiliation
An innate motive that contributes to the initiating and maintaining of interpersonal relationships
Research on anxiety and affiliation
People with high anxiety seek affiliation with those of equal anxiety
“Misery loves miserable company”
Affiliation and arousal
Introverts experience high physiological arousal and likely avoid interacting with others to avoid overstimulation
Extroverts are low in arousability and seek the company and interaction of others to optimally stimulate their arousal
Law of attraction
We are attracted to those who are most similar to us
Gain-loss effect
Attraction to a person is maximized when that persons evaluation of us starts negatively and becomes positive
Jealousy and close relationships
Men are more threatened by sexual jealousy
Women more threatened by emotional jealousy
(Evolutionary basis: men want fertile women and women want men who are providers with resources)
Emotion-in-relationship model
States there in an innate mechanism that generates emotion whenever a partner engages in behaviors that violate expectations and disrupts sequences of behaviors
Two theories that explain why people choose to stay in, or leave, a relationship
Social exchange theory - decision based on costs and benefits
Equity theory - decision based on fairness in a relationship
Social exchange theory
The decision to leave a relationship depends on the relationships costs and rewards
Equity theory
Perception of equity (fairness) in a relationship is more important than the absolute magnitude of costs and rewards
Ex. Ben and Chrissy
Self-concept
The sum total of beliefs that people have of themselves
Barnum effect
Tendency for people to accept vague or general descriptions as accurate descriptions of themselves.
Ex. Meyers Briggs, astrological signs, etc.
Self-perception theory
When internal cures are insufficient or difficult to interpret, we turn to our environment to figure out how to react
Epinephrine study by Schachter and Singer
- mild physiological arousal, act angry or euphoric
Overjustification hypothesis
When an external reward is given to a person for performing an intrinsically rewarding activity, the intrinsic interest in the activity decreases
Social comparison theory
People have an innate drive to evaluate their opinions and behaviors
In the absence of objective criteria for evaluation, we turn to others to compare ourselves to
Self-verification theory
Once a persons self-concept is formed, they engage in behaviors that provide data in line with that self-concept
Self-monitoring
The degree to which you monitor your behavior and the perceptions that others have of you
High self-monitoring: driven by perceptions of others
Low self-monitoring: driven by personal values and beliefs
Self-Handicapping
Making excuses or external attributions for expected failures
Done to preserve self-concept and self-esteem
Self-efficacy
The belief in selfs competence and effectiveness
High in self-efficacy: academic achievement, more resilient to mental health struggles (anx, dep), higher levels of productivity
Locus of control
The extent to which your attribute personal outcomes to external or internal factors
Hardiness
Personality trait that is correlated with resiliency
Made of three components
- Commitment (purpose and involvement in events and relationships)
- Challenge (openness to new experiences and challenges)
- Control (belief you have the ability to influence and mange life events)
Conformity occurs when…
A person shifts their actions in a way to correspond to those of other people
Two studies on conformity
Autokinetic studies (Sherif)
Line studies (Asch)
Two techniques used to gain compliance
Foot in the door - start with small requests, gradually building to the larger (desired) request
Door in the face - start with a large request that is denied, and then drop down to a smaller, more reasonable (desired) request
Obedience to authority studies
Milgram Studies
People are more likely to be obedient when the person giving commands is in the room, closer in proximity, is an expert, and holds legitimate credentials and power
Social influence can have one of three effects on behavior and attitudes:
- Compliance - when the person changes their behavior to obtain a reward to avoid punishment (compliance is a public commitment and does not change opinions or attitudes)
- Identification - person changes their behavior because they want to be liked by another person (involves a private, real change so as long as they wish to remain liked by the other person)
- Internalization - when a person changes their behavior because they actually (privately) accepts the beliefs and attitudes of another person
Compliance with majority v minority influences
People comply with majority opinions for normative reasons (want to be liked, or avoid punishment)
People comply with minority opinions informational reasons (are interested in reevaluating their beliefs and results in real change)
Six bases of social power
RRELIC
(To exert influence over another, you must have some type of power)
Reward - influencer has control over valued rewards or resources
Referent - target person likes the influencer
Expert - influencer is an expert or has more skill/knowledge
Legitimate - target person believes influencer to be legitimate authority
Informational - influencer has information needed by the target person
Coercive - influencer has control over punishments
Three components of attitudes
Affective (liking for the person or thing)
Behavioral (behavioral tendencies towards the person or situation)
Cognitive (beliefs)
Theory of planned behavior
Attitudes are accurate predictors of behavior when the attitude measure assesses all three components of behavioral intention
- Persons attitude toward engaging in the behavior
- What the person believes other people think they should do
- The persons perceived behavioral control
Three broad factors that influence attitude change
Characteristics of the communication
(Credibility and trustworthiness)
Characteristics of the communicator
(Primacy, recency, accidental messages, fear, level of discrepancy)
Characteristics of the audience
(Intelligence, age, self-esteem)
Four major characteristics of the communicated message, that impact attitude change
Level of discrepancy - moderate differences between the communicator and the audience
Order of presentation - primacy influences when you give both sides and eval attitude at a later time, recency influences when you break between both sides and eval attitude immediately after second argument)
Fear arousal - most impactful when you mention negative consequences and how to avoid them
Accidental messages - preferred over intentional because communicator seems more trustworthy
Two characteristics of the communicator that are important when influencing attitude change
Trustworthiness - related to the communicators motives
Credibility - high credibility results in more change in the short-term, but looses its impact (people remember the message and not who they heard it from)
Characteristics of the audience that impact influence of attitude change
More easily influenced persons are:
Teens or early 20s
Low IQ
Low self-esteem or high self-esteem
Four theories of attitude change
Cognitive dissonance - stems from discomfort in ideas
Balance theory - imbalance between attitudes and behavior require you to change one to maintain balance
Elaboration likelihood model - two routes to persuasion
Social judgement theory - three categories of judgement that we use to evaluate persuasive messages
Cognitive dissonance theory
(Theory of attitude change)
Discontinuity between attitudes leads to discomfort
- can either change attitudes or try to minimize the importance of the inconsistency
- the more a person has to suffer, the more positive feelings they’ll have on the back end to reduce dissonance *
Balance theory
(Theory of attitude change)
Focuses on the relationships between entities
Our attitudes and behaviors must be in balance, when there is imbalance, you have to change your attitudes or behaviors to bring back balance
Elaboration likelihood model
(Theory of attitude change)
Deals with two routes to persuasion
1. Central - informational, motivated listeners, neutral or little neg mood
(Quality of material)
2. Peripheral - emotional, unmotivated, positive mood, uses heuristics
(Quantity of material)
Central route to persuasion
Involves the systematic processing of information
Involves motivated listeners, interesting or important messages, and neutral or slightly negative moods of the listeners
Concerned with quality of the information
Peripheral route to persuasion
Relies on mental shortcuts and heuristics
Likely when listener is unmotivated or the message is uninteresting or unimportant, listener lacks ability to process message, listener is in a positive mood
Depends on the quantity of information
Social judgement theory
(Theory of attitude change)
We have three categories of judgement by which we evaluate persuasive messages:
- Acceptance
- Non-commitment
- Rejection
Attitude inoculation
We can resist a persuasive argument when we have been “inoculated” against it
(Works when we repeatedly hear the arguments side, not a reiteration of our own beliefs)
Two theories of aggression
Frustration-aggression hypothesis: when a goal is blocked, we become frustrated and use aggression to unblock the goal
Social learning theory: we learn to be aggressive from others
Impact of media violence on aggression
Exposure to media violence:
- increases aggressiveness
- predicts antisocial acts as an adult
- results in positive feelings towards violent retaliation
- results in support of harsher sentences for crime
Effects of pornography on aggression
Exposure to pornography with violent themes
- increases aggressive behaviors towards women
- increases acceptance of rape myths
- leads to the adoption of callous attitudes towards sexual violence
Four factors that impact aggressiveness
Deindividuation - more likely to act aggressively if you can do it anonymously
Social roles - more likely to act aggressively if it’s part of your social role (Zimbardo study)
Catharsis - only results in more negative and aggressive behaviors
Threat retaliation - if coupled with provocation, will increase likelihood of aggression (retaliation from high status person reduces aggression)
Prejudice
An attitude towards members of a particular group
Affective - negative feelings and (prejudice)
Behavioral - negative behaviors
Cognitive - distorted beliefs and stereotyping
Three major causes of prejudice
Authoritarian personality
Intergroup conflict (conflict arises from fight for power or resources)
Group identity (preserve positive and powerful identify results in devaluing other groups)
Racism
Extreme prejudice that targets members of a particular racial group
Four levels of racism
Cultural - demonstrates that one race is best through language, traditions, values, etc.
Institutional - institutional policies that promote racial inequality (criminal justice, educational, healthcare systems, etc.)
Interpersonal - between two people (threats, harassment, social exclusion)
Internalized - when the marginalized person comes to believe the negative messages made about them
Cultural racism
When a culture or race asserts superiority through language, traditions, values, etc.
Institutional racism
When an institution promotes racial inequality
Criminal justice, education, healthcare, political, etc.
Interpersonal racism
Expressed in interactions between individuals and groups
Threats, harassment, social exclusion, stigmatization, etc
Internalized racism
Acceptance by a marginalized racial population of the negative societal beliefs and stereotypes about themselves
Which level of racism may need to be addressed first
Institutional
Then the other levels will follow
Symbolic racism
Replacing overt racism in society
A social racist denies outright racism, but will also not support efforts to help marginalized groups, and attributes the groups shortcomings to internal factors
Methods for reducing prejudice
Legislation (effective even without majority support)
Intergroup contract (between major and minor group, must have some support, room to discredit stereotypes, and mutual goals to work towards)
Four conditions for successful intergroup contact
- Members of the different groups must have equal power or status
- Members need opportunities that disconfirm their negative stereotypes
- Contact must be supported or sanctioned by law
- Contact must require intergroup cooperation to achieve a mutual (superordinate) goal
Two proposed origins for prosocial behavior
Evolutionary theory - help others to pass on our lineage
Social norms - based on reciprocity and social responsibility
Evolutionary theory of prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior is the result of kin selection - we help our family to ensure the passage of our genes
Doesn’t explain why we help strangers, or why willingness to help can depend on certain circumstances
Social norms theory of prosocial behavior
Prosociality is based on:
Norm of reciprocity - we help those who help us
Norm of social responsibility - we help those who need it regardless of if they have helped us, are helping us, or will help us in the future
How to increase cooperation in two opposing groups
Robbers cave study
Implement superordinate goals - goals that require both groups to work together to achieve
Jigsaw method of learning
Increases prosocial behavior
Create groups of multiethnic students, and require them to teach each other
Increases students attraction to other ethnic students
Beneficial for minority and majority ethnic students
Reduces ethnic stereotyping
Three reasons for bystander effect
Pluralistic ignorance - if others aren’t helping, neither will I
Evaluation apprehension - I won’t help if others will think poorly of me
Diffusion of responsibility - I won’t help because others around will
Field theory of social behavior
Every psychological event that arises depends on the state of the person and the state of the environment
Lewis’s four types of intraindividual conflict
Approach-approach - decide btwn two good outcomes, easiest
Avoidance-avoidance - decide btwn two bad outcomes, indecision
Approach-avoidance - one goal has goods and bads
Double approach-avoidance- two goals with goods and bads, hardest to resolve
Approach-approach conflict
When we must choose between two equally positive or attractive goals
Usually the easiest type of conflict to resolve
Avoidance-avoidance conflict
When we must choose between two equally negative or unattractive goals
Difficult to resolve and leads to indecision, inaction, of removing oneself from the situation
Approach-avoidance conflict
When you have a single goal with positive and negative qualities
As you move closer to one of the qualities, the other becomes stronger
Ex. Accepting a job with goods and bads…the more you consider accepting the job, the more the bad qualities seem important…the more you consider not accepting the job, the more the good qualities jump out at you
Double approach-avoidance conflict
When you have to choose between two goals that have both good and bad qualities
Produces vacillation between the two alternatives and is usually the hardest to resolve
Effect of air pollution on behavior
Decreases sensitivity to social cues
Decreases cognitive performance
Poor effects on health
Impact of air temperature on behavior
High temperatures increase aggression and risky decision making
Impact of excessive noise on behavior
Increases stress, irritability, and aggression
Decreases concentration
Effects of crowding on behavior
Adversely impacts performance on complex tasks
Increases juvenile delinquency
Increases health problems
Factors that can increase behavioral resilience to crowding
Perception of control
Forwarding of crowds
