Social Psychology

Question 1

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 1

when there is a mismatch between attitude and behaviour which we are motivated to remove by changing either attitude or behaviour

Question 2

What do attitudes reflect

Answer 2

what think about something how we feel about it what we plan to do about it

Question 3

define attitude with relevance to expectancy:

Answer 3

value models focus on evaluations of the likelihood and desirability of different outcomes e.g. expectancy: smokers get yellow teeth value: I don’t like yellow teeth

Question 4

How do public commitments affect attitude?

Answer 4

By making a public commitment the person is more likely to change behaviour.

however the message for change must be persuasive enough to trigger the change.

Question 5

In order to to be persuasive the message must:

Answer 5

• Get to the recipient (place it where the target will see it )
• be attention grabbing
• be understood by the recipient - complexity/ language
• be accepted as relevant and important
• be retained, translated into an intention, and acted upon

Question 6

Characteristics in the messenger that makes the recipient more likely to be persuaded

Answer 6

• credible
• trustworthy
• attractive

Question 7

How does fear affect attitude?

Answer 7

a certain amount of fear may motivate people, but it can be counterproductive

… if people lack the knowledge, skills and confidence

needed to change their behaviour

Question 8

Loss and Gain framing: what is it better for?

Answer 8

loss-framing may be better for illness-detecting behaviours

gain-framing may be better for health-promoting behaviours

Question 9

What are the two definitions of self?

Answer 9

• personal self - how I perceive myself
• social self - how others perceive me

Question 10

What are the two forms of identity?

Answer 10

• personal identity - everything that makes me unique
• social identity - the things I share with members of groups that are important to me

Question 11

Define self-esteem

Answer 11

Feelings and evaluations about ourselves

Question 12

How can Health impact disease?

Answer 12

Self-esteem can also be lowered in certain illnesses - e.g. depression

Positive self-esteem is reflected in promotion of a positive self-image (to ourselves and others)

Question 13

How do we maintain a favourable self-image?

Answer 13

Favourable social comparisons

• downward comparisons with people whose situations are worse than our own
• upward comparisons to highlight similarities between ourselves and people we consider superior

Question 14

How does appearance affect healthcare?

Answer 14

appearance is important for individual and group identity (Goffman, 1959)

we use others’ appearance for shorthand evaluation of them (e.g. status in jaywalking study)

looks can be deceiving - e.g., HIV

doctors’ attire influences patients’ trust and confidence in them

Question 15

How does self image link to cognitive dissonance?

Answer 15

perceived discrepancies between our ideal self and actual self can be used to motivate behaviour change

in some cases, discrepancies between ideal and actual self-images can lead to unhealthy behaviour such as eating disorders

Question 16

attribution for behaviours and health

Answer 16

efforts to maintain a positive self-image are influenced by the attributions we give for ours and others’ behaviour

• internal attributions = belief that a person’s behaviour is internally motivated - it is voluntary and reflects the person’s attitudes and beliefs.
• external attributions = belief that a person’s behaviour is due to external factors such as luck, chance, or someone else demanding it

Question 17

how do we use attributions?

Answer 17

we tend to use biased attributions

we tend to make internal attributions for our successes we tend to make external attributions for our failures

Question 18

fundamental attribution error - what is it and how does it affect healthcare?

Answer 18

we tend to attribute others’ situation to internal/ dispositional causes rather than external/situational causes

attribution errors can affect clinical care through their impact on doctor-patient relationship

we must ensure that we consider external and situational factors in attempts to understand and explain illness

Question 19

health locus of control:

Internal

Powerful others

External

Answer 19

Internal

what an individual does affects their health

= more likely to seek information, and initiate and persist with healthy behaviour

Powerful others

strongest influence on health is other people (e.g. Dr)

= more likely to seek/follow professional advice, but less likely to initiate change

External

health and illness are largely due to fate or luck

= unlikely to take action to protect/promote health

Question 20

what are stereotypes?

Answer 20

Stereotypes are generalisations that we make about specific social groups and members of those groups

e.g. nationality, occupation, religion

Question 21

What is prejudice and how does it effect healthcare?

Answer 21

Prejudice toward particular social groups is commonly based on inaccurate stereotypes of group members

prejudice = judging before having relevant facts

History is replete with clashes between groups based on erroneous stereotypes and prejudice