Social Psychology Flashcards
Bibb Latané
Worked on bystander intervention
John Darley
Worked on bystander intervention
Helping behavior
Includes altruism and behaviors that may be motivated by egoism or selfishness
Altruism
Form of helping behavior in which the person’s intention is to benefit someone else at some cost to himself
Robert Zajonc
Worked on the mere exposure hypothesis. Social facilitation effect. Found that the presence of others helps with easy tasks but hinders complex tasks.
Prosocial behavior
Behavior that benefit other individuals or groups of people. There are two types: 1) altruism and 2) helping behavior
Mere exposure hypothesis
Mere repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to enhanced liking for it. The more you see something, the more you like it. Robert Zajonc has done research about this.
Spatial Proximity and propinquity
Plays a role in attraction. Even small differences have an effect. Possible explanations: 1) Potential friendships have a better opportunity to develop; 2) Increases the intensity of initial interactions.
The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships or romantic relationships with those whom they encounter often, forming a bond between subject and friend.
Attractiveness Stereotype
Tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people. Explains why physical attraction has been found a determinant of attraction.
Need complementarity
People choose relationships so that they mutually satisfy each other’s needs. The person who likes to talk is complemented by the person who likes to listen. Even successful complementary relationships have fundamental similarities in some attitudes that favor dissimilarity.
Equity theory
We consider not only our own costs and rewards, but the costs and rewards of the other person. people feel most comfortable in situations in which rewards and punishments are equal, fitting or highly logical.
Overbenefited people tend to feel guilty. Random or illogical punishment make people anxious.
If one person feels that inequity is present, there’ll be an instability.
Social Exchange theory
A person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with another. More rewards lead to more attraction to the other. People attempt to maximize rewards and minimize costs.
Cognitive dissonance theory
Is the conflict you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors.
Engaging in behavior that conflicts with an attitude may result in changing one’s attitude so that it is consistent with the behavior.
The greater the dissonance, the greater the pressure to reduce dissonance.
How can cognitive dissonance be reduced?
Dissonance can be reduced by changing dissonant elements or by adding consonant elements.
Which are the two types of dissonant situations?
1) free-choice dissonance
2) Forced-compliance dissonance
Which are the principles of cognitive dissonance theory?
1) If a person is pressured to say or do something contrary to his privately held attitudes, there will be a tendency for him to change his attitudes.
2) The greater the pressure to comply, the less the attitude change. Attitude change generally occurs when behavior is induced with a minimum of pressure.
Post-decisional dissonance
Dissonance that emerges after a choice. Festinger
Define Social Psychology
Concerned with social behavior including ways people influence each other’s attitudes and behavior: 1) impact of individuals on one another; 2) impact of social groups on individual group members; 3) impact of individual members on social groups; 4) impact of social groups on other social groups.
William McDougall
Psychologist - In 1908 published alone first textbook on social psychology.
E.H. Ross
Sociologist - In 1908 published alone first textbook on social psychology.
Verplank
1950’s suggested that social approval influenced behavior.
Found that the course of a conversation changes dramatically based upon the feedback (approval from others.
Helped to establish reinforcement theory.
Reinforcement theory
Behavior is motivated by anticipated rewards. Was challenged by social learning theorists.
Social learning theory
Behavior is learned through imitation. Also the most influential theory on aggression. Aggression is learned through modeling (direct observation), or through reinforcement.
Albert Bandura
main figure in social learning theory
Bindle
Developed the role theory in 1979
Role theory
People are aware of the social roles they are expected to fill, and much of their behavior can be attributed to adopting those roles.
Bystander Intervention
or bystander effect
John Darley & Bibb Latané.
March 1964 in New Gardens, New York, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in three separate attacks by the same man. The killing took mora than a half-hour. 38 witnessed the attack and heard her screams for help. Nobody called the police or took some action to stop the murder. This behavior was attributed to personality flaws of the witnesses. They didn’t help because of their problem-solving process and two situational factors (social influence and diffusion of responsibility)
The more bystanders nearby, the less likely anyone will help.
Attitudes
Keyston in the edifice of social psychology.
Typically expressed in opinion statements: likes or dislikes to people, things and ideas.
Components: 1) cognition or beliefs; 2) feelings; 3) behavioral predisposition.
A positive, negative, or neutral evaluation of a person, issue, or object.
Spreading of alternatives
The relative worth of 2 alternatives is spread apart. Accentuate positive things of chosen option and accentuate negative things of options that are not chosen. A mechanism to reduce dissonance. Festinger.
Free choice dissonance
When a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives. A equally likes B and C. A chooses B. Therefore, there is dissonance since C is left out. Dissonance emerges after his choice –> post decisional dissonance. To reduce dissonance, spread alternatives.
Post-decisional dissonance
Dissonance that emerges after one’s choice.
Forced-compliance dissonance
When someone is forced into behaving in a way inconsistent with his attitudes. The force may come from either anticipated punishment or reward. Festinger.
Overjustification effect
If you reward people for something they already like doing, they may stop liking it. Once an activity is overjustified, there is a loss in the pleasure of doing it.
Self Perception Theory
Daryl Bem
To explain forced compliance dissonance.
When your attitudes are weak or ambiguous, you observe your own behavior and attribute an attitude to yourself.
People infer their attitudes upon observation of their own behavior.
According to this theory, there is not a state of discomfort or dissonance produced by behavior. A person’s initial attitude is irrelevant.
Consistency theories of attitude change
People prefer consistency and they will change or resist changing attitudes based upon this preference. If there is inconsistency (stimuli or irritants), the person will try to resolve it.
Which are theories of inconsistency?
1) Cognitive dissonance theory
2) Balance theory
Fritz Heider
Developer of the balance theory.
One of the founders of attribution theory. Divided attributions into two categories: dispositional and situational.
Balance theory
Balance exists when all three fit together. When there isn’t balance, there will be stress, and a tendency to remove this stress by achieving balance.
Balance: 1 or 3 positives
Unbalance: 0 or 2 positives
His original theory was modified since it was too simplistic.
Solution to unbalance: P changes attitude towards O. Or C changes attitudes towards P or O.
Sleeper effect
Over time, the persuasive impact of the high credibility source decreased while the persuasive effect of the low credibility source increased. Carl Hovland.
Two-sided message
Messages that contain arguments for and against a position are used for persuasion since they are balanced. Carl Hovland.
Carl Hovland’s persuasion model
Attitude change is a process of communicating a message with the intent to persuade someone.
Components of Carl Hovland’s persuasion model
1) Communicator: source, someone who has taken a position and intends to persuade someone to adopt his position. The more credibility is perceived, the greater the persuasive impact. Credibility depends on how expert and trustworthy a source appears to be.
Credibility increases by arguing against self-interest (i.e. criminals who argue for greater police)
2) Communication: message
3) Situation: surroundings
Carl Hovland & Walter Weiss Experiment
1952
Two sources: physicist Oppenheimer vs. Russian newspaper Pravda. opinions were measured before, immediately after and 4 weeks after. People were more persuaded by physicist.
William McGuire
Worked on the Analogy of inoculation and resistance to persuasion.
Inoculated people against attacks on cultural truisms by first presenting arguments against the truisms and then refuting the arguments. Cultural truisms that were not inoculated were quite susceptible to attack.
Analogy of inoculation
People can be inoculated against the attack of persuasive communications.
People can be psychologically inoculated against an oncoming attack by first exposing them to a weakened attack.
Refuted counterarguments
Presenting refuted counterarguments motivates people to practice defending their beliefs.
Cultural truisms
Beliefs that are seldom questioned. They are vulnerable to attack because the individual has never had practice defending them.
Reactance
When social pressure to behave in a particular way or to persuade someone is too hard. The person will choose to do or believe the exact opposite.
What determines when and with whom we affiliate?
Level of anxiety
Need to compare oneself with other people.
Belief perseverance
If you’re told to explain why a belief you hold is true and then you are told that this belief is false, you’ll tend to hold that belief. Lee Ross
List individual factors that influence attraction
1) Similarity
2) Need complementarity
3) Physical Attractiveness
4) Spatial proximity
5) Reciprocity
Credibility
The degree to which a person can be believed
Elaboration likehood model of persuasion
Petty & Cacciopo
There are two routes to persuasion:
1) CENTRAL ROUTE: the issue is very important to us. Strong arguments will persuade.
2) PERIPHERAL ROUTE: the issue is not very important to us, we cannot clearly hear the message or we are distracted. The strength of the persuader’s argument really doesn’t matter. What matters is how, by whom and in what surroundings the message is delivered.
Social comparison theory
We are drawn to affiliate because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relationship to other people.
What are the three principles of social comparison theory
1) People prefer to evaluate themselves by objective, non-social means. But when this is not possible, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing them to those of other people.
2) The less the similarity of opinions and abilities between two people, the less the tendency to make these comparisons.
3) When there is a discrepancy; the tendency is to change one’s position so as to move in line with the group. The need to self-evaluation is linked to the need of affiliation.
Stanley Shachter
Found that greater anxiety leads to greater desire to affiliate. Discovered that anxious people prefer the company of other anxious people –> the perceived similarity of other anxious people is a factor in the affiliation.
Minimal justification effect
Also called insufficient justification effect.
Festinger
When external inducements (rewards or punishments) impact behavior, there is no need to change internal conditions.
When external inducements are minimal and they impact behavior, there is a dissonance that is reduced by changing internal conditions.
Festinger and Carlsmith experiment
1959
Extremely boring tasks for an hour, then they were asked to tell the next subject that the task was interesting and they were payed either $1 or $20 for that. Then, they were asked how boring the task was for them. Those who told the lie for $1 told the experimenters the task was more enjoyable than those who received $20.
The $1 people had dissonance and had to justify their lie and the fact that they lied for so little by thinking and saying that the task wasn’t boring.
Leon Festinger
Developer of the cognitive dissonance theory
Developer of the social comparison theory
Gain-Loss Principle
Aronson and Linder
An evaluation that changes will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant.
We will like someone more if his like for us has increased. We will dislike someone more if his dislike for us has increased. Actually suggests that people prefer situations that start out negatively but end positvely, even over entirely positive events
Aronson & Linder
hypothesized the gain-loss principle
Reciprocity hypothesis
We tend to like people who indicate that they like us. We tend to dislike those who dislike us.
We don’t merely evaluate a person’s qualities and arrive at like or dislike. We take into account the other person’s evaluation of us.
Dynamogenesis theory
Developed by Norman Tripplet
The presence of competing others released energy in individuals that they could not release on their own.
Gustave Le Bon
Published his analysis of group behavior in 1895, considering the impact of other people on the individual.
He held that in crowds people are more emotional, less rational, more prone to extreme behaviors and easily stimulated by leaders from one kind of extreme feeling to another in short periods of time.
A person in a crowd, according to him, loses his/her individuality and becomes highly suggestible and with a lowered intellectual ability.
Floyd Allport
Coined the term social facilitation: the presence of others producing enhanced performance in individuals.
Social facilitation
the presence of others producing enhanced performance in individuals.
Norman Tripplet
1895 - Indiana University
Began his studies of how social forces affect bicycle racing. Considered the impact of people on the individual.
Made the first experiments in social psychology
Run the first social psychology type experiment on social facilitation - cyclists.
Latané and Darley social influence in bystander intervention experiment
Students in a room. Alone (control) and with two other people disguised as students. While students were completing a questionnaire in the room, smoke was entering the room (ambiguous event). The two experimenters disguised as students had to perceive the smoke and make sure that the real students noted how the noticed the smoke and still not do anything. Then, the student thought it was not an emergency. The result of the experiment led to coining and defining the term pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance
Latané & Darley
leading others to a definition of an event as a nonemergency
When most of the people in a group privately disagree with X, but incorrectly believe that most people in the group agree with it
Latané and Darley diffusion of responsibility in bystander intervention experiment
Students were part of a discussion. A subject was placed in a room and told that the discussion would take place by intercom. Each person was allowed two minutes to speak. Other speeches were prerecorded. The subjects believed there were one, two or five other participants. One of the participants spoke about a tendency toward epileptic seizures and had one (prerecorded) in the middle of the discussion. Since the subject did not know what were other’s reactions, social influence was not present. 100% of the students who thought they were alone reported the seizure. When they thought there was another person listening, the percentage declined to 85%. With four more people, the seizure was reported only 62% of the time.
Diffusion of responsibility
Once an event is perceived to be an emergency, if there is inly one bystander, he has 100% responsibility to act and control the emergency. However, if there is more than one person in that situation, responsibility, blame and guilt are shared, and people tend not to act. The more people present, the less the likelihood that any individual will offer help.
Empathy
the ability to vicariously experience the emotions of another.
Batson’s empathy - altruism model
when faced with situations in which others may need help, people can either feel distress or empathy. Each of these reactions can determine helping behavior. Other psychologists disagree with this. The state that helping behavior only occurs when a person perceives she will benefit from helping others.
Distress
mental pain or anguish
Batson’s helping behavior experiments
Set of experiments in which subjects saw a person in distress (for instance, receiving electroshocks) They were placed in two conditions:
1)Easy escape condition: after two electro shocks they were given the opportunity to stop watching and go home.
2) Difficult escape condition: after two shocks, they were asked to stay and witness 10 shocks.
After the second shock, all the individuals completed a questionnaire that measured their level of distress and empathy. Then, they were told that the person being shocked, experimented traumatic shocks as a child and they were given the opportunity to receive the reimaining 8 shocks in his place.
Subjects in the easy-escape condition who reported more distress than empathy, tended to leave rather than help. Subjects who reported more empathy than distress were more likely to help regardless of whether they were in the easy or the difficult-escape conditions.
Frustration-aggression hypothesis
When people are frustrated, they act aggressively. Researchers have found that the strength of the frustration correlated with the level of aggression observed.
Modeling
Direct observation
Bandura’s famous study on the effect of modeling
Two groups of children (3-5 years old) observed either:
1) an adult playing with tinker toys
2) an adult showing aggressive behavior towards an inflated “Bobo” doll.
Then, each child was made to feel frustrated and then left alone in a room full of toys, including the rubber doll. Children who observed the aggressive behaviors were more likely to act aggressively to the doll. In some cases, the aggression was completely copied.
Bandura believed that aggressive behavior is selectively reinforced, people act aggressively because they expect some kind of reward (material benefit, social approval, attention).
Muzafer Sherif’s Conformity Study
Used the auto kinetic effect in an experiment. He put some students alone in a room completely dark room except for a light. The participants were asked to report how many times they saw the light moving. Then, he brought a group of students and made them (as a group) estimate the amount of movement. The subject’s solitary estimate changed so that the group agreed. Individuals conformed to the group. Judgements converged on some group norm.
Autokinetic effect
A point of light in a room that is otherwise completely dark will appear to move.
Conformity
yielding to group pressure/ yielding to group pressure when no specific demand has made to do so.
The tendency to align your attitudes, beliefs and behaviors with those around you.
Going along with real or perceived group pressure.
Solomon Asch’s Conformity Study
Put students in a panel telling them they will evaluate line lengths. 7 to 9 people were confederates of the experiment. There was only one subject. The subject was always sit one seat before the last. Participants had to compare lines and give the response to a given question in the same order they were sit. All people gave the right answer to the first question. However, in the second question, all confederates gave the wrong answer even when the right answer was obvious. Subjects gave the wrong answer to this question approx. 37% of the time and they gave at least one wrong answer 75% of the time, while in the control group, wrong answers to the second question were given less than 1% of the times.
Stanley Milgram’s experiment
Give an electric shock to a person when he gives the wrong answer.
3 experiments:
1) Yale
2) Conneticut
3) Indirect punishment by not delivering the shocks by themselves.
Experimenter prodded subject to give erlectric shocks by 4 sentences.
Subjects shocked person: majority continued shocking up to maximum voltage.
Three of the participants suffered from seizures and others showed signs of distress and nervousness.
Try to read again and again the experiment.
Compliance
A change in behavior that occurs as a result of situational or interpersonal pressure.Conforming to others to gain their approval and avoid their disapproval. Occurs when people go along publicly but not privately.
Foot-in-the-door effect
demonstrates that compliance with a small request increases the likelihood of compliance with a larger request. (the small request is reasonable)
Homeowners signed a petition for safe driving. A few weeks later were asked to put a sign in the front door that said “drive carefully”. Compliance was greater in this way than what is was in the control group.
Door-in-the-face effect
People who refuse a large initial request are more likely to agree to a later smaller request. (the large request is unreasonable).
College students were asked to serve as voluntary counselors for two years. Then, they were asked to serve as chaperone juvenils on a trip to the zoo. More subjects complied compared to the control group.
Doll preference study
Clark & Clark (1947)
The experimenter showed each children a black and a white doll and then asked several questions. Both black and white kids preferred the white doll. It highlighted the negative effects of racism and minority group status on the self-concept.
Later experiments showed that black children have positive views of their own ethnicity. This can be due to the changes in society and the use of improved methodologies.
Kenneth Clark & Mamie Clark
studied ethnic self-concept among ethnically white and black children using the famous doll preference experiment. Results were used in the 1954 Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education case
Hierarchy of salience
the way identities are organized. An identity will emerge according to the situation and the hierarchy of salience for that situation.
The more salient the identity,the more we conform to _______
the role expectations of identities.
Social Perception
the ways we form impressions about the characteristics of individuals and of groups of people.
Primacy effect
Refers to those occasions when first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions.
Recency effect
When the most recent information we have about an individual is most important in forming our impressions.
Attribution theory
focuses on the tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other’s behavior. Heider
we are all naive psychologist that try to discover causes and effect in events and other’s behavior. People will attribute intentions and emotions to just about anything
Dispositional causes
related to the person whose behavior is considered. Includes beliefs, attitudes, and personality characteristics.
Situational causes
are external and are related to features of the surroundings like threats, money, social norms and peer pressure.
fundamental attribution error
Tendency for bias in evaluations of other people.
bias towards making dispositional attributions rather than situational attributions when inferring the causes of others’ behavior. It is not simply a bias, it is an error.
Halo effect
Tendency for bias in evaluations of other people.
Allow a general impression about a person ( I like Jill, in general) to influence other, more specific evaluations about a person ( Jill is a good writer, Jill can do no wrong).
This explains why people are often inaccurate in evaluations of people that they either believe to be generally good, or those that they believe to be generally bad.
Belief in a just world
Belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
A strong belief in a just world increases the likelihood of “blaming the victim” since such a world view denies the possibility of innocent victims.
M. J. Lerner
Studied the tendency of individuals to believe in a just world.
Theodore Newcomb
Studied the influence of group norms. Studied political norms.
Theodore Newcomb’s study
Small woman’s college. Most of the parents were Republican. However, the college’s atmosphere was liberal. Each year of a student college career was marked by an increase in liberalism. Over time, students accepted the norms of their community. He studied:
1) Patrons of voting behavior (increase in votes for liberals specially among students of more advanced levels; Therefore, they started being republicans and ended up as liberals).
2) Follow up 20 years later. Most of the students who left school being liberals remained liberals and those who left conservatives remained conservatives. Liberals generally married liberals and those who married conservatives went back to their previous conservatism.
Edward Hall
There are cultural norms that govern how far away we stand from the people we’re speaking to. i.e.
1) USA intimate 1 foot
2) USA strangers several feet apart.
Proxemics
The study of how individuals space themselves in relation to others.
Zajonc, R. Theory - social facilitation effect
the presence of others increases arousal and consequently enhances the emission of dominant responses and impairs the emission of nondominant responses.
During early stages of learning, when everybody is amateur, the presence of others would enhance the wrong, dominant movements. However, in experimented performers, the presence of others will improve performance because the dominant movements are the right ones.
Social loafing
the tendency for people to put forth less effort when part of a group effort than when acting individually.
i.e. the team rope pulling (tug of war) is half of the sum of the individual strengths. the amount of clapping done by spectators at sporting events and the productivity of a collective farm.
if you closely monitor each person, it wipes the effect out
Philip Zimbardo
Worked on anonymity: people are more likely to commit antisocial acts when they feel anonymous within a social environment. When a person is anonymous, there is diminished restraint of unacceptable behavior.
Prison simulation
Study made by Phillip Zimbardo. Mock prison. 12 students prisoners, 12 students guards.
Prisoners were arrested, driven blindfolded to the mock prison, stripped, deloused and given uniforms with ID numbers.
Guards were told not to use physical violence. However, when a rebellion started on day 2, guards sprayed prisoners with carbon dioxide from a fire extinguisher, stripped them and putting the ringleaders on solitary confinement. A first prisioner had to be released because of uncontrollable crying, fits of rage and disorganized thinking. Three prisoners developed similar symptoms and fifth prisoner developed psychosomatic rash. The experiment, intended to last 2 weeks, lasted 6 days. The sense of self of individuals was overwhelmed by the roles they were playing, and they began acting their roles, forgetting they were university students participating in an experiment.
Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and of personal identity. It can be the result of mingling in a crowd, wearing uniforms or adopting a larger group identity in some way.
Irving Janis
Studied groupthink
studied decision making in groups and why these decisions sometimes go wrong. He revised archives and historical documents of government officials. Inferred that bad decision making in groups is due to groupthink.
Groupthink
tendency of decision-making groups to strive for consensus by not considering discordant information.
Bay of Pigs is an example of ____. Why?
The plan for this invasion stated that in the event of an unsuccessful initial landing, the invaders should retreat into the Escombre Mountains. No one revised a detailed map that showed there were 80 miles of swamps and marshes separating the place of initial landing from the mountains.
Risky shift
Group decisions are riskier than the average of the individual choices. This average riskiness of the individual choices can be considered to be an estimate of the group’s original riskiness. Therefore, there occurs a shift.
Value hypothesis
Risky shift occurs in situations in which riskiness is culturally valued. i.e. riskiness in business venture is culturally valued. The less members of a group will compare themselves with more risky members and then become riskier.
James Stoner
1968 - Studied group polarization
conducted an experiment in which he presented couples to examine the risky shift in controversial situations. He found a shift toward caution instead of risk. The shift depended on the content of the dilemma.
Group polarization
tendency for group discussion to enhance the group’s initial tendencies towards riskiness or caution. If a group originally has a tendency to be risky, further discussion will tend to make the group more risky and vice versa.
Leaders of groups engage in____ communication than nonreaders.
more
By artificially increasing the amount a person speaks, that person’s perceived leadership ________.
also increases
Kurt Lewin
conducted research to determine leadership styles. Manipulated leadership styles used to supervise boys in an after-school program. Each group experimenting a different leadership style. Founder of social psychology. Applied Gestalt ideas to social behavior. Field theory. Life space. Valence, vector, and barrier are forces in the life space.
Autocratic leadership style
- Provide clear expectations for what needs to be done, when it should be done, and how it should be done. 2. Set a clear division between the leader and the followers. 3. Make decisions independently with little or no input from the rest of the group.
groups leaded by this style were more aggressive, more hostile and more dependent on their leader in Lewin’s Study. Quantity of work was greater than in democratic groups but motivation and interest were stronger in the democratic groups.
Laissez-faire leadership style
Leader who offer little or no guidance and gives complete decision-making freedom to the group or to individual members, often leading to poorly defined roles and a lack of motivation.
groups leaded by this style were less efficient, less organized, and less satisfying for the boys than democratic groups according to Lewin’s study.
Democratic leadership style
he most effective leadership style. They 1. Offer guidance to group members while participating in the group and allowing input from other group members. Show less productivity, but higher quality contributions. Group members feel engaged in the process and are more motivated and creative.
groups leaded by this style were more satisfying and more cohesive than autocratic groups.
Quantity of work was greater than in democratic groups but motivation and interest were stronger in the democratic groups.
Cooperation
persons act together for their mutual benefit so that all of them can obtain a goal.
Competition
A person acts for his individual benefit so that he or she can obtain a goal that has limited availability.
Prisoner’s dilemma
Classic method for investigating people’s choices to compete or cooperate.
Prisoner A and B have been taken into custody for a felony. They are separated and can choose between confessing and not confessing. If both confess, they will be charged with a moderate sentence. If one confesses, the other will be left free and he will receive a harsh sentence. If neither of them confesses, they both will receive a misdemeanor. it is preferable to have:
1) be left free
2) misdemeanor
3) moderate sentence
4) receive a harsh sentence
Robber’s Cave experiment
Study on cooperation and competition. Muzafer Sherif.
Created hostilities through competition and then reduced the hostilities through cooperation.
Boy’s camp. 22 twelve-year-old boys.Two groups of boys. The groups did not know about the existence of the other group. One group had rude rules while the other had polite rules.
During week one, both groups engaged in cooperative activities, developed a status hierarchy, differentiation of roles and tasks, norms and self-adopted names.
During week two, both groups competed against each other and had rude behaviors. At the end of the week, both groups reported not wanting to see the other group again.
Researchers then tried to reduce hostility by:
1) 7 contact situations, i.e. going to the movies together - did not function.
2) activities in which they had to work together in order to solve a problem. (superordinate goals). Joint effort to reach these goals dramatically improved intergroup relations.
at the end they became quite friendly.
Group conflict is most effectively overcome by the need for cooperative attention to a higher superordinate goal between two parties
Muzafer Sherif
conducted conformity experiment - autokinetic effect
conducted robber’s cave experiment and found that having superordinate goals increased intergroup cooperation.
Superordinate goals
Goals that are best obtained through intergroup cooperation.
Alice Eagly
Suggested that gender differences in conformity were not due to gender, per se, but to differing social roles. Theory of role congruity.
Stanley Milgram
Studied obedience by asking subjects to administer electroshock. Proposed stimulus-overload theory explain differences between city and country dwellers.
Stimulus-overload theory
explains why urbanites are less prosocial than country people, they don’t need anymore interaction. they already have all the social interaction they need
False consensus bias
or false consensus effect.
is a cognitive bias whereby a person tends to overestimate how much other people agree with him or her. There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs, preferences, values and habits are ‘normal’ and that others also think the same way that they do
Lee Ross
Worked on belief perseverance, cognitive biases and naive realism
Richard Nisbett
Lack of awareness
We all lack awareness into why we really do what we do. (aside: due to repression or biases, this is why psychotherapy is so important… integration of objective truths with subjective living/appraisals). the first comprehensive, empirically based argument that a variety of mental processes responsible for preferences, choices, and emotions are inaccessible to conscious awareness.
Representativeness heuristic
The representativeness heuristic is used when making judgments about the probability of an event under uncertainty
When people rely on representativeness to make judgements, they are likely to judge wrongly because the fact that something is more representative does not make it more likely
Availability heuristic
The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that occurs when people make judgments about the probability of events by how easy it is to think of examples. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that, “if you can think of it, it must be important.”
if someone asked you whether your college had more students from Colorado or more from California, under the availability heuristic, you would probably answer the question based on the relative availability of examples of Colorado students and California students. If you recall more students that come from California that you know, you will be more likely to conclude that more students in your college are from California than from Colorado
What is compliance in conformity research?
Going along publicly with something, but not privately.
What is the effect of forewarning people?
Less likely to comply or conform
Zimbardo and Population Density
Found that anti-social crime correlates with population density
Specifically, what is the ingroup/outgroup bias?
it is the believe that your group has lots of positive traits, few negative, and the opposite of the other group. This is the basis of prejudice
Do opposites really attract?
No, not really, according to research. Research shows that we seek others who confirm out beliefs
Richard Lazarus
cognitive-mediational theory within emotion
Differentiated between problem-focused coping (changing the stressor) and emotion-focused coping (which is changing the way you respond to the stressor)
Bogus pipeline
The bogus pipeline is a technique used by social psychologists to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. It is a fake polygraph. The person whose attitude or emotion is being measured is told that they are being monitored by a machine or a polygraph (lie detector), resulting in more truthful answers.
Peter principle
People are promoted at work until they reach a position of incompetence that goes beyond their abilities, a position in which they remain being unable to earn further promotions.
Milton Rokeach
He found racial prejudice to be inversely related to socio-economic status, and thus concluded that such bias is used in an attempt to elevate one’s own status. He also studied racial bias and the similarity of beliefs. People prefer to be with like-minded people more than with like-skinned people. Also, racial bias decreases as attitude similarity people increases.
Theory of reasoned action
states that people’s behavior intention in a given situation is determined by their attitude about the situation and subjective norms.
1) Attitude in this context = beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior multiplied by his or her evaluation of these consequences
2) Subjective norms = a combination of perceived expectations from relevant individuals or groups along with intentions to comply with these expectations. In other words, “the person’s perception that most people who are important to him or her think he should or should not perform the behavior in question”
Paul Ekman
Six universal emotions: Happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, sadness. Found using the Facial Action Coding System FACS -> can help determine whether a smile is genuine (engaging the upper cheek) or fake (involving just mouth and eyes). Pioneer in research of emotions. Found this after cross-cultural studies that show that individuals in various cultures recognize facial expressions of these emotions.
Harold Kelley
His major contributions have been the development of interdependence theory (with John Thibaut), the early work of attribution theory, and a lifelong interest in understanding close relationships processes.
His view of the attribution theory assumes that the attributions we make are, for the most part, accurate and logical. We base attributions on the consistency, distinctiveness and consensus of the action.
Walter Dill Scott
One of the first to applied psychologists. Applied psychology to business. Helping in advertising and military selection.
Researched methods of social control and human motivation.
1) developed laws of suggestibility as a critical mechanism of advertising
2) solved the problem of selecting not only officers but also men whose aptitudes would fit them for training as specialists and technicians of many kinds.
Sunk cost
Cost that has been incurred and cannot be recovered.
reciprocal interaction
constant exchange of influences between people, is a constant factor in our behavior
Theory of Role Congruity
Alice Eagle
the belief that prejudice arises when one social groups’ stereotype mismatches their valued success in other social roles. That is, society views one social groups role to be exclusive to that group in particular, and that venturing outside this could not be a successful endeavor, thus creating prejudicial attitudes
Naive realism
Based on three tenets:
1) That I see entities and events as they are in objective reality, and that my social attitudes, beliefs, preferences, priorities, and the like follow from a relatively dispassionate, unbiased and essentially “unmediated” apprehension of the information or evidence at hand.
2) That other rational social perceivers generally will share my reactions, behaviors, and opinions—provided they have had access to the same information that gave rise to my views, and provided that they too have processed that information in a reasonably thoughtful and open-minded fashion.
3) That the failure of a given individual or group to share my views arises from one of three possible sources—
a) the individual or group in question may have been exposed to a different sample of information than I was (in which case, provided that the other party is reasonable and open minded, the sharing or pooling of information should lead us to reach an agreement);
b) the individual or group in question may be lazy, irrational, or otherwise unable or unwilling to proceed in a normative fashion from objective evidence to reasonable conclusions; or
c) the individual or group in question may be biased (either in interpreting the evidence, or in proceeding from evidence to conclusions) by ideology, self-interest, or some other distorting personal influence.
Facial Action Coding System
Paul Ekman
FACS is an anatomically-based system for describing all observable facial movement for every emotion. Each observable component of facial movement is called an action unit or AU and all facial expressions can be decomposed into their constituent core AUs.
Lack of awareness
Richard Nisbett
We all lack awareness into why we really do what we do. (aside: due to repression or biases, this is why psychotherapy is so important… integration of objective truths with subjective living/appraisals). the first comprehensive, empirically based argument that a variety of mental processes responsible for preferences, choices, and emotions are inaccessible to conscious awareness.
Interdependence Theory
John Thibaut and Harold Kelley
Often identified as a social exchange theory.
I = f(S,A,B), where any given Interaction (I) is represented as a function of the two people in it (A and B) and the context of the specific interdependence situation (S).
The balance of rewards and costs between partners within a relationship as well as how well rewards and costs compare to what would be expected in another relationship predict relationship quality
Hawthorne Effect
Also called observer effect
is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.
Coined by Henry Landsberger.
Obedience
Kind of conformity
Compliance with a direct order issued by an authority figure. There is a direct request to change our behavior.
The person influencing us is of a higher status (they have authority)
The request to change our behavior is usually from just one person.
What is lacking in Milgram’s (1963) research? a) debriefing, b) ecological validity, c) prior consent
b) ecological validity
Identification
Conforming to others due to a desire to be like them. because you value the membership of the group. It is not a true conversion.
Disobedient role model
way of resisting pressures to obey. Watching others disobey remind us we are able to do the same
Defriefing
In psychological research, a debriefing is a short interview that takes place between researchers and research participants immediately following their participation in a psychology experiment. The debriefing is an important ethical consideration to make sure that participants are fully informed about, and not harmed in any way by, their experience in an experiment.
Presumptive consent
that before the real volunteers are enlisted, a sample of people is asked their opinion on the acceptability of the experiment. These people obviously do not take part, but their views are taken into account
Which ethical solution did Milgram use?
debriefing
Kelman’s types of conformity
Compliance
Identification
Internalization
Why do we conform
To be accepted, liked or just to fit in or to avoid feelling silly
What is lacking in Milgram’s research
Ecological validity - The extent to which an experiment can be generalized to real life, a type of external validity
Which is more powerful as it is a true conversion, compliance or internalization?
Internalization
Ways in which minority influence majority
1) Persuasiveness ->
2) Relevance
3) Commitment -> Minorities can exert influence by showing dedication as this gives
4) Flexibility
The minority view is one which has meaning at one particular time and place
This is when the minority tries to win over people from the majority and attract others to its position. In politics these are usually describe as
35% of Milgram’s participants refused to obey, possibly because of:
1) Reactance - Gamson era al one of the participants became suspicious of the procedure and persuaded others to withdraw
2) Disobedient role models - Watching others disobey remind us we are able to do the same
3) Responsibility - One participant had lived in Nazi Germany. Milgram believed past memories had “woken” her from her agentic state.
Informational pressures are more likely to lead to internalization or compliance?
Internalization
Processes in Minority Influence
1) Consistency - Moscovici- standing firm on opinion had an impact on the minority
The snowball effect
Flexibility
Social Cryptoamnesia
Perez et al, minority ideas are assimilated into the majority viewpoint without those in the majority viewpoint remembering where the ideas came from.
Clark - behavioral style of the minority, when a minority succeeds
Social Change
When society adopts a new belief or way of behaving which then becomes widely accepted as the norm
Asch’s experiment uses and ambiguous (can be interpreted in more than one way) or unambiguous (clear right answer) task?
Unambiguous
Solutions to ethical issues in social psychology research
Socially sensitive research Research that has implications for individuals and groups of individuals
Cost - benefit analysis - Distress to the participant vs. contribution to society
Debriefing Participants must be fully informed by the time the experiment ends
Ethical imperative Research that must be done
Milgram’s number of participants going to 450v
Venue moved to seedy offices in a neraby town
The original experiment
Teacher had to force learner’s hand onto the plate to receive the shock
Teacher and learner are in the same room
40%
65%
30%
47.5%
Mention some characteristics of people with high Internal locus of control (3)
1) High internals tend to be more achievement oriented
2) High internals are better able to resist coercion from others
3) High internals are active seekers of information
True or false: According to Twenge et al (2004) we are more external today than in 1960’s
True
Situational factors effecting social influence
1) Unanimity of majority - Asch’s conformity rate of 32% fell to 5% if one of the stooges gave the correct answer on all trials
2) Social support - When teacher left the room, obedience decreased
3) Environment - When Milgram moved his study to a less prestigious setting, rates of obedience fell to 47,5%
4) Buffers - Milgram’s obedience rate of 65% fell to 10% when two stooges acted as additional teachers
External locus of control
When an individual believes that his/her behavior is guided by fate, luck or other external circumstances
Variables that affect conformity according to Asch
1) Unanimity of the majority
2) Nature of the task
3) Size of the majority
Minority Influence
An individual or small group influence the majority or large group to change their attitudes or behavior.
Minority influence is more likely to occur if the point of view of the minority is consistent, flexible, and appealing to the majority.
How do people resist pressures to conform
1) Role of allies - Ash if there was dissenter conformity fell
2) Task familiarity - Music students were less likely to a music based task
3) Internal locus of control - Rotter, found that high internals are better able to resist coercion from others
4) Desire to want to remain independent - In Asch’s study those that did this clearly felt uncomfortable and avoided eye contact with others
Ecological validity
The extent to which an experiment can be generalized to real life, a type of external validity
Types of conformity
1) Normative conformity - desire to fit in
2) Informational conformity - desire to be right
Three criticisms to Asch’s research
1) Era dependent
2) Ethnocentric
3) Lacking in ecological validity
Era dependence
The extent to which experimental findings can be generalized to current times
As task becomes more difficult, conformity _______
increases
Who “asks” us to conform
Nobody, we act to
Milgram’s findings in terms of psychological processes
1) Agentic State - means that an individual believes that he is acting without responsibility. In many cases participants to Milgram’s study sought reassurance from the experimenter that the experimenter would assume responsibility for any harm that came to the “learner”. Participants asked “Who will take the responsibility?”
Legitimate authority
Gradual commitment
Role of Buffers
Voltage only increased 15v at a time
Obedience fell to 40% when in the same room as teacher
How do people resist pressures to obey?
1) Reactance
2) Disobedient Role Model
3) Internal locus of control
4) Time to think and find social support
gamson found that blatant attempts to restrict people’s freedom can sometimes produce a boomerang effect
When two research participants refused to give shocks
Orne and Holland’s Claims
Obdience was due to payment in advance and the idea that a contract had been entered to
The participants realized that the setup was a sham
Agentic State
means that an individual believes that he is acting without responsibility. In many cases participants to Milgram’s study sought reassurance from the experimenter that the experimenter would assume responsibility for any harm that came to the “learner”.
graduated commitment
he fact that the electric shocks went up in gradual stages is important. If there had been just one switch labelled 450v, then it is likely that obedience would have been less. Having obeyed once, it becomes harder for the subject to resist subsequent commands
What are some methodological advantages of debriefing?
1) the ability of researchers to check the effectiveness of a manipulation, or to identify participants who were able to guess the hypothesis or spot a deception. If the data have been compromised in this way, then those participants should be excluded from the analysis.
Types of social influence
1) Majority influence - conformity
2) Minority influence - innovation
Internalization
Also called acceptance. involves the integration of attitudes, values, standards and the opinions of others into one’s own identity or sense of self. Unlike compliance, in which conformity is purely for social acceptance, with internalisation the person conforms because they believe the group’s viewpoint
Hofling experiment
Obedient nurses - confirming Milgram’s findings
investigated obedience among nurses to an order from a doctor. They used real nurses in a real hospital, but the nurses did not know they were taking part in a research study. During their shift a researcher telephoned the ward, introduced himself as a doctor, and instructed the nurse to administer a patient with 20mg of Astroten which was a drug the nurses would have been unfamiliar with. Standard hospital rules prohibited nurses from taking telephone orders from an unfamiliar doctor, administering a drug that was not on a list of permitted drugs, and administering drugs without a signed order from a doctor. Despite this, 21 out of 22 nurses followed the fake doctor’s orders and gave the drug.
Before the experiment, Hofling had asked nurses whether they thought their colleagues would obey the orders given in the experiment, and the majority believed there would be almost no obedience. But when the nurses were interviewed after the experiment, they defended their actions by arguing that it was normal for them to follow orders of the nature in the experiment.
Bickman
The power of uniforms
The power a uniform has to make people more likely to obey orders was shown by Bickman (1974) in New York. Bickman used three male actors dressed in normal clothes, as a milkman, or as a security guard. The actors asked passersby to do things like pick up a paper bag that had been thrown in the street, or to give them a coin for a parking meter. Passersby were most likely to obey the actor dressed as a security guard and least likely to obey the actor in normal clothes.
Sheridan and King
Puppy love?
hypothesized that some of Milgram’s subjects may have suspected that the victim was faking, so they repeated the experiment with a real victim: a “cute, fluffy puppy” who was given real, albeit harmless, electric shocks. They found similar findings to Milgram: half of the male subjects and all of the females obeyed to the end. Many subjects showed high levels of distress during the experiment and some openly wept. In addition, Sheridan and King found that the duration for which the shock button was pressed decreased as the shocks got higher, meaning that for higher shock levels, subjects showed more hesitance towards delivering the shocks.
Rank and Jacobson
Not so obedient nurses
Rank & Jacobson (1977) repeated Hofling et al’s (1966) experiment, but this time they increased the realism of the situation by using valium (a drug the nurses were familiar with) at three times the recommended dose. When the research pretending to be a doctor telephoned, he introduced himself as a doctor the nurses would have heard of, and the nurses were in a position of being able to discuss the order with other nurses before carrying it out. Only 2 out of 18 nurses followed the order. The increased realism of the experiment, and the discussion with a colleague had lowered obedience rates in exactly the same way that Milgram’s addition of a dissenting confederate had done.
Serge Moscovici
Moscovici claimed that majority influence in many ways was misleading – if the majority was indeed all-powerful, we would all end up thinking the same.
The study he is most famous for, Influences of a consistent minority on the responses of a majority in a colour perception task, is now seen as one of the defining investigations into the effects of minority influence:
Aims: To investigate the process of innovation by looking at how a consistent minority affect the opinions of a larger group, possibly creating doubt and leading them to question and alter their views
Procedures: Participants were first given an eye test to check that they were not colour blind. They were then placed in a group of four participants and two confederates. they were all shown 36 slides that were different shades of blue and asked to state the colour out loud. There were two groups in the experiment. In the first group the confederates were consistent and answered green for every slide. In the second group the confederates were inconsistent and answered green 24 times and blue 12 times.
Findings: For 8.42% of the trials, participants agreed with the minority and said that the slides were green. Overall, 32% of the participants agreed at least once.
Conclusions: The study suggested that minorities can indeed exert an effect over the opinion of a majority. Not to the same degree as majority influence, but the fact that almost a third of people agreed at least once is significant. However, this also leaves two thirds who never agreed. In a follow up experiment, Moscovici demonstrated that consistency was the key factor in minority influence, by instructing the stooges to be inconsistent. The effect fell off sharply.
Hindsight bias
” I knew it all along effect”
Tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one’s ability to have foreseen the outcome.
What are the areas and subareas that social psychology studies?
Social thinking
- How we perceive ourselves and others
- What we believe
- Judgements we make
- Our attitudes
Social influence
- Culture
- Pressures to conform
- Persuasion
- Groups of people
Social Relations
- Prejudice
- Aggression
- Attraction and intimacy
- Helping
List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social thinking
- We construct our social reality.- we have a need to explain the world. Our actions depend on what we think and perceive.
- Our social intuitions are powerful, sometimes perilous
- Attitudes shape, and are shaped, by behavior
List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social influence
- Social influences shape behavior.
- Dispositions shape behavior.
List the fundamental principles of social psychology regarding social relations
- Social behavior is also biological behavior
- Feelings and actions toward people are sometimes negative and sometimes positive
Dual processing
Thinking, memory and attitudes operate at two levels: one conscious and deliberate and one unconscious and automatic
Self-monitoring
the extent to which one is concerned with how appropriate his or her behavior is in other’s presence.
Define social neuroscience
An interdisciplinary field that explores the neural bases of social and emotional processes and behaviors, and how these processes and behaviors affect our brain and biology.
Define culture
the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
Define social representation
A society’s widely held ideas and values, including assumptions and cultural ideologies. Our social representations help us make sense of our world.
Change blindness
Blindness to change in colors, or in specific stimuli while our attention was focused elsewhere.
The spotlight effect
Overestimating others’ noticing our behavior or appearance
Illusion of transparency
the illusion that our concealed emotions can leak out and can be easily read by others.
Why if you break up with somebody you tend to shift your self-perceptions and feel less certain about who you are?
Because we have various selves in our various relationships. If our relationships change, our self-concepts can change as well.
Mention 5 functions of the self
1) Long-term planning
2) Goal setting
3) Guide social behavior
4) comparison with others
5) Organize our thinking
Define Self-concept
what we know and believe about ourselves
Define Self-schemas
elements of the self-concept. Beliefs about the self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.
Define Schemas
Mental templates by which we organize our worlds
Why do we care of others’ bodies and skills if athletics is central to our self-concept?
because how we perceive ourselves (the topics central to our self-concept) affect the way we perceive, remember and evaluate other people, events and information. We welcome information that is consistent with our own self-schema.
define possible selves
Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future
What is the function of the possible selves?
To motivate us with a vision of what we want and what we don’t want to become
What determines our self-concepts?
- genetic influences
- Social experiences
What are the social influences that affect self-concept? (5)
1) The roles we play
2) The social identities we form
3) The comparisons we make with others
4) How other people judge us
5) The surrounding culture
How do the roles we play affect self-concept?
As we enact a new role, we initially feel self-conscious. Gradually, what began as playacting is absorbed into our sense of self.
Define social comparison
Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others.
Define self-esteem
A person’s overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth
Define self-knowledge
Explanation and predictions of oneself
Define social self
Roles as student, family member, friend. Group identity
True or False - When climbing the ladder of success we tend to compare upward (we raise the standards by which we evaluate our attainments
True
How do other people’s judgements help us build our self-concept?
When people think well of us, it help us think well of ourselves.
looking-glass self
a metaphor to describe how we perceive ourselves
What is the function of self-esteem
It serves as a gauge (calibrator) that helps us monitor and react to how others appraise us. We look for approval since ancient times because of our need to survive by being protected by our social group.
Individualism
The concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.
What could you infer of a person who describe himself like “I am a Muslim”?
One could infer that this person place a great value on collectivism
Independent self
Construing one’s identity as an autonomous self.
Collectivism
Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often one’s extended family or work group) and defining one’s identity accordingly.
Interdependent self
Construing one’s identity in relation to others.
Individualism flourishes when____
people experience affluence, mobility, urbanism, and mass media
What characterizes people with interdependent selves?
- They tend to be more self-critical
- They have less need for positive self-regard (interés propio, amor propio)
- People tend to look more for approval
Are cultures solely individualist or collectivist?
No, people can sometimes behave individualistically and sometimes collectivistically. There are individualistic Chinese and collectivist Americans. Level of individualism varies across regions of the same country and political views.
True or false: the more individualistic the time or the place, the more children receive uncommon names
True
Does collectivism and individualism affect the way we think?
yes, people of collectivist cultures tend to focus more on the surroundings and on the relationships. They think more holistically. People from individualistic cultures tend to concentrate more on the focal object.
List some real-life examples of differences between collectivist and individualistic cultures
- Advertisement
- Song lyrics
- Perceiving backgrounds
- Perceiving others’ emotions
- Perception of the usefulness of language
- Willing to be unique
- brain region activation
What is the goal of social life in an interdependent culture?
to harmonize with and support one’s communities
What is the goal of social life in an individualistic culture?
to enhance one’s individual self and make choices independently
true or false: people never err when explaining their own behavior
False. People often err, specially when their behavior occurs due to subtle causes. People normally can’t identify what makes them happy
True or false: people never err when predicting their own behavior
False. Examples:
- duration of romantic relationships better predicted by roommates
- medical exams’ results better predicted by classmates
- daily routine predictions at least equal made by close friends
- how long a task would take
- how much money they will spend
Planning fallacy
Underestimating how long it will take to complete a task
Affective forecasting
Our ability to predict our feelings
What is the main findings regarding affective forecasting?
We have greatest difficulty predicting the duration and intensity of our future emotions
Mention some examples of failing to predict our own feelings
1) sexual arousal
2) hungry buyers
Impact bias
Overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events.
We are especially prone to impact bias after negative effects.
True or false: We want. We get. We are happy.
False. Faster than we expect, the emotional traces of getting what we want evaporate.
immune neglect
The human tendency to underestimate the speed and the strength of the “psychological immune system”, which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen.
True or false: We are more aware of the results of our thinking than of its process
True
Dual attitude system
Differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habit.
Self-reference effect
When we process information with reference to ourselves, we remember it well.
Mention the two elements of self-concept
1) Self-schemas
2) Possible selves
Give an example of how specific self-perceptions have influence on behavior
Academic self-concept predicts academic performance
True or false: feedback is better when it is specific and true
True
What is the difference in reactions to self-esteem threats by people who have high vs. low self-esteem?
High-esteem people usually react to a self-esteem threat by compensating for it (blaming someone else or trying harder the next time, while low-esteem people are more likely to break by blaming themselves or giving up
Why are most people motivated to maintain their self-esteem?
There are two explanations:
1) The self-esteem gauge alerts us to threatened social rejection, so that we can act with greater sensitivity to others’ expectations.
2) “terror management theory” - self-esteem is not only about acceptance. It is also about managing our fear of death. We strive to be recognized an we must continually pursue self-esteem by meeting the standards of our societies.
What does the “terror management theory” propose?
People exhibit self-protective emotional and cognitive responses (including adhering more strongly to their cultural worldviews and prejudices) when confronted with remainders of their mortality.
Mention 3 benefits of self-esteem
1) fosters initiative
2) Fosters resilience
3) Fosters pleasant feelings
Is high self-esteem always good?
No. teen gang leaders, extreme ethnocentrists, terrorists and men in prison for committing violent crimes tend to have high self-esteem.
Narcissism
Having an inflated sense of self
What is the difference between being narcissistic and having high self-esteem?
People with high self-esteem value both individual achievement and relationships with others. Narcissists usually have high self-esteem, but they do not care for others. They are often outgoing and charming early on a relationship, but their self-centeredness often lead to relationship problems in the long run.
True or false: an overinflated ego (narcissism) is a cover for deep-seated insecurity
False: an arrogant classmate usually thinks he is awesome. He is not covering his insecurity.
True or false: Those high in narcissism and low in empathy are less successful in the long run, making lower grades and performing poorly at work.
True
Secure self-esteem
Type of self-esteem rooted more in feeling good about who one is than in grades, looks, money, or others’ approval. It is conducive to long-term well being.
Self-comparison approach
Leaving behind comparisons with others and instead treating ourselves with kindness.
Why is self-control similar to muscular strength?
Both are weaker after exertion (to much effort), replenished with rest, and strengthen by exercise.
Self-efficacy
A sense that one is competent and effective, distinguished from self-esteem, which is one’s sense of self-worth. A sharpshooter in the military might feel high self-efficacy and low self-esteem. How competent we feel on a task.
Mention some benefits of self-efficacy
1) leads to setting challenging goals
2) increases persistence
How does self-efficacy grow?
With hard-won achievements
What is the difference between self-efficacy and self-esteem?
Self-efficacy: If you believe you can do something
Self-esteem: if you like yourself overall
True or false: If you want to encourage somebody, it is better to focus on their self-efficacy, and not in their self-esteem
true. Self-efficacy feedback leads to better performance than self-esteem feedback.
Define locus of control
The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces
Mention some benefits of having an internal locus of control (6)
High internals are more likely to:
1) do well in school
2) be more productive at work
3) make more money
4) successfully stop smoking
5) achieve long-term goals
6) address marital problems directly
Define learned helplessness
The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events
True or false: if you learn how to exert willpower in one area of your life, resisting temptation in other areas becomes easier too.
True
Do systems governing or managing people that promote personal control also cause an improvement in health and happiness? Provide 4 examples
Yes
1) Geriatric care center
2) Prisoners given some control over their environment
3) Workers with more flexibility
4) Countries with more freedom -> more satisfaction
Explain the tyranny of freedom
Excess of choices. Too much choices causes paralysis and increases depression. Making choices is tiring.
Define modeling
Seeing others succeed with effort
Which factors can contribute to self-efficacy? Which is the most important?
1) Social persuasion (You have what it takes to succeed)
2) Self-persuasion (I think I can)
3) modeling
4) mastery experiences (the most important)
When does learned helplessness appear?
when attempts to improve a situation have proven fruitless.
What is self-serving bias?
The tendency to perceive oneself favorably
Self-serving attribution
A form of self-serving bias: the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors. One of the most potent human biases.
Why are self-serving attributions one of the most potent human biases?
Because they activate brain areas associated with reward and pleasure.
Bias blind spot
Being biased about seeing one’s own bias
True or false: people are generally convinced they are right and free from bias
True
In which aspects do most people to see themselves as better than the average person? (3)
- Common dimensions
- Social desirable dimensions
- Subjective dimensions
True or false: Group members’ estimates of how much they contribute to a joint task typically sum to more than 100 percent.
True: because of self-serving bias
True or false: People are natural pessimists since our ancestors who survived were more pessimistic than those who didn’t survive
False: People are natural optimists since our ancestors who survived were more optimistic than those who didn’t survive
Defensive pessimism
The adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing one’s anxiety to motivate effective action.
True or false: when we behave badly or fail in a task, we reassure ourselves by thinking that such lapses are also common
True - is part of the false consensus bias.
False uniqueness effect
The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors.
Mention the 5 types of self-serving bias
1) Self-serving attributions
2) Self-congratulatory comparisons
3) illusory optimism
4) False consensus effect
5) False uniqueness effect
Mention some benefits of self-serving bias
1) better coping with stressful circumstances - resilience
2) protect from depression
3) buffer anxiety
group-serving bias
explaining away out group members’ positive behaviors; also attributing negative behaviors to their dispositions (while excusing such behaviors by one’s own group).
Self-handicapping
Protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure. For example procrastinating
Mention 4 examples of self-handicap
1) reducing preparation before athletic competences
2) give your opponent an advantage
3) perform poorly at the beginning of a task in order not to create unreachable expectations
4) not try as hard as you could in a tough, ego-involving task
Self-presentation
The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one’s ideals. It can be to an external audience, and to yourself. Particularly positive self-presentation is an important influence on behavior. We act in ways that are in line with our attitudes or in ways that will be accepted by others.
Self-monitoring
Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression.
Why is the fundamental attribution error called “fundamental”?
It is called “fundamental” because it entails the mission of psychology -> to explain behavior and separate the influence of personality dispositions vs. the power of the situation.
Actor-observer differences in attribution
Actors are more likely to explain their behavior as a function of situational factors than are observers.
Actors and observers differ in what is most salient for them:
- for actors, the situation is more salient
- for observers, the actors are more salient
What is the difference between the fundamental attribution error and the actor-observer difference?
The actor-observer difference is simply a bias, not a error.q
Explain the main difference between the self-perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory
Self-perception theory is attributional in nature while cognitive dissonance theory implies that there is a natural tendency to reduce or avoid inner conflict.
Mention the main difference between Two-sided appeal vs. attitude inoculation
In the two-sided appeal, the persuader presents the objections to counterarguments whereas in attitude inoculation, it is the receiver who generates objections to mildly criticized counterarguments.
Low-ball effect
Throwing a bad condition after you have complied with a request. Like car dealers than say you have to pay for the insurance, etc, etc. after you have already agreed to buy the car.
blind obedience
when the authority is not questioned at all
Social identity
A social identity is the portion of an individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.
Social identity theory
Social identity theory is best described as a theory that predicts certain intergroup behaviours on the basis of perceived group status differences, the perceived legitimacy and stability of those status differences, and the perceived ability to move from one group to another.
Completely interpersonal behaviour would be behaviour determined solely by the individual characteristics and interpersonal relationships that exists between two or more people. Completely intergroup behaviour would be behaviour determined solely by the social category memberships that apply to two or more people.
What is the difference between social identity theory and social categorization theory?
The cognitive nature of personal vs. social identities, and the relationship between them, is more fully developed in self-categorization theory. Social identity theory instead focuses on the social structural factors that will predict which end of the spectrum will most influence an individual’s behaviour, along with the forms that that behavior may take.
Field Theory
total of influences upon individual behavior
A person’s life space
the collection of forces upon the individual
Valence
positive or negative. +valence forces attract people whereas -valence forces repel people.
Illusori correlation
assuming that two unrelated things have a relationship
Slippery slope
logical fallacy that says a small, insignificant first step in one direction will eventually lead to greater steps that will eventually have a significant impact
Base-rate fallacy
overestimating the general frequency of things we are most familiar with
Illusion of control
Belief that you can control things that you actually have no influence on. This illusion is the driving force behind manipulating the lottery, gambling, and superstition.
Ellen Langer
studied the illusion of control
Oversimplification
tendency to make simple explanations for complex events. People also hold onto original ideas about cause even when new factors emerge
Impression management
Behaving in ways that might make a good impression
Morton Deutsch
Used the prisoner’s dilemma and the trucking company game story to illustrate the struggle between cooperation and competition.
The trucking company game
describes two companies that can choose to cooperate (and agree on high fixed prices) or compete again each other with lower prices. The best strategy would be to cooperate , but because one company cannot trust the other, they choose to compete.
Dissenter
An individual who speak out against the majority
When is an individual most likely to conform? (7)
1) there is a majority opinion
2) the majority has a unanimous position
3) the majority has high status, or the individual is concerned with her own status
4) The situation is in public
5) the individual was not previously committed to another position
6) the individual has low self-esteem
7) the individual scores high in a measure of authoritarism
True or false : People will often not conform if they are forewarned that others will attempt to change them
True
An individual speaker is most likely to change a listener’s attitude if: (6)
1) the speaker is an expert and/or trustworthy
2) the speaker is similar to the listener
3) the speaker is acceptable to the listener
4) The speaker is overheard rather than obviously trying to influence
5) The content is anecdotal, emotional or shocking
6) the speaker is part of a two-person debate rather than a one-side argument.
True or false: antisocial behavior correlates positively with population density
True: Philip Zimbardo left broken-down cars in Palo Alto and New York
When is groupthink most likely to occur? (7)
in a group that has:
1) unquestioned beliefs
2) pressure to conform
3) invulnerability
4) censors
5) cohesiveness within
6) isolation from without
7) a strong leader
Reciprocity of disclosure
Sharing secrets or feelings. This facilitates emotional closeness
Excitation-transfer theory
sometimes we attribute our excitement or physiological arousal about one thing to something else. For example, if you go bungee jumping you feel you like your date more than you do because of the excitement produced by bungee-jumping.
Who can someone achieve objective self-awareness? (4)
1) self-perception
2) high self-monitoring
3) internality
4) self-efficacy
Facilitators and hinderers of objective self-awareness
experiments making people do things looking at themselves in the mirror.
deindividuation works against objective self-awareness
J. Rodin and E. Langer
found that nursing home residents who have plants o care for have better health and lower mortality rates.
Stuart Valins
studied environmental influences on behavior. Architecture matters. Students in long-corridor dorms feel more stressed and withdrawn than students in suite-style dorms.
Leonard Berkowitz’s frustration-aggression hypothesis
posits a relationship between frustration in achieving a goal (no matter how small) and the show of aggression.
M. Fischbein and I. Ajzen
developed the theory of reasoned action
Theory of reasoned action
people’s behavior in a given situation is determined by their attitude about the situation and social norms.
Hazel Markus
Eastern countries, in contrast to Western countries, value interdependence over independence.
Eastern countries –> individuals demonstrate conformity, modesty, pessimism.
Western Countries –> optimism, self-enhancement, individuality.
Elaine Hatfield
There are two types of love:
- Passionate love: intense longing for the union with another and a state of profound physiological arousal. Based in biophysiological system shared with other primates, is a powerful emotion that can be either positive (when love is reciprocal) and negative (when love is unrequited).
- Companionate love: affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined. Is achieved by mutual trust, respect, and commitment and often characterizes later stages of relationships.
Reciprocal socialization
two parties adapt to or are socialized by each other. parents are socialized by youngsters when they use new young lingo. Youngsters are socialized by parents when they learn to respect rules.
Industrial/Organizational Psychology
branch of psychology that deals with the workplace. These psychologists work to increase an organization’s efficiency and functionality by improving the performance and well-being of the people in the organization.
Muzafer Sherif’s 3 phases of group dynamics
1) In-group phase: where people bonded with their own groups.
2) friction phase: the 2 groups met and became competitive with one another.
3) Integration phase: the 2 teams had to work together toward a common goal that neither group could accomplish alone.
Sociotechnical systems
method of work design that acknowledges the interaction of people and their environment in the workplace.
Sunk cost
an expense that has been incurred and cannot be recovered. The best strategy is to ignore these when making decisions, because money that has already been spent is irrelevant for the future.
