Social Psychology Part 1

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

how people think about, influence, and relate to other people; Study of everything we do, and why we do it; how we think about relationships with others and other people; Overlaps with many other areas of psychology

Question 2

Areas of Social Psychology

Answer 2

Social Cognition, Social Behavior, Social Influence, Intergroup relations, close relationships

Question 3

Social Cognition

Answer 3

how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information; has many sub-areas

Question 4

Sub-areas of Social Cognition

Answer 4

Attribution, Person Perception, The Self, Attitudes

Question 5

Attribution

Answer 5

Sub-area of social cognition

determining why people do what they do; Searching brain for why something is being done by individuals, what is cause of behavior

Example: why someone is digging through their bag during an exam (cheating? New pencil?)

Question 6

Sorting/reflective thoughts for Attribution Theories

Answer 6

• Internal vs. External causes
• Stable vs. Unstable causes
• Controllable vs. uncontrollable causes

Question 7

Internal vs. External causes

Answer 7

(Blaming it specifically on the individual) Internal Example: tripped in front of you since a person is clumsy

Internal vs. External Example: driving slowly since they are an incompetent driver vs. they have their pet fish in the front seat

Question 8

Stable vs. Unstable causes

Answer 8

Habitual lateness of an individual vs. something outside of that (traffic, caught by train)

Question 9

Controllable vs. Uncontrollable

Answer 9

Could they control what happened to them/effected them or not?

Example: could not control the traffic or train arrival, but can control other factors…

Question 10

How do you explain another person’s behavior?

Answer 10

We typically attribute others’ behavior to internal causes, even though that is not always accurate

Question 11

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 11

people tend to overestimate the importance of stable, internal traits and underestimate the importance of temporary, external situations when seeking explanations for others’ behavior

Question 12

Self-serving bias

Answer 12

we often attribute our own behavior to whichever explanation benefits us the most; Always allow ourselves off the hook for things when it doesn’t go well/goes negatively

Agree with positives of ourselves (like getting good grades or being a great athlete) but allow ourselves off the hook when it is negative; Not necessarily a bad thing, can motivate us to continue to make an effort after we have failed ourselves in the past (TO AN EXTENT, gauge yourself)

Question 13

False Consensus Effect

Answer 13

overestimation of the degree to which everyone else thinks and acts as we do

Tend to surround ourselves with people like us

Many people outside the bubble you have that disagree with you

Discussing things certain ways with friends goes differently when discussing it the same way with others/strangers (if discussed in friend-like matter, Friends agree vs. strangers taken aback)

Question 14

Person Perception

Answer 14

Sub area of social cognition

how do we think about other people; forming impressions, feelings and attitudes about others; Deals with first impressions, how people see each other during a first encounter

Body language, way they speak, way they look

Are first impressions really that important?
- IT IS IMPORTANT, VERY POWERFUL; Should not let it influence them as much as it does, but it happens (because of the primacy effect)

Question 15

Stereotype

Answer 15

generalization about a group’s characteristics that does not account for individual variability; sometimes it is accurate, but often overgeneralized

Example: all people who play chess are smart, anyone that votes republican is rich

Question 16

Why do we stereotype?

Answer 16

Biologically built to categorize(form concepts)

“shortcut”-easier(easier thinking on the brain)

Question 17

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 17

expectations cause individuals to act in ways that make the expectations come true

Example: having a stereotype that boys behave worse than girls to a teacher, so the teacher treats them differently by punishing boys more; boys misbehave from this, which then fulfills the stereotype of the teacher

Question 18

Stereotype Threat

Answer 18

type of self-fulfilling prophecy in which anxiety about being negatively stereotyped actually causes underperformance

Question 19

Attractiveness

Answer 19

human physical features that others rate as high in objective physical appeal

Hard to study, since “beauty in eye of beholder”

In studies some rate pictures of real people and/or computer-generated pictures; however, people often agree in studies about the extremes (like the most and least attractive)

Question 20

What stereotypes do we have about beautiful people?

Answer 20

Beautiful people are rated much higher in friendliness, honesty, and other good traits

Those rated as less/the least attractive given more negative characteristics

**Still stereotyping if you think the opposite of “most attractive” people!!(Selfish, vain, rude); don’t do that!!

Question 21

Social Identity

Answer 21

defining oneself in terms of group memberships

Ingroup: “your group”, Outgroup: “comparison group”

Example: identifying as part underneath umbrella of people (like college student, sister, Zoology major) for the Ingroup

Conflicts with groups/division: Often want to de-franchise other groups; Can see outgroup and ingroups being created when put into a group(like the 2-party system, teams against each other, etc.)

Question 22

Prejudice

Answer 22

prejudgment; unjustifiable and usually negative attitude about a group and its members

Generally, involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition towards discriminatory actions

varying from obvious to implicit/hidden bias

Question 23

Discrimination

Answer 23

unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members

varying from obvious to implicit/hidden bias

Question 24

The Self

Answer 24

sub-area of social cognitionhow we view ourselves

Question 25

The Self

Answer 25

sub-area of social cognition, how we view ourselves

Question 26

Self-Esteem

Answer 26

the degree to which we have positive or negative feelings about ourselves, Sum of all negative and positive feelings;

Higher = positive, lower = negative

Question 27

Self-Esteem

Answer 27

the degree to which we have positive or negative feelings about ourselves, Sum of all negative and positive feelings

Higher = positive, lower = negative

Question 28

Which individual do you think has higher self-esteem?

Subject A: has positive illusions about herself, tends to have a self-serving bias; Tends to think you are better than actually are, blames failures on other things

Subject B: is more realistic about her good and bad characteristics

Answer 28

Subject A!! Although deceiving, something is protecting you from pessimistic thoughts of world; Subject B tends to be more depressed