Social Psychology Part 1 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the bystander effect?
A
individuals often fail to help a victim when others are around; the more people are around, the less likely people are to themselves help.
2
Q
What is social psychology?
A
the science of the psychological causes and
consequences of social behaviour, from cooperation to coercion.
3
Q
What do psychologists argue that human nature is?
A
prosocial
4
Q
What do we mean by human nature is prosocial?
A
we regularly perform actions that benefit others, even at the harm to ourselves.
5
Q
What do evolutionary psychologists argue that human psychology is?
A
eusocial
6
Q
What are the three features of eusocial?
A
(1) we take care of offspring that are not our own.
(2) we live in groups with overlapping generations of people; and
(3) we divide into specialized labour groups (some people hunt, some people gather food, some people take care of babies).
7
Q
What about eusocial challenges evolutionary psych?
A
the fact that it can be harmful to the individual. Social psych evolved to benefit the group rather than the individual.
8
Q
How do highly social creatures use their minds? What do our minds let us do?
A
Highly social creatures use their minds to decode and predict the minds of
others around them. Our minds let us plan, change our behaviour, and adjust our plans.
9
Q
What is social cognition?
A
the ability to reason, remember, and infer the desires and beliefs of conspecific individuals.
10
Q
What does conspecific mean?
A
of the same species
11
Q
What are the three questions relating to social cognition?
A
- How do we decide why somebody acted the way that they did?
- How do we remember somebody’s actions? (this also deal with how we represent things)
- How do we predict what they might do in the future?
12
Q
What does representing other minds mean that we can also do?
A
We can also attempt to change them. Ex: I know that they will do x if y so, If I change this, I can change their behaviour in this way….
13
Q
What are the 2 ways that we attempt to change peoples minds? How?
A
- persuasion can be direct
- we can also manipulate others indirectly by appealing to their group membership or well-known associations (like an add showing a fit and happy woman eating a salad)
14
Q
What are the 3 main benefits to working in groups?
A
- we can combine effort (so that we can do things together that we couldn’t on our own like pushing a heavy rock)
- We can divide labour so that each person can become specialized (super beneficial to group evolution)
- we can pass knowledge to each other over time.
15
Q
When are the benefits of working in groups possible?
A
only when everyone cooperates equally (it doesn’t work if people exploit the system like in group projects)
16
Q
Why can group behaviour cause incredible harm? (3 reasons)
A
- people tend to stereotype and discriminate against other groups
- people tend to loaf and do less in a group than on their own (this exploits the group effort)
- people can show extremely high levels of aggression. (ex: organized levels of aggression including wars and genocide)
17
Q
What is the Theory of Mind (ToM) ?
A
the ability to represent the beliefs and desires of people who are not you.
18
Q
What are the three things you can do if you have a theory of mind?
A
- predict
- explain
- reason
19
Q
What is predicting under the theory of mind?
A
Predict: What other people really want.
(Ex: in the candy scenario, when your friend was confused you were using your theory of mind as a sort of error detection. You can now think of your friend’s mind differently from your own, but you can also update for an entire social group (americans) This process requires an enormous amount of coordination.
20
Q
What is explaining under the theory of mind?
A
you can explain the motives of their actions.
21
Q
What is reasoning under the theory of mind?
A
You can reason about whether you agree or disagree with them.
22
Q
What is the Right-Temporal-Parietal Junction? (rTPJ)
A
a brain region that is selectively
active when we think about the thoughts of others.
23
Q
What does the existence of the Right-Temporal- Parietal junction suggest?
A
Its rare that we fins dedicated brain regions for one task but when we do it suggests strong specialization through evolutionary pressures
24
Q
What is attribution?
A
an inference about the cause of a person’s behaviour; is it (a) their disposition/personality or (b) the situation they are in.
25
Describe a scenario nd explain how someone may make a dispositional attribution, a situational attribution.
Someone steals a loaf of bread.
Dispositional: they are just a bad person, this is what they do. AKA the person did it because thats the way they are.
Situational: maybe they were blackmailed, maybe they would die if they didn’t. Something about the situation more so than the person is the cause of their behaviour
26
What pushes people towards dispositional attribution?
- Consistency
- Distinctiveness/uniqueness
- Consensus
27
What is consistency (attributions) ? How does this relate to disposition vs situation.
does the person act this way in similar situations? High = disposition, Low = situation
28
What is distinctiveness (attributions) ? How does this relate to disposition vs situation.
does the person act this way in similar situations? Low = disposition, High = situation
29
What is Consensus (attributions) ? How does this relate to disposition vs situation.
do other people act this way in similar situations? Low = disposition, high = situation
30
What would determine high distinctivness?
if a person who is normally wonderful did something bad, the bad behaviour would be high on distinctiveness.
31
Describe a situation relating to attribution where a person complaining about food at a restaurant could be attributed to disposition.
This person always complains in
restaurants (high consistency)
This person complains in many other
places (low distinctiveness)
Nobody else complains in this
restaurant (low consensus)
Therefore, this person is difficult to
please (disposition, not situation).
32
Describe a situation relating to attribution where giving a poor movie review could be attributed to situation.
This person rarely rates movies as
“sorry films” (low consistency)
This person is not usually negative towards other things, like music, food, etc. (high distinctiveness)
Many other people hate this movie, too (high consensus)
Therefore, it’s not the person, it’s just a really really bad movie (situation).
33
What is fundamental attribution error?
a general bias to make dispositional
attributions. This often happens when the information is ambiguous, you will often commit a bias, we make assumptions when we know the answers.
34
What are three examples of when a person may make a fundamental attribution error.
A driver runs a red light: they are a terrible driver (not that they may be in a hurry to get to the hospital).
A friend doesn’t reply to your text: they don’t like you (in fact they may be very busy)
A waitress is not friendly to you: she is generally a rude person (not that she is working overtime because her boss forced her to).
35
What is Actor-Observer Effect?
the general bias to make situational attributions of ourselves: (we are bias to blame the situation for our own bad behaviour)
36
What are 3 examples of Actor-Observer effect?
You run a red light: you’re not a bad driver, you didn’t have time to stop.
You don’t text somebody back: you like your friends, you just were too busy with something else at the time.
You are rude to somebody: you are not a bad person, you just had a really bad day.
37
What are social norms?
culturally-specific expectations of appropriate behaviour which everybody in the culture is supposed to act in accordance with.
38
How do social norms relate to attribution?
Breaking of social norms is almost always considered a dispositional cause.
Individuals who repeatedly break norms are often socially excluded.
This has early developmental origins: if a young child sees an adult use a fork to comb her hair, the child will refuse to learn meanings of new words from that same adult.
39
Why are social norms useful?
Social norms are useful, as they allow us to have cultural expectations about
groups that make attributions quick and easy.
40
Why can social norms be manipulated and exploited?
- Social norms are hard to change.
- Social norms are not cross-culturally universal.
- They can be used to change people’s behaviours even without them realizing you are using them (next class).
41
What is social cognition a pre-requisite for?
deep social behaviour
42
What does having a well-developed theory of mind allows us to do?
Think about and predict the behaviour of others
43
What do attributions tend to favour?
dispositional over situational factors for others, and situational over dispositional for ourselves.
44
What are social norms?
heuristics that can often be exploited
45
What is persuasion?
changing somebody’s beliefs, desires, and behaviours by appealing to them psychologically (e.g., giving new information).
46
What is the definition of Manipulation/Intimidation?
changing somebody’s beliefs, desires, and behaviours through dominance, social status, and/or social norms.
47
What is a belief? Does it have to be true?
enduring knowledge about the object, person, or event . (can be true or false given the way the world really is)
48
What are attitudes?
Semi-enduring feelings that predispose us to respond to objects, people, and events. (can be positive, neutral, or negative)
49
What are behaviours? What are they often a consequence of?
actions that we take in the world. (usually the consequence of beliefs and/or attitudes, but can also sometimes be random)
50
What do we often like to think in regards to beliefs and attitudes?
We often like to say that beliefs shape our attitudes but it actually works in the reverse as well
51
what are behaviours often the consequence of?
beliefs and attitudes
52
Why does the sequence of belief, attitude, behaviour not always work?
Often we don’t know why we behave or we are wrong about why we acted in the way that we did
53
What is persuasion?
attempting to change a person’s attitudes, beliefs, and/or behaviours. (any time that one agent is attempting to change on of the 3 components to successful persuasion.)
54
What are the three components of successful persuasion?
Message Source: the thing generating the message (e.g., a person, an ad)
Message Content: the category of message (e.g., an argument, data, etc.)
Message Target: the person who we are attempting to persuade (e.g., a customer, a voter, etc.).
55
Why does message source work?
The more we trust the source, the more likely we are to be successfully persuaded, even given mediocre messages.
56
what is source monitoring?
tracking when and from whom we heard a message. If we recall the message and the source, we can update our belief in it given our
belief in the source’s credibility.
57
is source belief constant? What happens as a result?
Source belief is not constant so every once and awhile if you say you remember hearing this (you then source monitor and think about who told them) then say oh but I actually don’t trust this person anymore.
58
What is source amnesia? What can it lead to?
forgetting the source, and having to update our belief in the message from the message alone. This can lead to us accepting or rejecting good information.
59
What relies on source amnesia?
propaganda often relies on this. this causes us to forget the source, and having to update our belief in the message from the message alone. This can lead to us accepting or rejecting good information.
60
When is message target affective?
The source gives a message that motivates the target to change their
attitudes/beliefs/behaviours.
61
What is the motivation involved with the message target?
cognitive Dissonance
62
What is cognitive Dissonance?
the negative feeling experienced from attitude/belief/behaviour contradiction, driving us to change them.
63
What is an example of cognitive dissonance?
you believe that it is important to minimize food waste, but you still threw out a bunch of food you bought into the garbage. You promise to yourself to not do it again in the future.
64
What is the goal of a very good source?
The goal of a very good sources is to target cognitive dissonance. Because all persuasion is triggered by cognitive dissonance. It will show you contradiction and suggest how you resolve it. Ex: have you ever wondered if your breath smelled bad? Heres a solution.
65
Why is cognitive dissonance thought to explain "irrational actions"? (3 ways)
People raise their evaluation of products they choose to buy, and reduce their evaluation of those they couldn’t get.
Political radicalization often occurs from dissonance pushing people towards rejecting the arguments given to them as conspiracies or unreliable information.
Dissonance is especially strong if people are first asked to explicitly and publicly state what they believe, and especially when going back on that belief has a negative outcome.
66
What is an example of a situation that would cause a people to raise their evaluation?
If a person is between 2 products they will buy the one they can afford, raise their evaluation of the product they bought (like this is actually the one I wanted all along)
67
What is an example of a situation that deals with political radicalization?
conspiracies tell people that the normal routes of information are completely unreliable. Conspiracies, cults etc mobilize cognitive dissonance, and give a reason to resolve cognitive dissonance that is not trusting anyone else.
68
What is an example of dissonance causing people to knot want to explicitly publicly state what they believe?
If someone states something, and the world changes in a way that makes them unable to follow through. Politicians often avoid explicitly staying what they believe
69
What model of persuasion that describes what kind of content is most persuasive is most popular in psych?
Elaboration likelihood model
70
What is the elaboration Likelihood Model?
model of persuasion that argues that people can be influenced through one of two “routes”:
71
What are the 2 routes to persuasion as defined by the elaboration likelihood model?
Systematic Route to Persuasion: persuading somebody through reason, logic, and sound arguments (usually targets beliefs).
Heuristic Route to Persuasion: persuading somebody by appealing to their emotions, habits, and even indirectly (usually targets attitudes/behaviours). (not about reasoned arguments)
72
What is cognitive dissonance a result of?
cognitive dissonance is not the contradiction itself, it’s the motivational state to get rid of the contradiction.
73
What does the source do in the systematic route to persuasion?
In the systematic route to persuasion, the source makes arguments (content) to the person (e.g., debates, information brochures) which challenge their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.
74
What is systematic persuasion commonly used for?
very common in debates. It can be misused. People can make arguments that seem persuasive but that are false. They hope that the message triggers a contradiction and leads to an updated belief.
75
What are the 2 targets that the message target must have for systematic persuasion to work?
Motivation: the message target must be motivated to listen, otherwise they have no reason to consider the source’s argument.
Ability: the message target has to have the ability to think about the message content.
76
What are 2 limitations to persuasion?
Target must have motivation to listen to and engage with your argument. This is a major limitation to this route of persuasion.
They must have the ability to think about the content. Ex: if you show a graph to a three year old, they will not change their beliefs because they can’t comprehend what the graph means. This is also a major limitation. Someone who wants to send a message like this has to find how to communicate a method in a way that is affective.
77
What does the heuristic route do? Does it require motivation or ability?
The heuristic route exploits associations and social norms we all carry with
us, and doesn’t require motivation or ability.
78
What is the main route of persuasion we experience in daily life? Why?
The heuristic route is the main route of persuasion we experience in day to day life. People aren’t given you any data, they are just trying to target your attitudes. May use positive attitudes towards celebrities to transfer positive attitude to product.
79
What is the heuristic route appeal to emotion?
emotional advertisement – especially when it involves fear or sex – captures our attention automatically and triggers approach/avoidance behaviours.
80
What is expertise in the heuristic route? Why does it work?
when not motivated to attend to the argument, we will frequently just agree if the person arguing is an expert. Heuristics like to give you nonsense messages but try to convince you that its coming from a trustworthy source.
81
What is the guru effect?
if an expert says something incomprehensible, we are more like to assume that the idea must be very complex, not that the expert isn’t very good at communicating the simple idea to us!
82
What is the foot in the door technique in the heuristic route?
make a small request first, and, once the
person complies, make a bigger one.
83
What is an example of the foot in the door technique?
when experimenters went door-to-door fund raising, people who were first asked to sign a petition were later more likely to give money than vice-versa. we’re building cognitive dissonance. If you signed a petition you obviously care about this so why wouldn’t you support it financialy
84
What is the door in the face technique in Heuristics? Why does it work?
make a impossibly huge request first, and when the person declines make a smaller one.
This technique works in part because of social norm of reciprocity.
85
What is an example of the door in the face technique?
when experimenters asked for a $5000 donation, people were more likely to give $100 after first rejecting than vice-versa.
86
What is priming in the heuristics route?
our ideas as associated with other ones, and bringing up one association automatically triggers another one. (ex: soup vs soap)
87
What is implicit priming in the heuristics route?
a method of persuasion that brings up an association for a participant, who then transfers it to a different behaviour/attitude.
88
What is the goal of priming?
to show you a message in one context, then have you subconsciously transfer it to another.
89
What is an example of implicit priming?
I bring up the concept “yellow” (which you maybe associate with happiness), and then show you a product I want you to buy.
90
What modern idea is priming related to?
Priming is related to the modern (non-Freudian) idea of the unconscious.
91
What are 2 studies that give good examples of implicit priming?
Slow walking study: when participants are asked to solve anagrams of words whose solutions are words we associate with old people (e.g., SLOW, GRANDMA, etc.) they are found to walk more slowly out of the lab.
Approach/avoidance study: when participants push a lever away from themselves whenever they see a stimulus, they are reported to like it less after the study; if they push the lever towards themselves, they like it more.
92
Why is implicit priming increasingly controversial?
Many labs have failed to replicate the findings, or have found them to be inconsistent across time and participants.
There are publication biases: it is harder to publish data when we fail to find evidence for implicit priming, meaning that for every one published study there may be dozens of other unpublished ones that didn’t work.
Experimenter bias may be influencing the results: when experimenters are double-blind, the implicit priming results are much harder to find.
93
What is a summary of the three components of persuasion?
Message Source: when reliable, we are likely to trust the message and be persuaded, but we can be persuaded “at a distance” by forgetting the source.
Message Target: most persuasion attempts aim to create some degree of cognitive dissonance so that we are very motivated to change our own beliefs/attitudes/behaviours.
Message Content: while persuasion content can be done systematically through reason and debate, most of the time in our culture it is done heuristically though appealing to emotion, expertise, and social schemas, instead.
94
What are the three reasons why implicit priming is controversial? Why are each of these things a problem?
Many labs have failed to replicate the findings, or have found them to be inconsistent across time and participants.
There are publication biases: it is harder to publish data when we fail to find evidence for implicit priming, meaning that for every one published study there may be dozens of other unpublished ones that didn’t work.
Experimenter bias may be influencing the results: when experimenters are double-blind, the implicit priming results are much harder to find.
95
What is intimidation?
changing somebody’s belief, attitude, or behaviour through dominance, threats, social status, or harm to the target itself.
Intimidation mostly targets behaviours, leading to actions that are inconsistent with a person’s beliefs/attitudes.
96
What do we mean by intimidation is often direct but it can also be indirect?
Intimidation is often direct: the target knows that they are being influenced to act.
But it can also be indirect: appeals to social schemas or roles in order to
manipulate behaviour without the target recognizing it as a manipulation tactic.
97
In terms of direct vs indirect, which is most common for intimidation
direct
98
What is another term for indirect intimidation?
manipulation
99
What are the Milgram Obedience Experiments?
a set of experiments in which participants are directed by a researcher to harm another participant (who, in reality, is an actor). Provides a test of direct intimidation.
100
What was the design of the Milgram experiments? What was the dependent variable?
Participants come into the lab and are assigned to be “Teachers” who will punish another participant (“Learner”) with electric shock whenever they get an answer wrong. The Learner complains that the shocks are harming them.
They are instructed by ”Experimenter” to keep increasing the shock to extremely dangerous levels every time the Learner answers incorrectly.
The participant can ask to terminate the experiment and, if they do so at least 5 times, the experiment stops. The dependent variable is how high they shocked before stopping.
101
What did Miligram do before his study?
Milgram ran a large-scale survey of other social
psychology researchers asking to predict the results.
102
What did social psychology researchers predict about the Milgram experiment?
only 10 % of participants would go to 225 v and no one would go to 440
103
What were the variety of conditions that Milgram made for his various experiments?
- No feedback
- Conflict
- Teacher's choice
- Distant Researchers
- Touch
- Two experiments
-Known Learner
- Two teachers
104
What do the variations in condition in milgrims expeirment help us understand?
this starts to reveal the underlying mechanism for why we think intimidation works
105
Why did Milgrim run a variety of conditions?
to test if compliance rates went up or down.
106
What was the no feedback condition for the Milgram experiment? what was the result? what does this tell us?
the Learner never cries out in pain (result: 65% go to maximum voltage)
Tells us: It is not cries for help that make people quit early because the maximum voltage rates were about the same as when there were cries.
107
What is the conflict condition for the Milgram study? What was the result? What does this tell us?
the Learner says keep going but Experimenter says stop (100%)
Tells us: with consent, everyone is willing to go to the end.
108
What is the teachers choice condition in the Milgram experiment? What were the results? What does this tell us?
the Learner says keep going but Experimenter says stop (100%)
This tells us: this shows the true effect of intimidation because only 2.5% geo their own their own.
109
What is the distant researcher condition in the Milgram experiment? What were the results? What does this tell us?
the Experimenter is not in the room and communicates remotely (38%)
Tells us: increase distance, compliance rates go down.
110
What is the touch condition of the Milgram experiment? What were the results?
the Teacher has to physically push the Learner’s hand onto a shock plate (30%)
111
What is the Two experimenters condition of the Milgram study? what were the results?
one says keep going while the other one says stop (20%)
112
What is the known learner condition of the Milgram experiment? What were the results?
the Learner is somebody the Teacher knows, like a friend or colleague that was instructed to act for the study (15%)
113
What is the Two teachers condition of the Milgram experiment? What were the results? What does this tell us?
a second Teacher (an actor) says they want to stop (10%)
Tells us: This is the strongest effect os it turns out that the main way in which most people stop, is when somebody else stops first
114
What are the 4 central mechanisms that we think are responsible for the changes in results from different conditions in the Milgram experiment?
Authority
Blame
Gradual increase
Distance
115
What is the effect of Authority in the Milgram experiment?
the Experimenter is an authority figure that tells them to go on; when this is doubted (e.g., Two Experimenters), compliance goes down.
116
What is the effect of blame in the Milgram experiement?
the Experimenter claims that he will take the responsibility; when participant must take more of blame (e.g., Teacher’s Choice, Two Teachers), compliance goes down.
117
What is the effect of gradual increase in the Milgram experiment?
the level of harm is increased little by little so that people can justify “just one more thing”; when harm is more sudden, compliance goes down (Teacher’s Choice).
118
What is the effect of distance in the Milgram experiment?
when there is psychological or physical change in distance, compliance
changes e.g., Known Learner (psychological), Touch (physical), Distant Researcher.
119
What happened immediately after Milgram published his study? What is one thing that this shows?
Immediately after publishing, Milgram was accused of doing unethical research that was deeply harmful to his participants, and today it is impossible to run replications of his work.
This shows that gaining approval from the ethics board does not mean that a study is ethical. You are not allowed to run replication of this work anymore because it is unethical.
120
What are some limited scope replications of the Milgram study?
The nurse study
The 2009 replication
121
What was the nurse study?
real-life nurses were called by a experimenter pretending to be a doctor and asked to administer a lethal dose of a (fake) medication that was planted in their offices. 95% of all nurses did this as instructed.
122
What is the 2009 replication study?
by limiting the shocks only to below 150v, a 2009 study showed that 70% of participants would keep going beyond 150v.
123
What are the 2 additional (not about ethics) criticisms of the Milgram study?
2017 re-analysis of the post-experiment interview data showed that most people who obeyed believed that they were not administering shocks at all.
Publication selectivity: Milgram changed how many Teacher protests are required to count as “not obeying” to make women seem more similar to men. Women originally were recorded to be less obedient to the experimenter intimidation than men and would stop the study sooner. This didn't work with Milgram's idea that his results would be universal so he manipulated the results in this way.
124
Despite criticism, what do most social psychologists accept about the findings of the Milgram study?
While these issues are serious, most social psychologists accept that the rates of obedience are far higher than we would intuitively believe, and accept the broad conclusions of the study.
125
Despite criticism, what do most social psychologists accept about the findings of the Milgram study?
While these issues are serious, most social psychologists accept that the rates of obedience are far higher than we would intuitively believe, and accept the broad conclusions of the study.
126
What is the most common way that indirect intimidation is done? How?
Through social roles. By placing people into specific social roles, we can change their behaviours and make them adopt behaviours that are inconsistent with their beliefs/attitudes. In other words, by changing your social role we make it possible for you to engage in behaviours, you otherwise wouldn’t
127
What are social roles?
a set of expectations about what kinds of behaviours are expected and permissible given our specific role in a social group or society.
128
What are 2 examples of social roles?
E.g., police officers are allowed to carry weapons and exercise aggression under specific guidelines of the law. (whenever this social role is broken, we say it is innapropriate and illegal)
E.g., students are allowed to interrupt a lecture to ask questions, but only if they raise their hand and are called upon.
129
What is the Zimbardo Prison experiment?
an intricate, multi-day experiment in which undergraduate students at Stanford University were assigned roles as either “guards” or “prisoners” and allowed to do act out however they wanted over a period of 2 weeks.
130
What was the design of the Zimbardo prison experiment? how long did it last? why?
Prisoners were anonymized and referred by to guards only as numbers.
Guards began abusing prisoners within 48 hours, stripping them naked, asking
them to clean toilets with their bare hands, and verbally abusing them.
Several prisoners, believing they could not stop the experiment, went on hunger strikes.
After 6 days, the experiment was stopped after pressure from other researchers.
131
Which experiment is often termed the most unethical experiment ever conducted in psychology?
The Zimbardo experiment
132
What concerns do social psychologists have about the Zimbardo experiment's intenral validity?
- Zimbardo actively encouraged the guards to act in corrupt and aggressive ways. (AKA they were directly manipulated)
- Zimbardo specifically chose students he believed were the most susceptible to the situation (AKA no random sampling)
133
What do social psychologists believe about the results of the Zimbardo study?
While social psychologists believe that social roles and situations can lead to aggressive behaviour, they have serious reservations about this study.
134
What can we say about the Milgram and Zimbardo experiemnts?
Despite their deep ethical problems and issues in reliability and replicability, both the Milgram and Zimbardo questions teach us important lessons about the potential for direct and indirect intimidation
135
What can we learn from the Milgram and ZImabardo experiments that we can incorporate in our own lives?
Would I be comfortable doing this if the person was right in front of me, or somebody I knew personally?
Is this person really an expert and somebody I can really trust?
What would other people do in this situation?
