Social Psychology Part 2 Flashcards
Attitudes
our feelings or opinions about people, objects, and ideas; How you form and maintain those attitudes; how they change; how it changes others
Can attitudes predict behavior?
Sometimes, there are times with people believing in certain things, and they either do or do not create actions falling in line with those beliefs
When attitude is strong, behavior more likely to fall in line with that belief
When person is made aware of attitudes, they are likely to act in line with that for at least a period of time
Can behavior predict attitudes?
Sometimes, self-perception theory to consider
Self-perception theory
“derive beliefs from behavior”; attitudes follow behavior, doing becomes believing
If forced to have certain behavior over period, attitudes can shift and align more with what you are doing
If done something towards organization, more likely to do it again and agree to something larger in future
Why does foot-in-the-door technique work? Why are people more likely to change their beliefs after engaging in behaviors that go against them?
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance
conflict or anxiety we feel when there is an inconsistency between our beliefs and our actions; discovered by Leon Festinger in 1957
Examples of Cognitive Dissonance
Do you know junk food is unhealthy, but you eat it anyway?
You know exercise can keep you healthy too, but do you do that everyday?
Smoking: Can resolve by changing thinking to justify behavior(“smoking is not that bad for me, better about it than others”); Can change behavior(I know smoking is bad for me, so I will quit!)
What do you think more people do often?
People more likely to change thinking instead of changing behavior!!
Social Behavior
Includes altruism and reflective thoughts of how/why people do what they do
Altruism
unselfish interest in helping another person
Why do people help other people?
Reciprocity, Egoism, and implicit rules of society(including factors of mood, empathy, and the bystander effect)
Reciprocity
“Doing unto others as they will (hopefully0 do unto you”
Eogism
“Doing unto others because it somehow benefits ourselves”
Implicit Rules of Society
“Others are helping, so I will help too”
Factors that influence helping behavior:
Mood: happy = helping
Empathy: seeing ourselves in the person who needs help; Tend to help those who look and behave like us
The Bystander Effect: “Let someone else do it…” Diffusion of responsibility
Social Influence
influences others can have on another, can relate to Conformity and Obedience
Conformity
changing one’s behavior to align with the group or group standard; “when people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other”
Asch’s conformity study
Which line is the same as exhibit 1?
Told to be a Visual perception test; 6 of the people are actors and 1 is a participant; The participant does not know about the actors
Will the participant go with the right or wrong answer?
They usually do not conform to the answers at first, but they will conform more over time; Participants tend to not conform when only two participants, when participants are children
Why did the people conform in Asch’ study?
Informational Social Influence: the influence people have on us because we want to be right
Normative Social Influence: the influence people have on us because we want to be liked
Obedience
behavior that complies with the specific demands of an authority figure; “YOU MUST behave in this way”
Milgram’s Obedience study Background
**Right after WWII(Think of Holocaust); Guards were just following orders, did not have a choice, would be killed if did not follow
But it is always argued they always have a choice
Milgram’s Obedience Study in America
Question: would you harm someone if an authority figure told you to do so?
Was not thought through to cause traumatic, negative consequences to the subjects
Advertised that the study was about the punishments of learning; Not really this, about behavior; Punishments given to create learning
Actor/confederate and real volunteer (Confederate would be the learner of word pairs); Volunteer would be the teacher, giving the learner electric shocks if they got answers wrong
THE SHOCKS are FAKE, not really happening, but the volunteer does not know that
Actor/learner has lines; Actor/learner gets first few right, then supposed to get one wrong so they are “shocked” and respond negatively; Voltage gets higher and higher as “learner” misses more and more(Actor/learner being more and more dramatic in the pain)
Milgram with Lab Coat is Authority Figure; Does not punish volunteer, just says “please continue”
Answer to Milgram’s Obedience Study Question
2/3 of participants so in the Milgram study; most continued until they thought they had killed someone; Milgram and actor would come out and explain afterwards
But still psychologically traumatizing(we have predisposition to obey authority), parents, teachers, etc.
authority hard to overcome when not prepared to
Many debates about ethical nature of study, it was psychologically traumatizing (**Not until late 1970s did they have rules over ethical treatment of human subjects in studies)
Intergroup Relations
Includes Deindividuation, Social Contagion, group performance, Social facilitation, Social loading, and groupthink
Deindiviuation
being a part of a group reduces one’s sense of personal responsibility; Happens when gathered in large group of people and more emotional(vandalism, aggression, etc.)
mob mentality(“just one of the herd”)
more likely to perform certain behaviors when in a group than alone
Ex: May 4th memorial turning into riots in early 2000s, highly intoxicated people performing
Social Contagion
the spread of behavior, emotions, and ideas
Examples: Laughing even if you aren’t sure what’s funny; Yawning; Fads (“on fleek”, “same”)
