Social Psychology (sociological social psychology and Intra/Intergroup processes) Flashcards
charlesford topics! (119 cards)
1
Q
what is the crisis of social psychology?
A
epistemology, what does it mean to know?
2
Q
what is epistemology?
A
Epistemology is learn by doing, a branch of philosophy concerned with theories of knowledge e.g. what does it mean to ‘know’?
3
Q
what are the schools of empiricism?
A
Empiricism,Positivism, common sense, constructivism, phenomenology
4
Q
what is empiricism?
A
the idea that knowledge comes from perceptual observation.
5
Q
what is positivism?
A
is the idea that certain knowledge comes from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic.
6
Q
what is common sense?
A
the idea that knowledge comes from the unreflective processes of everyday life.
7
Q
what is constructivism?
A
the knowledge is a compilation of human made constructions. can be cognitive or social. cognitive = they have to construct it internally. social =humans construct knowledge together.
8
Q
what is phenomenology?
A
an approach focusing on structures of experience and consciousness, values phenomena as distinct from the nature of being.
9
Q
why is epistemology important?
A
epistemology determines research questions you ask, the methods used and the results.
- important to understanding people.
10
Q
when did social constructionism appear?
A
Post modernism -mid 20th century to modern
-a period of general rejection of the notion that rules and structures underlie a real world. social construction is culturally rooted in post modernism, many sociological influences.
11
Q
what does Gergen, 1973 argue?
A
Gergen 1973, argues that psychological knowledge is historically and culturally specific.
-also feature of psych is that it is continually changing
-in time of crisis of psychology
12
Q
what can social constructionism be explained as?
A
historical and culture specificity, what we know and how we understand depends on where and when we live.
-Knowledge that is sustained by social processes.
- it is anti-essentialist, anti-realist, focused on processes
13
Q
what is the schism?
A
Jost & Kruglanski, 2002
**social cognitivism **accused of: arrogance in claiming the universal applicability and naivety in claiming political neutrality on the side of elitist oppression.
social constructionism accused of being: unempirical, being gratuitiously adverse, and being inappropriately political.
14
Q
what is sociological psychology?
A
soc psych born of social constructionism, it underlies all alternative approaches of new theories in psych, rejects the idea that we gain knowledge from reality instead the knowledge from others
15
Q
what is sociological social psychology?
A
SSP is an umbrella term for social psychology from a social constructionist perspective,
it refutes the scientific method and is reliant on qualitative research.
16
Q
what is social cognition?
A
social cognition is a sub-discipline of soc psych,
refers to the different psychological processes that influence how people process, interpret, and respond to social signals.
(Arioli et al, 2018)
17
Q
what are approaches in the epistemological perspective results in qualitative research methods?
A
-thematic analysis
-grounded theory
-Interpretative phenomenological analysis
-rigour in quantitative research
18
Q
what is thematic analysis?
A
line by line analysis of transcribed data, clusters data into meaning units.
19
Q
what is grounded theory?
A
an attempt to create theories grounded in data, the themes of thematic analysis give way to categories of data, higher level categories take on an analytic rather than descriptive function.
20
Q
what is interpretative phenomenological analysis?
A
attempts to understand what it is like to be the participant, the nature, quality and meaning of their experience.
21
Q
what happens in interpretative phenomenological analysis?
A
researcher reads the transcript and produces unfocused notes,
->indentifies themes that characterise each section of the text.
->Clustering of experiential themes at participant level and produce them into group experiential themes.
22
Q
what is rigour in QR?
A
the application of the scientic method to ensure unbaised and well controlled experimental designs, methodology, analysis, interpretation and reporting of results. (National Institute of Health, 2021).
23
Q
how can we understand covid 19?
A
social representations theory and phenomenal theory
24
Q
what is the social representations theory?
A
the idea that social psychology has been practised in the mainstream but neglected to examine collective social phenomena and focuses on mechanisms of the individual mind.
25
what does social representations create?
creates a thinking society, there are consensual ideas, socially shared ways of understanding, ways of communicating
-> which are dynamic & changing.
26
what did moscovici aim to do?
Moscovici aimed to produce a fundamental re-orientation of social psychology around the notion of social representations.
27
what is the task of social psychology?
to study the social representations which inhabit the consensual universe → study of culture and its content.
28
who are some key researchers of social representations theory?
Moscovici, S., (1961), La Psychoanalyse: Son Image et Son Public, Herzlich, C (1973), Health and Illness and Moloney & Walker 2002, Organ donation and transplantation.
.
29
what is the phenomenal theory?
it is a part of establishing social representations
an attempt to anchor and objectify
-anchoring aims to classify something by using existing categories
-objectifying aims to turn something abstract into something concrete, discovering iconic quality of an idea to reproduce a concept in an image
30
what is anchoring?
-anchoring aims to classify something by using existing categories, generalising and particularising - consider the object as diverging from the prototype.
31
what is objectifying?
objectifying is turning something abstract into something concrete, discovering iconic quality of an idea to reproduce a concept in an image. Images become part of social reality - used for social communication and understanding.
32
how could covid 19 be anchored?
the disease is a communicable virus - generalising, with virus like symptoms for sufferers etc
33
how could covid 19 be objectified?
covid 19 was a disease that made people very unwell and had flu like symptoms (figuration) and the physical quality of covid was lockdown (ontologizing).
34
what did Jaspel & Nerlich (2020) research?
Study of the emerging social representations of social distancing, applied thematic analysis to a corpus of 67 newspaper articles published during 5 socio-political mile stones in the pandemic.
35
what are some critiques of social representations theory?
- fails to consider:
-action orientation of talk
-talk as constructive
-that communication requires attention
36
who openly critiqued the SRT?
Rose et al, 1995:
-mistaken view of consensus as agreement
-Emphasis SR as a thinking environment generated in the communicative practises of members due to oppositional themes.
-tension between power of social reality and agency of the social subject
37
what are the aims of intragroup processes?
aims to investigate what happens within groups
38
what is a person?
an individual
39
what is a dyad?
two individuals
40
what is a group?
more than two individuals with a shared identity
41
what are main theories of intragroup processes?
social identity theory
minority influence
majority influence
contingency approach
42
what does social identity theory study?
human social behaviour within groups specifically:
-interpersonal behaviour
-intergroup behaviour
-how social identity is part of an individuals self-concept
-group identification
43
what is interpersonal behaviour?
when self and other percieve and act towards one another on the basis of unique personal identities
44
what is intergroup behaviour?
when self and other perceive and act towards one another on the basis of their collective or social identities
45
what is social identity?
social identity is the part of an individuals self concept which derives from his/her knowledge of membership of a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.
46
what is group identification?
group identification is the extent to which the in-group is included as part of the self, how strongly attached you feel toward the group, can be multiple overlapping group memberships.
47
what were the key point about majority influence from Sherif 1935?
groups influence us via norms because when were unsure about the universe, we look to those around us to reduce the uncertainty.
48
what did Sherif 1935 research?
blocks of 100 trials,
-repeated measures
-ppts told light would move then asked to estimate how much the light had moved (wasnt changing), then asked as a group
-observed how much the guesses changed from individual guesses
49
what is conformity?
conformity is a change in behaviour or belief toward a group as a result of real or imagined group pressure, where group pressure is defined as a psychological force operating on a person to fulfil others expectations of him or her.
50
what did Asch 1951-56 studies research?
showed participants three lines and a comparison line, in groups asked to say which of the three lines matched the comparison line, 6 confederates and one naive participant, found that when confederates gave the incorrect answer naive ppt were likely to conform.
51
what did Asch 1951-56 find?
minority overall error rate was 36.85 & 75% of participants yeilded to majority on at least one trial. he found that a majority of 3/4 produces maximum conformity, social support reduces conformity.
52
what are social norms?
norms are shared understandings in group members feelings, behaviours and thought, norms constrain certain behaviours and facilitate.
53
what did Maslow conclude about the impact of social norms?
to the degree that a given group identity is important to your self concept or a given group has the power to reward or punish you, the groups norms will impact you psychologically.
54
what is maslows hierarchy of needs?
a pyramid of needs, which need to moved up along to achieve self actualisation. needs are: physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, self actualisation.
55
what is informational influence?
Informational influence is motivation to be correct, rely upon social definitions of reality and normative influence is motivation to create good impression, rewards and punishments controlled by group(Deutsch & Gerard, 1955)
56
what did moscovici critique about majority influence?
moscovici ctritiqued the focus of majority influence due to the overestimation of majority & conformity, and felt that the importance of minority influence has on social change. e.g. snowball effect.
57
what do majority influence produce?
majorities produce compliance, that is a change in outward behaviour → when mediating use a informational or normative concern
58
what do minority influence produce?
produce conversion, change must be real as they have less power → when mediating use a careful cognitive process.
59
what are the styles of minority influence?
- behavioural style
- style of thinking
- flexibility
- identification
60
what are the four components of behavioural style?
consistent, confident, unbiased and committed
61
what did Moscovici et al 1969 research?
students were in groups of 6, each group had 2 confederates, studied colour perception, asked ppts to judge the colour of slides, slides were filtered to look blue. confederates consistently named the slides green
62
what were the results of moscovici et al 1969
found when confederates less consistent, participants answered green less. Shows that minority effective due to behavioural style as it creates uncertainty and conflict.
when in a follow up study, ppts exposed to consistent majority there was a shift in their blue green threshold toward green.
63
what was a key point from Moscovici et al 1969?
consistent majority brings about some change in overt response but also has profound effect of private judgements later
64
what did nemeth & wachtler 1983 propose about minority influence?
minorities - produce divergent thinking, exposure to minority with a different view not stressful, assume minority is wrong and consistency of minority motivates person to reassess → creativity.
65
what did nemeth & wachtler 1983 propose about majority influence?
majorities - produce convergent thinking, exposure to a majority with a differing view is stressful thus narrows focus, assume maj. is correct and focus on message from perspective of majority to understand their position.
66
what did Kenworthy et al, 2018 research?
Kenworthy et al 2018, assigned students to groups where they were told they were in the numerical maj or min on their views on a live issue concerning the appropriateness of surgical intervention for conjoined twins, they had to generate individual arguments in favour of their position
67
what did Kenworthy et al, 2018 find?
those assigned min generated more original and more convincing arguments.
68
what do the findings of Kenworthy et al, 2018 suggest?
the two process theory states that majorities cause surface level, convergent thinking whereas minorities cause deep level and divergent thinking.
69
what does the contingency approach explore?
there has been a noticeable shift in theoretical developments that recognises that neither majorities nor minorities are associated exclusively with a particular process and that each source can be associated with systematic or non systematic processing and can lead to different outcomes, under different conditions.
->contingency approach specify that processes of majority and minority influence are contingent on additional factors.
70
What did Martin et al, 2017 research?
students were recruited to give their opinions about the introduction of oral exams as part of their degree, told that in a focus group of 11 students either 9 were in favour or only 2 in favour.
told that pilot would either be introduced in another college, no information or would be introduced in their college, ppts told to either read a series of strong arguments for the introduction of oral exams or a series of weak arguments, measured the thought listing and attitude toward introduction of oral exams.
71
what were the results of Martin et al, 2017?
low outcome relevance, majority had more influence than minority and no effect of message quality → heuristic processing, high outcome relevance → message quality and source status exerted influence therefore more systematic processing of strong arguments.
72
what composes of Intergroup processes?
prejudice
-dispositional causes of prejudice
-situational causes of prejudice
-the duplex mind & prejudice
73
define prejudice?
prejudice can be broken into the domains of Affect, Behaviour and Cognition: prejudice is a feeling towards an individual based on their group membership or an attitudes towards a social group
74
what is discrimination?
discrimination is an action relevant to an individual based on their group membership
75
what is stereotyping?
stereotyping is the belief that individuals are different based on their group membership
76
what is the minimal group paradigm experiment , (Tajfel, 1970)?
-seperated groups of boys
-shown the groups of boys flashes of dots on a screen & told them to estimate the number of dots
-divided into groups, then individually told assign minus or add points to other boys
-given three options to chose how to move points: ingroup (posi to same group and neg same), outgroup(pos & neg to other group) or inter group (randomly assigned pos & neg to either same or diff group)
77
what are dispositional causes of prejudice?
-personality & political idealogy
-right wing authoritarianism (Altermeyer, 1981)
-social dominance orientation
-Dual-Process Motivation model
-minimal group paradigm
78
what is meant by personality and political ideology?
early 1940s social scientists seek person level explanations for the rise of fascism and anti semitism in Europe (Adorno et al 1950). studies attempted to find a unidimensional ideological construct that could account for prejudice and prevailing thinking was that this ideological construct was driven by personality, but failed to.
the personalities which fuel prejudice are: dogmatism, conservatism, insecurity and authoritarianism
79
what are problems with personality theories?
- the data not consistent with a unidimensional conceptualisation of political ideology
- all the theories and measures were based upon the assumption of such a construct: a prejuciced personality resulting in a prejudiced ideology
- all these theorists were basing their ideas upon a simple left right political continuum and it turns out they were wrong → over simplistic
80
what is right wing authoritarianism?
- the social/cultural dimension of right wing ideology
- RWAs believe that people should behave in a traditional ways and uphold the social order
- RWA is characterised by adherence to tradition, submission to legitimate authority and aggression against those who threaten the status quo.
81
what is social dominance orientation?
Pratto et al, 1994
- economic component of right wind ideology
- SDOs believe that social structures should be hierarchial
- SDO is characterised by preference for hierarchies, derogation of low power groups and aggression against groups who try to leave their place.
82
what is dual process motivation model?
Ducking & Sibley, 2010
- route one, authoritarianism, develop a dangerous worldview when low in openness and high in conscientiousness.
- route two, social dominance, individuals who are low in agreeableness develop a competitive worldview.
83
what did Brandt & Crawford 2016 research?
- a nationally representative US sample completed a measure of cognitive ability and feelings thermometer for a range of social groups
- predicted that: those lower in cognitive ability would be more prejudiced towards groups who are low power, low choice and liberal, those higher in cognitive ability would be more prejudiced towards groups who are high power, high choice and conservative and no difference in overall levels of prejudice.
84
what were the results from Brandt & Crawford 2016?
results showed that lower words associated with prejudice, feminists, whites, liberals etc and higher wordsum, christian fundamentalists, big business, christians, tea party and middle class people. both relationships mediated by traditionalism.
85
what are situational causes of prejudice?
Realistic group conflict theory (Campbell, 1965)
86
what is realistic group conflict theory?
- perceived scarcity of a limited and important resource creates a zero-sum perception that is a realistic group conflict
- when groups are negatively interdependent prejudice is likely to develop
87
what was sherif 1966 robbers cave study?
- in phase 1, 12 yo boys taken to a summer camp, assigned to two groups, eagles & rattlers and groups were separately nurtured to get along with other group members, form attachments, create group norms and culture → stencilled symbol onto their shirts and made a flag.
- in phase 2, groups brought together to meet for 6 days of competitive activities, winners would receive a team trophy and personal rewards
88
what were the results of sherif 1966?
the groups became very competitive as they were territorial and retailated against each other, the groups became so aggressive that they had to be physically separated by the researchers.
89
what did Bettencourt et al 2012 study & find?
- minimal groups paradigm
- mixed Ps into mixed group work teams where they either worked cooperatively or competitively
- Ps in competitive condition displayed more bias when allocating rewards, rated outgroup as less friendly and more similar to each other
-> negative interdependence inc prejudice
90
what is the duplex mind?
factor of social cognition - thinking is costly and social cognitive processes can be divided into automatic and deliberate.
91
what is social cognition?
social cognition is a sub topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store and apply information about other people and social situations, it focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions.
92
what is implicit prejudice?
implicit prejudice is an unconscious bias.
93
what is categorisation?
a process whereby the brain automatically categorises things, we need it to survive
94
what is constructionist generated in?
constructionist is generated in communication and socially distributed is code for communication.
95
what is social constructionism?
(Burr., V, 2015)
it is a theoretical orientation which underpins all the newer approaches, which offer alternative in psych & soc psych
96
what does social constructionism insist?
(Burr, V., 2015)
we take a critical stance toward our taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world & ourselves
-opposes positivism
97
what does each social constructionism bring?
a different kind of action from human beings
-sustain patterns of social action & exclude others
98
what is essentialism?
an approach taken which traps people inside personalities & identities that are restrictive and pathological -> more oppressive
99
what does essentialism create in psychologists?
(Burr, V., 2015)
to seek dispositional explanations for human behaviour and too look for causes instead of social processes
100
what does social constructionism do?
denies that knowledge is direct perception of reality -> we construct our own versions of reality
101
what is language as a pre-condition for thought?
our understanding comes from other people not the objective reality
->concepts & cats are acquired by each person as they develop the use of language
102
what are characteristics of social constructionism?
Anti-essentialism
questions realism
historical & cultural specificity of knowledge
language as a precondition for thought
lan as a form of social action
focuses on interaction, social practices, processes
103
what does Kelly 1955 argue about social constructivism?
through the course of our myriad social interactions and relations with others, each of us develops a system of dimensions of meaning/constructs
104
what are some of social constructionism's critiques of mainstream psych?
(Burr, V., 2015)
-Parker, 1999 argues that sc is used to revert the dangers of main. psych, in the sense that it is less oppressive
-absence of reflectiveness -> cherry 1995 reframed the effect of bystander intervention, specifically of the social problem of violence towards women
105
what is the concept of social distancing?
(Jackson 2010)
describes the relationship between individuals and groups in society
captures variety of relations of difference, like social class & race
106
how can social distancing be described?
Wider-Smith & Freedman 2020
-precaution to reduce interactions between people in a broader community, in which individuals may be infectious
107
what were the specific rules of social distancing in the UK?
stay two meters apart, stay home from work, only allowed to go shopping for essentials
108
how did the influence of the media impact understanding of social distancing?
helped people start to talk about social distancing, thus leading to more understanding -> behave in relation to social distancing & encourage others too
109
how can objectification be achieved?
Metaphors
(Nerlich 2020)
used through the pandemic
e.g. class the disease as a war/battle
110
how were social representations of doom and disaster to covid 19 created?
media heavily reporting on negative events like the death toll, growth of disease
-> increasing fear and death anxiety
(Ahorsu et al., 2020)
111
what did the public compliance with social distancing depend on?
one's ability to understand and relate to them
-depends on the clear & effective risk communication through gov agencies, messages and media representations
112
what did Nerlich et al,2021 find in their study of social representations of social distancing?
-measured the emergence of new social representation on two newspapers the Times & The Sun
-used thematic analysis & social representations theory to quantify results of the use of this language
- sd first seen as a threat to life then as a social order -> burden (due to the lockdown)
113
what did Martin et al 2007 find?
-conducted two experiments: crossing source status with message quality
-message elaboration was manipulated by motivational or cognitive factors
-results show when either condition encouraged low message elaboration there was heuristic acceptance of the maj position with detailed message processing
-> maj & min inf is sensitive to motivational or cognitive factors
114
what did sibley et al, 2013 research & find?
-took a person x situation approach to predict prejudice
-used regional information from national census & survey data to analyse the New Zealand sample of 6,500 ppts
-findings support the proposition that individuals differences interact with specific features of the en to predict peoples levels of prejudice in distinct ways
115
what were the results of sherif 1935?
found that over numerous estimates of the movements of light, the group converged to a common estimate
- sherif said that this showed that people would always tend to conform to a group agreement.
- concluded that individuals develop unique personal norms, groups converge on unique group norms and group norms persist in later individual judgements.
116
what were the results of Tajfel 1970?
boys actively chose the in-group choice to assign positive points to their own group and negative to the other group
-> showing active discrimination, even if they were friends before to gain money as motivation
117
why were the results of tajfel 1970 shown?
social identity theory suggests they discriminated to increase self esteem -> being part of the winning team and making the other team lose
(US vs THEM)
118
what are limits of the robbers cave experiments?
unethical as kids were unaware/ did not consent
-unscientific hypothesis testing
-tried to replicate at another camp, but kids turned on the counsellors as bonds were too strong
119
