Social psychology (wk9)

Question 1

Social psychology

Answer 1

the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour influence and are influence by the behaviour of others

Question 2

Social cognition

Answer 2

mental processes associated with people’s perceptions of and reaction to other people

Question 3

Social influence

Answer 3

The process whereby one person’s behaviour is affected by the words or actions of others. Eg. fashion

Question 4

Social influences on the self

Answer 4

people develop within a cultural, and this influences their (our):

self concept: the thoughts, feelings and beliefs we hold about who we are and what characteristics we have
–> social identity: the beliefs we hold about the groups to which we belong

Self esteem: the evaluations we make about how worthy we are as human beings

Question 5

Social comparison

Answer 5

When we have no objective of evaluating ourselves we use:

Temporal comparison: consider the way we are now in relation to how we were in the past

Social comparison: evaluate ourselves in relation to others

Question 6

Reference groups

Answer 6

: categories of people to which people compare themselves

Upwards social comparison:

• can decrease our self esteem
• can give us something to strive for
• relative deprivation

Downward social comparison:
- improves our self esteem

Question 7

social norms

Answer 7

Social norms: letarned, socially based rules that prescribe what people should or should not do in the various situations.

• transmitted by parents, teachers, peers etc.
• -> descriptive norms: what most other people do
• -> injunctive norms: what you perceive other people approve of
• often cannot be verbalised
• one universal norm is reciprocity
• Can also lead to breakdown in order (eg. deindividuation)

Question 8

Motivation and the presence of others

Answer 8

Social facilitation: the mere presence of other people can improve performance

Social interference: the presence of others hurts performance

Social loafing: exerting less effort when performing a group task than when performing the same task alone.

Zajonc (1965)
- arousal increases the tendency to display our most dominant behaviours

Question 9

Social perception

Answer 9

Social perception: the process through which people interpret information about others, form impression of them, and draw conclusion about the reasons for their behaviour.

Schemas influence our perceptions of people

• influence what we pay attention too/ ignore
• influence what we remember about others
• influence our judgements about other people’s behaviour.

Question 10

First impressions

Answer 10

Formed quickly

• people can make judgements about how trustworthy and competent a person is after seeing their face for 1/10th of a second
• SES from non- verbal cues in one minute

Long lasting

• slow to change
• partly the result of self- fulfilling phrophecies: a process through which our expectations about another person cause us to act in ways that lead the person to behave as we expected
• we might also avoid people after a bad first impression (so they don’t give us a chance to change it.)

Question 11

Explaining behaviour: attribution

Answer 11

Attribution: the process of explaining the causes of people’s behaviour, including our own.

• internal causes: characteristics of the person
• external causes: characteristics of the situation

Kelley’s (1973) theory about how observers make attributions about the actions of actors:
–> consensus: the degree to which the observers behaviour is similar to the actors

–> consistency: the degree to which the behaviour is the same across time or situations

–> Distinctiveness: the extent to which the actor’s response to one situation stands out from responses to similar situations

Question 12

Errors in attribution

Fundamental attribution error:

Answer 12

Fundamental attribution error: a tendency to over attribute the behaviour of others to internal factors, such as personality traits

Question 13

Errors in attribution

Ultimate attribution error:

Answer 13

Ultimate attribution error:
- positive behaviours of a social or ethnic out- group are seen as a result of ‘luck’ or an external cause, while the negative behaviours are given an internal cause

• positive behaviours of a social or ethnic in group are given an internal attribution, while negative behaviours are given an external cause

Question 14

Errors in attribution

Actor observer effect

Answer 14

the tendency to attribute other people’s behaviour to internal causes while attributing our own behaviour (especially errors and failures) to external causes.

Question 15

Errors in attribution

self serving bias

Answer 15

the tendency to attribute our successes to internal characteristics while blaming our failures on external causes

Question 16

Culture and Attribution

Answer 16

The biases are biased (ie. most research comes from the western cultures)
- westerners are more likely to make internal attributions of others than some other cultures

• people from asian cultures have a tendency to show the reverse of the self serving biases
• westerners tend to make less complex attributions than some other cultures

Question 17

Attitudes

Answer 17

Attitude: a predisposition towards .a particular cognitive, emotional or behavioural reaction to objects.

Cognitive component:
- a set of beliefs about the attitude object

Affective component:
- feelings about the object

Behavioural component:
- the way people act towards the object

Question 18

Implicit and explicit attitudes

Answer 18

Explicit: attitudes you are consciously aware of
–> influenced by what you think is right and wrong

Implicit: attitude that exists in your subconscious
–> strongly influenced by cultures

Implicit and explicit attitudes can be in contrast to one another

Implicit attitudes can predict behaviour
eg. higher implicit attitudes can mean avoiding eye contact with another race.

Question 19

Changing attitudes: persuasive messages

Answer 19

Three factors of a message affecting attitude change:

• the person communicating the message
• the consent of the message

Elaboration likelihood model:
a model suggesting that attitude change can be driven by evaluation of the content of a persuasive message (central route) or by irrelevant persuasion cues (peripheral route)

High elaboration: careful processing of the content–> degree of attitude change depends on the quality of the argument

Low elaboration: low consideration of content–> degree of attitude change depends on the persuasion cues.

Question 20

Changing attitudes: changing behaviour

Answer 20

Cognitive dissonance theory:
a theory asserting that attitude change is driven by efforts to reduce tension caused by inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviours.

eg. smoking is unhealthy+ i smoke= high dissonance

smoking is not dangerous + i smoke= low dissonance

Question 21

Prejudice and stereotypes

Answer 21

Stereotype: a false assumption that all members of some groups share the same characteristics

Prejudice: a positive or negative attitude towards an individual based simply on membership to a group

Social discrimination: differential treatment of individuals who belong to different groups.

Question 22

Theories of prejudice and stereotyping

Motivational theories
Adorno et al (1950) and Altemever (2004)

Answer 22

• Adorno et al (1950) and Altemever (2004) suggest prejudice enhances peoples sense of identity and helps them meet person needs

particularly likely among people who display authoritarianism:

• an acceptance of traditional or conventional values
• a willingness to unquestionably follow the order of authority figures
• an inclination to act aggressively towards individuals or groups identified by these authority figures as threatening the values held by one’s in group.

Question 23

Theories of prejudice and stereotyping

cognitive theories

Answer 23

suggest that prejudice and stereotyping result from the social cognitive processes people use in dealing with the world

• this is good for cognitive efficiency
• use schemas
  eg. terrorist attacks by islamic extremists have led people think of all muslims as terrorists and to discriminate against them.

Question 24

Theories of prejudice and stereotyping

Learning theories

Answer 24

suggest that prejudice can be learned

• eg. parents
• biopreparedness: the theory that we are predisposed to learn to fear people who are strangers or who look different.

Question 25

Reducing prejudice

Answer 25

Contact hypothesis: the idea that stereotypes and prejudice towards a group will diminish as contact with the group increases

• when SES of the groups is roughly equal
• when they have a superordinate goal
• contact has to occur on a one on one basis

Question 26

Interpersonal attraction

keys to attraction

Answer 26

physical proximity:
the more we see a person, the more we tend to like them

similarity: people tend to like people they perceive as being similar to themselves

physical attractiveness
matching hypothesis: the notion that people are most likely to form relationships with those who are similar in physical attractiveness.

Question 27

Intimate relationships

Answer 27

defining characteristics of intimate relationships:

interdependence:
the thoughts, emotions and behaviours of one person affect the thoughts, emotions and behaviours of the other

commitment:
the extent to which each party is psychologically attracted to the relationship and wants to remain in it

Question 28

Love

Answer 28

Different from a strong form of liking

Robert Sternberg (1997) proposed the triangular theory of love

Question 29

Predictors of Marriage success

Answer 29

Intimate relationship and shared values before marriage

fair and equitable

communication