SPID3: Psychology in Context

Question 1

Describe the two perspectives in defining power

Answer 1

1. Capacity to influence others while resisting their attempts to influence others (Hogg and Vaughan)
2. Relative control over another’s valued outcomes and these can be physical, financial etc (Fiske and Berdahl)

Question 2

Describe harsh bases of power

Answer 2

• use economic and physical outcomes
• work with outcomes that are more tangible and explicit
• rely upon power differentials that are more obvious
• are more likely to exist when power is illegitimate

Question 3

Describe soft bases of power

Answer 3

• use social outcomes
• work with outcomes are more subjective and intangible
• rely upon power differentials that may be less obvious
• are NOT weaker than harsh bases of power
• tend to produce influence that is self sustaining

Question 4

Describe the approach/inhibition theory of power

Answer 4

High power (approach): attention to rewards, positive emotions, automatic cognition

Low power (inhibition): attention to threats, negative emotions situationally constrained behaviour

Question 5

When feelings powerful, people tend to…

Answer 5

• be more willing to engage in action
• act in line with own preferences
• express opinions
• lower basal cortisol levels

Question 6

Define dominance

Answer 6

The degree of deference, respect and attention one receives as a consequence of the perceived ability to coerce, intimidate and impose costs and benefits

Question 7

Define prestige

Answer 7

The degree of deference, respect and attention an individual receives as consequence of the perceived attractiveness as a cultural model or coalition partner

Question 8

Why does group based power persist?

Answer 8

• social identity, social dominance and system justification

Question 9

Describe social identity theory

Answer 9

group provides us with social identity
- by categorisation, group identity or salience can increase - depersonalisation, self stereotyping
- we strive for positive distinctiveness - individual mobility, social creativity and social competition

Question 10

Describe social dominance theory

Answer 10

• group based hierarchies exist across societies
• some have positive social value (access to power and wealth)
• some have negative social value

Question 11

What did social dominance orientation correlate with?

Answer 11

Correlation positively with: sexism, racism, nationalism, support for the US invasion of Iraq
Correlation negatively with: tolerance, egalitarian, support for human rights, support for the military intervention in the Yugoslavian civil war

Question 12

Describe the system justification theory

Answer 12

Processes by which existing social arrangements are legitimised even at the expense of personal and group interest
- there is general motive to justify social order and this is partially responsible for internalisation of inferiority among members of disadvantaged groups (outgroup favouritism)

Question 13

What did Milgram find?

Answer 13

65% delivered shocks until the end of the experiment

Question 14

When did disobedience in Milgram’s variations increase?

Answer 14

• experimenter provided no directions to increase shocks
• groups pressured participant
• teacher had proximal distance to learner
• experimenter not physically present

Question 15

Define persuasion

Answer 15

a change in attitude, beliefs in response to direct messages - requires internalisation

Question 16

What are the three components of attitude?

Answer 16

affect - behaviour - cognition (they work together)

Question 17

Explain implicit and explicit attitudes

Answer 17

Measurement - is it obvious what’s being measured (indirect vs direct)
Processing - what level of processing produces the response (automatic vs deliberate)
Mental construct - does it require a distinct mental construct? (implicit vs explicit)

Question 18

How do we process persuasive messages?

Answer 18

Heuristic processing (automatic)

Systematic processing (cognitive)

Question 19

What factors affect persuasion?

Answer 19

Source -> expertise
Message -> one or two sided arguments
Audience -> intelligence, self esteem

Question 20

Describe the Lemphur study

Answer 20

affect oriented message (feel positive emotion)

Results show some evidence of people processing information heuristically when not motivated BUT when people really care about the issue they process it systematically

Question 21

What’s the difference between pro and counter attitudinal?

Answer 21

Pro attitudinal - when people agree with us, we trust experts and process their arguments heuristically. But we scrutinise non experts in order to identify weakness in “our side”

Counter attitudinal - when people disagree with us, we ignore non experts. But we scrutinise experts in order to better counter them

Question 22

How do we relate to brands?

Answer 22

According to the brands as intentional agents framework: brands are social objects and, like humans, are perceived in terms of intention and ability (analogous to warmth and competence). The combination of these dimensions elicits different emotional responses

Question 23

What defines a strong brand relationship?

Answer 23

• elicit loyalty
• reflect or contribute to the self concert
• lead to resistance to negative information about the brand
• feelings of betrayal when brand falls short of expectations
• anthropomorphism of the brand

Question 24

Define anthropomorphism

Answer 24

• attribution of human characteristics to inanimate object
• used in branding to create a positive effect on product impression

Question 25

What do entity theorists believe?

Answer 25

people behave the same all the time
- expect behaviour to be consistent over time
- characterise a person based on a single act

Question 26

What do incremental theorists believe?

Answer 26

people behave differently in different situation
- believe that behaviour changes with context
- do not expect behaviour to be stable over time

Question 27

Define conformity

Answer 27

aligning ones behaviour and beliefs with social norms or others behaviour - does not require internalisation

Question 28

Why do we conform according to Sherif?

Answer 28

Norms help us solve uncertainty

• The autokinetic effect is an illusion in which a point of light in a dark room appears to be moving
• Participants estimated how much the light was moving
• When responding alone, individuals came up with their own distinct estimates
• When responding in groups, they converged on common estimates

Question 29

Why do we conform according to Asch?

Answer 29

Normative influence

Task: say aloud which one of three lines on the right are the same length as the one on the left
When alone, participants correct 99% of time
In a group of confeds who provided wrong answers: average conformity rate: 33%, only 25% answered correctly consistently, 50% conformed on more critical trials
When participants recorded their responses privately, conformity dropped to 12.5%

Question 30

What’s informational influence?

Answer 30

one accepts information from another as evidence about reality

Question 31

Whats normative influence?

Answer 31

one conforms to gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval

Question 32

Whats referent informational influence?

Answer 32

one conforms to the norm of a group when one’s membership in that group is important or salient

Question 33

What’s pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 33

Conforming to what one mistakenly believes is the majority view, despite not personally endorsing

Question 34

What’s moral outrage?

Answer 34

• Violations of moral norms elicit moral outrage
• Reports of moral norm violation spread quickly
• Social media has emerged as a powerful force in spreading moral outrage
• One study measured outrage in response to moral norm violations across different media
  -> experience sampling ( 5x per day, 3 days)
  -> analysed instances in which participants learned of moral/immoral acts
  -> compares sources and amount of outrage (anger and disgust)

Question 35

Define social dilemmas

Answer 35

A situation in which each decision has a course of action that may yield superior outcomes for the self but if all choose this strategy then all end up worse off than if all had cooperated

These could be
- social traps: ones actions benefit the self -> cost to collective
- social fences: ones actions cost the self -> benefit to the collective

Question 36

Define rational self interest

Answer 36

Based on ration self interest model of human behaviour, humans should optimise outcomes for the self over the collective

Question 37

Key mechanisms of cooperation

Answer 37

Reciprocity
Indirect reciprocity
Fairness
Punishment