U10 - Social Psychology Flashcards
social psychology
- The scientific attempt to understand and explain how the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual or perceivedfeelings, thoughts, and behaviours of others (Allport, 1954)
big ideas in social psychology
- situations are powerful
- we often fail to appreciate the power of the situation
- the history of the situations we have been in shapes our ongoing perceptions of and interactions with other people
- our perceptions of people and social situations are constructed and do not represent a direct read-out of reality
obedience
- in an unequal power relationship submitting to the demands of the person in authority
- The 20th century saw events like the Holocaust and other atrocities during World War II, where individuals committed harmful acts under authoritative commands. These events raised questions about the role of obedience in such behaviors, galvanizing research. For example, Milgram’s experiments (1960s) demonstrated that ordinary people could perform harmful actions when instructed by an authority figure, showing the powerful influence of social hierarchy on behavior. This research highlighted obedience as a key factor in understanding human behavior during morally challenging situations.
stanley milgram
- Stanley Milgram’s experiment studied obedience to authority. Participants, acting as “teachers,” were instructed to administer electric shocks to a “learner” (an actor) for incorrect answers, with shocks increasing in intensity. Despite the learner’s apparent distress, many participants (65%) continued to the maximum voltage under the experimenter’s authority.
The findings revealed the extent to which ordinary people obey authority figures, even when it conflicts with their moral values. The significance lies in showing how situational factors and authority can lead individuals to commit harmful actions, providing insight into behaviors during events like the Holocaust.
immediacy of the victim (milgram)
Obedience decreased when the victim was closer or more directly visible. For instance, when participants had to physically hold the learner’s hand to administer shocks, obedience dropped significantly.
Immediacy of the Experimenter (milgram)
When the experimenter gave instructions over the phone rather than being physically present, obedience decreased.
power of the experimenter (milgram)
Obedience was higher when the experimenter was perceived as authoritative or associated with a prestigious institution. When a less authoritative figure took over, obedience dropped.
conformity
- Changing one’s behaviours or beliefs to match those of others, usually in response to real or imagined group pressure
- May not involve direct appeals or requests to change our behaviour
- in western cultures, it is viewed as bad, seen as lack of individuality or critical thinking, can prevent us from challenging erroneous or harmful group norms
- but it also serves important social functions, facilitates smooth social interactions, adhere to the unwritten rules of society, making life more predictable and harmonious
automatic mimicry
- Some forms of conformity may be automatic
- like unconsciously imitate behaviors of someone else
- Mimicry may facilitate empathy—our ability to understand and share feelings of another person
- Mimicry may build social rapport and lead to pleasant social interactions
- People like individuals who mimic them better than those who don’t
- People who are mimicked engage in more prosocial behavior afterward
- Mimicry is stronger for people with a drive to affiliate with others
informational social influence
- Pressure to conform to others’ actions or beliefs based on a desire to behave correctly or gain an accurate understanding of the world.
- the influence of other people that results from taking their comments or actions as a source of information about what is correct, proper, or effective
- more likely, the situation is ambiguous or difficult, we feel low in knowledge or competence about the topic
normative social influence
- when we confirm to gain approval from others or avoid disapproval
internalization
- the private acceptance of a proposition, orientation, or ideology
attitudes, three components (ABCs)
- an evaluation of an object (e.g., a specific person, a category of people, a type of food, a political cause) along a positive or negative dimension
- An orientation toward some target stimulus that is composed of an affective feeling, a cognitive belief, and a behavioral motivation toward the target.
- affective, how we feel (i like it)
- behavioral, what we do (i ate something 10 times last month)
- cognitive, what we think (i think that the sweetness of it was perfect)
two systems involved in cognition
- system 1: intuitive system
Quick & automatic
Little or no effort
Relies on heuristics (“rules-of-thumb”) - system 2: rational system
Slow, effortful & controlled
Based on rules & deduction
elaboration likelihood model
- A model of persuasion maintaining that there are two different routes to persuasion—the central route and the peripheral route
- Which route is taken depends on the motivation and ability to think about (elaborate on) the information being presented
central vs peripheral routes to attitude change
central:
- Followed when people think carefully & deliberately about about the content of a persuasive message, attending to its logic and the strength of its arguments, as well as to related evidence
- Thus, attitudes will be influenced primarily by the strength of the arguments
- Tends to produce longer-lasting attitude change
peripheral:
- Followed when people primarily attend to peripheral cues—superficial, easy-to process features of a persuasive communication that are tangential (peripheral)to the persuasive information itself
- E.g., # of arguments, attractiveness of the source of the message
what determines which one?
- motivation and ability
need for cognition
- individuals high in need for cognition more likely to enjoy and engage in effortful cognitive processes
- thinking deeply about issues
- In terms of persuasion, people with a high need for cognition are more likely to be persuaded through the central route (i.e., careful consideration of strong arguments).
- Conversely, people with a low need for cognition are more likely to be influenced by peripheral cues (e.g., attractiveness, emotions, or authority), as they are less inclined to process information deeply.
compliance
- agreeing to the explicit request of another person
- Compliance techniques more focused on changing outward behaviour rather than internal attitudes
- Examples: agreeing to do someone a favour, getting people to donate to a charity
norm of reciprocity and door-in-the-face technique
- Cross-cultural norm dictating that people should provide benefits to those who have provided benefits to them (“you scratch my back, I scratch yours”)
- A compliance approach where the target request is preceded by a more extreme request that is likely to be get rejected
- when a friend asks to borrow an unreasonable sum of money, to which you say no, only to turn around and ask for a smaller sum that you agree to give
foot in the door technique
- People are more likely to comply with a larger request if they have already complied with a smaller initial request
- E.g., charities often first ask for very small donations, then later ask for bigger donation
- If effect is being driven by the perception that the requester has compromised with you (obligating you to compromise in turn), efficacy of the technique should be diminished if a different person makes the second request
forming impressions
- drawn to warmth and competence
- Are drawn to individuals who are high in both warmth and competence
- Are wary of people who are competent but lack warmth
- Disdain those who are low on both dimensions
- Feel pity and protective urges toward those who are warm but incompetent, and
- infantile features automatically evoke nurturing response in adult perceivers
- baby-faced adults assumed to be warmer, more honest, more naive, and weaker
bottom-up and top-down processing
- Impressions are shaped not just by someone’s appearance or actions (data-driven, “bottom-up” approach)
- But also by the pre-existing knowledge and expectations we bring to a social interaction (“top-down” approach)
schemas
- Internal cognitive structures containing generalized knowledge about the world
- Serve as frameworks that guide our perceptions and interpretations of incoming information, and help us organize our knowledge about the world
- schemas can be positive, negative, or neutral, prejudice is negative
personal schemas
- contain information about specific individuals
- E.g., appearance (blonde, pretty), personality (super shady), likes (shopping, gossiping, butter), dislikes (Gretchen), behaviours (manipulates others), etc
transference
- Schemas from previous social relationships may influence perceptions of new people we meet
- E.g., targets resembling ex-romantic partners evoke the same feelings that the ex-partner did
stereotypes
- Schemas may also be more generalized—what people, or groups of people are like in general
- schemas about groups (e.g., women, Asians, gamers)
- Are stereotypes ever accurate?
Yes, sometimes; they can reflect average group differences
But can lead us to exaggerate differences between groups
Problematic when we rely on them too strongly when reasoning about individual
self-fulfilling prophecies
- Our social judgments influence our behaviour
- expectations and beliefs that lead to their own fulfillment
- We create the social reality that we expect
attribution, external vs internal
- are the causal explanations we make for behaviour
- E.g., student arrives late to lecture
external:
- metro broke down, had a family emergency they had to deal with, etc
internal:
- the student is not conscientious
fundamental attribution error
- People tend to give more weight to internal causes (person) and not enough to external causes (environment)
Self-serving attributions/bias
- We perceive our actions and outcomes in ways that cast us in a positive light
- Good events are attributed to internal factors, while bad events are attributed to external factors
erroneous social judgments
- Base first impressions on limited information
- Often rely on overgeneralized schemas & fail to make corrections for the individual
- Our expectations shape our behaviour towards people, which elicits the behaviour we expect, thereby confirming our initial expectations
- We fail to take situations into account (which includes our own influence on the person)
- Tend to interpret our behaviour in self-serving manner (which extends to our social interaction)
impression management
- People often mislead us by acting in ways that don’t reflect their true attitudes or beliefs
different impression management strategies
self-promotion: highlighting one’s achievements & abilities to appear competent
supplication: presenting oneself as needy or dependent to elicit help or sympathy
false consensus effect
- tend to overestimate the degree to which others share our views and opinion
link between attitudes and behavior
- Assume that attitudes drive behaviour
- But research from various domains shows that attitudes are often poor predictors of behaviour—for example:
- Attitudes toward cheating & cheating behaviour
- Attitudes toward religion & worship attendance
- Racial attitudes & behaviour
- Why? Attitudes may conflict with other influences on behaviour
- Social norms, other conflicting attitudes, and situational factors oHowever, behaviourscan be good predictors of attitudes
- Attitudes may change in order to be consistent with behaviors
cognitive dissonance theory
- A sense of conflict between people’s attitudes and actions that motivates efforts to restore cognitive consistency.
- Cognitive dissonance can be reduced by changing thoughts, feelings, or behavior to restore consisteny
- seek out information to support your view
- behavior change is hard, reduce dissonance by changing or adding thoughts and feelings
confirmation bias
- tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe evidence that supports what we are already confident we know
effort justification
- tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
- Greater effort expended leads to more dissonance and more attempts to rationalize behavior
- Festinger: “We come to love the things we suffer for”
- social groups, frats gangs, sport teams, involve degrading and hurtful hazing rituals for new members, linked to greater group loyalty and liking
ikea effect
- We tend to value things more if we made them ourselves
- Research example: Ps ascribed higher value to their own assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, & built sets of Lego
what decisions create dissonance?
- Any time people make a choice between two alternatives, there is likely to be some dissonance
- Dissonance aroused by the inconsistency of accepting the negatives of one choice + rejecting the positives of the rejected alternative
- The more difficult the choice –> more inconsistent elements –> more dissonance
spreading the alternatives
- Decision dissonance typically resolved by 1) emphasizing the positives and minimizing the negatives of the selected choice, and 2) emphasizing the negatives and minimizing the positives of the unselected choices
insufficient justification
- see the subtle social influence as insufficient to justify our action
- occurs when someone performs a behavior without enough external reward or reason to justify it, creating a sense of discomfort or cognitive dissonance.
It states that people are more likely to engage in a behavior that contradicts the beliefs they hold personally when offered a smaller reward compared to a larger reward
need to belong theory
- based on a motivational human need to maintain interpersonal relationships and positive social bonds
festinger and carlsmith (1959), cognitive dissonance
by having participants perform a boring task and then lie to the next participant, saying it was enjoyable. Some were paid $1, while others were paid $20 for lying. Those paid $1 experienced more dissonance because the small reward didn’t justify the lie, so they changed their attitudes to believe the task was enjoyable. In contrast, the $20 group felt justified and didn’t change their views. This illustrates how insufficient justification leads to attitude change to resolve dissonance.
implicit attitudes vs explicit attitudes
- An automatically activated evaluation of a stimulus ranging from positive to negative.
- harder to change
- more internal, change from repeated exposure
- The consciously reported evaluation a person has in response to a target stimulus.
- changed easily from new learned info
group polarization
- The tendency for people to become more extreme in their positions after discussion with like-minded others
- informational influence?? normative influence??
groupthink
- Why do groups of intelligent people working together sometimes make catastrophically bad decisions?
- A mode of thinking resulting from situations where the group’s desire to reach or maintain unanimity overrides motivation to critically appraise alternative courses of action
- Occurs during group decisions when individuals feel pressure to maintain allegiance to group leader or make difficult decision under time pressure
- Exacerbated by the presence of an authoritarian leader
- Prevents individuals from voicing dissenting or unpopular opinions
reducing groupthink:
- Emphasize right decision over quick decision
- Advise leader to moderate, not steer, discussion
- Explicitly assign someone to play devil’s advocate
- Promote critical evaluation over consensus
- Encourage brainstorming and openness to all ideas
- Form diverse groups, where members bring different expertise and perspective
kin selection and norm reciprocity for helping behavior
- An evolved or adaptive strategy of assisting those who share one’s genes, even at personal cost, as a means of increasing the odds of genetic survival.
- Theories of cultural evolution further suggest that prosocial behavior might have developed as a strong social norm because it helps societies succeed.
bystander effect
- finding that people are less likely to help in the presence of other bystanders
decision-making model of helping, stages
- identify problem
- gather relevant info
- generate alternatives, for best course of action
- choose among alternatives
- review your decision, think about the outcome
pluralistic ignorance
- failure to realize that others are thinking and feeling the same thing we are
diffusion of responsibility
- less likely to take responsibility for helping when there are other people around who could help
- feel less competent
proximity play in creating relationships
- Basic, powerful factor that drives liking
- More likely to meet, get to know, & form a relationship with someone with someone you see regularly where you live, work, etc
mere exposure effect
- We tend to like people and things more after we have been repeatedly exposed to them (mere exposure) and they become more familiar to us
facial symmetry
- Bilateral (two-sided) symmetry contributes to attractiveness
- true of other species
evolutionary explanation: facial symmetry is indicator of reproductive fitness (capacity to pass on one’s genes to next generation)
self-disclosure, and relationship formation
- sharing personal information about the self
- Central to development of intimacy
- Tend to like those who share personal information with us
- Also tend to like people better after disclosing personal information to them
discrimination
- A tendency for individuals to receive different treatment or outcomes as a result of their membership in a given social group.
prejudice, two theories
- A negative attitude toward a group or members of a group.
- schemas can be positive, negative, or neutral, prejudice is negative
why it may arise:
- tendency to favor ingroups more than a tendency to actively dislike against outgroups
- conflicting values and beliefs that threaten one’s cultural worldview and arouse more hostility and prejudice
robber’s cave
The Robber’s Cave study found that intergroup prejudice could be reduced through the introduction of superordinate goals—shared objectives that required cooperation between conflicting groups. In the study, two rival groups of boys were brought together to solve problems like fixing a water supply or moving a stalled truck. Working collaboratively toward these shared goals fostered interdependence, reduced hostility, and built positive relationships. This demonstrated that cooperation on meaningful tasks can effectively reduce intergroup prejudice.
