Week 6: The Social Mind Flashcards
What is it called when you do something to make yourself stand out from other members of a group?
Individuation: Making yourself stand out amongst others is called individuation. Describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinguished from other things.
Dressing in the clothes that another person or group tells you to wear is an example of :
Conformity: Engaging in any behavior because another person or group of people tells you to is an example of conformity. Conformity has both a positive and a negative side. On the positive side, it fosters social cooperation and allows a group of individuals to act towards a larger goal. On the negative side, it can lead to a diminished sense of self and the engagement of unethical or immoral behaviors.
According to the Milgram study, most ordinary people will ___________ authority figures who ask them to behave unethically or immorally.
“comply with”
Milgram showed that most people will comply with unethical or immoral requests by authority figures. Interestingly, he found that this effect varied with the proximity of the authority figure such that people were less likely to perform an immoral act when the figure was far away (i.e., in the next room), whereas they were extremely likely to perform the act when the authority figure was physically close (i.e., sitting next to them).
If another person takes on the responsibility for our actions, we are _______ likely to engage in unethical or immoral behaviors.
“More” Although you might suspect that one would act more responsibly when another person’s reputation is on the line, quite often a lack of personal responsibility can lead to the production of immoral behaviours. This idea was exemplified in the Nuremberg trials in which Nazi officers who committed egregious acts of cruelty claimed that they were “just following orders” and ,thus, they were not responsible for the harm they caused.
Milgram experiment
Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person.
Stanley Milgram was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing atrocities, for example, Germans in WWII.
Self-serving bias
The self-serving bias is defined as people’s tendency to attribute positive events to their own character but attributes negative events to external factors. It’s a common type of cognitive bias that has been extensively studied in social psychology.
Just-world hypothesis
Is the tendency to attribute consequences to—or expect consequences as the result of—a universal force that restores moral balance. This belief generally implies the existence of cosmic justice, destiny, divine providence, desert, stability, and/or order, and is often associated with a variety of fundamental fallacies, especially in regard to rationalizing people’s suffering on the grounds that they “deserve” it.
Locus of control example
Individuals with a strong internal locus of control believe events in their life derive primarily from their own actions: for example, when receiving exam results, people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves and their abilities. People with a strong external locus of control tend to praise or blame external factors such as the teacher or the exam.[2]
What is the term for a person’s tendency to attribute successes to their own actions and failures to their context or other people?
Self-serving bias: The tendency to attribute success to our own actions or characteristics, while attributing failures to context and circumstance, is referred to as the “Self Serving Bias”. Most of us engage in this to some degree as it is an important mechanism for defending our sense of self-worth and protecting our self-confidence.
The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the power ___________ has in shaping our behaviors.
Context: The Stanford Prison Experiment was a powerful demonstration of how social context can shape behaviors. Within two days, average people – randomly assigned as prisoners or guards – began to engage in behaviors consistent with their roles. The experiment was short-lived as the guards became so consumed by their role that they began to engage in abusive behavior that resulted in some cases of psychological trauma.
According to Zimbardo, what is the likely cause of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib?
Prison context: Following from the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo views prisoner abuse as the product of the prison context. While a few guards were singled out and punished for inciting the abuse, Zimbardo showed that regular “good” people can turn “evil” when put into a context that promotes authority roles and negative or even abusive behavior.
The bystander effect
Or bystander apathy is a social psychological claim that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present; the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help
What principle predicts that the more people available to help in a given situation, the less likely it is that any single person will actually help?
Diffusion of Responsibility: When large groups of people are available to help, any single person is less likely to take responsibility for a given situation than when only a few people are present. The idea is that responsibility for the situation diffuses across the group of people to the point where no one is willing to take action. Thus, this principle is referred to as a “diffusion of responsibility”.
What is it called when a person attributes a property of a small group of people or objects to a larger group of people or objects?
Generalization: The attribution of properties from a small group to a larger group is called generalization. It can be useful for guiding behavior in novel, yet similar, situations. However, it can also lead to the formation of stereotypes and prejudices.
What is the term for a cognitive script that you follow when entering into a familiar or similar situation?
Schema: Schemas are cognitive frameworks generated from generalizations of repeated encounters with a given context or situation. For example, after going to many fast-food restaurants you may have developed a schema that includes behaviors such as waiting in line, looking at the menu, and specific phrases you will use to place your order.
