WK 7 - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Question 1

Social psychology

Answer 1

How we think about, influence and relate to each other (we are the only species that build large scale social networks or unrelated individuals)

Question 2

Social thinking

Answer 2

Attributing behaviour to persons or to situations, attitudes and actions

Question 3

Social influence

Answer 3

Conformity and obedience, group influence, the power of individuals

Question 4

Social relations

Answer 4

Prejudice, aggression, attraction, altruism, conflict and peacemaking

Question 5

Social thinking

Answer 5

Social thinking involves thinking about others, especially when they engage in doing things that are unexpected

Question 6

Attribution theory

Answer 6

Fritz Heider suggested that we have a tendency to give casual explanations for someone’s behaviour. Their actions can be viewed as a result of the person’s stable ensuring traits (dispositional attribution) or situation (situation attribution)

Question 7

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 7

Often we succumb to the fundamental attribution error > tendency to overestimate the impact of personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situations in analysing the behaviours of others

Question 8

Effects of attribution

Answer 8

Important since we explains someone’s behaviour influences how we react to it > particularly prevalent in individualistic compared with collectivist cultures. We are more likely to make this error with people we don’t know

Question 9

Self-serving bias

Answer 9

People tend to see themselves in a more positive light than others see them > excuse our failures, accept credit for our successes and see ourselves as better than average

Question 10

Attitudes

Answer 10

A belief and feeling that predisposes a person to respond in a particular way to objects, other people and events. Also described as a favourable or unfavourable evaluation of something. If we believe a person is mean, we may feel dislike for the person and act in an unfriendly manner

Question 11

Attitudes > actions

Answer 11

This is why our attitudes are so often the target of persuasive messages > advertising/the media often tries to change our attitudes towards issues, objects or people

Question 12

Attitudes > actions

Answer 12

Our attitudes predict our behaviours imperfectly because other factors, including the external situation, also influence behaviour
1) Attitude strength > the durability and impact of an attitude: does it persist over time and is it resistant to change
2) Attitude importance > personal relevance
3) Attitude accessibility > the ease with which an attitude comes to mind (e.g. a positive attitude toward women will have a more immediate and positive initial reaction when working with a female)

Question 13

Actions > attitudes

Answer 13

Small request > large request: in the Korean War, Chinese communists solicited cooperation from US army prisoners by asking them to carry out small errands - by complying to small errands they were likely to comply to larger ones

Question 14

Foot-in-the-door phenonmenon

Answer 14

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a large request

Question 15

Door-in-the-face phenomenon

Answer 15

Tendency to agree to a small request following a larger one

Question 16

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 16

Why do actions affect attitudes? When our attitudes and actions are opposed, we experience tension > called cognitive dissonance. To relieve ourselves of this tension, we bring actions closer to our attitudes

Question 17

Role playing affects attitudes

Answer 17

Zimbardo assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students in one of the most famous psychological experiments. Wanted to know what happens when good people are put in an evil place?

Question 18

Stanford prison experiment

Answer 18

Assigned to guard or prisoner based on coin flip > prisoners humiliated and emasculated, wore chain on foot as reminder of oppression, assigned numbers. Guards given no instructions on how to behave > told to do what was necessary to maintain law and order

Question 19

Social influence

Answer 19

The greatest contribution of social psychology is its study of attitudes, decisions and actions and they way they are moulded by social influence

Question 20

Conformity

Answer 20

Behaviour is contagious, modelled by one followed by another. We follow behaviour of others to conform. Human beings are social creatures

Question 21

Obedience

Answer 21

Others behaviours may be an expression of compliance (obedience) toward authority

Question 22

Chameleon effect

Answer 22

Adjusting one’s behaviour or thinking to coincide with a group standard

Question 23

Group pressure: conformity

Answer 23

An influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

Question 24

Reasons for conforming

Answer 24

1) Normative social influence > influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid rejection - a person may respect normative behaviour because there may be a severe price to pay if not respected
2) Informational social influence: the group may provide valuable information or resources

Question 25

Conditions that strengthen conformity

Answer 25

1) One is made to feel incompetent or insecure
2) The group has at least three people
3) The group is unanimous
4) One admires the group’s status and attractiveness
5) One has no prior commitment to a response
6) The group observes one’s behaviour
7) One’s culture strongly encourages respect for a social standard > individualist vs collective cultures

Question 26

Obedience

Answer 26

The tendency to do what powerful people tell us to do > usually drive by normative pressure. People comply to social pressures > how would they respond to outright command?

Question 27

Milgram

Answer 27

Stanley Milgram designed a study that investigates the effects of authority on obedience. The prison, line and Milgram experiments together posed the question do I adhere to my own standards or do I respond to others? Made us realise how social influence can be so influential as to make us conform to falsehoods or resort to cruelty

Question 28

Social facilitation

Answer 28

Refers to strengthened performance in the presence of others, observation increases arousal and strengthens most likely response > usually success on easier or well-known tasks but failure on others

Question 29

Social loafing

Answer 29

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling with others toward a common goal than when individually accountable. Caused by feeling less responsible, that the individual performance is dispensable (likely in large group when performance is less noticeable)

Question 30

Deindividuation

Answer 30

Presence of others and anonymity can reduce our feelings of responsibility > can lead to deindividuation for loss of self-awareness and restraint found in social situations fostering arousal and anonymity (e.g. online communication)

Question 31

Prejudice

Answer 31

An unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice is the attitude component, discrimination is the related behaviour > associate with some groups and subsequently contrast ourselves from others

Question 32

Schemas

Answer 32

Humans have patterns of thought known as schemas which help us to organise information and save brain energy > guide the way we process information but can lead to the development of these stereotypes (prejudice is foster by underlying stereotypical beliefs/feelings)

Question 33

Benevolent prejudice

Answer 33

A superficially positive stereotype assigned to a certain group (e.g. sexuality, race, gender) > can be just as detrimental as hostile prejudice. Although they are intended as positive stereotypes, people who are part of such groups can take them as discriminatory

Question 34

Aggression

Answer 34

Emerges from interaction of biology (genes, frontal lobe activity, testosterone, alcohol) and experience (frustration, heat, learning through modelling and reinforcement, social scripts from TV/video games)

Question 35

Altruism

Answer 35

Selfless (unselfish) regard for the welfare of others (9/11 fire fighters) > despite our capacity for altruism we often display bystander effect

Question 36

Bystander effect

Answer 36

Waiting for others to jump in and be altruistic > presence of others diffuse responsibility. Also more likely to help if in good mood, not in a hurry, person similar to us, have recently seen someone else be helpful

Question 37

Social psychology: health

Answer 37

Religion, social structures, social factors, economics, employment, social relationships, support networks, family structures, culture > all factors that contribute to social view of health

Question 38

Health inequalities

Answer 38

Difference in mortality/life-expectancy and also difference in ‘good years’

Question 39

Health differentials

Answer 39

In the US, some groups, such as Native Americans, rural African Americans and the inner city poor, have extremely poor health, more characteristic of a poor developing country rather than a rich industrialised one > in Australia life expectancy 15-17 years less for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders

Question 40

Conformity

Answer 40

Going along with the crowd/yielding to group pressure, nobody asks, we act to please peers, friends and social group > we do it to be accepted, liked, to fit in and to avoid looking out of place/silly

Question 41

Obedience

Answer 41

Behaving as instructed, told to by authority figures (parents, teachers, governments) > we be obedient to avoid punishment and undesired consequences

Question 42

Bystander effect

Answer 42

People are less likely to offer help to a victim when other people are present