Social Psych Updated Final

Social psychology

The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Altruism

A motive to increase another person's welfare without conscious regard for one's own self-interest.

Helping behavior

Any action intended to benefit another person.

Bystander effect

The finding that a person is less likely to provide help when other bystanders are present.

Bystander apathy

Another name for the bystander effect; failure to help because others are present.

Bystander inaction

When a witness does not intervene in an emergency, often due to social and situational factors.

Bystander intervention

The process of noticing an event, interpreting it as an emergency, taking responsibility, knowing how to help, and acting.

Who studied the bystander effect?

Bibb Latane and John Darley.

Diffusion of responsibility

The reduction in a person's sense of responsibility when other people are present.

Pluralistic ignorance

When people mistakenly think others' calm reactions mean there is no emergency.

Audience inhibition

Hesitation to help because of fear of embarrassment or fear of doing the wrong thing.

5 steps of bystander intervention

Notice the event; interpret it as an emergency; assume responsibility; know how to help; implement the decision to help.

Why do bystanders fail to help?

Diffusion of responsibility, pluralistic ignorance, and audience inhibition.

When are people more likely to help?

When they are alone, in a good mood, not rushed, feel empathy, feel responsible, clearly see an emergency, or know the victim.

When are people less likely to help?

When many bystanders are present, the situation is ambiguous, they are rushed, distracted, or fear embarrassment.

Characteristics of bystanders who help

Attentive, empathetic, less rushed, confident, morally responsible, and less influenced by others.

Who is more likely to help?

People who are alone, in a positive mood, not in a hurry, empathetic, and who perceive the situation as clearly serious.

Who is less likely to help?

People in groups, people under time pressure, people uncertain about the emergency, or people afraid of social judgment.

Why do people help?

Because of social exchange theory, social norms, empathy, and sometimes evolutionary factors.

Social exchange theory

The theory that human interactions aim to maximize rewards and minimize costs.

Example of social exchange theory

Helping someone because it makes you feel good, avoids guilt, or strengthens a relationship.

Reciprocity norm

The expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them.

Social responsibility norm

The expectation that people should help those who need help, even if they cannot repay the favor.

Empathy

The vicarious experience of another person's feelings; putting yourself in someone else's shoes.

Empathy-altruism hypothesis

The idea that empathy can produce genuinely selfless helping.

Who proposed the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

C. Daniel Batson.

Kin selection

The idea that evolution favors helping genetic relatives because it helps shared genes survive.

Helping behavior is important because

It strengthens cooperation, builds trust, reduces suffering, and supports social bonds.

Moral exclusion

The perception of some individuals or groups as outside the boundary in which we apply fairness and moral rules.

Aggression

Physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone.

Hostile aggression

Aggression driven by anger and aimed at hurting someone.

Instrumental aggression

Aggression used as a means to achieve another goal.

Bullying

Repeated aggressive behavior involving a power imbalance in which a stronger person harms a weaker person.

Types of bullying

Physical bullying, verbal bullying, relational/social bullying, and cyberbullying.

Aggressive behavior

Behavior intended to hurt another person physically, emotionally, or socially.

Theories of aggression

Biological/genetic theory, Freudian instinct theory, social learning theory, evolutionary theory, and frustration-aggression theory.

Biological theory of aggression

Aggression is influenced by genes, hormones, brain systems, and biochemical factors.

Genes and aggression

Genetic factors can contribute to aggressive tendencies, especially when combined with environmental influences.

Hormones and aggression

Testosterone is often linked to aggression, and alcohol can lower inhibition and increase aggressive behavior.

Freud's theory of aggression

Freud believed aggression stems from an innate destructive instinct.

What did Freud call the destructive instinct?

Thanatos, or the death instinct.

Limitation of Freud's theory

It is difficult to test scientifically and is considered too broad by modern social psychology.

Who developed social learning theory?

Albert Bandura.

Bandura's social learning theory

Aggression is learned through observing others, imitating them, and being rewarded for aggression.

Bobo doll experiment

Children who watched an adult behave aggressively toward a Bobo doll later imitated the aggressive behavior.

What did the Bobo doll experiment show?

That aggression can be learned through observation and modeling.

Evolutionary theory of aggression

Aggression may have evolved because it helped humans compete for resources, status, protection, and mates.

Frustration-aggression theory

Frustration caused by blocked goals can create anger that increases the likelihood of aggression.

Example of frustration-aggression theory

A student who fails an exam may lash out verbally because frustration leads to anger.

Availability heuristic

A mental shortcut in which people judge frequency or likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.

Example of availability heuristic

After seeing many news stories about plane crashes, a person overestimates how dangerous flying is.

Schema

A mental framework that organizes and interprets information.

Cognitive schema

A knowledge structure that helps people process and understand social information.

Example of schema

A person may expect professors to be knowledgeable and formal because of a professor schema.

Self-schema

Beliefs about oneself that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information.

Self-social schema

A mental framework about the self in social situations that shapes how a person interprets social experiences.

Cognitive dissonance theory

The theory that when attitudes and behaviors conflict, people feel discomfort and are motivated to reduce that discomfort.

Who created cognitive dissonance theory?

Leon Festinger.

Festinger and Carlsmith experiment

Participants did a boring task and were paid $1 or $20 to say it was interesting; the $1 group later reported more enjoyment because they had less external justification.

What did Festinger and Carlsmith show?

People may change their attitudes to match their behavior when they lack sufficient external justification.

Attitude

A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward a person, object, or idea.

Behavior

An observable action.

Attitudes and behavior

Attitudes can influence behavior, but situational pressures and social norms can also shape what people do.

Why do attitudes sometimes fail to predict behavior?

Because behavior is also influenced by social norms, situational constraints, habit, and external pressure.

Behavior affects attitudes

The principle that our actions can shape our beliefs, especially through role playing, compliance, and cognitive dissonance.

Self-serving bias

The tendency to attribute success to oneself and failure to outside factors.

Example of self-serving bias

"I got an A because I'm smart, but I failed because the teacher made the test unfair."

False consensus effect

The tendency to overestimate how much other people share our opinions, attitudes, and behaviors.

Unrealistic optimism

The tendency to believe that negative events are less likely to happen to oneself than to others.

Rosy retrospection

The tendency to remember past events as more positive than they actually were.

Depressive realism

The tendency for mildly depressed people to make more realistic judgments than nondepressed people in certain situations.

Depression disorder

A mood disorder involving persistent sadness, loss of interest, and impaired daily functioning.

Actor-observer bias

The tendency to explain our own behavior in terms of the situation but explain others' behavior in terms of their traits.

Example of actor-observer bias

"I was late because of traffic, but she was late because she's irresponsible."

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A belief that leads to actions that cause the belief to come true.

Example of self-fulfilling prophecy

If a teacher expects a student to do well, the teacher may give more support, leading the student to actually perform better.

The self

In social psychology, the self refers to a person's thoughts and feelings about themselves.

Self-concept

All the beliefs a person has about who they are.

Self-esteem

A person's overall sense of self-worth.

Prejudice

An unjustifiable negative attitude toward a group and its members.

Discrimination

Unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members.

Stereotype

A generalized belief about a group of people.

Difference between prejudice and discrimination

Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is behavior.

Who is Stanley Milgram?

The social psychologist known for the obedience electroshock study.

Milgram electroshock experiment

Participants believed they were delivering increasingly severe electric shocks to a learner because an authority figure told them to continue.

What did Milgram's study show?

Ordinary people may obey authority figures even when asked to do something harmful.

Main concept of Milgram's study

Obedience to authority.

Factors that increased obedience in Milgram

Legitimacy of authority, closeness of authority, institutional prestige, and victim distance.

Who is Philip Zimbardo?

The social psychologist who led the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Stanford Prison Experiment

College students randomly assigned as guards or prisoners quickly adopted abusive and submissive roles in a simulated prison.

What did the Stanford Prison Experiment show?

Situational power, social roles, and deindividuation can strongly shape behavior.

Main concept of Zimbardo's study

The power of the situation and assigned social roles.

Who is Leon Festinger?

The social psychologist who developed cognitive dissonance theory.

Who is Albert Bandura?

The social psychologist who developed social learning theory and conducted the Bobo doll experiment.

Who are Darley and Latane?

The social psychologists who studied the bystander effect.

Prejudice can be caused by

Social inequalities, ingroup bias, categorization, conformity, frustration, and cognitive shortcuts.

Ingroup bias

The tendency to favor one's own group.

Scapegoat theory

The theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame.

Attitude-behavior inconsistency

When what a person believes does not match what they do.

Two-factor theory of emotion

The theory that emotion is based on physiological arousal plus a cognitive label.