Psych 4 exam

Social psychology

branch of psychology that studies how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment.

Sense of self

who you are in relation to others, which is influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences.

Person perception

refers to the mental processes we use to form judgements and draw conclusions about the characteristics of other people.

Social norms

the “rules” or expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular social situation.

Social categorization

the mental process of categorizing people into groups based on their shared characteristics.

Implicit personality theory

a network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors.

Attribution

the mental process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own.

Fritz Heider proposed the ___________: suggests how we explain someone’s behavior is the result of either the ________ or the person’s ___________________

attribution theory, situation, disposition/internal characteristics. 

Fundamental attribution error

we overestimate the impact of the personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situation.

Attitudes

feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events.

Attitudes consist of three(3) components:

Emotions, Behaviors, and Cognitions.

Stanford prison experiment demonstrated the powerful influence of

situational roles and conformity to implied social rules and rules.

Cognitive Dissonance

unpleasant state of psychological tension (dissonance) resulting from two inconsistent thoughts or perceptions. (Cognitions)

Cognitive dissonance is the main reason why

we rationalize things because we want to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when our thoughts (cogntiions) are inconsistent with our actions. Ex: “sour grapes” rationalization.

Conformity

adjusting opinions, judgements, and behaviors so that they match those of others or the norms of a social group or situation.

Conformity takes place more often in

collective cultures as opposed to individualistic cultures.

Reasons why we conform:

1. You are strongly attracted to a group and want to be a member of it.

2. Your opinion is not the majority (involves at least 4 or 5 who are in agreement.)

3. It is difficult to speak out in front of a group.

Normative Social Influence

influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain social acceptance and approval or avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence

Influence resulting from a person’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality because we want to be correct but are uncertain or doubt our own judgment 

Solomon Asch:

famous research on conformity. 

Solomon Asch- His research was designed to answer a straightforward question:

Would people still conform to the group if the group opinion was clearly wrong?

Milgram’s famous shock experiments. - 1

Most complied to the very last shock

Milgram’s famous shock experiments. - 2

People seemed to comply because orders were given by a legitimate authority figure.

Milgram’s famous shock experiments. - 3

Some did stop but only when teachers observed others refusal.

Milgram’s famous shock experiments. - 4

More likely to give shocks when teachers and learner were in separate rooms.

Ultimately two-thirds of the subjects continued to administer shocks all the way to the

full 450-volt level despite hearing protests from the learner in another room.

In Milgram's obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter: 1

A previously well-established framework to obey

In Milgram's obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter: 2

Gradual, repitive escalation of the task

In Milgram's obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter: 3

Experimenter’s behavior and/or reassurance

In Milgram's obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter: 4

Physicial and psychological separation 

A great deal of conformity and obedience begins with the

foot-in-the-door phenomenon: if you first agreed to a small request, you would later comply with a larger request.

Social facilitation

stronger performance on easy or well learned tasks in the presence of others (as well as poorer performance on difficult tasks.)

Social Loafing

Phenomenon when people in a group exert less effort than they would if working independently

Social striving

phenomenon when people tend to work harder when they are in groups than when they are alone.

Deindividuation

abandon self-awareness and self-restraint in anonymous group situations. Key is feeling both aroused and anonymous.

Group polarization

groups that share opinions, ideas and attitudes become more extreme over time.

Prejudice

means “prejudgment” a negative attitude toward a specific social group

Stereotypes

a generalized belief about a group of people. Often underlie prejudicial emotions.

Once formed, stereotypes

are very hard to change. Then result in stereotyped thinking.

Discrimination

unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members. Ultimately, when prejudice is displayed behaviorally.

Research indicates there is no evidence that prejudicial attitudes can be changed due to

the ingroup-outgroup phenomenon.

Ethnocentrism

the belief that one’s culture or ethnic group is superior to others.

The cross-race effect (other-race effect, cross-race bias; own-race bias)

the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races.

Scape goat theory

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

Blaming the Victim (Victim blaming)

tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for having caused the problem or not avoiding it

Just-world hypothesis

 belief that the world is just, that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, and the world needs to be “fair”. “Victims of the world deserve to suffer.”

Hindsight bias

the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event. Ex: telling someone else a bad event was obviously going to happen.

Self-serving bias

the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external/situational causes.

Psychologists refer to the tendency to perceive others in terms of two basic social categories

the in-group and the out-group

The social group to which a person belongs is called ____________ and the social group to which a person does not belong is the ___________

ingroup, outgroup

 We see members of the “out-group” as similar to one another, referred to as

The Out-group homogeneity effect.

In-group bias

the tendency to judge the behavior of the in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably.

In-group bias may cause one to believe their in-group is

Heterogenous: dissimilar or diverse, diverse in character or content.

The Psychology of Attraction and Liking (in Western cultures)

1. Proximity: geographic nearness/familiarity.

Mere exposure effect: when we are repeatedly exposed to something or someone (novel stimuli) our liking to them/it increases

2. Physician= Attractiveness

3. Similarity (Less important in some Eastern cultures.)

“Feel good, do good” effect:

people who feel good, (happy, successful, fortunate, etc.) are more likely to help others.

The following increase the likelihood of bystanders to help:

- feeling guilty 

- seeing others who are willing to help

- piercing the person as deserving help

- knowing how to help

- a personalized relationship 

Reciprocity norm

expectation that we should return help to those who help us. The rule of reciprocity simply if someone gives you something or does you a favor, you feel obligated to return the favor. 

Altruism

 the unselfish regard for the welfare of others

The Rule of commitment norm:

once you make a pubic commitment, there is psychological and interpersonal pressure on you to behave consistently with your earlier commitment. Ex: foot-in-the-door

Bystander effect

when someone is less likely to give aid because others are present. Assume someone else will do it or if no one does anything, you don’t as well.

Diffusion of responsibility

phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress because the obligation to intervene is shared among all the onlookers.