Social Psychology

What is social psychology?

Study of how thoughts, feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others

What type of methodology do social psychologists use?

Quantitative (large surveys and behavioural experiments)

What problem occurs when studying social psychology?

The mere fact of knowing that you’re being studied alter’s your behaviour (knowingly or subconsciously)

What is the solution to participants changing their behaviour? (5)

• Use experiments where the aim of study is less obvious

• Deception

• Ask participants to be honest

• Acknowledge bias

• Replicate results and use bigger samples

What is the social self?

The self is derived from social relationships

What happens in isolation?

You lose your sense of self

What are reflected self-appraisals?

How we see ourselves based on how we imagine others see us

What is independent self-construal?

Belief in self esteem as a thing

Waht is interdependent self-construals?

Belief that who you are depends on others

What is global self-concept?

How we think about ourselves

/what is the better than average effect?

People consistently rate themselves as above average on traits or abilities

How do self-serving construals affect the better than average effect?

People place differing emphasis on traits and abilities for ambiguous traits (e.g. good driver=drives fast)

What is social comparison theory?

Comparing our self’s to others is how we evaluate ourselves, but in order to maintain our positive self-esteem we tend to compare ourselves to others who are below our perceived level (downward social comparison)

How does the self evaluation model (SEM) help protect our self-esteem?

Reflection allows us to enjoy the success of others we are associated with

What is self-verification theory?

People want a consistent view of themselves, even if this includes negative elements

What is trait self-esteem?

Aspects of ourselves that are constant over time and resistant to change

What is state self-esteem?

Aspects of ourselves that are dynamic and change according to the situational context

How can attitudes form?

• Social comparison

• Genetic factors

How to animals learn?

Classical conditioning

How do humans learn? (5)

• Classical conditioning

• Operant conditioning

• Social learning

• Subconscious learning

• Observant learning

What is the ‘golden triad’ to attitude? ABCs

Affect (How you feel)

Behavior (What you do)

Cognition (Your opinion)

What is attitude-behavior dissociation?

Attitudes do not always predict behaviour

What was Lapiere’s restaurant study?

8% of restaurants said they would serve a Chinese customer on a poll over the phone, however 100% did in real life

How to reduce social desirability bias? (5)

• Anonymity

• Wording

• Self-administered questionnaires

• Indirect questioning

• Forced-choice items

What is a moderator?

Defines when something is true or who it is true for

What does TACT stand for?

Target

Action

Context

Time

What is the difference between specific vs. general attitudes?

Higher correlation between attitude and behaviour when the attitude is specific

What 3 other things do attitudes influence?

• Knowledge functions

• Self-expression functions

• Self-esteem functions

What is balance theory?

People like to maintain balance been cognitive and affective components of their attitude and their behaviour, this results in cognitive consistency

What is cognitive dissonance?

An imbalance in our cognitive and affective components

How can you reduce cognitive dissonance? (4)

Direct methods:

• Change attitude to be consistent with behaviour

• Acquire supporting information

• Trivialize the behaviour

Indirect:

• Restor positive self-evaluations

What is message framing?

Used to influence an audeince’s decision by presenting information in different ways

What is the elaboration-likelihood model?

• Information is processed in two ways

• Depends on the route an the message as to whether persuasion is successful

What are important nonverbal cues? (3)

• Credibility

• Physical attractiveness

• Speaking style

What are important message characteristics? (3)

• Soft sell

• If audience is skeptical- two-sided message

• Avoid criticising them

When do we use systematic processing?

When we are strongly motivated to find the correct answer

When do we use Heursitic processing?

When we are unmotivated, lack the desire to process complex information, the stakes are low or we don’t believe there is a correct answer

Do fear tactics work?

Can make people avoid the message or result in defensiveness

How does humour help fear tactics?

No humour + increasing fear = lower persuasion

Humour + increasing fear = higher persuasion

What is Asch’s paradigm?

• The order of adjectives influences our attitudes

• Central traits tell us about someone’s overall character vs secondary traits have less power

What is the exposure effect?

Reason we like someone or a product is due to repeated exposure

Why don’t we like photos of ourselves?

• We prefer our mirror image

• Vs. Our friends prefer our actual image

Why should you take your first date somewhere scary?

Fear arousal can be misattributed as romantic arousal

How does imitation effect attraction and pro-sociality?

You are viewed as being more trusting and likeable

What is Realisitic Group Conflict Theory?

Groups tend to compete when resources are contested

What is ethnocentrism?

Where the out group is vilified and the in group is glorified

What was the Robber’s Cave experiment?

• 22 boys divided into Eagles and Rattlers

• Sent to a park and made to compete

• Hostility occurred

• However once the competition was over they still disliked the other group

What is social identity approach?

A group of related theories to do with the self and how we categorise ourselves into groups

What is social identity theory?

• Henri Tajfel

• Your self-concept comes partly from the social groups and categories they belong to

What is individual mobility?

Group boundaries are perceived as permeable but status relations are perceived as fixed, then individual mobility can occur

What is social creativity?

Group boundaries are perceived as impermeable and status relations are perceived as fixed

What is social competition?

Group boundaries are seen as impermeable and status relations are perceived as not fixed

What is self-categorisation theory? (5)

• Categroisation is based upon cognitive need for schema

• People cognitively represent categories as prototypes (fuzzy set of attributes that define a typical member or an ideal example)

• To make sense of the world, we maximise difference between groups to minimise differences within groups

• We strive for entitativity (coherence and unique entities)

• People self-categorise into groups

What factors influence how we categorise the world

• Readiness- refers to our past experience

• Comparative/Structural fit

• Normative fit- Does the object displace expected characteristics

Based on Self Identity Theory what are we driven to? (2)

Self enhance

Reduce uncertainty

What country is the most giving?

Indonesia

How much do we in the UK donate (individuals and organisations) every year?

£10 billion

Which group in the UK donates the most money?

Older women (50+)

What is the average amount donated by individuals in the UK?

£20

What type of charitable organisations do we donate to the most

Religious organisations and overseas aid/disaster relief

What did Warneken and Tamasello show about our want to help people?

We are born predisposed to help others

Who was Baby Jessica?

• 18 month old who fell into a well

• Took 58 hours to free her

• Became a media circus

What are the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) fundraising for?

• 4 billion people need aid around the world

• Humanitarian disaters on the increase due to climate change and political conflict

What was the World Food and Agricultural Organisation’s statement on food insecurity?

Around 733 million people are suffering from hunger/starvation and 2.3 billion are food insecure

What percentage of GDP does the UK donate?

0.8%

What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis?

Altruism is directly linked to empathy and can be demonstrated via empathetic concern

What is Batson et al. Show about empathy-altruism?

• Those who were more concerned about themselves left when able

• Those Who were more concerned about the other participant took extra shocks for them

What are Cialdini’s criticisms about empathy-altruism?

1) People high in empathetic concern may be motivated to helpe because they’ll feel bad otherwise (ie selfish motivation)

2) Other variables may matter more depending on the situation

What did Stalin say about deaths?

‘One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic’

What is the identifiable victim effect?

People prefer to donate to a single identifiable victim than to a group of victims

What did Kogut and Ritov show about donations?

People were willing to donate twice as much to help one named child than 8

What is the name letter effect?

You’re more likely to donate to help people itch a similar name to you, or if you have the same name as a hurricane

What causes the Identifiable Victim Effect?

May be due to an increased vividness of the problem

Does emotion influence the identifiable victim effect?

Emotion on the victim’s face causes increased helping

What is Fetherstonhaugh show about drug policy?

Participants become insensitive to the value of human life when victims are presented statistically

What is Weber-Fechner Law?

Our perception of something, doesn’t change as much as the actual physical thing does

What is the Pyschophysical Numbing Effect?

Many more victims need to suffer for us to notice the difference

What did Basil show about donations?

Guilt leads to increased responsibility and makes them more likely to donate

How is helping influenced by perceived social norms? (2)

• Participants give more when asked to wear a charity ribbon (Grace 2006)

• Donors donate more when with friends than alone (Alpizar 2008)

What is reluctant altruism?

When people know you’re donating you might give a small amount because they dont really care vs if no one knows you donate more because you genuinely care

What is dependency orientated help?

A full solution to the problem is provided

What is autonomy-ortinentated help?

Partial and temporary help, with the focus of helping the target to help themselves

What type of help do high status groups like?

Dependency-orientated- lower status groups may refuse such help

What are the three motives for in groups to help out groups? (Van Leeuwen)

1) Power and autonomy

2) Meaning and existence

3) Impression formation