Social Psychology: Exam 2

The Self; Justifying Actions; Attitudes & Persuasion; Conformity, Social Norms, Obedience (note: this DOESN'T cover all material required for Exam 2)

Self as a Motivated Agent

• Theory of mind (4-7yrs): understanding that others’ behavior is often motivated by inner desires and goals (allows for understanding other’s motivations)

• Life Goals & Values shape identity

Self as a Social Actor

• self-concept that begins with perception of ourselves & surroundings that becomes more complex & psychological w/ age, emphasis on social reputation 

Self as an autobiographical author

• Narrative Identity: internalized & evolving story of the self: INFLUENCED BY CULTURES

  • Reconstructs past, anticipates future, provides unity/meaning/purpose

Redemptive Narratives

• tack the move from suffering to an enhanced status/state (RDJ)

Changes in self-concept over the course of development

• 18 months: have agency & recognize ourselves separately from environment and others

• 2 yrs: recognize self in mirror, shame/guilt

• Child self-concept: concrete, references to characteristics like age, sex, neighborhood, hobbies

• Maturing self-concept: more emphasis on psychological stats & how other people judge us + social reputation (central traits + social roles)

Introspection

Looking at yourself & your actions

Self-awareness Theory

• a reflective state with attention focused on ourselves for social evaluation

Self-perception Theory

• explains that when we observe our behaviors to understand our preferences via inferring our behavior & the situation in which it occurs 

Two-factor theory of emotions

• the interaction between physical arousal and how we cognitively label that arousal 

Social Comparison Theory

• We learn about ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people; done more when uncertain about some particular area/where there are no objective standards

Upward Comparisons

• higher standards and aspirations (challenge self-esteem & threaten self-concept; feelings of hopelessness/lousiness/depression) via Social Comparison Theory

Downward Comparisons

• comparing ourselves with people who do worse than us (to make us feel better: self-protective strategy) via Social Comparison Theory

Misattribution of Affect

• making mistakes about what is causing someone to feel the way they do

Self-serving cognitions

• having more strengths than weaknesses, thinking we are above average 

Self-handicapping

• action people take to make success difficult to build excuses for failure; so failure does not reflect on character

  • Creating obstacles/excuses for ourselves

  • Behavioral handicapping: acting in ways that reduce the likelihood of success so that if they fail, they can blame it on obstacles rather than ability (risky!)

BIRG-ing

• Basking In the Reflected Glory (we associate w/ successful teams & ppl)

Frog-pong effect

• sometimes select circumstances/environments in which we’re more likely to/have more opportunities to make downward social environments (smaller place→more likely to achieve more)

Dunning-Kruger Effect

• subject perspectives about what we can do vary based on our level of expertise compared to others

  • People w/ more confidence tend to have the least amount of knowledge

  • People w/ medium level of knowledge have least amt of confidence

  • People w/ most knowledge have medium level of confidence (but less than people w/ least amt of knowledge)

    • Tend to underestimate their knowledge bc it comes easily for them

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger’s Study?)

• Discomfort that people feel when two cognitions (beliefs, attitudes) conflict, or when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves

• Festinger’s Study w/ boring task & $1 vs $20 reward

Self-Affirmation

• bolstering self-concept by reminding oneself of one’s OTHER good qualities (esp since Cognitive Dissonance is rooted in our basic need to feel good about ourselves)

Postdecision Dissonance

• dissonance after making a decision that is usually reduced by making the chosen option look better and the rejected look worse

• Brehm’s Study about appliances that were rated & could keep best one: participants were more happy w/ their decisions when their choice was irrevocable

Justification of Effort

• tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain; meant to increase cohesion and attraction of the group membership

  • Dissonance theory would predict that you would enjoy the thing MORE (having put in more effort) than without the long wait/effort 

External Justification

• a reason/explanation for dissonant personal behavior that resides outside the individual (large reward/severe punishment)

Internal Justification

• the reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (like one’s attitudes or behavior)

Illusion of irrevocability

• factor that increases the dissonance and motivation to reduce it (ie salesman w/ lowballing: signing an agreement/check creates illusion of irrevocability)

Counter-attitudinal advocacy

• stating an attitude that runs counter to one’s personal beliefs

  • Can result in belief change: “saying is believing” 

  • Works best w/ ppl who were biased to begin with AND there is little external justification (white college students write essays about affirmative action)

Insufficient Punishment

• the dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals’ devaluing the forbidden activity or object (punishment isn’t severe enough→forbidden activity becomes “not that bad”)

Lowballing effect

• reating the illusion of irrevocability induces motivation to reduce dissonance

  • Works via sense of commitment→anticipation of exciting event + already started commitment (sense of irrevocability) → cognitive dissonance sets in (justifications)

Hypocrisy Paradigm

• induces dissonance by making person aware of conflict between attitudes and behaviors; can be used as an intervention to change people’s attitudes and behaviors 

Threat of Punishment

• if severe enough for forbidden behavior; sufficient justification for refraining from behavior

• If less severe: insufficient external justification: changes attitudes via self-persuasion

Central Route of Persuasion

• based on cognitive process, employs direct & logical messages; assumes target audience is motivated to learn about messages & will react based on argument viewer is proving (people are motivated & have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication)

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

• elated to affective/emotional based attitudes, tends to rely on more superficial cues (not logical), commonly used as a sale technique (ppl don’t pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics) 

Fear-arousing communication

• messages that attempt to change people’s minds by arousing their fears (anti-smoking PSAs)

  • Moderate amount of fear + information on how to reduce fear works best

  • Too much fear overwhelms: people become defensive, deny importance of threat, can’t think rationally about issue when overwhelmed by emotions 

Attitude Inoculation

• making people “immune” to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position (like peer pressure)

Psychological resistance/Reactance theory

• the tendency to assert our freedom when we feel others are attempting to control us or our behaviors

Conformity

• changing behavior when no direct request is made (group pressure involved)

Compliance

changing behavior when someone asks you to (request from someone of equal or lower status)

Obedience

changing behavior when someone tells you to (request from someone of higher status or authority

Sherif Autokinetic Effect Study

• Optical Illusion where participants had to guess how far a dot moved, also did the same in the presence of 2 others & repeated

  • Responses got more similar over time & influenced by each others’ responses; esp when situation is ambiguous, we look to others for answers

Soloman Asch Line Judgement Studies

• participants had to identify lines (not ambiguous) but still conformed in the presence of peers (who were actually confederates) who answered differently. 

  • Conformity did drop when unanimity of responses is decreased & when participants writes down answer instead of saying it aloud

Social Impact Theory

• Strength: the more important the people are you, the more you will conform

• Immediacy: the closer the group is to you in space & time, the more you will conform

• Number: conformity increases up to a certain point, but then hits saturation

Informational Social Influence

• sometimes we simply don’t know what’s going on, so we use other’s behaviors as information (as seen in Sherif’s Optical Illusion!)

  • Esp when situation is new/ambiguous

  • When there is a crisis/stress

  • When there is someone around who seems to be an expert

  • When stakes are high: importance of being accurate also influences how likely we are to turn for other for information (something deeply personal/socially important→ turn to other’s judgements)

Normative Social Influence

• the need to belong and to be accepted/liked by others (Asch’s Line Study!)

  • Even occurs w/ strangers

  • Strong social punishments for deviants, more incentive to “stay in line”

Private Acceptance

• conforming to other people’s behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are going or saying is right (informational social influence→private acceptance)

Public Compliance

conforming to to other people’s behavior publicly without necessarily believing in what we are doing or saying

Social Norms

informal, mostly unwritten rules that define acceptable, appropriate, and obligatory actions in a given group or society (injunctive & descriptive)

Boomerang Effect

• invoking negative descriptive norms when they are prevalent may backfire (invoking descriptive + injunctive norms is most successful to combat this!)

Foot-in-the-door Strategy

• get someone to commit to a small request, more likely to comply to a larger one later

Door-in-the-face Strategy

• get someone to refuse a large request then follow up w/ a smaller request (more likely to comply)

Injunctive Norms

people’s perceptions of what behaviors are approved or disapproved of by others (what my community thinks people “should” go)

Descriptive Norms

• people’s perceptions of how people actually behave, regardless of whether this behavior is disapproved or not (what the majority of others are doing)