Psych 360 exam 1

Social psychology

The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people

Lewin's Theory of social psych

 B=f(P,E). Behavior (B) is a function (F) of the person (P) and the environment (E)

macro

social structure

micro

 individual persons. Everyone is different and people may respond differently in situations. Humans are subjective perceivers

meso

social situations. Assuming we could put ANY person in a situation and everyone would be expected to act similarly

observational study

Use systematic coding to quantify or describe a phenomenon. Such as: observing human behavior in natural or laboratory settings. Another example, coding archival data (media coverage, public records)

experimental methods

Use to test for “cause and effect” relations between variables. Such as by: Randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions or measuring the same outcome across conditions

operationalization

The process of translating abstract concepts or variables into concrete, observable, and measurable operations for empirical research. average response to these 10 questions

correlation and causation

they do not equal eachother

psychological realism

when psychological processes triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

conformity

behaving according to the real or imagined influence of others

reasons for conformity

need to belong, desire to be correct (informative social influence), and desire for social approval (normative social influence)

factors that affect conformity

size of group, importance of people in group, degree of consensus in group, and private response

social norms

implicit or explicit rules that a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members

social roles

shared expectations for how people with specified positions in a group (or society) are supposed to behave

descriptive norm

our perceptions of what other people do

injunctive norm

our perceptions of what other people would approve or disapprove

obedience

a change in one’s behavior due to the direct influence of an authority figure

compliance

the act of changing your behavior in response to a direct request from someone else, without necessarily changing your private beliefs.

foot in the door

granting smaller requests can lead to agreeing to larger requests

door in the face

You ask someone to do something big (going for a hotdog and a walk) that you know they will refuse. When they say no to that, you make a much smaller request (taking a shower).

norms of reciprocity

he idea that we give back what we have been given. In order words, people are obligated to repay people who have done something for us or given something to us. The norm of reciprocity is universal - all cultures follow this norm, or rule, or some extent. 

social cognition

how people select, interpret, remember, and use information to make judgments and decisions as they navigate the social world.

cognitive misers

 Fiske and Taylor (1991)- automatic thought processes effortless, and less conscious

Naive Scientist

Kelley (1967)- controlled thought processes, effortful, deliberate, conscious

automatic thoughts

thoughts that are instantaneous, habitual, and nonconscious. Automatic thoughts affect a person’s mood and actions.

controlled thoughts

conscious, intentional, and effortful method of information processing used when dealing with novel or complex situations or learning new skills

priming

the processes by which recent exposure or experience increases the accessibility of a concept

cognitive accessibility

the ease with which an idea, concept, or attitude can be retrieved from memory and brought into conscious awareness, influencing judgments, perceptions, and behavior

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements and decisions quickly and efficiently

availability heuristic

how easily does (example) come to mind?

representativeness heuristic

how typical does (example) appear to be of such cases?

framing

people respond differently depending on how options or concepts are presented.

prisoners dilemma

Both remain silent (and loyal) then both receive shorter sentences. If one stays silent and one confesses, the confessor goes free and the loyal one has a longer sentence. If they both confess, they both serve longer time then they would if they both stayed silent. Liberman used a version of it to test for tendency to cooperate or defect

selective attention

consciously or unconsciously, we tend to focus on information deemed to be relevant and important, while disregarding other pieces of information deemed to be less relevant or important

contrast effects

Seeing situations or objects as better or worse due to contrasting examples in social environments

anchoring effects

When people's estimates are influenced by numbers to which they are exposed

confirmation bias

The tendency to seek out information that confirms our previously held beliefs

self-fulfilling prophecy

a belief or expectation that comes true because holding it changes how a person behaves, toward themselves or others. Much like confirmation bias, the belief quietly steers behavior until reality bends to match it

fundamental attribution bias

Our tendency to over-estimate individual factors, and to under-estimate situation factors, when making attributions for other people's behavior

internal attributions

behavior is due to features of the person, such as their personality or individual characteristics

external attribution

behavior is due to features of the situation, such as the setting, context, or social environment

actor-observer bias

The tendency for actors to attribute their own behavior to situational factors, while observers tend to attribute actor’s behavior to personal factors

self-serving bias

The tendency to make attributions that are flattering to ourselves and our own self-image (positive is internal, negative is external)

bias blind spot

The tendency to see other people as being more susceptible to attributional biases than we are

false consensus effect

The tendency to overestimate the percent of other people who agree with us, and see the world as we do

LaPiere (1934)

Attitudes vs actions. Traveled across the us with a Chinese couple, to see if they would be served or denied. Visited more than 200 establishments (Only denied service once). 6 months later they sent out a survey asking the places they visited if they would serve Chinese community (92% said no on the survey).

Asch (1950s)

study of conformity. study where they were told to say the lengths of the lines and what matched. Everyone was actors, except for one person. On average, participants conformed ⅓ of the critical trails. Around 75% conform at least once. 25% never conformed on crit trials

Sherif (1937)

autokinetic effect- if you stare at a bright light in an otherwise dark environment, the light will appear to move

Schultz et al.

how social norms affect household energy conservation. They found that people who used more energy than their neighbors tended to reduce their usage, but people who used less sometimes increased theirs—the boomerang effect. Adding an injunctive norm (a positive signal showing that conservation is socially approved) helped prevent this effect and encouraged people to keep conserving energy.

zimbardo et al.

Stanford prison experiment. , assigned college students to act as either prisoners or guards in a mock prison. The guards became increasingly harsh and the prisoners showed significant emotional distress, leading the study to be stopped early. It was used to argue that social roles and situations can strongly influence behavior, although the study is now heavily criticized for its ethical problems and methodological flaws.

Milgram (1960s)

tested how far people would go in obeying an authority figure, even when instructed to harm someone. Participants were told to give increasingly strong electric shocks to another person, and many continued despite hearing the person’s apparent cries of pain. The study showed the powerful influence of authority and obedience, but it also raised major ethical concerns.

Dolinski et al. (2017)

Recreation of milgram’s experiment. They found that many participants were still willing to follow an authority figure’s instructions even when they believed they were hurting another person. The study showed that obedience to authority remains powerful, while also raising ethical concerns about conducting this type of research.

Freedman and Fraser (1966)

foot in the door. where people are more likely to agree to a larger request after first agreeing to a smaller one. In the context of safe driving, getting people to first agree to a small pro-safety action can make them more likely to later support or engage in larger safe-driving behaviors.

Cialdini et al.

door in the face. people are more likely to agree to a smaller request after first refusing a much larger one. In their study, people were more willing to after first being asked to commit to a much larger, demanding task.

Higgins et al.

two unrelated studies. Study 1- memorize a list of words- priming. Half got positive words (adventurous, self-confident), half got negative (reckless, conceited). Study 2- reading comprehension. Read a paragraph about a guy named donald

• They were then asked questions about what they remember and think about donald 

• Paragraph was intentionally vague so it could be interpreted either way

• People primed with positive words formed more positive impressions of Donald than people primed by memorizing negative words 

Liberman et al. (2004)

” prisoners dilemma”. Both remain silent (and loyal) then both receive shorter sentences. If one stays silent and one confesses, the confessor goes free and the loyal one has a longer sentence. If they both confess, they both serve longer time then they would if they both stayed silent. Liberman used a version of it to test for tendency to cooperate or defect

Lotus and Palmer (1974)

Watch short clips of collisions between cars and depending on verb used, they estimated different speeds (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted). if smashed=higher speed.

Kenrick and Gutierres (1980)

“Charlies angels” study

• Two male undergrad RAs approached male students watching TV in dorms

• They ask them to rate the attractiveness of a woman in a picture

  • Hour before charlies angels (baseline)

    • Rated higher (moderately attractive)

  • During broadcast of charlies angels

    • Rated less attractive (below average)

Kramer et al. (1990)

• Participants watched a slide show of images, depicting a person walking from one set of doors to another, for about 20 seconds

  • Person was either holding a weapon or a news magazine while walking

• Participants were then asked to recall features of this person (such as height, weight, age, body, build, hair style, facial hair, etc)

  • After recalling these features, participants were asked to report what the person was carrying

• Weapon condition: ALL participants remembered the knife

• Magazine condition: around two thirds (66%) recalled accurately

• People who say a person carrying a weapon were less able to recall the actors features correctly

Tollestrup et al. (1994)

• Conducted archival study of cases: male criminal perpetrators were caught and confessed to crimes

• Coded accuracy of bystanders and victims recollections of perpetrators characteristics

• On average, bystanders were much more accurate in recollections of characteristics

• Witnesses to crimes may be focused on the weapon being held, such that they may have limited capacity to attend to other info about the perpetrator and the crime

Dunning and Stern (1994)

“wallet” study looked at how people respond when they find someone else’s lost wallet. Participants were more likely to return the wallet when they believed other people would expect them to act honestly, showing how social norms and expectations can influence behavior.

Ross et al. (1997)

demonstrated the fundamental attribution error using a quiz-show experiment. People tended to think the quizmaster was more knowledgeable than the contestants, even though the quizmaster was given the advantage of creating the questions, showing that people often overestimate personal factors and underestimate situational factors when explaining behavior.

Stroms (1973)

studied the actor-observer bias, where people explain their own behavior using situational factors but explain others’ behavior using personal factors. When participants took the other person’s perspective, their attributions shifted, showing that simply changing perspective can affect how we explain behavior.

Lassiter et al.

• Recruited judges and police officers to view a videotaped mock interrogation and confession

• Judges and police officers randomly assigned to view the mock confession from 1 to 3 perspectives

  • Suspect focus

  • Detective focus

  • Equal focus on suspect and detective

• They asked to rate how much they believed the confession was voluntary (1) or coerced (9)

• Camera focused on detective has more coercion

Pronin et al. (2002)

• Gave participants a definition of the self-serving bias

• Asked participants to indicate the extent to which they

  • Personally show this tendency 

  • Believe the average american shows this tendency

    • Scale ranging from 1-9

    • They believed that the average american showed it more than them