Social Psychology Midterm

psychology

study of human thoughts and behavior 

social psychology

study of how human thoughts feelings and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people 

Imagined Presence

people dont need to be physically by us to influence us aka social media and technology 

social influence

• The effect that the words, actions, or mere presence of other people have on our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or behavior 

• Mentors, co-workers, everyday world, trends – like what's the cool water bottle or backpack to own 

The power of social situation

• tendency to ignore situational or social explanations for behavior 

• Ex: 15 sec video clips of one person – and we make complete assumptions of people based on that 

• Focus on personality - “that person is just mean” 

social psychology construal

• Relationship between the social environment and the individual is a 2-way street 

• Construal = the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world 

• People are influenced by their social situations as they perceive them  

the power of social influence

• Aspects of social situation that seem minor can have powerful effects – overwhelming the differences in people’s personalities 

• Personality differences do exist and frequently are of great importance 

• But social and environmental situations can be so powerful that they have strong effects on almost everyone.  

goal of social psychologists

Goal = identify universal laws of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence regardless of their personality, social, class, culture, etc. 

personal reflection vs hindsight bias

1. Personal reflection – I would not do that 

1. There are always exceptions, we try to find general patterns 

2. Hindsight bias – isn't that obvious? 

• You never know, people are wrong in predicting their own behavior 

Hindsight is 20/20 

• Isn't that obvious? 

• I knew it all along 

  • Once you know the outcome it is easy to predict 

empirical questions

Answers derived from experimentation or measurement rather than personal opinion 

social psychology is scientific

• Social psychologists use the scientific method to test theories.  

• Social psychologists gather evidence about human behavior from: 

• Observational Research 

• Description 

• Survey Research (Correlational) 

• Prediction 

• Experimental Research 

• Causality 

 

The scientific method: 

1. Observe “interesting” data 

2. Develop theories or explanations

3. Develop hypotheses 

   1. A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.  

4. Design study 

5. Collect and analyze data 

6. Refine or replicate theory and publicize data 

Theory

a set of related assumptions or explanations about a phenomena (why and under what conditions it occurs) 

observational research

• Observe and record behavior occurring naturally in a natural setting 

• Observe kids at school 

• Public bathroom handwashing studies 

• Is used to describe social behavior 

• Strength: study behavior in natural context 

• Limitations: participant reactivity, subjectivity of researcher, uncontrolled settings  

conditional research

• Identify the relationship between variables – cant manipulate these 

  • What's the relationship between smoking and lung cancer? 

  • Between self esteem and quality of relationships? 

  • Between experiences of discrimination ad health outcomes? 

• Variables measured as they naturally occur 

  • Not manipulated by researcher 

  • Example: survey methods  

survey methods

• Most often given to groups of people 

  • e.g., disaster victims, college freshmen, COVID survivors 

• Strengths: 

  • Can have many participants 

  • Can collect information on many variables 

• Limitations: 

  • Question effects 

  • Samples are often not representative of the population 

  • Responses not always truthful (social desirability) 

    • Video clip example 

If less options in a question….

If less options - people are less likely to choose other... see how in first one public school percent is much higher than the 2nd  

Why does it make a difference? 

• The relative scale 

• Not everyone wants to be on the high end of something, but now if the higher number is more in the middle like on the right like 3 hours for example, they will be more likely to share that 

correlation coefficient

• A statistical measure that indicates the extent to which 2 factors vary together 

• The sign (+ or -) indicates the direction of the relationship: 

  • POSITIVE = both variables move in the SAME direction (e.g., as X increases, Y increases) 

  • NEGATIVE = variables move in OPPOSITE directions (e.g., as X increases, Y decreases) 

 

Pearsons coefficient

a statistical measure ranging from -1 to +1 that indicates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two continuous variables.

experimental research

• Used to determine cause and effect relationships 

• 2 key aspects of experimental research: 

1. One or more variables is manipulated by the experimenter 

2. Extraneous variables are controlled through random assignment 

operationalization

• In order to manipulate and measure the variables we need operational definitions: specific procedures for manipulating or measuring a conceptual variable  

• E.g., Aggression: any form of behavior directed toward the goal of harming or injuring another living being motivated to avoid such treatment 

  • Manipulating: violent media  

  • Measuring: noise blasts, another way? 

• Helping behavior 

  • Measuring: pick up or dropped papers/pencils  

random assignment

• Participants have equal chance of being in any experimental condition  

• Ensures that differences in participants personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions  

confounding variable

• anything that could cause change in the independent variable – outcome, that is not the independent variable – manipulation 

  • Pre-existing variables that might affect the results (ex: intelligence, hunger) 

 

“blind” studies

• Single-blind: Participant does not know which group they are in, needs to be at least 2 groups 

• Double-bind: This is highly recommended way, neither participant NOR researcher knows which group subject us in (until after data is collected or DV measured) 

  • Why is this better? - no bias  

• Triple-blind: Best type of design, participant, researcher, and data analysist are unaware of conditions the Ps are in 

experimenter expectancy effects

Effects produced when an experimenters expectations about the results if an experiment affect their behavior toward the participant and influencing participants responses.  

observational, correlational or experimental?                                                       

• A researcher is interested in the relation b/n caffeine and stress. Participants complete a survey where they record caffeine consumption throughout the day. In addition, they complete a measure of “stressful life events”.

• A researcher is interested in examining bullying during recess at local elementary schools. Two graduate students are assigned to watch the kids playing and record how often acts of bullying take place.  

• A researcher is interested in the effects of alcohol on perceptions of attractiveness. Students are randomly assigned to drink alcoholic or nonalcoholic beer, though all believed they were being served alcohol. Thirty minutes later, they are asked to rate the attractiveness of 50 different photos. 

correlational, observational, experimental

Between vs within subjects design

• Between-subjects design 

  • Each participant participates in one only one group/treatment 

  • The results from each group are then compared to reach other to examine differences, and thus, effect of the IV 

• Within-subjects design 

  • Each participant participates in more than one group/treatment 

  • Limitations – could be something else now effecting their reaction since like in a drug study they have taken multiple drugs  

internal vs external validity

• Internal Validity: the extent to which we can draw conclusions about cause and effect 

  • Good design 

    • Random assignment

    • Control for confounds 

• External validity: the extent to which the findings generalize to other people, settings, IVs, and DVs 

  • Representative sample  

  • Replication 

  • Field experiments  

random sampling vs random assignment

• Random sampling 

  • When it is used: when choosing people to be in a study 

  • To be able to generalize to the population 

  • Important for external validity 

• Random assignment 

  • When assigning participants to conditions 

  • To avoid confounds by averaging out extraneous variables between conditions 

  • Important for internal validity 

social cognition

• study of how people think/feel about themselves and the social world 

• How we organize, interpret, remember and use social information to make decisions 

• A continuum with 2 ends  

Low and high effort social cognition

• Low effort: Automatic thinking, Unintentional, effortless, No conscious deliberation 

  • Emotional reactions, going to classes youve been to a million times, taking an exam when youve studied very hard 

• High effort: Controlled, intentional, Voluntary, effortful, Slower  

  • Going to class for first time, starting a new job  

Purpose of automatic thinking

• Impossible to take everything in; too much information 

• We are “cognitive misers” – need shortcuts to understand/predict the social world 

• Save time (increases efficiency)  

• Past experience provides a filter to help us interpret and evaluate new people and events.  

• Disadvantage = errors (e.g., treat others negatively based on automatic stereotypes or schemas they and the situation “fit’) 

schemas

mental structures that help organize knowledge about the social world and guide the selection, interpretation, and recall of information 

• Makes social environment more predictable 

• Help us organize information 

• Can influence behavior 

• Schemas applied to group = stereotype 

• Schemas also can be applied to specific individuals and to ourselves. 

People develop theories to interpret reality 

Example: 

• Social roles – (firefighters, librarians, CEO, parent) 

scripts

step-by-step order of events for a particular situation, this script helps us know what to expect, and we may fill in things that didn't actually happen 

priming

The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept  

• May affect: 

• Impressions 

  • if primed with positive/negative words or mood, can have a more positive or negative impression of a person  

• Behavior 

 

How do we decide which schema to use?

• Situational cues / Salience (what is happening in our social environment): e.g., if only woman in a group of men, female stereotype may be salient.

• Priming (e.g., ads that promote feminine stereotype were just viewed)

• Recency (recent events/what is accessible)

• Chronic accessibility – accessibility due to past/recent experience (e.g., if you are applying to law schools, you will notice trials in the news more throughout this process than those who are not applying to law school)

self fulfilling prophecies

A false belief that leads to its own fulfillment 

• Expectation must be false about a target  

• Perceiver treats target consistent with false belief 

• Target responds to the treatment in a way as to confirm the originally false belief 

confirmation bias

tendency to interpret, seek, and create information that verifies our preexisting beliefs and schemas 

• Once we have knowledge or belief about something we want to stick with that belief, and tend to believe things that are consistent with their beliefs and automatically think negatively of information that disagrees with those beliefs 

  • Political for example 

heuristics

shortcuts that people use to make judgements about the frequencies of past events and the likelihood of future events 

• The use of heuristics is NOT in itself irrational or illogical 

availability heuristic

basing a judgement on how easily you can bring something to mind 

representativeness heuristics

The tendency to assume that someone or something belongs to a particular group-p if similar to a typical member 

• Insensitive to prior probability and sample size 

• People are poor at assessing base rate information and instead rely on representativeness 

• However, if no representative information is given, people can properly use base-rate information 

anchoring and adjustment

• A process in which people make an estimate of some value by starting from an initial value and adjusting 

• The anchor can be completely irrelevant 

• Adjustment is often insufficient 

Can occur in.... 

• First impressions, judges and penalty decisions, personal experiences, and negotiations  

high effort processes

• One purpose: correct for low-effort mistakes 

• Requires ability and motivation 

• Example: buying a car 

counterfactual thinking

Mentally changing an aspect of the past and imagining what might have been 

• Enhances thoughts of cause and effect 

• The easier it is to mentally undo and outcome, the stronger the emotional reaction to it 

• It is more common after failures and when closer to achieving a goal 

• Missed flight by minutes vs an hour 

• Missed getting an A by 1 versus 10 points  

Examples: 

• upward – silver medalist who imagines winning gold 

• Downward – bronze medalist who imagines winning no medal at all 

 

attitude

Evaluation of a person, object, place or idea 

• Can be positive, negative, neutral, or ambivalent 

• Ambivalent = both positive + negative 

ABCs of attitudes

• Affective component: a positive or negative feeling about the attitude object (emotional) 

• Behavioral component: behavioral reaction (how one acts) to attitude object  

  • Approach vs avoid 

• Cognitive component: a cognitive representation that summarizes ones evaltuation of the attitude object (thoughts & beliefs)

Affect

Immediate reactions based on.... 

• Emotions 

• Values (religious or moral beliefs) 

• Sensory reactions (liking the taste of chocolate) 

• Aesthetic reaction (admiring how a car looks or how music sounds) 

• Conditioning (classical and operant) 

operant conditions

• In operant conditioning, behaviors or attitudes become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed by a reward (positive reinforcement) or punishment 

• Reinforcement INCREASES the likelihood of emitting a behavior 

• Punishment DECREASES the likelihood of emitting a behavior 

why are attitudes important

• Strongly influence social thought – the way we think about and process social information 

  • Example of reading a newspaper article 

• Assumed that attitudes influence behavior 

  • What is your attitude about being honest? 

  • Most people have a positive attitude about being honest 

  • But does this guide behavior? 

• e.g. surprise birthday party, how something looks, taste 

when do attitudes predict?

• Less time elapsed between measure of attitude and behavior 

• When situational pressures are weak 

• When attitude is: 

  • Important 

  • Strongly supported (beliefs, affect, behavior) 

  • Formed with controlled/effortful processing 

  • Measures of attitude and behavior correspond/are measured in a similar way 

persuasion

An attitude change as a result of information processing, often i response to messages about the attitude object 

reciprocity

• Social expectation that people respond in kind 

• Compliance likely if you've been given a gift 

  • Supermarket samples 

  • Favors 

  • Free gifts in the mail 

door in the face

Following up an extravagant request with a reasonable one such that the (guilty) subject complies  

 

thats not all technique

• Start large, add details to seem smaller 

• Offer a discount in several stages.  

• Add extra 'gifts' to a product offering.  

• Start with a high price and reduce it. 

commitment and consistency

• I do as I say I do (or as I've done) 

• Our desire to be and to appear consistent with that we have already done 

social proof

We can view behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it  

• Everyone else is doing it 

• Is its popular it must be good  

• If experts say so... 

• Eg laugh tracks on sitcoms, tip jars  

Liking

If you like me, then youll do what I ask (like celebrities) 

• Compliance is more likely if you like the person 

• The impact of compliments, attractiveness, similarity, cooperation 

psychological reactance

We want what we cannot have or may not be able to have in the future 

• for a limited time only 

• while supplies last 

• Exclusive... limited availability 

• If rare than more valuable 

• Time deadlines, availability limits  

reactance theory

Messages aimed at changing behavior may be perceived as a threat to freedom to engage in that behavior 

• People enjoy and are invested in specific sets of freedoms 

• They expect to be able to engage in these freedoms 

• When these freedoms are threatened an unpleasant state is aroused  

Reactance

• Depends on – importance of freedom, number of freedoms threatened, strength of message 

• As a result, people may – ignore the message, derogate the source of the message, become more attracted to the behavior  

Examples: 

• Warning labels – for violent video games 

• Message restriction = more agreement with message (eg coed dorms) 

central route processing

person fully engaged with message content, high effort more controlled processing, argument quality 

peripheral route processing

use cognitive resource that need little cognitive effort (heuristics=low effort 

superficial cues

like ill buy this product because i like the person endorsing it  

peripheral cues

Superficial features of a message or context that influence attitudes without requiring deep thought or careful evaluation of the actual arguments.

1. Reciprocity 

2. Commitment and consistency 

3. Social proof 

4. Liking 

5. Perceived authority 

1. We tend to do what people in authority position wants, even when it is only perceived authority 

6. Scarcity 

one-sided vs two sided messages

• One-sided is better if audience is... 

  • Already agrees 

  • Unaware of opposing views 

  • Less knowledge  

• Number of arguments: more persuasive if using peripheral route. Argument quality more persuasive with central route  

peripheral vs central route

Central routes 

• High motivation, issue is relevant, knowledgeable, no distractions 

• Strong quality arguments, tends to be long-lasting and harder to change, more predictive of behavior 

Peripheral 

• Low motivation, issue is irrelevant, little prior knowledge, distracted 

• Speaker characteristics – expertise + attractiveness + trustworthy, # of arguments, less long lasting  

Fear Appeals

• Inherently fear-arousing 

• Implied risk of personal harm 

• Attempt to scare people into action 

• Used correctly, are useful in health behavior change  

How to use it best:

• In 100 + experiments testing fear appeals (e.g., drunk-driving, condoms, bulimia prevention), found a moderate level of fear is most effective if information about how to reduce the fear is presented 

• When little fear is aroused, message does not grab person’s attention 

• When too much fear is aroused, resources are diverted away from attending to message to deal with the fear 

Creating an effective fear-based message

Threat in a message: 

• Personal, vivid (language and pictures), it can happen to me & is a threat to my health 

A high-efficacy message: 

• Explains how to do the recommended response 

• Gives evidence of recommended to responses effectiveness  

• Response efficacy: belief the advocated response works 

• Self-efficacy: perceived ability to perform the response  

impression formation

• The development of the first knowledge a person has about another person 

• We form initial impressions of others based on their facial appearance in less than 100 milliseconds 

Thin slicing

Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person based on an extremely brief sample of behavior  

Example: 

• Researchers looking at hoew college students form impressions of their professors 

• Participants rated 3 random 10-sec video clips of instructors teaching, no audio 

• Compared rating of clips end of the semester teaching evals from students 

• Results: accurately predicted highest rated teachers  

nonverbal communication

The way in which people communication intentionally and unintentionally without words  

• Purpose: Expression of emotion and personality, conveying attitudes 

• Most commonly discussed form 

  • Facial expressions 

  • Certain facial expressions are universal 

what are the 5 major emotions and what is the 6th emotion psychologists think should be included? 

anger, disgust, joy, fear, sadness 

• Researchers have argued that these are the 5 major emotions, but psychologists propose a 6th – surprise  

Why do we sometimes interpret facial expressions incorrectly? 

• People display affect blends, where one part of face registers one emotion, and another part registers another emotion 

• Happy tears 

• Affect blends can be used more in certain professions 

• Sometimes people working in retail or client facing, people will smile not out of warmth but out of concealed irritation 

emotional labor

expressing and regulating emotions as part of ones job – is common in our social world 

• Surface acting (fake emotions like wearing a mask) 

• Deep acting (attempting to change your own emotions to be more genuine in display) 

  • Get burned out quicker bc this takes more energy and time  

• Both have implications for emotional regulation and health 

 

attribution theory

theories that describe how people explain the causes of others behavior 

explanations of behavior

Why did he/she/they do that? 

• How people understand, explain, and predict social behavior 

• Self and others 

• Our attributions have consequences  

Types of explanations

Internal – “Dispositional” 

• Reflects personality and tells someone about a person 

  • That person is usually friendly or rude 

• Behavior is voluntary  

• Facilitates prediction of future behavior

  • Provides a sense of control  

External – “Situational” 

• Explanation about the environment/situation 

• Says less about the person; makes the assumption that most people would respond in the same way in that situation 

• Does not facilitate prediction of future individual behavior 

Examples for behaviors: peer pressure, stressful day, is not feeling well, just got really good news, luck/chance 

what influences the type of explanation? - Kelleys covariation model 

Internal vs external is based on 3 things: 

1. Consensus – how do others react in this same situation? 

   1. High = yes normal reaction - situation attribution (envi, circumstance) 

   2. Low = no not normal, dispositional attribution – personality attitude  

2. Distinctiveness – does this person act this way in other situations as well? 

3. Consistency – does this person always act this way in this situation? 

 

distinctiveness

is this behavior unique to this particular situation? 

• Yes = high situational/external 

• No = low, dispositional/internal 

• Something unusual is going on in this particular situation  

 

Fundamental attribution error/correspondence bias

• When making attributions for others behavior people tend to: 

  • Overestimate dispositional causes of behavior 

  • Underestimate situational causes of behavior  

cultural differences in fundamental attribution error

Members of individualistic cultures 

• Prefer dispositional attributions/focus more on person 

• Think like personality psychologists 

Members of collectivist cultures 

• Prefer situational explanations, focus more on whole picture/context 

• Think like social psychologists 

actor-observer effect

The tendency to attribute our own behavior to situational causes and behavior of others to dispositional causes  

• Especially with failures  

• We are aware of situational forces acting on us, but less so for other people 

perceptual salience

actors notice the situations around them that influence them to act, while observers notice the actors 

information access

actors have more information about themselves than fo observers (how consistent present behavior is to past behavior) 

motivational bias

• we want to maintain and improve our own self-esteem 

• Explanations for ones succussed that credit internal, dispositional factors, as opposed to failures, which are explained by the external situational factors  

self-serving attributions

the tendency to credit our successes on internal/dispositional factors, and blame external factors for our failures 

• Kingdon Study – asked politicians about why they won or lost elections 

• Those who won – success due to hard work 

• Those who lost – failure due to things like not enough money or publicity 

the self

How we feel and what we think about ourselves 

• Influences the way we perceive and interact with others 

• Is influenced by how others perceive and interact with us  

Self descriptions

• Physical – refer to physical qualities that do not imply social interaction: identity card type information 

  • Examples: I am a redhead, I’m short, I'm athletic 

• Social – refer to relationships, group memberships, social roles, and attitudes which are socially defined and validated 

  • Examples: I am a son, I am American, i am a GWU student, Eagles fan 

• Psychological – refers to psychological traits and states to attitudes which do not refer to particular social referents 

  • Examples: I am shy, optimistic, ambitious, outgoing 

• Holistic – refer to characteristics so comprehensive or vague that they do not distinguish one person from another 

  • Example: I am me, I am a human being 

self concept

Our knowledge about who we are, our overal set of beliefs that people have aout their personal attributes 

cultural variations:

• People with more individualist orientation tend to answer with trait descriptions – I am shy, I am smart 

• People with more collectivist orientation tend to answer with more group-based affiliations - I am a college student, I am Japanese 

self reference effect

tendency to remember information better if they relate it to themselves 

• Applications 

• When studying for exam, you have better memory later if you relate the material to oneself 

• You remember what was said in an earlier conversation about YOU more than what was said about others