PSYC212 theorys

Definition of social psychology

The scientific study of how individual or group thoughts and feelings and behaviour are influences by real or imagined presences of others

Social cognition definition

How people select, interpret, remember and use social information to make judgements and decisions

Subjective probability

A probability based on personal belief, judgement, or experience, rather than exact data or calculations, may be inaccurate but still guides behaviour

Objective probability

A probability based on mathematical theory or observed data, using calculations or repeated experiments

Schema

A cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and its relations among those attributes

Person schema

Knowledge structure about specific people

Role schema

Knowledge structure about role occupants

Self-schema

Schema about yourself

Group schema

Knowledge structure about specific groups (stereotypes)

Trait schema

Knowledge structure about trait attributes

Scripts

Schemas about events

Content-free schemas

How the world works (causal schema)

Central traits

Concepts that have a disproportionate influence on the impressions of others e.g. warm or cold

Which kind of traits are more important in shaping our perception of others?

Negative traits

Content free schema

A cognitive, content-free schema can be simplified to the belief in a just world that is orderly, stable and fair where people get what they deserve

Function of content free schema (belief in a just world)

Can be used as a defensive mechanism that reduces anxiety and feelings of vulnerability by making the world seem orderly, predictable, and fair - for example if someone believes bad outcomes only happen to people who made mistakes, they can reassure themselves that they are safe if they behave correctly

Consequences of content free schema (belief in a just world)

Can lead to victim blaming and decreased empathy when innocent people suffer

Is there a correlation between the belief in a just world and socioeconomic status?

Yes a high one as people who are better off see the world as fair because it benefits them, it is psychologically easier to believe the system is fair if the system has benefited you which can lead to assumptions that people who are poor or disadvantaged are responsible for their circumstances

How are schemata acquired?

Mainly through exposure and encounters

Exposure acquisition of schemata

Become more abstract, less tied to concrete instance

Encounter acquisition of schemata

Become richer and more complex with more encounters

Salient

Something that is most noticeable, important, or prominent

Benefits of schemas

Act like our cognitive GPS, help create a sense of order, structure and coherence in our social world, schemata actively fill in the gaps of our experience and memory, schemata make cognitive social processing more efficient

Disadvantages of schemata

They only appear to be accurate representations of reality, narrow our cognitive focus, they are resilient so hard to see when they are wrong

Hostile media effect

The tendency for opposing groups to perceive media reports as biased against their side however cannot be biased in both directions simultaneously

Self-fulfilling prophecy

When people have an expectation about what another person is like which influences how they act towards that person which causes that person to behave consistently with peoples original expectation

Perseverance effect

The finding that peoples beliefs about themselves and the social world persist even after the evidence supporting those beliefs is discredited

Are schemata hard to change?

Yes, people seek out and create supportive evidence to reinforce their schema, they disregard opposing evidence

Can schemata change?

Yes, hard to, but can change over time, so can normative roles - example is women being able to run the Boston Marathon

Bookkeeping (changing schemata)

Slow change to schemata in the face of accumulating evidence

Conversion (changing schemata)

Sudden and massive change to schemata once a critical mass of disconfirming evidence has accumulated such as covid lockdowns and teaching online

Subtyping (changing schemata)

Schema morphs in a subcategory to accommodate disconfirming evidence such as stereotypes

Dichotomy

A division or contrast between two things that are, or are represented as being opposed or entirely different

What is Heider’s naive psychology?

The idea that people act as “intuitive psychologists,” using common sense to explain others’ behaviour by making causal attributions either internally or externally, people try to understand why others behave the way they do

Internal attribution

Assigning the cause of our own or others behaviour to internal or dispositional factors

External attribution

Assigning the cause of our own or others behaviour to external or environmental factors

Heider’s belief about assigning internal vs external attributions

Attribution should only be internal if there are no other external inference possible

What is Correspondent Inference Theory?

A theory explaining how we infer internal traits from behaviour, that we assume behaviour reflects a persons true disposition

What is a correspondent inference?

The judgement that a person’s behaviour directly reflects their personality, attitude, or intention

Cues for correspondence inference theory that show the act reflects some true characteristics of the person

The act was freely chosen, it produced a non-common effect, it was not socially desirable

Other cues for correspondence theory

Act had a direct impact on us, seemed intended to affect us

What is Kelley’s Covariation model?

A theory stating that people explain behaviour using patterns of consensus, consistency and distinctiveness

What is consensus (covariation model)?

Whether other people behave the same way in the same situation

What is consistency (covariation model)?

Whether the person behaves the same way over time in that situation

What is distinctiveness?

Whether the person behaves this way across different situations

What pattern leads to external attribution to the stimulus (situation)?

High consistency, high distinctiveness, high consensus

What pattern leads to internal attribution to the person?

High consistency, low distinctiveness, low consensus

How is Kelley’s covariation model different from Correspondent Inference Theory?

Kelleys covariation model looks at multiple observations over time while the correspondent inference theory uses a single behaviour to infer traits

What are the two dimensions in Weiner's Attribution Theory?

Locus (internal vs external) and Stability (stable vs unstable).

What is a stable attribution?

A cause that is unlikely to change over time

What is an unstable attribution?

A cause that can change over time

Ability is classified as what type of attribution?

Internal and Stable

Effort/Motivation is classified as what type of attribution?

Internal and Unstable

Task Difficulty is classified as what type of attribution?

External and Stable

Luck is classified as what type of attribution?

External and Unstable

Weiner's Attribution Theory (Success and Failure)

Weiner proposed that when people experience success or failure, they try to explain the cause. These explanations affect their emotions, expectations, and future motivation.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or simple rules of thumb that people use to make judgments and decisions quickly, often with limited information

Attribution Bias

A systematic error in how we explain the causes of people's behaviour, often by incorrectly attributing causes to personal or situational factors

What is a cognitive miser?

A person who conserves cognitive effort by using mental shortcuts (heuristics) rather than carefully processing all available information which makes thinking efficient but can lead to biases and errors in judgment

What is a motivated tactician?

A person who flexibly chooses between heuristic thinking and careful, systematic thinking depending on their motivation, goals, and the situation

What is correspondence bias/fundamental attribution error?

The tendency to attribute a person's behaviour to their disposition or personality while underestimating situational influences

Actor/ Observer Difference

Focusing more on the role of the situational factors when explaining ones own behaviour

What are the 3 motives of self conception?

Self-assessment, self-verification, self-enhancement

Self schemata - multiple characteristics

Physical, personality traits, social identity and relations to others

How much do we think about other people compared to ourselves?

The same amount

Self-Complexity Theory (Linville, 1985)

Self-complexity refers to how many different aspects of the self a person has and how separate (independent) those aspects are from one another

What is the main benefit of high self-complexity?

Greater resilience because setbacks in one domain have less impact on overall self-esteem

What are the three selves in Self-Discrepancy Theory?

Actual self, Ideal self, and Ought self

What emotion is associated with an actual–ideal discrepancy?

Depressive emotions: sadness, depression, disappointment, dissatisfaction

What emotion is associated with an actual–ought discrepancy?

Agitation: fear, worry, tension, anxiety

What is Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory?

A theory proposing that another person's success can affect our self-esteem, especially when they are close to us and succeed in a domain relevant to our self-concept

What three factors determine whether another person's success threatens self-esteem?

Performance, closeness, and relevance

When is another person's success most threatening?

When they are close to us and outperform us in a domain important to our identity

Attitudes

Either positive of negative stable evaluations of people, objects and ideas

What is behaviour driven by?

Perceived reality, not necessarily by actual reality, to predict behaviour psychologists must understand how the individual interprets and experiences their environment

Cognitive based atittudes

The thought component, primarily based on peoples beliefs about the properties of an attitude object

Affective based attitudes

The feeling component, based on peoples feelings and values more than on their belief about the nature of an attitude object

Behaviourally based attitude

The action component, based on observations of how one behaves towards an attitude object (the odd one out)

Origin of cognitive attitudes

From evaluating the facts

Origin of affective attitudes

From emotions, values, sensory examples, classical and and instrumental conditioning (negative is a stronger driver than positive)

Attitude functions

Can save cognitive energy as we don’t have to figure out how we respond to a particular situation or object and has a utilitarian function as attitudes helps individuals maximise rewards and minimise costs by guiding behaviour toward desirable outcomes and away from undesirable ones

Are schema or attitudes more stable?

Schemas are more stable and rigid

Schemas vs attitudes

Schemas are the knowledge while attitudes are the evaluation and personal reflection

How do vape companies utilise affective-based attitudes?

By associating vaping with strong sensory experiences such as smell, taste and look and alignment with positive concepts like fresh fruits and through social interactions and influence and peer pressure

How does vaping relate to behavioural attitudes?

When people vape, they see it as positive

Cognitive dissonance

The feeling of discomfort that arises by holding two or more inconsistent cognitions so when people perform an action that it inconsistent with their normal beliefs and typically positive self-conception

How to change from high dissonance between actions and beliefs to low dissonance?

Change the action, change your belief or justify by adding new cognition

What is the function of cognitive dissonance?

Creates discomfort when their is an inconsistency between our beliefs and our actions which forces us to confront the gap between who we think we are and how we actually behave, this is the most intense when our self-esteem is at risk - this is when attitudes can change

Can attitudes predict behaviour?

Attitudes can predict behaviour, but not always directly. It depends on when, where, and how strongly the attitude is held and measured.

LaPierre hospitality observational example

Chinese couple travelling with a US researcher, served in almost all hotels even when they were later asked and said that they would not serve Chinese customers showing expressed attitudes don’t always equal actual behaviour

When do attitudes predict behaviour?

When they are strong, specific, clear and stable and match in specificity e.g. peoples attitudes toward using birth control pills in the next 2 years stronger than just their opinion towards birth control

The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen)

Says that behaviour is best predicted by attitudes towards behaviour, subjective norms of what others think and perceived behavioural control of how easy it is creating an intention and actual behavioural control

The Yale Attitude Change Approach

A persuasion model that explains attitude change using 3 factors - WHO, WHAT AND WHOM

What is important about the “WHO” (communicator) in persuasion?

Credibility and attractiveness of the source influence persuasion

What makes a communicator credible?

Their trustworthiness and expertise which increases peoples cognitive based trust and perceived competence

How does attractiveness/likeability affect persuasion

It increase peoples affective based trust and perceived emotional appeal and compatibility

What is the “WHAT” in persuasion?

The message content and the framing of it e.g. how the information is presented

What is important about message framing?

Messages are more persuasive when they don’t appear overly manipulative or designed to influence people

What are one-sided vs two-sided messages?

One-sided messages only presents arguments for one position while two-sided messages presents arguments and counterarguments

When is a two-sided message more effective?

When the audience is skeptical and still needs convincing