Psychology Final Exam (Social Psych) Review

Social Psychology

branch of psychology that studies how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the presence of other people and by the social and physical environment.

Sense of self

Who you are in relation to others, which is influenced by social, cultural, and psychological experiences.

Person Perception

refers to the mental processes we used to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics of other people

Four Key components that influence decisions

1. Your reactions to others are determined by your perceptions of them, not by who they really are.

2. Your self-perception also influences who you perceive others and how you act on your perceptions

3. Your goals in a particular situation determine the amount and kinds of information you collect about others

4. In every situation, you evaluate people partly in terms of how you expect them to act. This comes from Social Norms.

Social Norms

the “rules” or expectations for appropriate behavior in a particular situation

Social categorization

the mental process of categorizing people into groups based on their shared characteristics

Explicit cognition

deliberate, conscious mental processes involved in perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning

implicit cognition

automatic, unconscious mental processes that influence perceptions, judgments, decisions, and reasoning.

Implicit Personality Theory

a network of assumptions or beliefs about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors

Attribution

the mental process of inferring the causes of people’s behavior, including one’s own

Fritz Heider proposed the Attribution Theory

suggests how we explain someone’s behavior is the result of either the situation or the person’s disposition/internal characteristics.

Situational Attribution

focus blame on the situation (environment, economy, traffic)

Internal attribution (Dispositional attribution)

focus blame on the person or the person’s characteristics or personality

Fundamental attribution error

we overestimate the impact of the personal disposition and underestimate the impact of the situation

Attitudes

feelings, based on our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events

Attitudes consist of three components

1. Emotions

2. Behaviors

3. Cognitions

Cognitive Dissonance

unpleasant state of psychological tension (dissonance) resulting from two inconsistent thoughts or perceptions (cognitions)

Cognitive Dissonance is the main reason…

why we rationalize things because we want to reduce the discomfort we feel when our thoughts are inconsistent with out actions.

Social Influence can be seen…

in our conformity, our compliance, and our group behavior

Conformity

adjusting opinions, judgments, and behaviors so that they match those of others or the norms of a social group or situation.

Reasons why we conform

1. You are strongly attracted to a group and want to be a member of it

2. Your opinion is not the majority. (Involves at least 4 or 5 who are in agreement)

3. It is difficult to speak out in front of a group

Normative Social Influence

influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain social acceptance and approval or avoid disapproval

Informational Social Influence

influence resulting from a person’s willingness to accept other’s opinions about reality because we want to be correct but are uncertain or doubt our own judgment

Solomon Asch

famous research on conformity

His research was designed to answer a straightforward question

Would people still conform to the group if the group opinion was clearly wrong?

Objective task

are simple lines the same size

Results

participants will conform even when the group judgment was clearly incorrect

Milgram’s famous shock experiments

1. Most complied to the very last shock

2. People seemed to comply because orders were given by a legitimate authority figure

3. Some did stop but not only when teachers observed others refusal

4. More likely to give shocks when teachers and learner were in separate rooms

In Milgram’s obedience experiments, all of the following had a strong influence on the participants willingness to obey the experimenter:

1. A previously well-established framework to obey

2. Gradual, repetitive escalation of the task

3. Experimenter’s behavior and/or reassurance

4. Physical and psychological separation

A great deal of conformity and obedience begins with the foot-in-the-door phenomenon:

if you first agreed to a small request, you would later comply with a larger request

Door-in-the-face technique

first persuader makes a large request that you’re certain to refuse. Later makes a much smaller request and you feel obliged or more likely to comply

That’s not all technique

make a request and before they can refuse, lower the request or add an incentive

Low-ball technique

the persuader gets a person to commit to a low-ball offer they have no intention of keeping, then the price is suddenly increased.

Social facilitation

stronger performance on easy or well learned tasks in the presence of others ( as well as poorer performance on difficult tasks.)

Social Loafing

Phenomenon when people in a group exert less effort than they would if working independently

Social Striving

Phenomenon when people tend to work harder when they are in groups than when they are alone

Deindividuation

abandon self-awareness and self-restraint in anonymous groups situations. Key is feeling both aroused and anonymous

Group polarization

groups that share opinions, ideas and attitudes become more extreme over time.

Group think

when desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic discussion of alternatives

Prejudice

means “prejudgment” a negative attitude toward a specific social group

Stereotypes

a generalized belief about a group of people. Often underlie prejudicial emotions. Once formed, stereotypes are very hard to change. They result in stereotyped thinking

Discrimination

unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group or its members. Ultimately, when prejudice is displayed behaviorally.

Ethnocentrism

the belief that one’s culture or ethnic group is superior to others

The cross-race effect (other-race effect, cross-race bias; own-race bias)

the tendency to recall faces of one’s own race more accurately than faces of other races

Scape goat theory

a theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

Blaming the Victim (Victim blaming)

tendency to blame an innocent victim of misfortune for having caused the problem or not avoiding it.

Just-world hypothesis

belief that the world is just, that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get, and the world needs to be “fair”. “Victims of the world deserve to suffer.”

Hindsight bias

the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen or predicted the outcome of an event was obviously going to happen. Ex. telling someone else a bad event was obviously going to happen.

Self-serving bias

the tendency to attribute successful outcomes of one’s own behavior to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external/situational causes

Psychologists refer to the tendency to perceive others in terms of two basic social categories

the in-group and the out-group

In-group bias

the tendency to judge the behavior of the in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably

In-group bias may cause one to believe their in-group is Heterogenous

dissimilar or diverse, diverse in character or content

The Psychology of Attraction and Liking (in Western cultures)

1. proximity: geographic nearness/familiarity.

Mere exposure effect: when we are repeatedly exposed to something or someone (novel stimuli) our liking to them/ it increases

2. Physical Attractiveness

3. Similarity (Less important in some Eastern cultures.)

4. The situations in which we interaction: happy, intoxicated, physically aroused by exercise, more likely to rate others as attractive. ( if we anticipate that they like us, we are more likely attracted to them)

5. Socio-economic and cultural environment: food in short supply, prefer heavier women, opposite where resources are abundant

Feel good, do good effect

people who feel good, (happy, successful, fortunate, etc.) are more likely to help others.

The following increase the likelihood of bystanders to help:

• feeling guilty

• seeing others who are willing to help

• perceiving the person as deserving help

• knowing how to help

• a personalized relationship

Reciprocity norm

expectation that we should return help to those who help us. The rule of reciprocity is simply if someone gives you something or does you a favor, you feel obligated to return the favor

Social-responsibility norm

that we should help those who need out help

Altruism

the unselfish regard for the welfare of others

The rule of commitment norm

once you make a public commitment, there is psychological and interpersonal pressure on you to behave consistently with your earlier commitment. Ex: foot-in-the-door.

Bystander effect

when someone is less likely to give aid because others are present. Assume someone else will do it or if no one does anything, you don’t as well.

Diffusion of responsibility

phenomenon in which the presence of other people makes it less likely that any individual will help someone in distress because the obligation to intervene is shared among all the onlookers.

Reasons for the diffusion of responsibility

• being in a big city or a very small town

• vague or ambiguous situations

• when personal costs outweigh the benefits

• embarrassed to step up in front of others

• afraid to do the wrong things