Social Psychology exam 1

social psychology

Scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts (cognitive processing), feelings (affect = emotion), and actions (behavior or speech) are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (what we believe to be true that affects us, not what actually is true)

power of the situation

the concept that an individual's behavior is significantly influenced by the context and social environment they are in, often overriding personal traits

people tend to focus more on traits than social contexts

why is social reality subject to bias and error

it is subjective and constructive and can be influenced by personal experiences, emotions, and social contexts.

social behavior is largely automatic, what does this mean

lots of behavior happens outside our conscious control, we have to respond quickly (we can’t sit and think how to respond), we do it automatically

why can’t we rely on personal experience and common sense?

gives conflicting predictions

“dueling proverbs”, saying opposite things but can’t use common sense to answer, can’t both be true

hindsight bias

“I knew it all along” phenomenon

outcomes seems obvious and easy to predict

makes findings of social psych seem trite

when judging others decisions, this effects our evaluations of them

Ex: invasion if iraq: allowed it to happen and only said it was a bad idea after all the fatalities and soldiers with ptsd

personality effect on behavior (common sense)

it is stable across situation in terms of affect behavior and cognition

does predict behavior but can be affected by social context

social psychologists study power of the situation to influence behavior

Participants were asked to play game labeled “wall street” or “community”

Dependent variable: how people choose to play, either based on their personality or the games name

When game is called community game, most participants choose to play cooperatively, vs when its called wall street game, participants both played competitively

what concept does this demonstrate

power of the situation → the social context—the simple name of the game—determined how they acted.

correspondance bias

we tend to overestimate the power of personality (internal) and underestimate the power of the situation (external) in determining behavior of others, resulting in erroneous internal attributions

construals

how people interpret, understand, and represent social situations often determines their affect, cognition, and behavior

subjective and vary among individuals → social perception is a constructive process, building in our minds a reality

influenced by 4 primary motives

lead to expectations regarding others behavior

4 primary motives that influence construals

to be accurate

to feel good about ourselves

to achieve acceptance and approval of others

to reduce uncertainty and enhance perceptions of control

to be accurate 

 accuracy is adaptive, then can make choices that make sense and can act in ways that align with construal reality

to feel good about ourselves

to protect and defend our self worth

To achieve acceptance and approval of others

bc throughout history, we had to be part of a group

To reduce uncertainty and enhance perceptions of control

people hate uncertainty - when we are certain we act, ; when not, we don't act; avoid uncertainty by becoming sure of something; people dont like feeling helpless and feeling that the world controls them, and want to be in control of their future and outcomes

self fulfilling prophecy

construals > expectations > confirmation

powerful → found in varieties of contexts (military, business, classroom); most effects are small

resonthal and jacobsen study “bloomers vs non bloomers”

• Believed certain students in class were going to have a dramatic increase in IQ based on one test (bloomers)

• “Bloomers” were picked out at random -> no different than rest of class

• Bloomers showed 4 point higher increase than non-bloomers

• Students not identified as bloomers but who showed IQ gains were less liked by teachers

What concept does this show?

self fulfilling prophecy

snyder, tanke, and berscheid “what you see is what you get”

• Men were given pics of attractive or unattractive women and telephoned them

• Photos they are given are not pics of who they are calling 

• Men given attractive pic found partners more warm, likable, interesting, and confident

• When others listened to recording of only women's portion of convos, they rated them the same 

• Men's expectations changed women's behavior

What social psych concept is this

self Fulfilling prophecy

thye had an expectation → altered behavior (construal)→ and confirmed their expectations altered reality

science

rules and standard for collecting data, conclusions based on analysis of data, error can be detected and corrected

common sense

subjective, biased data collection; impressionistic conclusions, no corrective features -> error persists

Decide something and then find evidence that proves something

theory

cohort set of related principles that explains observed phenomena

Hypothesis

a specific, falsifiable (can be demonstrated to be false) prediction derived from a theory 

Measurement

have to be able to  measure and quantify all areas of interest

operational definition of variable

what are you going to asses, what you measure/look for

reliability

repeatability in measurement, should be stable

necessary but not sufficient for validity

validity

accurate assessment of what you’re trying to measure

the experimental approach

• Allows you to test causal hypotheses

• If you want to change this, you have to be able to identify cause and address cause in order to resolve problem 

  • Ex: only treating symptoms and not cause of symptoms (the illness)

• Independent variable : hypothetical cause -> researcher can randomly assign people to different levels

• Dependent variable : hypothetical effect 

internal validity = ?

Random assignment + control of extraneous variables (other variables that can influence dependent variable)

ex: “Bloomer” label assigned randomly + students/parents unaware of label = high ___ ____

external validity = ?

Representative sample (subjects who match population of interest) + psychological realism (convince people that this is real/accurate)

ex: Sample of varied ethnicity, ability, etc + real classroom, real IQ tests = high ______ _____

does experimental approach prove self fulfilling prophecy to be true?

No, The outcome could be due to change variation and not the effect from the IV

• ANY RESULT CAN COME ABOUT BY CHANCE!!!!!!!!

If it is < 5%, we decide result is statistically significant - probability of getting that result is less than 5%, probably real with 95% assurance

what factors affect results?

magnitude of effect

variability in data → More variability, less likely you will find an effect, more likely effect to come about by chance

sample size → bigger sample, less likely get and effect by chance alone

why do we never prove anything in psych research

• We study samples not populations

• We draw inferences about populations using data obtained from samples

• Therefore, any result can be due to chance alone

• Always question of probability, never of certainty

statistical significance

when outcome is probably not due to chance

practical significance

when outcome is large enough to make some meaningful difference in real life

non experimental research (correlational variables)

Seeing if there is a relationship between 2 variables 

Majority of research done is social science

what does correlation coefficient tell us?

whether or not there's a relationship between two variables, how accurate we can be at predicting y from x

Non experimental (correlational) research: Advantages

• No manipulation or control of variables required 

• Can use “in vivo” data

• Avoid many ethical and practical limitations

Non experimental (correlational) research: limitations

• Can’t control/manipulate variables

• No causal conclusions can be drawn/ no causal hypothesis can be tested

  • Directionality problem (which variable is cause which is effect → chicken or egg problem)

  • Third variable problem

  • The directionality problem

    • If self esteem and academic achievement are related then: 

      • Possibility 1: high achievement might cause increased SE

      • Possibility 2: high SE might cause better grades

      • Possibility 3: a reciprocal relationship may exist between both variables

  • Third variable problem

    • Rather than higher SE causing better grades or vise versa, a third variable (warm stable parenting, or high socioeconomic status) may cause both

ethical issues in research

• Welfare and rights of subjects must be primary concern

• Informed consent it required 

• Deception and concealment must be justified and debriefing (explaining to participants how study was done) is necessary  

• Institutional review boards (neutral people who evaluate study and ethical) must approve design and methods

• How will our findings be used and reported by others

cognitive miser

our cognitive resources (working memory and attention) are very limited in capacity - only use if absolutely needed

satisficers

 one who expends only the amount of resources necessary to achieve one's goal and no more than that - if we don't need to be accurate, only use a little

meaning makers

seeks order and meaning in things, even if there isn't any

automatic social cognition

• Automatic: non-conscious, unintentional, involuntary, effortless, fast 

  • Default pathway, bc its cheap and fast

• Controlled: conscious, intentional, voluntary, effortful, slow

schema

• Mental structure used to organize/process information and experience

• Lenses thru which we view and interpret social reality

• How?

  • Regulate attention

  • Influence construals

  • Guide memory reconstruction

• Ex: scripts (what do you do/don't do on a first date? Job interview?), categories (organize things, we make sense of the world, like gender, race), associations (stereotypes)

schemas direct attention

• Attention is a highly selective process 

• Ex: how many times did people in white pass ball video, we don't pay attention to the players in black so you don't notice gorilla

Inattentional blindness

when focused on one stimuli, you don't see other stimuli you are not looking for

chromic schema accessibility

schemas are so often activated that they are “always available” 

priming

an unconscious process where exposure to a specific cue or stimulus influences a person's subsequent thoughts, judgments, or behaviors

SUPRAliminal priming

• existing/operating above threshold of conscious awareness

  • Presented at level people knew they were seeing

consciously see or hear a cue, but you do not realize that it is quietly shaping your thoughts, feelings, or behavior

SUBliminal priming

• stimulus presented below level of conscious awareness

a hidden, fast flash of information bypasses your conscious awareness, but still registers in your brain to quietly steer your choices or actions.

illusory correlation in schemas

may cause schemas to be erroneous

people seeing relationship between 2 things when there isn't any

Ex: “it always rains when I wash my car”, “crazy things are more likely to happen when it's a full moon”, tversky’s “myth of the hot hand” (players go thru streaks, hot and cold, more likely to make a shot if you made one before)

perseverance effect in schemas

Relatively resistance to disconfirmatory evidence

• Ex: subjects given suicide notes and were asked to pick which were real/fake

• Half subjects were told they got almost all right, other half told they got a lot wrong

• Subjects were told research assistant made mistake, that wasn't your actual count -> tell us how many you think you got right and if you did it again 

• Results showed that they stayed around the same

confirmation bias in schemas

 trying to find evidence that supports your hypothesis, and avoid finding any that contradicts it

sampling bias effect on schemas

samples that are not representative of population

contributing factors of schemas

confirmation bias

sampling bias

self fulfilling prophecy

culture and system on shared beliefs

“The unbearable automaticity of being” (Bargh and Chartrand, 1999)

• How prevalent and dominant automatic processing is in our social lives

• Main idea: perception -> thought -> behavior 

  • Their evidence : perception -> behavior (didn't claim thought never occurred, but that usually it is skipped)

• Perception behavior link

  • Study 1: primming subjects with construct "politeness" or “rudeness” -> can u change personality based on words theyre exposed to -> yes

    • Given list of words, memory test

    • Group 1: primed on words with rudeness -> 70% interrupted

    • Group 2: primed with politeness -> 10% interrupted

    • Group 3: control -> 35/40% interrupted

    • Hypo: people will interrupt experiment more if primed with rudeness more than primed with politeness 

    • People’s behavior was altered

    • Supraliminal priming!

The “chameleon effect” - inducing behavioral mimicry

• One group faced with face rubbing confederate, other group with foot tapping confederate

• amount of face rubbing done by subject - do more face rubbing, very little foot tapping

• amount of foot tapping done by subject - do more foot tapping, very little face rubbing

• DId you notice ur interaction partner doing anything frequently: no one ever said foot tapping or face rubbing

• Did you engage in anything? - no one mentioned face rubbing or foot tapping

how can a study be intensified

• he subject has a goal of affiliation -> more behav. Mimicry

  • Subject primed to affiliate supraliminally or subliminally exhibited greater behavioral mimicry than controls

  • Ostracized subjects engaged in more mimicry than controls who were not 

heuristics

quick rule of thumb we follow to judge the likelihood of something; shortcut that allows us to come up with a reasonable answer

availability

• judgement about probability based on how easily examples are called to mind

• Readily available = more often, not readily available = less often

representativeness

judgement of likelihood based on how closely a particular instance matches a “typical” case

Anchoring and adjustment

judgment influenced by an arbitrary, unrelated value used and an “anchor” from which insufficient adjustments is made

outcome dependecny

they get a reward for being accurate, penalty for being inaccurate

Thought suppression

Getting rid of an unpleasant thought, or a distracting thought

ironic rebound effect

Paradoxically, the thought becomes more available

monitoring process in though suppression

thought that it continues operating once in motion -> automatic

operating process in thought suppression

controlled process -> when u focus mind elsewhere/fatigued, operating process cant do job -> makes though more available 

counterfactual thinking

• conscious/controlled process

• Mentally undo the past/ change what we did or didn’t do so we get wanted outcome

• Going against the facts

Upward counterfactual

negative effect, but increased emotion

a way of thinking where you imagine how a past event could have turned out better than it actually did

if only I had studied for two more hours, I would have gotten an A."

show more unhappiness

downward counterfactual

positive affect, but no motivational enhancement

a mental simulation of how a past event could have turned out worse than it actually did

At least I made the podium; I could have easily finished in fourth place and missed out on a medal entirely.

social perception

how we come to understand other people

Defined as the process by which we from impressions of and make inferences (guesses) about other people

Constructive process (making model of objective reality) influenced by schemas

non verbal behavior

mostly automatic

includes: facial expressions, eye contact / gaze (primary indicators of comfort with others), extra-vocal cues (volume, pitch, speed, inflection), intentional gestures, body language (posture, orientation, distance)

AUTOMATIC, not very aware of doing these things 

6 basic emotions

fear, anger, surprise, happiness, disgust, sadness

Culturally universal

Appear early in life

Evolution from natural selection has wired us to be good communicators from expressions (anything that appears early in life considered advantageous to the species)

decoding accuracy

Decoding less than 100 % accurate bc people may display blends of multiple affects (emotions) at the same time

Culture also influences emotional expression

display rules that are unique to each culture dictate when diff nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display

deception in emotions

people can mask or show emotions contrary to their actual emotion

Gender differences in nonverbal communication

Women are better than men at decoding (understanding others emotions) and encoding (communicating emotions with others) nonverbal behavior ->besides anger!

decoding

understanding others emotions

encoding

communicating emotions with others

causal attribution

Inferring causes of outcomes (performance, behavior)

Heider’s dichotomy for people's explanations

internal (dispositional) attributions (they failed the test because they're lazy and didn't study), or external (situational) attributions (failed test because the professor is bad, and the test was impossible)

Kelley’s covariation model

how people make internal vs external attributions

3 dimensions: consistency, distinctiveness, consensus

consistency in Kelley's covariation model

• do they do it all the time?

  • Low consistency: external attribution/ consistency high: next step, cant make attribution yet

consensus in Kelly’s conversation model

what do other people do?

Do most other people do it? yes-> consensus low; no -> consensus high, tend toward external attributions

distinctiveness in Kelly’s covariation model

•  do they do it in other contexts? (distinctive to one situation or occurs in variety of contexts)

  • Do they do it in many other contexts? no-> high distinctiveness (only one context), tend toward external attribution; yes-> low distinctiveness

external attribution in Kellys covariation model =

consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus are all HIGH

internal attribution in Kellys covariation model =

Consistency high, distinctiveness low, consensus low, internal attribution 

fundamental attribution errer

• mistaken inference that behavior (or outcome) is caused by a person's disposition (internal attribution), when the cause was situational/external

• Can't tell anything about a person's attitude if they are assigned 

• Ross, amabile, and steinmetz, 1977 -> 

  • People assigned as questioners got to come up with their own questions 

  • After show is over, contestant and observers were asked how smart they think questioners and contestants are

  • Questioners perceived as more knowledgeable than the contestants

  • Reason they appeared smarter was bc of role they were assigned to

  • Actually werent bc they were randomly assigned role of questioners

  • People are attributing apparent knowledgeability to people and not role assigned -> fundamental attribution error

Fundamental attribution error Possible causes

• correspondence bias

• actor/observer diff due to perceptual salience

• Bias sampling (seeing others in one or very few situations)

• 2 step process

• Cultural values/beliefs ->emphasize diff things/make diff assumptions

actor/observer diff due to perceptual salience

• Attribute more conversational direction/influence to actor they were looking at 

• When we are making attributions on people behavior, we focus on that person

Attributional processes and biases

• Self serving attributions

• Positive outcomes and favorable behaviors are attributed internally - i got an A on the test because i studied 

• Negative outcomes attributed externally : i failed the test because it was so hard

illusion of control

belief we can have affects on things we actually have no effect on

unrealistic optimism

believing bad things are less likely to happen and good things are more likely to

individualist culture

• Individual self is more important 

• More prone to fundamental attribution error

• Subject to actor-observer differences and correspondence bias

• More prone to make self-serving attributions

collectivist culture

• group/community/society is more important 

• Less prone to fundamental attribution error

• Subject to actor observer and correspondence biases (when situational info is missing)

• Less prone to make self - serving attributions

judgemental overconfidence

• Overestimating accuracy of beliefs about ourselves and others

• We think our perceptions of others are more accurate than they really are

• Study:

  • Participants asked either/or questions about a stranger or their roommate

  • Talked to stranger first

  • Measured perceived certainty and actual accuracy 

  • If guessing, should get 50% accuracy

  • Strangers: people thought they would be correct 75% of the time, but were only a little over 60% accurate ->__________ _________

  • Roommates: people thought they were right 77% of the time, only 68% accurate

belief in a just world

i feel that people generally earn the rewards and punishments they get in this world, people generally receive the outcomes they deserve 

• why do people believe in this

  • Maintain self esteem

  • Reduces threat/uncertainty

  • Self efficacy, illusion of control, unrealistic optimism

“Defensive” attributions

• conclusion that things that happen because people bring it on themselves

bias blind spot

another set of self serving biases

• People believe they are less subject to social cognitive biases than other people in general

• Study:

  • Looked at self serving bias and blaming the victim (belief in a just world)

  • Participants were asked to rate how likely they were (self) and other people(average indiv) were to be afflicted by these biases

  • Showed they though avg indiv were more likely to do self serving and blaming the victim more than self