unit 11 social psychology

Social Loafing

A group process loss that occurs when people do not work as hard in a group as they do when they are alone

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• What you perceive someone’s personality to be is how you then choose to act toward them. If someone acts positively toward someone that someone will assume they are friendlier.

Intimate relationships

• Relationships based on caring, warmth, acceptance, and social support

Interdependent relationships

• Reliance on each other to meet important goals

Committed relationship

Couples who exhibit feelings and actions that keep them working together to maintain the relationship

Responsive relationship

When people trust their partner to understand, validate, and care for them

Fundamental attribution error

Common tendency to overestimate the role of personality factors and overlook the impact of social situations in judging others.

Self-serving attributions

Is judging our own behaviors in overly-positive ways

Self-monitoring

Tendency to regulate behavior to meet the demands of social situations

Mere exposure effect

Tendency to like others we have seen more often

Social cognition

Part of human thinking that helps us understand and predict the behavior of ourselves and others

Attitude

Our enduring evaluations of people or things

Social norm

Accepted belief about what we do or what we should do in particular social situations

Psychological reactance

A strong emotional reaction that leads people to resist pressures to conform

Conformity

A change in beliefs or behavior that occurs as the result of the presence of the other people around us

Minority influence

A smaller number of people influences the opinions or behavior of the larger group

Obedience

Complaciente with a request or a demand of a perceived authority

Social cognition

Part of human thinking that helps us understand and predict the behavior of others

Social identity

Positive emotions we experience as a result of our group membership

Attribution

Process of trying to determine causes of people’s behavior

Attitude

Our relatively enduring evaluations of people and things

Self monitoring

Tendency to regulate behavior to meet the demands of social situations

Paternalistic stereotype

Ex: older adults (low competency, high warmth)

Admiration stereotype

Our in group, high warmth and high competence

Contemptuous stereotype

Ex: homeless people, low competence and low warmth

Envious stereotype

Rich people, high competence low warmth

Self perception

Occurs when we use our own behavior as a guide to help us determine our own thoughts

Cognitive dissonance

Discomfort we experience when our behavior does not align with our thoughts or beliefs

Sunk cost fallacy

Our tendency to keep pursuing a particular endeavor after we have made an investment of time, effort, or money.

Three ways intimate partners are more likely to succeed

• interdependent

• Committed

• Mutually responsive

Prosocial behavior

Any behavior that we engage in that benefits others

Altruism

Exhibiting prosocial behavior for no personal gain

Reciprocal altruism/ “reciprocity norm”

A principle that, if we help other people now, those others will help us or our offspring in the future

Steps of the Latané & Darley Model

1. Emergency happens

2. Notice the event

3. Interpret the event as an emergency

4. Assume responsibility

5. Known the appropriate form of assistance

6. Provide help

Reactive vs proactive aggression

• Reactive is in response to a threat, goal to remove provoking stimulus

• Proactive is a purposeful planned attack with external of internal reward as a goal

Steps of self disclosure and definition for self disclosure

1. Self disclosure: opening up about sensitive information

2. Partner’s response to the self-disclosure

3. How does the partner response **IMPORTANT what the perception is. If I think my partner care I will trust them

Contempt

Lack of respect, eye rolls, mocking, communicating superiority

Commitment

Cycle of feeling and motivation to invest and maintain motivation

Catharsis

Mistaken belief that observing or engaging in less harmful aggressive action decreases the tendency to aggress later in a more harmful way

Culture of honor

Social norm that condones/encourages responding to insults with aggression

Informational vs normative conformity

Informational: We believe others have accurate information and conform to their behavior

Normative: We want to be liked by others and conform to their behavior

Minority influence

A smaller # of people are able to influence opinions of a larger group → confidence can be persuasive

Unanimity effect on conformity

Conformity reduces sharply when any one person deviates from the norm

Psychological reactance

Strong emotional rxn leads ppl to resist pressure to conform

Stanley Milgram’s study did what

Taught people about obedience and how people will listen to an authority figure and hurt/kill another person if told

Ingroup vs outgroup

Ingroup: Your own group “us”

Outgroup: not your group “them”

Social facilitation

Tendency to perform cognitively easy or well-practiced tasks better or faster in front of others

Social inhibition

On more difficult tasks the presence of others tends to hamper our performance

Illusion of group productivity

Tendency for group members to overvalue the productivity of the groups they work in

Drive arousal model steps

1. Presence of others

2. Arousal

3. Dominant response

4. If response is correct → social facilitation

5. If response is incorrect → social inhibition

Groupthink

When group members prioritize group harmony and no not voice concerns about a decision being made → end result is a poor group decision.