PSYCH Chapter 1

what type of basis to sp use for understanding human behavior

scientific

social psychology

the study of people’s thoughts feelings and behaviors in social situations

what type of people do we tend to like

people who like us

what do people who like us usually have in common with us

attitudes and interests

what do many of our most strongly held folk theories or intuitions fail to give us? what about others?

complete answers to important questions; others are just plain wrong

how do social psychologists test these intuitions? what do they reveal?

experiments and studies; they reveal causes of behavior in social situations

who was in charge of the Stanford prison experiment

Philip zimbardo

what does zimbardo maintain today

balance of power in prisons is very unequal

what type of situations do social psychologists study? what is another thing they study in relation to this?

situations where people exert influence over one another; how people react to this various attempts made to influence them

social psychologists are interested in how people make sense of what? how they decide _ and _ to believe

the world; whom and what

social psychologists are interested in how people make inferences about what> and how they reach conclusions about the causes of ___

motives, personalities, abilities of other people; events

sp apply their knowledge to important questions about and at large

individuals and society

in the case of people, forces are what

psychological and physical

what is the field of forces in the case of human behavior. what is another important determinant of behavior?

social situation; attributes

what do attributes always interact with to produce the resulting behavior

the situation

what are the main situational influences on our behavior

actions and presence of other people

what can friends, romantic partners, even total strangers cause us to be with regard to our behaviors? how? what do they try to imply with regard to our acceptability as a friend or group member?

meaner or kinder; their words actions; adapting views or behaving as they do

how many participants went past the 150 volt level in the milgram experiment

80

how many participants went past the 450 volt level in the milgram experiment

62.5

what was the average amount of shock given after the learner let out an agonized scream and became hysterical

360 volts

a panel of 39 psychiatrists predicted that only __ percent of the participants would continue past the __ level and that only __ percent would minute past the 330 volt level

20;150;1

how was the milgram experiment presented that propelled volunteers to follow through with the shocks; who took responsibility for what happened

a scientific investigation; experimenter

why were participants not prepared to resist anyones demands in the milgram experiment

they could not have guessed what the outset of the experiment involved

what did milgram stress was undoubtedly crucial for this experiment

step by step nature of the procedure (if you’re going to go to 420 volts then why not 435 volts?)

what the nature of religious orientation of use in predicting whether the seminarians would offer assistance? what would be a powerful predictor

no; if the semaritians were in a rush

what are people governed by; do they assume they are governed by this

situational factors; no

do internal factors like the kind of person someone is have great influence as people assume they do

no

what type of factors do people underestimate the power of that operate on an individual? what do they tend to assume instead?

external; the cause of behavior can be found mostly within the person

what do psychologists call internal factors

dispositions

what are dispositions

beliefs, values, and personality traits and abilities that guide behavior

what is the fundamental attribution error

failure to recognize the important of situational influences on behavior and the tendency to overemphasize the important of dispositions on behavior

what do social psychologists recommend people look into before jumping to the fact that people’s dispositions are influencing their behavior

situational factors

what does social psychology encourage us to do? in order to what?

try to look at what situational factors or internal factors are causing someone to act the way they do; to fully understand their behavior

what does the term “channel factors” mean

certain circumstances that appear unimportant on the surface can have great consequences for behavior; they can facilitate or block it

the term channel factors also indicates that these circumstances can __ behavior in a particular direction by making it easier to follow one path over the other

guide

how to behavioral economists refer to the concept of channel factors? what does this mean?

nudges; small prompts that can have big affects on behavior later on

we construct a triangle in our mind out of the ___ in the picture? its entirely a creation of our __ __ and our __ __ about the visual world

gaps; perception apparatus; background assumptions

what do both the perceptual process and the background assumptions have in common

automatic and nonconcious

while our perceptions normally bear a resemblance to what the world is really like, what is required from our perception? what is it subject to?

substantial interpretation; significant bias under certain conditions

what does basalt stand for in German

form or figure

what is the basic idea of gestalt psychology

people perceive objects not by the means of some automatic registering device but by an active nonconcious interpretation of what the object represents as a whole

social psychologists coined the term “naive realism” what does this mean?

belief that we see the world without any complicated perceptual or cognitive machinery “doctoring” the data

what’s true for visual perceptions is even truer for judgments about what

social world

what are our judgements and beliefs actively constructed from

perceptions and thoughts

in the milgram study, participants were not simply registering what the situation was but were interpreting it in ways that the experimenter was__

encouraging

our construal of situations and behaviors refers to our __ of them and to the __ often __ that we are about them

interpretation; inferences; nonconcious

if we regard people as migrant workers or illegal aliens what will this affect? what do our perceptions drive toward them

our perceptions of their actions; our behavior

although it usually seems as though we understand social situations immediately and directly, what do we actually depend on to understand even the simplest most obvious situation

elaborate stores of systematized knowledge

what does schema mean

generalized knowledge about the physical and social world

what do schemas capture

regularities of life

why do schemas lead us to have certain expectations we can rely on

so we don’t have to invent the world anew all the time

much of the work in social psychology has been dedicated to the study of what

stereotypes

what are stereotypes

schemas that we have of people of various kinds

what does research on stereotyping examine

the content of these person schemas and how they are applied or misapplied ignorer to facilitate or derail the course of interaction

what do we tend to judge individuals based on? what are examples of these types of stereotypes

particular person schemas we have; persons nationality, gender, religion, occupation

are summaries about peoples stereotypes necessary? why would they be? how are they often?

sometimes; to function efficiently and effectively; unfounded

why can stereotypes sometimes be unfounded

they can be applied in the wrong way and to the wrong people, they can be given too much weight in relation to more specific information we have about a particular person

how many ways does the mind process information when you encounter a social situation? what are they

two ways; 1=automatic and nonconcious 2=concious and systematic and are more likely to be controlled by deliberate thoughts

what types of reactions take over before conscious thoughts

emotional

automatic and controlled processing can result in __ attitudes in the same personal toward members of outgrips

different

what is true about the judgments of unprejudiced people

they were found to be just a prejudice as their explicitly prejudiced counterparts when it came to nonconcious processing of information (look at example on page 15)

what do automatic processes give rise to

implicit attitudes and beliefs

what is true about implicit attitudes and beliefs

they can’t be readily controlled by the conscious mind

what do controlled and conscious processing result in? what happens to them over time?

explicit attitudes and beliefs that we are aware of; they may become implicit or nonconcious

what other social categories have considerable impact on judgements and behavior

gender and age

sp have shown the most of our ___ ___ is hidden from us

cognitive activity

what is true about when we are solving problems

sometimes were are well aware of the relevant factors were dealing with and the procedures were using to work with them (example page 16)

are cognitive processes where we are conscious of most of what us going on in our head rare? if so why

yes. we can’t often explain the reason for our judgements of other people nor our understanding of the causes of physical and social events or what led us to choose one job applicant over another

ideomotor mimicry

we subconsciously imitate people’s body language

why does so much mental processing take place outside of our awareness

partly a matter of efficiency

how fast are conscious processes? do they operate in parallel or serially? are automatic processes faster or slower? do they operate in parallel or serially?

slow and operate serially; automatic processes are faster and operate parallely

are we conscious of many of the stimuli that influence us or the cognitive processes that underlie our judgements and behaviors

no

a very important implication of nonconcious processing is that research on human behavior should not normally depend on what

peoples verbal reports on why they believe something or why they engaged in a particular behavior

what do sp have to craft to isolate the true causes of peoples behavior

experiments

why do humans typically live in family groups assign roles to people on the basis of age and gender enjoy sharing food what can explain this

evolution

how long has the evolutionary theory been around and because of what author published what book

150 years; Charles Darwin on the origin of species

what did Charles Darwin discover in the Galapagos islands

many modifications in animal and plant characteristics that occurred over time

evolutionary theory has proved invaluable in understanding why organisms

have the properties they do and how they come to have them

what process operates in animals and plants

natural selection

natural selection ensures __ traits are passed on to subsequent generations

adaptive

what are adaptive traits

those that chance the probability of survival and reproduction

what is true about organisms that die before they reproduce

may be unlucky or possess characteristics that are less than optimal in their particular environment

when organisms don’t reproduce they don’t pass on

nonadaptive characteristics (through their genes) to a new generation

organisms that do survive and reproduce give their genes a chance to live on their offspring in addition with the possibility that

their characteristics will be represented in at least one more generation

disadvtanged characteristics are selected ____.characteristics better adapted to the invironemt are __ __

against; selected for

t/f-Darwin assumed natural selection operates for behavioral inclination just as it does for physical characteristics

true

the theory of evolution is helpful in explaining

why people behave as they do

what is one fact that is consistent with evolutionalry theory

many human behaviors and institutions are universal or very nearly so

in the process of human evolution what types of basic behavioral tendencies much as we’ve acquired ___ like bipedalism

physical features

Darwin also thought that many of our traits and behaviors are found in all human groups is consist with what idea

much of what we share is at least partly the result of natural selection and is encoded in our genes

what characteristics do humans share with other animals especially the higher primates

facial expressions, dominance and submission, food sharing, group living, greater aggressiveness on the parts of males, preference of our own kin, wariness around snakes

in ages past group living contributed to

survival

groups provided protection from _ and greater _ in hunting games and finding foraging areas

predators success

the ability to produce and understand language has enabled people to live in groups and convey what

emotions intentions beliefs attitudes and complex thoughts

there is strong evidence that infants are born with their brain _ to _ _. why?

prewired; acquire language; the importance of humans living together in groups

when do normal children learn language that are almost identical from one culture to another

developmental stages

what are phonemes

full range of possible sounds

when can all infants produce a full range of possible sounds that exist in the totality of languages spoken anywhere on earth and they babble all these sounds in the crib

at birth

language acquisition consists of dropping all the wrong _ . what are these?

phonemes, the ones that are not used in the Childs language

children can learn to speak any language depending on _

where they grow up