PY382: Social Psychology Exam 1

What are the ABCs of social psychology, and how do they help us?

Affect, behavior, and cognition; effectively maintain and enhance our lives through successful interaction with others.

Social affect

The feelings we experience as part of our everyday lives.

What is the difference between mood and emotion?

Mood consists of feelings in the background of our experiences, while emotions are brief but intense mental and physiological feeling states.

How does social affect influence us?

Lets us know how events are going and leads us to engage in behaviors appropriate to our perceptions of a situation.

Social behavior

How we interact with one another.

Social exchange

The sharing of goods, services, emotions, and other social outcomes.

In social interactions, people generally prefer to maximize _____ _____ and attempt to minimize _____ _____.

Social rewards; social costs

Humans’ goal to protecting and enhancing the self in social interactions if tempered by what?

Other-concern, or the desire to associate with others.

Reciprocal altruism

Giving benefits to those in need with an expectation of receiving benefits in the future.

How does reciprocal altruism function?

Through keeping track of how benefits are exchanged and catching cheaters.

Social cognition

Cognition relating to social activities that helps us understand and predict behavior of ourselves and others.

Why do interpretation of events differ between individuals, based on social cognition?

Differences in schemas and attitudes.

Schema

Knowledge representation including information about a person or group.

Attitude

Knowledge representation primarily including our liking or disliking of something.

What is social psychology?

The scientific study of how we feel about, think about, and behave toward the people around us and how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are influenced by those people.

Although we learn about people by observing others, social psychology is NOT just…

Common sense

Hindsight bias

The tendency to think we could have predicted something we probably would not have been able to.

Do our beliefs about the causes of events and our own actions align with the true causes?

No; they do not always match.

Self-report measure

A measure in which individuals are asked to respond to questions about their perceptions.

What are two disadvantages to self-report measures?

People’s insights into their own opinions and behaviors are not perfect; people may not want to tell the truth about certain opinions or behaviors.

Behavioral measures

Measures designed to directly assess what people do.

Electroencephalography (EEG)

Records the brain’s electrical activity through electrodes on one’s head.

What is one advantage and one disadvantage of EEGs?

Can observe quick changes and provides information on general patterns of electrical activity; does not provide a clear picture of the brain’s structure.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Uses a magnetic field to create images of brain structure and function; detects blood flow in each brain region to indicate which parts are active.

What is one advantage and one disadvantage of observational research?

Often the only way to study certain behaviors that cannot be manufactured by researchers; does not tell us anything about the relationship between variables as it is simply descriptive.

What is one advantage and one disadvantage of correlational research?

Often lets us study what people do every day and allows prediction; cannot be used to draw causal conclusions.

What are two advantages and two disadvantages of experimental research?

Guarantees the IV occurs before measuring the DV, ruling our reverse causation, and controls for third variables; usually conducted in laboratory environments, and certain social variables cannot be experimentally manipulated.

What do factorial designs allow for?

Studying multiple IVs collective and individual influence on a DV.

When and why was social psychology energized in the US?

During World War II, when German researchers came to the US, who attempted to understand how Hitler could have produced such extreme obedience and horrendous behaviors.

When did social psychology expand to the fields of attitude and group processes?

The 1950s and 1960s

Social psychology concerns the interplay between…

The individual and the social situation.

How do Western and East Asian cultures differ in their norms?

Western norms are oriented towards individualism and self-concern, while East Asian cultures center on collectivism and other-concern.

In the 1980s, social psychology became more ___ in orientation.

Cognitive

When were the earliest social psychology experiments on group behavior conducted?

Before 1900

Who is the father of social psychology, and why is he referred to as such?

Kurt Lewin; initially developed many of the discipline’s important ideas, including the focus on dynamic interactions among people.

What did social psychologists initially focus on?

Intergroup relations

Name three things social psychology has expanded to in the 21st century.

Social situations’ influence on health and happiness; evolutionary and cultural experiences; social neuroscience.

What is Lewin’s person-situation interaction equation?

Behavior = f(person, social situation)

What do social psychologists believe is more frequently influential on one’s behavior, their personal characteristics or their social situation?

Their social situation

What is the assumption of evolutionary adaptation?

Human nature, including much of social behavior, is largely determined by our evolutionary past.

What is the focus of the first human motivation?

Protecting and enhancing the lives of ourselves and those close to us.

What is the goal of other-concern?

To connect and be accepted by other people generally.

What does the fundamental human motivation of other-concern imply about human behavior?

Violence and hostility is the exception, not the rule, of human behavior.

We don’t often recognize how important the ___ _______ is in determining behavior.

Social situation

What is social support?

The comfort we receive from the people around us.

Compared to those who do not feel that they have a network of others they can rely on, what benefits do people with adequate social support experience?

Feeling happier; having fewer psychological problems; being physically healthier.

What are social norms?

Ways of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving that are shared by group members and are perceived as being appropriate.

To social psychologists, what defines a culture?

A group of people, usually in a specific geographical region, who share a common set of social norms.

How did Milgram describe obedience in relation to other behavioral tendencies?

Obedience is a particularly ingrained behavioral tendencies, overriding ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct.

In the Milgram study, who were considered defiant subjects?

Those who refused continuing the experiment before the thirtieth and final shock.

How did the Milgram study push participants to continue?

Four increasingly stern, standardized prods to bring the subject in line.

How many participants in the Milgram study stopped before 300 volts?

Zero

What are some characteristics of participants in the Milgram experiment that could explain the study’s results?

Beliefs of voluntary participation and an obligation to the experimenter; belief that the learner’s pain was only momentary; belief that the experimenter understood the experiment’s significance, even if they did not; forced into a conflict between two behavioral tendencies: not harming others and obeying those whom we perceive as legitimate authorities.

What was the primary dependent variable in the Milgram study?

The maximum shock a subject administers before they refuse to go any further.

In the Milgram study, what was the operational definition for obedience?

Subjects’ behavior prior to their refusal to continue.

In the context of social psychology, emotions help us…

Develop and maintain positive relationships with others.

Which social behaviors are particularly influenced by social affect?

Behaviors related to health and happiness.

Our emotions help us determine what about social interactions?

Whether our interactions with others are appropriate, predict how others will respond to us, and regulate our behavior toward others.

What is arousal?

The changes in bodilky sensations accompanying strong emotions.

What are some physiological effects of the activation of the sympathetic nervous system?

The liver puts extra sugar into the bloodstream, the heart pumps more blood, our pupils dilate to help us see better, respiration increases, and we begin to perspire to cool the body.

What is the amygdala primarily responsible for?

Regulating our perceptions of and responses to aggression and fear.

How do basic emotions differ from secondary emotions?

Basic emotions are primarily based on SNS arousal and require little cognitive processing, while secondary emotions provide us with more complex feelings about our social worlds and are more cognitively based.

What are the seven identified basic emotions?

Anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.

What are some examples of secondary emotions?

Guilt, shame, resentment, embarrassment, etc.

What are some differences in emotions between Eastern and Western cultures?

In Eastern cultures, emotions are more focused on other-concern, and Easterners experience more positive emotions when with others. However, in Western cultures, emotions are more focused on self-concern, and Westerners experience more positive emotions when they are alone and as a result of their personal accomplishments.

What are some differences in how women experience emotions compared to men?

Women are more open to feelings overall, are more likely to express their emotions in public, and are more accurate and articulate in reporting others’ feelings.

What are some effects of positive moods on behavior?

Lead us to maintain our current activities, think more creatively and be more flexible in response to opinions that are inconsistent with our cultural norms.

Negative moods suggest that we wish to…

Change things to improve our current situation.

When participants in Schwarz and Clore’s study were informed that their mood may be influenced by the weather, how did they interpret their current well-being?

They did not use their mood to develop conclusions about their well-being.

What are the two factors behind emotions?

An arousal factor and a cognitive factor.

Arousal only becomes emotion when it is…

Accompanied by a label or by an explanation for the arousal.

When does the misattribution of arousal occur?

When people incorrectly label the source of their experienced arousal.

People generally feel ____ about themselves and the people around them.

Positive

How do social psychologists define stress?

The physical and psychological reactions that occur when we believe the demands of a situation threaten our ability to respond to the threat.

When do we experience stress?

When we find ourselves in situations where we’re unsure of how to respond ot whether we’re able to adequately cope.

What are some physical reactions to stress?

Increased perspiration, heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure; decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity; pupil dilation; secretion of adrenaline; sugar released to provide energy.

What is general adaptation syndrome?

The three phases of physiological changes we experience in response to long-term stress.

What are the three phases of general adaptation syndrome?

Alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

What is the HPA axis?

A response to stress involving interactions between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands.

What is the process of the HPA axis response?

The hypothalamus secretes hormones directing the pituitary gland to release ACTH, which directs the adrenal glands to secrete epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol, which releases sugar into the blood to help prepare to respond to the threat.

What are some physical consequences of long-term stress?

Keeps the HPA axis active, maintaining high cortisol production and exhausting the stress system; fatigue and depression; weakened immune system; DNA damage, heart disease through high blood flow and arterial constriction.

What are the three highest-scoring life events on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale?

Death of a spouse, divorce, and marital separation.

Can daily hassles result in stress and poorer health outcomes?

Yes

Stronger negative emotions and hostility in response to daily hassles and stress is linked to ____ health outcomes.

Poorer

Men are more likely to respond to stress with the ____ response, while women tend to use a ____ response.

Fight-or-flight (self-concern); tend-and-defend (other-concern).

The fight-or-flight response is triggered by ___, while the tend-and-defend response is triggered by ____.

HPA axis activation; release of oxytocin.

Is the fight-or-flight response or the tend-and-defend response healthier, and why?

The tend-and-defend response is healthier because it does not produce the elevated levels of arousal related to the HPA, including the negative results that accompany increased levels of cortisol.

What does the tend-and-defend response to stress involve?

Activities designed to create social networks that provide protection from threats.

What are some physical symptoms associated with anxiety?

General agitation, shortness of breath, diarrhea, upset stomach, sweaty hands, and poor concentration.

What are some social determinants of depression and anxiety?

Lack of adequate social interactions; discomfort in public spaces; perception of not meeting internal goals and others’ standards.

What is one of the most important treatment approaches for depression and anxiety?

Changing social cognitions and improving social interactions with others.

When we feel that there are discrepancies between our goals and the actual conditions in our lives, we feel…

More emotion

What is self-regulation?

The process of setting goals and using our cognitive and affective capacities to reach them.

Distracting oneself from troubles may be useful, but maladaptive behaviors, including ___ and ___, are mechanisms people use to attempt to ___.

Spiritual ecstasy and binge eating; escape the self due to felt discrepancies in one’s ideal self and self-concept.

Although suppressing one’s emotions may work momentarily…

When we run out of energy, the negative emotions shoot back up into consciousness.

Preferences for small immediate rewards over large later rewards have been linked to lower levels of ____, associated with ___, ____, and ____.

Serotonin; violence; impulsiveness; suicide.

What is optimism?

A general tendency to expect positive outcomes.

What is self-efficacy?

The belief in one’s ability to carry out actions that produce desired actions.

What are some characteristics of hardy individuals?

More overall positive about potentially stressful life events, take more direct action to understand the causes of negative events, learn from negative events for the future, and use effective coping strategies.

Korean students were much more likely than American students to report that seeking social support would…

Disrupt group harmony, make one’s problems worse, elicit criticism, and cause one to lose face.