Chapter 12 - Social Psych

Exam 4

social psychology

• studies the interaction between a person and the environment (other people, groups)

• scientific study of how a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior is influenced and can be influenced by social groups

social influence

• the real or implied presence of others can directly or indirectly influence the thoughts, feelings, and behavior or an individual

conformity

• changing one’s own behavior to more closely match the actions of others

  • done as a result of a real or imagined group presence

what experiment was done to study conformity (and describe it)

• the Asch Study

  • 3 lines

  • confederates and one real participant

what is the trend of the number of confederates and conformity

• the more confederates the more conformity

  • until four

• if there was at least one confederate that gave the right answer conformity decreased

is there a difference in conformity in men and women in private

no

in public do men or women conform more

women

normative social influence

• the need to act in a way to be liked and accepted by others

informational social influence

• we take our cues for how to behave from other people when we are in a situation that is not clear or ambiguous

  • we conform to them

mental averaging

• when you confuse your own behavior with others and you just average them out in your head

groupthink

• people place more importance on maintaining group cohesiveness than on assessing the facts of the problem with which the group is concerned

invulnerability

• members feel like they can’t fail and they are always right

• characteristic of group think

rationalization

• members explain away warning signs and help each other rationalize the decision

• characteristic of group think

lack of introspection

• members don’t examine ethical implications of their decision because they believe they cannot make immoral decisions

• characteristic of group think

sterotyping

• members stereotype their enemies as weak, stupid, or unreasonable

  • those that speak up

• characteristic of group think

pressure

• members pressure each other to not question the prevailing opinion 

• characteristic of group think

lack of disagreement

• members don’t express opinions different from the group consensus

• characteristic of groupthink

self-deception

• members share in the illusion that they all agree on the decision

• characteristic of groupthink

insularity

• members prevent the group from hearing disruptive but potentially useful information from people who are outside of the group

• characteristic of groupthink

group polarization

• tendency for members involved in a group discussion to take more extreme positions than the ones made by individuals

• ex. going to book club thinking 4/10 and leaving thinking 10/10

social facilitation

• tendency for the presence of others to have a positive impact on the performance of an easy task

• makes just enough arousal to improve performance

social impairment

• tendency for presence of others to have a negative impact on the performance of a hard task

• produces too much arousal

social loafing

• tendency for people to put less effort into a simple task when working with others on that task

loafer

• lazy person

• can hide laziness when working with others and won’t be evaluated alone

  • have less personal responsibility

deindividuation

• lessening of personal identity , self restraint, and the sense of personal responsibility that happens when in a group

• ex. when hanging out with people you act crazy and do things out of line

consumer psychology

• studies habits of consumers in the marketplace

compliance

• changing one’s behavior as a result of other people directing or asking for the change

  • don’t usually have real authority to command change 

obedience 

• change in one’s behavior when authority and power exists and they demand it

foot-in-the-door compliance technique (+ stats)

• asking for a small commitment and after gaining compliance asking a bigger one

• 16.7% before and then 76% after

  • asking people to put the lawn signs and then asking to put a sticker on their window

door-in-the-face compliance technique

• asking a larger commitment and being refused so ask for a smaller one

• 16.7% first then it becomes 50% after rejection-moderation

lowball technique

• getting a commitment and then cost (whether that be $, time or effort) is more than originally told/expected

• get commitment to cheaper request and then reinstate the higher one

What study was done for obedience

• Stanley Milgram

• “teachers” that administer shocks for X answers to the “learners”

criticisms to the obedience experiment

• unethical

• deception

• didn’t update them adequately when the experiment was over

  • that they didn’t actually shock people

• Milgram withheld some data

what did people say milgram’s study might actually be focusing on

• social identity and how the participatnes felt they were doing the right thing for the scientific community

  • and that is worth more than the average joe

social cognition

• mental process that people use to make sense of the social world around them

  • how we think about others and how our behavior is towards them

attitude

• tendency to response positively or negatively toward a certain idea, person, or situation

• not innate, learned through experience and from others

what does attitude affect

• how we act towards something

• influences the way we view these things before we have even been exposed to them

• has 3 parts

  • ABC

affective component

• the way a person feels about an object, person, or situation 

• the emotional or (affect) component

• ex. i love 2010s

behavior component

• action a person takes in regard to the person, object, or situation

• ex. i buy every 2010 album 

cognitive component

• the way a person thinks about him or herself, an object, or situation

  • includes beliefs about the focus of the attitude

attitudes are/aren’t a poor predictor of behavior

they are

the ___ important the attitude appears, the ___ the behavior will match the attitude

more

ex. the nonsmoker saying to not smoke at the hospital but won’t if they are just smoking outside

direct contact

• how an attitude is formed

• directly in contact with the thing that is the focus of the attitude 

direct instruction

• how an attitude is formed

• parents or someone tells you directly and that forms an attitude

• ex. parents say candy is unhealthy so that’s what you believe

interaction with others

• how an attitude forms

• when you are around people with that attitude you will acquire it

vicarious conditioning (observational learning)

• how an attitude forms

• see through the observation of others and you form you attitude from that

persuasion

• process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, position, or course of action of someone through argument, pleading, or explanation

source 

• a factor that will predict how successful a persuasive effort at attitude change might be

• will listen to the communicator if they are trustworthy or similar to the person

message

• a factor that will predict how successful a persuasive effort at attitude change might be

• message should be clear and organized

• can invoke moderate fear and how to avoid the consequences

  • will persuade them more

• high fear can be effective if say how to avoid AND how serious they are

target audience

• a factor that will predict how successful a persuasive effort at attitude change might be

• how old and the characteristics of the audience will affect if they will be more persuaded

  • younger people

medium

• a factor that will predict how successful a persuasive effort at attitude change might be

• how a person receives the message

elaboration likelihood model of persuasion

• theory that explains how people get persuaded

• people will either elaborate on the persuasive message or fail to

  • if you do elaborate their future actions are more predictable

central-route processing

• attend to the content of the message

peripheral-route processing

• attend to factors not involved in the message

• ex. their expertise, length of the message

  • just not the content itself

cognitive dissonance

• sense of discomfort that happens when a person’s behavior does not corresponds to their attitude

• ex. cognition that says “I’m smart” but also one that says “That was a dumb thing to do”

• people are motivated to change their behavior 

3 ways to reduce cognitive dissonance

1. change your conflicting behavior to match your attitude

2. change current conflicting cognition to justify behavior

3. form new cognitions to justify your behavior

how young can cognitive dissonance occur

4 yrs old

cognitive dissonance experiment

• given a boring task and told to tell the front desk lady about it

• when given one dollar they go back to their thoughts and make themselves feel like it was fun and not lying for a dollar

  • felt discomfort lying for one dollar

• when given $20 they just straight up lied

  • because they knew they were doing it for the money and they didn’t have thoughts about it before

self-perception theory

• instead of looking at negative tension (cogntiive dissonance), people look at their own actions and infer their attitude from there

impression formation

• forming the first knowledge a person has about another individual

• kind of social cognition

primacy effect

• first impression still persists even when other contradicting information is found about them

social catergorization

• assigning a person to a category based on people you’ve met in the past

  • done automatically and without conscious awareness

what can social categorization lead to

• stereotyping 

• if your categories are superficial and improperly attached to certain ideas

stereotype

• belief that a set of characterisitics is shared by all members of a particiaular social category

implicit personality theory

• sets of assumptions about how different types of people, personality traits, and actions are related to each other

• ex. happy people = friendly people

• formed in childhood

• organizes schemas

implicit association test (IAT)

• measure the implicit attitudes that make up one’s implicit personality theory

• on a computer 

• measures association of certain concepts

  • ex. by seeing which side you will send things when given one word on each end

if someone can’t explain their own behavior it causes…

cognitive dissonance 

attribution

• the process of explaining one’s own behavior and the behavior of others

attribution theory

• why people choose the particular explanations of behavior that they do 

situational cause

• cause of behavior is from external sources

• ex. i’m late because of the weather

dispositional cause

• cause of behavior is from within the individual 

  • their personality caused it

• ex. i’m late because i can’t time manage

happy marriage

• if its something good the spouse will say its internal

• if there is something bad will not blame it on themselves as a spouse but an outside source

unhappy marraige

• if something good then blame it on the external, if something bad effect internal

fundamental attribution error

• tendency for people observing someone else’s actions to overestimate the influence of that person’s internal characteristics on behavior and underestimate the influence of the situation

• ex. say she is late because she has a trash personality not because there was possible traffic

actor-observer bias

• used when describing our own behaviors

• use situational attributions instead of personal ones

2 ways to lower errors in which attribution is likely

1. see how many people are doing it

   1. if everyone, then this is a situational not a personal attribution

2. think about you would do

   1. if you would have done the same it is situational not personal

motive attribution symmetry

• your side is doing it out of love and the other side is doing it out of hate

  • why negotiations can’t occur between countries

control group error in Asch study

7%

percent of participants that conform on at least one trial

76%

percent of participants that conform on 1-3 trials

33%

percent of participants that conform on more than 3 trials

43%

private acceptance

• truly believe that group is right

• so we conform to them

public conformity

• believe self is correct but don’t want to disrupt group

• so conform

Flow of how things were done in lowball experiment and percentages

task → time → commitment 

24%

task → commitment → time (feel bad after saying yes, i’m interested)

53%

what percentage of people went up to 450 volts of shock

65%

no one dropped out of the obedience study until…?

300 volts

(that’s when the learner went silent)

conclusions regarding the obedience study

1. giving up agency to authorities is common

2. participants reported no trauma

3. ethics guidelines were established in response to this experiment

Factors Affecting Obedience (in the experiment)

1. proximity to learner = the closer the teacher was to the learner, the lower the final intensity

2. distance to teacher = the further away the authority was from the teacher, the lower the final intensity

3. authority type = legitimacy didn’t have to be high

4. group support = a dissenting other lowered final intensity of shock

prosocial behavior

• anything you do that is positive and directed to someone else

altruisim

• prosocial behavior with no though of reward

  • selfless

• what is idealized

egoism

• prosocial behavior motivated by self-interest

• ex. doing this because God will give me a better afterlife

The Decision Tree

• a series of steps that can happen quickly to know if you should help in a situation

1. notice incident

2. interpret as an emergency

3. assume responsibility

4. know appropriate act

5. implement helping

pluralistic ignorance

• apparently calm reaction of others leads to non-emergency interpretation by you

• if no one else looks worried why should you

• interpret as an emergency step

  • smoke experiment and seeing who would say something

prejudice

• negative attitude (stereotype- something you think they all have) held about the members of a particular social group 

discrimination

• treating people different because of prejudice toward the social group to which they belong

• this results from having prejudice

in-groups

• social groups with whom a person identifies

• “us”

• stereotype the outgroups

out-groups

• social groups with whom you don’t identify 

• “them”

microagressions

• minor insults and negative exchanges that members of the dominant culture use on the minorities 

• ex. ceo saying you shouldn’t wear your hair like that because its unprofessional

scapegoat

• target for the frustrations and negative emotions of the ingroup

• usually the outgroup is this

• have the least power

social cognitive theory

• use of cognitive processes in relation to understanding the social world