Unit 9- Social psychology

Positive psychology

Martian Seligman. Ideas and values that lead to a good life. Prioritizes happiness

Adaptation-level psychology

Tendency to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness

Relative deprivation

Perception that we are worse off than others, leading to dissatisfaction

Internal locus of control

Believing that our own actions shape the course of our life

External locus of control

Believing outside factors control our life

Post-traumatic growth

Higher level of functioning following something traumatic or adverse

Broaden-and-build theory

As people experience new emotions, they are more likely to try new things

Social psychology

How our behavior is changed by being in a group

Individualistic culture

North American, Western European

Prioritizes personal desires, strives to stand out (competitive), willing to express opinions that disagree with others.

Collectivist culture

Asia, South America, Africa

Rely on others for support, decisions made together as a family/community. Concealing personal preferences to avoid conflict

Social norm

Unspoken rules of acceptable behavior

Chameleon effect (automatic mimicry)

Unconsciously mimicking others (yawning, checking phones/time)

Solomon Asch’s line experiment

Experiment to test social conformity.

1 Participant, rest are confederates.

Shown a line and asked to match it to a different set of lines (which one is same length)

When alone, 1% made a mistake, when together and the confederates all say one thing, 70% agreed.

Mirror neurons

Special cells in frontal lobe that fire when we watch someone do something

Creates belonging and connection

Normative social influence

Type of conformity

Conforming to be liked or fit in

Peer pressure

Informational social influence

Type of conformity

Conform to be correct (follow the group or the expert)

The ‘safe’ course of action

Group polarization

Beliefs tend to grow more extreme when we are with like-minded individuals

Groupthink

Extreme form of group polarization- no one is speaking up, leads to irrational decisions.

Deindividuation

Being in a group makes people lose their sense of awareness and restraint- more anonymous

Minority influence

Sometimes an individual can influence the group (when they do NOT conform)

Social facilitation

When we perform better when others are watching us (occurs with an easy or familiar task/when people are rooting for us)

Social impairment

When we perform worse when others are watching us (new or difficult task)

Social loafing

People exert less effort in a group than alone

Social exchange theory

Weighing the costs of doing something against the benefits (more likely to help others in a good mood)

Social responsibility norm

Thinking that certain people ‘need’ our help

• Ex: Women, children, elderly, disabled

Bystander effect

Individuals are less likely to help when others are present

Diffusion of responsibility

Holding ourselves less accountable when others are present (think others did it too)

Tragedy of the commons

When individuals act in their self interest, the small actions add up (ex: plastic in the ocean)

Obedience

Changing behavior due to a direct order from an authority figure

Stanley Milgram’s obediance study

(1963)

Experimenter and student = confederates

• The teacher reads a pair of words to students and they have to repeat the pair.

• If the student gets the word wrong, the teacher ‘shocks’ them

• Experimenter would encourage the teacher to continue

Confederate

An actor pretending to be another participant

Social role

The persona people fall into when in a group

Stanford prison experiment

Philip Zimbardo

Procedure: Assigned role of guard or prisoner and set them up in a prison.

Result: People readily conformed

Supposed to be 2 weeks, ended after 6 days because of how violent it got

Attribution

Attribution of a person’s behavior to their internal qualities or external factors

Dispositional attribution

Attributing someone’s success/lack of to their character

Situational attribution

Attributing someone’s success/lack of to the situation

Self-serving bias

Attributing your OWN successes to ability and failures to luck

Fundamental attribution error

Tendency to overestimate internal factors and underestimate the effect of the situation

Actor-observer bias

Similar to self-serving bias.

Taking credit for our own successes, but when others do it it’s luck/situational

Blame circumstances for our own failures, blame others’ character for theirs

Self-handicapping

To preserve self-esteem

Not giving problems your all to have something to blame failure on (ex: not studying so you can blame a bad grade on that, not intelligence)

Just world bias

Believing the world is fair and people get what they deserve

Cognitive dissonance

Mental dissonance experienced when holding a conflicting belief and action- the drive to either change the action or justify the belief

Person perception

How we form perceptions of people (first impressions, attributions, social categorization)

Stereotype

Generalities we make about groups to save mental energy

Prejudice

Negative perception of someone due to their belonging to a group

Discrimination

Negative actions due to prejudice

Implicit bias

Prejudice without concious awareness

In-group bias

Tendency to favor our own group and find them superior

Out-group homogeneity bias

Tendency to view people not in our group as all the same

Mirror-image perception

See ourselves as peaceful and the other side as aggressive

Social traps

Pursuing self-interests adds up, ultimately leading to a negative overall situation

Scapegoat

When things go wrong, we want to blame others & become aggressive to our out-group

The Four C’s

Ways to combat prejudice

Promote contact

Increase cooperation

Facilitate communication

Conciliate (both sides deescalate)

Subordinate goals

Small, specific goals that lead up to a major goal (superordinate goals)

Multiculturalism

Recognizing, respecting, and promoting diversity

Passionate love

Early on intense relationships. Want to spend all time together, will ignore faults. Honeymoon stage.

Companionate love

More steady, longer lasting love. More focused on friendship. Deeper attachments.

Triangular theory of love

Sternberg

Intimacy (feelings of closeness)

Passion (physical attraction)

Commitment (being in love & exclusive)