PSYC 104 FINAL STUDY GUIDE

⭐ PART I — COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW (WEEKS 1–7)

🔵 1. Research Methods

Main Ideas

  • Independent Variable: What researchers manipulate

  • Dependent Variable: What is measured

  • Random Assignment: Ensures groups are equal → increases internal validity

  • Internal Validity: Confidence that IV caused the effect

  • External Validity: Whether findings generalize to real world

  • Correlational vs Experimental: Correlation ≠ causation

Key Danger

  • Confounds: Extra variables that screw up interpretation

  • Placebo effects & demand characteristics can influence results

🔵 2. Social Cognition (Schemas, Heuristics, Priming)

Schemas

Mental frameworks → help you interpret the world.

Heuristics

Shortcuts that sometimes lead to errors.

  • Availability: Judging by how easily examples come to mind

  • Representativeness: Using stereotypes to judge probability

  • Anchoring: Starting with a number and insufficiently adjusting

Priming

Exposure to a concept influences later behavior.
(Note: Many findings failed replication, but idea still important historically.)

🔵 3. Attribution

Two Types

  • Internal (dispositional): Personality, attitudes

  • External (situational): Circumstances, constraints

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

We overestimate personality and underestimate the situation.

Correspondence Bias

We assume behavior → personality.

Important Studies

  • Jones & Harris (Castro Essays): Even assigned essays → people assumed true beliefs

  • Quizmaster Study: People thought questioners were smarter than contestants

🔵 4. Emotion & Affect

  • Affect: Immediate feelings

  • Mood: Long-lasting emotional state

  • Emotion: Brief, specific, caused by an event

Two-factor theory (Schachter & Singer)

Emotion = arousal + interpretation
→ shows we mislabel arousal depending on context

🔵 5. Evolution, Cooperation, and Social Behavior

Why humans cooperate:

  • Kin selection: Help relatives → pass shared genes

  • Reciprocal altruism: Help now, get help later

  • Reputation: People help to maintain status & expected cooperation

  • Cheater detection: Humans evolved to identify free-riders

🔵 6. Norms, Culture, and Conformity

Norms

Rules about how to behave.

Conformity Study

  • Asch Line Study: People conformed even when the group was obviously wrong.

Culture

  • Individualistic: Personal goals (U.S.)

  • Collectivistic: Group harmony (Japan)

🔵 7. Obedience

Milgram Study

  • 65% delivered the highest shock

  • People obey authority even against their moral values.

🔵 8. The Self

  • Self-concept: Knowledge about yourself

  • Self-esteem: Evaluation of yourself

  • Spotlight effect: You think people notice you more than they do

  • Self-serving bias: Success = me, failure = situation

🔵 9. Attitudes & Persuasion

Attitudes form from:

  • Learning

  • Conditioning

  • Mere exposure

  • Social norms

Cognitive Dissonance

  • When behavior conflicts with beliefs

  • $1 vs $20 Study: $1 participants changed attitudes more

⭐ PART II — WEEKS 8 & 9 STUDY GUIDE

(Aggression + Prosocial Behavior)

🔴 1. Risk of Violence (San Diego, U.S., Worldwide, Historically)

Modern Stats

  • San Diego: Very low homicide rate (~2 per 100,000)

  • United States: Higher than other rich countries (~5 per 100,000)

  • Global average: Around 6 per 100,000

  • Latin America & Caribbean: Highest rates internationally

Historically

  • 700 years ago: 100–1,000 per 100,000 (much higher!)

  • Middle Ages → MUCH more violent

  • Today → lowest violence in human history

Overall: You're safer now than any time in the past.

🔴 2. McCauley’s Model of Aggression

Includes cues → internal states → cognitive control → behaviors

Cues

  • Weapons

  • Threatening gestures

  • Alcohol

  • Insults

  • Status threats

Internal States

  • Anger

  • Arousal

  • Fear

  • Frustration

  • Hormones (testosterone, cortisol interactions)

Cognitive Control

  • Ability to regulate urges

  • Depends on:

    • Prefrontal cortex activation

    • Alcohol

    • Stress

    • Fatigue

    • Self-control ability

Learned Aggression

  • Culture of honor

  • Observational learning (Bandura)

  • Gang behavior

  • Norms permitting violence

Unlearned Aggression

  • Animal defense mechanisms

  • Territorial aggression (sparrows show identical patterns)

  • Reflexive responses to threat

🔴 Weapons Effect

Definition

Seeing a weapon makes people:

  • More aggressive

  • Faster to identify hostile words

  • More likely to administer shocks or press “aggressive” buttons in experiments

Weapons increase the accessibility of violent thoughts.

Not everyone becomes violent — but it primes aggressive scripts.

🔴 3. Do violent video games cause aggression?

Best scientific conclusion:

No reliable evidence that violent video games cause real-world aggression.

Large meta-analyses:

  • Effects are tiny or nonexistent

  • Early studies overstated harm

  • When preregistered → effect vanishes

🔴 4. Dictator Game

What it is

  • One player (the “dictator”) gets money

  • They choose how much to give to another person

  • The other person has no power

Common result

People give 20–30%, even though:

  • Selfish choice = give $0

  • People still care about fairness

🔴 5. Four Motivations for Prosocial Behavior

1. Egoism

Help to benefit yourself
(ex: praise, rewards)

2. Altruism

Help for someone else’s sake, even at cost to you

3. Collectivism

Help to benefit your group

4. Principlism

Help because of moral principles
(ex: justice, equality, religious beliefs)

🔴 6. Framing Effects in Dictator Game

How you describe the game changes behavior:

  • “Give” frame: People give more

  • “Take” frame: People take more

  • Moral language: increases donation

  • Market framing: reduces generosity

🔴 7. Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

Created by Daniel Batson.

Idea:
Feeling empathy for someone creates true altruism, not egoism.

Therefore:

  • If you feel empathy → you help even when escaping is easy.

🔴 8. Batson’s Escape/Easy Escape Experiments

Rationale

If people help only to feel better (egoism) →
They should escape when given an easy way out.

Method

  • Participants saw a person in distress

  • Manipulated:

    • Empathy: high vs low

    • Easy escape: could leave vs had to stay

Findings

  • High empathy → people helped even when escape was easy.
    Supports altruism.

🔴 9. Peter Singer’s Shallow Pond Argument

Scenario

If you walk past a shallow pond and see a child drowning, you should save them even if your clothes get ruined.

Argument

If distance doesn’t matter, then we should also help distant strangers (e.g., charity).

Relevance

Tests moral consistency:

  • If saving a child near you is required

  • Then saving a child far away (for $5–10 to charity) should also be required

🔴 10. Effective Charities

Meaning of “effective”

Charities differ drastically in cost per life saved.

Examples:

  • Some save a life for $3,000–$5,000

  • Some cost hundreds of thousands and help less

Effective = highest impact per dollar.

🔴 11. Parable of the Good Samaritan

Why it matters in social psych

It tests:

  • Who helps

  • Under what conditions

  • How situations override personality

Used as:

  • A metaphor for helping

  • Inspiration for the Good Samaritan Study (Darley & Batson)

🔴 12. Kitty Genovese

What happened

Kitty was murdered in NYC (1964).
News reported 38 witnesses did nothing → mostly false.

True Points

  • People did call police

  • Some tried to help

  • Reporting was exaggerated

  • But the case inspired research on bystander intervention

🔴 13. Hurdle Model of Bystander Intervention

You must cross five hurdles:

  1. Notice that something is happening

  2. Interpret it as an emergency

  3. Take responsibility

  4. Know what to do

  5. Give help

Failure at ANY step → no helping.

🔴 14. Pluralistic Ignorance

When people all assume others think something is fine, so no one acts.

Example:
Everyone sees smoke but waits because no one else panics.

🔴 15. Darley & Batson’s Good Samaritan Study

What they tested

Seminary students told to give a talk.

Manipulated

  • Topic (Good Samaritan story vs not)

  • Time pressure (late vs on time vs early)

Results

BIGGEST FACTOR: Time pressure

  • Late → least likely to help

  • Early → most likely

Topic (Good Samaritan) did not matter.

🔴 16. Darley & Latané — Bystander Effect

  • More bystanders → LESS helping

  • Responsibility becomes diffused

  • People assume someone else will help

🔴 17. Gender Differences in Helping

Men help more when:

  • Situations require heroic, physical actions

  • Risk is high

  • Being watched

  • Helping strangers

Women help more when:

  • Situations require long-term, emotional support

  • Helping friends, family

  • Caring or nurturing roles