UNIT 4 NOTES - Social Psychology & Learning

Attributions & Attitudes & Actions

• What is social psychology?

  • person perception — how we form impressions of ourselves and others, including attributions of behavior

    • physical appearance

    • stereotypes — a generalized (sometimes accurate) belief about a group of people

    • prejudice — an unjustifiable & usually negative attitude toward a group and its members

    • subjectivity of person perception — the way we perceive a person is subjective; each of our stereotypes is different from another’s

    • mere exposure effect — liking something because of how often you interact with it (using senses)

    • illusory correlation — when you think you see a trait occur more often in a specific group than you actually do

    • ingroup/outgroup

      • ingroup — a group of people with desirable traits

      • outgroup — a group of people with non-desirable traits

    • self-fulfilling prophecy — a belief that leads to its own fulfillment

    • social comparison — when you compare yourself to another person/a past self

      • relative deprivation — when you compare yourself to somebody you think has it better than you, could also be a past self

    • locus of control — where you believe the result of something came from/things that happened to you being in your control (internal: we did this, we earned this) or not (external: luck, fate, etc.)

• What are Attributions?

  • attribution theory — the theory that we explain someone’s behavior by crediting either the situation (a situational attribution) or the person’s stable, enduring traits (a dispositional attribution)

  • fundamental attribution error — the tendency for observers, when analyzing others’ behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

    • dispositional attribution (internal) — attributing behavior to our personality (ex. “I got an A because I studied!”)

    • situational attribution (external) — thinking that a person’s behavior is because of their situation

  • explanatory style — how people explain why they experience a particular event (positive or negative)

    • optimistic — internal locus of control (positive)

    • pessimistic — internal locus of control (negative)

  • bias with attributions

    • actor-observer bias — “it’s the situation, not me” and “it’s their fault”

    • self-serving bias — we take credit, not blame

  • culture and attribution

    • individualism — put personal goals over a group’s goals; “focus on me”

    • collectivism — put group’s goals over personal goals; “focus on we”

    • multiculturalism — blend of individualism and collectivism

• What are Attitudes?

  • attitudes — feelings influenced by beliefs

  • components of attitudes

    • cognitive — sensible side, logic and reasoning

    • affective — emotional side, feeling

    • behavioral — actions taken

  • implicit vs. explicit attitudes

    • implicit — unconscious, unaware of, attitudes

    • explicit — conscious, aware of, attitudes

    • perhaps a reason of prejudice/discrimination?

Prejudice & Discrimination

• prejudice — thoughts and feelings towards a certain group of people

• discrimination — actions towards a certain group of people

• stereotypes — overgeneralization towards a group of people

• implicit/explicit discrimination

  • implicit — knee-jerk reactions (microaggressions)

  • explicit — conscious discrimination

• just-world phenomenon — belief that the world is just; you deserve what you get, you get what you deserve

• ingroup vs. outgroup

  • ingroup bias — the tendency to favor our own group

  • outgroup homogeneity bias — “all Asians are the same” -- said by a white person

  • other-race effect — recalling facial features from one’s own race better than other races

  • ethnocentrism — individuals that believe their culture is superior; think that other cultures are inferior

  • scapegoat theory — theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

Attitudes Impact Our Actions

• process of persuasion → source, message

  • source factors = credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, likability, attractiveness, similarity

  • message factors = fear appeal vs. logic, one-sided vs. two-sided, number of strong vs. weak arguments, repetition

  • channel factors = in person, on TV or radio, via audiotape, via computer

  • receiver factors = personality, expectations, initial attitude on issue, strength of preexisting attitudes

Changing Attitudes

• elaboration likelihood model

  • peripheral route persuasion — when people are influenced by accidental, indirect cues, eg. someone’s attractiveness

  • central route persuasion — focus on the argument itself; very direct

• foot-in-the-door phenomenon — small requests later snowball into a large request

• door-in-the-face phenomenon — large requests that later snowball into smaller requests

• cognitive dissonance — inconsistency with belief and action

• belief perseverance — a belief still believed even after proven false

Conformity & Obedience

• What is conformity? Conformity is adjusting one’s behavior to coincide with a group standard

  • social influence — proposes that social pressure includes normative and informational influences

  • social norms — society’s rules for accepted & expected behavior

  • Solomon Asch created the line experiment

  • normative influence — desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

  • informational influence — willingness to accept others’ opinions about reality

• What is obedience? Obedience is a form of compliance with an order/command by (usually) an authority figure

  • Milgram experiment

    • teachers vs. learners (aka confederates)

    • person of authority

    • gives “shock” for wrong answers

    • ethics questioned

  • Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment

    • guards vs. prisoners

    • social roles

    • ended in 6 days instead of 2 weeks

    • ethics questioned

Group Behavior

• How do we behave in groups?

  • social facilitation — improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others (like sports)

    • social loafing — exerting less effort when pooling efforts (eg. tug-of-war)

    • deindividuation — loss of self-awareness & self-restraint occurring in group situations that foster arousal and anonymity

  • group polarization — the enhancement of a group’s prevailing inclinations through group discussion

  • groupthink — occurs when the desire for harmony overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives (in other words, no one suggests alternatives because everyone wants to agree)

  • false consensus effect — people overestimate how much other people agree with them

  • superordinate goals — shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation

  • social trap — a situation in which two parties, by each pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior (eg. the prisoner’s dilemma)

  • industrial-organizational psychologists (I/O psychologists) — psychologists who study businesses and organizations and why or why not people work for certain businesses/organizations

  • bystander effect — the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid/help if other bystanders are present

    • diffusion of responsibility — “it’s not my problem” and “other people will take action”

    • emergency interpretation

    • people think, “does this person deserve help?”

      • demographics play a major part

      • we, as a species, tend to help women more than men

Aggression

• What is aggression? Aggression is any physical/verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally

  • biological influences

    • can be genetically predisposed

  • psychological influences

    • aversive events

    • frustration-aggression principle

      • ex. road rage

Altruism

• What is altruism? Altruism is the unselfish regard for the welfare of others

  • social exchange theory — increased likelihood to engage in a good deed if the reward exceeds the cost

  • social reciprocity norm — an expectation that people will do something in return for something you have done

  • social-responsibility norm — cost outweighs the benefit but it’s okay because this person/group needs my help

Conflicts

• What are conflicts? Conflict is a perceived incompatibility of actions or goals or ideas

• Why do we have conflicts?

  • social traps — pursuing one’s own self-interest rather than the good of the group

  • enemy perception — perceiving your “enemy” diabolically (to the extreme)

    • mirror-image perceptions — “we are just, we are right. they are evil, they are aggressive/wrong”

  • how to make peace?

    • contact

    • cooperation

    • communication

    • consolidation

Attraction

• How does attraction work?

  • proximity → mere exposure effect

  • similarity → tendency to like people like oneself more

  • physical attraction → idea that people equally attractive are more likely to be romantically involved (matching hypothesis)

  • reciprocity — we tend to find people attractive when they find us attractive

  • passionate love — intense positive absorption

  • companionate love — deep affectionate attachment (lasts longer than passionate love)

Motivation

• What is motivation? Motivation is a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior

• Instinct vs. Drive

  • instinct — complex, unlearned behavior

  • drive — aroused state

  • Charles Darwin

    • evolutionary theories (ex. natural selection)

    • push-pull theory — theory that we have biological pushes and environmental pulls

  • drive-reduction theory — the idea that a physiological need creates an aroused state (a drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need

    • desire to return to homeostasis

    • incentives

  • Yerkes-Dodson law — principle that performance increases with arousal only up to a point, beyond which performance decreases

• What motivates us?

  • self-determination theory — theory that we feel motivation to satisfy our needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness

    • intrinsic — desire to perform a behavior for ourselves

    • extrinsic — desire to perform a behavior to receive rewards or avoid punishment

  • incentive theory — explains how external rewards motivate individuals to perform specific actions/goals

  • Lewin’s motivational conflicts theory — experience a conflict when two main tendencies of their behavior collide

    • approach-approach — two positive options

    • approach-avoidance — two neutral options (or one good option with negative undertones and one bad with positive undertones)

    • avoidance-avoidance — two negative options

  • sensation-seeking theory — deep desire for intense, new experiences (high in teenagers, lessens as age increases)

• Factors of Hunger:

  • study by Ancel Keys during WWII

    • 200 soldiers, fed 3 meals a day, 36/200 had calories halved

    • those 36 became apathetic/didn’t care, fantasized about food rather than women, were obsessed with food, and lost 25% of their weight

  • biological factors

    • controlled by hypothalamus

    • ghrelin, leptin control hunger (when blood sugar drops, we get hungrier)

      • increased leptin reduces hunger

      • increased ghrelin increases hunger

    • hunger can exist without a stomach

    • memory plays a part in hunger

  • environmental factors

    • stress can make you incredibly hungry or never hungry

    • when you see food, you want food

    • obesity — BMI of 30+

      • 40% of Americans are overweight

      • genetically predisposed

    • set point — human bodies are not predisposed to lose weight, there’s a different point for everyone

• Motivation of Achievement

  • linked to personality

    • Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) — a test where people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes

  • situational factors

  • “need to belong” → socio-cultural

    • narcissism — excessive self-love and self-absorption

    • ostracism — deliberate social exclusion (usually of a particular race)

    • achievement motivation — desire for significant accomplishment

  • grit — passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals

Emotions

• How we get emotions:

  • cognitive — evaluating how something makes one feel

    • affective forecasting — determining how one feels in certain circumstances (that usually haven’t happened)

      • as a species, we suck at this

  • physiological — physical, bodily response

    • fight or flight response — getting the body ready for a fight or to flee in the presence of a dangerous stimuli

    • polygraph (aka lie detectors) — measures emotion-linked changes in perspiration, heart rate, and breathing

  • behavioral

    • nonverbal cues — smiling when happy, scrunched face when disgusted, frowning when angry/sad

    • hedonic adaptation — adjusting to our circumstances (ex. if you win the lottery, you eventually “get used to” the wealth)

• Theories of Emotions:

  • James-Lange Theory: stimuli → arousal → emotion

  • Cannon-Bard Theory: stimuli → arousal & emotion

  • Schachter-Singer (Two-Factor Theory): stimuli + label = emotion

  • evolutionary theories

    • Robert Zajonc, Richard Lazarus, Joseph LeDoux

• Basic Emotions:

  • anger, fear, disgust, sadness, joy/happiness

• Detecting Emotions in Others:

  • facial-feedback effect — tendency of facial features to trigger corresponding feelings

  • behavior-feedback effect — tendency of behavior to influence our own/others’ thoughts, feelings, actions

  • display rules — cultural acceptance for emotions

  • elicitors — specific stimuli that cause an emotional reaction

  • broaden-and-build theory — positive emotional experiences broaden and build awareness and thoughts; negative emotional experiences shut and narrow awareness and thoughts

Personality — the way people think, feel, and act

• Theories on Personality:

  • Gordon Allport’s Personality Traits:

    • over 450 personality traits

  • Hans Eysenck’s Factor Analysis:

    • extraversion-introversion

    • emotional stability/instability

  • Five Factor Model of Personality Traits:

    • openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

• Psychodynamic Theories on Personality:

  • Sigmund Freud

    • psychosexual stages → fixation

      • oral stage → birth to ~1.5 years old

        • erotic zone: mouth || task: weaning

      • anal stage → 2-3 years old

        • erotic zone: anus || task: potty training

      • phallic stage → 4-5 years old

        • erotic zone: genitals || task: adult role models

        • Oedipal Complex, penis envy

      • latency stage → 6-12 years old (puberty)

        • erotic zone: N/A || task: expanding social contacts

        • sexual repression

      • genital stage → puberty onward

        • erotic zone: genitals || task: intimate relationships

  • Alfred Alder & Karen Horney

    • importance of childhood → social, not sexual

    • inferiority complex — inability to overcome inferiority

    • compensation — showing off how great one is

  • Carl Jung

    • collective unconscious — shared, inherited reservoir of memory from human history

    • archetypes — universally recognized symbols, dreams, or images

  • Personality Tests

    • projective tests → TAT

    • Rorschach inkblot test — identifies inner feelings by analyzing how they interpret 10 inkblots

    • MMPI test (self-reports) — used to identify emotional disorders

  • Themes

    • unconscious drives behavior

    • childhood influences adulthood

    • people use defense mechanisms

      • terror-management theory

    • problems with themes:

      • poor testability

      • sexism

      • contradictory evidence