psych ch13

2.self-serving bias

(actor-observer effect), the inclination to attribute one's failures to external causes and one's own successes to internal factors, but to assume the opposite for others (failures are internal and successes are external). As a result, you consider the negative actions of others as arbitrary and unjustified, but perceive your own negative actions as understandable and justifiable. (always thinking you are right ad blaming others for your mistakes)

external attribution

(also called situational attributions) explain a person's behavior in terms of the situation or environment. We make situational (external) attributions when we decide that a person's behavior was caused by some temporary aspect of the situation in which it happened. ("i did good bc the test was easy")

1. affective

Affective—one's feelings about the object or topic

BEHAVIOR

Attitudes influence, but do not always lead to, behavior consistent with them. Attitudes are more likely to affect behavior if they are strong; relatively stable; directly relevant to the behavior; important; easily accessed from memory; and based on direct, rather than indirect, experience

why humans are "ultrasocial"

Humans are unique in the animal kingdom, living cooperatively in large groups of unrelated individuals. Social scientists refer to humans as an "ultrasocial" species, depending on cooperative effort to survive and needing social acceptance and support. Social attachment is a basic biological need. Studies of brain activity in socially isolated and socially rejected individuals show patterns identical to the experience of physical pain.

social psychology

The area of psychology that focuses on how people think about other people, interact in relationships and groups, and are affected by their relationships with others. The study of the causes and consequences of sociality.

social facilitation

The presence of others appears to increase arousal, which then facilitates people's dominant responses in that situation. Usually the presence of others enhances performance only on well-learned simple tasks. On complicated, less well-learned tasks, the presence of others can hinder performance.

norms

They are shared belief systems that are enforced through the group's use of sanctions or penalties. pervade everyday experience, defining the behaviors that make people good members of a family, friends, neighbors, partners, employees, and employers.

There are some commonalities in the use of the term group

egular interaction among members, some type of emotional connection among group members, a common frame of reference, and some type of interdependence (lab partners families student and fan groups nations religions). In a group, individuals may feel, think, and act less from an individual point of view and more from a group point of view.

Contact hypothesis and travel

if you have more contact with people, decreases prejudice and stereotype a little

Deindividuation

is the loss of the sense of self that occurs when people immersed in a group literally become anonymous—their identities are unknown to others in the group. This is often the situation in crowds.

discrimination

negative or unfair behavior towards individuals from a specific group that arises from unjustified negative attitudes about that group.

2.behavioral

one's predisposition to act in a particular way toward the object or topic

bystander effect

refers to the decrease in offers of assistance that occurs as the number of bystanders increases.

prejudice

that stereotyping can lead to. a generally negative attitude or prejudgment toward members of a group. includes not only beliefs and expectations (cognitive component, basically a stereotype) about the group but also an emotional component. Simply thinking about members of a group one is prejudiced about can produce strong feelings about them.

3. belief in a just world

the assumption that people get what they deserve (good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people). This belief contrasts with the assumption that untoward events can happen randomly and justice may not always prevail. The belief in a just world can shape reactions to violent crime and contribute to the practice of blaming the victim. This belief maintains discriminatory behavior.

polarization

the tendency of group members to take more extreme positions (in the same direction as the group's majority initial opinion) after discussions. The majority attitude intensifies over time. After a bit of group discussion, an initial opinion of, "That's a pretty good idea," becomes, "This is the greatest idea we've ever had!" This outcome may be especially likely when an intellectual issue is at stake, if the group's goal is to make a "correct" or task-oriented decision, when the issue requires judgments, or when a group is focused on harmony. Applies commonly to juries.

Repeated contact

usually leads to a more positive evaluation of someone over time (related to the mere exposure effect).

3.cognitive

what you believe or know about the object or topic

contact hypothesis

which says that increased contact between different groups will decrease prejudice between them.

internal attribution

(also called dispositional attributions) explain a person's behavior in terms of that person's preferences, beliefs, goals, or other qualities and characteristics. We make dispositional (internal) attributions when we decide that a person's behavior was caused by his or her relatively enduring tendency to think, feel, or act in a particular way. ("i did good on that test bc I'm smart")

1. Fundamental Attribution Error

(also known as correspondence bias) is the strong tendency to interpret other people's behavior as caused by internal rather than external causes, even when the behavior can be completely explained by the situation. This bias is the most common attributional bias and a frequent source of error. The fundamental attribution error helps perpetuate discrimination because fault is attributed to the person, not the circumstances. Once a person makes the fundamental attribution error, he or she is likely to ignore the context of future behavior from the individual. Why?

conformity

(matching behavior to perceived social norms). In general, people conform either because they want to be "right" (correct) in their behaviors and they are unsure of what to do in some situations OR because they want to be liked and accepted by the group they are conforming to.

Stanley Milgrim Experiment

- Studied how punishment affects learning - Test subject assigned the role of teacher and were told they were giving electric shocks - People followed both authority figures and ordinary people 65% of the people would almost kill them

Solomon Asch Experiment

70% of subjects conformed to a wrong answer rather than giving a correct answering the line test

COGNITION

Attitudes can play an important role in how people process and remember perceptual information in the social world. Especially in ambiguous situations, people's attitudes help organize events and thus determine what information is attended to, processed, encoded, and remembered. This is one reason why people in the same social situation may later report different versions of what occurred.

Roles

are the behaviors that members in different positions in a group are expected to perform. Groups often create different roles to fulfill different group functions. Sometimes they are filled formally (elections and appointments), whereas at other times they are filled informally (the "joker" among friends). Roles help a group delineate both responsibility within the group and responsibility to the group.

Prosocial behavior

acting altruistically to benefit others at a cost to oneself, includes sharing, cooperating, comforting, and helping. A number of factors affect whether we help someone...

attitude

an overall evaluation (usually positive or negative) about some aspect of the world, such as people, issues, situations, or objects. This evaluation has three components, summarized by the acronym ABC:

Mutual interdependence

another way to decrease prejudice, has been used in many American classrooms. The "jigsaw classroom" is a cooperative learning technique that proceeds in the following way...

attributional biases

are cognitive shortcuts for determining attributions that occur outside our awareness (tendencies to make certain types of attributions). Attributional biases lessen the cognitive load required to make sense of the world, but they can lead to errors.

attributions

are our explanations for the causes of events or behaviors. They involve judgments that we are very quick to make. Attributions affect how one perceives and treats the self and others. (why did someone get in a wreck? what caused this?

Social learning theory

explains how a prejudicial attitude can be spread and passed through generations as a learned stereotype. Parents, peers, teachers, television, movies, and other aspects of culture provide models of prejudice and discrimination that children learn and imitate.

"jigsaw classroom"

Integrated groups of five or six students are formed and given an assignment. Each member of the group researches a different aspect of the project. The members from each group researching the aspect of the topic then form a new, expert group. The expert groups meet to share information and rehearse presentations. The expert groups disband, and each member then writes a report. The members read that report to the original jigsaw groups. This way each group member is perceived as an expert. This technique decreases prejudice by increasing contact between individuals from different "groups" and creating new, integrated groups that require mutual interdependence to achieve a superordinate goal.

stereotypes

a belief or set of beliefs about people in a particular group or social category. may be positive, neutral, or negative. The assumption is every member of the group possesses the same simplified set of traits. They provide cognitive shortcuts for processing the information about the social world, which makes them prone to inaccuracies and cognitive errors...

peripheral route (heuristic persuasion)

involves decisions based on the attractiveness and expertise of the source; the number of arguments exposed to (but NOT the strength or quality of the arguments- e.g., a politician with a bigger campaign budget can afford more commercial time); and information about how other people respond to the message (e.g., "people love this product", "1 in 3 doctors recommend this"). The peripheral route takes advantage of the mere exposure effect, which refers to how simply becoming familiar with something or someone can change your attitude toward it (generally to a more favorable view). The person is responding to non-message cues. (hot girl in burger commercial- doesn't give any facts just draws in people by the girl)

central route (systematic persuasion)

involves decisions based on the content of the message. Typically this involves appeals to logic and reason. The person considers persuasive arguments carefully and thoughtfully. (logic/facts)

Social categorization

is a cognitive operation that leads people to divide the world automatically into categories of "us" and "them," both consciously and unconsciously. According to social identity theory, people usually think of their own group (the ingroup) favorably. The other group (the outgroup) is usually disliked and assumed to possess more undesirable traits. People are more inclined to like, trust, help, and cooperate with ingroup members than with outgroup members. According to this theory, the psychological forces leading to ingroup favoritism are so powerful that creating even an arbitrary distinction between "us" and "them" can lead to unconscious prejudice and discriminatory behavior.

Physical attraction

is a major factor in first impressions. Physical attraction may be influenced by stereotypes about attractive people (e.g., that they possess more desirable characteristics- smarter, happier, "better"). In general, we want to be around more attractive people. There also appears to be a basic biological standard of physical beauty involving facial and body symmetry that is universal to all cultures and recognized even by very young children.

Similarity

is another factor in the development of liking. The more similar a stranger's attitudes are to one's own attitudes, the more likely the two people are to be attracted. The greater the similarity, the more probable that liking will endure. Similarity can involve personalities, attitudes, beliefs, values, ambitions, and abilities (e.g., level of education, religious background, ethnicity, intelligence, socioeconomic status).

Groupthink

is another means by which decision making can go awry. It refers to the tendency of people who try to solve problems together to accept one another's information and ideas without subjecting them to critical analysis. Decisions are made that are not questioned logically. Groups can make poor decisions because group members are so concerned with preserving group cohesiveness that they fail to challenge each other's ideas and suggestions. So concurrence is emphasized at the expense of critical thinking in group decision-making

Obedience

is compliance with an order from an authority figure (the tendency to do what authorities tell us to do simply because they tell us to do it). The most famous study of obedience (one of the most famous of all psychological studies) was done by Stanley Milgram, who sought to test the hypothesis that Americans would not follow orders to inflict pain on others.

Companionate love

is marked by very close friendship, mutual caring, liking, respect, and attraction. More valued in Eastern (collectivistic) culture for marriage (why we see many more "arranged" marriages in these cultures).

Diffusion of responsibility

is the diminished sense of responsibility to help that each person feels as the number of bystanders grows.

Passionate love

is the intense, often sudden feeling of being "in love." It involves sexual attraction, a desire for mutual love and physical closeness, arousal, and a fear that the relationship will end. Highly valued in Western (individualistic) culture for marriage.

Infidelity

is the major contributor to the end of romantic relationships. Depending on the survey, 35-75% of men and 25-70% report cheating on their partners. So this is not a one-sided problem as many assume. Sexual infidelity ends relationships characterized by passion more readily than those with intimacy and commitment.

Altruism

is the motivation to increase another person's welfare without expectation of personal gain.

Social loafing

reduced motivation and effort shown by individuals working in a group, occurs when responsibility for an outcome is spread among members of the group and some group members let other members work harder than they do (applies to work, competition, normal everyday behavior such as tipping or cleaning, social interaction, and even helping behavior). Social loafing is weaker in collectivist cultures than individualist cultures. It can be reduced by establishing individual accountability (make individual contributions identifiable).

Recategorization

reduces prejudice by shifting the categories of "us" and "them" so that the two groups are no longer distinct entities. Make the outgroup part of the ingroup. (what they used to fix the fighting at the camp)

Realistic conflict theory

suggests that competition for scarce resources, such as good housing, jobs, and schools is a reason why prejudice arises. A classic experiment, the Robber's Cave study, showed how prejudice can be created from competition... A set of 11-year-old boys was divided into two groups at an overnight camp called Robber's Cave. The two groups competed for valued prizes over a period of time. Competition led to conflict and quickly escalated into prejudice and discrimination.