Social Psychology Unit 1 Exam 1
What does it mean to have an interaction of effects on a dependent variable?
a) What is a main effect? -Interaction of Effects: when the effect of one Independent Variable on the Dependent Variable depends on the value (or level) of the other Independent Variable -Main Effect: When an Independent Variable has an effect of similar magnitude and direction across levels of the other Independent Variables
What are self-fulfilling prophecies? Be able to relate these to both the rats in a maze and the bloomers examples.
-People's expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their beliefs (RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE RAE). -Maze bright/Maze dull study: rats originally put in inescapable maze, when put in escapable maze they already believed they couldn't get out and it ended up coming true -"Bloomers" Study - led to believe certain children would "bloom" (and they did amirite?)?
What are the positive and negative things associated with high self-esteem?
-Positive: more initiative, buffer from negative life events -Negative: narcissism, aggressiveness
What does it mean for two variables to be positively correlated with one another? Negatively correlated with one another?
-Positively: the two factors' scores rise and fall together -Negatively: as one factor score goes up, the other goes down
What are internal and external attributions, and what do they explain?
-Internal attributions: Dispositional (e.g., he loves to dance) -External attributions: Situational -Behavior and its justification
How does labeling relate to bias in research and what are some examples of this?
-Labeling one characteristic two different ways could make it look negative or positive Bashful or cautious, holding back or an observer Terrorist or freedom fighter
What are the 5 ways that we learn about ourselves that we talked about in class (know their real names) and what are problems associated with them?
-Look through others - looking glass self - the way we imagine people see us Problems - Love flattery, hate criticism, think everyone hates you? -Looking inside - Individualism - construing one's identity as an autonomous self Problems - Not so good at explaining why we are thinking or feeling certain things -Look at others - Collectivism Problems - There are always people doing better or worse than you are -Looking at yourself - Independent Self Problems - Behavior doesn't always interpret feelings appropriately? -Looking at close others - Interdependent Self - Vicarious Self-Perception Problems - Distance yourself from people who may make you look bad, CORFing - cutting off reflected failure
What does your book say about Norms and Cultural Similarity?
-Norms: Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do - what is normal.) -Cultural Similarity: Cultures differ, however, beneath the veneer of cultural differences, cross-cultural psychologists see "an essential universality" in the following: universal friendship norms, universal trait dimensions, universal social belief dimensions, universal status norms, the incest taboo, norms of war.
What are the limitations of the availability heuristic?
-Our emotions can affect how we make snap judgments due to the presence - or lack there of - of hope?
How much influence do peers have on determining a person's behavior and personality?
-Peer influence determines about 40-50% of behavior and decisions
What does the Schwarz (1991) study state about heuristics?
-People asked to produce 6 examples of assertiveness seemed all around more assertive than those asked to produce 12?
What are implications of self-presentation for conducting research?
-People express more modesty when their self-flattery is vulnerable to being debunked?
How does our environment affect our genes/biology and vice versa?
-People react differently in different situations -People choose/create their environments -Epigenetics - environment influences gene expression -Neural networks affected by use
Which field is most closely related to social psychology and often studied in unison?
Book: Sociology
What is Kelley's covariation model? What are the three types of relevant information we need, and what do they predict?
-1. Consistency Does the actor behave similarly in this situation on other occasions? Does Claire always throw coffee in Joe's face? YES = High consistency -2. Distinctiveness Does the actor behave similarly in other situations? Does Claire throw coffee in everyone's faces? NO = High distinctiveness -3. Consensus Do others behave similarly in that situation? Do other people throw coffee in Joe's face? YES = High consensus -Judges what type of attribution: internal, external, ambiguous -External: High consistency, high distinctiveness, high consensus (everyone does this all the time in only this situation: all of my students leave my class early, but they don't leave anyone else's class early) -Internal: High consistency, low distinctiveness, low consensus (you are the only one who does this and it's in every situation: you are the only one to leave early, and you leave every class early) -Ambiguous: Low consistency ("IDEK THO")
What are the basic components or ideas of evolutionary theory and how do they contribute to evolution?
-3 major components to evolution: heritability, variation, natural selection -Heritability: a large percentage of genes passed on from parents -Variation: a small percentage of genes change randomly -Natural Selection: some variations are more beneficial for survival than others, determines which random variations are passed on through heredity
What is self-esteem?
-A person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth.
What is a theory and what does your book say about the comparison between evolutionary theory and the theory of gravity?
-A theory is an integrated set of principles that explain and predict observed events. -Evolution is seen as "just a theory" but gravity is also a theory. Gravity is the theoretical explanation for the fact your keys fall to the ground when dropped.
What is the 3rd variable problem with correlational research?
-A third variable might be involved in the situation that has not been taken into account. Therefore, correlational research allows us to predict, but it cannot tell us whether changing one variable will cause changes in another.
What are the different types of self? What happens when there are discrepancies between them?
-Actual Self - who you are right now -Ideal Self - The self it is your goal to be -Ought Self - The self it is your duty to be -Feared Self - The self you fear becoming -Discrepancies motivate change and result in emotional reactions Actual - Ideal (sad) Actual - Ought (anxious) Actual - Feared (relief)
What is the limited resource model of self-control and what are the implications of this?
-All types of control rely on ONE limited energy source: behavior control, thought control, emotion control, impulse control -It's difficult to control more than one at a time
What is anchoring and adjusting? How does this influence our judgments?
-Anchoring and Adjustment: Tendency to be influenced by a starting point (anchor) when making decisions -We may make false judgments about or have false expectations for the future based on the starting point of the situation?
What are the motives for seeking self-knowledge and which motive tends to be the strongest?
-Appraisal motive - Desire to learn truth about oneself (whatever it is!) -Consistency motive - Desire to get feedback that confirms what person already believes about himself or herself -Self-enhancement motive - Desire to learn favorable or flattering things about the self -Self-enhancement motive is strongest?
What are attributions and when do we make them?
-Attribution: an explanation why we or others engaged in a certain behavior -Often made when behavior seems out of place?
How did behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis contribute to the field of social psychology?
-Automatic and nonconscious vs. controlled and conscious
What are BIRGing and CORFing?
-BIRGing - Basking In Reflected Glory - "We won!" -CORFing - Cutting Off Reflected Failure - "They lost"
What is the terror management theory of self-esteem?
-Basic premises: we will some day die, this sucks, we want to live forever, symbolic immortality through culture, self-esteem informs us if we are adhering to culture and success and achieving meaning -Evidence: thinking of death increases adherence to cultural norms, conforming with culture after thinking of death increases self-esteem, having high self-esteem related to fewer thoughts about death
What is self-monitoring and when is it good, when is it problematic?
-Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one's performance to create the desired impression. -Good: high - don't seem like an ******* low - expressed their own ideas -Bad: high - don't express the truth low - might seem like an ******* or insensitive
What is cultural psychology?
-Branch of social psychology that studies how thoughts, emotions, and behavior differ across cultures -Collectivistic vs. Individualistic cultures
What are the two types of cultures that are typically studied in cultural psychology, how are they characterized and what societies tend to have each kind? What does the Sedikides study predict for different cultures?
-Collectivist and Individualistic -Collectivist: more focus on external reasons for behavior, more focus on connection with others -Individualistic: more focus on internal reasons for behavior, more focus on being different from others -Western-minded: Individualistic -Eastern and African: Collectivist -Sedikides: self-enhancement; some traits were focused on self (e.g., unique, self-reliant, independent), some traits were focused on interacting with others (e.g., cooperative, loyal, respectful). Predicted that American/Individualistic cultures saw themselves being better than others at self-related traits, Japanese/Collectivist cultures saw themselves at being better than others at others-related traits.
How does the conjunction fallacy affect how likely that we judge the occurrence of combinations of events?
-Conjunction fallacy: Believing the combination of two events is more likely than one event itself -We believe it's more likely to happen than is true.
What are the pros and cons of correlational and experimental research?
-Correlational Pros: Often uses real-world settings Cons: Causation often ambiguous -Experimental Pros: Can explore cause and effect by controlling variables and by random assignment Cons: Some important variables cannot be studied with experiments
Why can and can't correlational research tell us about human behavior, thoughts, and feelings?
-Correlational studies, sometimes conducted with systematic survey methods, discern the relationship between variables, such as between amount of education and amount of income. Knowing two things are naturally related is valuable information, but it is not a reliable indicator of what is causing what - or whether a third variable is involved.
What are demand characteristics?
-Cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected
What are the biological influences of sex on behavior?
-Different chromosomes -idk your traits/hormones
What are the ways in which the EEA differs from today's environment and how does that affect our social psychology?
-Discord between genes and environment -Humans crave sweet and fatty foods, these were precious commodities in the EEA, today these things are too easily available
What are failings of our self-awareness?
-Discrepancies
What is error management theory and how is it adaptive?
-EMT -We are biased to make errors in the more adaptive direction Not attending to potential threats more dangerous than over-attending (play it safe!) False positive: over-attending - thinking something's worse than what it is Miss: under-attending - thinking something's safer than what it is
What is the EEA and how does it inform social psychology?
-Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness -Evolution explains human psychology in terms of what was adaptive in EEA - not today
What is self-presentation, who does it, and why do people do it?
-Everyone does it? -The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one's ideals.
Why can't we just use common sense to tell us about social psychology?
-Experiments reveal that outcomes are more "obvious" after the facts are known -Hindsight bias
Who wins in the nature vs. nurture debate?
-FALSE DICHOTOMY -Neither win, the effect of one factor depends on another factor
What are the major gender differences found in research?
-Friendship: girls maintain and express emotion more. Boys: fight or flight, Girls: tend to befriend. -Vocations: men are drawn to jobs that enhance inequalities, women are drawn to jobs that reduce inequalities -Family relations: women's connections as mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers bind families -Smiling: girls smile more -Empathy: felt more by women -Social dominance: men are more likely to have social power and engage in physical aggression. -Sexuality men more often think about sex and initiate it, while women's sexuality tends to be inspired by emotional passion.
What were the findings of the marshmallow self-control study? What long-term implications are there?
-Gave 4 yr. olds & marshmallows -Delay of gratification -Self-control = unlimited marshmallows -Self-control failure = only 1 -They didn't practice self-control? -On average, self-control kids scored 210 pts. higher on the SAT!
How do we know there is a strong influence of culture or "nurture" on gender differences?
-Gender differences change as culture does?
What is the ABC triad and how does it apply to what social psychologists do?
-Goal: Have a broad understanding of how human beings think, act, & feel -Focus on "normal" day to day behavior -All of the questions asked are empirical questions -ABC Triad: Affect: How people feel ex: feeling anger Behavior: What people do ex: driving aggressively Cognition: What people think ex: thinking that others are out to get you
When do we attribute our behavior to external versus internal causes? (Sedikides et al., 1998). How does this relate to self-serving biases from when we talked about the self?
-Group or personal success = internal -Group or personal failure = external -Self-serving bias Taking credit for successes (internal attributions) Blaming other people/factors for failures (external attributions)
What is an operational definition and why is it important?
-How you define a construct within an experiment? -Some constructs are easier to define than others -What does it mean "to wear black clothes?" -What do we mean by "aggression?"
How does culture affect perceptions of the self?
-Humans will go to varying degrees of action to leave the desired effect on other people that we want. To varying degrees, we note our performance and adjust it to create the impressions we desire.
What are the self-enhancement and better-than-average effects?
-I am better than everyone me > everyone -Everyone ends up above average
What does the Jones & Harris (1967) pro-Castro/anti-Castro study say about the types of attributions we make?
-If individuals dictate an opinion that someone else must then express, they still tend to see the person as actually holding that opinion.
What does the text state about illusory correlations and the gambler's fallacy?
-Illusory Correlations: Perception of a relationship where none exists, or perception of a stronger relationship than actually exists. When we expect to find significant relationships, we easily associate random events, perceiving an illusory correlation People easily misperceive random events as confirming their beliefs -Gambler's fallacy: illusion of control, gamblers attribute wins to their skill and foresight and losses become "near misses" or "flukes" (#DODnipslip2014). -Illusion of Control: Perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are.
What are independent and dependent variables?
-Independent Variable: The experimental factor that a researcher manipulates. -Dependent Variable: The variable being measured, so called because it may depend on manipulations of the independent variable.
What is the sociometer theory of self-esteem?
-Innate Need to Belong -Sociometer - A "gauge" that tells us if we are being accepted -Evidence People who feel accepted by others have higher self-esteem Manipulating feelings of belongingness causes similar behaviors as manipulating threats to self esteem
What are some of the most important common themes of social psychology, what do they mean, and why are they important?
-Power of the Situation Our situations determine our possibilities and our limitations -Biological Roots Evolved cultural animal The environment we evolved to thrive in is different than the one we live in now -We Construct Our Reality There is an objective reality out there, but we always view it through the lens of our beliefs and values -We have duplex minds that enable intuitions Automatic and nonconscious vs. controlled and conscious A lot goes on that we are unaware of! -Selfish impulse vs. social conscience Nature says, "Go," culture says, "Stop." Competing Internal and External Drives -Focus on Self Self-esteem Self-control Self-awareness Self-presentation -Focus on Conflict/Social Interaction Prejudice & Stereotyping Gender Issues Racial Issues Post 9/11 anti-Arab sentiments Group Dynamics (e.g. social loafing) Important because they have the potential to illuminate your life, to make visible the subtle influences that guide your thinking and acting. Offers many ideas about how to know ourselves better, how to win friends and influence people, how to transform closed fists into open arms. Can positively affect your life.
How does priming affect our thoughts and behaviors?
-Priming: the process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept. -Your prejudgments/prior experiences have striking effects on how you perceive and interpret events.
What is self-handicapping?
-Protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure.
What is self-awareness? What is the difference between public and private?
-Public: Aware of how you are perceived to others -Private: Aware of your internal state
What all drives the false consensus effect?
-Representativeness Heuristic Tendency to estimate the likelihood of an event by how well it matches your expectations THTHTHTHTHT TTTTTTTTTTT Partly due to base-rate fallacy -False Consensus Effect Overestimating number of people who share one's opinions and beliefs "Everyone loves social psychology!" Reason? Anchor and Adjustment Self-Esteem Availability
What is self-regulation and what else is it known as?
-Self-control or willpower -3 Major Parts Overriding short-term desires in favor of long-term benefits (impulse control) Or the active management of one's many needs and goals Any process of monitoring and altering one's responses (e.g. thoughts, feelings, behaviors).
What does social psychology focus on?
-Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Its central themes include the following: 1) How we construe our social worlds 2) How our social intuitions guide and sometimes deceive us 3) How our social behavior is shaped by other people, by our attitudes and personalities, and by our biology 4) How social psychology's principles apply to our everyday lives and to various other fields of study
Why is culture so beneficial for our species?
-Survival: humans rely on other humans for survival, division of labor -Progress: culture allows learning to be passed on from one generation to the next.
What does the text state about how we reconstruct memories and our past behaviors? Do we tend to be accurate?
-Tend to be inaccurate -We reconstruct our distant past by using our current feelings and expectations to combine information fragments. -We can easily (although unconsciously) revise our memories to suit our current knowledge. -misinformation effect: Incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it.
What is the simulation heuristic?
-Tendency to be influenced by the ease with which you can imagine (or mentally stimulate) an event
What is the availability heuristic? How does it affect our judgments of the likelihood of events?
-Tendency to estimate the likelihood of event by how easily instances of it come to mind. -The more easily we recall something, the more likely it seems.
What is actor-observer bias? How is it related to the fundamental attribution error?
-Tendency to make internal attributions for others behaviors "Jon kicked the dog because he's an *******" -Tendency to make external attributions for our own behaviors "I kicked the dog because it had rabies and was about to bite me"
What is the overconfidence phenomenon?
-Tendency to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs (e.g., humor, grammar).
What does your book state about embodied cognition? Be able to generalize its examples to other situations.
-The mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments. -After holding a warm drink, people become more likely to rate someone more warmly and behave more generously. -After receiving a cold shoulder treatment, people judge the experimental room as colder than do those treated warmly. -Physical warmth accentuates social warmth, and social exclusion literally feels cold.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
-The tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon others' behavior. (Also called correspondence bias because we so often see behavior as corresponding to a disposition.)
What is the false consensus effect?
-The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors.
What is the false uniqueness effect?
-The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors.
What are some of the unintended influences on survey research?
-Unrepresentative Samples -Order of Questions -Response Questions -Wording of Questions
What can happen when self-regulation fails?
-Unstable relationships? -Less success? Academic success is better predicted by self-control capacity than IQ -More criminality? -Worse mental health? Live shorter?
What differentiates BIRGing and CORFing from upward and downward comparisons?
-Upward and downward comparisons relate to how we see ourselves, BIRGing and CORFing relate to what actions we take
What are upward and downward social comparisons? When might we use each?
-Upward: raising the standards by which we evaluate our attainments, might happen when we experience an increase in affluence, status, or achievement -Downward: lowering the standards by which we evaluate our attainments, might happen we we experience a decrease in affluence, status, or achievement
What are the ways in which we evaluate a measure that we are using to assess a certain construct?
-Validity -Reliability
1) What is the spotlight effect?
-We think others are paying a lot of attention to us
What is the illusion of transparency and what does your book say about this and feeling nervous in front of others?
-We think others can read us -Other people are noticing less than you might suppose
What important 20th century event stimulated interest in social psychology and why did it do so?
-World War II
What are the criticisms of advances made in "gender equality"?
-biology is trying to disprove culture? -why can't women just be women and men just be men?? -idk what else?
What are our large brains evolved for?
-designed to help us relate to each other
How does social psychology study human behavior, thoughts, and feelings?
-develop theory -use hypotheses to test theories, give direction research, and make good theories practical
What can correlation coefficients range from? What does the sign mean?
-from -1.0 to +1.0 - the "-" sign means a negative correlation, the "+" sign means a positive correlation
What is sexual selection and how is it a more specific type of natural selection?
-idk, cause you f*ck who you like so if you pretty you good if not bye felicia
Are there more differences between the genders or between individuals?
-individuals
How does social psychology relate to sociology and other areas of psychology?
-it looks at how we're shaped by our biology and neurobiology -lies between boundary of sociology and psychology
What are heuristics and when do we use them?
-mental shortcuts that provide quick estimates about the likelihood of events efficient and often lead to correct answer prone to predictable types of errors -We use them when making routine or quick decisions
What is confirmation bias? How may this relate to how we seek out information?
-tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions -People will typically try to confirm their theories but don't try to disconfirm them
What was the example given in the book about the way the environment can actually change the norm of that environment?
-the different foods eaten by different cultures?
Why is it difficult to define social psychology?
-we are bio-psycho-social organisms -we reflect interplay of biological, psychological and social influences psychologists have to study behavior from ALL of these perspectives
What is the hindsight bias?
The tendency to exaggerate, after learning an outcome, one's ability to have foreseen how something turned out. Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.
What is the goal and what are the features of experimental research?
a) Why are these features important for achieving the goal of experimental research? -2 key features: Control Manipulation of independent variable All other variables kept constant Random Assignment of representative sample of participants -When possible, social psychologists prefer to conduct experiments that explore cause and effect. By constructing a miniature reality that is under their control, experimenters can vary one thing and then another and discover how those things, separately or in combination, affect behavior. We randomly assign participants to an experimental condition, which receives the experimental treatment, or to a controlled condition, which does not. We can then attribute any resulting difference between the two conditions to the independent variable. -In creating experiments, social psychologists sometimes stage situations that engage people's emotions. In doing so, they are obliged to follow professional ethical guidelines, such as obtaining people's informed consent, protecting them from hard, and fully disclosing afterward any temporary deceptions. Laboratory experiments enable social psychologists to test ideas gleaned from life experience and then to apply the principles and findings to the real world.
Social Psychology
the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another
