Social Psychology

Attribution Theory

"A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior" (p. 430)

Mutual Interdependence

"A situation wherein individuals need one another to accomplish their goal." pg 346. When individuals are mutually interdependent, needing to cooperate with each other in order to reach a goal, hostility is decreased (hostility is otherwise produced when conflict and competition exists between 2 groups). Demonstrated by Muzafer Sherif: created situations in which the boys had to work together in order to overcome an emergency situation, leading to a decrease in hostility and negative stereotyping--the boys became friends, got along better, and cooperated. (see pg 346 for more info).

"If it bleeds, it leads"

"Roger Johnson found that the most violent stories were reported ear- liest in the broadcast, a choice that sends the implicit message that the violent stories were the most important news of the day... Such coverage presents a distorted picture of the world, not because the people who run the news media are evil and trying to manipulate us but simply because they are trying to entertain us and get us to tune in. And, in trying to entertain us, they may unwittingly influence us to believe that people behave far more violently now than ever before." For more fun, see page 62.

Stereotype Threat

"The apprehension experienced by members of a minority group that they might behave in a manner that confirms an existing cultural stereotype; this usually results in reduced effectiveness in their performance" (p 437). So, an outcome of stereotypes in our society is this self-fulfilling prophesy caused by them: ppl who are the targets of stereotypes can confirm them by trying NOT to. Example: Aronson studied this with white male engineering majors who had close to perfect SAT scores in math. He told them that a test he would be administering was a measure of math ability, and to half he told them that the point of the study was to learn why Asians have superior abilities in math (stereotype threat). These men performed much worse on the test. pp. 320-322

Blaming the Victim

"The tendency to blame individuals (make dispositional attributions) for their victimization; typically motivated by a desire to see the world as a fair place (431)" Aronson says that this happens when people who have never experienced prejudice try to make sense of what it is like to be on the receiving end of prejudice. "They may try to sympathize and wish that it werent so, but frequently a hint of self righteousness may nevertheless creep into their attitudes, producing a tendency to play the blame on the victim." He then gives examples of rationalizations people might say to make sense of the prejudice, eg: If that woman got raped, she must have been doing something to ask for it... etc. for more info see pps 322-323.

Ultimate Attribution Error

"The tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people consistent with our prejudice against that group." (p. 437). When people make attributions that are consistent with their existing prejudices in ambiguous situations. The example that Aronson gives on pg 316 is if Mr. Bigot sees a well dressed WASP sitting on a park bench relaxing at 3pm on a wed afternoon he wont think anything of it. IF he sees a well dressed black man doing the same, he may conclude that he is unemployed, becoming angry because his money is going to pay for his unemployment and paying for his fancy clothes. If he drives by the WASP guy's house and sees trash and garbage on the lawn he will think dogs went through his trash and threw it all around, but if he drives by a Latino man's house and sees the same, he will be angry and think he lives like a pig. "Prejudice causes particular kinds of negative attributions or stereotypes that can, in turn, intensify the prejudice." pg 316

Festinger and Carlsmith's experiment

- Asked college students to perform a boring and repetitive series of tasks - Then they were asked to to lie to a confederate waiting to participate in the experiment that the task they would be was interesting and enjoyable - Some students were offered $20 for lying, and others only $1 - Then they were asked to rate how enjoyable they found the task they performed earlier - Students who were paid $20 for lying rated the activity as dull, while those paid $1 rated it as enjoyable - Those who told the lie in the absence of much external justification moved in the direction of believing that what they said was true

Consensus

- part of the attribution process, when you look to see if others behave in the same way in the same situation (see above)

Stereotypes

: "At the core of prejudice is the generalization of characteristics, motives, or behavior to an entire group of people . . . called stereotyping. ...Lippmann..made a distinction between the world "out there" and the stereotype--the little pictures in our heads that help us interpret the world we see. To stereotype is to allow those pictures to dominate our thinking, leading us to assign identical characteristics to any person in a group, regardless of the actual variation among members of that group." pg 311

Jigsaw technique/classroom

A classroom structure designed to reduce prejudice and raise the self-esteem of children by placing them in small, racially-mixed, cooperative groups. (434) Invented by Aronson and his students in 1971 to increase cooperation in the classroom in order to decrease competitiveness and hostility among students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Basically, each student was given a piece of an assignment that was crucial for the entire group to complete the assignment together. Each student's contribution therefore became valued and respected as unique, valuable, and essential to their own understanding and performance on the exam. They then applied this approach to other classrooms and found that children in jigsaw classes "performed better on objective exams, grew to like each other better, developed a greater liking for school and greater self-esteem than children in traditional classrooms. The increase in liking among children in the jigsaw classroom crossed ethnic and racial barriers, resulting in a sharp decrease in prejudice and stereotyping" pg 351.

Attractiveness

A factor that increases/decreases conformity. The crucial factor in conformity due to Identification- the attractiveness of the person with whom we identify motivates us adopt a certain behavior because it puts us in a satisfying relationship with the person with whom we are identifying. The more attractive the person is to us the greater the motivation to conform. p.40 and p.36

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

A response to simple, often irrelevant cues that suggest the rightness, wrongness, or attractiveness of an argument without giving it much thought. Also described as low-thought persuasion through the use of peripheral cues such as presentation attractiveness. Page 73.

Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy

A way of reducing cognitive dissonance. Occurs when an individual asserts a position that is opposite of their own. Asserting this position creates a state of cognitive dissonance, so one is motivated to change their opinion in the direction of this opposite position. - pg. 208

The psychology of inevitability

Ch 5 (228): a dissonance theory, that describes how people attempt to live with unpleasant outcomes, particularly if the situation is both NEGATIVE and INEVITABLE. This is accomplished by cognitively minimizing the the unpleasantness of the situation. Ch 7 (339): theory as it pertains to prejudice - If I know that you and I will inevitably be in close contact, and I don't like you, I will experience dissonance. To reduce dissonance, I will try to convince myself that you are not as bad as I previously thought (i.e. look for positive characteristics and ignore/minimize the importance of your negative characteristics). - Key determinant of whether contact will reduce or increase prejudice is the ease with which you can exit the relationship.

In-group/Out-group

Effects: Homegeneity effect = we see members of other groups as more similar than we see members of our own group. May be due to extra information that we have about their own members and only the category label of other groups.

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves & the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember, & use social info to make judgments & decisions

Belief in a just world

I can't find a good defn in the book, aside from on pg 323 it says "similarly, negative attitudes toward the poor--including blaming them for their own plight--are more prevalent among individuals who believe most strongly that the world is a just place." (in the context of blaming the victim)

Priming

Ideas that have been recently encountered or frequently activated are more likely to come to mind and thus will be used in interpreting social events. (pg.123)

Inoculation Effect

If a weak argument is presented against your stated position and you defeat it: the process teaches you how to attack stronger arguments against your position in the future. This model is similar to how a vaccine allows the immune system to learn how to defeat stronger attacks by first defeating a weakened version of a virus. Page 106.

Primacy Effect

Inhibition (interference) is greatest if very little time elapses between hearing two arguments, therefore, the first argument produces maximum interference with the learning of the second argument, and a primacy effect will occur. The first argument will have the advantage. Page 95.

Central Route to Persuasion

Involves weighing arguments and considering relevant facts and figures, thinking about issues in a systematic fashion and coming to a decision. Also described as thoughtful persuasion through logical arguments, presentation of facts of other modes that require thoughtful evaluation. Central routes of persuasions are more persistent over time, resistant to change, and more predictive of behavior than peripheral routes to persuasion. Page 73.

Justification of Cruelty

Most effective way to reduce dissonance (if you see yourself as a good person) would be to convince yourself that the victim deserved it for some reason, even if you only disliked a person prior to his victimization, and wished that harm would befall him We find people less attractive/like them less after we hurt than before (Davis & Jones), particularly if we have high self-esteem (i.e., "Because I think I am such a nice person, if I do something that causes you pain, I must convince myself you are a rat.") Limitations to this generalization: low self-esteem, capacity of the victim to retaliate (this restores equity, so there's not reason to derogate them) Dehumanizing the victim Can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy

Authenticity

Our ability to give up trying to make a good impression and beginning to reveal things about ourselves that are honest, even if unsavory. Data show the more intimacy that develops in a relationship, the more important authenticity becomes; a relationship will be more satisfying over a longer period of time if people are able to express both positive and negative feelings about themselves as well as each other.

Consensus

Piece of info that we look at as naïve scientists; other people behave the same way in the same situation

Consistency

Piece of info that we look at as naïve scientists; that person behaves that way frequently (e.g., in other situations, with other people)

Bandura's Bobo doll study

Social learning experiment. Children saw an adult be physically ( and sometimes verbally) aggressive toward a "Bobo doll". The children who saw the adult be aggressive were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior toward the doll than the children who did not witness aggression. The children not only imitated the aggressive moves modeled by the adult but also engaged in innovative forms of aggressive- p. 275

Emotional Contagion

The rapid transmission of emotions or behaviors through a crowd, such as in the Tylenol poisonings of 1982 and the spread of suicide pacts among teenagers in 1984. Page 64.

The Dilution Effect

The tendency for nuetral and irrelevant information to weaken judgment or impression (pg. 131)

Hindsight Bias Stereotype

The tendency people have to view events as more predictable than they really are. After we know the outcome of an event, the complex circumstances surrounding its occurrences suddenly seem crystal clear. People often believe that they knew the outcome of the event before it actually happened.

Naïve Scientist

The tendency to look for certain relationships to find the most rational/logical explanation of others' bxs to help make sense of the world

One-sided argument

This is an argument that only states its view and ignores the arguments against its view. In other words, it only presents one side of the argument. The more well informed the members of the audience are, the less likely they are to be persuaded by a one-sided argument. If a member of the audience is already predisposed to believe the communicator's argument, a one-sided presentation has a greater impact on his or her opinion than a two-sided presentation. Page 93.

Two-sided argument

This is an argument that presents its view and also mentions the other side of the issue. In other words, it presents two sides of the argument. The more well informed the members of the audience are the more likely they are to be persuaded by a two-sided argument. A two-sided refutational argument is more persuasive if a member of the audience is leaning in the opposite direction. Page 93.

Asch's conformity experiments

Three lines were shown to subjects and they had to identify which of the lines was the same length as a target line. Confederates chose a line which was clearly incorrect and a large percentage of the subjects followed the group of confederates and chose the wrong line (conforming to the group). Follow-up experiments tested if just one of the confederates chose the correct response there was a sharp decline in erroneous judgment by the subjects (this was true even if the dissenter confederate chose a different incorrect line). This showed that if even one other person is willing to go against the group the pressure to conform is greatly diminished Aronson referred to this as a "freeing effect". p.19-24.

Distinctiveness

Uniqueness to that person, will cue into a dispositional attribution vs. situational

Bias

We all think we're less biased than the average person. We aren't as aware of our own biases as we are of others'. Cognitive biases happen when we take shortcuts in our thinking and ignore a vital piece of info, Called "Bias Blindspot."

Cognitive Miser

We are always looking for ways to conserve cognitive energy. Our capacity to process information is limited, so we attempt to adopt strategies to simplify complex problems (Aronson pg. 119)

Reactance theory

We attempt to restore our sense of freedom if we encounter a blatant or coercive persuasive attempt. We love our free will and authority and we'll act to restore it if we sense that it is threatened, but our reactance is blunted when we are distracted. Page 104.

Credibility

We believe those we consider both experts and trustworthy. We are more likely to be persuaded by people who contradict self-interest and when we don't think they're trying to persuade us. Overheard comments not intended for a person are more persuasive because they are believed not to be a persuasive attempt. Page 75.

The Representative Heuristic

We focus on the similarity of one object to another to infer that the first object acts like the second one. Ex. We infer that high quality products are expensive, thus, all expensive products are high quality. (pg. 132)

Bias blindspot

We think we are less biased than the "average" person; we believe we see the world as it is, while others see what they would like to see. We are unable to detect our own biases because the nature of cognitive biases is that they are unconscious and unintentional. (Aronson pg 119)

Opinion

What a person believes to be factually true. Primarily cognitive and transient. Page 108.

Bystander Effect

What occurs when another bystander or other bystanders tend to inhibit helpful actions. p. 50

The Contrast Effect

When an object/person is contrasted/compared to something similar, but not as good, that particular object/person is judged as better. (pg. 121)

Recency Effect

When hearing two arguments, retention will be greatest when the audience must make up its mind immediately after hearing the second arguments, therefore, a recency effect will occur. The second argument will have the advantage. Page 95.

Self-Justification

When we do something or make a decision, we are motivated to convince ourselves (and others) that it was a logical, reasonable thing to do/decision to make. We do this by offering reasons, explanations, excuses, etc. for our behaviors. This is especially true when we encounter cognitive dissonance. - pg. 179

The Availability Heuristic

When we make judgments by how easy it is for us to bring specific examples to mind. (pg. 135)

Unanimity

a crucial factor in Asch's experiments. If a group is unanimous in selecting an incorrect response an individual is much more likely to conform with the group. If just one other person does not conform with the group the pressure to conform is greatly diminished. p.23

The Halo Effect

a dimension of Attitude Heuristic; a general bias in which a favorable or unfavorable general impression about a person affects our inferences and future expectations about that person in the direction of the halo [p. 137, 9/27]

Accountability

a factor that increases/decreases conformity - when a person knows that he will be accountable to a group, he is more likely to conform to that group. If he is required to explain his decision to an outsider he is less apt to conform Ex. Doing a group project that will get graded.- less apt to conform with the group if group is wrong b/c of the grade.

Hypocrisy

a form of cognitive dissonance that occurs when a person chooses to promote a behavior that they themselves do not practice. - pg. 242

Fundamental Attribution Error

a general human tendency to overestimate the importance of personality or dispositional factors relative to situational or environmental influences when describing and explaining the causes of social behavior [p. 162, 10/4]

Groupthink

a kind of thinking in which maintaining group agreement overrides a careful consideration of the facts in a realistic manner p.18

Relational Aggression

a more social, non-physical form of aggression aimed at hurting others by sabotaging reputations and relationships with peers, exemplified by spreading false rumors and malicious gossip. p. 264

Identification

a response to social influence brought about by an individual's desire to be liked by the influencer p.36

Deindividuation

a state of reduced self-awareness, reduced concern over social evaluation, and weakened restraints against prohibited forms of behavior p. 275

Cognitive Dissonance

a state of tension that occurs whenever an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent. Because the experience of this is unpleasant, people are motivated to reduce it. This is done by changing one or both cognitions in such a way as to render them more compatible with each other or by adding cognitions that help bridge the gap between the original cognitions. - pg. 180

Instrumental Aggression

aggression with the intent to hurt, but the hurting is a means to a goal other than causing pain p. 251

Hostile Aggression

an act of aggression stemming from a feeling of anger and aimed at inflicting pain or injury. p.251

False-Consensus Effect

an aspect of Attitude Heuristic; overestimate the percentage of people who agree with us on any issue; after we make a decision, the belief that others would have decided to act in the same fashion [p. 138, 9/27]

Illusory Correlation

another effect of categorization, when we frequently perceive a relationship between two entities that we think should be related, but, in fact, they are not (see Aronson p. 142 for an example of this)

Discrimination

around pg 298. a predisposition to discriminate against a group is the behavioral component of prejudice. So discrimination seems to be behavioral.

Conformity

change in a person's behavior or opinions as a result of real or perceived pressure from a person or a group of people p.19

Internal Justification

changing something about the self in the direction of one's statements to reduce dissonance (pg. 205)

Self-Schema

coherent memories, feelings, and beliefs about ourselves that hang together and form an integrated whole; our memories can become distorted in a way that fits our general view of ourselves [p. 147, 10/4]

Attribution process

comprised of three pieces of information: the consistency of the actor's behavior (Does he or she always behave in this manner, in other situations, and at other times?, consensus (Do others behave in the same way in the same situation?), and/or the distinctiveness of the action (Is he or she the only one to behave in this manner?) (Aronson p. 117)

Compliance

describes the behavior of a person motivated by the desire for reward or to avoid punishment p.35

Contrast Effect

example is that you look at a wine list and even if the restaurant does not stock the listed $170 bottle of wine, it makes the others (at $14, $35, $70) look cheaper (Aronson p. 121)

Attitude

general evaluations individuals have regarding people, places, objects and issues. Includes an emotional component, can be explicit (deliberate, acknowledged evaluations) or implicit (automatic, gut-level evaluations). Implicit and explicit attitudes may not necessarily match. Are extremely difficult to change. Page 109.

Benevolent sexism

holding stereotypically positive views of women (e.g. they are warmer, kinder, more nurturing, etc.), but underneath these views is the assumption that women are weaker and less competent. Benevolent Sexism ultimately justifies relegating women to traditional roles in society.

Amateur Social Psychologist

humans are social creatures that spend a lot of time interacting with others. for this reason, most people are interested in discovering what these influences are and how they act upon us. we have unscientific ways of uncovering answers to these questions and thus act as amateur social psychologists. we don't have the same tools as scientific researchers and mainly rely on careful observation of our own experiences that tend to involve many layers and complexities of interacting variables. usually, however, our hypotheses about what causes these influences strikingly similar to scientific research finds. this might sometimes be due to hindsight bias...(Aronson, p. 7-9)

Justification of Effort

if a person goes through a difficult or painful experience in order to attain some goal or object, that goal or object becomes more attractive

Social Influence

integral component of the definition of social psychology. individual people, society, the media, various groups, etc, can change the beliefs, feelings and behaviors of others (Aronson, p.6)

External Justification

justifying one's dissonant actions based on situational factors (pg. 204)

Egocentric Thought

most people have a tendency to view themselves as more central to events than is actually the case; in social situations we think people are paying more attention to us than they actually are; people have superior memory for information that is descriptive of the self [p. 168, 10/4]

Hindsight Bias

our tendency to overestimate the powers of prediction once we know the outcome of a given event For example, when you read the results of a study and think the results are so obvious the study should not have been done. However, some studies have counter-intuitive results, so nothing should be assumed. As amateur social psychologists use this concept (Aronson, p.7-8)

Mindguards

people who censor troublesome information when consensus seeking within a group is so important p.18

Prejudice

pg 299 - a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group on the basis of generalizations derived from faulty or incomplete informations. Contains: - a cognitive component (i.e. stereotype or set of beliefs), - an emotional component (i.e. hostility) - a behavioral component (i.e. a predisposition to discriminate against the group).

Exchange Relationship

pg 388 Relationships in which the people involved want to make sure that some sort of equity is achieved and that rewards and costs to each of the partners is fairly distributed. If there is inequality this will lead to unhappiness between the partners.

Companionate Love

pg. 390-391. As the relationship matures from romantic love, it becomes companionate (characterized by the combination of intimacy and commitment - without a lot of passion). Companionate love is stable and marked by feelings of mutual trust, dependability and warmth. Companionate love lasts longer than romantic passion and deepens over time.

Commitment

pg. 391 Needing to be with the other person, being loyal - also one of the three ingredients in Robert Sternberg's Triangle of Love theory (along with intimacy and passion)

Consummate Love

pg. 391. The blending of all three components of love (passion, intimacy, and commitment). Rare. Most likely, the couple gets used to one another, passion falls victim to routine and people settle into companionate love, short of the ideal--consummate love.

Gain Loss Theory

pg383 increases in positive, rewarding behavior from another person has more impact than constantly rewarding behavior. And that losses in positive behavior have more impact than constant negative behavior from another person. We will dislike someone more if they increase their dislike for us, then if they maintain a dislike for us.

Catharsis

specifically the release of energy; Freud believed that unless people were allowed to express aggressive behavior the aggressive energy would be dammed up, the pressure would build up, and the energy thus produced would seek an outlet, resulting in violance or mental illness. p. 259

Self-Serving Bias

tendency for individuals to make dispositional attributions for their successes and situational attributions for their failures, e.g. I am really smart so I did well on that test; I was really tired so the paper didn't come together well (Aronson p. 171)

Dispositional View

the assumption that a person's behavior is the result of his or her personality (disposition) rather than the pressures existing in the situation (Aronson, p.432) relates to concepts of actor-observer bias, self-serving bias, and fundamental attribution error can lead to misattributions that cause misunderstanding and conflict

Situational View

the assumption that a person's behavior is the result of pressures related to the circumstances of the surrounding situation

Amygdala

the core area of the brain associated with aggressive behaviors- p. 263

Relative Deprivation

the feeling that occurs when people notice that other people have more or are doing better than they are, and that the system is treating them unfairly relative to what people around them have. p.270

Internalization

the most deeply rooted response to social influence; motivation to internalize a particular belief rooted in the desire to be right. p.37

Scapegoating

the process of blaming a relatively powerless innocent person for something that is not his or her fault.

Dehumanization

the process of seeing victims as non-humans, which lowers inhibitions against aggressive actions, and also makes continued aggression easier and more likely p. 227

Foot-in-the-door Technique

the process of using small favors to encourage people to accede to larger requests (pg. 197)

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

the process that occurs when people 1) have an expectation about what another person is like, which then 2) influences how they act toward that person, and 3) causes that person to behave in a way that confirms those people's original expectation [p. 142, 9/27]

Attitude Accessibility

the strength of the association between an object and your evaluation of it; the things that come to mind most quickly; not all attitudes are highly accessible; when it is highly accessible, its more likely to be the major thing we use for defining the situation [p. 157]

Propaganda

the systematic propagation of a given doctrine p. 71 (index in back of book also says to look at pgs. 55-111 for various discussions of propaganda as related to mass communication)

Actor-Observer Bias

the tendency for actors to attribute their own actions to situational factors, whereas observers tend to attribute the same actions to stable personality dispositions of the actors; actors have more information about their own behavior and actions across situations, for the actor the focus/attention is on the situation, this is cultural - less true in Eastern societies [p. 165, 10/4]

Confirmation Bias

the tendency to seek confirmation of our original impressions or beliefs; we tend to focus on information that is consistent with our initial impressions and ignore information that is inconsistent [p. 152, 10/4]

Scripts

ways of behaving socially that we learn implicitly from the culture p.281

Ingroup favoritism

we see our own group as better on a number of dimensions. More likely to allocate rewards to our group than to others (see lecture from 9-27 for this)

Inadequate Rewards and/or Justification

when there is an inadequate reward for a behavior, there is more of a chance that one will feel a greater sense of cognitive dissonance, and thus, a greater chance of one softening his or her beliefs to bridge the gap between one's opinion and behavior. For example, when subjects were paid $1 to tell a lie, they experienced more dissonance (and more of a push to convince themselves that their lie was true to reduce dissonance) than subjects who were paid $20 to lie. Those that were paid $20 could justify their lie on the money (their opinions would not change). Those that were paid $1 could not justify that lie on the money because it was such a small amount (forced to convince themselves that the lie was true). - pg. 210