Chapter 12: Social Psychology

Actor/observer discrpency

1. Bias when personal focuses on personal situations when examining their own actions 2. When interpreting other's behavior, they focus on dispositions ---not that big, mostly for negative events or behaviors they know well

Four Reasons for Bystander Effect

1. Diffusion of Responsibility: you expect others to help, thus, the more people who witness someone in need of help- the less likely witnesses will step forward 2. Fear of Social Blunders: worried of looking foolish 3. Anonymity: if witnesses are anonymous then they are less likely to help 4. Weighing 2 factors: How much harm do they risk to themselves by helping? What benefits might they have to forgo if they help?

Relationship Factors

1. Proximity 2. Matching principle: most physically similar leads to most successful coupling ---Pratfall Effect: the tendency for attractiveness to increase or decrease after an individual makes a mistake, depending on the individual's perceived ability to perform well in a general sense

Factors of Persuasiveness

1. Source: who delivers the message 2. Content: what the message says 3. Receiver: who processes the message

Why Stereotypes?

1. To streamline the formation of impressions 2. To deal with the limitations inherent in mental processing --impressions are the ones that can be negative or positive (impression formation is aided by stereotypes)

(Strategies for Compliance) 1. Foot-in-the-Door Effect 2. (opposite) Door in the Face 3. Lowballing

1. the idea that if people agree to a small request, they become more likely to comply with a large and undesirable request 2. people are more likely to agree to a small request after they have refused a large request 3. once a person has committed to the low option cost offered (usually deceptively low pricing), then deciding to commit once option cost increases does not seem like a big decision

(Reasons for Conformity) 1. Normative Influence 2. Informational Influence

1. the tendency for people to conform in order to fit in with the group 2. the tendency for people to conform when they assume that the behavior of others represents the correct way to respond

Sherif et al. 1961

22 white boys, divided into two groups. Phase 1: Competition led to ingroup and outgroup effects of prejudice and mistreatment. Phase 2: cooperation led to less animosity

Passionate love

A state of intense longing and desire

Companionate love

A strong commitment based on friendships trust, respect, and intimacy

Cognitive Dissonance

An uncomfortable mental state resulting from contradiction between two attitudes or between an attitude and a behavior

Explicit attitudes

Attitudes that a person can report

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes that influence a person's feeling and behavior at an unconscious level --accessed more quickly, with little effort

Post-Decisional Dissonance

College choice example: motivates a person to focus on one school's-the chosen school's- positive aspects and the other school's negative aspects

Hazing

Dissonance: members resolve conflict/Dissonance by inflating the importance of the group and their commitment to it

Situational attributions

Explanations of people's behavior that refer to external events, such as the weather, luck, accidents, or other people's actions

Personal attributions

Explanations of people's behavior that refer to their internal characteristics, such as abilities, traits, moods, or efforts

Superordinate Goals

Goals that require people to cooperate lead to reduced hostility

Attribution style

How one partner explains the other's behavior ---accommodation: overlook bad behavior or respond constructively

Fundamental attribution error

In explaining other people's behavior, the tendency to overemphasize personality traits and underestimate situational factors --when making attributions about themselves: tend to focus on situational factors

Perspective Giving

In which people share their experiences of being targets of discrimination

Groups

Interpersonal attachments is a fundamental motive that has evolved for adaptive purposes. In-groups: groups to which particular people belong Outgroups: to those which they do not belong. Group formation: -Reciprocity: meaning that if Person A helps (or harms) Person B, then Person B will help (or harm) Person A. -Transitivity: meaning that people generally share their friends' opinions of other people

Perspective Taking

Involves people actively contemplating the psychological experiences of other people

Milgram 1960

Learner and Teacher Obedience Nearly 2/3 obeyed all experimenter's directives -(Burger 2009) Replication found that 70% of participants were obedient up to the maximum voltage in the experiment

Asch 1955 (normative influence)

Line comparison group experiment 1/3 of time real participant went along with confederates 3/4 in repeated trials conformed to the incorrect response at least once Why? looking foolish/embarrassment Causes: group size (smaller=less conformity), dissent (can cause rejection behavior from group), fear response in amygdala in dissenting participants' brains

Gottman Interpersonal Styles

Maladaptive: being overly critical, holding the partner in contempt, being defensive, mentally withdrawing from the relationship

Prejudice

Negative feelings, opinions, and beliefs associated with a stereotype

Attitudes

People's evaluations of objects, of events, or of ideas

Attributions

People's explanations for why events or actions occur (can be permanent or temporary)

Illusionary Correlations

Reasoning error of seeing relationships that do not exist

Attitude Accessibility

Refers to the ease or difficulty that a person has in retrieving an attitude from memory --activated attitudes are more stable, predictive of behavior, and resistant to change

Aronson's Jigsaw Classroom

Students work in mixed race or sex groups. Group members cooperate outside and inside the group, members become equally valuable. Conclusion: Learn better, perform at higher levels, more positive treatment of other ethnicities

Modern Racism

Subtle forms of prejudice that coexist with the rejection of racist beliefs

Persuasion

The active and conscious effort to change an attitude through the transmission of a message

"What is beautiful is good" stereotype

The belief that attractive people are superior in most ways

Nonverbal Behavior (body language)

The facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, and movements by which one communicates with others --thin slices of behavior: quick views that a person then translates to an impression

Mere Exposure Effect

The idea that greater exposure to a stimulus leads to greater liking for it

Social Identity Theory

The idea that ingroups consist of individuals who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category and experience pride through their group membership.

Elaborate Likelihood Model

The idea that persuasive messages lead to an attitude change in two ways: via the central route or via the peripheral route --central route: when people are motivated to process information and are able to process that information; people are paying attention to arguments, considering all information, and using rational cognitive processes. ----Leads to: stronger attitudes that last over time and that people actively defend --peripheral route: when people are either not motivated to process info or are unable to process; people nominally process the message ----Leads to: more impulsive action, are weaker and more likely to change over time

Discirmination

The inappropriate and unjustified treatment of people as a result of prejudice

Festinger & Carlsmith 1959: Boring Task Experiment

Those paid $1 experienced cognitive dissonance. Result: a way to get people to change their attitudes is to change their behaviors first, using as few incentives as possible

Correspondence Bias

To emphasize the expectancy that people's actions correspond with their beliefs and personalities

Subtyping

When people encounter someone who does not fit the stereotype, they put that person in a special category rather than alter the stereotype

Deindividuation (ex. crowd behavior)

a state of reduce individuality, reduced self-awareness, and reduced attention to personal standards; this phenomenon may occur when people are part of a group

Prosocial Behaviors

actions that tend to benefit others, such as doing favors or helping

Inclusive Fitness

an explanation for altruism that focuses on the adaptive benefit of transmitting genes, such as through kin selection, rather than focusing on individual survival

Aggression

any behavior that involves intentional harm to another -factors: negative emotions, heat, social rejection -biological: MAOA gene- involved in aggressive violence, referred to as the "warrior gene", makes individuals susceptible to environmental risk factors associated with anti-social behaviors (regulates serotonin which is linked to control of aggressive behavior) [childhood mistreatment + MAOA gene version= more likelihood of becoming violent criminals]; testosterone- increased this may increase aggression because it reduces activity of brain circuits to control impulses

Social Norms

expected standards of conduct, which influence behavior

Culture of Honor

explanation as to why some cultures (esp. South) are violent- more cognitively primed for aggression

Social Psychology

field concerned with how people influence other people's thoughts, feelings, and actions. Research in this field covers things such as: how people perceive and understand others, how people function in groups, why people hurt or help others, why people stigmatize and discriminate against certain others, why people fall in love.

Risky-shift effect

groups often make riskier decisions than individuals do -the initial attitudes of group members determines if the group becomes riskier or more cautious

Medial Prefrontal Cortex

important for thinking about other people- thinking about them generally or specifically, whether they are in the ingroups or outgroup -Activity in this region is also associated with ingroup bias that emerges after assignment through the minimal group paradigm -"pain regions" more active when people see ingroup member being harmed than when seeing harm inflicted on an outgroup member -Area less active when people consider members of outgroups (esp. extreme outgroups: homeless, drug addicts) [dehumanization]

(Altruism towards non-relatives) Reciprocal Helping

one animal helps another because the other may return favor in the future

Altruism

providing help when it is needed without any apparent reward for doing so

Conformity

the altering of one's behaviors and opinions to match those of other people or to match other people's expectations

Bystander Intervention Effect (also called: bystander apathy)

the failure to offer help by those who observe someone in need when other people are present

Social Facilitation

the idea that the presence of others generally enhances performance -Triplett 1897: Biking faster with others than when alone. -Zajonc's model: all animals are genetically predisposed to become aroused by the presence of others of their own species, arousal leads animals to emit a dominant response, and social facilitation can either enhance or impair performance (social inhibition: when task is complex or unfamiliar = poor performance in presence of others)

group polarization

the process by which initial attitudes of groups become more extreme over time

Ingroup Favoritism

the tendency for people to evaluate favorably and privilege members of the ingroup more than members of the outgroup -Women show greater automatic ingroup bias toward other women. -Minimal group paradigm: randomly assigning to two groups using meaningless criteria (such as flipping a coin)

Social Loafing

the tendency for people to not work as hard in a group than when working alone

Groupthink

the tendency of groups to make bad decisions when the group is under pressure, facing external threats, and is biased

Compliance

the tendency to agree to do things requested by others

Out-group Homogeneity Effect

the tendency to view outgroup members as less varied than ingroup members.

Obedience

when a person follows the orders of a person of authority