PSY220

out-groups

"them" - groups that people perceive as distinctively different from or apart from their in-group

in-groups

"us" - groups of people who share a sense of belonging, a feeling of common identity

3 steps to self fulfilling prophecy

(1) perceivers must develop erroneous expectancy; (2) perceivers' expectancy must influence how they act toward targets; (3) target must react to the perceiver's behavior in a manner that confirms the original false expectancy.

how teachers react to high vs low expectations of students

(1) warmer emotional support; (2) more time and attention; (3) provide more opportunities for target to perform and learn difficult material; (4) clearer and more constructive feedback.

hindsight bias

- "I knew this would happen all along" - very powerful phenomenon when people retrospectively recall an ambiguous event that may have multiple outcomes and assign to them the meaning of the event - Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong after decades of not recognizing each other, people rated the likelihood that Nixon would say the trip was a success prior to the trip and after the trip they were asked how likely did you rate it last time? results: afterwards, hindsight bias lead them to shift their reporting - knowledge of how an event ultimately turned out influences your memory for your thoughts on the event before it happened. - evidence of hindsight bias present in implicit memory, so it's an unmotivated cognitive bias phenomenon

Asch impression formation

- Asch's approach: Make models that are simpler, yet reflective of messy real life. (e.g., trait list paradigm) Elegant control and manipulation. From one study to the next, he made minute changes in the paradigm and eventually certain regularities or "laws" were uncovered. - In impression formation, the whole is different from the sum of the parts, people form coherent impressions based largely on what is presented initially

factors that improve people's probability judgements

- High knowledge of the domain in question. - More simply, clearly stated (Ginossar & Trope, 1987 turned lawyer/engineer problem into a fun and engaging card game and improved subjects' performance.) - When choices are more clearly distinguished (hospital problem with 45 and 2 births per day - rather than 45 and 15). - Hi self-relevance - Contextual cues - increasing the salience of chance factors, e.g. bold font

encoding specificity

- Items or events encoded together can serve as retrieval cues for each other - ambient clues in the environment lead to better memory recall

Kawakami et al unlearning stereotypic associations

- Just as practice causes stereotypes to be learned, practice can cause them to be unlearned. - Used classical conditioning to "unlearn" stereotypic associations 1. Ps presented with photographs of Blacks and Whites with stereotypic or nonstereotypic trait words presented underneath. 2. For Black-stereotypic and White-stereotypic combinations, Ps told to say "NO!" outloud. For Black-counterstereotypic and White- counterstereotypic combinations, told to say "YES!" outloud. (480 trials, approx. 45 min.) 3. Control condition: opposite instructions. DV: Stereotype Stroop task. (rationale: If you are processing stereotypic content very easily, it will be harder for you to inhibit that and name the color of the ink.) - worked & the effect lasted up to 24 hours, however this is impractical in real life

Winter & Uleman attributions

- Participants read about different people doing different behaviors. (e.g., "The librarian helped the old lady carry her bags across the street.") Traits never explicitly mentioned, just implied within the behaviour - Later...surprise cued-recall memory test. Experimenters recorded how much of each sentence participants correctly recalled. - given 3 types of cues: trait cues ("helpful"), semantic cues (word that is easily inferred, "books"), no cue just had to remember the sentence - Trait cues successfully triggered recall, taken as evidence of spontaneous trait encoding at the time of reading

the logical/ attributional approach

- The inferential processes by which we understand people based on their behaviour/appearance are similar to how we understand objects based on their motion/appearance - e.g. when we see a billiard ball hit another, we have some sense of how fast it was going, the angle at which it hit, where the other will go etc. - similarly, we factor in other things when it comes to people's actions e.g someone does well on a test, we factor in difficulty of test etc

Duncan heated discussion

- White subjects watched videotape of two men in a discussion. The discussion gets heated. They begin shouting. One man shoves the other. At this point, the tape is stopped, and subjects are asked to characterize what just happened. - 2 versions of the tape: one where the shover is white, one where he's black - white participations interpreted the shove as more aggressive when the black man was the shover - Incoming information is assimilated into the concept that is activated. direction of disambiguation is in the direction of the concept- ambiguous stimulus is assimilated to fit with the concept

what are the social sources of prejudice?

- a group that enjoys social and economic superiority will often use prejudicial beliefs to justify its privileged position - children are also brought up in ways that foster or reduce prejudice. the family, religious communities, and the broader society can sustain or reduce prejudices - social institutions (government, schools, the media) also support prejudice, sometimes through overt policies and sometimes through unintentional inertia

what predicts conformity?

- affected by the characteristics of the group; people conform most when faced with faced with the unanimous reports of three or more people, or groups, who model the behaviour or belief - conformity is reduced if the model behaviour or belief isn't unanimous - enhanced by group cohesion - the higher the status of those modelling, the greater likelihood of conformity - people also conform most when their responses are public (in the presence of the group) - a prior commitment to a certain behaviour or belief increases the likelihood that a person will stick with that commitment rather than conform

racism

- an individual's prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviour toward people of a given race OR - institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given race

sexism

- an individual's prejudicial attitudes and behaviours toward people of a given sex OR - institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that subordinate people of a given sex

groupthink: do groups hinder or assist good decisions?

- analysis of several international fiascos indicates that group cohesion can override realistic appraisal of a situation, leading to bad decisions. This is especially true when group members strongly desire unity, when they are isolated from opposing ideas, and when the leader signals what he or she wants from the group - critics have noted that some aspects of Janis's groupthink model (such as directive leadership) seem more implicated in flawed decisions than others (such as cohesiveness) - both in experiments and in actual history, groups sometimes decide wisely. These cases suggest ways to prevent groupthink: upholding impartiality, encouraging "devil's advocate" positions, subdividing and then reuniting to discuss a decision, seeking outside input, and having a "second-chance" meeting before implementing a decision - research on group problem-solving suggests that groups can be more accurate than individuals; groups also generate more and better ideas if the group is small or in, in a large group, individual brainstorming follows the group session

how do people manage their self-presentation?

- as social animals, we adjust our words and actions to suit our audiences. to varying degrees, we self-monitor; we note our performance and adjust it to create the impressions we desire - such impression management tactics explain examples of false modesty, in which people put themselves down, extol future competitors, or publicly credit others when privately they credit themselves - sometimes, people will even self-handicap with self-defeating behaviours that protect self-esteem by providing excuses for failure - self-presentation refers to our wanting to present a favourable image both to an external audience (other people) and to an internal audience (ourselves). with regard to an external audience, those who score high on a scale of self-monitoring adjust their behaviour to each situation, whereas those low in self-monitoring may do so little social adjusting that they seem insensitive

how well do our attitudes predict our behaviours?

- attitudes do not predict behaviour as well as most people believe - attitudes are better predictors of behaviour; however, when social influences are minimal, attitudes are specific to behaviours, and attitudes are potent (strong and on one's mind)

how do we explain our social worlds?

- attribution theory involves how we explain people's behaviour. when will we attribute someone's behaviour to a person's disposition and when to the situation? - by and large, we make reasonable attributions. when explaining other people's behaviour, however, we often commit the fundamental attribution error (also called correspondence bias). we attribute their behaviour so much to their inner traits and attitudes that we discount situational constraints, even when those are obvious - we make this attribution error partly because when we watch someone act, that person is the focus of our attention and the situation is relatively invisible - when we act, our attention is usually of what we are reacting to- the situation is more visible

what are some influences on aggression?

- aversive experiences, which include not only frustrations but also discomfort ,pain, and personal attacks both physical and verbal - arousal from almost any source, even physical exercise or sexual stimulation, can be transformed into anger - aggressive cues, such as the presence of a gun, increase the likelihood of aggressive behaviour - viewing violence (1) breeds a modest increase in aggressive behaviour, especially in people who are provoked; (2) desensitizes viewers to aggression; and (3) alters viewers' perception of reality. these findings parallel the results of research on the effects of viewing violent pornography, which can increase men's aggression against women and distort their perceptions of women's responses to sexual coercion - television permeates the daily lives of millions of people and portrays considerable violence. correlational and experimental studies converge on the conclusion that heavy exposure to televised violence correlates with aggressive behaviour - repeatedly playing violent video games may increase aggressive thinking, feelings, adn behaviour even more than television or movies do, as the experience involves much more active participaiton than the other media - circumstances that provoke indiciduals may also provoke groups by diffusing responsibility and polarizing actions; froup situations amplify aggressive reactions

why do we help?

- because of social exchange, we help those who have helped us - because social norms dictate helping in some situations - to aid our survival- helping kin and those who may help us make it more likely for us to pass on our genes

social leadership

- building teamwork, mediating conflicts, and being supportive - often have a democratic style - delegates authority - welcomes input from team members - helps prevent groupthink

Wason cards

- cards with "3" "7" "D" "K" - question asked to Ps: "Every card that has a D on one side has a 3 on the other side. Which two cards do you have to turn over to verify the truth of this statement?" - only D and 7 can overturn the rule, however most said to turn D and 3 - People focus on hypothesis confirmation, at the expense of hypothesis disconfirmation when both are needed. - expertise improves performance on the Wason task. In one study, college students, when asked to verify the rule that "one must be over 21 to drink beer," did much better (29/40 got correct answer) than when asked to do the same task with letters and numbers (0/40). Presumably, spending a lot of time thinking about the different contingencies and outcomes makes the task a snap.

what are the cognitive sources of prejudice?

- clustering people into categories exaggerates the uniformity within a group and the differences between groups - a distinctive individual, such as a lone minority person, has a compelling quality that makes us aware of differences that would otherwise go unnoticed. the occurrence of two distinctive events (for example, a minority person committing an unusual crime) helps create an illusory correlation between people and their behaviour - attributing others' behaviour to their dispositions can lead to the group-serving bias: assigning out-group members' negative behaviour to their natural character while explaining away their positive behaviours

ways to enhance group brainstorming

- combine group and solitary brainstorming (group followed by individual) - have group members interact by writing - incorporate electronic brainstorming (on networked computers)

how can aggression be reduced?

- contrary to the catharsis hypothesis, expressing aggression by catharsis tends to breed further aggression rather than reduce it - the social learning approach suggests controlling aggression by counteracting the factors that provoke it: by reducing aversive stimulation, by rewarding and modelling non-aggression, and by eliciting reactions incompatible with aggression

what is self-serving bias?

- contrary to the presumption that most people suffer from feelings of inferiority, researchers consistently find that most people exhibit a self-serving bias. in experiments and everyday life, we often take credit for successes while blaming failures on the situation - most people rate themselves as better than average on subjective, desirable traits and abilities. we exhibit unrealistic optimism about our futures. and we overestimate the commonality of our opinions and foibles (false consensus) while underestimating the commonality of our abilities nd virtues (false uniqueness). we also remember ourselves in the past in ways that flatter the current self

what is aggression?

- defined as verbal or physical behaviour intended to cause harm - aggression manifests itself in two forms: hostile aggression, which springs from emotions such as anger and intends to injure, and instrumental aggression, which is a means to some other end

Ross & Sicoly housework

- found that husbands' and wives' estimates of how much housework they do adds up to more than 100% - people have more access to their own experience and feelings, more easy to generate examples of your partner's work - false consensus effect- the tendency to overestimate the percentage of the population that share their own views b/c people tend to mostly spend time with people who are similar to themselves, extrapolate from their own social circle to the general population

what enables close relationships?

- from infancy to old age, attachments are central to human life. secure attachments, as in an enduring marriage, mark happy lives - companionate love is most likely to endure when both partners feel the partnership is equitable, with both perceiving themselves receiving from the relationship in proportion to what they contribute to it - one reward of companionate love is the opportunity for intimate self-disclosure, a state achieved gradually as each partner reciprocates the other's increasing openness

what are the motivational sources of prejudice?

- frustration breeds hostility, which people sometimes vent on scapegoats and sometimes express more directly against competing groups - people are motivated to view themselves and their groups as superior to other groups. even trivial group memberships lead people to favour their own groups over others. a threat to self-image heightens such in-group favouritism, as does the need to belong - the motive to see the world as just can also powerfully shape people's views of others - on a more positive note, if people are motivated to avoid prejudice, they can break the prejudice habit

Tversky & Kahneman lawyer or engineer

- gave subjects a paragraph to read about John - Half of the subjects told that the sample consisted of 70 e's and 30 l's, half told 30 e's and 70 l's. - almost everyone concluded that it's more likely that Jack is an engineer, ignoring base rate likelihood - people relied almost exclusively on prototypicality - People drastically under-use base rates (The overall numbers of a given occurrence in the population) in their decision-making.

Levy, Stroessner, & Dweck incremental theory

- if people are fixed, labels are useful - if people are malleable and change, stereotypes don't have the same usefulness because people can change all the time (incremental theory) - found that theory can be primed- half read an article that said personality is fixed, half read an article that said people can change. this lead to a diff in the amount that they agree with stereotypes

Plant & Devine: motivation to control prejudice & stereotypes

- internal motive scale (IMS) and external motive scale (EMS) - IMS and EMS are related to other prej scales and to measures of self presentation - Predictions: Those who are High IMS will try to control prej regardless of scrutiny. Those who are High EMS but Low IMS will only try to control prej in public or under scrutiny. These folks will also be most resentful and reactive regarding PC pressure to be nice.

task leadership

- leaders have a directive style - goal oriented - keep group's attention focused on its mission - combination of specific, challenging goals and periodic progress reports helps motivate high achievement - can efficiently keep low functioning groups under control

2 ways of forming an impression

- memory based - on-line: continually forming

transformational leadership

- motivates others to identify with and commit themselves to the group's mission

why conform?

- normative influence results from a person's desire for acceptance: we want to be liked. the tendency to conform more when responding publicly reflects normative influence - informational influence results from others' providing evidence about reality. the tendency to conform more on difficult decision-making tasks reflects informational influence. we want to be right

how do relationships end?

- often love does not endure. as divorce rates rose in the twentieth century, researchers discerned predictors of marital dissolution. one predictor is an individualistic culture that values feelings over commitment; other factors include the couple's age, education, values, and similarity - researchers are also identifying the process through which couples either detach or rebuild their relationships, and they are identifying the positive and non-defensive communication styles that mark healthy, stable marriages

why does our behaviour affect our attitudes?

- one reason is that we want to present ourselves to others and ourselves as consistently rational people - our behaviours also affect our attitudes because holding beliefs that are inconsistent with our actions is arousing and uncomfortable. because it is often easier to change our beliefs than our actions, we change our beliefs to match our actions and reduce the discomfort - cultures vary in what beliefs and actions arouse feelings of discomfort, but when discrepancies between beliefs and action cause discomfort, similar processes of reducing this discomfort seem to occur across cultures - we also change our beliefs to match our actions because in observing our actions we have powerful clues about our beliefs - several theories have been proposed to explain how our behaviour shapes our attitudes (i.e. self-presentation theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and self-perception theory). all three theories account for important phenomena, but cognitive dissonance theory is best at explaining what happens when the discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour is large, and self-perception theory is best at explaining what happens when the discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour is small

how do our expectations of our social worlds matter?

- our beliefs sometimes take on a life of their own. usually, our beliefs about others have a basis in reality. but studies of experimenter bias and teacher expectations show that an erroneous belief that certain people are unusually capable (or incapable)) can lead teachers and researchers to give those people special treatment. this may elicit superior (or inferior) performance and, therefore, seem to confirm an assumption that is actually false - similarly, in everyday life, we often get behavioural confirmation of what we expect. told that someone we are about to meet is intelligent and attractive, we may come away impressed with just how intelligent and attractive he or she is

how do we perceive our social worlds?

- our schemas and preconceptions strongly influence how we interpret and remember events. in a phenomenon called priming, people's prejudgements have striking effects on how they perceive and interpret information - other experiments have planted judgements or false ideas in people's minds after they have been given information. these experiments reveal that as before-the-fact judgments bias our perceptions and interpretations, so after-the-fact judgments bias our recall - belief perseverance is the phenomenon in which people cling to their initial beliefs and the reasons why a belief might be true, even when the basis for the belief is discredited - far from being a repository for facts about the past, our memories are actually formed when we retrieve them; they are subject to strong influence by the attitudes and feelings we hold at the time of retrieval

what does it mean to have perceived self-control?

- our sense of self helps organize our thoughts and actions - our ability to effortfully regulate our behaviour, or willpower, works similarly to muscular strength. it can be exhausted by use in the short term, but can also be strengthened by regular exercise - learned helplessness often occurs when attempts to improve a situation have proven fruitless; self-determination, in contrast is bolstered by experiences of successfully exercising control and improving one's situation - people who believe in their own competence and effectiveness cope better and achieve more than those who have learned a helpless, pessimistic outlook

self-concept: who am I?

- our sense of self helps organize our thoughts and actions. self-concept consists of two elements: the self-schemas that guide our processing of self-relevant information, and the possible selves that we dream of or dread - cultures shape the self, too. many people in individualistic Western cultures assume an independent self. others, often in collectivistic cultures, assume a more interdependent self - our self-knowledge is flawed. we often do not know why we behave the way we do. when influences upon our behaviour are not conspicuous enough for any observer to see, we, too, can miss them. the unconscious, implicit processes that control our behaviour may differ from our conscious, explicit explanations of it - we also tend to mispredict our emotions. we underestimate the power of our psychological immune systems and thus tend to overestimate the durability of our emotional reactions to significant events

Higgins et al adventurous vs reckless

- paragraph created to be ambiguous- is Donald adventurous or reckless? - before reading this, participants played a word game, for half the solution was "adventurous" and the other half the solution was "reckless", then read the paragraph & rated Donald - for those that solved "reckless" were more likely to rate Donald reckless and vice versa - subliminal assimilation- subjects had no clue that they were disambiguating the text based on the thing they were primed on - assimilation based on the accessibility of the concept- a concept that is primed is more likely to be applied to incoming information

who helps?

- people high in emotionality, empathy, and self-efficacy - men in risky situations, but women in less risky situations. overall, men and women don't differ in helpfulness

Bransford & Johnson paragraph

- people recalled more ideas when given the concept of "washing clothes" before reading a paragraph than those not given a concept or those given the concept after reading the paragraph - concept provides the framework, makes it more memorable and understandable - advantage only seen if concept is activated prior to encoding the material- if you have an established framework for integrating the info, it's more meaningful

Stangor & MacMillan impression formation

- performed a meta analysis depends on the goal: - accurate impression: incongruency effect: better memory for expectancy inconsistent info than for expectancy consistent info - "good enough" impression: congruency effect: better memory for expectancy consistent info than for expectancy inconsistent info

who conforms?

- personality scores are poor predictors of specific acts of conformity but better predictors of average conformity. trait effects sometimes seem strongest in "weak" situations where social forces do not overwhelm individual differences - although conformity and obedience are universal, culture socializes people to be more or less socially responsive - social roles involve a certain degree of conformity, and conforming to expectations is an important task when stepping into a new social rolw

Bruner "New Look"

- poor vs. rich children asked to estimate (by drawing) the size of a quarter - Poor kids drew much bigger circles (measured by their diameters) - visual perception is not simply direct relationship b/w stimulus and response, influenced by what concepts are activated - values & goals systematically distort visual perception

what is prejudice?

- prejudice is a preconceived negative attitude. stereotypes are beliefs about another group- beliefs which may be accurate, inaccurate, or overgeneralized but are based on a kernel of truth. discrimination is unjustified negative behaviour. racism and sexism may refer to individuals' prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory behaviour, or to oppressive institutional practices (even if not intentionally prejudicial) - prejudice exists in subtle and unconscious guises as well as overt, conscious forms. researchers have devised subtle survey questions and indirect methods for assessing people's attitudes and behaviour to detect unconscious prejudice

2 factors that affect identification and attribution

- prior behaviour: disambiguates behaviour in the direction of what is consistent with that prior behaviour - current situation: helps to disambiguate the behaviour in the direction of the situation- a man crying at a funeral is different than a man crying after he won the powerball

how can we increase helping?

- reducing ambiguity and increasing responsibility - evoking feelings of guilt - socializing prosocial behaviour

NFC and FAE

- replicated Jones & Harris Castro essay expt (but with different, more relevant essay) - 1/3 of the subjects told that after this task, they would get to watch a collection of comedy clips (high NFC) - 1/3 told that after this task they would have to listen to a lecture on statistics (need to avoid closure) - Final 3rd told afterwards they will do task as interesting as the current task (neutral) - quick closure: even more FAE, neutral: difference is modified by whether you're high or low in NFC, avoid closure: no FAE

what is love?

- researchers have characterized love as having components of intimacy, passion, and commitment. passionate love is experienced as a bewildering confusion of ecstasy and anxiety, elation and pain. the two-factor theory of emotion suggests that in a romantic context, arousal from any source, even painful experiences, can be steered into passion - in the best of relationships, the initial romantic high settles to a steadier, more affectionate relationship called companionate love

group polarization: do groups intensify our opinions?

- researchers initially found that groups make riskier decisions compared to individuals, but as they examined more cases they found that groups make more polarized decisions - groups intensify decisions through group discussions - group discussions intensify decisions by exposing us to new arguments and through our comparisons with others in the group

variables that make a concept more likely to be activated

- salience- refers to features of the stimulus itself- e.g. when you see a person w/ grey hair & wrinkles = old. the most unusual thing becomes the most salient, e.g. green pen on a white floor or black male in a group of white men - accessibility- the ease with which a concept becomes activated

transactional leadership

- score high on both tests of social and task leadership - focus on getting to know their subordinates and listening carefully - seek to maintain subordinates' needs but maintain high expectations for performance

what is the nature and motivating power of self-esteem?

- self-esteem is the overall sense of self-worth we use to appraise our traits and abilities. our self-concepts are determined by multiple influences, including the roles we play, the comparisons we make, our social identities, how we perceive others appraising us, and our experiences of success and failure. - self-esteem motivation influences our cognitive processes: facing failure, high-self-esteem people sustain their self-worth by perceiving other people as failing too, and by exaggerating their superiority over others - although high self-esteem is generally more beneficial than low, researchers have found that people high in both self-esteem and narcissism are the most aggressive. someone with a big ego who is threatened of deflated by social rejection is potentially aggressive

do we ever want to be different?

- social psychology's emphasis on the power of social pressure must be joined by a complementary emphasis on the power of the person. we are not puppets. when social coercion becomes blatant, people often experience reactance- a motivation to defy the coercion in order to maintain a sense of freedom - we are not comfortable being too different from a group, but neither do we want to appear the same as everyone else. thus, we act in ways that preserve our sense of uniqueness and individuality. in a group, we are most conscious of how we differ from others

identification of behaviour

- step 1 in the basic operating sequence of thought - How do people translate the "raw material" of moving lips, arms, etc. into "acts"? - Behaviour identified in terms of actor's intentions - Actor's intentions are often ambiguous, although they rarely seem to be (due to construct accessibility)

attribution of dispositions

- step 2 in the basic operating sequence of thought - Going beyond identifying behavior to understanding the meaning of the behavior. Often, meaning = actor possesses a trait - we are very quick to make trait attributions bc the person is more salient, accessible, and applicable as a cause whereas the situation is just background

what leads to friendship and attraction?

- the best predictor of whether any two people are friends is their sheer proximity to one another. proximity is conducive to repeated exposure and interaction, which enables us to discover similarities and to feel one another's liking - physical attractiveness. in both laboratory studies and in field experiments involving blind dates, university students tend to prefer attractive people. in everyday life, however, people tend actually to choose and marry someone whose attractiveness roughly matches their own (or someone who, if less attractive, has other compensating qualities) - liking is greatly aided by similarity of attitudes, beliefs, and values. likeness leads to liking; opposites rarely attract - we are also likely to develop friendships with people who like us - according to the reward theory of attraction, we like people whose behaviour we find rewarding or whom we have associated with rewarding events

three broad theories of aggression

- the instinct view, most commonly associated with Freud and Lorenz, contended that aggressive energy will accumulate from within, like water accumulating behind a dam. although the available evidence offers little support for this view, aggression is biologically influenced by heredity, blood chemistry, and the brain - frustration causes anger and hostility. given aggressive cues, this anger may provoke aggression. frustration stems not from deprivation itself but from the gap between expectations and achievements - the social learning view presents aggression as learned behaviour. by experience and by observing others' success, we sometimes learn that aggression pays. social learning enables family and subculture influences on aggression, as well as media influences

Wegner ironic rebound effect

- the more we try to suppress a thought, the more it plagues us - bc of accessibility and cognitive load - process 1: intentional (controlled) search for distracters: trying to find a substitute object to think about instead- requires a lot of cognitive resources, so can be knocked out by cognitive load - process 2: automatic search for examples of unwanted target - low cognitive load: process #1 and process #2 work together successfully - high cog load: process #1 knocked out, but process #2 continues- the automatic part of our mind continues to think about white bears, controlled part unable to do anything about it - big irony: in order to avoid something, you have to be constantly vigilant for its presence

social facilitation: how are we affected by the presence of others?

- the presence of others is arousing and helps our performance on easy tasks, but hurts performance on difficult tasks - being in a crowd is similarly arousing and has the same types of effects on performance

representativeness heuristic

- the tendency to presume, sometimes despite contrary odds, that someone or something belongs to a particular group if resembling (representing) a typical member - judging something by intuitively comparing it to our mental representation of a category

how self-efficacy beliefs are created

- vicarious experience: "if that guy can do it, I can do it" - social persuasions: people telling you can do it - somatic experience: people's own body states, emotional states as they contemplate the act e.g. anxiety (feelings as information)

how do we judge our social worlds?

- we have an enormous capacity for automatic, efficient, intuitive thinking. our cognitive efficiency, though generally adaptive, comes at the price of occasional error. since we are generally unaware of those errors entering our thinking, it is useful to identify ways in which we form and sustain false beliefs - first, we often overestimate our judgements. this overconfidence phenomenon stems partly from the much greater ease with which we can imagine why we might be right than why we might be wrong. moreover, people are much more likely to search for information that can confirm their beliefs than information that can disconfirm them - second, when given compelling anecdotes or even useless information, we often ignore useful base-rate information. this is partly due to the later ease of recall of vivid information (the availability heuristic) - third, our emotional experiences are powerfully influenced by our imagination of how things might have happened differently. counterfactual thinking shapes our feelings of guilt, regret, frustration, or relief - fourth, we are often swayed by illusions of correlation and personal control. it is tempting to perceive correlations where none exist (illusory correlation) and to think that we can predict or control chance event (the illusion of control) - finally, moods infuse judgments. good and bad moods trigger memories of experiences associated with those moods. moods colour our interpretation of current experiences. and by distracting us, moods can also influence how deeply or superficially we think when making judgments

why are we aroused by others' presence?

- we worry about how we are evaluated by others - others' presence is distracting - mere presence of others is arousing throughout the animal kingdom and may be part of our evolutionary heritage

deindividuation: when do people lose their sense of self in groups?

- when people are in a large group, are physically anonymous, and are aroused and distracted - the resulting diminished self-awareness and self-restraint tend to increase people's responsiveness to the immediate situation, be it negative or positive

social loafing: do individuals exert less effort in a group?

- when people's efforts are pooled and individual effort isn't evaluated, people generally exert less effort in groups than individually - such social loafing is common in everyday life, but when the task is challenging, the group is cohesive, and people are committed to the group, social loafing is less evident

when does our behaviour affect our attitudes?

- when taking on a role, our actions in that role often shape our attitudes - when we state a belief (even if we do not initially believe it), our words often shape our attitudes - when we engage in small actions inconsistent with our attitudes, these small actions can lead to larger actions that can dramatically shape our attitudes and behaviour - when we engage in moral or evil acts, these actions can powerfully shape our attitudes - when we participate in social movements, our actions can profoundly shape our attitudes

when will we help?

- when there are few bystanders - when we observe someone else helping - when we are not in a hurry - when the person needing help is similar to us

Elliott brown vs. blue eyes

-as long as there's discriminable difference, someone in a position of authority can put power in that difference and it can lead to discrimination -kids that were placed in the superior group had negative attitudes toward themselves and performed worse

Hamilton & Gilford illusory correlation

-told participants that they would read about group A and group B, then were told scenarios involving members of each group - group A: 18 positive, 9 negative - group B: 8 positive, 4 negative - participants were asked to rate the groups - group A rated more positively than group B, despite them both having the same ratio happened because of salience + availability heuristic - The Group B-Negative cell has the least amount of behaviors, i.e., it is the most rare occurrence of the four possibilities. - Occurrences that are rare tend to leave a stronger impression. - Events that leave a stronger impression tend to be easier to remember. Therefore: Because Group B-negative behaviors are easier to remember, people mistake that ease of retrieval for fact and rate Group B overall more negatively than Group A. Salience --> accessibility --> easier to retrieve --> IC

principles of causal inference

1. Attribution is vital and pervasive. It lends meaning and order to what would otherwise be a chaotic array of stimuli. 2. Behaviours express stable dispositions. Behaviour is a "medium for the transmission of psychological characteristics." - behaviour is a direct reflection of underlying personality. just like I can infer the weight of a stone by the impact it makes, I can infer underlying stable disposition by observing actions 3. Attribution extracts dispositions from behaviour. - People have the implicit understanding that behaviour often reflects dispositions. - When people see someone act they perform an additional step of attribution that establishes a causal link between behaviour and disposition. 4. Attributions can be performed consciously or unconsciously. - The rules of attribution become so automatized over time that we can follow them without awareness. - Attributions often have a "given" quality; they "feel" like direct perception that has not undergone additional cognitive steps.

how does causal analysis/ attribution work?

1. Behavior is the joint product of temporary and enduring causes. 2. Behavior requires that an actor can and tries to do it. ("Capacity" & "Motivation') Capacity = ability + environment (e.g., throwing a frisbee into the wind) Motivation = strategy + effort Attribution = "implicit algebra" that describes how these four factors combine to produce behavior. We "solve for the unknown."

Snyder & Swann information-seeking bias

1. Half of the subjects were told that their task was to determine whether the person waiting in the other room was an extravert, half told introvert. 2. Were allowed to select which questions to pose toward the other person from a pool of 26 questions: 11 extravert questions (e.g., "What would you do if you wanted to liven things up at a party?"), 11 introvert questions (e.g., "What factors make it hard for you to really open up to people?") and 5 nondescript questions. - subjects tended to choose questions to confirm the hypothesis e.g. introvert questions when they were told the other person was an introvert and vice versa Study 2: 1. Had subjects actually pose the questions they selected to a real person. 2. Each interview was taped. 3. Then a separate set of subjects (who were blind to the hypotheses, of course) were asked to judge whether the person being interviewed was an introvert or an extravert. - judges rated the interviewee as conforming to the direction of the questions they were being asked

Schachter & Singer attribution of arousal

1. Injected subjects with epinephrine (a drug that produces physiological arousal). 2. 1⁄2 of the subjects warned beforehand about the drug's effect, 1⁄2 not forewarned. 3. Additional set of subjects injected with a placebo (harmless drug). 4. Before drug took effect, each subject left alone with a confederate. Confederate introduced as someone who had received the same injection. 5. In 1⁄2 of the sessions, confederate behaved in a euphoric manner, for 20 minutes jumped around, rolled up paper and shot "baskets" into the trash, made and flew paper airplanes, etc. 6. In 1⁄2 of the sessions, confederate behaved in a angry manner, for 20 minutes steamed and stamped around the room in rage, ripped up the questionnaire they were given, etc. - change only seen in drug uninformed condition because there is a state of ambiguity - in drug informed there is a salient cause for the state change, S attributes state changes to the drug - no change in placebo group bc there's no arousal- no effect on the body that needs to be interpreted - 2 conditions needed: arousal and ambiguity - suggests that at least some emotion is the product of cognition, not just primal response

Chaiken likeability

1. Male and female students were recruited to get other students to sign a petition to get the university to stop serving meat in the cafeterias. 2. The petitioners gave strong reasons. 3. What varied was the physical attractiveness of the petitioners (both attractive and unattractive males and females). - results: attractive petitioner > unattractive petitioner - indicates likeability source variable

Macrae et al, John and Indonesia

1. Participants asked to read information about several social targets presented on a computer screen while at the same time listening to an audiotape playing completely unrelated material. 2. Either "John" then list of traits (3 seconds each) or "John- skinhead" "John-artist" "John-doctor" then traits. 3. 10 traits presented - five were stereotype consistent ("aggressive" "creative" "caring"). 5 traits were neutral. 4. In headphones, someone reading a passage about the geography and economy of Indonesia (something no one would have prior knowledge about). 5. DV's: Cued recall task-each target name written on top of paper and they were to recall and correctly attribute as many traits as they could. Also: Given a written quiz about Indonesia to test whether they were listening to the passage. Results: Subjects for whom a stereotype was provided recalled twice as many traits as those without If stereotypes represent a useful means for economizing cognition, then those for whom a stereotype was activated should have more resources available for the listening task. DV: questions answered correctly - those who had stereotypes were able to process stereotype better and able to shift attention because they could disengage from the info on the screen and direct attention to the headphones

Jones & Harris fundamental attribution error

1. Participants read an essay (written by another student) that was either pro-Castro or anti- Castro. 2. Half of the participants were told that the person had freely chosen to write the essay; Half were told the person had been assigned to the position by his professor. 3. Participants asked to estimate writer's true attitude about Castro. - in theory, if the person was assigned to write the essay, there shouldn't be any basis for assumption of their views yet there is- people fail to do situational discounting - critique: Jones & Harris accidentally put Ps under high cognitive load- perhaps they didn't have enough time, etc

Stangor & Ruble congruency vs. incongruency effects

1. Ps read behavioral descriptions of members of 2 college fraternities, one frat mostly extraverted, one mostly introverted. 2. Beforehand, 1⁄2 of Ps saw a presentation containing 30 behaviors performed by one of the frats. 3. All Ps saw a presentation of 60 behaviors by both frats (30 each). 4. Later memory recall task. - Ps with prior exposure showed congruency effects- prior experience with a target leads to more powerful congruency effects - ppl have made up their mind when they have prior experience, so they are especially likely to assimilate and allocate attention to info that confirms and away from info that violates

Rosenthal & Jacobson the pygmalion effect

1. R & J led teachers to believe that some students in their classes were "late bloomers" - i.e., destined to show dramatic increases in IQ over the school year. 2. In fact, (and this is crucial!) these students had been selected at random. - at the end of the year, "late bloomers" achieved higher marks than those that didn't receive the label - implication: the teacher will act in a manner that elicits more blooming toward the children may explain achievement gaps

Hastie & Park Impression Formation

1. Randomly assigned subjects to either on-line or memory-based conditions. 2. everyone read the same sentences, "On-line" subjects told to form their impression as they went, updating as they go along. "Memory-based" only asked for their impression after reading the sentences. - Found that subjects who had viewed the exact same sentences reached very different judgments of the target. For the mem-based subjects, judgment correlated with recall, for online, judgment not correlated with recall - for those who (mem based) made up their mind early on in the sequence, subsequent behaviours that don't match this narrative are discarded

Festinger & Carlsmith cog dissonance

1. Subject is greeted by experimenter who says that they are interested in various measures of human performance. 2. Experimenter gives subject a wooden board containing 48 square pegs in square holes. Subject is asked to turn each peg a quarter turn to the left, then a quarter turn back to the right, then back to the left, then back to the right. The routine is EXTREMELY MONOTONOUS, and it's meant to be. 3. After 60 ENDLESS, EXCRUCIATING minutes the experimenter returns. Says, "You were in the control group. To test the effects of motivation on performance, other participants are being told that the experiment will be fun and exciting. Would you be willing to tell the next participant that the experiment was enjoyable?" 4. To make it more attractive, the experimenter offers the subject money: Either $1 or $20 5. After telling the lie, subjects asked to rate how much they liked the peg-board task. - Subjects' rating depended on how much they were paid - no diff b/w no lie and $20 lie, $1 lie much more positive - like the task more and are more willing to do it in the future if paid $1 - $20 subjects had "sufficient justification" (for lying)...$1 subjects had "insufficient justification" - A State of Dissonance "I am a good person." Vs. "I said the task was fun." (a lie) - To resolve, you could change "I am a good person" to "I am a bad person" but that's probably less likely than: "I am a good person." Vs. "I said the task was fun, and it wasn't too bad."

Petty personal involvement

1. Subjects listened to speaker proposing that seniors should be required to take comprehensive exams in order to graduate. 2. IVariable #1 1⁄2 told that speaker was an education professor at Princeton University, 1⁄2 told speaker was a high school students. (high prestige vs low prestige) 3. IV#2: good, well-reasoned arguments and hard evidence vs. poor weak message. 4. IV#3: The exams might be instituted that year or in ten years. (directly affects them or doesn't) 5. DV: attitude change. Results: Personal involvement determined the relative impact of source expertise and speech quality. - Directly affected S's Attitudes based on quality of arguments (not who was saying it) - Unaffected S's Attitudes based on who saying it (not quality of arguments)

Jacoby et al Colin Fenton

1. Subjects merely pronounced list of 40 nonfamous names. 2. Either immediately afterwards or 24 hours later, subjects asked to determine from a large list of names (that included the previous, pronounced words) who was famous and who was not. - More errors in the nonfamous --> famous direction for pronounced words. - misattribution of vague feeling of familiarity to the wrong source, in this case fame - immediately afterward, very few errors but after 24 hour delay more errors were made and they were in the direction of mistaking non famous names which had been pronounced previously for famous names - effect rooted in accessibility- pronounced name of a non-famous person becomes more accessible

Hastie & Kumar impression formation

1. Told participants that a certain person was intelligent. 2. Then they presented participants with a list of behaviors performed by the person, an equal amount of intelligent behaviors ("won a chess tournament"), unintelligent behaviors ("made the same mistake three times") and behaviors that had nothing to do with intelligence ("took the elevator to the third floor"). 3. After a long delay they asked participants to recall as many behaviors as they could. - inconsistent > consistent > irrelevant

2 components of stereotyping

1. automatic activation 2. controlled application - just because you have the stereotype activated doesn't mean you apply it

Steele & Aronson stereotype threat

1. black & white students @ Stanford took difficult standardized verbal test (all subjects expected to do poorly) - for the white student, difficulty activates anxiety related to failure - for black students there's an additional anxiety about being reduced to a stereotype 2. For some subjects: test introduced as a test of underlying intelligence, intellectual ability. For others: test introduced as a laboratory problem- solving task unrelated to any real-world underlying ability. 3. DV: subjects' score on test, statistically controlling for SAT score. - white subjects: no diff if test is intelligence vs. not intelligence - black subjects: big dropoff when test of intelligence

Spencer et al stereotype threat

1. male and female good at math and felt that math was important to their identities. 2. Gave a very difficult standardized math test, one that led all subjects to perform poorly. 3. Before taking test, subjects given some background on the test: some subjects told that the test generally showed no gender differences (implying that the negative stereotype of women's ability in math was not relevant to this particular test). Others told that the study did generally show gender differences. - Women performed worse than men only when they believed that the test typically yielded gender differences

Schneider & Shiffrin 3 criteria for behaviours to qualify as automatic processes

1. occur outside of awareness 2. occur without intention (or, given an intention to begin, carry on without intention) 3. are efficient (in terms of cognitive resources)

Hamilton et al encoding incoming info

1. subjects read 30 behaviors describing a target person. 2. Half explicitly told to "form an impression" half told to memorize the list of behaviors. 3. After a delay, recall as many behaviors as possible. which group displayed better memory for the behaviours? - those who were explicitly told to memorize performed worse on the memory test than those that were told to form an impression - when facts are disengaged from an overall framework, they have less meaning

Correll et al shooter task

1. video game, you are a cop, have to shoot anyone that's holding a gun and not shoot anyone who is not holding a gun 2. computer measures your accuracy and the type of error you make, also reaction time - found that the larger your anti-black bias, the more likely you are to shoot the unarmed black target as compared to the white target - subsequent study had actual police officers from the Denver police department do the task, found that they were more accurate than the lay people - within the set of police officers, those that were assigned to a relatively high crime rate area again had IAT scores related to shooting an unarmed black man- this might have to do with fear, not shooting an armed person more dangerous than shooting an armed person

group

2+ people who interact with and influence one another

anchoring and adjustment heuristic

In the face of an uncertain estimation, people will use any number provided, even if it's arbitrary, to calibrate their scale. In other words, when people "anchor" on a certain figure, they fail to sufficiently adjust. Their metric is off: calibrated to the number they're given.

Frederickson et al anxiety & performance

Male and females asked to evaluate and sample various consumer products. Among the products was an item of clothing that they were supposed to actually try on. For some participants that item of clothing was a crewneck sweater. For others: a bathing suit. As they were wearing that item of clothing, brought to a second room to take a challenging math test. In the room was a mirror. What results do you predict? - men in sweater = men in bathing suit, women in sweater > women in bathing suit - no matter the source of anxiety, it can lead to dropoff in performance

Macrae et al ironic rebound

PART 1 1. asked subjects to imagine and write an essay about a typical day in the life of a skinhead. 2. 1⁄2 told "avoid using stereotypes in your essay." PART 2 1. asked subjects to write a second essay about another skinhead. 2. freedom to write whatever they wanted - those who had been asked to suppress in part 1 wrote more stereotypic content in part 2 compared to those who had not been asked to suppress in part 1

Fazio et al sequential priming

Prime (Black or White face) --> target word (positive or negative) --> was the target word positive or negative? - to the extent that you associate black with negative it should be easier for you to identify a negative word right after you are primed with a black face and vice versa

Gibson mirror self-awareness study

S filled out a political questionnaire, study took place at the beginning of the academic year, club fair outside the lab, for half the S there was a mirror For those that had a mirror, more correspondence b/w action and attitude (e.g. answering questions democratically, then go sign up for democrats club)- mirror makes their political attitudes more accessible, therefore it's still on their mind as they walk out of the building & they're more likely to be acted on

Devine stereotyping

STUDY 1 Earlier in semester, subjects filled out Modern Racism Scale. In experimental session, subjects (white only) asked to (anonymously and confidentially) write down all the components of the stereotype of African- Americans they could think of, whether they believe the stereotypes or not - those that were high in prejudice and those that were low in prejudice didn't differ in their knowledge of stereotypes against African- Americans STUDY 2 1. Subjects stared at computer screen. Asked to report when flash appeared in corner. 2. For 1⁄2 of subjects, the flash actually a subliminal prime (80 ms) of words stereotypically having to do with African-Americans (e.g., "athletic," "jazz," "Harlem"). Important: none of the words had to do with aggression. (appears so quickly that it registers as a flash of light, but cognitively processed) 3. Subjects read passage about Donald (race unspecificed). Donald engaged in a series of behaviors that prior subjects rated as slightly hostile/aggressive (e.g., "Donald demanded his money back from a store clerk immediately after a purchase." 4. Rated Donald on several trait scales. - high prejudice people and low prejudice people did not differ, showed implicit race bias - those who were primed w/ African- American stereotypic words rated Donald as more aggressive than those who were primed with neutral words STUDY 3 1. Asked subjects to write an essay simply describing their honest thoughts about Af-Ams. Extensive measures taken to ensure anonymity. 2. Essays content-analyzed for stereotypic content by blind coders. - those who were high in prejudice wrote much more anti-black stereotypic content than those who were low in prejudice

the augmentation principle

When behaviour covaries with a situational factor that increases confidence in a particular cause. - e.g. if someone does well on a difficult exam despite illness, we infer that she is all the more so intelligent

the discounting principle

When behaviour covaries with more than one potential cause, observer has less confidence in either cause. - e.g. if a person did poorly on an exam, we can infer that she isn't intelligent. However, if we learn that she had come down with the flu, there are now multiple trait explanations- now there is less confidence in either cause

cohesiveness

a "we feeling"- the extent to which members of a group are bonded together, such as by attraction for one another

conformity

a change in behaviour or belief to accord with others

availability heuristic

a cognitive rule that judges the likelihood of things in terms of their availability in memory. if instances of something come readily to mind, we presume it to be commonplace

implicit association test (IAT)

a computer-driven assessment of implicit attitudes that uses reaction times to measure people's automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. - easier pairing = faster response, indicates stronger unconscious associations

equity

a condition in which the outcomes people receive from a relationship are proportional to what they contribute to it

pluralistic ignorane

a false impression of how other people are thinking, feeling, or responding

attitude

a favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction toward something or someone, exhibited in one's beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour

self-serving attributions

a form of self-serving bias. the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to yourself and negative outcomes to other factors

what is a group?

a group exists when two or more people interact for more than a few moments, affect one another in some way, and think of themselves as "us"

co-actors

a group of people working simultaneously and individually on a non-competitive task

need to belong

a motivation to bond with others in relationships that provide ongoing positive interactions

social dominance orientation

a motivation to have your own group be dominant over other social groups

egoism

a motive (supposedly underlying all behaviour) to increase your own welfare; the opposite of altruism

altruism

a motive to increase another's welfare without conscious regard for one's own self-interests

reactance

a motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom. reactance arises when someone threatens our freedom of action

prejudice

a negative prejudgement of a group and its individual members

self-esteem

a person's overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth

role

a set of norms that define how people in a given social position aught to behave

passionate love

a state of intense longing for union with another. passionate lovers are absorbed in one another; they feel ecstatic at attaining their partner's love, and they are disconsolate on losing it

door-in-the-face technique

a strategy for gaining a concession. After someone first turns down a large request (the door in the face), the same requester counter-offers with a more reasonable request

low-ball technique

a tactic for getting people to agree to something. people who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. people who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it

confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions

self-affirmation theory

a theory that people often experience self-image threat after engaging in an undesirable behaviour, and they compensate for this threat by affirming another aspect of the self. threaten people's self-concept in one domain, and they will compensate either by refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain

heuristics

a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments

behavioural confirmation

a type of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby people's social expectations lead them to act in ways that cause others to confirm their expectations

schemas/ concepts

a unit of knowledge, usually about a category. not necessarily accurate, e.g. stereotypes it is through concepts that we are able to make sense of the world and extract information - reduce the amount of processing we need to do when there is too much information available - add information when there is too little available - guide attention, interpretation, e.g. give context with which to interpret

obedience

acting in accord with a direct order

priming

activating particular associations in memory

hostile aggression

aggression driven by anger and performed as an end in itself

instrumental aggression

aggression that is a means to some other end

spontaneous trait inference

an effortless, automatic inference of a trait after exposure to someone's behaviour

social-responsibility norm

an expectation that people will help those dependent upon them

reciprocity norm

an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them

instinctive behaviour

an innate, unlearned behaviour pattern exhibited by all members of a species

two-factor theory of emotion

arousal x its label= emotion

insecure attachment

attachments marked by anxiety or ambivalence

avoidant attachment

attachments marked by discomfort over, or resistance to, being close to others

secure attachment

attachments rooted in trust and marked by intimacy

situational attribution

attributing behaviour to the environment

dispositional attribution

attributing behaviour to the person's disposition and traits

Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull multi-stage model

automatic behaviour identification --> automatic dispositional characterization --> controlled situational correction 1. Ps saw video of woman acting anxiously (biting lip, fidgeting, etc.) 2. 1⁄2 told: she's talking about an anxious topic 1⁄2 told: she's talking about a relaxing topic 3. 1⁄2 put under cognitive load (memorize a #) 4. DV: How anxious of a person is she? - low cog load: augmentation- when she's anxious talking about a calm topic, she must be very anxious. discounting- she's not necessarily an anxious person because the situation is anxious - high cog load: everyone rates her as anxious regardless of topic- ability to access info about topic is impeded, all we're left with is trait attribution - unable to do controlled situational correction when cognitive resources are lacking

gender roles

behaviour expectations (norms) for males and females

stereotypes

beliefs about the personal attributes of a group of people. stereotypes can be overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information

self-schemas

beliefs about the self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information - how you perceive yourself (athletic, artist, overweight, smart, etc) affects how you perceive, remember, and evaluate yourself and others - e.g. if being an athlete is one of your self-schemas, you tend to notice others' bodies and skills & quickly recall sports-related experiences - we welcome info that is consistent with our self-schemas

self-fulfilling prophecies

beliefs that lead to their own fulfilment

ethnocentric

believing in the superiority of your own ethnic and cultural group, and having a corresponding disdain for all other groups

temporal comparisons

comparisons between how the self is viewed now and how the self was viewed in the past or how the self is expected to be viewed in the future

evaluation apprehension

concern for how others are evaluating us

normative influence

conformity based on a person's desire to fulfill others' expectations, often to gain acceptance

compliance

conformity tha involves publicly acting in accord with social pressure while privately disagreeing

acceptance

conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure

informational influence

conformity that results from accepting evidence about reality provided by other people

independent self

construing one's identity as a unique individual with particular abilities, traits, values, and dreams

interdependent self

construing one's identity in relation to others

social scripts

culturally provided mental instructions for how to act in various situations

dual attitudes

differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object. verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion, implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits

catharsis

emotional release. the catharsis view of aggression is that aggressive drive is reduced when one "releases" aggressive energy, either by acting aggressively or by fantasizing aggression

social comparison

evaluating your abilities and opinions by comparing yourself to others

incremental theory

everyone has the capacity to change significantly - incremental theorists show incongruency effects

Anderson et al belief perseverance

evidence that has been ruled out still has some sort of residual effect

group-serving bias

explaining away out-group members' positive behaviours, also attributing negative behaviours to their dispositions (while excusing such behaviour by one's own group)

controlled processing

explicit thinking that is deliberate, reflective, and conscious

Rosenhan mental hospital

gathered together some people from all walks of life and had each of them check into different psych hospitals under aliases and to complain of voices in their heads, behave otherwise as normal, and tell the staff that they were better at all opportunities. none of the staff saw through the ruse. signal (sane person) buried in the noise (mental hospital) even ambiguous behaviours (taking notes) became pathologized in doctors' notes

collectivism

giving priority to the goals of one's groups (often, one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly

group polarization

group-produced enhancement of members' pre-existing tendencies; a strengthening of the members' average tendency, not a split within the group

Asch

had people listen to others' judgments of which of three comparision lines was equal to a standard line and then made the same judgment themselves. when the others unanimously gave a wrong answer, the subjects conformed 37% of the time

self-concept

how a person answers the question, "who am i?" provides a glimpse of their self-concept

entity theory

human traits are mostly fixed, each individual is the way they are and don't change though they may exhibit inconsistent behaviour - entity theorists show congruency effects

dual-process model of persuasion

i. central route (controlled, systematic processing of message's arguments) - e.g. some ads systemically list positives of the product - requires lots of cognitive resources ii. peripheral route (automatic, "quick and dirty" processing of message's surface features) - e.g. some ads are more superficially visual based- impressionistic - heuristics based, accessible under cognitive load or while intoxicated

basic operating sequence of thought

identification of behaviour --> attribution of dispositions --> integration into impression

gambler's fallacy

if they get 5 heads in a row, they think that the probability of getting tail on the next toss is more likely when in reality they have the same likelihood bc each toss is independent

possible selves

images of what we dream or dread of becoming in the future

automatic processing

implicit thinking that is effortless, habitual, and without awareness; roughly corresponds to intuition

misinformation effect

incorporating "misinformation" into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and then receiving misleading information about it - suggested misinformation may produce false memories

primacy effect

information that is presented earlier has a more profound impact than later information

deindividuation

loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster anonymity and draw attention away from the individual

Kelley naive scientist/ covariation model

metaphor: Ordinary people use the same logical rules in their ordinary attributions that scientists use in testing hypotheses. "naive" scientists - Is the behaviour distinctive ? - Is the behaviour consistent? - Is there consensus about the behaviour? "real" scientists: - Does X occur only in presence of Y (and not Z)? - Does X always occur in presence of Y? - Do others replicate your finding?

misattribution

mistakenly attributing a behaviour to the wrong cause

Sherif

observed that others' judgements influence people's estimates of the movement of a point of light that actually didn't move. norms for "proper" answers emerged and survived over long periods of time and through succeeding generations of research participants

social facilitation

originally defined as the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others present current definition: the strengthening of dominant responses owing to the presence of others

impact bias

overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

symptoms of groupthink

overestimating the group's might and right - illusion of invulnerability - unquestioned belief in the group's morality group members become close-minded - rationalization: discounting challenges by collectively justifying decisions - stereotyped view of the opponent pressure toward uniformity in the group - conformity pressure - self-censorship - illusion of unanimity

moderators of the pygmalion effect

perceiver end - if goal is to form a stable and predictable impression, more likely (puts a label on each student in order to make sense of them) - if goal is to form an accurate impression, less likely (take more time to form an impression) - rigidity of perceivers' belief: if highly rigid, more likely - if less rigid, less likely. target end - Unclear self-concept (need others to tell me what I'm like—we've seen this notion before in social comparison), more likely - clear self-concept, less likely (invokes informational influence- I have uncertainty about myself, so I turn to others to disambiguate my self concept, internalize what authority says) - age (stronger among younger children than older - except: 7th grade (also a time of trying to figure out who you are, again) situation end - new situations (another form of unclarity)—(helps explain the 7th grade blip, a transition to the new situation of junior high school)

out-group homogeneity effect

perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than in-group members. thus "they are alike, we are diverse"

illusion of control

perception of uncontrollable events as subject to one's control or as more controllable than they are

belief perseverance

persistence of your initial conceptions, as when the basis for your belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives

aggression

physical or verbal behaviour intended to hurt someone

self-handicapping

protecting one's self-image with behaviours that create a handy excuse for later failure

need for closure

reaching cognitive closure, just simply finishing the task, can often be a goal in its own right - increased by time pressure, task tedium, and no costs for making an error (all variables can be manipulated in the lab) - When in a state of needing closure, our cognition is often characterized by "freezing" early on, as soon as we settle on some provisional answer.

tricomponent approach to attitude

reactions can be conflicting, reaction and cognition don't always line up - affective reaction: gut-level emotional response to a stimulus, desire to approach or avoid - behavioural reaction: behaviours that you display bc of how you've been socialized - cognitive reaction: has to do with the beliefs one has independent of their emotional reaction

insufficient justification

reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behaviour when external justification is insufficient

moral inclusion

regarding others as within your circle of moral concern

what can we conclude from research on social beliefs and judgments?

research on social beliefs and judgments reveals how we form and sustain beliefs that usually serve us well, but sometimes lead us astray. a balanced social psychology will appreciate both the powers and perils of social thinking

self-disclosure

revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

norms

rules for accepted and expected behaviour, that prescribe "proper" behaviour

autokinetic phenomenon

self (auto) motion (kinetic). the apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark

variables for central vs. peripheral route

source variables - likeability - personal involvement message variables - amount of material (peripheral route: more is better, if there's lots of info it must be true. central route: arguments must be strong or else may backfire) - order of material - message discrepancy: The most attitude change occurs at moderate amounts of discrepancy (between audience's original attitude and the advocated attitude) - fear: fear appeals can work when it increases incentive to think about the argument- steers toward central route AS WELL AS a call to action, what you can do to get rid of fear (or else people just feel helpless & dread) audience variables

cognitive dissonance theory

tension that arises when we are simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. for example, dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favouring one alternative despite reasons favouring another

social identity

the "we" aspect of our self-concept, the part of our answer to "what am I?" that comes from our group memberships - e.g. "I am Australian" or "I am Catholic"

self-presentation

the act of expressing yourself and behaving in ways designed to create a favourable impression or an impression that corresponds to your ideals

companionante love

the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply intertwined

Tversky et al "hot hand"

the assumption is that after making a couple shots in a row, the player is more likely to be relaxed and make the next shot OR could this result have happened by chance- if yes, there is no significance - found that players were not more likely to make a shot after having made 1+ shots than after having missed shot(s) - controlled for player's overall shooting percentage allowed to rule out skill level - while the "hot hand" may exist- e.g. being "in the zone"- it's not as often as people predict

frustration

the blocking of goal-directed behaviour

individualism

the concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications

bystander effect

the finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders

learned helplessness

the hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events

immune neglect

the human tendency to underestimate the speed and strength of the "psychological immune system", which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things happen

kin selection

the idea that evolution has selected altruism toward one's close relatives to enhance the survival of mutually shared genes

groupthink

the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action

embodied cognition

the mutual influence of bodily sensations on cognitive preferences and social judgments

moral exclusion

the perception of certain individuals or groups as outside the boundary within which you apply moral values and rules of fairness

relative deprivation

the perception that one is less well off than others to whom one compares oneself

complementarity

the popularly supposed tendency, in a relationship between two people, for each to complete what is missing in the other

physical attractiveness stereotype

the presumption that physically attractive people possess other socially desirable traits as well: what is beautiful is good

leadership

the process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group

displacement

the redirection of aggression to a target other than the source of the frustration. generally, the new target is a safer or more socially acceptable target

overjustification effect

the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing: they may then see their action as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing

regression toward the average

the statistical tendency for extreme scores or extreme behaviour to return toward the person's average

matching phenomenon

the tendency for men and women to choose as partners those who are a "good match" in attractiveness and other traits

mere exposure effect

the tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more or rated more positively after the rater has been repeatedly exposed to them

fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences on others' behaviour because we so often see behaviour as corresponding to a disposition

disclosure reciprocity

the tendency for one person's intimacy of self-disclosure to match that of a conversational partner

social loafing

the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable

own-race bias

the tendency for people to more accurately recognize faces of their own race

foot-in-the-door phenomenon

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

just-world phenomenon

the tendency of people to believe the world is just, and that therefore people get what they deserve and they deserve what they get

overconfidence phenomenon

the tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of one's beliefs

in-group bias

the tendency to favour your own group

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the commonality of one's opinions and one's undesirable or unsuccessful behaviours

self-serving bias

the tendency to perceive yourself favourably

planning fallacy

the tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task

false uniqueness effect

the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviours

attribution theory

the theory of how people explain the behaviour of others- e.g. by attributing it either to internal dispositions (enduring traits, motives, and attitudes) or to external situations

frustration-aggression theory

the theory that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress

social-exchange theory

the theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one's rewards and minimize one's costs

realistic group conflict theory

the theory that prejudice arises from competition between groups for scarce resources

social learning theory

the theory that we learn social behaviour by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished

reward theory of attraction

the theory that we like those whose behaviour is rewarding to us or whom we associate with rewarding events

self- perception theory

the theory that when unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us-by looking at our behaviour and the circumstances under which it occurs

ingratiation

the use of strategies, such as flattery, by which people seek to gain another's favour

empathy

the vicarious experience of someone else's feeling, putting yourself in someone else's shoes

Milgram

under optimum conditions- a legitimate, close-at-hand commander, a remote victim, and no one else to exemplify disobedience- 65% of the adult male subjects fully obeyed instructions to deliver what were supposedly traumatizing electric shocks to a screaming innocent victim in an adjacent room

discrimination

unjustifiable negative behaviour towards a group or its members

the implicit association test

• Measures automatic associations (how strong positive or negative associations are) • Dependent variable: reaction time • Pair 4 categories up in two different ways - logic: If one of those pairings matches the way categories are paired up in one's head, the person should be quicker to respond to that pairing