PSYC 308 - Final Exam (Cumulative) ALL CARDS

Can We Control Implicit Bias?

"Flexible people have small IAT effects" - executive control strongly correlated with IAT scores - if your working memory is higher, you will show less IAT preferences - ex. if you impair working memory with alcohol, you will see more biases Time moderates the expression of bias - passage of time reduces racial bias in behaviour - time attenuates bias via self-regulatory control processes - if you take a second, you are able to think if someone is a threat more Older people have stronger IAT biases - executive control diminishes in old age

Theory of Planned Behaviour: Puppy Example

"How positive do you feel about puppies?" 1. Attitudes: need to be specific - change to "how positive do you feel about purchasing a puppy (in the next month?" 2. Subjective Norms - ask family for norms: they really want the puppy - landlord says no - conflicting norms 3. Perceived Control - how easy is it to buy a puppy? - need to find a breeder - breeder with available puppies - travel to breeder - cost (can you afford it)

Group Rules at San Quentin Prison

"I was appalled to see groups of Black, White, and Mexican inmates mingling together. It horrified me" Relearning 'unprejudice' meant: - losing clear social identity - uncertainty about social world - loss of method to boost self-esteem - perceived vulnerability

Effects of Industry on Science

"Those who have the gold make the evidence" Mechanisms: 1. Selective publication of results - meta-analysis of 5 SSRIs RCTs - literature 94% indicated effective - FDA audit: 51% indicated effective - strong reporting bias 2. Systematic Design - doses for efficacy vs. side effects - when looking for efficacy, you boost experimental drug and lower amount of control drug (old drug) - switches when looking for side effects - researchers are setting up studies to find either efficacy or side effects

Confessions

#2 factor in wrongful convictions - for people later exonerated by DNA evidence, 25% of cases contained a false confession

Cues - Facial Structure

- infer traits spontaneously and quickly - even seeing something briefly (less than a second), you can make a quick judgement about people - ex. baby faced adults - rounded jaw, big eyes, small nose - thought to be warm, friendly, kind, trustworthy, but naive and weak - individuals who are perceived as having baby face characteristics got lighter sentences in prison - baby face win less elections = less competent - only true for smaller elections, more ambiguous so facial features fill in some of the details

Why Relationships End

1. " Fatal attractions" - the qualities that were initially attractive become the reasons why the relationship ended 2. Social exchange theory: rewards are low and costs are high, when attractive alternatives are available to one or both partners, or when the partners have invested little in the relationship 3. Equity: people are likely to end it if they feel it is inequitable, especially if they are feeling under benefited 4. Boredom

Examples of Bias

1. 46% of Canadians view Islam more negatively than they view Christianity 2. 41% of Americans believe that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence 3. 20% of Muslim Canadians say they have experienced discrimination

Examples of Bias in B.C.

1. 46% of visible minorities felt disadvantaged because of their ethnic background 2. 71% of residents say that immigrants have a positive impact on Canada 3. 60% say that their attitudes toward Aboriginal people has not changed in the last few years

ABC's of Bias

1. Affective responses toward individuals based on their group membership - "prejudice" 2. Behavioural biases against individuals based on group membership - "discrimination" 3. Cognitive beliefs (or predictions) associating individuals with certain traits - "stereotypes"

Attempts to Improve Justice

1. Alternative Dispute Resolution: informal application of law - increase transparency and litigant voice 2. Community Courts: courts in neighbourhoods - increase caring and voice (litigants and community) 3. Restorative Justice: victim-centered justice - respect for persons and voice

How could we increase helping?

1. Altruistic Motives ('true' altruism) 2. Egoistic Motives (pseudo-altruism) 3. Increase empathy; habitually engage in perspective taking (precursor to empathy) 4. Increase cognitive dissonance if not helping (call people out for not helping)

Who Helps? Personality Moderators

1. Altruistic Personality 2. Religiosity: - devout report more volunteering/donation - moderated by observability of helping 3. Justice Sensitivity - increased vigilance for injustice - lower threshold for perceiving injustice - stronger emotions (e.g., empathy) when observing injustice - greater helping behaviour

Moderators of Informational Influence

1. Ambiguity - autokinetic task is ambiguous 2. Importance is paramount - what if you received $10 for correct estimates? 3. Crises: important/rapid events - fire alarm, when do you respond? 4. Expertise - perceive others to know more

This exploratory behaviour done by researchers is not the by-product of malicious intent, but rather the result of two factors:

1. Ambiguity in how best to make these decisions - ex. what to do with outliers 2. The researcher's desire to find a statistically significant result The literature suggests that when we as researchers face ambiguous analytic decisions, we will tend to conclude, with convincing self-justification, that the appropriate decisions are those that result in statistical significance (p </= .05)

Moderators of Deindividuation

1. Anonymity: provided via groups or disguises or invisibility 2. Presence of others: reduces self-awareness and focus on moral standards 3. Unambiguous group norms: it is clear how the group acts and/or what they seek to accomplish

Solutions to Change Biases

1. Attack the systems - seems most likely to produce lasting change - seems most difficult to carry out - need supplemental changes in the mean time

Decision Model of Helping

1. Attend to emergency event - distraction, having other urgent obligations - if you're going to help, your eyes have to register that there is a person on the ground (ex. could not be wearing contacts) 2. Interpret event as emergency - ambiguity, pluralistic ignorance, norms - might think that person doesn't need or want help - pluralistic ignorance: other people don't see it as an emergency, I won't either 3. Assign responsibility - diffusion of responsibility, different group membership 4. Intention to help - need to know how to help - theory of planned behaviour - if you don't know how to help, you likely won't 5. Help - qualifications, embarrassment, cost vs. benefits - might be prevented because you're embarrassed to violate the norm - might perceive the costs to be too high

Social Cognition - Sequence of Steps

1. Attention - what information do we attend to? - in order to understand our social situation, we have to attend to the right things - ex. attend to director's body language, tone, facial expressions 2. Interpretation - how do we make sense of the information? - what are social others doing? - what are people going to do in the future? 3. Rehearsal - what information do we preserve in working memory? - need to rehearse information to store for later - ex. see director's facial expression, store it to try and recreate - can't do that for everything, but some things 4. Storage - have to choose what i need for later and how i will remember it 5. Utilization - what information is used to make decisions? - make a prediction for what to do - ex. actor has to decide how he will act

Six Requirements for Researchers to Solve the Flexibility-Ambiguity Problem

1. Authors must decide the rule for terminating data collection before data collection begins and report this rule in the article - ex. "we decided to collect 100 observations" or " we decided to collect as many observations as we could before the end of the semester" 2. Authors must collect at least 20 observations per cell or else provide a compelling cost-of-data collection justification 3. Authors must list all variables collected in a study 4. Authors must report all experimental conditions, including failed manipulations 5. If observations are eliminated, authors must also report what the statistical results are if those observations are included 6. If an analysis includes a covariate, authors must report the statistical results of the analysis without the covariate

Solutions for managing information overload

1. Automation - ex. learning how to type, once you've done it a lot, you start to link it and are typing without thinking about it. and if you think about it you sometimes interfere and mess up - predict likely next inputs and processing requests - ex. see doctor, predict nurse (not hotdog) - unconsciously occurring 2. 'Chunking' - combine many bits together - ex. learning telephone numbers, group parts of the number - schema: mental structures which chunk information together - ex. actor's schema: camera, speak loudly, not focusing on background people - frees up a lot of cognitive processing space in the conscious - maps help you make predictions: if something doesn't fit your schema, you might attend more to it - violating schema produces humor

Why do we show in-group bias?

1. Belonging to a group gives us a social identity 2. Having a social identity contributes to feelings of self esteem - gives us a boost if we think our groups are better than others - discriminating against others improves our self-esteem, but only when our social identity is involved

How to Intervene to Reduce Prejudice?

1. Bias of Crowds: attack structural mechanisms of prejudice, ignore individuals 2. Self-Regulation: modify people or situations to allow executive control processes to regulate prejudice before it becomes discrimination - control to reduce the behavioural component of prejudice - training executive control processes within individuals likely to fall short - just by providing training you aren't going to change your brain, but you could practice in the same situation you would be tested it does benefit you 3. Traditional: Attack stereotypic associations directly so people are no longer biased - change the associations people have in their heads - implicit biases could change, but didn't even last a day - really hard to change individual people's biases

Solutions to Self Report Challenges

1. Bogus Pipeline - connected students up to a "mock lie detector" - told people the equipment will tell us if you're lying - tended to work, people reported more undesirable traits - responses were different when attached to not attached - predicted behaviours outside of lab better 2. Physiological Measures - ERP: measuring brain waves/just like EEG - measures electrical potentials and can locate - late positive potential that occurs after seeing an object - when positive potential it's greater (quicker) amplitude on the left hemisphere - when negative potential it's quicker on the right hemisphere - facial electromyography: muscle contractions in face (bridge of nose, eye crease) 3. Indirect or 'Implicit' Measures - bona fide pipeline? (we can look in their brain, they can't control attitude - see a face "I like"

Alleviating Cognitive Dissonance

1. Change Behaviour - "i'll never text and drive again" 2. Change Attitude - "actually, i feel that texting and driving isn't that bad" 3. Reframe Behaviour - "driving while intoxicated is much worse" 4. Add Consonant Cognitions - "multitasking is the sign of an efficient person" 5. Reduce Perceived Control - "i have to reply quickly or friends will reject me" - not my fault that my behaviours don't match my attitudes

Can Stereotype Threat Be Reduced?

1. Change people's mindset when taking a test - ex. the effects of stereotype threat are diminished if students are given a reminder that they are good students just before the test 2. If people are reminded that their abilities are improvable rather than fixed - ex. women experience less stereotype threat if they are told that gender differences in math performance are the result of differences in experience, rather than genetics 3. Have people engage in self-affirmation (e.g., writing about a value that is important to you) before an evaluative task - ex. female students who were given a self-affirmation exercise before a math test performed better than controls

Implications of Social Categorization for Reducing Prejudice

1. Change people's perceptions of "us" and "them" - either by promoting a common identity or by emphasizing the superordinate groups to which both in-group and out-group members belong - speaking the same language can help 2. Making salient the superordinate group to which members of both groups belong - prejudice and discrimination can be reduced when people's focus shifts from membership in their specific in-group to a broader group that includes members of the out-group 3. Provide people with an alternative route to self-esteem, so they won't have to step on others - self-affirmation theory: if people were affirmed in some way, they would be less likely to need to boost their self-esteem by derogating out-group members - some people might need a double dose of self-affirmation

What are two ways you could apply the theory of planned behaviour to procrastination?

1. Change subjective norms by having people around you shame you procrastinating 2. Reinforce their attitudes of wanting a good grade

Causes of Groupthink

1. Cohesiveness, homogeneity of members 2. Isolated from dissenting opinions 3. Vocal, directive leadership - here's what the group will do

What are we supposed to do with our anger?

1. Communication and Problem Solving 2. Defusing Anger Through Apology 3. The Modelling of Nonaggressive Behaviour 4. Building Empathy - role playing

Propinquity: Microscale Study

1. Confederate and male participant stepped up to a line that was a certain distant away and asked to read Romeo and Juliet passage - then asked how much he liked female confederate - IV = distance away (80cm vs. 150 cm) - when they were closer, reported liking the confederate more 2. Vary distance of faces (rating faces stereoscopic) - closer = greater attraction 3. Watched video of silent, staring confederate - videotaped from different distances, "closer" = participants liked them more Moderated by current relationship status, current relationship quality - if you were in a relationship, distance was less influential, mattered more when single - if in a bad relationship, distance influenced them more

Other Reasons Why We Obey

1. Conforming to the wrong norm 2. Self-Justification 3. It's not about aggression

What you can look for when reading articles

1. Covariates: ANCOVA without context - why did researcher include covariate? 2. Degrees of freedom: Are they missing?? - if you expect 198, but 190 is listed - prior to 2011, you didn't need to explain why 8 were missing 3. Sensitivity Analysis: multiple statistical models 4. Sample size: crude, but easily available 5. Stat check 6. Meta-analysis: use with care - putting biased studies together will give a biased result 7. p Curve - uses p values as its observations - if H0 is true = equally likely to see a p of any value - if H0 is true but with bias = increase around .04-.05 (because people may play with covariates)

Challenges in Acquisition for Eyewitness Memory

1. Crime tends to be highly emotional - high arousal (anxious/anger) focuses attention on central features of an event - miss peripheral info like license plates - stress interferes with executive attention, likely mediated by release of cortisol (attention literally narrows in response) - STUDY: task requires that you focus in on one thing (narrowing attention) - so when stressed (hand in ice water), they perform better than in warm watter - show deficits on other tasks when stressed 2. Memory is honed by past experience - ex. scripts for crime facilitate acquisition -an off duty cop would be better in a situation than a regular - some people have better scripts because of practice or training 3. Cross-Race Bias: People are less accurate when identifying people from other race/ethnic groups

Application: Putting Milgram to Use - How can we prevent future atrocity?

1. Dissent: contradict authority figures regarding atrocity 2. Delegitimize Authority: reinforce the fact that authorities are human and fallible just like us 3. Reduce psychological distance between those giving orders and potential victims - ex. drone wars, you have people that are so far away from the things happening 4. Permit disagreement between authorities 5. Reduce specialization/compartmentalization of executive, rule-enforcing organizations - because we have specialized roles, creates conditions under which we see these atrocities - ex. Hitler couldn't have done it alone

Group Rules at Calipatria Max. Prison

1. Don't talk with other races 2. Don't enter "their" areas - guard "our" territory = light pole shade 3. Get tattoos so we know who you belong to 4. Don't accept food from other races Non-prejudiced -> Public Conformity -> Private acceptance

Compliance Strategies

1. Door-in-the-Face: - large request (rejected), then moderate one - uses the mechanism of reciprocity - why is it effective? - perceptual contrast: 2nd request seems small - reciprocal concessions 2. Foot-in-the-Door - small request followed by a larger one - uses the mechanism of consistency - works best when: - small request is not too trivial (trivial requests don't require you to update your beliefs) - target wants to view self as consistent 3. Low-Balling - secure agreement, then reveal hidden costs - effective because of consistency (could this trivial change lead me to drastically change my behaviour?) and commitment - ex. car dealerships; free apps with in-app purchases - commitment: could be easier to just stay where you've invested some time

Self-Enhancement: Mechanisms bolstering self-esteem (deliberately and/or unconsciously)

1. Downward social comparisons 2. Self-serving cognitions - attribute failure externally, success internally - personal strengths have "objective" importance (you don't value the things that you're bad at, what's important is what you're good at) 3. Self-handicapping - long-game planning for failure; generating external reasons for failure in advance - ex. procrastination; put off a paper to the last minute, get a bad grade, then think it was because you didn't use your full potential 4. Reflected Glory "BIRGing" - associating with successful others or groups - ex. sports; cheer for the team that's winning "we won" 5. Cutting Off "CORGing" - dissociate from unsuccessful others - ex. sports; dissociate with the losing team, "they lost" not you - "blasting" - when somebody points out that "we" lost; should reduce our self-esteem, but then we point out their failures - compare yourself to someone else who feels bad to not feel as bad - takes the whole ship down with us

The Effects of Mood on Prosocial Behaviour

1. Effects of Positive Moods: - when people are in a good mood, they are more helpful in many ways - good moods make us look on the bright side of life - helping other people is an excellent way of prolonging our good mood - good moods increase the amount of attention we pay to ourselves and this makes us more likely to behave according to our values and ideals 2. Negative-State Relief - good deeds cancel out bad deeds - when they have done something that makes them feel guilty, helping another person balances things out - when people are sad, they are motivated to engage in activities that make them feel better

Are Facial Expressions of Emotion Universal?

1. Ekman and Friesen argue yes, at least for the six major emotions: anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise and disgust 2. Not everyone agrees

Situational Determinants of Prosocial Behaviour: When Will People Help?

1. Environment: Rural vs. Urban - small towns are more likely to help - urban-overload hypothesis 2. Residential Mobility - people who have lived in one place for a long time are more likely to engage in prosocial acts that help the community (greater attachment to community) 3. Bystander Intervention - people are less likely to help when they think other people could

Social Comparison and Culture

1. European-Canadians were more likely to be motivated by positive role models - ex. student who had experienced academic success 2. Asian-Canadians were more likely to be motivated by negative role models - ex. student who had experienced academic failures 3. Asian-Canadians used upward social comparison whereas European-Canadians used downward social comparison

The Social Cognition Approach: The Need to Be Accurate

1. Expectations About the Social World - self-fulfilling prophecy

Process Loss: When Group interaction Inhibits Good Problem Solving

1. Failure to share unique information - the tendency for groups to focus on what its members already know in common, failing to discuss information that some members have but others do not 2. Groupthink: Many heads, one mind -

Causes of In-Group Bias

1. Groups give meaning: Social Identity - in-group bias stronger when we choose groups - bias stronger when we identify with our group 2. Groups bolster self-esteem - identification with group increases self-esteem - discrimination also increases self-esteem 3. Groups protect us, Realistic Conflict Theory - perceived limited resources increases prejudice - economic inequity should produce intergroup bias and discrimination 4. Group Conformity - groups expect prejudice against others - groups may demand prejudice against others

Critiques of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

1. Guards were coached how to "be master sadists" - originally thought guards just fell into roles, but they were coached 2. Nice guards were "corrected" - had a guard come in to tell Zimbardo how to be an abusive guard - guards were behaving the way they were told and reinforced (more like Milgram Study) 3. John Wayne: a hand-picked guard - Zimbardo said guards and prisoners were randomly assigned, but most mean guards had been working with Zimbardo 3 weeks before - guards scored higher in authoritarianism even before they were "randomly assigned" 4. Prisoners describe "acting" poorly their roles - Zimbardo blackmailed one of his students to keep quiet about acting 5. Rejected in rigorous journals, accepted at Naval Research Review - got press because ZImbardo publicized it himself 6. Replication without coaching showed opposite effects: - guards were reluctant to exert power - prisoners organized and received extra privileges from the guards

Function of Nonverbal Cues

1. Help people express their emotions, their attitudes, and their personality 2. May play a role in eliciting empathy - we mimic people's facial expressions which may reflect empathy 3. Can substitute for a verbal message

Three Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behaviour

1. Helping is an instinctive reaction to promote the welfare of those genetically similar to us (evolutionary theory) 2. The rewards of helping often outweigh the costs, so helping is in our self-interest (social exchange theory) 3. Under some conditions, powerful feelings of empathy for others prompt selfless giving (the empathy-altruism hypothesis)

Individual Differences in Prejudice

1. Heritable: both generalized/domain-specific 2. Social Dominance Orientation: groups are inherently unequal and social hierarchy is good 3. Right-Wing Authoritarianism: submission to group leaders and middle class values 4. Conservatism: Generalized anxiety in face of uncertainty (also need for closure) 5. Cognitive Ability - ability at ages 10-11 predicts: - right wing authoritarianism - social dominance orientation - conservatism - racial prejudice

Symptoms of Groupthink

1. Illusion of invulnerability - group feels it is invincible and can do no wrong 2. Belief in the moral correctness of the group - "god is on our side" 3. Stereotyped views of out-group - opposing sides are viewed in a simplistic, stereotyped manner 4. Self-censorship - people decide themselves not to voice contrary opinions so as not to "rock the boat" 5. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform: - if people do voice contrary opinions, they are pressured by others to conform to the majority 6. Illusion of unanimity - an illusion is created that everyone agrees, for example, by not calling on people known to disagree 7. Mindguards - group members protect the leader from contrary viewpoints

Personal Determinants of Prosocial Behaviour: Why Do Some People Help More Than Others?

1. Individual Differences: Altruistic Personality - the characteristics of a person that cause them to help others in a wide variety of situations 2. Gender Differences: - men are expected to be chivalrous and heroic - women are expected to be nurturant and caring and to value close, long-term relationships

Formulating Hypotheses and Theories

1. Inspiration from earlier theories and research 2. Hypotheses based on personal observations

Routes to Self-Knowledge

1. Introspection 2. Observation 3. Social Interaction

Altruism: Evolutionary Explanations

1. Kin Selection: behaviours that help a genetic relative are favoured by natural selection 2. Norm of Reciprocity: the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future - can be seen in infancy 3. Learning Social Norms: learn social norms form other members of a society (part of our genetic makeup) - ex. learning which foods are poisonous and how members should cooperate

Incentives and Earned Privileges Effects

1. Largely negative effects on prisoner behaviour 2. 'Good' prisoners felt they deserved their benefits; 'bad' prisoners didn't earn them - System Justification and intergroup conflict - makes it so low status deserves status, but high status earned it - created groups; we naively think there is a reason for why someone is assigned to a group 3. Perceived unfairness in application - favours undermine neutrality - in turn, undermines guard's legitimacy 4. Uncontrollability of some violations - acted to undermine prisoner 'voice' - things that were outside of their control would dock their points (ex. people calling from outside, punish prisoner) What did we learn? - procedural justice eclipses positive/negative outcomes - do guards act in a fixed set of procedures and rules even if the prisoners don't agree (perceived legitimacy)

Preventing Groupthink

1. Leader should be impartial 2. Seek opinions from outside group 3. Subgroups to independently discuss options 4. Set procedures/rules to guide discussions 5. Garner opinions from individuals (not involved in group discussions) - make them anonymous

Leadership in Groups

1. Leadership and Personality - leaders tend to be slightly more intelligent, more extroverted, more driven by the desire for power, more charismatic, more socially skilled, more open to new experiences, and more confident in their leadership abilities - dominance useful in predicting who would make a good leader - integrative complexity: the ability to recognize more than one perspective on an issue and be able to integrate these various perspectives - of u.s. presidents, presidents who were tall, came from small families, and had published many books were more likely to be great leaders 2. Leadership Styles - the most effective leader is one who adopts both transactional and transformational styles 3. Leadership: The Right Person in the Right Situation - great leaders increase in integrative complexity during crisis 4. Gender and Leadership - one reason it is difficult for women to get leadership positions is that many people believe that good leaders should have agentic traits (e.g., assertive, controlling, dominant, independent, self-confident) - in contrast, women are expected to be communal (concerned with the welfare of others, warm, helpful, kind, affectionate)

How to reduce aggression

1. Let time pass - separating frustrating event from the time you could aggress - strongest moderator 2. Regulate emotions - naming feeling ("I am feeling hostile") - mindfulness 3. Use your words 4. Forgive and Apologize

Issues in the universality of facial expressions

1. Level of accuracy that participants must achieve in order to conclude that a given facial expression is being perceived in the same way across cultures

When do we help? Situational Moderators

1. Location: cities vs. towns - cities are much busier, makes them less likely to help - Urban Overload Hypothesis: more stimulation interferes with attention - Group Size: Bystander Effects - Heterogeneity of population: reduced perspective-taking/empathy - Anonymity: reduces assigning responsibility to self - Transience: lower perceived benefits to community/self 2. Group Membership: in- vs. out-group 3. Mood: - very positive mood increases introspection - sadness/shame increase helping behaviour (Negative-state relief hypothesis) 4. Expertise: with social psychology 5. Role Models: imitating helping increases perceived qualification, establishes helping norm, increases accessibility of benefits 6. Rewards: giving rewards will make people help more, but if you always get rewards, you start to help just for the reward

Cognitive Ability and Style to Evaluation (CASE)

1. Low cognitive ability -> 2. High need for certainty 3. Uncertainty is threatening 4. Resist social change, aggress if necessary

Challenges of Indirect Behavioural Measures ('Implicit')

1. Low reliability - 60% chance that responses stay consistent over repeated trials of the measurement 2. Unnatural psychological constraints - fast, many trials, gross evaluation vs. contextual

Research-Based Recommendations for How to Conduct Lineups

1. Make sure everyone in the lineup resembles the witness's description of the suspect - minimizes the effect of choosing someone who looks similar to the culprit relative to the other photos 2. Tell the witnesses that the person suspected of the crime may or may not be in the lineup 3. Make sure that the police officer administering the lineup does not know which person in the lineup is the suspect - avoids the possibility that the person will (intentionally or unintentionally) communicate to the witness who the suspect is 4. If using photos of people, present the pictures sequentially, one at a time, instead of simultaneously, or all at once - makes it more difficult to compare - makes it more likely they won't identify anyone even if the actual perpetrator is shown 5. Avoid using composite face programs (computer programs designed to reconstruct a suspect's face according to witnesses' descriptions) - typically they don't look like the actual suspect 6. Don't count on witnesses knowing whether their selections were biased - people don't have sufficient access to their thought processes to detect whether they were biased

What does it mean if you have a self-reported attitude that is different than your implicit attitude?

1. Maybe people are lying on self-report and indirect is actually real measure 2. Maybe we hold attitudes in different places and they can be different - Dual Model of Attitudes - both attitudes probably relying on similar information/structures - but they allow for different psychological conditions - implicit more like real self - given more time for self-report, so psychological processes change them - behaviours tend to reflect your implicit answers - but self report predicts behaviour in situations where you have more control and time to think

Donald: Adventurous or Reckless? Study

1. Memorize positive or negative words (priming) 2. Read story 3. Interpret whether person is reckless or adventurous - if memorized positive words = adventurous - if memorized negative words = reckless Barely significant findings for replication of study

Drawbacks to Surveys

1. Memory distortions: people claim to remember things before they were actually capable of it 2. Self-presentation: might want to look good for the researcher - might want to act consistently with how we believe we should 3. Framing effects: how you write a question can influence the response you get - ex. acquiescence bias: people are more likely to agree than disagree 4. Reactance: people who don't want to go along with what the researcher is measuring

6 Conditions When Contact Reduces Prejudice

1. Mutual Interdependence 2. Having a Common Goal 3. Equal Status - no one was the boss - if status is unequal between groups, their interactions will be shaped by that status difference 4. Informal, Interpersonal Contact: Contact must be in a friendly, informal setting - one-to-one interactions 5. Multiple Contacts: The individual learns that the out-group members they come to know in that informal setting are typical of their group - there must be multiple members of the out-group present; otherwise, the stereotype can be maintained by labelling one out-group member as the exception 6. Social Norms of Equality: Contact is most likely to reduce prejudice when social norms that promote and support equality among groups are operating in that situation - ex. if the boss or professor creates and reinforces a norm of acceptance and tolerance at work or in the classroom

Why interpret behaviours? Why not simply record?

1. Need for accuracy - evolutionary, should we be scared of people or not - wait to predict how people are going to treat us - is it because of how they are or the situation 2. Need for self-esteem - when i make an error that hurts - a lot more pleasant to think there was something in my environment to make me behave badly 3. Need for closure - uncertainty is unpleasant - makes us uncomfortable when we don't understand something - anxiety provoking - people are willing to sacrifice accuracy or self-esteem to find an explanation simply because it relieves some tension

Normative Social Influences in Everyday Life

1. Normative Social Influence and Women's Body Image - changes over time, media plays a role 2. Normative Social Influence and Men's Body Image

Types of Research Methods

1. Observational/Descriptive - surveys/polls - archival analysis 2. Correlational 3. Experimental

What is the function of our self-schema?

1. Organizes knowledge - facilitates information processing (like me/not like me) 2. Prediction - what is important to us (self-relevant) - self is starting point for predictions about others (how would i behave if i was in that situation) - directs attention (attend to what is important/most relevant to myself)

Why the presence of others causes arousal

1. Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant - when someone else is in the room, we have to be alert to the possibility that they will do something that requires us to respond - this causes mild arousal 2. They make us apprehensive about how we're being evaluated - when other people can see how you are doing, the stakes are raised - this concern about being judged, called evaluation apprehension, can cause mild arousal - it is not the mere presence of individuals but it's the presence of others who are evaluating us that causes arousal and subsequent social facilitation 3. And they distract us from the task at hand - trying to pay attention to two things at once produces arousal

Schemas can be accessible for three reasons

1. Past experience - these schemas are constantly active and ready to use to interpret ambiguous situations - ex. if alcoholism runs in the family, you will be quick to assign that to people 2. Related to a current goal 3. Recent experiences - particular schema or trait is not always accessible but happens to be primed by something people have been thinking about or doing before encountering an event

Why is decoding sometimes inaccurate?

1. People frequently display affect blends, where one part of the face registers one emotion while another registers a different emotion 2. Rules about what are considered to be appropriate displays of emotion in each culture - display rules

Social Identity Theory

1. Permeability 2. Stability 3. Legitimacy of Hierarchy

Outcomes of Groupthink: Example of Invasion of Iraq

1. Positivity Bias: "they'll be cheering in the streets"; "mission accomplished" 2. Belief in mortality: "God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq" 3. Closed-mindedness: Intelligence leaves no doubt of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq 4. (Im)partial Leader: "only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness" - leaders receive a boost when you go to war 5. Procedure: "Bush's style could be described as the perfect absence of procedural norms" 6. Censorship: of individuals of US citizens - the Iraq war was the first conflict in Western history in which an imperialist war was massively protested against before it had even been launched - little coverage of protests

Outcomes of Groupthink

1. Positivity bias, belief in group's morality/inherent goodness 2. Closed-mindedness, foreclosure on alternatives - similar to need for closure 3. Censorship to maintain illusion of unanimity 4. Poor decision quality 5. Lack of contingency plans - don't plan for how it could fail

What are researchers doing to stop the replication crisis?

1. Preregistering hypotheses, data collection, and data analysis plans 2. Attempting to publish more null results 3. Attempting to publish experimental replications 4. Increasing sample sizes 5. Changing alpha level 6. Publishing data, methods, and analysis scripts online 7. Accepting 'messy' data 8. Increasing attention to statistical details and understanding 9. Even (bravely) critiquing their own work

Moderators of Normative Influence: Not described by Social Impact Theory

1. Proportion: what percentage of group members agree? 2. Gender 3. Culture: Collectivist vs. Individualist 4. Self-Esteem: fragility, impels us to seek affiliation

Causes of Aggression

1. Provocation - if you're aggressive to me, I'm very likely to be aggressive to you 2. Social Exclusion - strong effects - but, in some cases exclusion appears to reduce aggression - self-esteem level should tell us how nice we should be to others 3. Seeing objects of aggression - ex. presence of gun or badminton racket - gun leads to more aggression - mixed results 4. Media Violence - at age 12, US children have seen 8000 murders and 100000 violent acts - the most violent programs are intended for young audiences - but, effect is stronger in controlled lab studies than in realistic environments 5. Violent Video Games - seems like there is a relationship - might be biased (not the whole truth) 6. Temperature, hunger, pain 7. Violent Pornography - specifically, violence against women - increases acceptance of violence - increases fetishizing of violence (feed forward effect: once fetish develops, increased consumption of violent porn) - desensitizes us to real-world violent acts (reduces likelihood of intervening to stop violence) - consistent across age, nation, and viewer's sex - moderated by "hostile masculinity"

Moderators of Obedience

1. Psychological Distance of Victim - 100% obedience when couldn't hear or see the confederate at all - 60-70% obedience when there was auditory input, moderate physical proximity (normal experiment) - 40% obedience when learner is in the same room, close proximity - 30% obedience when could touch learner 2. Psychological Distance of Authority - same room: 60% obedience - telephone: 20% obedience, some deception 3. Legitimacy of Authority - title, uniforms (see not to detectably moderate) - location: office building vs. university (50% obedience) - confederate becomes authority (20% obedience) 4. Unanimity - 3 teachers (2 confederates) who stop at 150 volts (10% obedience) - 2 authorities who disagree at 150 v (0% obedience) 5. Individual (vs. authority) agency - 1% obedience

Prison Game Example

1. RAs choose which residents would cooperate or not 2. Either a community game (likely to think others will cooperate) or wall street game (implies a norm of not cooperating) 3. Results: both the most likely cooperators and the most likely defectors cooperated a lot (defectors even more) in the community game 4. Results: In Wall Street game, they both didn't cooperate as much - RAs didn't have as much of an insight on personality - could predict who would cooperate by the name of the game - leads to Fundamental Attribution Error

Need-Threat Temporal Model

1. Reflexive Stage: Emotional Reaction - strong social pain: highly overlapping with neural networks for physical pain - response is to stop and attend 2. Reflective Stage: Attribution of Cause - belonging: attend to others' needs, obey, comply - control: assert dominance through aggression - meaning: force others to recognize one's existence -positive and negative recognition 3. Resignation Stage: Withdraw from social world - emotional coping resources are depleted - profound sense of alienation and confusion: depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts Model appears consistent across cultures and several social species - even when enemies ostracize: "KKK won't let me play"

Avoiding the Groupthink Trap

1. Remain impartial - leader should not take a directive role but should remain impartial 2. Seek outside opinions - the leader should invite outside opinions from people who are not members of the group and who are therefore less concerned with maintaining group cohesiveness 3. Create subgroups - the leader should divide the group into subgroups that first meet seperately and then meet together to discuss their different recommendations 4. Seek anonymous opinions - secret ballot or ask group members to write down their opinions anonymously

Four Guidelines for Reviewers to Solve the Flexibility-Ambiguity Problem

1. Reviewers should ensure that authors follow the requirements 2. Reviewers should be more tolerant of imperfections in results 3. Reviewers should require authors to demonstrate that their results do not hinge on arbitrary analytic decisions 4. If justifications of data collection or analysis are not compelling, reviewers should require the authors to conduct an exact replication

Preserving Intrinsic Interest

1. Rewards will undermine interest only if interest was initially high - if a child has no interest in reading, then getting him or her to read by offering free pizzas is not a bad idea, because there was not initial interest to undermine 2. Performance-Contingent Rewards - less likely to decrease interest in a task

Individual Differences in Prejudice

1. Right-Wing Authoritarianism - three clusters of attitudes: authoritarian submission (a high degree of submission to authority figures in society), authoritarian aggression (aggression directed toward groups that are seen as legitimate targets by authority figures), and conventionalism (a high degree of conformity to the rules and conventions that are established by authority figures) - correlated with prejudice toward immigrants to Canada - hold traditional, non egalitarian attitudes towards women - especially prejudiced toward gays and lesbians - TO REDUCE: create awareness that attitudes generally have become more positive toward the gay and lesbian community, they tend to change them to conform - TO REDUCE: encourage interaction with members of out-groups 2. Religious Fundamentalism - a belief in the absolute and literal truth of one's religious beliefs - convinced their religion is the "right" one and that forces of evil are constantly threatening to undermine its truth 3. Social Dominance Orientation - believe that groups of people are inherently unequal and that it is acceptable for some groups in society to benefit more than others - they prefer to be in the advantaged group, even if it means treating others badly - associated with racial prejudice, sexism, and negative attitudes toward gays and lesbians

Mechanisms for Longevity

1. Selective Attributions 2. Subtyping 3. Confirmation Bias 4. Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Counterweights: People aren't always seeking self-esteem

1. Self-effacement: Cultural norm for holding negative self-views - could be rude to have high self-esteem in some cultures 2. Self-verification: seeking confirmation, rather than simple self-esteem boost - need for certainty - doesn't need to be positive - aversive to have contradictory reports; can i not evaluate myself properly

Challenges with Self Report

1. Self-presentation: - no one is going to report really bad things - easy to strategically manipulate your responses 2. Memory Distortions: - hard to imagine how you really felt, might be swayed by current events (ex. recently bit by a puppy) 3. Consistency: - ask at two points how positive do you feel about puppies - people will answer the same even if it is inconsistent There is no attitude, we infer attitudes via measurement

How do we measure attitudes?

1. Self-report - easiest way - "how positive do you feel about puppies?" (touching on affective component of attitudes) - "how friendly are puppies?" (more cognitive)

SHU: Primary Challenges

1. Sensory Deprivation 2. Social Deprivation - what should we expect based on need-threat?

Why does similarity lead to liking?

1. Similar people will probably like me - might feel more dangerous to talk/approach someone different because they might reject me 2. Similar people validate my beliefs 3. Reinforcement: similar people have been more enjoyable in the past

Causes of Prejudice

1. Social Categorization 2. In-Group Bias

Consequences of Groups

1. Social Norms - groups set expectations for all group members - top-down: leader/monarch makes rules/norms - bottom-up: group members just decide to behave in certain ways (form norms more organically) 2. Social Roles - groups set expectations for individual group members - president - secretary - salesperson - ex. group = company; the president won't be taking notes during a meeting - ex. social groups = culture; age roles, males or females - either explicit or implicit rules for your role 3. Mere presence of others impacts our performance - perform differently when people are around us

What psychological processes could lead an innocent person to confess?

1. Social influence/compliance: - public conformity: confess to escape aversive or inhumane conditions (sleep deprivation, hopelessness) - ex. more likely to occur when drunk or in psychosis - legally allowed to say you have evidence to convict them, even if you don't : "I don't remember what happened, they have evidence, maybe i did do it" - private acceptance: confess because they believe the officers have more information; especially if false evidence is presented during interrogation 2. Obedience: extreme pressure, promises, and/or threats from respected authority figure 3. Confirmation Bias: interrogator assumes suspect is guilty - why else would the police bring them in? - action: seek confirmatory evidence of guilt - Results: fake evidence, pressure are all 'acceptable' if the suspect is guilty, informational influence leads suspect to believe they are guilty

Social Psychology Compared with Related Disciplines

1. Sociology - Provides general laws and theories about societies , not individuals 2. Personality Psychology - studies the characteristics that make individuals unique and different from one another 3. Social Psychology - Studies the psychological processes people have in common with one another that make them susceptible to social influence

Cycle of Science

1. Start with idea/theory - could observe something - philosophy - might read something in an article that we want to explore - use a formalized theory 2. Design a test - map out conceptual/operational variables 3. Collect Data - need a lot of subjects 4. Interpret Data 5. Refine Theory - if any discrepancies in data, need to refine for a new theory

Lawyers typically present evidence in one of two ways

1. Story Order - they present the evidence in the sequence in which the events occurred, corresponding as closely as possible to the story they want the jurors to believe 2. Witness Order - present witnesses in the sequence they think will have the greatest impact, even if this means that events are described out of order - ex. lawyer might save his or her best witness for last so that the trial ends on a dramatic, memorable note, even if this witness describes events that occurred early on in the alleged criminal incident Study: - support for the story-order strategy - jurors were more likely to believe the prosecutor

Advantages of Indirect Attitude Measurement

1. Strategic self-presentation is very difficult 2. Nearly impossible to be strategically consistent - permits finer-grained analysis of attitude change

Moderators of Normative Influence: Social Impact Theory

1. Strength: how valued is your membership in the group? 2. Immediacy: how (subjectively) close, literally, is the group to you? 3. Number: how many are in the group?

General Theories for Co-Action Effect

1. Suction theory: drafting (riding the wind of others) 2. Shelter theory: also drafting 3. Encouragement Theory: "Friends keep up the spirits" - problem is you're not usually with friends in competition 4. Brain Worry Theory: "leaders are in a fidget" - leaders are always looking behind them - expending mental energy worrying about people behind them makes them go slower 5. Hypnotic Theory: revolving wheel of pacing machine hypnotizes leader to make them go faster or slower 6. Automatic Theory: leaders must exert more mental energy deliberating - leaders have to decide if they should pace themselves or go fast - whereas people behind can just watch the leader Mechanical theories work against fastest racer - so why are they faster in a group?

Moderators of Social Loafing

1. Task difficulty - more loafing when task is easy 2. Culture - more loafing in individualist cultures 3. Gender - males loaf more 4. Identifiability - less chance of being identified equals more loafing 5. Uniqueness of contributions - when low = more loafing 6. Outcome Importance - the more you value the outcome, the less you loaf 7. Group Cohesiveness - low cohesiveness = more loafing 8. Expectations of other group members 9. Group Size - larger = more loafing 10. Individual Beliefs Regarding Effort

Interventions for Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination

1. The Contact Hypothesis - repeated contact with members of an out-group can have a positive effect on stereotypes and prejudice - can be difficult to get contact started 2. Cooperation and Interdependence: The Jigsaw Classroom - students are placed in diverse six-person learning groups - each lesson is divided in six parts - individual must learn their section and teach it to the other members of the group who do not have any other access to that material - children begin to pay more attention to each other and show respect for each other - showed a decrease in prejudice and stereotyping as well as an increase in their liking for their group mates 3. The Extended Contact Hypothesis - Reduce prejudice by informing people that a member of their own group has a close relationship with an out-group member - the more friends you have in a particular out-group, the more positive your attitudes are toward their group as a whole

Social Psychology Compared with Personality Psychology

1. The insights of personality psychologists increase our understanding of human behaviour, but social psychologists are convinced that explaining behaviour primarily in terms of personality ignores a critical part of the story: the role played by social influence

The conditions under which we do not automatically activate stereotypes

1. The motivation to control prejudice - People who are high in motivation to control prejudice inhibited the application of stereotypes 2. The need to feel good about ourselves - we selectively activate stereotypes - we inhibit stereotypes in the service of self enhancement 3. Meta-Stereotype - our level of prejudice depends on our stereotype of a particular group, but also on whether we think members of that group have positive or negative stereotype of us - ex. white canadians believe that native canadians perceive them as prejudiced, unfair, selfish, arrogant, wealthy, materialistic, phony - people expressed the greatest amount of prejudice when they believed their meta-stereotypes - empathy may not work here

Why does deindividuation lead to impulsive acts?

1. The presence of others, or the wearing of uniforms and disguises, makes people feel less accountable for their actions because it reduces the likelihood that an individual will be singled out 2. The presence of others lowers self-awareness, thereby shifting people's attention away from their moral standards 3. Deindividuation also increases the extent to which people obey the group's norms - when group members are together and deindividuated, they are more likely to act according to the group norms than other norms - doesn't always lead to violence, depends on what the norm of the group is

When do we seek information objectively (even-handedly) vs. seeking confirmation for pre-existing expectations?

1. Uncertainty (no initial expectation) 2. High motivation to be accurate 3. Have time and cognitive capacity

Victim-Centered Justice: They Work

1. Victims are more satisfied - more quickly resume normal activities - less fear of offender - reduced anger 2. Community evaluates these systems as - more accountable 3. Offenders are more satisfied - offenders are less likely to recidivate - offenders self-report greater compliance - greatest gains in most serious crimes (usually get used for low level crimes, but there is evidence that these informal methods work best for serious crimes0_ Don't need lawyers, can express their situation to a mediator Allows them to have a voice Often the defendant and claimant can negotiate over what they think is a fair resolution to a case Judge is not there to tell them what the sentence will be Community courts use this Increases the degree of caring - if you are the defendant, you perceive your neighbourhood to be acting on what they think is best for me Restorative Justice: you come forward and say what you think is fair - defendant can argue for why they are not their crime

Procedural Justice at San Quentin Prison

1. Voice: - restorative justice roundtable for events that occurred within the prison - do they have many outlets to voice their thoughts? 2. Respect for Persons - job training in addition to work duties (manufacturing and computer programming) - wages up to $16 per hour - programs (arts, education, theatre) 3. Trust in Authorities - 'friendship' between guards/prisoners - "death row inmates save prison guard" - agreement that they are working for their best interest

4 Components of Procedural Justice

1. Voice: Litigants ability to participate in cases - do they have a say 2. Neutrality: unbiased decision-makers and transparent decision-making process - do you have the idea that the judge is out to get your or not? - do you know what the jury should be deciding? 3. Respect for persons: all people are treated with dignity 4. Trust in Authorities: authorities are caring and are motivated to help litigants - do you think they are trying to help you? Haven't achieved perfect fairness or impartiality, but improving - do people of different races/abilities/genders get similar sentences Citizen's confidence is not increasing and arguably getting worse - still see bias in system

Procedural Justice in Prisons

1. Voice: Prisoners ability to change prison conditions 2. Neutrality: Unbiased guards/wardens and transparent decision-making process 3. Respect for persons: All prisoners are treated with dignity 4. Trust in authorities: Guards/wardens are caring and are motivated to help prisoners

What behaviour does IAT predict?

1. Voting behaviour in 2008 U.S. Election - Obama vs. McCain - if you had anti-black tendencies on IAT, you were less likely to vote for Obama 2. Economic transactions/trust in Black partners - less trust in black partners 3. Social interaction with outgroup members - fluency of interaction ("awkwardness") - smiling, speech errors, hesitation, body openness, expressiveness, eye contact - if you have high degree of antiblack bias on IAT, you will have more awkward interactions with Black outgroup members

Adaptive/Functional Reasons Behind Choosing Romantic Partners

1. Warmth: - cue for successful parenting 2. Trustworthiness: - ready for commitment, available for intimacy 3. Status: - climbing the social status hierarchy, stability, coalitions with others 4. Attractiveness: - cue for health, fertility, and high odds of offspring in sexual selection race Stability is important from an evolutionary standpoint

Why is similarity so important in attraction?

1. We tend to think that people who are similar to us will be inclined to like us 2. People who are similar provide us with important social validation for our characteristics and beliefs - they provide us with the feeling that we are right in our views and our thinking 3. The rewards-of-interaction explanation offers another reason for why similarity leads to attraction

Consequences of Attractiveness

1. What is beautiful is good - stereotyping attractive people - HALO Effect: - we assume attractive people are: trustworthy, successful, friendly, warm, happy - depends on individual schema for good vs. bad traits - ex. if you don't value success then that might not be stereotyped when seeing attractiveness

Conditions under which people conform to normative social influence

1. When the group is unanimous - when everyone says or believes the same thing 2. Gender Differences in Conformity - men are less easily influenced than women, but the difference is small - male researchers were more likely than female researchers to find that men conformed less than women 3. When the group's culture is collectivist - more so than individualistic cultures

When do people conform to informational social influence?

1. When the situation is ambiguous - when you are unsure of the right response 2. When the situation is a crisis 3. When other people are experts

Finkel and Eastwick Speed-Dating Study

12 men and 12 women rotate around a room Condition 1: - women stay seated, while men shift to next chair - Results: consistent with evolutionary perspectives, women were 'pickier' Condition 2: - men stay seated, women shift to next chair - Results: now men were pickier - being approached activates a different script than does approaching - refutes the evolutionary perspective

Study on Partner Attitudes and Intervention

144 married couples: 1. Pretest automatic/deliberative partner attitudes - if you're quicker at associating positive traits when seeing partner, predicts relationship satisfaction 2. Evaluative conditioning procedure - every 3 days for 6 weeks 3. Posttest every 2 weeks 4. Followup 2 weeks after intervention completed Surveillance Task: -225 trials every 3 days - look at stream of images, hit space bar when you see a word - 25 pics of spouse paired with positive or neutral Results from Automatic Measure: - habituation to measure - when paired with positive images, automatic positivity higher Self-Reports of Relationship Satisfaction: - no differences - appears you can change automatic processes, they do predict satisfaction but we don't perceive them as benefiting

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

24 randomly assigned to be either guard/prisoner Result: Guards became abusive, prisoners submissive Conclusion: Social roles (giving expectations of social roles even if it violates their ideals) and deindividuation (no longer trying to align outside and inside selves) = conformity to roles (not self-concept) - testing the balancing act

Study on Familiarity

4 female confederates just walked to the front of class and listened to lecture Manipulation: number of classes they attended Participants were asked how much they liked the confederates The more classes they attended, the more people liked them

Lineup Identification

4 primary factors: 1. Foil Procedures - how distinctive is the suspect compared to the foils (other people in lineup) - should try and get similar looking people - ex. don't want to design a m.c. question where there's only one obvious answer 2. Communication with perceiver - subtle cues when administrator is not blind - Best practices: "the suspect may be present", no subtle regarding the selection; best: blind lineup administrator, so they do not know which person may be the suspect 3. Format of lineup - simultaneous: - information: "one of these guys must have done it" - heuristic: choose the closest or most familiar - type 1 error - Sequential: - reduces information: witness does not know how many suspects they will see - heuristic: choose only if pass a confidence threshold - result: reduces false IDs, small decrease in correct IDs 4. Familiarity - one often used heuristic for identifying - increases via previous exposure - familiarity is more durable than recollection - remember face, forget context

Police and Implicit Bias

80 police officers from Eastern Washington Completed 4 IATs (stereotypes of black/white with weapons) - 2 after multiple days off work - 2 after multiple 10 hour days on-duty Conceptual IV: Fatigued vs. Rested - also, sleep actigraphy Results: 1. Officers have stronger IAT biases when they are fatigued - and negative correlation with sleep minutes 2. Mathematical modeling shows this is due to impairments in executive control 3. Intervention Rx: - change attitudes:could but this is very difficult - get more rest/time off work! - incentivize good sleep habits - should reduce racial biases in their behaviour (not going to change biases in their head) - should make them better at all tasks

Race: Why Bother With It?

90% of phenotypic variance, on average, occurs within-continental groups - 10% of variance, on average, between-continental groups Comparing European and African populations specifically - 83% differences in genetic expression occurs within-ethnic groups - 17% differences between Europeans and Africans Little use of having race

Conformity

A change in behaviour as a result of the real or imagined influence of other people Spontaneous (automatic) interpersonal influence - not intentional from perspective of influencer - "informational social influence"

Compliance

A change in behaviour in response to a direct request from another person Behaviour that is elicited by direct request Key Mechanisms: 1. Narrative (a reason) 2. Reciprocity 3. Consistency

Jigsaw Classroom

A classroom setting designed to reduce prejudice between children by placing them in small, desegregated groups and making each child dependent on the other children in the group to learn the course material and do well in the class

Group

A collection of three or more people who interact with one another and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to rely on one another

Social Dilemma

A conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual, if chosen by most people, will have harmful effects on everyone Tested with the Prisoner's Dilemma

Cover Story

A description of the purpose of a study given to participants that is different from its true purpose Used to maintain psychological realism

Affect Blends

A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion

Cognitive Dissonance

A feeling of discomfort caused by the realization that one's behaviour is inconsistent with one's attitudes or that one holds two conflicting attitudes We take steps to alleviate this discomfort - ex. changing our attitudes We are motivated to see ourselves as rational and consistent - thus, we seek to align our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour Dissonance is the product of inconsistencies - a negative feeling that provokes us to take action Many ways to reduce dissonance

Negotiation

A form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict, in which offers and counter-offers are made and a solution occurs only when both parties agree

Belief in a Just World

A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people

Archival Analysis

A form of the observational method whereby the researcher examines the accumulated documents, or archives, of a culture (e.g., diaries, novels, magazines, newspapers, and so on)

Stereotype

A generalization about a group of people in which identical characteristics are assigned to virtually all members of the group, regardless of actual variation among the members Most likely to be held for social groups (e.g., racial and ethnic groups)

Out-Group

A group with which the individual does not identify

Prejudice

A hostile or negative attitude toward people in a distinguishable group, based solely on their membership in that group How do you feel about the group you belong to vs. a different group Attitude = Prejudice Behavioural = Discrimination Cognitive = Stereotype

Task-Oriented Leader

A leader who is concerned more with getting the job done than with the feelings of and relationships among the workers Do well in high control work situations - situations in which the leader has excellent interpersonal relationships with his subordinates, their position is clearly perceived as powerful, and the work to be done is structured and well-defined They also do well in low control work situations - leader has poor relationships with subordinates and work to be done is not clearly defined The leader who pays attention only to the task will get the most accomplished

Relationship-Oriented Leader

A leader who is concerned primarily with the feelings of and relationships among the workers Most effective in situations that are moderate control work situations - the wheels are turning fairly smoothly, but some attention to the squeakiness caused by poor relationships and hurt feelings is needed

Testosterone

A male sex hormone associated with aggression

Tit-for-Tat Strategy

A means of encouraging cooperation by at first acting cooperatively but then always responding the way your opponent did (i.e., cooperatively or competitively) on the previous trial To increase cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma The strategy communicates a willingness to cooperate as well as an unwillingness to sit back and be exploited if the other party does not cooperate

Availability Heuristic

A mental shortcut whereby people base a judgement on the ease with which they can bring information to mind Basing judgement on how easily we can think of information - ex. people were able to remember famous people's names more easily than nonfamous names Sometimes what is easiest to bring to mind is not typical of the overall picture, leading to faulty conclusions

Representativeness Heuristic

A mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case Similarity on one dimension implies similarity on other dimensions Ex. guessing a french girl at a alberta university is from quebec Ex. Gambler's Fallacy

Injunctification

A motivated tendency to see the status quo (the way things are) as the most desirable state of affairs (the way things should be) People who had just been reminded of the important their university had in their lives defended the university's unequal allocation of funds but not the government's unequal funding decisions

Probability Level (p-value)

A number calculated with statistical techniques that tells researchers how likely it is that the results of their experiment occurred by chance and not because of the independent variable or variables; the convention in science, including social psychology, is to consider results significant (trustworthy) if the probability level is less than 5 in 100 that the results might be due to chance factors and not the independent variables studied

Meta-Stereotype

A person's beliefs regarding the stereotype that out-group members hold about their own group

External Justification

A person's reason or explanation for dissonant behaviour that resides outside the individual (e.g., to receive a large reward or avoid a severe punishment)

Attitude Object

A person, place, thing, event, or idea towards which a person has made a judgment

Fear-Arousing Communication

A persuasive message that attempts to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears Ex. public service ads often take this approach by trying to scare people into practising safer sex, wearing their seat belts, and staying away from drugs

Behaviourism

A school of psychology maintaining that to understand human behaviour, one need only consider the reinforcing properties of the environment For example, dogs come when they are called because they have learned that compliance is followed by positive reinforcement (e.g., food or fondling)

Gestalt Psychology

A school of psychology stressing the importance of studying the subjective way in which an object appears in people's minds, rather than the objective physical attributes of the object For example, to try to understand how people perceive a painting would be to break it down into its individual elements - such as the exact amounts of primary colours applied to different parts of the canvas, the types of brush strokes, the different geometric shapes they form - and to attempt to determine how these elements are combined by the perceiver to form an overall image of the painting

Mutual Interdependence

A situation in which two or more groups need each other and depend on each other to accomplish a goal that is important to both groups

Reciprocity Norm

A social norm by which the receipt of something positive from another person requires you to reciprocate, or behave similarly, in response

Integrative Solution

A solution to a conflict whereby the parties make trade-offs on issues according to their different interests; each side concedes the most on issues that are unimportant to it but important to the other side

Correlation Coefficient

A statistic that assesses how well you can predict one variable based on another (e.g., how well you can predict people's weight from their height)

Meta-Analysis

A statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable

Door-in-the-Face Technique

A technique to get people to comply with a request whereby people are presented first with a large request, which they are expected to refuse, and then with a smaller, more reasonable request, to which it is hoped they will acquiesce

Foot-in-the-Door Technique

A technique to get people to comply with a request, whereby people are presented first with a small request, to which they are expected to acquiesce, followed by a larger request, to which it is hoped they will also acquiesce

Hypothesis

A testable statement or idea about the relationship between two or more variables Statement of a relationship between two things (aka variables) - even more specific than theory - ex. phone and learning relationship

Covariation Model

A theory stating that to form an attribution about what caused a person's behaviour, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and whether or not the behaviour occurs Use consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information to decide how to attribute the behaviour 1. People are most likely to make an internal attribution when the consensus and distinctiveness are low, but consistency is high 2. People are most likely to make an external attribution if consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high 3. If consistency is low, we cannot make a clear internal or external attribution and resort to a special kind of external or situational attribution, one that assumes something peculiar is going on

Self-Verification Theory

A theory suggesting that people have a need to seek confirmation of their self-concept, whether the self-concept is positive or negative In some circumstances, this tendency can conflict with the desire to uphold a favourable view of oneself

Self-Affirmation Theory

A theory suggesting that people will reduce the impact of a dissonance-arousing threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence on some dimension unrelated to the threat This self-affirmation would likely provide the ability to resist engaging in typical dissonance-reducing behaviour

Theory of Planned Behaviour

A theory that the best predictors of a person's planned, deliberate behaviours are the person's attitudes toward specific behaviours, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control Attitudes should predict planned, deliberate behaviour, but attitudes are only one part of a three part story: 1. Attitudes (measurement must be specific) 2. Subjective Norms - how do the people around you feel about the behaviour you were to engage in - ask people around them - if people disagree with you, your attitudes will be less predictive of behaviour 3. Perceived Control - how much control they have over the choice - if they have more control, attitudes will predict behaviour - ex. of Chinese, once laws were in place to not discriminate, attitudes might not predict behaviour as much

Fearful Avoidant Style

A type of avoidant attachment in which close relationships are avoided because of mistrust and fears of being hurt Consciously desire intimate relationships but avoid them Have a negative view of themselves and other people Report greater distress when a romantic relationship ends than do those with a dismissive style

Dismissive Avoidant Style

A type of avoidant attachment in which the person is self-sufficient and claims not to need close relationships Has a positive view of themselves but a negative view of others

Implicit Personality Theory

A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together Occurs automatically For ex. many people believe that if someone is kind, he or she is generous as well We use a few known traits to determine what other qualities the person has Can be very wrong - found that if someone was shy they assumed they were also unintelligent, which was incorrect

Holistic Thinking Style

A type of thinking in which people focus on the overall context, particularly the ways in which objects relate to one another This type of thinking is common in East Asian cultures - ex. notice changes in the background of pictures

Analytic Thinking Style

A type of thinking in which people focus on the properties of objects without considering their surrounding context This type of thinking is common in Western cultures Ex. would focus on the main objects in a picture, not the background

Random Selection

A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population, by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample

Peremptory Challenge

Aboriginal Justice Inquiry - describes peremptory exclusion of indigenous peoples as common In US, Batson challenge designed to prevent race-based rejections - but, lawyers may still attempt to dismiss jurors for cause if peremptory is ruled discriminatory

What have we learned from Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment?

About human behaviour: - not much regarding social roles and deindividuation - obedience in another context, maybe (guards did what they were told) - replication didn't tell us anything new About science community: - try not to regurgitate accepted wisdom; remain skeptical when reasonable - read the actual research articles - can't rely on summaries

Social Exchange Theory: Sticking Together

Add up the benefits of the relationship Add up the negatives Compare the net value against what you perceive you deserve Could you get it somewhere else? - seek other relationships to see if others would fulfill these needs (precursor to breaking up) More transactional way to think of relationships - if the value is negative, you might just leave - later researchers argue that it depends on what they perceive they deserve - people that stick around when the net value is negative are anxious and avoidant types, might be because they don't think they can get a new bf/gf or they perceive to deserve less Investment Model: include all of the things you've spent to make the relationship work until now

ABC's of Attitudes

Affective: Emotional responses toward the attitude object Behavioural: Inferences about our evaluations drawn from 'self-perception' - requires meta-cognition; the ability to think about our thoughts/emotions Cognitive: Beliefs about the attitude object that are not emotional in nature We can have positive affects toward object, but negative beliefs about object

Blair and Afrocentricity Study

Afrocentricity is the degree to which Black faces appear prototypic or stereotypic - very strong effects on many DVs - more difficult to control than category stereotyping - afrocentricity associated with criminality Does afrocentricity contribute to sentences? - Florida Race Neutrality Statute: judges explicitly justify their sentences to reduce racial bias - Participants coded Afrocentricity of 216 inmates - both black and white men Results: - white men receive longer sentences than black men - probably the result of overcorrection by judges - afrocentric features most important predictor of sentence length - judges did not seem to correct for stereotype associating afrocentric features with criminality

"Modern Racism"

After civil rights movement Acting non-prejudiced due to normative influence - but holding prejudiced attitudes/beliefs Modern Racism Scale: 1. "Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten more economically than they deserve" 2. "The government and news media shows more respect to Blacks than they deserve" - less blatant than asking "are you racist" - but might capture some things that you would admit to Prediction: prejudice will manifest in behaviour when it is normatively acceptable

What information did you use when forming snap judgements?

Age, sex, type of group they are in, body cues, gestures

Community-Level Outcomes (Project Implicit)

Aggregate IAT bias and discrimination indices by community - enter your zip code Community bias predicts black-white gap in infant health - rate of pre-term births - underweight births Treatment and outcome for circulatory diseases Less likely to prescribe pain medication Wrongful conviction of Black defendants - higher rates of wrongful conviction of Black defendants Racial disparity in police use of lethal force - not assessing the actual doctor or police officer, we're looking at community norms

Instrumental Aggression

Aggression as a means to some goal other than causing pain There is an intention to hurt the other person, but the hurting takes place as a means to some goal other than causing pain Ex. in football, a defensive lineman will usually do whatever it takes to thwart their opponent - typically includes intentionally inflicting pain if doing so is useful in helping him get the blocker out of the way so he can get to the ball carrier

Mechanism of Compliance: Consistency

Agreeing to requests changes perception of self Me: "I gave a few dollars to charity, I must be open-minded and kind" Charity: "A kind person would give a little more" Self-perception theory can play a role if your initial beliefs were ambiguous

Informed Consent

Agreement to participate in an experiment, granted in full awareness of the nature of the experiment which has been explained in advance

Fundamental Attribution Error

Aka the "correspondence bias" The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behaviour stems from personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational factors When we are talking about other people's behaviour we weight internal causes to weigh more than when we talk about our own behaviour Ex. went fishing, hit sister, dad yelled at him saying he was a mean kid, but he was hitting his sister because she hooked him in the car - dad's immediate impulse was internal (personality) causes: he was punching because of personality not situation Humans spontaneously interpret others' behaviour - ex. split brain patients who explain things that don't make sense even to them - humans are storytellers, construal is often more important than reality

Culture and Advertising

American ads tend to emphasize individuality, self-improvement, and benefits of the product for the individual consumer Korean ads tend to emphasize the family, concerns about others, and benefits for one's social group

Hostile Aggression

An act of aggression stemming from feelings of anger and aimed at inflicting pain or injury Ex. football player believes his opponent has been playing dirty, he might become angry and go out of his way to hurt the other player, even if doing so does not increase his opportunity to tackle the ball carrier

Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment Style

An attachment style characterized by a concern that others will not reciprocate one's desire for intimacy, resulting in higher-than-average levels of anxiety Come across as withdrawn, rather than socially engaged, and show overt signs of anxiety such as awkwardness and stumbling over their words

Avoidant Attachment Style

An attachment style characterized by a suppression of attachment needs because attempts to be intimate have been rebuffed; people with this style find it difficult to develop intimate relationships

Secure Attachment Style

An attachment style characterized by trust, a lack of concern with being abandoned, and the view that one is worthy and loved

Cognitively Based Attitude

An attitude based primarily on a person's beliefs about the properties of an attitude object Based primarily on the relevant facts The purpose is to classify the pluses and minuses of an object so we can quickly tell whether it is worth our while to have anything to do with it

Behaviourally Based Attitude

An attitude based primarily on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object

Affectively Based Attitude

An attitude based primarily on people's emotions and feelings about the attitude object Based more on emotions and feelings than on an objective appraisal of pluses and minuses Ex. sometimes we simply like a certain brand of car regardless of whether it gets good gas consumption All have three things in common: 1. They do not result from a rational examination of the issue 2. They are not governed by logic (e.g., persuasive arguments about the issues seldom change an affectively based attitude) 3. They are often linked to people's values, so that trying to change them challenges those values

Where does aggression come from?

An endless debate - Plato: it's human nature - Aristotle: it's learned Social learning and social context certainly influence expressions of aggression - honour cultures : highly value their reputation, need to defend their reputation at all costs (ex. prison system) - modeling : when you see other people aggress teaches you how to and that it's acceptable Genetic Contributions: - male vs. female - animal models, twin studies : show that aggression is related to hormones and genetic differences in males and females

Attitude

An evaluation of a person, object or idea along a continuum of positivity/negativity Consist of a positive or negative reaction toward someone or something - sometimes people experience ambivalence or "mixed feelings" Made up of three components: 1. Affective - consisting of emotional reactions toward the attitude object 2. Cognitive - consisting of thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object 3. Behavioural - consisting of actions or observable behaviour toward the attitude object

Field Experiment

An experiment conducted in natural settings rather than in the laboratory

Aggressive Stimulus

An object associated with aggressive responses (e.g., a gun) whose mere presence can increase the probability of aggression

Self-Schemas

An organized body of knowledge about the self (e.g., attitudes, preferences, traits) that influences what people notice, think, and remember about themselves Ex. Sarah plays a lot of sports and athleticism is an important part of her self-schema - she is more likely to remember the volleyball game then the movie - whereas Caitlin loves to act, she will remember the movie more than the game

Theory

An organized set of principles that can be used to explain observed phenomena

Self-Enhancement

An unrealistically positive view of oneself The more we distort reality to paint a flattering picture of ourselves, the higher our self-esteem

Culture and Aggression

Analysis of cultural differences in aggression provide support for the view that, for humankind, innate patterns of behaviour are infinitely modifiable and flexible Human cultures vary widely in their degree of aggressiveness Cultures that value cooperation and collectivism have had lower levels of aggression than European societies When men live in cultures that lack internal and external threats to their survival, they are not raised to be aggressive Cultures of Honour and Aggression - violence is seen as more acceptable in honour cultures - cultures that define male honour in terms of power, toughness, and the ability to protect one's property - cultures of honour have higher rates of domestic violence - twice as many school shootings - ex. security staff at bars have this honour culture and are more likely to excessively aggress with patrons when they perceive their authority or masculinity to be threatened

Two-Step Process of Attribution

Analyzing another person's behaviour first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behaviour, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution 1. Make an internal attribution 2. We attempt to adjust this attribution by considering the situation the person was in - but we often don't make enough of an adjustment - when we are distracted or preoccupied, we often skip the second step, making an extreme internal attribution

Routes to Self-Knowledge: Social Interaction

Analyzing how others view and interact with us Looking-Glass Self Theory: taking others' perspectives to see how we are in their eyes - self-concept shifts towards others' evaluations of us - feel worse about reading sexual promiscuity after picturing grandmother

Justification

Another way to alleviate dissonance Reconciling inconsistencies

Prosocial Behaviour

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person

Process Loss

Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving

Dissonance and the Brain

Areas of the brain that are activated during dissonance include the striatum and other highly specific areas within the prefrontal cortex The reasoning areas of the brain virtually shut down when people were confronted with dissonant information

Study on if Implicit Bias is Unconscious

Asked people to introspect on their levels of implicit bias Participants predict in advance how they will score on 5 IATs - Black-White - Latino-White - Asian-White - Babies-White adults - Celebrities-White adults Predictions strongly correlate with IAT results, r=.62 Explicit measures do not correlate, r=.10 Even with a minimal prompt (predicted average of biases of community), people are pretty accurate at telling prejudices

Altruistic Personality

Aspects of a person's makeup that cause them to help others in a wide variety of situations

Downward Social Comparison (By Proxy)

Associating yourself with someone/something related to you Ex. dog - associate self with dog and compare your athletic dog to someone's unathletic dog

Milgram abd Obedience

Atrocities may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of persons obeyed orders Ex. Hitler; he didn't kill many people personally, he ordered normal people to kill them and they obeyed

Routes to Self-Knowledge: Observation

Attending to our behaviours and physiological reactions Provides us with information about who we are Self-perception theory: inferring aspects of self by observing our own behaviour - we observe behaviour when we're uncertain about an aspect of self Overjustification Effect: if both are true, you might have uncertainty, might start experimenting to determine what you really like - ex. if studying after school, think they must like to learn; if getting paid for every question they might conclude that they just like money and might not work as hard - ex. "do i like climbing mountains?" - observe: - i climb even though i have to wake up early, sleep uncomfortably, deal with rain/snow/ice, eat bad food "i must like climbing" - after i climb, i quickly post pictures to Facebook "maybe i dont like climbing, i just like social rewards"

Theory of Planned Behaviour: Election Polling

Attitude: On voting day which candidate do you plan to vote for? Norms: Who do you believe that your spouse or closest friend will vote for? Perceived Control: Do you foresee any barriers, such as transportation difficulties or other obligations that would prevent you from voting? Intention: How likely is it that you will vote? - if you vote unlikely, won't care about the other answers you provide

Why have attitudes?

Attitudes indicate whether we should tend to approach or avoid the attitude object Ex. see a tiger, automatic attitude will tell you if you should avoid going towards it

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious

Explicit Attitudes

Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report

Similarity

Attraction to people who are like us It is this more so than complementarity that draws people together Leads to liking more than "opposites attract" - tends to be better Perceived, not actual, similarity matters - attitudes: do you like the same things - values: do you have similar ideals Studies have shown this to be true, if all you know is some opinions, if they are similar you are more likely to like them Most likely to be found for traits that are related to one's value system (e.g., honesty) Romantic partners are similar in terms of attachment style More likely to be attracted to someone who enjoys the same leisure activities that we do Attracted to people who are similar to us in terms of interpersonal style and communication skills These effects are strongest in individualistic cultures Attraction can lead to perceptions of similarity - the more attracted we are to someone, the more similar we assume that person is to us

Complementarity

Attraction to people who are opposite to us

Attractiveness in Long Relationships

Attractiveness seems less important as the overall length of relationship increases Assortative Mating Correlation: - if correlation is high, attractive people sort with attractive and less attractive with less attractive - lower correlation means more assortment, attractive person could be with less attractive person A lot more mixture if you've known someone for a long time - attractiveness plays a diminishing role

Informational Influence (Sherif 1936)

Autokinetic effect 1. Participants practice alone 2. Filler (3 intervening days) 3. Participants make public estimates - the more group members, the similar the estimates Why did estimates converge? - were people just "going along to get along" or did their beliefs change? - public compliance - private acceptance

Learning Theories on Aggression

Behaviourists have sought to make sense of how aggression can be learned: 1. Positive Reinforcement: - being aggressive can result in positive outcomes - ex. bully threatens to beat-up kids for lunch money 2. Negative Reinforcement: - aggression can prevent negative outcomes - ex. bullied kid can fight back to keep lunch money - aggression leads to you not losing something you like 3. Positive/Negative Punishment: - punishing aggressive behaviour can reduce it, but: 1. Must be immediately following aggressive behaviour (not months, days, or even hours) 2. Must be strong enough to stop behaviour (otherwise, Justification of Effort is possible, it was "worth it") 3. Must be consistent (consistent punishment is far better than extreme punishment) 4. Must be perceived as just (otherwise can provoke retaliatory aggression against punisher) 5. May still be modelled by those punished

Social Loafing

Being in a group reduces individual output on simple tasks, but increases output on difficult tasks Ex: - tug-of-war - brainstorming (groups come up with less ideas than individuals) - keeping rhythm - navigating mazes - evaluating job candidates

Hostile Masculinity

Belief of how much males should dominate over females People who are higher in this have increased likelihood for watching violent porn and having aggressive outcomes

self-serving bias

Bias to maintain what you know about the world and that you're a good person

Race and Policing

Black americans more likely to be searched and handcuffed - of those searched, white suspects have higher hit rate for weapons and illicit substances - diagnostic/damning for racial bias - could be due to racial policing over different cues that are presented between groups Black americans arrested and imprisoned at higher rates - expected if policed at greater rates Black americans report feeling less respected during police stops

Visual Agnosia

Can see objects but don't know what they are

Subtyping

Can't attribute stereotype inconsistent behaviour to situational causes Create an exception, or special subtype - seek characteristics that differentiate deviant individual from their group

Does Frustration Lead to Aggression Study

Children come into lab to play with toys IV: Frustration - toys kept out of reach for a long time - control: couldn't see the toys (less frustrating) DV: Observations of playtime behaviour - frustrated children were more aggressive with their toys (smashing, throwing, breaking) - even though playing with it was their goal - hostile aggression (not achieving anything

How do you determine whether the person in the lineup is the person you saw earlier?

Clothes change Facial changes (baggy eyes, makeup changes) Context may be different (dark vs. light) - feeling less anxiety or fear Familiarity is one often used heuristic - have to remember exactly where you saw that face, could have been from previous lineup

Moderators of Love: Culture

Collective cultures tend to view romantic/passionate love as less important than individualistic cultures Family attachment changes: - dramatically in individualist cultures (move away, spend less time with family, prioritize spouse) - little in many (but not all) collectivist cultures (may not move away, priority is still family)

Cultural Differences in Social Comparison

Collectivist cultures tend to engage in upward comparisons - increases motivation to avoid future failures and improve future performance - avoidance behaviour Individualist cultures tend to engage in downward comparisons - increases motivation by increasing self-esteem - boost self-esteem first

Persuasive Communication

Communication (e.g., a speech or television advertisement) advocating a particular side of an issue

Self-Comparison

Compare ourselves with ourselves Ex. teenager me aced a math test but adult me failed a test in uni - upward social comparison of past self; harmful Upward social comparison of how much you have improved is common

Attachment Types and Sticking Together

Compared to securely attached.. 1. Avoidant have difficulty physically expressing love - both casually and sexually - everytime they try to kiss or hug is a chance to be rejected so less likely to try - might deal with conflict passively, silent treatment 2. Anxious have more frequent conflicts with partners - also fare worse psychologically after conflict - having a conflict could put into a depression or other maladaptive thinking - more yelling, physical altercations

Attachment Types and Looking for Love

Compared to securely attached: 1. Avoidant are less likely to initiate interactions with goal of romantic relationship - ex. would be less likely to go to speed dating - prevents them from seeking out places where they might meet someone - might just become friends with someone they are interested in 2. Avoidant expect to fail (and may even self-handicap) when attempting to form new relationships 3. Anxious have conflicting feelings: - strongly desire intimacy - deeply feer intimacy/rejection Attachment style tends to be stable - but people can change it with a lot of work, help

Confessions and Juries

Confessions have large impact on jury decision-making - even if it is clear that coercion was used - naïve theory: "innocent people don't confess"

Judging Whether Eyewitnesses Are Mistaken

Confidence isn't always a sign of accuracy - things that influence people's confidence are not necessarily the same things that influence their accuracy Fast responders are more likely to be correct

Eyewitness Testimony Confidence

Confidence reliably correlates with accuracy after the event Confidence correlates very weakly with accuracy at the time of testimony Confidence Changes after time: 1. Crime 2. Post-event suggestions: don't change confidence because we don't know we have encoded incorrect info 3. Post-event confirmation: increases confidence when other people report same things ( people can also give us subtle cues that we're right) 4. Desire for Consistency: develop more confidence because you want to be consistent in the decisions you make (ex. when picking someone out of a lineup) 5. Informational Influence 6. Biased Lineup Procedures 7. Strategic Pressure (from lawyers to remember things a certain way - "are you sure about that?" - very subtle, maybe you should be more/less confident 8. Normative Influence: if you say you're not sure about your choice from a lineup, people are going to be mad - normative pressures to actually identify same person even if confidence has changed

Informational Influence

Conform because we perceive it is accurate

Normative Influence

Conform because we want to feel accepted (or to avoid feeling rejection)

Informational Social Influence

Conforming because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action Can lead to private acceptance

Private Acceptance

Conforming to other people's behaviour out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right

Public Compliance

Conforming to other people's behaviour publicly, without necessarily believing in what they are doing or saying

Obedience

Conformity in response to the commands of an authority figure A change in behaviour in response to commands of an authority figure: - no longer a request - either obey or defy Happens because of orders, not requests No negotiation, doing nothing is defiance

Majority Influence

Conformity increases with group size Perceived majority drives norms - pluralistic ignorance: individuals misperceive what is normative (and/or who the majority is) - especially for taboo behaviours But, salient dissenters can dramatically reduce compliance, why? - because it sets example of other way to behave - reduces consensus/unanimity of pressure

Routes to Self-Knowledge: Introspection

Conscious examination of one's own thoughts and feelings Look inward, evaluate how are my feelings? Self-awareness theory: when we introspect, we compare our external behaviour against internal values - reminders of self can initiate introspection (ex. mirror, what would your mother think of how you are behaving?) - gross violations of values (when you behave in a way inconsistent of values) - habitual because of cultural norms - often aversive, painful when discrepancies exist Discrepancies between ideal self and real self are highly aversive Two means by which to resolve discrepancies: 1. change future behaviour (or commit to) 2. suppress introspection (alcoholism, cutting, self-destructive behaviours)

Interpretation Matters

Construal is especially important when making sense of social behaviour - others' thoughts and motivations are latent, or hidden - we can't observe thoughts - all of psychology is hidden, we have to infer their existence Overconfidence in our interpretations - naive realism: we think we are right in our interpretations - if we think there is only one way to interpret we will be super confident

Milgram Experiment

Could an experiment, with mild authority, influence normal people to inflict pain on an innocent peer? Predictions: - Community sample: 0% will obey - Psychiatrist sample: 0.1% will obey - Milgram predicted: 3% will obey Experimenter is telling you to continue administering shocks - mild implementation as they don't have much authority Confederate had to learn word-pairs and when they got it wrong participants had to administer shocks so they would "learn faster" - shocks got bigger every time Results: - around 65% went all the way - needed to pass the responsibility onto the experimenter to keep going What did Milgram conclude? 1. Evil personality not prereq to obey inhumane orders 2. Authority assumed to take responsibility is sufficient - "I was just following orders" 3. It is easy to reduce obedience

Goals of Justice System

Courts: - deliver fair and impartial verdicts (should be fair: the punishments we agree for certain crimes are actually received) - impartial:punishment is due to the crime, not the person's background/race - verdicts should also be seen this way by the public - engender citizens' confidence in the system Prisons: - provide safe setting for separation from society - facilitate rehabilitation - prevent recidivism (reoffending) - try to do this through rehabilitation

Minimal Groups

Creating "us" and "them" - what animal did you see first? - of course this means you're either an optimist or a realist - blue vs. green shirt: - more generous to those wearing your groups colour - implicit evaluations more positive toward your group members Even more minimal: coin flips and birth dates - still work, but weaker effects than choosing

IAT and Behaviour

Critique: Relationships between IAT and observed behaviour tend to be small Rebuttal: "even statistically small effects can have large societal impacts" - effect size might not matter, just know they have a relationship - repeated effects many times per year, week, day - from discriminated group member's perspective: - small, but consistent prejudice/discrimination - material and psychological consequences of persistent discrimination

Display Rules

Culturally determined rules about which emotional expressions are appropriate to show Ex. in many cultures it is appropriate for men to display "powerful" emotions such as anger, contempt, and disgust and for women to display "powerless" emotions such as fear and sadness

Cultural Influences on Attributions

Culture shapes our attributions about people and social situations - culture shapes the way we make attributions for behaviour 1. Individualists (USA/Western Europe) view people as autonomous - emphasize internal motivation and personal responsibility - a lot of choice of what their behaviours will be - individuals are responsible for behaviour not situations as much - ignore the social situation 2. Collectivists (Asian) are more holistic - tend to be more even handed - emphasize relationship between individuals and their social surroundings - consider personality and situational factors - automatic attributions Ex. Participants were shown image of fish moving in direction and were asked to interpret what they see - Individualist: interpreted fish leading other fish - Collectivist: interpreted both leader fish but more likely to say something is scaring these fish and that's why they're moving, the one in front just went fastest

Attribution

Deciding what explains behaviour: 1. Internal causes: Ex. "Person A was just competitive" 2. External causes: Ex. "Wall St. implied competitiveness" - didn't cooperate because the situation told them their partner won't cooperate with you

Cues - Facial Expressions

Deeply connected to inner emotional/cognitive experience - think they offer a true window, but people can manipulate them - ex. saying you're good when someone asks how you are Often spontaneous - happen almost instantly, have trouble controlling them Some evidence for universality (for some emotional expressions) - people of all cultures encode them the same way and decode (we would perceive them the same way - people do worse at decoding the expressions of individuals of a different race Expressions can shift in meaning when you hear different contexts

Independent View of the Self

Defining oneself in terms of one's own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions, and not in terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other people Many Western cultures have this view - value independence and uniqueness

Interdependent View of the Self

Defining oneself in terms of one's relationships to other people; recognizing that one's behaviour is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others Many Asian and other collectivist cultures have this view

Study: Leading Questions as Misinformation

Depending on the words used, dictates how fast the cars were going, whether or not they reported glass on the ground "Smash" vs. "hit" vs. "contacted"

IAT: 'Implicit' Measure of Bias

Described as uncontrollable measure of unconscious racial attitudes - Bona fide pipeline Concurrent validity (measuring more than one thing): - IAT scores correlates with amygdala activation (high scores on IAT show greater amygdala (fear) activation when looking at black vs. white images) - IAT scores correlate with startle response - Self-report scores do not correlate: - not likert-type attitude measures - not modern racism scale

Attraction

Desire to approach or stay near another Three primary themes emerge from early research: 1. Familiarity 2. Similarity 3. Reciprocity Each theme may have developed to help early humans band with friends and steer clear of enemies Evolutionary theory informs how we conceptualize attraction - procreation is necessary

Confirmation Bias: Interpreting Ambiguous Information Study

Determine if student will do well 1 group: heard she had a rich family/poor family - they then say how they think her performance will be 1 condition viewed her taking a reading test/other condition didn't view anything Results: - people who thought her parents were rich thought she would perform better than poor - if you thought Hannah would perform well, you collected evidence from that video - people who expected her to perform lower, saw same information and found confirmation of all the times Hannah didn't do as well as she should have = more evidence further polarized people

Legal Systems

Developed and formalized by people - imperfect Bias to assume some guilt - there must be a reason why they were brought before a court - after exoneration: still there was probably some reason why they were accused

Study on Empathy: Dictator Game

Dictator Game: 1 participant starts with $10 and controls allocation 1 participant starts with $0 and no control IV: Empathy (vs. control) - 10 minute conversation between participants DV: $ allocated from dictator to peon Discussion did not change allocation, but peon expected to get more (angry)

Post-Decision Dissonance

Dissonance that is inevitably aroused after a person makes a decision; such dissonance is typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluing the rejected alternatives

Attributional Biases

Do people really analyze behaviour rationally and logically? The answer: sometimes, if they have: - time - motivation - cognitive capacity If not, we use shortcuts (e.g., heuristics) - e.g., stereotypes

Stereotypic Vision Study

Does activating stereotypes facilitate visual disambiguation of weapons? - Race prime: black vs white faces - when primed with a black face, you recognize weapon more quicker than when you see a white face - seeing a white face led you to be correct earlier on non-weapon trials - if racial categories activate stereotypes of threat can lead to acting like someone has a gun or not

Racial Bias in Judgements of Size Study

Does race influence how tall/muscular we perceive people to be? - black men judged as taller, more muscular, and as having greater potential to harm - moderated by race of participant - black participants rated all men the same level - main effect increase with white participants (saw black men as having greater capability to harm) - same type of effect shown in police officers

Why do we care if people are helping for altruistic vs. egoistic motives?

Doesn't really matter as long as we're helping Can't identify what motives people are using when helping Researchers care: 1. Because we're obsessive 2. Empathy vs. egoist motive predicts long-term helping 3. Efficiency in intervention, allocate resources where needed

Diffusion of Responsibility

Each bystander's sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses to an emergency or crisis increases

Reducing Prejudice by Fostering Common Goals

Eagles and Rattlers Boy Scout camp - randomly assigned - placed in situations designed to increase the cohesiveness of their own group by arranging enjoyable activities and by having them work on various building projects Once cohesiveness developed within each group, the researchers set up a series of competitive activities in which the two groups were pitted against eachother - competition led to high levels of dislike and hostility They reduced hostility by: 1. Eliminating competitive games and promoted a non-conflictual social contact - hostility was still present in benign activities 2. Succeeded by having the boys experience mutual interdependence - ex. needed to repair the water supply system that affected everybody - eventually they all became friends

Cultural Differences in Self-Awareness

East Asians are more likely to have an outside perspective on the self - viewing themselves through the eyes of other people Western cultures are more likely to have an insider perspective on the self - focusing on their own private experiences without considering how other people see them Ex. americans placed in front of a mirror less likely to cheat than if no mirror - no effect on Japanese students - they had a "mirror in their head"

"Behavioural Immune System"

Emotions as social defence mechanisms Disgust Sensitivity: - perceived vulnerability to disease - disgust signals danger and need to avoid disgust-inducing stimuli - Correlates with right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation - predicts homophobia, xenophobia, and generalized intergroup prejudice

Empathy-Altruism Hypotheses

Empathy is core motive for helping - if empathy, then help - if not empathy, then social exchange theory There is true altruism, don't always expect something back If you can put yourself in the other person's shoes, then you feel empathy, and help because you genuinely want to reduce their distress If you see someone in a bike accident, you might not put yourself in their shoes, but you feel distressed, and act egoistically, to resolve your own anxiety and distress Altruism goal: Reduce other's distress/pain Egoistic Goals: 1. Negative State Relief Model - empathy sucks (we too feel pain) 2. Empathetic Joy - helping feels good, especially when we empathize 3. Consistency - im a good person, a good person would help - else, dissonance

Catharsis and Aggression

Engaging in catharsis, does not actually reduce aggressive tendencies Venting anger actually increases anger rather than reduces it Ex. fans watching violent sports do not become less aggressive

Cooperation in Prisons

Essential to have buy-in from prisoners - active cooperation required of "most inmates, most of the time" - why would prisoners cooperate with authority? - what would happen if prisoners did not cooperate? "One of the most amazing things about prisons is that they 'work' at all.. It would be chaos if it was perceived as illegitimate Need this cooperation to function

Who makes snap judgements?

Everyone

The Evolutionary Approach to Aggression

Evolutionary psychologists have argued that aggression is genetically programmed into men because it enables them to perpetuate their genes Men are theorized to aggress for 2 reasons: 1. Males behave aggressively to establish dominance over other males and secure the highest possible status - females will choose the male who is most likely to provide the best genes and the greatest protection and resources for offspring 2. Males aggress out of sexual jealousy to ensure that their mate is not having sex with another man, thereby ensuring their paternity Men are most likely to engage in violence during their peak reproductive years - their teens and twenties Nowadays, power is now based on attributes related to success such as high-status careers, wealth, and celebrity

Third Variable Problem

Ex. happiness and exercise - exercise might make you happier - being happier might make you want to exercise - third variable that could produce some of the relationship: ex. wealth - people who are weathier are happier/have more time to exercise

Correlational

Ex. look at pictures of kids predict who would be bullied and asked kids in pictures how often they got bullied - predicted a relationship Example conclusions: - "minutes of physical activity in a week is positively related to people's self-reported happiness"

Correll et al. First-person shooter task study

Examines whether racial stereotypes might contribute to use of lethal force Like a (old, old) video game . - different scenes display on computer screen - people randomly appear in scenes - holding a weapon ('shoot') - holding a wallet/cell phone ('don't shoot) Like real life situations - police errors don't show 'shoot' of unarmed black suspects - increased expertise at identifying weapons (practice effect) - could cut down on shootings by further Correll: - Reaction times: - quicker to 'shoot' black armed suspects - quicker to 'don't shoot' white unarmed suspects - Errors: - more likely to 'shoot' Black unarmed suspects Correll: - Reaction times: - police sample shows similar racial biases - Errors: - errors do not show similar racial biases! - likely due to increased expertise Canada shows reverse effect - more likely to shoot unarmed white people

Pardons and Democracy

Executives in U.S. (governors, presidents) are charged with overseeing law enforcement - executives also elected democratically - strong caution about granting pardons (recidivism is powerful electoral fodder) - governers are more likely to give pardons when they are about to retire (because they don't care as much about the democratic vote) Governor Brown announces retirement - inmates begin putting together their applications - including letters of support

False-Positive Psychology

Experiment 1: IV: Song type (hot potato vs control) DV: "How old do you feel right now?" Result: People felt older after listening to Hot Potato than after listening to the control Discussion: People contrasted their age against children's song, making them feel older Experiment 2: IV: Song type (When im 64 vs. control) DV: What is your age? Covariate: what is your father's age? Result: People were 1.5 years younger after listening to "when im 64" compared ot the control song - the effect goes away when you take out the covariate - but he doesn't have to reveal this - he could have put any covariates in until he got a significant result - shows that even if a causal relationship is false, can still manipulate so it is true

Debriefing

Explaining to the participants, at the end of the experiment, the true purpose of the study and exactly what transpired

Defensive Attributions

Explanations for behaviour that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality

Self-Serving Attributions

Explanations for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one's failures that blame external, situational factors

The Effects of Violence in the Media

Exposure to violence on television has the greatest impact on youngsters who are somewhat prone to violence to begin with Longitudinal research finds that the more violence children watch on TV, the more violence they exhibit later as teenagers and young adults Violent video game playing is associated with delinquency in children Games that directly reward violence, for example, by awarding points or moving to the next level after a kill are especially like to increase feelings of hostility, aggressive thoughts, and aggressive acts Aggressive people are also drawn to watching violence

Procedural Justice

Fairness in how cases are processed in court - includes judge, jury, defense/prosecution Procedural justice is more important than outcome favourability and outcome fairness: - whether defendants accept verdict and adhere to judgement - citizens' evaluations of the court system - citizens' everyday compliance with law as interpreted by courts

Availability

False consensus effect - we tend to group with others like us 1. tendency to think that others share our opinions 2. grouping of opinions/people 3. what's available to you, available to everyone (people think others think like them)

Choosing Romantic Partners: What do we want?

Familiarity, reciprocity are predictors Similarity is important 1. Warmth: supportive, kind, good listeners 2. Trustworthy: confiding, discrete, reciprocal disclosure - no shame; when you share knowledge, it stays between the two of you 3. Status: job, financially secure, successful 4. Attractiveness: face, body

Love

Feelings of intimacy, attachment, and passion - distinct from liking Companionate love: intimacy toward someone with whom we are deeply intertwined - intuitive definition - can be family, friends, spouse Passionate Love: intense longing and physiological arousal - ex. crushes, romantic partners z People tend to think of "love" more as companionate love (most important)

Does your face reveal your "intentions"?

Female participants: - More accurately distinguished between interested in casual sex (vs. not) targets compared to male participants - Evaluated interested male targets as less attractive for a long-term relationship - Evaluated interested male targets as more masculine - Evaluated interested female targets as more attractive Male participants: - Less accurately distinguished between interested (vs. not) targets compared to female participants - Evaluated interested male targets as more masculine - Evaluated interested female targets as more attractive

Study: Social Comparisons on Facebook

Female undergrads either viewed profiles of similar women with glamorous relationship with boyfriend or a more realistic relationship with boyfriend Found: for vulnerable women/low self-esteem, seeing the glamorous relationship led them to feel worse about their relationship Dependent variable: how strong do you feel your relationship is?

Does frustration (and aggression) increase when people are closer to goal fulfillment? Study

Field experiment on "line-cutting" IVs: Location in line where cut was attempted - 3rd spot vs. 12th spot - also gender, status, "excuse me" DV: RA coded verbal or nonverbal aggression Results: - spot in line really impacted aggression - small effect for "Excuse me"

Experimental Test: Triplett

First in social psych Did simply having other actors doing same activity facilitate performance? 1. 40 kids had to wind a fishing reel in a race and he'd measure how long it takes 2. Repeated measures: alone and co-action at same reel Results: - reeling co-actively vs. alone: - 20 faster - 10 slower - 10 "little affected"

Automatic vs. Controlled Processing of Stereotypes

For people who are not deeply prejudiced, controlled processes can suppress or override these stereotypes - can say to yourself, "hey that stereotype isn't fair, i'm not going to buy into it" Suggests a 2 step model of cognitive processing: 1. The automatic processing brings up information - in this case, stereotypes - occurs whenever an appropriate stimulus is encountered, either a member of a stereotyped group or contact with a stereotypical statement 2. But the controlled (or conscious) processing can refute or ignore it - occurs with your awareness

Dodd's "What would you do if you were invisible for a day"?

Four Groups: 1. Antisocial (36% vs. 57% - our class) 2. Prosocial (9% vs. 8%) 3. Nonnormative (19% vs. 14%) 4. Neutral (36% vs. 15%) Response category not highly correlated with personality measure (OCEAN) - maybe our personality isn't relevant when we're not with others - same things as being alone, you'll still feel dissonance if you engage in different things - we know this isn't actually going to happen, we don't actually know how we'd behave

The Process of Breaking Up

Four major strategies for ending a relationship: 1. Withdrawal/avoidance 2. Positive Tone (e.g., trying to prevent "hard feelings") 3. Manipulative strategies (e.g., getting a third party to communicate the bad news) 4. Open confrontation For both types of relationships, people reported that they would use positive tone strategies For ending a friendship, use withdrawal/avoidance Open confrontation was more likely for terminating romantic relationships

Situational Causes of Aggression: Frustration as a Cause of Aggression

Frustration occurs when a person is thwarted on the way to an expected goal or gratification According to frustration-aggression theory, people's perception that they are being prevented from obtaining a goal will increase the probability of an aggressive response - does not mean it always leads to aggression, but it frequently does The closer you are to your goal, the greater the expectation of pleasure that is thwarted, and the higher likelihood to be aggressive

Process of Attributing Causality

Fundamental attribution error when camera is focused on suspect solely - misattributes more internal attributions - if they confess, we think it is true, not coerced If focused on cop, we think it is coerced

p-Value

Given that the null hypothesis is true, the probability of observing a pattern of data as or a more extreme in future experiments Is not probability of being wrong Is not probability that the null hypothesis is true Does not tell whether the alternative hypothesis is true Tells us about the world, when the null hypothesis is actually true - does not describe the world in which the null hypothesis is false Upshot: p-values describe groups of results, not individual statistical results

Group Work vs. Co-Action

Group Work: Individuals in a group pool contributions together Co-Action: several individuals performing same activity together Individual performance generally declines on tasks where effort is pooled (group work) = social loafing

Causes of Prejudice: Social Categorization

Grouping people based on perceived similar characteristics - facilitates impression formation - increases efficiency of social perception - but, overestimation of inter-group differences - underestimation of intra-group differences (outgroup homogeneity - lack contact, unrepresentative)

Kelley's Covariation Theory

Harold Kelley (1967): People use covariation of cause and effect to make inferences Three kinds of useful covariation: 1. Consensus 2. Distinctiveness 3. Consistency Internal Attribution: Jack is desperate 1. Consensus = LOW - others aren't interested in Jill 2. Distinctiveness = LOW - Jack will marry anyone 3. Consistency = HIGH - Jack's proposed every day this week Stimulus Attribution: Jill is desirable 1. Consensus = HIGH - everyone wants to marry Jill 2. Distinctiveness = HIGH - Jack only wants Jill 3. Consistency = HIGH - Jack's proposed every day this week Interaction Attribution: Jack and Jill have that special magic 1. Consensus = LOW - Others aren't interested in Jill 2. Distinctiveness = HIGH - Jack only wants Jill 3. Consistency = HIGH - Jack's proposed everyday this week

Balancing Act of Self-Concept and Group Identity

Have to balance when will I sacrifice my own ideals for what the group wants 1. Self-Concept: - what type of person am I? - how can I live up to my ideal self? - follow individual conscience 2. Group Identity - what type of people are in my group? - how can we achieve our group's goals? - follow group norms Ex. soccer team's goals: cooperate, beat other teams - if you sacrificed your beliefs but align with extreme group goals you may kick opponent's heels to injure them

Complementary Stereotyping

High/low status group members are perceived to have complementary mixture of positive/negative characteristics Derogate losers and elevate winners on traits perceived to be causally related to their status - e.g., gender stereotypes of competence Elevate losers and derogate winners on causally unrelated traits - e.g., gender stereotypes of warmth Men = agentic but not communal Women = communal but not agentic Poor = incompetent but happy Rich = competent but unhappy Power = intelligent but unhappy Obese = lazy but friendly/sociable

Hostile Sexism

Hold negative stereotypes of women - women are inferior to men because they are inherently less intelligent, less competent, less brave, less capable of science and math

Benevolent Sexism

Hold positive stereotypes of women - women are kinder than men, more empathetic, more nurturing and so on Still assume that women are the weaker sex Tend to idealize women romantically, may admire them as wonderful cooks and mothers, and want to protect them when they do not need protection - affectionate but patronizing Because it lacks a tone of hostility to women, it doesn't seem like a prejudice - but it is discrimination

Attribution of Atrocity

Holocaust, torture, wars - "kill anything that moves" Why did these happen? 1. Dispositional causes (evil people) 2. Situational Causes (obedience to authority) - ideal self gets lost because they are embedded within this situation Part of the way you would be promoted was due to how many kills you got in war times - people that defy will not be seen as part of the group - normative influence

Social Loafing Study

How individuals contributed to a group with cheering or yelling When your group size increases, you don't clap or cheer as loud Almost the opposite of social facilitation

Disparities in Use of Force

How often different races have been subjects to the use of force - blacks are much more likely to be the victims of lethal force - in most of the country, latinas aren't associated with criminality so don't see an increase in use of lethal force All victims (armed) - rate is similar between races - definitely unarmed when lethal force was used (minorities have much higher rates of being victims to lethal force

Social Cognition

How people think about themselves and the social world; more specifically, how people select, interpret, remember and use social information

Construal

How you perceive things Often more important than reality Ex. with rock that sold when doubled in prize - why? customer must wonder why the rock is worth so much more than the others, then they think this might be worth it, it's valuable - normally people would prefer to spend less but because of how they construe the situation leads them to spend more

Social Psychology - Constantly Evolving

Humans are social animals, most of our behaviour evolved to allow us to engage socially - but these are outdated (people email over talking in person)) Hard to define Everything about human behaviour is social Use of the scientific method; psychology is a soft science - scientific method is the same as hard sciences - it's soft because a good model may only explain about 10% of human behaviour Assumes that people are roughly interchangeable in different situations

IAT and Implicit Bias

IAT: operational variable - uncontrollable? - not really fakeable - but executive control/self-regulatory processes are important - unconscious? - no, people "feel" how they performed - no, people can predict scores Implicit Bias: conceptual variable - controllable: under all but the most extreme circumstances - unconscious - not with minimal reflection - potentially unconsciously influences us in the moment

Idea vs. Theory

Idea: unorganized - ex. having cell phone in classroom impedes learning (might be true/false in certain contexts) Theory: organized - ex. when student is attending to cell phone in class that learning is impeded

Positive Illusions

Idealization of our romantic relationships and partners in order to maintain the relationship Convince ourselves we have the most wonderful partner and the most wonderful relationship in the world Participants' ratings of their partners were much higher than their partner's self-reports - resembled the ratings of their ideal partner The more people idealize their partner and their partner idealizes them, the greater satisfaction with the relationship Has survival value: relationships are more likely to endure

Twin Studies on Aggression

Identical twins reared together or apart - share vs. do not share environment - up to 50% of variance in aggression may be explained by genetic factors If you have aggressive parents, you are more likely than average to be more aggressive (Even if they didn't raise you) How might genes increase violence? - directly by norepinephrine/dopamine overproduction - indirectly by increasing reactivity to life stressors - indirectly by influencing situations that people self-select (where they observe violence or more likely to engage) Certain genes might lead you to produce more dopamine/norepinephrine - so you get rewards from being aggressive - People self-select their environments (ex. choose an honour society)

Deliberations in the Jury Room

If jury deliberation is stacked toward the initial majority opinion, why not just abandon the deliberation process, letting the jury's initial vote determine a defendant's guilt or innocence: 1. forcing jurors to reach a unanimous verdict makes them consider the evidence more carefully rather than simply assuming that their initial impressions of the case were correct 2. even if the jury minority seldom succeeds in persuading the majority to change its mind about guilt or innocence, minorities often do change people's minds about how guilty a person is

Reciprocity

If we think someone likes us, we like them back - very powerful, often overlooked General Reciprocal Liking: we like people who like everyone - distinctiveness is low - not a good predictor of romantic relationships Dyadic Reciprocal Liking: we like people who uniquely like us - distinctiveness is high

Measuring Implicit Prejudices

Implicit Association Test, which measures the speed of people's positive and negative associations to a target group Implicit bias is how people actually behave in various situations Might be picking up a familiarity effect - we are more familiar with faces of people from our own race than other races Modern Racism Scale and the Neosexism Scale and the Modern Homonegativity Scale - where questions are broader, but people will still admit to things that predict their bias

Bias of Crowds

Implicit bias reflects situations more than personality - more than stable, enduring traits - implicit biases are strong, reliable in aggregate (biases are large and robust) - implicit biases are unreliable within persons (biases change in a person) - thus, people are mirrors; reflecting structural and normative prejudices around them (bias is a structural problem) Causal Attribution: situations activate biases - most situations reflect formalized, stable prejudice: - biased laws (ex. powder vs. crack version of cocaine results in very different sentencing) - biased enforcement of laws (black people get larger sentences) - biased normative pressures - historical injustice and trauma

Costs of Incarceration

In Canada: - 41000 incarcerated (0.1%) - $4.7 billion total or $115000 per person (twice as much as mean wage, $50000) - community supervision costs $18000 In U.S.: - 2200000 incarcerated (0.7%) - $81 billion total or $33000 per person

Bi-Cultural Frame Switching

In one condition people with bicultural background were shown pictures of Chinese or American culture When shown American image - American schema was activated and interpreted fish in individualist type of way

Physical Attractiveness and Liking

In studies: - physical attractiveness played the most important role in determining if they would like to date a person again - participants were most interested in dating and forming a long-term relationship with men who were portrayed as attractive, athletic, and high in status (but attractiveness was most important) - these effects occur at both an automatic (unconscious) level and when people make more conscious, deliberate evaluations Usually not what people say to be the most important One study found that people are aware of the value we place on looks - but as long as we can get away with it, we won't admit it

Belief in a Just World

In the end people get what they deserve - karma We also desire to perceive the world as rational - perceived randomness = dissonance What do we attribute natural disasters to? - inconsistent, unpredictable (dissonance producing) natural processes? - rational outcome of a just world? - might think they just deserved it What do we attribute behaviour to when we harm other people? - can't easily attribute to supernatural processes because you're in control - can't attribute to self though because you're not evil - instead reframe: dehumanization (those i harm are not human) Language reveals our post-hoc justifications - can also be used strategically to prepare for violence - see in war, torture; they don't have the same level of humanity

Catharsis

In theory: 1. Harmless aggressing reduces arousal 2. Reduced arousal reduces motive to aggress Saw this idea in Bandura's bobo doll experiment too (should reduce aggression) NOT SUPPORTED Evidence: 1. Arousal can be reduced, but not intentionally 2. Aggression can feel rewarding 3. Feelings of hostility higher after catharsis 4. Begins process of ruminating on aggression 5. Even direct aggression against target (route 1) does not reduce future aggression

Theory of Planned Behaviour: Implications for Safer Sex

Inconsistency takes the form of having positive attitudes toward using condoms, expressing intentions to use condoms, but then failing to actually use them in sexual encounters Subjective Norms: evidence that whether uni students use condoms depends on the norms for sexual behaviour that operate among their friends; if we anticipate a negative reaction from our partner, we are less likely to use condoms Perceived Behavioural Control: those who were embarrassed about buying condoms bought them less often than those not embarrassed - the more difficult you find it to perform behaviours such as buying condoms or bringing up the topic, the less likely you are to use them Behavioural Intentions: people in a bad mood were more likely to report intentions to engage in sexual intercourse without a condom than those in a good mood - women low in self-esteem were more likely to engage in unprotected sex when they were in a bad mood - alcohol intoxication is associated with lower intentions to use condoms . -even among those with positive attitudes towards it

Prison

Incredible racial disparities in incarceration - 1/3 black american males Seeing disparities in prison population increases support for punitive policies Black prisoners 2.5x more likely to be put in solitary confinement - less likely to receive mental health treatment - but more likely prescribed antipsychotics

When does Collective Action Happen: Striving for Higher Status

Individuals may strive for higher status: 1. By exiting low-status groups and seeking individual membership in higher-status group - "passing" (From lower status to high status) 2. By mobilizing low-status group to increase the group's status - "social change" Social Identity Theory's 'Macro-Social Emphasis' - strategy depends on a) permeability, b) group stability, and c) legitimacy of hierarchy

Consensus Information

Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way as the actor does toward the same stimulus

Distinctiveness Information

Information about the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli

Consistency Information

Information about the extent to which the behaviour between the actor and the stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Base Rate Information

Information about the frequency of members of different categories in the population - ex. guessing the french girl at a univeristy in alberta is from alberta because there are more in-province than out-of-province students People do not use this information sufficiently

Primacy Effect

Information presented early (vs. late) in a sequence has a greater impact on impressions

Perceptual Salience

Information that is the focus of people's attention People tend to overestimate the causal role of perceptually salient information People, not the situation have perceptual salience for us

Study on when empathy leads to altruism or social exchange theory

Injured student needs help to catch up Will you meet with her to share your notes? - IV1: Mind-set (empathetic vs. objective) - IV2: Is she in your section (yes vs. no) Results: - in high empathy, help in either section - in objective, don't help if not in class, because won't feel guilty not seeing her

Aggression

Intentional behaviour aimed at causing either physical or psychological pain Involves the intent to harm another Can be physical or psychological The action might be physical or verbal It might not even succeed in its goal Two Types of Aggression: 1. Hostile Aggression - motivated by feelings of anger, hostility, frustration 2. Instrumental Aggression - motivated by goal-pursuit, not necessarily hostility or anger

How do people make these predictions about their biases?

Is it about attitudes or executive control? Used a mathematical technique called "Multinomial Processing Tree Modeling" It's about both! - people's predictions correlate with their biased attitudes and their executive control ability - we have intuitions about how effective we are at self-regulating and our biases

IAT as Intervention

Is raising consciousness good? Without assistance (if people complete the measure on their own): - IAT results interpreted as threatening - can make you anxious (feel threatening) - increase resistance to change - refusal to acknowledge biases - even can increase explicit bias (endorse or accept racial bias) Prediction (forecasting is a much better way to change people's attitudes) and Introspection: - reduces threat and mitigates these negative outcomes - works for those motivated to be non-prejudiced

Attributions

Is this behaviour caused by who they are or the situation

Collective Action: Ingredients

Jean Cohen's integrative model of social movement: 1. Collective Identity: individuals must merge their identity with the group - "I" becomes "we" - what does this sound like? 2. Solidarity: loyalty to group leadership in word and action - more than identification, individuals must be willing to sacrifice individuals need for group goals - Contrast with 'Slacktivism' (just sharing posts on social media, but not doing anything 3. Consciousness: group members share a common understanding - what is our situation? - what are our goals? - what mechanisms will we use?

Correspondent Inference Theory

Jones and Davis (1965): When do people infer that a given behaviour corresponds to an enduring personal characteristic of the actor? - does Joseph's behaviour tell me something enduring about Joseph? Observers consider three factors: 1. Degree of choice 2. Unexpectedness of the behaviour 3. Number of desirable outcomes

Jury Selection

Jury selection matters - "almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn" Selection processes differ between US and canada - Canada: criminal trial only - US: Civil and criminal trial Eligible citizens are randomly summoned Voir dire is a pretrial filter (pretrial interview): - designed to reduce personal biases - people who have a direct or indirect interest in outcome of case (family members, friends) - people who have already made a judgement More intensive selection process in US - not simply visual - jurors may be asked to complete short questionnaires and/or may be questioned by lawyers Permitted Questions: occupation, employment status, education level, marital status, children, location of birth Not Permitted: How do you feel about the case? Do you generally favor defense or prosecution?

Increasing the Likelihood that Bystanders Will Intervene

Just learning about bystander effect can increase people's chances of helping

Internal Validity

Keeping everything the same but the independent variable Ensuring that nothing other than the independent variable can affect the dependent variable; this is accomplished by controlling all extraneous variables and by randomly assigning people to different experimental conditions

Bandura: Social Learning Theory: Bobo Doll

Kid learned novel aggressive behaviours from watching adult Could be that they learn the script just for this doll -but kids learn scripts everywhere

Self-Schema

Knowledge about who we are What do we think our personality characteristics are? Consists of: - our preferences - traits - behaviour tendencies - group membership - self esteem

Mechanism of Compliance: Narrative

Langer Study: - asked participants to take sheets to be copied - participant does it and is interrupted by a confederate: 1. Asks to use copy machine but gives no reason why 2. Gives a genuine reason 3. Gives an irrelevant reason to use the machine - just saying "because" activates a script in us that makes them seem genuine Results: - percentage that complied was highest when both a good reason and a bad reason was given - just having a reason (not even good) was enough to get people to conform

Transformational Leaders

Leaders who inspire followers to focus on common, long-term goals

Transactional Leaders

Leaders who set clear, short-term goals and reward people who meet them

Research Methods: why take them seriously?

Learn how to be a good consumer of research - research your own questions: for work, life, or fun Peer review: helps us not reach crazy outcomes as the rat/oreo study - they were comparing oreos and cocaine to worse things

Legitimacy of Hierarchy

Legitimacy refers to the perception that real differences are responsible for position - group-level: "my group's status reflects our deserved position relative to other groups" - individual-level: "my status in this group reflects my deserved position" Group-level illegitimacy prompts collective action Individual-level illegitimacy prompts individual striving

Legitimacy of Courts

Legitimacy: acceptance of an authority figure 1. Feel obligated to obey (verdicts, sentences) - even if you disagree with them 2. Evaluate the court system as consistent with one's own ethical and moral values 3. Believe that courts follow their own internal rules and regulations

Limits of Introspection

Less accurate than it feels 1. We often have no access into mental processes 2. Little awareness of situational influences on behaviour and feelings 3. Filling in the blanks: generate incorrect causal theories to explain our past behaviour 4. Self-preservation via positivity biases

Indirect (Implicit) Measures of Attitude

Logic: 1. Attitude object (i.e., face) activates schema 2. Schema includes net positivity or negativity 3. Positivity/negativity activates approach/avoidance behaviour 4. Approach/avoidance maps onto task behaviour (pressing key corresponding with "I like"/"I do not like") - ex. if you like the black face, you would be more likely to press i like 5. When schema is consistent with "I like" - behaviour is already potentiated 6. When inconsistent, schema-potentiated behaviour must be inhibited - saw white face and have negative reaction, told to press i like, have to inhibit dislike behaviour and press i like - this inhibition takes time Mechanism: "Response competition" When people are shown black faces, they will respond quicker to negative words

Example of Toilet where you can see outside but people can't see you

Looking Glass Theory - take the perspections of others - could be used to speed up lines

When does Collective Action Occur?

Macro-Social Emphasis: 1. Permeability must be low 2. Low stability facilitates collective action 3. Illegitimate group-status facilitates collective action

Sex Differences in Learning Aggression

Male/female children have different models - male models more often aggress (e.g., in media) Social Roles: male/female are differently reinforced - acceptable for males to use aggression to climb hierarchy - females punished for using aggression (goes against social norms/roles for women)

Evolutionary Explanations of Love

Males and females have very different agendas because of their differing roles in producing offspring: - for women, reproduction is costly in terms of time, energy, and effort - must consider carefully who they want to reproduce with - for men, reproduction has few costs Males would do best to pursue frequent pairings with many females, and females would do best to pair infrequently and only with a carefully chosen male

Gender and Aggression

Males are more likely to be physically aggressive Women tend to expressive their aggressive feelings more covertly - by gossiping, backbiting, spreading false rumours, or excluding the person Target of Aggression: - men's aggression is generally directed at other men, is more likely to take place in bars or public places and is more likely to involve alcohol - women's aggression is much more likely to be directed at a romantic partner than at a stranger (women are more likely to be physically aggressive in a relationship than men) The Role of Testosterone: - too much testosterone (a male sex hormone) is associated with increased physical aggression - prisoners have naturally higher testosterone levels

Sex Differences in Aggression

Males are more overtly aggressive than females - relatively universal - More observable when males aggress - more likely when there is no reason (hostile) When provoked, males and females are equally likely to aggress Sex Differences depends on type of aggression Physical: punching, hitting (males more) Relational: Talking behind backs, verbally abusing, passive aggressive (females more)

2 x 2 Experimental Designs

Manipulate 2 variables, with each having two levels Example: - what is the effect of alcohol consumption on automatic racial bias? - IV 1 : alcohol or placebo - IV 2: picture of white or black man - DV: evaluation of picture (positive or negative) Main effect IV1: does positivity depend on drink condition? Main effect IV2: does positivity depend on race? - Interaction: IV1 vs. IV2 if a difference = difference in drink condition = main effect - if bars overlap = interaction - effect of both drink and race

Are you racist or not racist?

Many racially prejudiced people do not publicly call themselves racist - either just don't want to admit publicly (public conformity, private acceptance) - gage your behaviour against others to see if you're racist - or do not believe they are prejudiced (genuinely unaware of what constitutes racial prejudice) Euphemisms: - ethnic nationalist - white nationalist - white supremacist (all of them have a similar connotation, but some people are ok with this term but not racist)

Study on Propinquity Effect: Alphabet and Attraction

Maryland police academy; assigned a seat by alphabet - followed up: who are closest friends in cohort - names close together were most likely (because they sat together)

Attitude Measurement

Measurement discrepancies are common - discrepancies are strongest when people had self-presentation concerns

Moderators of Love: Sex

Men fall in love more quickly than women More likely to endorse romantic views of love - "true love lasts forever" Women rate companionate love as more important - but, neither rates passionate love as very important

Gender and Love

Men gave higher ratings to romantic, passionate love than did women, and women gave higher ratings to companionate love than did men However, when they looked at how high or low these ratings were, they discovered that even though men rated romantic, passionate love higher, both sexes gave this kind of love a low rating And even though women rated companionate love higher, both sexes gave this kind of love the highest rating (indicating that this kind of love best fit their conceptions of what love is)

Violent Pornography and Violence Against Women

Men who view violent pornography are more likely to behave aggressively toward women Increased risk of developing sexually deviant tendencies, committing sexual offences, accepting the rape myth, and experiencing difficulties in one's intimate relationships

Judgement Heuristics

Mental shortcuts people use to make judgements quickly and efficiently Doesn't guarantee people will make accurate inferences about the world

Schemas

Mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world themselves and that influence the information people notice, think about, and remember Contain our basic knowledge and impressions that we use to organize what we know about the social world and interpret new situations

Counterfactual Thinking

Mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been Ex. bronze medalists happier than silver medalists as the silver lost, but the bronze won to get it Conscious and effortful Not always intentional or voluntary - even when we want to stop dwelling on the past it can be hard to move on Useful in that it focuses people's attention on ways that they can cope better in the future

Open Science Collaborative

Method: Replicate 100 experiments from 2008 - top 3 psychology journals - replications used original designs - highly-powered (should reduce Type II errors) Results: - 39% statistically significant (vs. 97% as published) - effect size was ~1/2 of published effect size - of the effects that did replicate, the effects were half as large

Example of Collective Action: Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee

Methods: - hunger strike - labor slowdowns - commissary sit-ins - phone zaps - letter writing

Observational/Descriptive

Might be counting things/behaviours - ex. counting how much bullying occurs - descriptive Example conclusions: - "nationally representative poll finds that 33% knew that two Canadians invented lightbulb and sold the patent to Thomas Edison" Random selection/sampling: every person must have equal chance of participating Surveys/polls Archival analysis

Eyewitness Memory

Mistaken identifications are #1 factor in wrongful convictions - for people later exonerated by DNA evidence... 75% of cases relied on mistaken identifications 1. Acquisition is the process of attending to and encoding information - we attend to A LOT, but only small fraction is encoded 2. Events differ in their frequencies and ambiguity - crime is rare, so we lack scripts (interferes with automaticity of encoding) - crime often unfolds quickly and/or in poor conditions for acquisition (dark, arousing situations) - not good conditions for forming good memories Witnessing crime is rare - we don't have scripts about what will happen - we have to resolve ambiguities, occupy cognitive resources

Instilling Helpfulness with Rewards and Models

Modest rewards can increase helping behaviours - not overemphasized though Parents should behave prosocially themselves - children will model these behaviours

Complementary Stereotyping: Precursors and Effects

More likely to endorse when: 1. Situational factors increase the motivation to justify hierarchy (i.e., the social system) 2. Individuals differ in chronic motivation to justify the social system (because trait, situations) Exposure to complementary stereotypes: 1. Increases perception that social system is just, and increases acceptance of status quo

Assumptions About Attractive People

Neonatal nurses responded more positively to cuter babies and gave them better care - cuter babies gained weight more quickly and were discharged sooner Attractiveness and income also are positively correlated - at least for men We assume attractive people possess desirable traits: - what is beautiful is good - thought to be more sociable, extraverted, and popular - more sexual, happier, and more assertive - intelligence - liberal attitudes - trustworthy - better social skills Beautiful people, from a young age, receive a great deal of social attention and that helps them develop good social skills, may lead to other positive outcomes such as interpersonal and occupational success

Detecting Deception

No group appears to do it well Ekman's theory of deception detection: - communication channels differ in: controllability and leakage Easy to control: - word choice, body orientation/posture Hard to control: - facial expressions, voice pitch, hesitations, eye movement (saccades)

Emblems

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture They usually have direct verbal translations, such as the "okay" sign or the middle finger

Altruism: Social Exchange Theory

Not only for close relationships Also used to predict when people will help - when benefits outweigh costs Example: Accident, someone is hurt: 1. Costs: could get hurt too, squeamishness/disgust 2. Benefits: reduce distress, get paid back, increase self-esteem, reduce guilt, good appearance

Selective Reporting

Now we can publish with null hypothesis So what is this selective reporting? - not publishing reviews

Performance of Courts

Objective evaluations indicate that fairness and impartiality of court verdicts is improving Citizen's confidence is not increasing - especially among minority groups

Summary of Research Methods

Observational - focus = description - answers = what is the nature of the phenomenon? Correlational - focus = description - answers = what is the relationship between variable X and variable Y? Experimental - focus = causality - answers = is variable X a cause of variable Y?

Tyranny of Novelty

Once something is accepted, if you have evidence an effect is not real, that is more novel and gets published - then if something can refute the new accepted effect, that is more likely to get published Pendulum - goes back and forth Science is a self-correcting process, we'll go from these extremes to somewhere near reality

Theory

Organized set of principles, which state how social behaviour operates Contrasts with idea

Psychological Model of Ostracism

Ostracism: being ignored or excluded by one or more others Threatens fundamental psychological needs: - need to belong (self-esteem) - need for control - need for meaning "Ostracism over a long period of time can be thought of as social death"

Ultimate Attribution Error

Our tendency to make dispositional attributions about an entire group of people When people conform to our stereotype, we tend to blind ourselves to clues about why they might have behaved as they did - instead, we assume that their behaviour is due to something about their character or disposition, and not their situation or life circumstances

Modern Racism

Outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly maintaining prejudiced attitudes Most forms of overt discrimination are now illegal People hide their beliefs to avoid being labelled as racist, sexist, or homophobic, but when the situation becomes "safe" or their inhibitions are shed as a result of alcohol or stress, their implicit prejudice is revealed When an experimenter was present, people rated out-groups even more positively than their ingroup

Weapon-Focus Effect

Overt presence of weapon interferes with attention - seeing weapons increases arousal and stress - attention narrows to central feature - impairs ability to identify other details (i.e., suspect) When person has a weapon our memory of that person is pretty poor - we fill in details, so we don't even know we didn't perceive things - people are over confident in what they saw because of stress (but we don't actually remember better)

Study on Justification of Effort

Parents are informed how much time/money they will spend on children - Group 1: Reminded that grown children return time and money back when elderly - Group 2: No reminder Results: - Group 1: "Parenting isn't foolish, they'll pay me back" (No attitude change) - Group 2: "Parenting is so valuable, it's worth the costs" (justify behaviour by exaggerating attitude)

Line Judgement Task (Asch)

Participants presented with cards of lines with different lengths and standard lines/comparison lines Usually you do this with 4 other confederates, on some trials they will all give an incorrect answer Results: When alone: 100% accuracy ~50% conformed when with confederates who gave an incorrect answer (critical presentation = when confederate answers doesn't match right answer) ~25% never conformed When one confederate was a dissenter and gave correct answer: 5% conformity - dramatic reduction if 1 person goes against the group

(Maitlin and Zajonc) Study on Social Facilitation

Participants produced first-associates ('free association') to list of 184 words Alone or with audience (counterbalanced factor) Results: - speed of word production shorter with audience - uniqueness of responses higher alone; divergent thought decreased, default associates increased

Does Afrocentricity Contribute to Death Sentences?

Participants rated 400+ photos of death-eligible cases - white victim = 2x more likely to receive death sentence - afrocentricity = 2x more likely - interaction = afrocentricity only matters when victim is white

Implicit Bias Study: Words Matter

Participants read about an instance of discrimination against a Black American IV: Framing of discrimination - attributed to implicit, unconscious causes - attributed to explicit, conscious causes Results: 1. Discriminator is less responsible for their actions - when things are framed as being unconscious, the discriminator is perceived as less responsible and less intentional - no need to punish - shows how important it is to frame it properly 2. Discrimination was less intentional 3. Victim perceived as less harmed by discrimination 4. Punishment and reparations unnecessary

Social Learning Theory and Aggression

People (young especially) model what they see, including aggression - novel aggressive behaviours learned this way - increased positivity toward aggression - develop scripts about when/how to aggress Consequences of aggression also learned: - models aggress and are reinforced - or even just unpunished (learn that behaving aggressively has no consequences)

Cross-Race Bias

People are less accurate when identifying people from other race/ethnic groups Mechanisms: 1. Increased contact = automaticity 2. What features do we attend to? - own race: "how are his/her features different from others in my group?" - Ex.. that nose is a little more hooked than a normal european's nose (helps identify an individual - other race: "how is this group's features different from my own group's features?" - ex. that nose is a filipino nose (this can only identify a group) - not individuating information Doesn't necessarily have to be a cross-race - a lot of this effect is due to what you're familiar with, but most people spend more time with people from similar ethnic backgrounds

System Justification Theory

People are motivated to uphold and justify existing social systems, the status quo, even when these systems distribute arbitrary or unjust outcomes Default is to conserve and rationalize systems merely because they are the way things are currently (and/or historically) done - it's dangerous to try to improve the system, we should accept the status quo as the best we can do

Audience Effects

People aren't doing an activity with you, just watching you Children are faster at multiplication problems when just being watched by peers But some appear "overstimulated" and their accuracy decreased - faster but accuracy decreases People that perform poorly when co-active are overstimulated when watched Word Memorization: - adults memorized words faster when in front of an audience - adults memorized nonsense words slower when in front of an audience - social facilitation

Cultural Differences in Prosocial Behaviour

People in all cultures are more likely to help someone they define as a member of their in-group: the group with which an individual identifies The line between us and them is more firmly drawn in interdependent cultures, people are less likely to help members of the out-group

Forming Relationships Online

People report being more comfortable revealing their "true" self over the Internet compared with face-to-face McKenna and colleagues found that participants reported more liking for an Internet partner than a partner they met in person - even when it was the same person Social Compensation Hypothesis - lonely, introverted individuals are more likely to form online relationships because they lack the social skills required to form relationships in person "Rich get richer" = more extroverted individuals, will also gain more friends online Disillusionment can set in when the person you meet doesn't live up to the image presented online

Overconfidence Barrier

People tend to have too much confidence in the accuracy of their judgements Their judgements are usually not as correct as they think they are Need to overcome this to reason better

Errors made in shooting game

People were more likely to shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man

Commitment and Resisting Attractive Alternatives

People who are committed to their relationship rate an attractive alternative as less attractive than people who are less committed

Socioeconomic Status Differences in Prosocial Behaviour

People who are of lower SES gave more of the money they earned during an experiment to their partner in the experiment, were more likely to help their partner complete their tasks, and said they would give a higher percentage of their income to charity than did participants with a higher SES Could prime compassion and make people of high SES as generous as low SES

Religion and Prosocial Behaviour

People who attend religious services report that they give more money to charity and engage in more volunteer work than people who do not attend religious services People that are primed with religion actually behave more prosocially

Direct Provocation and Reciprocation

People who believed someone else had hostile intentions were more likely to engage in aggression Was the provocation intentional? - when convinced it was unintentional, we will not reciprocate

Can Playing Prosocial Video Games and Music Lyrics Increase Helpfulness?

People who had just played a prosocial video game were more likely to help in all ways than those who had played a neutral game Listening to songs with prosocial lyrics are more likely to help than listening to songs with neutral lyrics Works for 2 reasons: 1. Increases people's empathy toward someone in need of help 2. Increases the accessibility of thoughts about helping others

Self-Esteem

People's evaluation of their self worth

Comparison Level for Alternatives

People's expectations about the level of rewards and costs they would receive in an alternative relationship Your satisfaction with a relationship also depends on your perception of the likelihood that you could replace it with a better one People with a high level: are more likely to get out of a relationship People with a low level: more likely to stay in a costly relationship because even though what they have is not great, they don't think they could find anything better out there

Comparison Level

People's expectations about the levels of rewards and costs that they deserve in a relationship You have a history of relationships, and this history has led you to have certain expectations as to what levels of rewards and costs you deserve in a relationship Some people have a high comparison level - expecting to receive many rewards and incur few costs, if a relationship doesn't match this level than they will be unhappy Some people have a low comparison level - would be happy in the same relationship, because they expect relationships to be difficult and costly

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis

Perception of being prevented from goal leads to frustration, which then leads to aggression More frustration = motive to aggress - higher when goal repeatedly blocked - higher when goal satisfaction is close - higher when outcomes unexpectedly poor (we expect to get something good but the outcome is lame) - higher when perceived relative deprivation (perception of inequality)

Voir Dire

Peremptory challenge: lawyers can remove up to 14 jurors from jury pool - no reason need be given R. vs. Stanley - 175 potential jurors recruited - 50 dismissed for cause (mostly health reasons) - defence blocked all jurors who appeared to be indigenous - crown did not challenge discriminatory use

Social Psychology vs. Personality Psychology

Personality Psychology - people, not situations - different fundamental assumption of what is right in the world - the individual will have same behaviour no matter the situation Social Psychology - say individuals are relatively homogenous, people are the same, but what are the differences in behaviour when put in situation A or B -all wrong but allow you to investigate different things Ex. Social psychologist would be interested why people would dress up to go to a soccer game but not at home - personality psychologist would ask why people show their sadness to losing a soccer game in different ways

Social Psychology vs. Philosophy

Philosophy - emphasizes logic, not data - not empiricist, no universal way of confirming/disproving theories Social Psychology - wants to compare with real observations They are mutually dependent

Attractiveness

Physical appearance is strongest predictor for initial liking - greater than intelligence, sensitivity, sincerity, perceived personality - but importance weakens with relationship length.. Cross culturally seen Applies to men, women, straight, gay Humans tend to have similar taste, across cultures Consensus in facial attractiveness: - symmetric, average, familiar features - too symmetric seems less human C

Sticking Together

Positive Illusions: - view partner as more positive than others do - view partner as more positive than they do Strong positive illusions correlated with: - relationship satisfaction - relationship duration/stability - reduced relationship conflict Automatic positivity toward partner predicts relationship quality and stability Automatic positivity decreases directly after conflict Automatic positivity increases during periods of increased sex

Memory Storage/Retrieval of Eyewitness Memory

Post-event information becomes integrated with people's memory of the event - anything we learn after the fact can become integrated in our memory of our event - every 'remembering' modifies memory - subsequent retrieval is of modified, not original, memory - copies of copies of copies = eye witness - we don't know when incorrect info was copied as they cannot retrieve the original memory Witnesses testify after many, many rememberings - lawyers know about this phenomena - jurors often do not know, or do not discount eyewitness memories as if they know (even if they know about false memories)

Cues - Body Language

Posture, gait, gestures Ex. emblem in Palestine and Israel - last one to walk in the door is the one who holds the most power Gaze, pupil dilation Humans have the most white to eye colour ratio because we use them so much to communicate Poker players know that when you get a good hand your pupils dilate - so they often wear sunglasses

Scientific Jury Selection

Predicting people's bias for defendants/prosecution Sample from jury eligible population - ask all the questions - who do you favour? is regressed onto all predictor items How effective is it? - difficult to assess, because many confounds - wealthy clients can afford it - can also afford best lawyers, can also afford expert witnesses What we know: wealthy clients get more favourable verdicts

Theory to Hypothesis Testing

Prediction gets down to operational definition Conceptual Variables: abstract, can't be directly observed or manipulated - ex. learning, love, anger Operational variables: concrete, can be directly observed or manipulated - ex. learning = # of questions correct on test - ex. cell phone use = minutes on phone Ex. Hypothesis: fatigue interferes with social perception - conceptual variables: "fatigue", "social perception" - operational definitions: - fatigue = less than 3 hours of sleep - SP = number of facial expressions identified in 20 seconds Prediction: "restricting people to less than 3 hours of sleep (vs. not) will reduce the number of facial expressions they correctly identify

Prejudice: The Affective Component

Prejudice can involve either a positive or negative attitude - ex. snobby Torontonians or sophisticated, cosmopolitan Torontonians

Experimental

Primary advantage is causal inference Manipulating variables and seeing their effect on other variables Allows us to say that changes in x causes changes in y

Legitimacy and Compliance

Prisoners will comply when: - believe it is proper for the prison to have rules - believe that the rules are designed for safety - believe officers apply rules impartially - fear punishment or retribution - only when they estimate punishment is highly likely - only when they agree with the specific rule When situation is perceived as illegitimate, people will act to change the situation If you fulfill first 3 rules, people will comply with rules they don't agree with - not the case if punishment is main rule

Grassian Paper on Solitary Confinement in Prisoners

Procedure: - interviewed 14 inmates who were living in solitary confinement - each prisoner was interviewed for approximately one-half hour by one of two psychiatrists Results: - the prisoners appeared to mobilize multiple defence mechanisms (rationalization, avoidance, denial, distortion, and repression) in an effort to minimize the quality of their reactions to isolation - as the interviews progressed, these superficial accounts gave way to descriptions of experiences that were troublesome - solitary confinement carries major psychiatric risks - perceptual changes, affective disturbances, difficulties with thinking, concentrating, and memory, disturbances of thought content, problems with impulse control

Study on Attractiveness: Positivity and Accuracy Biases

Procedure: 1. Groups of 5-10 students met one on one for a period of 3 minutes with each other student 2. Then rated other on Big Five Inventory 3. Finally, rated self on Big Five Results: 1. Observers' ratings correlated with self-ratings - observers perceive strangers' personalities with accuracy - "distinctive accuracy" 2. Observers' rating correlated with each other - "normative accuracy" - specifically, attractive people were seen as more positively: HALO effect 3. Distinctive accuracy was moderated by attractiveness - more attractive than mean were perceived accurately - less attractive than mean were not perceived accurately Other people tend to observe your personality with some accuracy We are more motivated to get to know and understand attractive people

(Markus) Study on Social Facilitation

Procedure: 1. Participants change into standardized clothing 2. Undress and quickly change into own clothing or 3. Undress and quickly change into ill-fitting clothing Dependent Measures: Time to dress (familiar vs. ill-fitting) Independent Variable: 1. Alone 2. Inattentive Audience - RA in same room working on piece of equipment 3. Attentive Audience - in room, watching Results: - participants dressed quickest in own clothing when an attentive audience and interfered when putting on ill-fitting clothes

Propinquity

Proximity includes physical distance But more importantly is mediated by psychological distance - perceive yourself to be closer to next door neighbours (ex. Westgate; person above you is just as close technically, but roommate beside seems easier to get to) - ex. crossing borders; Seattle feels further than Fort St. John because of border - ex. internet dating: borders are changing - psychological border goes down because you can talk to them from anywhere -you used to need to be physically close to date - changing norms of how relationships are initiated (ex. Bumble)

How did we get to this replication crisis?

Publishing Incentives: 1. Effect addresses important question in the field 2. Effect has high internal validity 3. Effect is novel 4. Effect is surprising 5. Effect is significant, p <.05 Significant and novel effects are published - non-significant and non-novel are put in the 'file drawer' Career Incentives: 1. Publish to get a PhD 2. Publish to get a post-doc 3. Publish to become a prof 4. Publish to get grant funding 5. Publish to get tenure Indicator 1: Is it significant? - suggests we are seeing a selected pattern of results, not the whole picture Indicator 2: Did you publish? - a lot of researchers admitted to engage in unethical research practices

Group Cohesiveness

Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking among them

Cues

Raw data of person perception Individual bits of information people see Facial structure Facial expressions Body language

Minimal Groups in the Classroom: A Class Divided

Real-world demonstration of how social categorization can lead to intergroup bias Blue eyes superior to brown eyes

Information Overload

Reason we can't record everything We have limited capacity for processing this data - human brains have 2 categorically different streams of processing: 1. Conscious - small capacity for processing in relation to the amount of information we are receiving 2. Unconscious - relatively larger capacity in processing

Recovered Memories

Recollections of a past event, such as sexual abuse, that have been forgotten or repressed Are they accurate? - most trauma is not forgotten

LaPiere (1934): Do negative attitudes toward Chinese predict discrimination?

Recorded 251 interactions with businesses across country - only 1 interaction a person said you are not welcome here - people were reporting negative attitudes, but still served them - noticed huge discrepancy between self reports and behaviours - mailed out questionnaire to business owners: "would you serve me if i came with Chinese friends?" - 90% said they would not serve them Why do attitudes not predict behaviour? - resolved with theory of planned behaviour

Stability

Refers to perceptions about the fixed vs. malleability of group hierarchy - "can our group move upwards" - macro-social emphasis says only if hierarchy is malleable Example: Race-based gangs in prison - permeability is low: individuals cannot change gangs (race) - stability is low: hierarchy shifts depending on collective action and relative population (prisoners vs. guards are fixed; prisoners are not going to ever have a higher status than guards) When stability is low, more likely to band together to change status

Need-Threat Temporal Perspective: Solitary Confinement

Reflexive: Significant increases in anxiety and depression detectable within 4 days - or of panic attacks is greater than 4 Reflective: - extreme rumination regarding friends/family - spirituality - uncontrollable thoughts of domination/aggression - spitting on guards, throwing feces, self-harm Resignation: - stupor, "impossible to arouse" - incapable of maintaining consistent level of alertness

Exchange Relationships

Relationships governed by the need for equity (i.e., for a comparable ratio of rewards and costs) Ex. interactions between new acquaintances or casual friends People track who is contributing what and feel taken advantage of when they feel they are putting more into the relationship than they are getting out of it

Communal Relationships

Relationships in which people's primary concern is being responsive to the other person's needs Ex. close friends, family members, and romantic partners Governed less by exchange and more by a desire to help each other in times of need People give in response to the other's needs, regardless of whether they are repaid If we think there is a change for a long-term relationship, we are relatively unconcerned with a tit-for-tat accounting of who was contributing what

False Memory Syndrome

Remembering a past traumatic experience that is objectively false but is nevertheless accepted by the person as true Often these memories are contradicted by objective evidence When trauma is recovered in therapy, there was little corroborating evidence

Replication

Repeating a study, generally with different subject populations, in different settings, or by using different methods

Gambler's Fallacy

Representative Heuristic In long run, flips approach 50/50 Heuristically, we expect even short runs to be representative

Ellemers Paper on Individual and Collective Status-Enhancement Strategies

Research Topic: How people react to membership in socially disadvantaged groups, whether they resign to their fate, undertake attempts at improving their personal situation, strive to improve the position of their group as a whole Independent variables: - legitimacy of assignment of status to groups - stability of group status - permeability of group boundaries Results: - illegitimate assignment of low status to the participant's group increased in-group identification - illegitimate allocation of individual participant to a low-status group decreased group identification (identification with the low-status in-group decreased as inclusion in it was less legitimate)

Harlow Paper on Social Isolation in Rhesus Monkeys

Research Topic: How social deprivation affects rhesus monkeys Procedure: - raising monkeys from a few hours after birth until 3, 6, or 12 months of age in a stainless-steel chamber - no contact with any animal, human, or subhuman - no attempt is made to maximize sensory deprivation - compared with monkeys in partial isolation - each experimental and control pair were tested together: were released in the room for 30 min a day, 5 days a week, for 32 weeks Results: - the 12 month isolates were highly fearful and showed almost no positive social behaviour and no aggression - the effects of social isolation in the first year were clearly evident 12-24 months after removal from isolation in spite of the prolonged social experience provided the subjects following isolation - primary response is fear

Cross-Cultural Research

Research conducted with members of different cultures to see whether the psychological processes of interest are present across cultures or whether they are specific to a single culture

Surveys

Research in which a representative sample of people are asked questions about their attitudes or behaviour Self-report: valuable for social psychology - the subjective experience is often more important than reality itself

Why is it easy to publish "statistically significant" evidence consistent with any hypothesis?

Researcher degrees of freedom In the course of collecting and analyzing data, researchers have many decisions to make: - should more data be collected? - should more observations be excluded? - which conditions should be combined and which ones compared? - which control variables should be considered? - should specific measures be combined or transformed or both? It is rare, and sometimes impractical, for researchers to make all these decisions beforehand Rather, it is common (and accepted practice) for researchers to explore various analytic alternatives, to search for a combination that yields "statistical significance" and to then only report what "worked" The problem is that the likelihood of at least one (of many) analyses producing a falsely positive finding at the 5% level is necessarily greater than 5%

Brain Training Games

Results don't tell you anything about actual evidence People that actually choose to do the games are on average more conscientious

Self-Justification

Results from the desire to perceive self as rational and consistent

Simulations of Common Researcher Degrees of Freedom

Results: 1. Flexibility in analyzing two dependent variables nearly doubles the probability of obtaining a false-positive finding 2. If a researcher collects 20 observations per condition and then tests for significance - if the result is significant, the researcher stops collecting data and reports the result - if the result is nonsignificant, the researcher collects 10 additional observations per condition, and then tests again for significance = this small degree of freedom increases the false-positive rate by approximately 50% 3. The effect of flexibility in controlling for gender or for an interaction between gender and the independent variable - such flexibility leads to a false-positive rate of 11.7% 4. Running three conditions and reporting the results for any two or all three generates a false-positive rate of 12.6% 5. If the researcher uses all these degrees of freedom, a this would lead to a 61% false-positive rate - a researcher is more likely than not to falsely detect a significant effect by just using these four common researcher degrees of freedom

Performance-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task

Task-Contingent Rewards

Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done

Research Claim: Victims who hire an attorney to represent them earn 300% more compensation

Sampling bias in asking people with or without attorney, might have been different anyway - if you know you're going to lose, you probably won't get an attorney - groups started out differently in the first place - no causal evidence

Reliance on Schema

Schema are likely to influence our interpretations when: - we have used them frequently in the past - when they're relevant to current goals - recent experiences make them accessible: aka: schema activation, 'priming' - when the situation is ambiguous (or unclear) - if situation is clear, lower schema activation

Replication Crisis in Science

Science is in a paradigm shift Paradigm shift = the way of knowing what we know Psychology has initiated this reform Our normal method is that if below p.05 it is true -things may only be true for that time period

Problems with IAT

Scientists usually only use one order because you might just be getting used to it and this way they don't have to sort through the second trials

Types of Schema

Script: what is the situation like? - ex. movie set: director, camera, other people, lights Self: what am i like? - usually biased, inaccurate, but you expect yourself to behave that way in future Role: what is this occupation like? - ex. what is it like to be a director? - you have expectations for these roles Stereotype: what is a person from this group like? - what can i predict in their behaviour? - not correct. but facilitate us in making predictions Trait: what is this person like (over time)? - notice stable traits Schemata are oversimplified and wrong, but help us to maximize what we can process

Secure Housing Unit: Operationalization of Ostracism

Secure housing unit (aka hotbox, hole, administrative segregation) Modal conditions: - 6-8'x8-10' cell, continuously illuminated/featureless - 23 hours confinement: 1 hour yard - no human contact - no natural light/windows - bible - sometimes: cellmate, ability to talk between cells, other books

When have you relied on snap judgements?

Seeing strangers, deciding if they are threatening or safe In interviews

Animal Models of Confession

Self-fulfilling prophecy - if you treat them like they're guilty they will act guilty - they'll always act in shame if you treat them like they're guilty

The Self-Concept in Humans

Self-recognition develops at around 18-24 months of age The self-concept becomes more complex as we grow older - as we mature, we place less emphasis on physical characteristics and more emphasis on our psychological states

Social Roles

Shared expectations by group members about how particular people in the group are supposed to behave

Social Psychology Compared with Sociology

Similar: both are concerned with the influence of social and societal factors on human behaviour Differences: - level of analysis: - social psychologist's level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation - sociology is more concerned with broad societal factors that influence events in a society (social class, social structure, and social institutions) - the goal of social psychology is to identify universal properties of human nature that make everyone susceptible to social influence, regardless of social class or culture

Racial Bias in Shooting Simulation

Simulation becoming more advanced: - realistic: video rather than static images - interactive: suspects can respond to commands - immersive: 3D - feedback: beanbags shot at officers if they fail to shoot dangerous suspects Take home: - Racial biases appear robust - smaller biases among police (vs. general population) - larger biases when conditions are similar to lethal force situations - lethal force situations impossible to replicate

The Experience of Breaking Up

Single most powerful predictor of reactions to breakups was whether you were the one who did the breaking up or the one who was "dumped" - if you got dumped, you were miserable: high levels of loneliness, depression, unhappiness, and anger, and virtually all reported experiencing physical disorders (e.g., upset stomach, trouble sleeping) - those who did it experienced the lowest levels of upset, pain, and stress, although they were not exempt from negative effects - tended to feel guilt and unhappiness - those who reported it was mutual fell in the middle of the two groups - they were not as upset or hurt as those who had been dumped, but they suffered more than those who did the breaking up The degree of distress is influenced by other factors: - social exchange variables played a role - people experienced less distress if they were interested in an alternative relationship, but more distress if attractive alternatives were available to their former partner

Social Exchange: The Costs and Rewards of Helping

Social Exchange Theory: argues that much of what we do stems from the desire to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs What are the rewards of helping? - norm of reciprocity: helping someone is an investment in the future - relieve the distress of the bystander According to this theory, true altruism doesn't exist

Social Psychology vs. Sociology

Sociology - systems, not individuals - seek to understand institutional policies Social Psych - the individual in situations

Problem: Information Overload

Solutions: 1. Automation 2. Schema (chunking) 3. Heuristics

Self-Concept Clarity

Some of us have a clearer sense of who we are than others Clarity, stability and consistency of self-schema Has important cognitive and emotional implications - ex. people who are low in self-concept clarity, tend to have low self-esteem, are depression-prone, more neurotic, and less aware of their internal states than those who are high in self-concept clarity Less linked to self-esteem for collectivist cultures

Can prejudice be reduced by revising stereotypical beliefs?

Stereotypes are very resistant to change If someone is contrary to our stereotype, we create a subtype for this deviant member - we retain our stereotype, but create a small category of "exceptions" When people are bombarded with many examples that disprove their stereotype, they gradually modify their beliefs

Affect and Mood on Prejudice

Stereotypes did not strongly predict attitudes toward any groups when emotions, symbolic beliefs, and behaviour were taken into account Emotion is a strong predictor of the prejudice that minority groups feel toward majority groups Prejudice may produce nasty feelings in people Focusing on feelings about the discriminatory situations did not affect people's symbolic beliefs or their stereotypes of black people, but it did affect their emotions - they now felt more positive toward blacks and therefore were more willing to interact with blacks in the future

Replications of Milgram Experiment

Still around 70% obedience

Groupthink

Strong tendency for group members to seek agreement - desire for group solidarity overpowers desire for accuracy A kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner Most likely to occur when certain preconditions are met, such as when he group is highly cohesive, isolated from contrary opinions, and ruled by a directive leader who makes his or her wishes known

Consequences of Schema: Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Students randomly assigned as "bloomers" or average - teachers expected higher performance from "bloomers" - gave them more personal support, more material to learn, and higher quantity and depth of feedback - they had a different schema for bloomers compared to average - teacher's schema for bloomer fulfilled

Physiological Influences on Aggression: Pain, Discomfort, and Aggression

Students who underwent the pain of the pain of having their hand immersed in cold way were much more likely to aggress against other students than those who had not suffered In Phoenix, drivers without air conditioned cars are more likely to honk their horns in traffic jams Being exposed to heat related words is enough to to increase aggressive thoughts Global warming might have an effect on aggression

Applied Research

Studies designed specifically to solve a particular social problem Building a theory of behaviour is usually secondary to solving the specific problem

Basic Research

Studies that are designed to find the best answer as to why people behave the way they do and that are conducted purely for reasons of intellectual curiosity

False Uniqueness Effect

Study showed that students believed that many other students shared their weaknesses but that they were unique in their strengths

Study of Self-Schema Activation with Pictures of self and other

THe degree to which seeing pictures of self would activate self-schema - more likely to value pictures as likeable after seeing yourself - most people's self-schema - less resources to devote to viewing later images as their attention is on the self Results: - self-picture trials evaluated more likeable - self-schema includes positivity - self-reported self-esteem correlates with judgements - self-schemata differ in magnitude of positivity - self trials were less accurate - automatic directed attention to self

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to interpret information in a way that verifies existing beliefs and tendency to (un)intentionally ignore contradictory evidence

Is Implicit Bias Unconscious?

Terminology developed from literature on implicit memory - Claparède's pinprick - traces of past experience that influence behaviour, but that we cannot report - amnesia patient forgets about pinprick every time they shake hands with man - after a while, they stop shaking their hand - they don't know why, but they just have a bad feeling because they don't consciously remember the prick - we have these feelings but we don't know where they come from IAT scores often do not correlate with explicit measures - interpreted as unconscious or implicit

Empathy

The ability to experience events and emotions (e.g., joy, sadness) the way another person experiences them Plays primary role in altruism/helping

Stereotype Threat

The apprehension experienced by members of a minority group that they might behave in a manner that confirms an existing cultural stereotype Ex. if women indicated their gender on a math test, they performed worse than if they were to complete the test with a fake name (and would perform just as well as men)

Individual Differences

The aspects of people's personalities that make them different from other people

Minority Influence

The case in which a minority of group members influences the behaviour or beliefs of the majority Exert their influence on the group via the other principal method: informational social influence - the minority introduces new, unexpected information to the group and causes the group to examine the issues more carefully Minority can gain influence when: 1. Forceful 2. Persistent (really persistent) 3. Perceived as open-minded 4. Yet unwavering in belief Often need idiosyncrasy credits (if you dissent on everything, you are less likely to be heard) - need to conform on other behaviours - then, licensed to dissent

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

The case in which people do not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication but are instead swayed by peripheral cues - ex. if it is long or is delivered by an expert or attractive communicator Result: Attitude change that is temporary and susceptible to further change

Central Route to Persuasion

The case in which people elaborate on a persuasive communication, listening carefully to and thinking about the arguments, which occurs when people have both the ability and the motivation to listen carefully to a communication Result: attitude change that is long-lasting and resistant to change

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The case whereby people have an expectation about what another person is like, which influences how they act toward that person, which in turn, causes that person to behave consistently with their original expectations Our expectations come true Occurs automatically

Overjustification Effect

The case whereby people view their behaviour as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which their behaviour was caused by intrinsic reasons Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic motivation makes people lose interest in the activity they initially enjoyed

Naive Realism

The conviction all of us have that we perceive things "as they really are" We assume that other reasonable people see things the same way that we do

Idiosyncrasy Credits

The credits a person earns, over time, by conforming to a group's norms; if enough idiosyncrasy credits are earned, the person can, on occasion, behave in a deviant manner without retribution from the group

Extrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting Associated with depression

Intrinsic Motivation

The desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures Positively correlated with persistence, higher grades

Altruism

The desire to help others, even if it involves a cost to the helper Why would people help? - Evolution - Feeling Good - Appearance - Get something back

Self-Expansion

The desire to overlap or blend with another so that you have access to the person's knowledge, insights, and experiences, and thus broaden and deepen your own experience of life

Insufficient Punishment

The dissonance aroused when individuals lack sufficient external justification for having resisted a desired activity or object, usually resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden activity or object

Norm of Reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

Social Exclusion

The experience of being excluded can provoke considerable levels of aggression But there is evidence that it could motivate us to form new social bonds

Accessibility

The extent to which schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people's minds and are, therefore, likely to be used when making judgements about the social world

Psychological Realism

The extent to which the psychological process triggered in an experiment are similar to psychological processes that occur in everyday life

External Validity

The extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people

Passionate Love

The feelings of intense longing, accompanied by physiological arousal, we feel for another person When our love is reciprocated, we feel great fulfillment and ecstasy, but when it is not, we feel sadness and despair Consists of strong uncontrollable thoughts, intense feelings, and overt acts toward the target of one's affection Participants who reported higher levels of passionate love showed greater activation in brain areas when looking at their loved ones - VTA and caudate nucleus; reward center

Companionate Love

The feelings of intimacy and affection we feel toward someone whom our lives are deeply intertwined

Bystander Effect

The finding that the greater the number of bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely it is that any one of them will help Inhibition of helping due to the presence of others - even in emergency situation (e.g., Kitty Genovese)

Mere Exposure Effect

The finding that the more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it Why propinquity works We associate positive feelings with things that are familiar If you feel negatively toward someone, the more exposure you have to them, the more you dislike them

Propinquity Effect

The finding that the more we see and interact with people , the more likely they are to become our friends

What Causes Prejudice? The Way We Think: Social Categorization

The first step in prejudice is the creation of groups - putting some people into one group based on certain characteristics and others into another group based on different characteristics We think more positively of our in-group

Physiological Influences on Aggression: Alcohol and Aggression

The greater reported consumption of alcohol, the greater the reported aggression More severe violence was reported when alcohol was consumed at a bar or party rather than at home Family violence is also often associated with alcohol use Intoxicated participants reported more negative emotions when thinking about the conflict and had more negative perceptions of their partner's feelings than did participants in the other 2 conditions

In-Group

The group with which an individual identifies, and of which they feels a member More likely to help

Kin Selection

The idea that behaviour that helps a genetic relative is favoured by natural selection

Negative-State Relief Hypothesis

The idea that people help in order to alleviate their own sadness and distress

Social Comparison Theory

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves with other people Refine self-concept by comparing our behaviour against social others - used when performance standards are ambiguous or undefined - usually spontaneously initiated Who do we compare against? - Naturally/Spontaneously: others who are similar on at least 1 dimension - ex. compare academics with people from this class not calculus - Strategically: others we evaluate as having lesser ability - downward comparison, used to allow us to feel good

Looking-Glass Self

The idea that we see ourselves through the eyes of other people and incorporate their views into our self-concept

Self-Awareness Theory

The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behaviour with their internal standards and values

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The idea that when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to help them purely for altruistic reasons, regardless of what we have to gain If you do not feel empathy, you will only help if you have something to gain (rewards outweigh the costs)

Social Norms

The implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviours, values, and beliefs of its members

False Positive

The incorrect rejection of a null hypothesis

External Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in The assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Internal Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about him or her Such as his attitude, character, or personality

Normative Social Influence

The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them; this type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviours but not necessarily in private acceptance The need to be accepted People go along with the group even if they do not believe in what they are doing or think it is wrong

Interjudge Reliability

The level of agreement between two or more people who independently observe and code a set of data By showing that two or more judges independently come up with the same observations, researchers ensure that the observations are not the subjective impressions of one individual

Deindividuation

The loosening of normal constraints on behaviour when people are in a group - loss of individuality Leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts Getting lost in a crowd can lead to an unleashing of behaviours that individuals would never dream of doing otherwise Individuals must balance: - self-concept - group identity

Extended Contact Hypothesis

The mere knowledge that a member of one's own group has a close relationship with a member of another group can reduce one's prejudice toward that group

Ethnography

The method by which researchers attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from the inside without imposing any preconceived notions they might have

Experimental Method

The method in which the researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable (the one thought to have a causal effect on people's responses)

Modern Racism: Prejudice can manifest when no one is looking

The norms are what you want them to be Evans et al. (2003) - participants rate racial outgroups more positively when experimenter is around - effect is even larger if experimenter is from one of these groups Hart & Morry (1997) - participants watch video of either Black or White person giving a speech - when speech is bad, Black speaker rated negatively - when speech is good, Black speaker rated more positively - it is normatively acceptable to say if something is bad when it is bad (I gave low rating because it was bad) - black speaker is rated more negatively than white speaker - people's stereotypes were more greatly violated when the black person gave the better speech

Catharsis

The notion that "blowing off steam" by performing an aggressive act, watching others engage in aggressive behaviour, or engaging in a fantasy of aggression relieves built-up aggressive energies and hence reduces the likelihood of further aggressive behaviour

Reward/Cost Ratio

The notion that there is a balance between the rewards that come from a relationship and the personal cost of maintaining the relationship; if the ratio is not favourable, the result is dissatisfaction with the relationship Rewards: - the positive, gratifying aspects of the relationship that make it worthwhile - include positive personal characteristics and behaviour of your relationship partner (e.g., similarity, attractiveness, sense of humour) and your ability to acquire external resources by virtue of knowing this person (e.g., gaining access to money, status, activities, or other interesting people) Costs: -e.g., putting up with annoying habits and characteristics of the other person

Mass Psychogenic Illness

The occurrence of similar physical symptoms for which there is no known physical or medical cause in a group of people An example of extreme and misdirected informational social influence Ex. "toxic bus"

Assertiveness

The other side of compliance: - ex. takes dad to car dealership because he recognizes tactics - refuse even small requests, avoid the consistency trap - accept all gifts while suppressing urge to reciprocate - ask for more

Permeability

The perceived possibility that individuals can exit their current group and enter a higher status group - permitted to leave current group and to enter a new group - if you're not permitted to leave, then you can't switch - ex. racial groups can't switch - According to Macro-Social: if permeability is high, then stability and legitimacy do not matter - individuals will always seek to 'pass' for member of higher status group Example: Incentives and Earned Privileges - good behaviour = TV, tokens for canteen, visitation

Relative Deprivation

The perception that you have less than you deserve, less than what you have been led to expect, or less than what people similar to you have

Pluralistic Ignorance

The phenomenon whereby bystanders assume that nothing is wrong in an emergency because no one else looks concerned

Dynamogenic Theory

The physical presence of others boost performance Bodily presence of another ride is a stimulus to the racer in arousing the competitive instinct Another can thus be the means of releasing nervous energy for him that he cannot himself release

Confessions: Are They Always What They Seem?

The police interrogation process can go wrong in ways that elicit false confessions, even to the point where innocent suspects come to believe that they actually committed the crime After many hours of prolonged interrogation, innocent people can become so psychologically fatigued that they don't know what to think and may even come to believe that they are guilty Whoever the camera is focused on is more in charge of the situation than they actually are - people thought that the confession was most voluntary when the camera was focused on the suspect - when the camera showed both the suspect and interrogator, people thought the confession was less voluntary - when the camera focused only on the interrogator, people thought the confession was the most coerced

Rationalization Trap

The potential for dissonance reduction to produce a succession of self-justification that ultimately result in a chain of stupid or immoral actions

Operational Definition

The precise specification of how variables are measured or manipulated

Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us

The presence of others can mean one of two things: 1. Performing a task with others who are doing the same thing you are 2. Performing a task in front of an audience that is not doing anything except observing you Cockroaches ran faster when others were watching them Simple vs. Difficult Tasks - cockroaches had to solve a maze, only one runway lead to the darkened box; the roaches took longer to complete it when other roaches were watching Arousal and the Dominant Response - the presence of others increases physiological arousal - when such arousal exists, it is easier to do something that is simple (called the dominant response) but more difficult to do something complex or learn something new

Deception

The procedure whereby participants are misled about the true purpose of a study or the events that will actually transpire

Embodied Cognition

The process by which bodily sensations activate mental structures such as schemas Ex. feeling physically unstable caused people to perceive that their own relationship was less likely to last

Storage

The process by which people maintain in memory information

Retrieval

The process by which people recall information stored in their memories

Priming

The process by which recent experiences increase the accessibility of a schema, trait, or concept

Attitude Inoculation

The process of making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position

Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy

The process that occurs when a person states an opinion or attitude that runs counter to his or her private belief or attitude When we do this with little external justification, we start to believe the lie we told

Random Assignment to Condition

The process whereby all participants have an equal chance of taking part in any condition of an experiment, through random assignment, researchers can be relatively certain that differences in the participants' personalities or backgrounds are distributed evenly across conditions

Reconstructive Memory

The process whereby memories of an event become distorted by information encountered after the event occurred

Introspection

The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives

Misattribution of Arousal

The process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do Ex. Capilano Suspension Bridge Experiment - walk across the suspension bridge vs. stable bridge - women greets you and asks you to complete a questionnaire - then tears off a piece of paper to give you her phone number - if you are on the high, scary bridge you will be considerably aroused and may mistakenly think some of this arousal is the result of the attraction to the beautiful woman - Results: half of the men who were approached on the high suspension bridge telephoned the woman later, whereas relatively few of the men on the sturdy bridge called her

Acquisition

The process whereby people notice and pay attention to information in their environment

Source Monitoring

The process whereby people try to identify the source of their memories

Upward Social Comparison

The process whereby we compare ourselves with people who are better than we are in a particular trait or ability Can threaten self-esteem - especially threatening if we feel we are similar - if we believe we cannot attain another's status - nothing i can do to improve my skills and this person will always be better than me Can be inspirational/good - if we believe we could attain other's status Ex. social media; filter on what we share on the internet. show just the good things, nothing bad

Downward Social Comparison

The process whereby we compare ourselves with people who are worse than we are in a particular trait or ability Effective at raising self-esteem Self-protective, self-enhancing strategy Compare your current self with your previous self

Group Polarization: Going to Extremes

The question of whether individuals or groups make more risky decisions has been examined - usually given the Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire, a series of stories that present a dilemma for the main character and ask the reader to choose how much probability of success there would have to be before the reader would recommend the risky alternative Many of the initial studies found surprisingly that groups make riskier decisions than individuals do Groups tend to make decisions that are more extreme in the same direction as the individuals' initial predispositions

Contagion

The rapid transmission of emotions or behaviour through a crowd Ex. radio show that sounded like a real invasion by aliens that scared over 1 million americans

Internal Justification

The reduction of dissonance by changing something about oneself (e.g., one's attitude or behaviour)

Social Psychology

The scientific study of the way in which people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by real or imagined presence of other people Experiment-based science - we test our assumptions, guesses and ideas about human social behaviour empirically and systematically, rather than relying on folk wisdom, common sense, or the opinions and insights of philosophers THe scientific study of social influence

Attribution Theory

The study of how people explain the causes of their own and other people's behaviour Describes how we observe, analyze and explain others' behaviour Heider: Explanations fall into two categories: We make one of two attributions when trying to decide why people behave the way they do: 1. Internal Attribution/Personal Attributions - person's disposition, attitude, personality, or character is the cause 2. External Attribution/Situational Attributions - the situation is the cause

Social Perception

The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them Usually we think of first impressions Process of forming impressions of others using: 1. Nonverbal Data - facial structure, expression, gestures, posture 2. Verbal Data - what we say, how we say it 3. Cognitive Data - schema/stereotypes, attributions

Yale Attitude Change Approach

The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages; researchers in this tradition focus on "who said what to whom" - that is, on the source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of the audience Speakers who are credible, trustworthy, attractive, or likeable are more persuasive than those who are not Who: - Credible speakers persuade people more - attractive speakers What: - people are more persuaded by messages that do not seem to be designed to influence them - two-sided messages work better - best to go first if speeches are given back to back and people have time to make up their minds (primacy effect) - best to go last if there is a delay between the speeches and people make up their minds right after hearing the second one (recency effect) To Whom: - an audience that is distracted is more persuaded - people low in intelligence are more influeneable - people are particularly susceptible to attitude change during the impressionable ages of 18 to 25; beyond those ages people's attitudes are more stable and resistant to change

The Observational Method

The technique whereby a researcher observes people and systematically records measurements of their behaviour Important that researchers to clearly define the behaviours of interest 1. Ethnography 2. Archival Analysis

The Correlational Method

The technique whereby researchers systematically measure two or more variables and assess the relation between them I.e. how much one can be predicted from the other Look at relations by calculating the correlation coefficient 1. Surveys

Group Polarization

The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of their members

Own-Race Bias

The tendency for people to be better at recognizing faces of their own race than those of other races

Social Facilitation

The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks, but worse on complex tasks, when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated Theory regarding mechanisms causing changes in performance: - presence of other increases arousal - arousal activates dominant, or overlearned, behaviour - facilitation when dominant response is required - interference when dominant response not required Activities that are easy will be performed more quickly when other people are watching or doing it with you - if you're good at tennis, you should improve in front of a crowd - if you're bad and in front of a crowd, you're going to do horrible

Social Loafing

The tendency for people to do worse on simple tasks but better on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated

Hindsight Bias

The tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted the outcome after knowing that it occurred

In-Group Bias

The tendency to evaluate in-group members more positively than out-group members This tendency is even stronger when we have chosen our group The more people identify with a group the more likely they are to favour their in-group If there is a threat to their group, they are more likely to become even more protective of their in-group

Gender and Cultural Differences in Social Loafing: Who Slacks Off the Most?

The tendency to loaf is stronger in men than women - women tend to be higher in relational interdependence Tendency to loaf is stronger in Western cultures than in Asian cultures - may be due to the different self-definitions prevalent in these cultures

Actor/Observer Difference

The tendency to see other people's behaviour as dispositionally caused, while focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one's own behaviour

Urban-Overload Hypothesis

The theory that because people living in cities are constantly being bombarded with stimulation, they keep to themselves to avoid being overloaded by it

Great Person Theory

The theory that certain key personality traits make a person a good leader, regardless of the situation the leader faces

Social Impact Theory

The theory that conforming to social influence depends on the strength of the group, its immediacy, and the number of other people in the group According to this theory, the likelihood that you will respond to social influence from other people depends on 3 variables: 1. Strength: how important is the group to you? - the closer, the more likely you are to conform 2. Immediacy: how close is the group to you in space and time during the influence attempt? 3. Number: how many people are in the group? - as the size of the group increases, each additional person has less of an influencing effect - going from 3 to 4 people makes more of a difference than going from 53 to 54 - group size is most likely to affect conformity under the condition when normative social influence is operating

Frustration-Aggression Theory

The theory that frustration - the perception that you are being prevented from obtaining a goal - will increase the probability of an aggressive response

Social Exchange Theory

The theory that how people feel about a relationship depends on their perceptions of the rewards and costs of the relationship, the kind of relationship they deserve, and the probability that they could have a better relationship with someone else

Story Model

The theory that jurors try to fit the evidence they hear at trial into a coherent story, and ultimately reach a verdict that best fits the story they have created

Contingency Theory of Leadership

The theory that leadership effectiveness depends both on how task-oriented or relationship-oriented the leader is, and on the amount of control and influence the leader has over the group

Realistic Conflict Theory

The theory that limited resources lead to conflict among groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination Conflict and prejudice are most likely to result when we perceive that our group may miss out on a limited resource and when we perceive that another group (an out-group) is competing with us for that resource

Attachment Theory

The theory that our behaviour in adult relationships is based on our experiences as infants with our parents or caregivers Early experiences shape our patterns of attachment (love) 1. Secure (60%): might be frustrated a little when parent leaves, but know if they need something they can rely on their parents - grow into people who have a high sense of self-worth, can love easily 2. Avoidant (20%): caregivers not fulfilling needs, less likely to show overt love (i.e., hugging, kissing) - they want love, but they are fearful expressing because in past experience they haven't gotten it back - afraid of being rejected 3. Anxious/Ambivalent (20%): inconsistent/unpredictable caregivers, one day you could count on them next day you couldn't - creates anxiety from unpredictable - might simultaneously want to be close and far

Equity Theory

The theory that people are happiest with relationships in which the rewards and costs that a person experiences and the contributions that they make to the relationship are roughly equal to the rewards, costs, and contributions of the other person Concern for fairness People will eventually feel guilty if they get more than they deserve Long-term intimate relationships have a looser give-and-take notion of equity

Investment Model

The theory that people's commitment to a relationship depends on their satisfaction with the relationship in terms of rewards, costs, and comparison level, their comparison level for alternatives, and how much they have invested in the relationship that would be lost by leaving it Investments: anything that people have put into a relationship that will be lost if they leave it - tangible things, such as financial resources and possessions (e.g., a house) - intangible things, such as the emotional welfare of one's children or time and emotional energy spent building the relationship The greater the investment, the less likely they are to leave In order to predict whether people will stay, we need to know: 1. how satisfied they are with the relationship (rewards minus costs) 2. whether they believe that attractive alternatives are available 3. the extent of their investment in the relationship

Sociometer Theory

The theory that self-esteem is a gauge that monitors the extent to which we are accepted or rejected by others Self-esteem is a spontaneous guide to how accepted we are by social others - highly consequential correlates: low self-esteem correlated with more depressive and anxiety symptoms, unpredictable behaviour, shorter life span Our "chronic" or usual level of self-esteem reflects the extent to which we generally feel accepted or rejected Our momentary or "state" level of self-esteem reflects how accepted or rejected we currently feel in a particular relationship or social situation If your self-esteem drops, you try to help others more/attend more to their desire because you want to keep your group High self-esteem might not attend to others as much as they have more social capital Self-esteem isn't something you have to introspect on

Elaboration Likelihood Model

The theory that there are two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change: 1. The central route - occurs when people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication, and 2. The peripheral route - occurs when people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics (e.g, who gave the speech)

Social Learning Theory

The theory that we learn social behaviour (e.g., aggression) by observing others and imitating them "Bobo" Doll Many physically abusive people were themselves abused by their parents when they were kids

Self-Perception Theory

The theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behaviour and the situation in which it occurs

Does Punishing Aggression Reduce Aggressive Behaviour?

The threat of relatively severe punishment for committing a transgression does not make the transgression less appealing to the child - but the threat of mild punishment - of a degree just powerful enough to get the child to cease the undesired activity temporarily - leads the child to justify their restraint, and as a result, can make the behaviour less appealing Punishment can be a deterrent for adults but only if 2 conditions are met: 1. The punishment must be prompt and certain 2. It must be unavoidable These conditions are almost never met in the real world Ex. many states where they have the death penalty for murder, have a much higher rate of homicide

The Basic Dilemma of the Social Psychologist

The trade-off between external and internal validity The challenge is to devise a study that maximizes both

Independent Variable

The variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable

Dependent Variable

The variable a researcher measures to see if it is influenced by the independent variable The researcher hypothesizes that the dependent variable will be influenced by the level of the independent variable

Nonverbal Communication

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words Nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch and eye gaze

Construal

The way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world What social psychologists are more interested in

Causal Theories

Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviours Typically we learn such theories from our culture (e.g., "absence makes the heart grow fonder") People have many theories about what influences their feelings and behaviour and often use these theories to help them explain why they feel the way they do

Theranos: A Case Study of Informational Influence

Theranos "invented" cheap, easy nanotainer test to detect illnesses - it didn't work; valued at $9 billion 1. High ambiguity: scientists gave different opinions on the plausibility of the kits 2. High importance: millions at stake 3. High expertise: "I don't do science, but founder is on TV" - BoD included famous investors

Controlled Thinking

Thinking that is conscious, intentional, voluntary and effortful Requires mental energy One thing at a time Rely on controlled thinking: - when time is available - when accuracy is critical - when consciously considering a situation - when we feel expending effort is worth it

Automatic Thinking

Thinking that is nonconscious, unintentional, involuntary, and effortless Cognitive automation+schema+heuristics Low-effort thinking Exerts powerful influence on daily lives But influence may be overestimated in psych research - problems with studies: publication bias, only statistically significant findings We rely heavily on automatic thinking: - when under time pressure - when accuracy is not critical - when we're not paying attention (unaware or unconscious) - when expanding effort is too painful - when situation/judgement is ambiguous

Why Are Eyewitnesses Often Wrong?

To be an accurate eyewitness: - a person must successfully complete three stages of memory processing: acquisition, storage, and retrieval of the events witnessed Acquisition - because people cannot perceive everything that is happening around them, they acquire only a subset of the information - amount of information about a crime people take in is limited by several factors: how much time they have to watch an event and the nature of the viewing conditions - crimes usually occur under poor viewing conditions that make acquisition difficult: quickly, unexpectedly, under poor viewing conditions (e.g., at night), and under considerable stress - witnesses are usually terribly afraid; the more stress people ware under, the worse their memory for people involved in and the details of a crime - focus on the weapon, not the person - own race-bias: better at recognizing people of own race - same effect seen with age - people see what they expect to see - change blindness: people are poor at noticing the unexpected (ex. gorilla/ basketball game) Storage - misleading questions: can change how we remember something - source monitoring errors: misleading questions can cause this (might remember a face from a newspaper but thought you saw it during the crime) Retrieval - "best guess" problem in lineup identification - negative effects of verbalization: trying to put a face into words is difficult and impairs memory for that face

Encode

To express or emit nonverbal behaviour, such as smiling or patting someone on the back Believed that all human beings can do this

Decode

To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behaviour other people express Ex. deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kind Believed that all human beings can do this

Using threats to resolve conflict

To test this, researchers developed a game in which two participants imagined they were in charge of trucking companies - the goal of each company was to transport merchandise as quickly as possible to a destination - the participants were paid 60 cents for each "trip" but had 1 cent subtracted for every second it took them to make the trip - the most direct route for each company was over a one-lane road, on which only one truck could travel at a time - this placed the two companies in direct conflict Results: - after a while, most of them worked out a solution that allowed both trucks to make a modest amount of money by taking turns - in trials where they could put down a gate, both companies lost more

Co-Action Effect

Triplett (1890) - database of cyclists during practice and competition - cycling speed positively related to presence of other cyclists - finished more quickly in competition with others than alone in practice Frequent in athletic performance Ants dig 3x faster with other digging ants Dogs eat more when others are present eating Children are faster at multiplication questions when tested with peers (vs. alone)

Where Construals Come From: Basic Human Motives

Two of these motives are of primary importance: 1. the need to feel good about ourselves 2. the need to be accurate

Intergroup Attributions

Ultimate attribution error: tendency to attribute individual's behaviour to trait shared by a group of people Stereotype-consistent behaviours attributed to group disposition - further confirms stereotype accuracy Inconsistent behaviours attributed to situations - stereotype remains accurate, just not in this situation

Study on Attractiveness (Sritharan)

Undergraduate women viewed dating profile of age-matched man, "Joe" - Joe is a poli sci major, white, your age, 2m tall, relatively fit, non-smoker, etc. IV1: Ambition (high vs. low) - "I find education to be (not) very important and intend to go to law school (law school is too competitive) IV2: Attractiveness (high vs. low) - participants see photo of Joe - he's either hot or not Results: - Hot in low ambition was more desirable - Hot in high ambition was the most desirable - high ambition is liked more than low ambition They also measured spontaneous (automatic) liking: - ambition no longer played a role, just attractiveness Conclusions: - deliberative liking influenced by both attractiveness and ambitiousness - spontaneous liking influenced seemingly only by attractiveness

Discrimination

Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because of their membership in that group Can affect every area of a person's life: - ex. housing, school

Idea

Unorganized principles or thoughts about social behaviour Contrasts with theory

Self-Enhancement and Culture

Unrealistically positive self-views are not common in collectivist, interdependent cultures - in Asian cultures, the tendency is to hold a negative view of oneself - called self-effacement

Study on Race and Policing

Used body cameras (picked up verbal communication) Analyzed linguistic patterns in officers' communication - respectfulness of language predicted whether police log indicated interaction with Black vs. White suspect Relationship robust to officer race, severity of reason for interaction, and location of stop - black officers also used less respectful language when talking to black suspect

Why do we have schemas?

Useful when we encounter information that is confusing or ambiguous because they help us figure out what is going on

Implicit Bias

Usual description: biases that affect our decisions, without awareness or intentional control Implications: - "I don't even know what my biases are" - "even if I did know, I can't control them" - "it's not my fault, it's my brain's fault" Controllable? - kind of: some people can control better than others - difficult to 'cheat' the IAT, but most real situations aren't like the IAT - practice controlling bias seems to automate the process of control Conscious? - yes, we can even predict what our implicit biases will be! - prediction and introspection lets us acknowledge our biases without threat - just because we can introspect, doesn't mean they are conscious in the moment - but can we do this in the moment? How should we think about intervention? - should we seek to change attitudes? or enhance control?

The composition and functions of groups

Vary in size from 3-6 members on average - if groups become too large you cannot interact with all members - ex. university isn't a social group Members tend to be alike in age, sex, beliefs, and opinions 2 reasons for the homogeneity of groups: 1. many groups attract people who are already similar before they join 2. groups operate in ways that encourage similarity in the members Social Norms - how all group members should behave Social Roles - how people with specific roles should behave Gender Roles Group Cohesiveness

The Self-Esteem Approach: The Need to Feel Good About Ourselves

Want to maintain high self-esteem The reason people view the world the way they do can often be traced to this underlying need to maintain a favourable image of themselves - distort the world in order to feel good about themselves 1. Justifying past behaviour - ex. exhusband blames wife for divorce even though he was possessive 2. Suffering and Self-Justification - ex. hazing and then liking your team; justifies his decision to undergo hazing to see his team in the best light

Hester and Gray's Study on 'Stop and Frisk'

Was banned in 2013 - almost explicitly designed as race-based policing - stop the people you think look criminal Results: Tall black men highly over-policed - supplemental experimental work indicates this may be mediated by perceptions of threat - not tall white men - fan interaction between race and height

Study on Empathy and Altruism (Batson et al)

Watch a student, Elaine, complete a math test Read a bio of Elaine (high vs. low empathy) Also Elaine gets painfully shocked Then asked will you take her place? 1. Take her place or complete short questionnaire 2. Take her place or watch Elaine complete study Escape (easy vs. difficult) Results: - high empathetic concern would take place no matter escape condition - low empathetic concern: more likely to help if difficult escape, but not easy

Social Loafing: When the Presence of Others Relaxes Us

We become more relaxed when our performance in a group cannot be identified Arousal enhances performance on simple task, but impairs performance on complex tasks - same reasoning, becoming relaxed impairs performance on simple tasks, but improves performance on complex tasks When people are not worried about being evaluated, they should be less likely to tense up on a difficult task and therefore do it better as a result

What do we know about people when we first meet them?

We form initial impressions of others based solely on their facial appearance and we do this in less than 100 milliseconds

Deceptive Cues

We generally trust emotion expressions Valuable if used to deceive - but people are good at telling which emotions are real or fake

What is Attractive?

We share some standards of beauty: - in females: large eyes, prominent cheekbones, narrow cheeks, high eyebrows, and a small chin are associated with beauty - in males: large eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a large chin are rated as most beautiful

Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing

We tend to actively seek out information that confirms our initial hypothesis Tendency to seek confirmatory rather than disconfirmatory evidence Everything about the person impacts our expectations of them In general people propose a hypothesis and seek information that confirms it Hypothesis dictates what questions we ask, what info we collect H1: Is your classmate extroverted? - leads to subquestions that are tailored to get your answers that support your hypothesis - do you like hanging out with people? - how many parties have you been to in the past month? H2: Is your classmate introverted? - have you ever felt left out of a social group? - what do you do when you feel uncomfortable in a social situation?

Familiarity

We tend to like people simply because we encounter them more frequently Mere Exposure: greater exposure generally leads to greater liking, mediated by familiarity People you see on a daily basis are probably safe Propinquity Effect: Proximity predicts liking Study: Westgate West - who likes each other in an apartment complex - went door to door asking them "who are your closest friends" - if you are in apartment 1, you were more likely to say people in apartment 2 than 10 - neighbours on same floor 44% likely to be friends - 2 doors away, drops

UBC Norms re: Substance Use

We thought a lot more people used marijuana than study drugs What's less visible is a non behaviour (ex. those who don't use) - norms are perceived by observing the majority - the less info we have, the less sure we are

SES Status Influences who Helps

Wealth negatively related to helping, unless empathy is enhanced If you enhance empathy, wealthy are more likely to help

Confirmation Biases

What hypothesis are we testing? What evidence are we attending to? Is Samantha like the stereotype I hold about her group? - seek confirmatory evidence for likeness

Verbal Cues

What we say and how we say it Deception: verbal/nonverbal cues Deception can happen with verbal - but your body language might be telling the truth (emotional leakage) - when you're telling a lie it is cognitively demanding, so you have less control of your emotions - so police often get you to tell your alibi backwards, so you do more automatic things

Groups

What: Three or more people who rely on each other Who: People who share a common goal Why: - belonging - self-concept (now and in future) - efficiency - safety

Self-Concept: Different Priorities

When asked to choose what best describes yourself you have to prioritize Collectivist cultures prioritize interdependent characteristics Individualist cultures prioritize independence Females prioritize relational characteristics: place relative to intimate others - ex. "I am Tracy's daughter" Males prioritize collective characteristics: place relative to social groups - ex. "I am captain of my soccer team"

Forecasts of Preferences

When forecasting their preferences: 1. Men value attractiveness more than women do 2. Women value earning prospects more than men But, when actually face-to-face.. - no differences - men and women appear to similarly value attractiveness and earning prospects People appear unable to predict what they'll want

Integrating Cues

When integrating multiple cues or inferences into a social impression do we sum or average? Study: Had people evaluate a recommendation letter - in one letter Ava was described as intelligent and friendly, was highly recommended - other letter Sue is intelligent and friendly and even tempered and highly recommended - only difference was even-tempered - if you summed the attributes, Sue should be higher - if you average, Ava should be higher - people tend to average characteristics over taking the sum - the norms of a recommendation letter can impact how people read/interpret/write letters

What are the consequences of justifying the system?

When people are highly motivated to justify their systems (i.e., under system threat), they are more likely to endorse stereotypes Ex. men who were given information that threatened their faith in the federal government were more attracted to a woman who was described using terms that reinforce gender inequality (e.g., vulnerable, making a man feel complete) than a woman who was described in nonstereotypical ways (e.g., career-oriented, athletic) When people are motivated to believe that the status quo reflects how things should be, they react negatively to someone who does not conform to prevailing social norms

Video on 2018 Prison Strike: Responses to Injustice

When there is no compliance in prisons: - physical violence, full isolation, riot teams - when the prisoners perceive illegitimacy - people are not treated with dignity - no respect for persons - lack of neutrality: being forced to work - lack of voice: not allowed to tell others about their conditions, or talk to others about potential change

Commitment and Forgiveness

When we are committed to our partners we are more forgiving of their mistakes and shortcomings Women are more likely than men to respond to relationship transgressions with constructive, accommodating responses Commitment leads to greater forgiveness

Lay Psychology/Folk Psychology/Intuition/'Common Sense'

When we employ common sense, we shouldn't be confident what proverb would be best - ex. "early bird gets the worm" or "haste makes waste" - both proverbs may be useful, depending on the situation Is there a way to test if personal volition affects when a proverb is correct - people tend to discount how situations affected their choices - more so when we think of the behaviours of others

Mechanism of Compliance: Reciprocity

When you do something nice, I return the favour Feeling indebted works, but: - temporary - easily repaid, even with small actions Even small favours activate a script that we should do something good in the near future "Reciprocation Ideology" - trait wherein some are more wary of feeling indebted to others Ex. charities send mailing labels to people as a gift in hopes they will feel the need to donate money

Reciprocal Liking

When you like someone and that person also likes you One of the prime determinants of interpersonal attraction Can even make up for the absence of similarity Becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - in a study, participants were told the person they would be paired with either liked them or disliked them - behaved in a more pleasant manner, if they thought they were liked - as a result, their partners ended up liking them more Only works if you like yourself in the first place - people with negative self-concepts tend to be skeptical about others actually liking them, and therefore do not necessarily reciprocate liking

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Study

White participants conduct a job interview with another student candidate - candidate is either white or black When interviewing black (vs. white) candidate, interviewers: - sat further away - made more speech errors - concluded the interview more quickly

Evolutionary Accounts of Altruism

Why wouldn't you be selfish? - Survival of the Fittest We want to pass on our genetic code - so organisms should help kin - prioritize helping family in life-threatening events - but also merely close, but non-related others But we still would help people out that are close, but not related Kin Discrimination: ability to detect who is kin Closeness as indicator of likely relatedness - limited dispersal - we help those that are close because proxy is an indicator of relatedness Reciprocal Altruism: Helping others so they pay us back - appears altruistic, but is it really Cooperation within groups - Multilevel Selection in theory of inclusive fitness: lots of criticism - genetic fitness is higher, on balance, when individuals support their group's projects such as defence, raising others' offspring, etc. Social Norms: Rapid uptake of social norms increases fitness - helping others (group members) is commonly observed social norm - selection filters out organisms slow to uptake social norms, including helping behaviour

IAT Preferences

With black vs. white: - black people even preferred white people With gay-straight: - gay people preferred gay people

Gender Differences in Defining the Self

Women's self-concepts reflect more relational interdependence, meaning that they focus more on their close relationships, such as how they feel about their romantic partner, a friend, or their child - only in individualistic cultures Men are higher in collective interdependence, meaning they tend to define themselves in terms of social groups, such as the sports teams to which they belong In collectivist cultures, women and men were equally likely to hold a relational view of the self

Subliminal Messages

Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but that supposedly influence people's judgements, attitudes, and behaviours

Heuristics

aka judgement heuristics - simplify decisions without needing little facts - simpler rules and information = easier to remember Simple rules that guide decision-making Ex. "take the best" heuristic: - select single political issue, vote for candidate with best policy on that one issue - correctly predicts 97% of popular vote winners - "it's the economy stupid" - pick one characteristic you want among many, only find data that supports it - economy: issue that everyone picks

Lowballing

an unscrupulous strategy whereby a salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a low cost, subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price; frequently, the customer will agree to make the purchase at the inflated price

Why do people join groups?

forming relationships with other people fulfills a number of basic human needs - innate need to belong to social groups - evolutionary: substantial survival advantage Help us to define who we are

Justification of Effort

the tendency for individuals to increase their liking for something they have worked hard to attain After doing something effortful (or painful), we can seek consistency by embellishing our attitude If we perceive the outcome as valuable, this can justify additional effort or pain Q: Isn't it irrational to endure that much pain? A: No, the outcome is clearly worth it to me Ex. spend a lot of money to get into elite group - group is so valuable that any amount of money would be worth it Study: - participants who underwent little or no effort to get into the group did not enjoy the discussion - participants who went through a severe initiation succeeded in convincing themselves that the same discussion was dotted with interesting and provocative tidbits, a worthwhile experience

SHU: Statistics

~0.5-1% of inmates confined Account for 53% of all self-harm in prison settings Account for 47% of all deaths by suicide - causal direction? Effectiveness? - no compelling evidence - might be contraindicated (not advisable)