Social Psychology

Question 1

What is social psychology?

Answer 1

• The study of how people think feel and behave in social settings

Question 2

What is conformity?

Answer 2

1. Peer pressure - people around you can affect you
2. Informative influence: when you look at a group for guidance because you assume that they are correct
3. Normative influence: not to be an outsider

Two types of the way a person conform

1. convinced privately
2. convinced publicly

Question 3

what is group polarization? What is confirmation bias? and group think?

Answer 3

• Group polarization: A phenomenon in which the decisions of groups, enhance or amplify the original opinions of group members
  
  • The views have to be shared by the majority in the group in order to influence their decision
• Confirmation bias: group member looking to seek out the information that supports the majority view
• Groupthink: when you want to maintain harmony in the group more than anything else. So people may suppress their opinions

Question 4

What are some factors that cause someone to conform?

Answer 4

1. Things that affect conformity:
   
   1. Group size: 3-5 groups are more likely to conform
   2. Unanimous opinion: can lead to group-think
   3. group status: affect conformity
   4. group cohesion: if we agree with them the more likely we are to conform
   5. How we believe that public with the response: will affect conformity
   6. Internal
      
      1. prior commitments
      2. feelings insecure
2. Obedience: follow structures and order without protesting
   
   1. How close we are to the personal connection and physical closeness
   2. Institutional authority
   3. Victim distance
   4. depersonalization : when person is seen as less
   5. role models of defiance
3. Ash studies:

Question 5

What type of people is more likely to conform?

Answer 5

• lower social or economic status
• People in the individualistic culture are less likely to conform than people that emphasize the family or the groups
• However everyone can conform, but having one person in the group that isn’t conforming can help the group not conform

Question 6

What are the two experiments: Conformity and obedience

Answer 6

• Asch’s experiment of conformity: deals with the lines and recognizing them
• Milgram’s experiment: conducted a shocks study and people obey to shock others
  
  • they were able to do that because they were able to de-personlize the person
  • experiments helps disern the self-service bias: which states that people tend to believe that they would “never commit such things”

Question 7

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 7

• Attribution: why are people acting that way, when we see someone do something we want to come up with the reason why they do what they do.
  
  • Dispositional attribution: the behaviour came from the person’s character
  • Situational attribution: something about the situation made them behave a certain way

Question 8

What is internalization?

Answer 8

• Prison incorporated their roles into beliefs and let it influence their attitudes and behaviors.

Question 9

what is selection bias

Answer 9

making sure that it is a representation of the population, selection

Question 10

Explain the bystander effect

Answer 10

1. When people are in a group they are less likely to help, in-group people feel less inclined to take action because of a concept that is called the diffusion of responsibility.

Question 11

Social facilitation vs social loafing

Answer 11

1. Social facilitation: what ever you practice you will perform more of in front of other people. If you practice well ( positive) you will perform more of that if you practice poorly you will perform more of that.
2. Social loafing: doing less in group task, being in a group reduce the individual’s effort.

Question 12

what is socialization?

Answer 12

• it’s a lifelong process that we learn how to interact with others. Things that contribute to socialization
  
  • family
  • school
  • peers
  • mass media