Chapter 14: Social Psychology

Question 1

Social Psychology

Answer 1

seeks to understand, explain, and predict how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Question 2

Social Cognition

Answer 2

the way in which people perceive and interpret themselves and others in their world

Question 3

Attitudes

Answer 3

relatively stable and enduring evaluations of things and people

Question 4

ABC model of attitude

Answer 4

propose that attitudes have three components: affective, behavioral, and cognitive

affective- how we feel towards an object (emotions)
behavioral- how we behave toward an object (actions)
cognitive- what we believe about an object (belief/idea)

Question 5

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Answer 5

we experience emotional discomfort when we hold contradictory beliefs or hold a belief that contradicts our behavior
we are motivated to change our attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance

this theory warns of parents giving extrinsic reward to children for doing homework/chores

Question 6

Self-Perception Theory

Answer 6

suggests that when people are uncertain of their attitude, they infer what the attitude are by observing their own behavior

Question 7

Factors that affect the extent to which attitude predicts behavior

Answer 7

attitude specificity- more specific the attitude, the more likely it is to predict behavior

attitude strength- stronger attitudes predict behavior more accurately than weak attitudes

Question 8

Halloween story

Answer 8

(1938) 85 years ago, broadcast of war of the world
The mercury theater

Question 9

Implicit Attitude

Answer 9

an attitude of which the person is unaware

Question 10

Stereotypes

Answer 10

generalized impressions about people or groups of people based on the social category they occupy

Question 11

Prejudice

Answer 11

negative stereotypical attitudes towards individuals from another group

Question 12

Social Identity Theory

Answer 12

emphasizes social-cognitive factors in the onset of prejudice

prejudice emerges through three processes:
- social categorization (person affiliates with a particular group as a way of figuring out how to act and react in the world)
- social identity (person forms an identity within the group)
- social comparison ( group member compares the group favorably with other groups and in turn derives a sense of positive well-being from looking at himself as superior in some way)

Question 13

Dual Processing Model of Persuasion
Central route vs. Peripheral route (for persuasion)

Answer 13

central- emphasizes the content of message and the facts. more lasting impact

peripheral- superficial info, feelings, impressions. quick rules of them (heuristic)
“ has lots of argument”
“seem to know what they are talking about”
“makes me feel good”

Question 14

Foot-in-the-door technique

Answer 14

getting someone to agree to a small request and then following up with a larger request
the person will be inclined to grant the second request because he granted the first one

Question 15

Door-in-the-face Technique

Answer 15

making absurd first request that will obviously be turned down then following with a more moderate request

Question 16

Appeals to Fear

Answer 16

make people believe that something bad will happen if they don’t comply with requests

Question 17

Attributions

Answer 17

causal explanations of behavior

Question 18

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 18

tendency to use disposition attributions to explain the behavior of other people

Question 19

Dispositional Attributions

Answer 19

internal attributions
focus on peoples’ traits as the cause of their behavior

Question 20

Situational Attributions

Answer 20

external attributions
focus on environmental factors as the cause of behavior

Question 21

Actor-Observer Effect

Answer 21

discrepancy between how we explain the other people’s behavior (dispositionally) and how we explain our own behavior (situationally)

actors tend to make situational attributions about our own behavior
observers tend to make dispositional attributions about others

Question 22

Self-serving Bias

Answer 22

tendency people have to attribute their successes to internal causes and their failures to external causes

Question 23

Norms

Answer 23

social rules about how members of a society are expected to act

Question 24

Social Role

Answer 24

set of norms ascribed to a person’s social position, expectations and duties related to the role

Question 25

Conformity

Answer 25

the tendency to yield to social pressure

Asch experiments (informative & normative social influence)

Question 26

Obedience

Answer 26

act of following direct commands, usually given by an authority figure

Milgram’s experiment

Question 27

Group

Answer 27

organized, stable collection of individuals in which the members are aware of and influence one another and share an common identity

Question 28

Group Productivity (optimal group size for different tasks)

Answer 28

for additive tasks (members each perform their part)- group productivity increases with group size

for conjunctive task (as productive as weakest member)- bigger group does not necessarily increase productivity

for disjunctive task (one solution/most competent person can provide solution)- bigger group is more likely to have the superstar

for divisible task (simultaneous performance of several different activities)- larger group tend to be more productive. can complement each other

Question 29

Social Facilitation

Answer 29

an effect in which the presence of others enhances performance

Question 30

Social Loafing

Answer 30

phenomenon in which people exert less effort on a collective task than they would on on a comparable individual task. (free riding)

Question 31

Group Polarization

Answer 31

intensification of an initial tendency of individual group members brought about by group discussion

Question 32

Groupthink

Answer 32

form of faulty group decision making that occurs when group members strive for unanimity and this goal overrides their motivation to realistically appraise alternative course of actions

Question 33

Altruism

Answer 33

self-sacrificing behavior carried out for the benefit of others

Question 34

Bystander apathy

Answer 34

more likely to be a bystander when there are more people around.
we are more likely to intervene when we are alone

Question 35

Frustration-aggression Hypothesis

Answer 35

we become aggressive in response to frustration

Question 36

Liking

Answer 36

fondness and affection for another person

Question 37

5 Key factors that leads to Liking someone

Answer 37

similarity- more likely to be fond of people similar to us

proximity- more likely to be fond of people we encounter frequently

self-disclosure- will initially like people who disclose personal info. also tend to disclose more to people we initially like

situational factors- situations we encounter people affect how much we like them

physical attractiveness- prefer to look at and be near attractive ppl

Question 38

3 types of lover based on attachment model

Answer 38

secure- find it relatively easy to become close to others and feel comfortable with depending and being depended on. no scared of becoming too close or being abandoned

avoidant- difficulty trusting others and depending on them. nervous when others want to become closer

anxious-ambivalent- preoccupied with concerns that partners do not love them.

Question 39

Key brain regions in social functioning

Answer 39

orbitofrontal- involved in social reasoning, reward evaluations, reading others, and eliciting emotional states

ventromedial prefrontal cortex- role in processing of rewards and punishments, interpreting non verbal social info, feeling empathy

insula- beneath frontal cortex. role in empathy and in reading others

amygdala- identify emotional facial expressions and pay attention to stimuli that may be unpredictable, potentially rewarding, or potentially punishing

Question 40

Social Anxiety Disorder

Answer 40

involving severe, persistent, and irrational fear of social situations in which embarrassment may occur

Question 41

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Answer 41

involving extreme discomfort and inhibition in social relationships

Question 42

Dependent Personality Disorder

Answer 42

involving a pervasive, excessive need to be taken care of and a fear of separation

Question 43

Autism

Answer 43

severe disorder marked by extreme unresponsiveness, poor communication skills, and very repetitive and rigid behavior

Question 44

Asperger’s disorder

Answer 44

person has major social impairment, yet maintain relatively normal intellectual, adaptive and language skills